Pope Francis discovered his priestly vocation on the feast of Saint Matthew

On a day like today, on the feast of Saint Matthew the Apostle, Pope Francis discovered his call to priestly life after a Confession before going to a popular festival: “Someone was waiting for me, he had been waiting for me for a long time,” the Saint explained. Father.

The details of this episode were told by him himself in the Pentecost Vigil of the year 2013before representatives of various ecclesial movements and associations, who established a direct dialogue with the Successor of Peter. Among them, a young woman asked him: “How did he achieve the certainty of faith in his life?”

The Pontiff shared that a “very important” date in his life was September 21, 1953. It was Student’s Day in Argentina, which coincides with Spring Day, and is celebrated with a great party.

“Before going to the party I passed by the parish I attended, and I found a priest I didn’t know and I felt the need to confess. This was for me an experience of encounter: I found someone who was waiting for me.”

“I don’t know what happened, I don’t remember, I don’t know why that priest was there, whom I didn’t know, why I had felt that desire to confess, but the truth is that Someone was waiting for me. He had been waiting for me for a long time. After “After the Confession I felt that something had changed.”

“I wasn’t himself. He had heard just like a voice, a call: he was convinced that he had to be a priest. And this experience in faith is important,” said the Holy Father.

Later, in memory of this event, upon being elected bishop, Fr. Bergoglio chose as his motto an expression of Saint Bede that refers to the call of Saint Matthew, whose feast day is precisely on September 21: “Pitying and choosing”, whose approximate translation is: “He looked at him with mercy and chose him.”

Today, Pope Francis preserves this phrase on his pontifical shield. Likewise, he always recommends that the faithful read the Gospel of Matthew and especially chapter 25 on the Works of Mercy.

In the Mass celebrated in Holguín (Cuba), on the feast of San Mateo in 2015, the Holy Father highlighted that when the Lord passed by the evangelist, “he stopped, he did not pass by hastily, he looked at him without haste, he looked at him with peace. She looked at him with eyes of mercy; He looked at him like no one had ever looked at him before. And that look opened his heart, he set him free, he healed him, he gave him hope, a new life.”

“Although we dare not lift our eyes to the Lord, He always looks at us first. It is our personal story; Like many others, each of us can say: I too am a sinner on whom Jesus set his sights.” express the Pontiff.

In this sense, he encouraged us to let ourselves look at Jesus. “Let us allow ourselves to be seen by the Lord in prayer, in the Eucharist, in Confession, in our brothers, especially in those who feel abandoned, more alone. And let us learn to look as He looks at us,” exhorted.