Seventy-one years ago, on Sept. 21, 1953, a young Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s priestly vocation was born. He would enter the novitiate of the Society of Jesus on March 11, 1958, and be ordained a priest on Dec. 13, 1969, just days before his 33rd birthday. On March 13, 2013, he would be elected pope.
In a homily given in May 2013, Pope Francis shared the story of when he felt the stirrings of the call to the priesthood: “I passed by the parish where I was going, found a priest, whom I did not know, and felt the need to go to confession. This was an experience of encounter: I found that someone was waiting for me.”
The pope explained that he didn’t know why he felt so called to go to confession, especially since he didn’t know the priest. After confession, he felt “that something had changed.”
“I was not the same. I had heard something like a voice, a call: I was convinced that I should become a priest,” he said.
The day of Pope Francis’ life-changing experience also happened to be the day the Church celebrates the feast of St. Matthew, the tax collector whom Jesus called to become an apostle.
Given that his own vocation came through an experience of God’s mercy, Pope Francis chose his motto, “Miserando atque eligendo,” from a homily given by St. Bede on the call of St. Matthew. The quote translates to “by having mercy, he called him.”
The pope has also repeatedly described the painting of the vocation of St. Matthew by Caravaggio in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome.
In a homily given on Sept. 21, 2017, Pope Francis recalled: “Jesus came from healing a paralytic and as he was leaving he found this man called Matthew. The Gospel says: ‘He saw a man called Matthew.’ And where was this man? Sitting at the tax booth. One of those who made the people of Israel pay taxes, to give them to the Romans — a traitor to his country.”
“The man felt looked down upon by Jesus. He said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. But what happened? That is the power of Jesus’ gaze. Surely he looked at him with so much love, with so much mercy, that look of the merciful Jesus. ‘Follow me, come,’” he said. “And the other looking sideways, with one eye on God and the other on money, clinging to money as Caravaggio painted him: just like that, clinging and also with a surly, gruff look. And Jesus loving, merciful. And the resistance of the man who wanted money — he was such a slave to money — falls.”
The pope has also shared that he often feels like he can relate to Matthew.
“That finger of Jesus like that, toward Matthew. That’s how I am. That’s how I feel. Like Matthew,” Pope Francis said in an interview with Father Antonio Spadaro.
“It is Matthew’s gesture that strikes me,” the pope said. “He grabs his money, as if to say: ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine!’ Here, this is me: a sinner to whom the Lord has turned his eyes. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pope.”