At today’s general audience, at the start of Lent, Pope Francis had an encounter of great tenderness when a family brought their seriously ill daughter to him, asking for his blessing. Pope Francis has often talked of God’s “tenderness” for his creatures, even calling for a “revolution of tenderness,” and here he shows us a model of such — imperfectly so, of course — but as we fast and abstain and offer up our own pains and illnesses in this season of penance, it is beautiful to be reminded that God the Father is so much greater in his tender mercies than we can even imagine.
Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them. —Acts 5:15
And today we celebrate...