“I joined the Society to study, not to look after pigs!” the seminarian Ernesto Giobando protests one day to Jorge Bergoglio, then Rector of the Colegio Máximo. First go and feed the pigs, that’s what the Society is asking of you now, then go and study, the future pope, then forty-two, wisely replies. After the hard years as Provincial, Bergoglio occupies the post of Rector of the Colegio Máximo from 1979 to 1985. Bergoglio is an unconventional rector. He does the washing, cooks for everyone, works in the fields, and even takes care of the pigs. And he keeps the doors of the Colegio Máximo open to welcome the people of the poor areas that surround it. He gives away land and builds five churches, most with Jesuit names: the parish Church of St. Joseph the Patriarch—a saint he is devoted to—of which he will become parish priest; then St. Francis Xavier, in the Manuelita neighborhood; St. Alonso Rodríguez, in Don Alfonso; St. Peter Claver, in Parque; and the Holy Martyrs. We used to get up at six and go to pray at six thirty. During that time, Bergoglio would wash and hang out the washing. On Sundays he sometimes waited for us with food. These things came naturally to him, not that he was supposed to do them. I worked for several years in the pig sty, and the thing that was most beautiful, that gave us more strength, was that he stood next to us, rolled up his sleeves, and wielded the spade. He wasn’t the kind to stay behind a desk. For a young seminarian these are very important things. You remember them, said Father Giobando. --An excerpt Pope Francis: Life and Revolution from Elisabetta Piqué’s new biography of Pope Francis
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 12:30:01 +0000