Mercy Fridays give pope a year of stories, tears, hugs

Vatican City — Tears, prayers, caresses — but most of all, listening — were the hallmarks of Pope Francis' "Mercy Friday" visits during the Year of Mercy.

As the jubilee began last December, Francis said he would ditch the media one Friday afternoon each month and personally try to give life to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

Throughout the year, he used his weekly general audiences and monthly Saturday jubilee audiences to teach about the reality of God's mercy and the obligation of sharing mercy with others.

But the Mercy Friday visits — even the two that were not held on a Friday — were about presence. While top personnel at the places he visited had some advance notice, in most cases the guests, residents or patients did not. The Mercy Fridays gave them a chance to tell the pope their stories and, usually, to share a late afternoon snack with him.

Here is a list of the pope's Mercy Friday visits during the Holy Year, which ends Nov. 20:

• Dec. 18, in an event that turned out not to be private at all — the pope opened the Holy Door at a remodeled Rome Caritas homeless shelter and celebrated Mass there.
• Jan. 15, Francis visited a retirement home in Rome and a nearby care home for people in a persistent vegetative state.
• Feb. 26, he visited members of a residential community for people recovering from drug addiction.
• March 24, Holy Thursday, Francis celebrated the Mass of the Lord's Supper at a refugee center in Castelnuovo di Porto, north of Rome, and washed the feet of asylum seekers.
• April 16, Francis joined Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Greek Orthodox Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens for visits with refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos. The pope brought 12 of the refugees to Rome with him.
• May 13, he visited Il Chicco, a L'Arche community south of Rome. L'Arche communities are homes where people with and without intellectual disabilities share their lives.
• June 17, the pope visited two communities of priests; one was a home for retired priests and the other was described as a community for priests with "various difficulties."
• July 29, during Francis' visit to Poland for World Youth Day, the Vatican described the following events as part of the Mercy Friday initiative: a silent visit to the Nazi's Auschwitz death camp; a visit to a pediatric hospital; and the celebration of the Way of the Cross that connected each station to a work of mercy.
• Aug. 12, he visited a community for women rescued from the slavery of prostitution.
• Sept. 16, Francis visited the neonatal unit of a Rome hospital and a hospice across town.
• Oct. 14, he spent the afternoon at Rome's SOS Children's Village, which attempts to provide a home-like atmosphere for children under the age of 12 whose parents cannot care for them.
• Nov. 11, Francis visited seven families formed by young priests who left the ministry to marry.

Pope Francis holds a baby as he visits the neonatal unit at San Giovanni Hospital in Rome Sept. 16. The visit was part of the pope's series of Friday works of mercy during the Holy Year. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano, handout)