As I lift up my prayers to God to receive into his arms his servant Francis, many moments of his life, many insights from his teachings come to report ; and I think of the significance of his years at the helm of the barque of Peter, and of his valuable contributions to the life of the Church and the world. With some haste I summarize some of those contributions:

The first thing that comes to mind is his first document, the apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, the programmatic document of the pontificate, which sought to place its center in Christ; in it we also find Francis' priorities. With Jesus Christ joy is always born and reborn," he says at the beginning. In this Exhortation I wish to address the Christian faithful to invite them to a new evangelizing stage marked by this joy, and to indicate ways for the Church's journey in the coming years".

From another point of view, we must highlight the set of reforms that Francis has promoted in the Church; firstly, the renewal of the Curia, based on the Constitution Praedicate Evangelium; and, secondly, the reform of the Vatican's finances (something really difficult), in order to put order and improve transparency.

Following the efforts of previous popes, he encouraged dialogue with other religions in various ways: a dialogue that Francis considered an antidote to extremism and a providential sign for peace and fraternity.

By word and example, the Pope has insisted on the preferential option for the most needy, promoting initiatives of financial aid to migrants and refugees. "The followers of Jesus - he once taught - are recognized by their closeness to the poor, to the little ones, to the sick and the imprisoned, to the excluded, to the forgotten, to those who are deprived of food and clothing".

Another of his concerns was a reality that occupies little space in the media, but which we cannot ignore: persecuted Christians, the new martyrs of the 21st century.

Moreover, Francis has made every effort to show holiness as a vocation to which all men and women are called by God. A holiness that is a journey towards God, which begins in Baptism, which consists in following Christ, and is traveled with the power of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us.

Francis has shown us the relationship of our faith with the care of nature, as can be seen in the encyclical Laudato Si'. Following the path opened by the preceding pontiffs, his preaching and writings have helped us to see in the care of Creation a task that belongs to our faith, from the moment when, as we read in the book of Genesis, God placed his first children in Eden to cultivate and care for it.

I would also like to emphasize his insistence that the teaching of the faith should be centered on the Gospel, on the advertisement the good news of our redemption, something that should also be expressed in the works, words and joy of Christians. And he warned that moral Education must always begin with the message of the grace of Christ, without which we can do nothing, lest anyone think that everything depends on his or her own efforts. 

Youth has been one of his preferences, as could be seen in the WYD, especially in Rio and Krakow, and in the Apostolic Exhortation Christus vivit, fruit of a synod on youth, in which he proposes Jesus Christ as a model to imitate. In various ways, the Pope underlined the Church's need for young people and urged them to be true witnesses to Christ in today's world.

One expression that will remain from this pontificate is "the throwaway culture": "A culture of exclusion," the Pope says, "of anyone and everything that is not capable of producing according to the terms that exaggerated economic liberalism has established. A culture in which immediate pleasure and well-being are sought above all, and which considers people as consumer goods, who can be excluded from society if they do not meet the requirements imposed by the new culture: the elderly, the unborn, the poor, the disabled....  

His defense of life will also be evident, and in the first place, of the unborn, "who are - as he himself affirms - the most defenseless and innocent of all, those who today want to deny their human dignity in order to do with them what they want, taking their lives and promoting legislation so that no one can prevent it".

Finally, among the many teachings of Francis on our spiritual life, I would like to emphasize one that has helped many people to live more and better intimacy with God. I am referring to his paternal insistence that we allow ourselves to be enveloped by the tenderness of God. 

The "revolution of tenderness" that the Pope has promoted is not a temporary pastoral plan, interesting in the present circumstances of the life of the Church and of the world, but something that is rooted in the core of the Christian faith: the incarnation of the Word.