Attitudes form the patterns of our lives. Changes of attitude are life-changers. Whatever life sends our way it is the attitude with which we receive it that makes all the difference. We can be bitter or better. Attitude is a matter of choice. We chose how we see and act in life. We manage life and do not allow life to manage us. Our attitude toward the whole of life is what gives life meaning. Life is what we make it.

No one seems to know this better than Pope Francis. It began with his famous one liner, “Who am I to judge?” It was confirmed in two telephone calls to a teenager and a divorced woman who asked him about receiving communion. Both had written to him. His attitude to the teen was that of a father and to the woman one that was non-judgmental. It is clear that the Papacy is being lived out with a very pastoral attitude. People count and humanity is the reason for religion. Francis’ outreach has brought to the public eye a man who is just like you and me. He understands the commandment, love your neighbor, he or she is just like you.

There were many occasions in the years of each new Pope that we learned how they would and did react to questions that were posed to them. On a great variety of subjects it became inevitable what their answers would be. Pope John XXIII was the exception. He called the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s. He called it a pastoral council not a council to clarify the dogmas or teachings of the Church. The Church was at a “new dawn” and he “quite disagreed with these prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as if the end of the world were at hand.” The truths contained in doctrine are one thing, but the way the faith is presented in primarily a pastoral manner.

Two intervening Popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, were defenders of the doctrine of the church and lacked a pastoral attitude which created a certain restorationism to a period prior to the Second Vatican Council. “Coming from the ends of the earth” as Francis himself referred to the process of his election created a worldwide Church. He began his first interview and responded to the question, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” With the response, “I am a sinner.” He added that he “is close to the mystical movement” and the religious mystic experiences the ground of being as basically friendly to the deepest needs of the self. That which is unknown, strange, or beyond our comprehension is with and for rather than against us. A mystic is a person who brings hope to the darkest of places.

Francis’ attitude about consultation is that he does not want token consultations, but real consultations. He further adds, the Synods of Bishops are, for example, important places to make real and active this consultation. The world awaits the results of the worldwide consultation on the Family, the subject of the Synod of Bishops in October.

He speaks of the Church as the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity. In a world where so many live in isolation, Francis reminds us that, “belonging to a people has a strong theological value. In the history of salvation, God has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.” Francis has his eyes set on the Reign of God and the Church as a means to enter the Reign of God.

In Francis’ pastoral exhortation entitled, Evangelii Gaudium - The Joy Of The Gospel, he goes from strength to strength, respecting the past but opening new interpretations of Christian life in the context of contemporary society. He discloses what he finds is new and needed for the Church to bring Good News to the world. I want a poor Church for the poor. I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security… If nothing should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the faces that many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules that make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us; “Give them something to eat.” (Mt 6;37)

Again and again Francis expresses his attitudes without words but with action. He lives in simplicity, welcomes the homeless to breakfast to celebrate his birthday, walks spontaneously among people, leaves the Popemobile to greet embrace the sick and the disfigured, puts aside the pomp and circumstances of a Medieval Church, desacralizes the Papacy, offers interviews to journalists (even atheists), enters the workers’ cafeteria unannounced, takes a tray and eats with the Vatican workers and, as said previously, makes phone calls to people who have written to him.

Life is life. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life there is a spirituality to be uncovered in the mystery of God’s active presence. Francis has said that the Resurrection is not an event of the past, which we can see when Francis incarnates, as Jesus did, attitudes which we would do well to emulate.