Before leading Evening Prayer with the Argentine bishops at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, Pope Leo XIV paused at the commemorative plaque dedicated to Jorge Mario Bergoglio and prayed there in silence. Eight members of Francis’ family approached him, carrying a white rose. The choice of flower was deliberate. Francis had a lifelong devotion to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who before her death in 1897 at age 24 had promised: “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses.” The rose became inseparable from her devotion — a sign of intercession, of presence, of a prayer heard. Father Bergoglio carried that devotion with him from Buenos Aires to Rome and kept it to the end. “Today we want to give it to you, as a family,” his relatives said in the dedication accompanying the gift, “to share something of that spiritual legacy that unites us so Read More…

A white rose for Leo, in memory of Francis