Pray to the Lord that he will bless me.

Your prayer gives me strength and helps me to discern and to accompany the Church, listening to the Holy Spirit.

The fact that someone is Pope doesn’t mean they lose their humanity. On the contrary, my humanity grows each day with God’s holy and faithful people.

Being Pope is also a process. The person becomes aware of what it means to be a pastor.

And in this process, he learns how to be more charitable, more merciful, and, above all, more patient, like God our Father, who is so patient.

I can imagine that at the beginning of their pontificate, all the Popes had this feeling of trepidation, apprehension, knowing that he will be judged harshly.

For the Lord will ask us Bishops to give a serious account.

Please, I ask you to judge benevolently. And that you pray that the Pope, whoever he might be, today it is my turn, may receive the help of the Holy Spirit, that he may be docile to that help.

Let us pray for the Pope, so that in the exercise of his mission, he may continue to accompany in the faith the flock entrusted to him by Jesus, always with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Let us make, in silence, this prayer: your prayer over me.

And pray for me! Favorably!