Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis advocated for a Church that listens, accompanies, and, above all, prays. A key aspect of this vision was the revitalization of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (PWPN), which he saw as a global movement embedded in Christ’s compassionate heart, rather than just a collection of intentions. Fr Cristobal Fones, SJ, the international director of the PWPN reflects on the deep spiritual legacy that Pope Francis has established through the Network – characterized by profound personal prayer, active engagement with the world's suffering, and a call to live daily life as a mission of love.

How would you describe the spiritual legacy Pope Francis leaves through the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network?

It is clear that for Pope Francis, as he repeated many times, “the heart of the Church’s mission is prayer”. This conviction was always at the center of his pontificate. Everything we are and do as disciples of Jesus has its source in the encounter with Him, which makes us His friends and apostles.

For the Holy Father, praying is not simply just about saying words. Above all, it is about cultivating a personal, open, and genuine friendship with the Lord. One that involves us... And with the entire person, represented in His Heart. This was well condensed in his Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos, which he left us as his great spiritual testament. The spiritual journey of the Prayer Network (The Way of the Heart) that he asked us to spread helps us deepen this spiritual foundation.

Pope Francis often emphasized prayer as a form of action. How did he inspire the PWPN to be not only a network of prayer, but also a movement of compassionate engagement with the world’s suffering?

True prayer is always an act of love, a compassionate and committed love with the pains of humanity. One prays for what matters to us, for what seems valuable. And the closer we are to the Heart of Jesus, the more His concerns and sufferings matter to us, making us available to collaborate with His mission. Being Christian and being social are part of the same experience. Proximity to Christ leads us to those in need and makes us sensitive to new realities, even some that seem distant or unknown to us.

That is why the prayer intentions offered by the ministry of Peter, as the Vicar of Christ among us, are key and urgent challenges for humanity and the Church's mission. They are a call to awaken to realities that must be addressed as part of our ecclesial mission. And from the first moment, as a good son of Ignatius of Loyola, the Pope understood that “love ought to be put more in deeds than in words” (Spiritual Exercises 230).

Looking back, how did his monthly prayer intentions reflect his deepest concerns for humanity and the Church? Are there any particular intentions that you feel captured the heart of his pontificate?

It is very interesting to review his pontificate through the lens of his prayer intentions. They reflect his major concerns. This will surely be the case with the next Pope as well. It is quite impressive, if you visit, for example, the page of The Pope Video, to see this constant concern for the concrete. His prayer intentions are a way to gather his pastoral teaching.

And I have no doubt that one of his great concerns was peace. Because encouraging true human fraternity was the great aim of his pontificate, and war is the strongest expression of what contradicts this purpose. Humanity faces many challenges, and this is the greatest and most significant of all. He repeated it in almost every General Audience and the Angelus, besides being the center of his last message on Easter Sunday and the solemn blessing Urbi et Orbi, last Sunday, April 20.

He was deeply committed to a Church that listens and accompanies. How did that ethos influence the PWPN’s approach to spiritual outreach, especially to youth and the marginalized?

Synodality for Francis was not just another topic among others... He did not seek to introduce something foreign to the life of the Church but to recover its very essence. This approach has helped us a lot, as the PWPN is a worldwide work based on the participation of many diverse people. We are not a lay movement but an ecclesial service. Here, everyone fits; everyone, everyone, everyone, as he repeated to us with such strength.

This greatly marks the pontifical work. And not only because of the diversity of languages and cultures that we always have before our eyes, but also because we pray for global situations that lead us to look beyond our contexts, with a particular focus on the marginalized and the youth. Even more, it is precisely the simple people who are most committed to this true apostolate of prayer. This makes the Network fundamentally based on our common baptism, not on our positions or functions, whether they are inside or outside the ecclesial community. In a certain sense, our mission moves quite away from clericalism and relationships of subordination to rather serve everyone, especially the weakest.

As you look ahead, what do you believe he would want this network to become for future generations?

I believe that in the future, he would want the next Pope to also make these intentions his own and, in turn, propose those that arise from his heart. I am sure that for Francis, the main thing would be for us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, so as not to fall into the temptation of becoming a communication project about interesting topics, but rather to continue being a true network of people who offer themselves alongside the Lord every day and understand their own daily life as a mission, a sending, an apostolate; as true collaboration in Jesus' mission of compassion.