FREE Pope Francis Cross Stitch Pattern

Friends,

This weekend both my husband and I found ourselves in a funk, as I’m sure many of you found yourselves.  

The news of such hate in Orlando struck such a terrible cord.  

I feel like we all took a collective sigh of “again?”

As the days pass I feel like we are all looking at our children and wondering about the world we brought them into.  

Wondering if this hate will stop–and how we, in our small way, can bring about peace.

I’ve been wrestling with what to say and what to do about it all, all this hate, all these reactions, just all of it.  

Sitting here, holding a baby in my home, I feel pretty small in the face of it all.

In the end, I fell back on the words of our Holy Father, Pope Francis.  

He encourages us to believe that peace starts in our very homes, in the smallest places, and that the path to peace and change is MERCY.

“Mercy is the true power that can save humanity and the world from sin and evil.”

If you’d like, you can get the pattern HERE.  

It is, after all, the Year of Mercy.  I think I had forgotten that.

We are halfway through the Year of Mercy and I for one need to refocus on it.  

The broken nights of sleep with a new baby have left me a little crabby and the kids bear the brunt of that.  

But the baby is really just an excuse.

I have fallen into judgment far too often with strangers, my friends, my family, and my husband.

Instead of judgment being my first reaction, it needs to be mercy.

I hope that the seeds of mercy sown in my house, in your house, will go to flower in the whole world.

Part of my effort to refocus on the Year of Mercy is to stitch up this little pattern and hang it in my house.  I want to look at it every day and rededicate myself to a life of mercy.

And of course, the quote needed a little Pope Francis to go with it.  It’s okay, after all, to be both thoughtful and have fun, right!

My only regret is that I couldn’t figure out to depict him smiling!  It just doesn’t quite look like him without a smile.

All the best, and let’s dedicate ourselves to Mercy together.

Nancy