Please, Thank You, Sorry

I’m currently reading Pope Francis’s autobiography Hope: The Autobiography. It’s a book that page after page confirmed for me Francis’s pastoral concern for all people, bar none. Although the book is titled Hope, Francis suffers with those who suffer. He has truly been a “shepherd living with the odor of the sheep” (one of his standards of a good priest expressed during his first Holy Thursday Chrism Mass as pope in 2013).

On pages 48 – 50 of his autobiography, Francis writes about a theme that he has discussed a number of times during his papacy: about the importance of saying to our loved ones: “please, thank you, sorry.”

These words stood out to me because in 2014 my daughter and now son-in-law asked me to officiate at their wedding. Knowing I’d need to offer a brief reflection at the ceremony, I began searching the Internet for ideas. That’s when I happened onto Francis’s October 13, 2013 weekly audience with a group of pilgrims in Rome for the Year of Faith. In his remarks Francis said:

Some weeks ago, in this very square, I said that in order to have a healthy family, three words need to be used. And I want to repeat these three words: please, thank you, sorry. Three essential words! We say please so as not to be forceful in family life: “May I please do this? Would you be happy if I did this?”. We do this with a language that seeks agreement. We say thank you, thank you for love! But be honest with me, how many times do you say thank you to your wife, and you to your husband? How many days go by without uttering this word, thanks! And the last word: sorry. We all make mistakes and on occasion someone gets offended in the marriage, in the family, and sometimes - I say - plates are smashed, harsh words are spoken but please listen to my advice: don’t ever let the sun set without reconciling. Peace is made each day in the family: “Please forgive me”, and then you start over. Please, thank you, sorry! Shall we say them together? [They reply “yes”] Please, thank you and sorry. Let us say these words in our families! To forgive one another each day! (¶ 2. See also Amoris Laetitia ¶ 133).

We need to repeatedly express our love to members of our families by saying “please, thank you, sorry.” We need to say them often with meaning. Although Francis focuses on the importance of these love expressions within families, I believe – and I’m sure he’d agree –that we need to express them in other areas of life as well. Especially today, we need to build the kinds of affirming relationships in civil society that the words “please, thank you, sorry” can achieve. I join with Francis who often asks God “Meté mono”: “Give us a hand, please.” (Hope, p. 216)

It’s also important to speak these same three words to God, and the psalms are perfect ways of doing so. The psalms offer us words to express petitions in times of difficulty, thanksgiving for prayers answered, trust as we experience God’s unfailing fidelity, and joyful praise for God’s redemptive and creative presence. The psalms are tried and true ways of helping us express our deepest desires to God.

As part of his year-long weekly catechesis on prayer, Pope Francis said:

As we read and reread the Psalms, we learn the language of prayer. God the Father, indeed, with his Spirit, inspired them in the heart of King David and others who prayed, in order to teach every man and woman how to praise him, how to thank him and supplicate him; how to invoke him in joy and in suffering, and how to recount the wonders of his works and of his Law. In short, the Psalms are the Word of God that we human beings use to speak with him.

In this book we do not encounter ethereal people, abstract people, those who confuse prayer with an aesthetic or alienating experience. The Psalms are not texts created on paper; they are invocations, often dramatic, that spring from lived existence. To pray them it is enough for us to be what we are. We must not forget that to pray well we must pray as we are, without embellishment. (October 14, 2020)

Following are a few Scripture references in each of the categories mentioned by Francis:

• “Please”: Psalms 71, 77, 86

• “Thank you”: Psalms 100, 103, 138

• “Sorry”: Psalms 32; 51; 130