Slow down, turn off the television, make time to play with your children and don’t proselytise, Pope Francis has advised, in an interview outlining his tips for a joyful life.
He told the Argentine magazine Viva, a supplement of the national daily El Clarín, in an interview to mark the 500th day of his pontificate, that calmness, generosity and peace were essential to happiness.
The interviewer, Pablo Calvo, an old friend of Pope Francis’, said that he only mentioned God on three occasions during the almost-80 minute meeting.
“The word that Jorge Bergoglio invokes most these days is ‘peace’,” he said.
Pope Francis' 10 top tips were:
1. Live and let live
2. Be giving of yourself to others
3. Proceed calmly – which he explains as "the ability to move with kindness and humility, a calmness in life"
4. Make time for leisure, including time with family. He said when he was in Buenos Aires he would often ask young mothers how often they played with their children
5. Take time off on Sundays
6. Ensure young people can find dignified jobs
7. Take care of nature
8. Stop being negative
9. Respect others’ beliefs and don’t proselytise
10. Work for peace
In the interview the Pope also revealed that he still carries a medal given to him by a Sicilian-born immigrant woman, Concepcion Maria Minuto, who helped his mother with housework when he was growing up in Buenos Aires.
Although his family lost touch with her when they moved out of the Argentinian capital, then-Fr Bergoglio sought her out and visited her during the last decade of her life. She gave him the medal a few days before she died, he said.
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