According to the Associated Press, the homily Pope Francis delivered in the Cuban city of Holguin on September 21 “reflected a very personal story of his own faith and willingness to embrace change. On September 21, 1953, 62 years ago Monday, a 17-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio went to confession at his parish church in Buenos Aires. During the confession, he later wrote, he ‘realized God was waiting for me’ and knew he was going to become a priest. Bergoglio wouldn’t enter the seminary for several more years, but September 21, the feast of St. Matthew, has remained a crucial reference point for the pope. ‘This Gospel of St. Matthew, this experience of Jesus who looks him in the eye and calls him to conversion to follow him, is something that is absolutely fundamental to the spirituality and life of the pope,’ said Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. ‘It is something that is at the root of Bergoglio’s religious vocation.’”