Two images of Pope Francis have circulated widely on the web in recent days. In the first, the Holy Father sits alone in a row of scarlet and gold chairs in the hangar-like Paul VI Audience Hall. Behind him curial officials chat away merrily, apparently oblivious to him. The brilliant priest-blogger Fr Ray Blake says the Pope’s face “seems full of unhappiness”. It is, he suggests, “just the saddest picture of our beloved Holy Father”. In the other photo the Pope is bending to place a wreath before a casket. His face is tender and prayerful. Beneath the red and white flowers on the coffin lid lies the body of Miriam Wuolou. The 34-year-old Eritrean worked as a receptionist at the papal residence. She was, according to the Daily Beast website, “the smiling face [Francis] saw morning and night, the one who greeted him with his key and handed him his personal messages”. Which of these photos gives a truer impression of Francis’s life at the Vatican? Is he, as the first photo suggests, painfully isolated from his colleagues? Or does he enjoy a paternal relationship with those around him, as the second image implies? There is, of course, a danger in generalising on the basis of a split-second seen through a camera lens. Other photos taken at the Paul VI hall that day show that Francis was soon joined by senior curial officials. As he sat listening to a meditation by the artist Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik, marking the Jubilee of Mercy for the Roman Curia, his expression seemed perfectly normal. We do know, however, that relations between the Pope and the Curia have been strained since at least December 2014, when he gave his famous speech identifying 15 spiritual “ailments” gripping the Vatican workforce. But it might be a mistake to project that knowledge onto the photo of the forlorn-looking Pontiff. Almost immediately after Pope Francis was elected tales of his kindness began to emerge from Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican hotel he decided to make his home. One story had him making a jam sandwich for a tired Swiss Guard. He began to celebrate daily Mass in the chapel, inviting Vatican workers to attend. This was one of the greatest innovations of his papacy. Through these Masses, he has helped employees set aside petty differences and join together in worship of Almighty God. Miriam Wuolou’s death is said to have deeply upset the Pope. He had congratulated her when she recently became pregnant. So in the photo he is mourning not just one but two people: Miriam and her unborn child. Speaking after the death of another worker who served at his residence last month, Francis said: “This group of men and women are part of our family. They form a family, they are not just employees.” It could be that both photos express a partial truth: that Francis has a rather frosty relationship with the Curia, while enjoying a familial atmosphere at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. It must be hard, after all, to be both a flinty reformer and a kindly shepherd. Christian leadership, as defined by Jesus in Matthew 20:25-26, is incredibly demanding, and arguably impossible without grace. The Holy Father constantly asks us to pray for him. It’s the least we can do as he continues down the twisting – and, yes, sometimes lonely – pathway of Vatican reform.