Abstract
A metaphor is a figure of speech based on a combination of words which gives at least one of them a new meaning. As a result, the hitherto, literal meaning is transfered into a secondary one: figurative and non-literal. According to the cognitivist concept of metaphor, it is not merely a means of description aimed at convincing the recipient, but it bears a cognitive function – allowing the recipient for the cognition of the reality which the metaphor presents. Pope Francis is very keen to use figurative preaching and metaphors. One of his theological sources is the Latin American theology of the Church as the people. Talking about the Church, he eagerly refers to the metaphors of a woman, sheepfold, and field hospital. All of them, though rooted in the Bible, gain new content in Francis’s preaching: they focus on closeness, directness, even tenderness, which should characterize relations within the Church. Widening the interpretation of the metaphors, at the same time Francis deepens the theology of the Church as he points to the features of the Church which ised to go unnoticed in ecclesiology. Therefore a metaphor is not only an educational means used for the purpose of more effective preaching about the Church, but also a way leading to the theological cognition of the Church.