We are thrilled about our new Holy Father, who seems to offer an amazing continuation of our last two popes. This is especially clear to me as a big fan of Pope Benedict's writings. It seems to me that the Christian message that was so beautifully articulated in his writings are also beautifully embodied in Pope Francis' spirit and personality. I rather liked this photo collage on this continuity concept, which I found somewhere on Facebook...
And this picture is simply beautiful...
How exciting to have the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople present at the Pope's Inaugural Mass (with much credit to Pope Benedict XVI too!)
And I love this video of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist finding out about the new pope. The novice who brings in the message of "white smoke" is a homeschool grad whose mom has been an Internet friend of mine for years.
I have to say we were this excited too! I was over at our parish school with two of the kids just finishing up our weekly chess excursion with the school kids at lunch when I got a call from my 17 year old. I actually didn't have a chance to answer (I was busy untangling the visitor badge from my scarf!!!) but I knew it must be about the white smoke, which was confirmed seconds later by someone in the school office. My kids were beside themselves to hurry home as quickly as we possibly could. We were strangely stunned by the expected news. (There was some discussion about wanting to use the "A-word" even though it's Lent because they were so happy and excited. One of them finally blurted out, in an exultant voice, "A-word!". LOL.) It did seem very quick. Waiting to find out who the new pope was very hard (we finally started a board game to help pass the time).
When we finally heard the announcement about who it was, we were a little confused because we were using the list of Latin Surnames of the Cardinals from the CNS Blog and the first entry under "George" was so long that I at first didn't realize that there were quite a few Georges. ;)
Anyway, we are all very joyful about everything we've seen and heard about Pope Francis. Love the tribute to St. Francis of Assisi (it even surprised me in a way that there hasn't yet been a Pope Francis already), love the Jesuit connection and love his unique bridge-building capacity between orthodoxy and social justice (which certainly do belong together!).
And so God Bless Pope Francis! Viva il Papa! :)
Oh, and I almost forgot. Ria showed up on the CBS Evening News, who filmed a little piece at Thomas Aquinas College on young peoples' reactions to the new Pope (she's in a few of the still photos)...
That's her on the upper left before you start the video.
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