In honor of the historic meeting today between Pope Francis and our Pope Emeritus...
Thus, the dialogue had already started, even though the the personal,
physical meeting had not yet taken place. Let us also remember that the
retired Pope had already expressed his unconditional reverence and
obedience to his successor at his farewell meeting with the Cardinals,
February 28, and certainly in this [morning’s] meeting - which was a
moment of profound and elevated communion –will have had the opportunity
to renew this act of reverence and obedience to his successor, and
certainly Pope Francis renewed his gratitude and that of the whole
Church for Pope Benedict’s ministry during his pontificate”.
I know I'm a little behind on blogging this fact, but it seems so perfectly congruous with this particular blog (I do blog at several other places where this fact has been mentioned) that I figured I was better late than never.
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...
I was amused and touched by this picture of Pope Francis riding the busy back to St. Martha House with the rest of the cardinals. :)
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.
I recently ordered a handful of back issues of Communio Magazine, which are handily organized according to topic. And thus what I ordered were a few backissues on topics of particula interest to me. The one I dived right into was on "Joy" (dating from Summer 2004) and I just had to ot down this lovely thought from Blessed John Henry Newman that is quoted within:
Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not real which has not love in it; that self-chastisement is not acceptable which is not sweetened by faith and cheerfulness. We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God's presence, we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins... We must look abroad into this fair world, which God made 'very good,' while we mourn over the evil which Adam brought into it. We must hold communion with what we see there while we seek Him who is invisible; we must admire it while we abstain from it; acknowledge God's love while we deprecate his wrath; confess that, many as are our sins, His grace is greater. Our sins are more in number than the hairs of our head; yet even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him. He counts our sins, and, as he counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite.
I think this is not just a lovely thought, but an important one!
