We had the Methodist office of Morning Prayer today, led by Cath in my tutor group. And we prayed for the Cardinals in Rome, along with the needs of the rest of the world. I took Wendy through the liturgical moves for the Palm Sunday Eucharist at which she serves as Deacon for the Archbishop, then I had a meeting with Rhun, chair of this year's student Executive, sharing their interests and concerns about life in College. Then I spent time talking with Rufus, who's been off sick for a week, and now carefully re-inserting himself into routine life at College again. And it was lunchtime.
I went into the CBS office for a couple of hours after lunch, to draft some letters with Ashley and then send them. I was back at College in good time for the tea time Eucharist. By the time I got home to cook supper, news was breaking of white smoke issuing from the Sistine Chapel chimney. An election so soon? After eating, I drove to St Mary's Vicarage to do some maintenance work on Father Graham's computers, and learned on arrival that an Argentinian Cardinal, member of the Jesuit order had been elected, and would be called Francis in honour of the Saint whom God called to re-build his church, a holy man and missionary who went to Egypt during the crusades to share the Gospel with the muslim Caliph.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ is a man who, back home, travels to work by bus and lives in a one room apartment, an advocate on behalf of the poor of the world. Wow! What an inspired choice! Apparently he was a runner up in the election which chose Pope Benedict, but evidently that wasn't his moment. Now is, and now his particular witness to Gospel faith is really needed. I've been hugging myself with delight since I saw the news footage on TV and heard the commentary about him.
Thankfully, what needed to be done on Graham's computers posed no problems and didn't take too long. Being Fr Graham Francis a well known Anglican fan of the papacy, I was with him when he started to receive his first jokey text messages about the papal election. I bet they'll keep him busy over the ext few days. I was in Rome when Albano Luciani was elected and named himself Pope John Paul the first, but have no recollection of where I was when John Paul the Second and Benedict XVI were elected, but Francis I, I'll have not reason never to forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment