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May
4, 2005 Not wearing a watch, I at first thought they were the 6 p.m. Angelus bells and so I began praying the Regina caeli, but the bells did not stop. And the bells of one church after another joined in the joyous toll announcing: we have a pope. Making my way toward St. Peter’s Square I began praying over and over again the traditional prayer for the pope: “The Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not to the will of his enemies.” The streets of Rome quickly became a river of persons racing toward the Square. Store owners locked up their shops, patrons scurried away from sidewalk cafes, one women left a hairdresser with some type of tin-foil wraps in her hair, young and old rushed as a peaceful and in some sense even prayerful mob in a single direction: to the Chair of Peter. In these few shorts weeks we have mourned the death of our beloved John Paul II, experienced the spiritual unease of being a family of Faith without a Father, hoped and prayed for the College of Cardinals, and now we have the spontaneous joy of the gift of a new pope. Our Lord has chosen another Peter, a new Vicar of Christ on Earth. And this is cause for great rejoicing. A Catholic mature in the faith loves and respects the Holy Father, not for who he was, where he has come from, not for what he may or may not do, not because of his personal characteristics, but simply because the pope, throughout the ages, is Peter, the Rock upon whom Christ builds His Church.
In the homily which Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger delived at the Mass for
the Election of the Roman Pontiff, he concluded with these prayerful words
of petition: “…we pray with insistence to the Lord, so that
after the great gift of Pope John Paul II, He again gives us a pastor
according to His own heart, a pastor who guides us to the knowledge of
Christ, to His love and to true joy.” The Lord has answered the
prayers of the Church. After eloquently recounting the precious attributes of the Eternal City, the inscription concludes with the words: “But of all your treasures, O Rome, the greatest, of which only you can boast, is the Vicar of Christ.” Let us offer prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord who has given to the Church, the world, and the Eternal City, the great treasure that is Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ.
Father M. F. O’Malley
Pope
John Paul loved everyone He gave a new meaning to the understanding of love, forgiveness, humility and the inherent dignity of every single human life. He loved everyone, saint and sinner alike, from Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the man who shot him—to whom he gave forgiveness. He humbly asked for forgiveness from those who, through the centuries, were abused in the name of Catholicism, and strove mightily toward reconciliation with other branches of Christianity, with Judaism and other religions. We in America, arguably the most affluent of nations, sadly, are among the more impoverished spiritually. Our forbears came to America seeking freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The deplorable state of matrimony, the debasement of family, which, from time immemorial, has been the foundation of all civilized society, the acceptance of violence and the embracing of the culture of death are proof of the loss of what was common decency. May Pope John Paul’s examples of selfless service and self-giving, and his oft-expressed prayer “Be Not Afraid,” be continuing signposts of responsible, moral behavior.
Rosemary Monaghan
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