Earlier last week, Fr. Carola had announced at our community dinner that if we did not have a pope by the night of our community night on Wednesday, we will move our gathering to the Square where we will most likely be praying for the cardinals as black smoke would rise for a third time. All of us in Bernardi had one wish for the upcoming week: PLEASE let it be Wednesday night when the new Holy Father is elected.
Everyone was getting ready throughout the house to prepare for our short trek to the Square. The lay people are bundling up as the seminarians are weather-proofing their cassocks and I am dragging my feet because I am always one to wait until the last minute to do things and old habits die hard. Greg Billion and I went off to the Square with plans of meeting up with some of his friends and chilling with them as we await the smoke. As I said, there wasn't much of an expectation for a pope to be elected that night so we were not watching the chimney intently like last time.
That's when it happened. As we heard the usual "Ohhhhh...." rising from the crowd, we looked at the chimney and saw it was the usual grey color before the real color starts coming through. I thought, "Alright. It's going to turn black now. Or now. It is going to turn black. Why isn't that smoke turning black?! OH MY GOSH WE HAVE A POPE!!!!" After some jumping up and down with those around we, we full sprinted towards the facade of St. Peter's so we can get closer to the window. Everyone was singing and laughing and crying and cheering out of pure joy. Habemus Papam!!
In our sheer excitement, the question arose in our minds: who is our next Holy Father? We all sat there and heard rumors circulating within the crowd. Reporters were swarming and asking who we thought the cardinals chose. It's moments like these where I am glad I'm surrounded by solid Catholics because you'll only hear one response from us: Whoever the Holy Spirit chooses, I'm happy with him. Soon we had the cardinal come out and announce the name of the cardinal...
You may not know this about me but I'm not exactly an expert in Latin. Did he say George? The only cardinal named George that I know is from Chicago but that is highly unlikely. But did he say Francis? Now I'm just confused.
The international crowd had a hard time trying to communicate within ourselves to discuss what we just heard. As you can probably suspect, I was not surrounded by people versed in Latin so we tried to decipher the name he took as pope. At first I heard Gregory but then I knew definitively the real answer. Slowly rising from the crowd, I heard the Roman flock chanting quietly at first but it grew louder and louder as everyone joined in. "Francesco! Francesco!! Francesco..." At that moment, I understood that Pope Francis will be walking out to address his flock. Then I heard he was from Argentina? Well that's sick!! I would love him regardless of where he was from but he's Latino? ¡¡Gracias a Dios!! That is just a cherry atop this papal sundae!!
Then the moment finally came...
No video, no news coverage, no article can truly represent how everyone felt in that Square. This man has something about him that you can sense by simply being in his presence. Again, I can tell you more about this when I retell this story over and over again but I don't have much else to say in writing!
Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio was elevated on March 13, 2013 to be the 266th Holy Father of the Holy Catholic Church and took the name Francis, making him the first pope to take that name. And I was there to witness this from resignation of Benedict XVI through Sede Vacante through Conclave and now this. I am so undeserving of all these graces and blessing from being present here but God chose to send me to Rome for this.
Viva il Papa!! Viva Papa Francesco!!
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