God Is Constant In Worldly Transitions

Before coming to Olney, I was a secretary with the City of Fort Worth. City Hall was next door to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I’d attend lunchtime Mass at every opportunity. I always knelt in the same place in the same pew, year after year.

During this time, John Paul II passed away. He was the only Pope I’d ever experienced in my lifetime. I felt very anxious about the Papal transition. The cathedral was draped with mourning- purple, and we all prayed for the repose of his soul and good guidance for his successor’s election.

During this inner turmoil (“Who’s going to lead us? Will they be any good? What if he’s outright bad?”) I glanced down at my hands. I was wearing my engagement ring, and perfectly reflected on the flat surface of the diamond was the stained glass window over the door to the sacristy: a chalice with a Eucharistic host suspended above it.

And that was exactly the answer I needed. Even though we live inside of time, and our leaders may change at the local or global level, Christ and the Holy Spirit are always our constant.

Ever since then, through Benedict XVI’s election and subsequent resignation (the first in 600 years), and Francis’ election and death (the first non-European Pope in over 1,000 years), I’ve felt much calmer. I still watch the news with interest, and I pray hard for good leadership, both religious and secular. But I’m no longer anxious.

Pope Francis had his strengths and his weaknesses. He was a chemistry teacher and a janitor and a nightclub bouncer. As Bishop of Buenos Aires, he surrendered his limo and rode the public bus. As the newly elected Pope, he carried his own luggage and checked out of his hotel himself. He was famous for his humble residence in the Vatican Guesthouse, rather than taking possession of the Papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. For Holy Thursday’s traditional washing of the feet each year, he would wash the feet of refugees and inmates. He continued the work begun by Paul VI and his successors to shed the signs of temporal power. He reached out to the margins of society. He was accessible, with an intense desire to connect with ordinary people, to the point of making his final public appearance for his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing less than 24 hours before his passing.

At the same time, anyone who remembers the Pachamama incident during the Amazon Synod can feel uncomfortable with the clumsy optics regardless of his intent. The restrictions placed on the Extraordinary Form of the Mass with 2021’s “Traditionis Custodes” were unnecessarily divisive, contradicted Benedict’s 2007 “Summorum Pontificum”, and bypassed local bishops’ authority. Bishop Strickland, the Bishop of Tyler, Texas who was administratively rather than canonically removed last year, was handled with even worse communication and optics. The Synod on Synodality was ambiguous and irrelevant. In his pursuit of unity and ecumenism, sometimes ordinary orthodoxy seemed to be disregarded.

Ultimately, Pope Francis’ performance review is between him and a higher authority. He had his responsibilities to God, but I can’t forget mine. Whenever I am intimidated by current events, I always think back to that window in Fort Worth that told me everything I need to remember. And you bet I’ll be tuning in (between May 5th and 10th) for the conclave that will elect his successor. I look forward to the white smoke that will signify continuity and that the next pontiff has stepped up to feed Christ’s lambs.