One hundred and thirty -three Cardinals. Not all red clothes, there were patriarchs with their ancient robes and a friar theologian, Dominican white dress, Father Radcliffe. Many languages, different signs on the face, different stories, different gaze on the church, depending on the perspective. A show, see them enter the conclave, in procession, their trembling hands on the Gospel to swear the secret. It is such an ancient ritual that she kept the world suspended with breath, even what seems indifferent to God. A people, sheep without shepherd who awaited a shepherd, without perhaps knowing it, stunned by the forecasts, by the chatter, from expectations.
What were they looking for? What are we looking for in an increasingly scenicized culture? The vicar of Christ? A leader? Or a man who is an image of the sacred, of the mystery that can be unavoidable by our life, that that man dressed in white recalls? Perhaps it is the sign of a two -year -old story that, we suspect, must have solid foundations: if it were a manufacture of man he would have long since passed away, collapsed as the most impressive civilizations. So, suggests instinct (or reason), why? And why does that man who overlooks the crowd of the crowd from the loggia of the Basilica of San Pietro is so expected, applauded, respected? Why are his words weighed with such attention?
The Pope reminds the world that God is there. That the deepest questions that hurry up in the heart of man have an answer, despite “everything is to keep silent of us, as is being silent or an ineffable hope”, as the poet Rilke masterfully wrote. Hope, the Pope tells us by showing himself in the world, is a certainty, a god made man in the midst of men, which is also encountered today through his witnesses.
The Pope is the first of the witnesses, the most visible, the chosen one to be more visible, but is not the only one. The Pope is not the Church, that is, Cattolica, that is, universal, between the Syro-Malankarese and the parish priests of Manaus, under the bombs in Kyiv or Gaza, in our beautiful churches of art or in the shacks used as a church of the Villas Miserias. But everyone looks at the Pope, guarantor of the unit, from that piece of land where Peter’s bones lie. One of the twelve, not the most wise, the most courageous, the most humble. What he said yes, to the question “You love me?”. At the command «Pasci my sheep». The mild face, moved by Pope Leo XIV to his first appearance at the Loggia showed the sign of responsibility, the weight of that pallium of pastor placed on his shoulders. The smile for that party people, the traces of the tears of those who do not feel worthy, like St. Peter, like Saint Paul. His first words were an exhortation and a prayer for the peace of Christ. Because, the Pope said, “we are disciples of Christ. Christ precedes us. The world needs its light ». Because, as Sant’Agostino said, our heart is restless until he rests in him.
(photo above Reuters)
