April 19, 2005

It was a Wednesday, if memory serves and I was at school until late. The GCSE folders/ modearation pot was coming to the boil.and we were about to enter the written exam season. I had not seen the funeral of Pope John Paul II, having been travelling back from Easter holidays in France on that day.  I did not find the news of the election until I staggered exhausted into the flat at well gone 7pm.. I still don't know how I found the news on the computer. At that point I wasn't an internet user and up until then had only used the word processing function on the computer in connection with my books, the third of which had just been published.. But somehow, feverish fingers notwithstanding, find it I did. I think it may have been the BBC because the commentator had an English accent, and I was immediately irritated by his sneering tone and his obvious ignorance or the procedure as it unfolded... Judging from the time, I think I must have seen a recording. and not the live event. But then Cardinal Medina took over. And it was quite obvious from his mien that whoever he was going to announce met with his full approval. He hardly smiled once, and yet the aides around him appeared not to be able to keep themselves from grinning. It was as if they were bursting with a big juicy secret.that was about to be shared with the whole world. When H.E. Cardinal Medina pronouced the word 'Josephum' and then left  a 'coach and horses' pause before continuing,, my heart missed a beat. Like many people I had been 'prepared' by the media, and I'm afraid, the Church at home, to think this was impossible. And yer here it was, happening in front of my very eyes and ears.. And then when our beloved new Pope Benedict came out and addressed the universal Church for the first time in terms of such humility, I thought ,he's going to have an uphill battle, but he IS God's choice. He looked happy even though we later knew that he did not want this to happen to him and had begged God when he felt the conclave moving in an inexorable direction, not to ask its of him. It is seven years ago. Dear Pope Benedict, thank God He did ask you and that you, our beloved Holy Father, did accept His will..

But it was not until the inaugural Mass that I saw what kind of Papacy this would be and that it would definitely not be one of biding time, or of waiting for someone more effective or any of that nonsense.

April 19 2005 was the best day in my Christian life. Deo Gratiss.