He is Gone

I knew when he came out onto the loggia that we were in for new times. Watched the white smoke with college friends and they were smitten: “Such a cute little old man!” No. Oh, no.

Fire in eyes behind a gentle wave as I strained to hear the thundercrack in, “Good evening.” An Atlantic storm in a soul. Surged and swelled across the world. A red sky. One evening there, the next morning gone.

That Chair. It gives a man a power to be who he really is—or to shrink back into who he was. There is its grace and its peril. To build up or deny. To tear down or heal. To take possession or make peace. He became himself, to the glory of God, and blessed is the peacemaker. He is gone.

“Two or three years and then to the house of the Father.” I so vividly remember. A short stay. To keep the pace. To maintain the motion. But even a prophet does not know the future. No placeholder after all but a pacesetter. Twelve years later, he is gone.

It has all begun, now. The silver hammer has struck. Sacred rites move with a will of their own. Within a fortnight, cardinals will huddle behind stone. The smoke will billow, dark, dark, dark, and finally light. Soon, we will have a pope.

But he is gone.