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| Pope Francis in his Papal Fiat, July 2022 |
Seeing the movie reminded me of a short story I wrote some years ago, one that I had pretty much forgotten, one that makes me say, "I wrote this??"
At the time of this story's completion, I was in the thick of reading and moodling weekly commentaries on Pope Francis's encyclical, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home. Rereading this story on Monday, I had forgotten the unexpected surprise when I looked up more information about Pope Francis once the story was finished. It felt a bit mystical, somehow, and still does -- see the comments under the story below...
Pope Francis, of all who have sat in the Chair of the Successor of Peter, you have been my favourite. Rest in peace, dear brother.
MCWC #24 Sister Wind
March 2013 - March 2016
Julio had always loved the wind. From the time he was a boy, he and his little sister, Alejandra, would go out into the hills on a gusty day, and find a vantage point where they could watch the trees move and feel the wind’s breath against their bodies, sometimes so strong that it would hold them in place as they held hands and relaxed against it.
Somehow, Julio always thought of the wind as a friend, no matter how it howled around his home at night. A secret friend, for he told no one about his special relationship except his sister, who understood.
The wind had been present for all the important moments in his life. The day Julio was born, a strong gale blew his papa home from work in the fields. The midwife scolded Papa for letting in such a gust of autumn leaves, and handed him his newborn son as his other children gathered around to gaze at the family’s fifth addition.
Five years later, Julio’s sister, Alejandra, was born, on a day even gustier than the day Julio arrived. Alejandra had Down Syndrome, and she was the light of Julio’s life. When she was able to sit, he would put her in a wagon and take her everywhere, and tell her stories about the wind.
When Mama died suddenly when Julio was ten, he fled into the hills, where the wind gently caressed him, dried his tears, and made him feel that perhaps his mama hadn’t gone so far away after all. That was the day Alejandra got lost while looking for him, and the wind carried her cries to him.
Julio was seventeen when Padre Tomas invited him and Alejandra into the churchyard for cake and coffee. As the padre asked Julio if he had ever thought of being a priest, the wind played with their napkins and clattered their spoons.
Julio’s ordination day was the windiest June day he could remember. The first women coming out of the church doors had to turn around for their hats, which had lifted off their heads and sailed back into the nave. Standing on the steps outside with the Bishop, his new robes flapping, Julio almost laughed. That wind!
He was sent to be priest in a village a few miles from home. Riding his bicycle around his country parish, Julio delighted in the days when gentle breezes inflated his cassock, though it made for harder pedalling at times. He made certain to be at Sunday supper each week at Papa’s house, where his older brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, would tease him about his adventures of cycling and recycling souls.
When the bishop invited the bright young cleric to go to a seaside university to learn more theology, Julio was in his glory. Every afternoon when classes ended, he and his new friend and classmate, Alfredo, would go for walks along the shore, their lungs full of wind and their hearts full of happiness. “Sister Wind is strong today,” one or the other of them would always say. They loved to learn, and to challenge one another on points of sacred wisdom as the salty breezes carried their voices down the beach. When they finished their studies, the two friends pledged to remain in contact once a month, and to remember one another especially on windy days.
Upon returning home with his Ph.D in Theology, Julio was invited by the bishop to go with him to visit a southern seminary in a region where people were poor but their love for God was great. When the bishop asked Julio if he would be willing to be pastor of the local parish and professor of theology at the seminary, he hesitated. It would mean being far from his family, and from Papa, who had aged considerably while Julio was at seminary, and was almost blind. Alejandra had gone to live with an older sister, Jacinta, and Papa was alone, though his sisters took turns cooking their father’s meals every day.
Seeing the young priest’s hesitation, the bishop asked Julio if his father was a gardener. “Yes – though his eyes are poor, he has manos jardineros,” Julio replied, surprised at the turn the conversation had taken.
“Perfect,” replied the bishop, as a sudden breeze raced down the corridor when someone opened a distant door. “Father Jorge could use the help of a fine young theologian, so we’ll have a professor and a gardener here, two for the price of one.”
And so it was. Until his father died ten years later, Julio lived and worked at the seminary and in the local parish. The bishop came to Papa’s funeral, as did many of the young priests who had studied under Julio and regarded his father with great affection. As they walked the road from the cementerio back to the seminary chapel, a gentle breeze followed Julio and his brothers and sisters.
The bishop took Julio aside to ask if he would consider coming back to the city as chancellor for the diocese. “Please, come and help me,” the bishop said. “I’m not as young as I used to be, and I would like to have a son of my own to assist me in my work.”
Julio stopped on the path, feeling torn, watching the young priests and seminarians walking ahead. But a sudden gust of wind brought his stole up against his cheek, and he laughed. “All right, all right,” he said.
A blustery gale pushed him from the post office to the Chancery one morning. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that Julio wasn’t surprised when the bishop called him into his office to read a letter that had arrived from the Vatican in the morning’s mail. “It seems the Holy Father has decided that I will finally have my retirement, and if it is God’s will, you will replace me,” the bishop smiled, handing Julio a second letter addressed to him.
Bishop Julio was already well-known and well-loved by many of the people of his diocese, and he loved working with his people. Confirmations were his favourite celebrations, because he could imagine the Holy Spirit swirling around the young people as they approached to be anointed, just as Sister Wind was always dancing around the basilica.
And then one day, Sister Wind stopped visiting Julio. It was hot and sunny, not a breath of air anywhere. The papal nuncio had come to town with a letter from the new pope who had just taken office, asking Julio to become cardinal in a large city across the ocean. The man he was to replace had died suddenly, leaving scandal, financial disarray, and crises in faith as his legacy.
The hot weather went on and on, and though Julio looked for cooling zephyrs from the hills and lake, there were none. He considered saying no to the Pope’s request, but his prayerful discernment was clear even without brash breezes pushing him in any particular direction. He swallowed hard, said goodbye to his family, and kissed Alejandra, who understood his hesitation. “El viento le seguirá,” she whispered in his ear.
But the wind didn’t follow Julio. He assumed his new role, a difficult one, in a palatial but ancient air-conditioned building in a fully paved, sun-baked square in a country far from home. People were mistrustful and suspicious of him because he was a foreigner, and the work he had to do was discouraging and unsupported by his staff, many of whom had to be asked to leave because of dysfunction and corruption. When he visited the many dioceses under his care, he found the churches empty, the bishops apathetic, and the pastors weary and disillusioned.
**
Even so, Julio carried on with his work, reaching out to the people of his new country, recommending the pope appoint wise bishops in the place of foolish ones, caring for the poor, encouraging youth, and extending invitations to those who had walked away from the Church for one reason or another. But even the slightest waft of wind was gone, and after several years of questioning his perception of reality, Julio knew that something was seriously wrong.
Early on, he voiced his concern to his friend, Alfredo, who had wisely agreed to accept the chair of one of the foolish bishops on Julio’s side of the ocean. The wind had not come into their conversations for some time. But almost as if he could read his mind, Alfredo began that evening’s phone call with, “Hola, my holy cardinal friend, how is Sister Wind treating you these days?”
“Sister Wind?” asked Julio. “She is not here, my holier bishop friend.”
“No wind? How is that possible, Julio? Are you so chained to your desk that you don’t get out to meet her?”
“I swear, Alfredo, there is not a breath of anything resembling a breeze here. There hasn’t been so much as a draft since I was called to be a cardinal. I’ve commented on it a few times, and people give me funny looks. They are always talking about the weather as if everything is perfectly normal, so rather than look like a madman, I keep quiet. Sister Wind has abandoned me, but no one else.”
There was a pause on the line, and Julio waited for Alfredo’s next smart remark. But to his surprise, Alfredo said simply, “Sister Wind is not here, either, though this lovely city on the coast should be full of her. I thought that perhaps I was going mad, but you are saying the same thing that I experience. My parishioners certainly talk about the windy days, but when I disagree, they look at me funny, too! I wonder, does anyone else in the world feel Sister Wind’s absence?
“Only my dear Alejandra,” Julio replied, smiling at the thought of her. “When I came to be cardinal, she said the wind would follow me here. I tease her about it all the time, telling her that she forgot to send Sister Wind after me, but she says she hasn’t seen her for months – since I left. She thought perhaps Sister Wind had abandoned her for me, and she was okay with that. Now she’s just worried.”
Alfredo sighed. “To be honest, I haven’t seen the wind since the day you called me about giving my name to the Pope as a potential bishop.” He paused. “Julio, are we losing our minds? Such a strange conversation. How is everything else going?”
The two friends chatted for quite some time, but as soon as the call ended, Julio phoned his younger sister. “Okay, Alejandra, let Sister Wind out of your closet!” he teased.
“You know that I haven’t seen her for months,” his sister replied sadly. “If she’s not with you, and she’s not with me, where could she have gone? Does Alfredo have her?”
“I’m afraid not. Does Jacinta ever comment on the wind?” Julio asked, knowing that his older sister loved to complain about the weather.
He could almost hear Alejandra shake her head. “No. It seems like I’m the only one who misses Sister Wind. I told Jacinta that I was missing her, and she laughed at me like I was a baby. If you find her, will you ask her to come back to me? At least a little bit?” she asked.
“I’ll do my best,” Julio promised, puzzled. But Sister Wind did not return. For months.
Even when the news came that the Pope had made a most unusual decision to retire and a conclave was called, she was absent. Julio made his way to the Vatican, inviting Alfredo to accompany him, and the two friends met in the airport in Rome. The men both noticed that the trees on the vias were still, and only the people moved in the plazas. The city was excited, waiting for a new pope and welcoming visitors from around the world, but two of those visitors were hoping to welcome the wind.
The evening before the conclave, deep into the wine, Julio said to his bishop soul mate, “Perhaps Sister Wind is telling me by her absence that I wasn’t supposed to accept the cardinal’s hat, or to ask the pope for you to be a bishop.”
Alfredo shook his head. “You prayed, you discerned, and so did I. It was God calling us, not Sister Wind.”
Julio smiled sadly. “Are they not connected? John’s gospel says that Jesus said, “The spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” What if I didn’t understand correctly? How can I go into a conclave to choose a new pope if that wind – the Spirit – is not with me? It has been with me all my life. And now it’s not.”
“Perhaps this is a dark night of the soul, my friend. Perhaps you are meant to go without Sister Wind’s consolation, so that you can really hear,” Alfredo suggested. “I will be out here praying, and if you ask Alejandra, she will pray too. Her prayers get to God quickest, of that I am almost sure.”
“Are you in the Vatican?” Alejandra asked when Julio called her.
“Not yet, but I will be tomorrow, in the Sistine Chapel where we will choose a new pope.”
“Do you think Sister Wind is in there?” she whispered.
“I certainly hope so,” Julio replied, also in a whisper. “Alejandra, will you do me a favour? Will you pray for the new pope, and for me?”
“I always pray for you; you know that!” she laughed loudly. “And I will pray for the new papa. Tell Sister Wind I miss her.”
The next morning, as the college of cardinals processed into the Sistine Chapel, Julio thought he detected the faintest breeze, but as everyone took their places, he realized he had mistaken the swishing of the cardinal’s robes for the thing for which he so longed. The papal master of ceremonies locked and sealed the great doors, and the men sat in the stillness of the hall of Michaelangelo’s famous frescoes.
Julio looked up at images of God on the ceiling, and at all the men in the room, and smiled at the man sitting across from him, Cardinal Jorge, his old mentor from the seminary where his father had been the gardener, and the only other cardinal he knew well. Rumour had it that Jorge had been a strong contender in the last conclave.
As the prayers began, Julio closed his eyes and tried to imagine which of the men before him would be chosen as Peter’s successor. He opened his eyes, and as Jorge’s face came into focus, a page of Julio’s prayer book fluttered slightly. He stared at it, daring it to move again, but nothing more happened. His mind was playing tricks on him.
Julio was very surprised when his lot was chosen and he joined two other cardinals, one older and one younger than him, as the conclave’s scrutineers, but after that bit of excitement, the day dragged on. Prayer after prayer, conversation after conversation. One block of cardinals supporting this kind of leader, another, that. Julio managed to have several brief conversations with Jorge and discovered that in the time they had been apart, his mentor had continued to garner the kind of wisdom Julio deeply admired. When Jorge’s name came up at the bottom of the results in the first vote, Julio thought he heard a door slam somewhere. But there were several favoured names higher up the list, and the room was as still as ever.
During the prayers that followed the black smoke of the first ballot, Julio had a hard time keeping his eyes open. He stared at an arrangement of candles in the middle of the room and prayed internally, “Come, Holy Spirit, how shall I vote? I don’t know all these men whose names were listed. I only know Cardinal Jorge.” The candles flickered, and Julio’s eyes widened. “I only know Cardinal Jorge.” They flickered again. “Do you want me to choose Cardinal Jorge?” Again.
During the consultations before the second ballot, Julio began to work his way around the room, introducing himself to other men, and sharing his belief that Cardinal Jorge was the Holy Spirit’s choice, though he kept silent about the flickering candles and his knowledge as scrutineer. Of course, he had been sworn to secrecy.
When the second ballot was counted, Jorge’s name barely figured but Julio’s own name appeared. In the prayers and ballot following, the candles burned steadily, and Julio gave up the silly notion that Sister Wind was giving him signals. He wanted nothing to do with being pope himself. He continued to meet the other cardinals between ballots and continually voiced his support for Cardinal Jorge.
During the fourth ballot, the fourth time Julio had voted for Jorge, it happened. Julio’s ballot card remained on his desk, but inexplicably, the ballots of more than half the cardinals flew into the wide aisle between the two sides of the room. Everyone was dumbfounded by the flurry of papers. Julio and the other younger scrutineer jumped up and gathered many papers in the aisle, and the older scrutineer collected the minority of papers that remained on the desks. When the two sets of papers were examined by the three men, it was discovered that the papers from the desks all bore the name “Bergoglio,” and the ones from the aisle contained other contenders’ names.
The three scrutineers didn’t know what to do with that particular secret, as it seemed to be an action of the Spirit. The oldest of them consulted with the Dean of the college of cardinals, who deemed it a supernatural event, since all had witnessed it, and the three scrutineers testified that they had seen the evidence, though it had already been burned for black smoke. The Dean made an understated announcement to the room full of men, reminding them that what happened in the conclave stayed in the conclave.
On the fifth ballot, as Jorge walked to the ballot box, his paper flew up into the air. It fluttered all the way to the Chair of the Successor of Peter, landing on its seat. Jorge’s face drained of colour, and he moved to retrieve it, but the Dean signaled that he should wait. When Julio and his fellow scrutineers counted the ballots already in the box, they found that all of them bore "Bergoglio."
The Dean announced, “It is nearly unanimous. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has been chosen from among us.”
Bowing his head, Jorge quietly walked up to the Chair of the Successor of Peter, winking at Julio as he passed. He picked up his ballot, walked back to Julio, and standing as straight as his 78 years would allow, he handed it to him, a small smile on his lips. Julio saw his own name written there. Then Jorge turned, bowed before his brother cardinals, looked up to the many images of God on the ceiling and said, “But I can’t vote for myself!”
The college of cardinals roared with laughter and approval. Then Jorge walked back to the papal chair, stood before it and said, “Would someone please open the windows? It’s very stuffy in here.” Then, rather than sitting on the papal throne and offering his hand for kisses, he stood as an equal to receive the greetings, hugs, and well wishes of his brother cardinals, as a gentle breeze blew through the room, joyously flipping the pages of Julio’s prayer book and ruffling his hair. None of the other cardinals seemed to notice Sister Wind’s return.
The newly-elected pope was whisked away to the papal apartments, and the rest of the men made their way to their cloister rooms. A smiling Julio changed into plain clothes and stepped out into a rainy, breezy Saint Peter’s square, giving a hug to the waiting Alfredo.
"Sister Wind has returned!" he exclaimed. Alfredo whooped with joy when he heard that Jorge would be the next pope.
Then Julio turned on his cell phone. “Alejandra, did Sister Wind come home?”
“Yes, Julio, yes! Before I even turned on the TV and heard about Pope Jorge!”
“I think Sister Wind knew she was needed here.”
*******
I started this story with the theme of “Wind” the week after Pope Benedict retired, the first week of March in 2013. Pope Francis was named two weeks later. I wrote up to the ** by March 15th, 2013, and didn’t complete it until three years later, when the world was reminded that Francis has been Pope for three years already. When I looked up Pope Francis just after completing this fictional short story, I was quite surprised to find the paragraph below on Wikipedia:
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope on 13 March 2013, the second day of the 2013 papal conclave, taking the papal name Francis. Francis was elected on the fifth ballot of the conclave. The Habemus Papam was delivered by Cardinal protodeacon Jean-Louis Tauran. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn later said that Bergoglio was elected following two supernatural signs....
We don’t know what those signs were, but of course the faithful like to think that Pope Francis’ election was influenced by the actions of the Holy Spirit…
March 25, 2016, the Feast of the Annunciation
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