No Joy Without Sacrifice

I was, to be frank, just the slightest bit down the night before Mother Teresa’s beatification. I shouldn’t have been.

We’d just finished up a rosary accompanied by the singing of one of Notre Dame’s own fair flowers of Catholic womanhood, Miss Danielle Rose Skorich. She is, if one can use the term for such a modest girl, a bit of a local university celebrity. She graduated two years ago with a CD of her own music to her credit. She’s got another one coming soon, twenty songs, one for each mystery of the rosary.

Considering I don’t listen to much music written after about 1763 (Ignacio de Jerusalem, Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe), you know if I’m making an exception to the rule, she’s gotta be good. She is.

Danielle Rose was in town for the beatification, as she has always has had a deep connection to the Missionaries of Charity. After a series of events that have more than a hint of providence, she ended up being given a rose from Mother Teresa’s last birthday cake shortly after the nun’s death. So any visit from Danielle is bound to cheer you up. She’s about one of the bounciest, sweetest girls you'll ever meet. The fact she typically dresses like a head-on collision of Woodstock and Santiago de Compostela only adds to her appeal. And I mean this in the best possible way.

Still, the fact I would probably be standing for three or four or five hours the next day in the rain with God knows how many pickpockets nipping at my hips was pouring copious amounts of cold water on the grace I ought to have been experienced.

Some of my friends, the real die-hards, kept saying they were going to get up at five, or four, or three, or stay up all night so they could get the best seats. Meanwhile, I was more concerned about where I was going to get breakfast. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I felt faintly petty.

I finally arranged to meet a friend by Ponte Sant’ Angelo the next say at seven-thirty, and I started to cheer up a bit. Still, I was sure, absolutely sure, that I was going to be stuck out at the far end of the Via della Concelazione squinting at a TV screen with wall-to-wall rosary vendors. Much to my surprise, as I dashed up the Ponte Sant’ Angelo to find my friend Tom perched on one of Bernini’s railings, the little piazza in front of the fortress was almost empty. People were still slowly making their way towards the square beyond.

And the clouds were slowly drifting away to reveal stunning skies.

As I moved closer with him towards the barricades, it looked almost like I might be able to catch up with the hard-core people who were probably by now falling asleep on their feet. Tom had, however, lost his ticket. He rummaged calmly through his bag to make sure. No good. Finally, he decided to wait for a couple of his friends who were going to be passing by in an hour-and-a-half with extra tickets.

Tom insisted on waiting behind, despite the fact that if I flourished my ticket enough the Carabineri and Polizia and Vatican Security probably would have left us alone. He wasn’t convinced, and told me I should move on. I ran into him in Trastevere two days later, and he had finally gotten in with his other friends. He was glad to hear about my adventures.

I'm getting ahead of myself. So, anyway, I hesitantly went beyond the barricade. Inexplicably, I suddenly felt a warm feeling of anticipation, even a whiff of excitement. The air was cool, clear, brisk.

I was alone. Breakfast had been scarfed prosciutto and bread in the studio kitchen; and, as I moved closer to the piazza, still about one-third empty, it looked like I wasn’t going to see anyone I knew for the next four hours. But I felt…well…I felt surprisingly happy. I had made it. I was here for the beatification of one of the most holy people of the twentieth century.

I slowly threaded my way around the maze of partitions and finally sat down by the southern edge of the entrance into St. Peter’s Square, all alone. I felt strangely free as I surveyed the great, sun-washed yellow travertine façade of the church.

An enormous tapestry hung from the Benediction Loggia. Only the ornate floriated border was visible; the image at the center was veiled. Mother Teresa, soon to be Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, servant to the poorest of the poor. I was alone in the square with Mother Teresa and thousands pilgrims who I’d never met. Last night, I would have been thinking I had no one to talk to, or that I had lost the cap to my water bottle somewhere on the Via. Instead, I just felt overwhelmed by—

I’m in Saint Peter’s Square, and I’m going to see the Pope beatify one of his closest friends.

It got even better. I may have thought I was by myself. But I wasn’t for long. That was when Sister Kathleen showed up.

She was a big sturdy young nun in full brown robes with a digital camera slung around her neck. She’s the coolest nun ever, by the way. Well, the coolest living nun, anyway.

(Her name has been changed to protect the guilty, by the way.)

Rome is full of providential and almost comical chance meetings, as I was finding out. I’d actually met Sister a week before, at the talk George Weigel had given at the Domus Guadalupe. I’d met lots of nuns there, and not all of them had a very good handle on English. I was sketchy on her name, rank and serial number, and for a couple of moments there I was afraid I was going to spend my morning standing next to a monoglot German. I was mistaken.

She was hilarious, magnificent, devout. Her order was the Franciscans of Perpetual Adoration. It had, much to my surprise, a sizable foundation and school in Mishawaka, Indiana. Mishawaka, ten minutes from Notre Dame, is famous as the home of Grape Road. Grape Road has stores with everything a student could ever need, provided he or she has an irrational desire for cheap Swedish furniture, art supplies or sale table books.

It’s only when you meet folks from next door in front of St. Peter’s you understand how universal this Catholic gig really is.

Though the strangers around us were also doing a pretty good job in teaching us that as well in a different way. Sister Kathleen and I had a grand time as we watched the parade of humanity move past us. I gave up on sitting down on my folding stool within the first ten minutes. It was marvelous. It was exciting. It was full of grace.

It was also like one gigantic Vatican street party. I’ve never seen happier people.

The whole world loved Mother Teresa; and pretty much the whole world was there that morning. The square quickly filled up as Sister Kathleen and I chatted loudly and cheerfully, talking about everything from my thoughts on church architecture to the consecrated and marital vocations, as well as trading anecdotes about our various wild adventures in Rome. Every now and then I glanced up and had a look round. I’m not sure which was more heartening, talking to the nun or looking around. So many people from so many places.

There were, of course, the Albanians, whose banner was labeled with a message reminding us of their nation’s status as the blessed’s birthplace. They’d taken up the high ground on the north colonnade, and the black eagle of Skanderbeg once again blazed in the sunlight on its fluttering scarlet field.

A tour group from Wadowice, the Pope’s hometown, stood just across the aisle, making sure everyone knew exactly who they were with a twenty-foot banner stretched taut overhead. Right next to them, a couple of Chilean girls balanced precariously on the barricade railing as their purple-robed bishop blessed his flock. That wasn’t the end of it, either.

Sitting behind us was a fair-skinned, blue-eyed girl wearing what only could be described as a Muslim head veil over her very ordinary streetclothes. I never quite figured out what this out-of-place Circassian was doing here, but she seemed a welcome addition. Elsewhere, priests in cassocks and birettas flickered through the crowd, along with some peculiar, slow-moving monks in turquoise and white, “some really weird charismatic group from the Midwest,” Sister explained chattily. Her words, not mine!

Plenty of surprises to go round. I didn’t even crack the book I had brought to read. It would have of course been physically impossible, but also my surroundings had the premium on entertainment. Some diminutive Asian nuns momentarily appeared next to us in the crowd and the next thing we knew they had somehow gotten onto the other side of the partition twenty feet away. A white-haired, ruddy-faced alumnus in a Notre Dame baseball cap like mine waved at me from across the way. I gave him a Go Irish thumbs up.

And then there was the fellow in the Cat-in-the-Hat chapeau waving two enormous flags with the Pope’s coat-of-arms on them. He kept blocking everyone’s view of the TV screen positioned near the north side of the entrance. Not like we needed it as we could see clear towards the green-wreathed steps of the Basilica.

The bells tolled eight-thirty, nine, nine-thirty and suddenly we realized (as one of the pilgrims asked us to keep our talking down) someone was reading something in a weirdly monotone English. We had reached the preparatory readings before mass. A lector was standing at the ambo, almost invisible in the distance, quoting from the writings of Mother Teresa. I flipped around in my program to find myself scanning the section for the preparations leading up to the ceremony and found what the reading was and followed along, feeling the wisdom of the little Albanian woman. Sister and I fell silent, or at least smiled and whispered, and laughter turned to excitement, and perhaps even just a sliver of that elusive and holy emotion, joy.

One thing I think proves the truth of the Faith is that when Catholics enjoy themselves, nothing is spared. I’ve talked about the Via Corso, of course. Piazza San Pietro is even wilder in terms of street theater, and far more edifying. Rather than venerating Gucci cargo-cults, these wonderful, strange and humble pilgrims had all been brought together by a wrinkled little woman in a sari who had never set out to change the world, but just make it better, one leper, one invalid, one untouchable at a time. To a secular mind, it’s simply insane. To me, it’s glorious.

And it’s a great reason to rejoice and be glad. And party like a cenacle on fire.

***
Reading followed reading as people continued to file into the square. The Sistine choir began to sing hymns, of Christ’s thirst, not for water, but for love; of Christ present in the poorest of the poor; and finally, the words of Mother Teresa as a conclusion: “Joy is a net of love by which we catch souls—because we are full of joy, everyone likes us and wants to be in our company to receive the light of Christ.”

I realized then the bells were now tolling continuously, and steaming incense wreathed a processions of deacons, priests and acolytes moving towards the great canopy over the altar from the doors of the Basilica. A shockwave went through the crowd as soon as the mitred figure of the Pope appeared, and he strained tiredly to pronounce the opening prayers in Latin. But suddenly, for all his exhaustion and slurring, the crowd, however many millions there were spilling down the Via all the way to Castel Sant’ Angelo, was perfectly silent as he spoke.

The age-old ceremony of Beatification followed, and after the Archbishop of Calcutta had read out the hagiography of the future beata, the Pope pronounced the Latin formula as best he could. The whole square intoned a great Amen and the Schola broke into the singing of Alleluias and lauding motets to God as a great heart-shaped reliquary was brought forward by Indians in vivid saffron and green saris and robes. Soon, the Gloria was sung, back and forth between choir and congregants, the nun and I dutifully following the Gregorian notation in our program, bowing at Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe, who had suffered to bring us Joy.

By now I hardly gave any thought to my legs. Sister occasionally sort of rocked back and forth; I thought she was squirming until I realized she was trying to keep from going stiff. I followed suit.

There’s not such an easy solution for other sorts of pain, as I saw. The first reading was recited in English. “Because of his affliction, he shall see the light in fullness of days; through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.” Verbum Domini. Deo gratias.. The mingling of sadness and happiness, pain and joy, seemed omnipresent. Here was the Holy Father, accepting his own Calvary, while at the same time he elevated to the ranks of the blessed someone who he himself had known personally.

Mother Teresa wrote once, “You cannot have Joy without Sacrifice,” and I couldn’t help thinking of this as I remember the Pope’s halting prayers throughout the Mass. He could have handed the mass over to the Camerlengo or the Dean of the Holy Roman Rota, but instead, he persevered. His words came and went through the concelebrated Eucharistic canon, but he still strained to raise the Host at the elevation, an expression of primordial innocence and suffering on his old face as the tower bell struck once.

We pressed close to the rail once Communion began. Pairs of priests, one holding a white umbrella, the other bearing a ciborium, fanned out along the barricades. Sister told me that once we received it was best to leave as quickly as possible lest we be crushed against the railings and hear the final blessing from the street. I grabbed onto her arm and we wormed our way through the crush of humanity reaching desperately for the host, arms thrust into the air with grabbing fingers. Meanwhile, the Pope sat in his cathedra, perhaps wondering at all this, this confusion, this chaos.

No joy without sacrifice.

We stepped away and ducked down a quiet side street, moving slowly and glad to stretch our legs again. We heard the apostolic blessing from Via de Concelazione, the crowd starting to thin out, and knelt as the Holy Father strained to pronounce the tripartite formula. And then, Ite, missa est.

We moved through the crowds, taking it all in, amazed. So many people—the sheer numbers, let alone the variety of the pilgrims, all races and nations, was mind-boggling. Finally, after a long walk, after a whole mile down the Via, we reached the end in a tangle of carabineri directing traffic and news center vans with satellite dishes on their roofs.

Eventually, I said goodbye to Sister Kathleen. I promised to drop by the Domus the next time they had a lecture, thanking her for her wonderful conversation. We went our separate ways smiling.

Mother Teresa may have written there is no joy without sacrifice, but she also said, “When you are full of joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good to everyone.” I felt like running, myself, I was so happy. I later discovered the die-hard early birds had gotten some comfy seats up front for all their trouble. Still, I wouldn’t have traded my five hours standing for any throne in the world. That’s joy.