Do not be afraid

Somewhere, I have a picture I took of St. John Paul II.

It was from his visit to Chicago in 1979, and I was standing at the south end of Lincoln Park across from the cardinal’s residence when I took it. I was 11 years old, there with my mother and brother and my aunt who lived a few blocks away.

All I had was an inexpensive camera, one that used Kodak film cartridges and had a place for a flashcube on top. But I managed to snap a photo as he was driven away from the residence. He looks kind of like a white blob in the open window of a long black limousine.

I covered Pope Benedict’s visit to Washington, D.C., in 2008, and though I never got close to him, I did at least see him.

I never met Pope Francis, never even saw him in person across a crowded field or driving by in a small white car.

But like so many people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, I was touched by him. I was touched by the way he interacted with people, smiling for selfies and holding babies. I was touched by the many times he admitted that he wasn’t perfect, that he had learned a lesson and would try to apply it. I was touched by what seemed like a determination to live among his people, to be a shepherd who was physically close to his flock, whether that meant traveling to Iraq or South Sudan or, as he did on Easter, making his way through a packed St. Peter’s Square, letting all those people have their little piece of him, their cellphone pictures and stories they will tell in years to come about the time they saw the pope.

But perhaps the image of the pope that sticks with me the most is not one of the friendly, waving pictures that have smiled from newspaper and magazine covers since his death. It is the image of Pope Francis alone, in a dark and rain-swept St. Peter’s Square, offering a special “urbi et orbi” (“to the city and the world”) blessing during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was just over five years ago, March 27, 2020, and Italy had borne the early brunt of the disease in Europe. We did not yet know how many lives would be lost, how many families devastated.

The pope reflected on Jesus’ calming the storm at sea when his disciples were frightened. He started his talk by recognizing that the Gospel of Mark places the incident at night, “when evening had come.”

“For weeks now it has been evening,” he said. “Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost.”

Pope Francis recalled Jesus’ response to the disciples — “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” — and called on us to have faith even in the darkness.

“You ask us not to be afraid,” he prayed. “Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: ‘Do not be afraid.’”

That crisis has passed, but the world to me seems to be more fractured than before. So when I think of Pope Francis, I think of the lone figure in the dark, praying for us all.