How the pope put ‘truth on display’ in an empty St. Peter’s Square
Even before Pope Francis had made his way across the hauntingly empty St. Peter’s Square to the chair from which he would begin his “Urbi et Orbi” liturgy on Friday, March 27, my face was already a waterfall of tears.
I had been aching for a priest to visit me, to talk to me about the power of Jesus to transform evil — and here he was. And I didn’t want him to just talk. I wanted to see that he believed. I wanted to see that he was human and scared, too. And that he also absolutely trusted that Jesus Christ is who He says He is — the one who we have believed and assented to.
This coronavirus moment we are all living through is exposing unbelief and belief. I know there are priests doing extra holy hours in their rectories for the sick, and for the faithful who are aching to receive Jesus in the Eucharist again. I see some of them at all hours letting people in as close as they can on Facebook and YouTube. Some of them have tried to get creative — drive-in Mass, drive-through Confession, parking-lot Eucharistic adoration.