We are grateful to receive this gift from Peter Schaeffer.
MY UNEXPECTED LATE-NIGHT ENCOUNTER WITH
POPE JOHN PAUL II
October 2, 1979 was a beautiful, early autumn evening in New York City. As I was walking home alone up Madison Avenue, I encountered police barricades and a crowd numbering in the hundreds outside Cardinal Terrance Cooke’s residence at the rear of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I was informed that everyone was eagerly awaiting the return of Pope John Paul II from his Mass at Yankee Stadium.
After a short while, a police-led motorcade rapidly approached from the north down the closed Avenue. When the limousine arrived, the Pope and the Cardinal emerged to enormous cheers which continued as they mounted the steps to the residence and spent a few moments waving to the crowd. Finally, they turned and retreated inside. The show was over and the crowd slowly dispersed.
For some reason, I continued to linger against the side of the building across the street until everyone was gone. About 15 minutes later, I noticed that a light had been turned on inside the 3rd floor front room. After a few moments, the gauze curtains parted, and there stood Pope John Paul II. As he looked out, I was the only person within view, and our eyes immediately locked upon one another. For 10 minutes, I stood there completely mesmerized, feeling the intensity of his focus and the strong sense of energy that he was projecting toward me. Finally, he made the sign of the cross, nodded to me and turned to go back inside the room. Ever so slowly I resumed my walk home, no longer feeling quite so alone.
— Peter L. Schaeffer
Peter and Maria Papova’s writing this weekend both touch the connective tissue of trust and love we find between our planets of existential loneliness. Whether you understand and experience this from a place of faith or through the head of the science-spirited; the destination and desire to connect with a larger interconnected presence and with each other is part of the human condition. As EM Forester succinctly points out: “ONLY CONNECT”.
https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/loneliness-kindness-spirituality