John Paul II Beckons

While listening to Verdi’s Va, pensiero via streaming radio from Italy on my computer, I work at matting and framing prints from drawings. At conclusion of the Verdi, there are news reports and cultural announcements to which I pay scant attention, awaiting the next musical selection. But a reference to Papa Giovanni Paolo Secundo too late catches my attention, hearing only something (the spoken Italian is fast, media-news paced) about the Vatican possibly proclaiming the beatification of the late Pope as early as 2 April 2010, the fifth anniversary of his death.

well, now, what’s the feasibility of someone in advanced octogenarian years considering a jaunt to the Eternal City next spring? Open-heart surgery nearly three years ago and a minor heart attack (resulting in no cardiac damage) in June of this year suggest it’s time to forgo travel once frequently embraced—with numerous returns to Italia, and always when in Rome, il Vaticano and papal audiences. And, of course, the personal regard I had and hold for Pope John Paul II. Fortunate enough to receive individual blessings from him on two occasions (1986 and 1989), I saw him numerous other times at general audiences, often at close range from privileged seating, and in this country (New Orleans) as well as abroad. What impressed me most about him was his compassion for the sick and lame, his ministry as he moved among them, embracing, cradling in his arms young and old so severely damaged, mentally as well as physically, that I could not easily look on them. I watched as he placed a hand on her head and spoke comforting words to my older sister who’d recently suffered a stroke; and in subsequent years I observed her courageous recoveries from that and other physical onslaughts which she liked to think were fostered by the papal blessing. I remember after the 1986 audience on return to the convent-pensione where I was staying, one of the nuns commented that she’d seen me receive the personal blessing, and asked how I felt about that. I replied that no one had ever looked into my eyes (my soul?) the way John Paul did as he clasped my hand, and that he made me feel, if for a few minutes only, that I was the only person in the world, deserving his full attention. “Don’t be too flattered,” the nun responded. “He makes everyone feel like that.”

April, 2010? Not that far away, with a winter to be endured (survived?) between now and then. Aware that I should not risk traveling alone, that I’m no longer the self-sufficient continent-hopper I once was, there should be a younger, strong companion to help ease the rigors of trans-Atlantic flights, transportation within Europe, the myriad frustrations of cancellations, delays, cultural challenges which inevitably spice travel. And where, who is that companion? Every young person I know, family as well as friends, is on a breakneck treadmill of work and commitment, no time to get away, no time to stop and stare. One needs to think of finances, too. You don’t at my age fly back and forth to Europe in a few days—a destination that distant warrants rest between ocean hops, a few weeks, even a month abroad. Hotels, meals, with luck returns to ancestral haunts, the paternal hills of La Fontanabuona above the Riviera di Liguria and the maternal Penisola di Sorrento in Campania. If you sought it, what would be advice regarding travel from doctors with their insistent monitoring since the heart surgery? Should one really care, so long in the tooth now, about anything but attempting to do what you most want to do.

Among the mail on my desk is an account statement from American Airlines. There’s been no travel abroad over the past few years to increase frequent-flyer credits, but those accumulated previously—not expired, waiting to be used—have earned two free roundtrip economy flights to Europe, That, and memories of John Paul II, consideration of his possible beatification next spring, were on my mind when I opened my eyes this morning. I did, didn’t I, when last in the neighborhood of the offices of the American Bishops in Rome to secure still another ticket for a papal audience, toss a coin over my shoulder into Fontana Trevi as I passed it.