395. From the Vatican With Love
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| Feast of All Saints on the way to the cemetery |
In spite of priest shortage, our Parish is lucky because our visiting priests, those born
and bred in our village but who are stationed elsewhere, came to the rescue
over the “All Saints” festivities.
On Friday 1st
November, our Mons. Fabio who works at the Vatican was
accompanied by another priest whom he quickly enclosed inside the confessional
where he stayed throughout the whole of Mass except for giving out Communion.
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| Fr Andrea one of our lads who became a priest blesses the cemetery |
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| View of our cemetery |
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| Another view of our cemetery |
In the afternoon the Parish usually
gathers first in church and then proceeds to the cemetery for the blessing of
the graves. The Celebrant this time was another local lad, Don Andrea whose
father is buried in our cemetery and seemed only too apt that he should be the
one to honour us with his services. But we were also assisted by the two
priests from Rome.
At the end of the service in
the cemetery people usually stop to look around the graves and greet each
other. I met up with two members of our editorial group for the Parish Magazine
and said to them which of you is going to ask that nice, shy priest what his
name is, otherwise we are going to look ridiculous printing his picture without
his name!
As we approached the visiting priest,
I asked him his name to which he answered: “Father Fabian.” Naturally I wanted
his surname too, but all he said was: “Just Father Fabian.” So my colleague asked,
“Where are you from?” and he said: “Buenos Aires.”
“That’s where Jorge Bergoglio comes from!” I shouted
excited.
“In effect,” he said quietly, “I’m his secretary.” We looked at him, goggled eyed. Then I threw
my arms around him, and said: “You must give the Pope a big kiss from us.” Just
as I was about to kiss his cheek, I drew back, “Oh, I’ve lipstick on, I can’t.”
He just laughed and said “That’s ok... go ahead.” We thought that was simply
beautiful!
By then quite a few parishioners had
gathered around, and that well-kept secret, for we weren’t supposed to know who
he was, was no longer a secret, but obviously, it wasn’t something to plaster
all over internet.
We gave him copies of our parish
magazines and he was able to point out all the people in the parish he had met.
This guy must have eyes at the back of his head, I thought and a memory
stronger than my hard disk.
The next day Saturday 2nd
November our Mons. (though we call him Father) Fabio, celebrated the Mass for
All Souls and there was no sign of Pope Francis’ secretary but since the
confessional lights were all lit up we gathered that was where he was barricaded.
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| 3rd November was also commemoration day for those who died in the two world wars |
Sunday 3rd
November is a special day for our parish for we celebrate the anniversary
of the consecration of our church which this year not only fell on a Sunday but
also on the commemoration of the dead in the two world wars so we had the local
Alpines in, accompanied by our Mayor and lo and behold guess who the celebrant
was?
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| The two Priests from the Vatican |
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| Pope Francis' Secretary saying Mass at our Village church |
So that’s how Father
Fabian, Pope Francis’ Secretary ended up saying Mass in this
little village church at the foot of the Alpine Mountains in the North of
Italy. He did not give us a homily because he said his Italian was not in the
best of shape but he did say that he will refer to the Pope his experience of
his four wonderful days among us and I felt quite certain that Pope Francis
will listen attentively to what his secretary will say.
At the end of the
ceremony in front of the Cenotaph, I watched the two
Monsignori from Rome greeting, chatting and laughing with the parishioners and thought,
how far away seemed those days when we fell on our knees and kissed the rings
of bishops, cardinals and popes- now it’s big hugs, smiles as large as a
half-moon and kisses on the flesh... no matter how much lipstick you have on.
Photo-Reportage of Mass said at our Village church next post # 396
