Partway through Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter, he recommends we look at the Resurrection and indeed the very fact of Christ’s incarnation, life, death and eternal new life with “‘the enlightened eyes of the heart’ (Ephesians 1:18), the organs of oculata fides, as Thomas Aquinas calls it,” because only this kind of seeing—seeing with love, seeing with faith—“can contemplate the form of revelation as it offers itself.” Von Balthasar has been part of my morning spiritual reading in Rome. Whether because of my poor sleep patterns or because this was German theological prose translated into English, I haven’t really understood much of what I’ve been reading, but this invitation to look around me with love, with faith, was clear and came at the right moment. I’ve been to Rome some dozen times. This is the first time I’d been here for a conclave and the election of a new pope. This is also the first time in Rome I went days without stepping into a church.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve declined every media interview that came my way. Putting aside professional activities, I have instead made my way about the city as a pilgrim and a tourist. On a Saturday-morning run along the Tiber, I passed a mild-faced young man in a blue religious cassock, leading a donkey along the river. The donkey was laden with bags and a small dog, maybe a chihuahua, perched on top. As great an angle as this might have been for a story, I didn’t want to think of it that way, or make him think of it that way. So I didn’t ask him if he had seen the already-famous photograph of Pope Leo smiling astride a donkey in rural Peru. Nor did I ask my phone which religious orders wear blue cassocks. Neither effort would have come from my heart or from faith. Instead, I just kept jogging.
Later that same day, I went to one of the rambling religious-goods stores that flank the porticoed final segment of the Via della Conciliazone—they’re like Vatican Costcos—where I bought my mother ten rosaries and picked up a little pocket-sized one for myself. I made my way out of Vatican City toward Campo de' Fiori. I always go there because, many years ago, our yowling young family stayed in a little apartment for a hot summer month while I did research for a book. Just before crossing the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, I asked a random passing priest to bless my new rosary. He did so in rich, African-inflected French, and he took his time. Which meant I had to take some time, too, standing in bright sunlight with the benison of a light breeze. I grew grateful for how intensely this priest was praying not so much for the rosary as for the person who would use it—myself or, given how often I lose these, someone else entirely. I walked on, shopping for gifts for my wife and our daughters—a lovely green lorgnette on a brown leather rope for my wife (let the record show she used to have better than 20/20 vision!); some upcycled metal jewelry for the girls, from a boutique where the music was so loud the bangles and earrings were vibrating; and a yellow moka pot at San Eustachio Coffee for everybody, to replace one with a melted handle.
In between shopping trips, I visited favorite churches—the beautiful, cavernous Sant’ Andrea della Valle up the street from our old apartment on Via dei Chiavari, the street of the keymakers, and then nearby San Luigi dei Francesi. There, I joined the crowds in front of the famous Caravaggio paintings, but I didn’t take a picture or look up any information. Instead, I tried to see and see and see through the dark and dramatic Calling of St. Matthew, to contemplate what Cardinal Robert Prevost must have felt when he knew what was happening as the fourth and final ballot neared. This was when, as Cardinal Joseph Tobin explained in media interviews afterwards, “I took a look at Bob, because his name had been floating around, and he had his head in his hands.” Great art is good for the eyes of the heart, the eyes of faith, because it doesn’t explain the hardest human things: it deepens our wonder at them. Literature deepens it as well, but also clarifies. I spent Saturday night discussing just this over dinner with a writer friend, also in town for the conclave. We ate at one of his favorite places, an unassuming but excellent restaurant in the heart of the city, the kind of place where actual Romans eat, arriving very late, and walking inside with ease while visitors to the city are seated out front.
Sunday morning, after a simple and quiet Mass near St. Peter’s, I went to the Square with an old friend who was also in Rome for the conclave. I knew he was in town but wasn’t expecting to see him, until I did. We were in the Square because Pope Leo was going to make his first public appearance since his election, to offer a reflection and lead the faithful in praying the Regina Caeli. We arrived about fifteen minutes early, just as dozens of marching bands were processing straight up the middle of the Via—bands from all over Italy, Mexico, Germany, and elsewhere, to judge from the charming banners they proudly carried. Old and young, traditionally costumed and wearing regular clothes, they were playing songs of celebration and salute. Italian cops in their normal uniforms—badges worn on strings around their necks over T-shirts and jeans—kept people moving in between the bands, while burly volunteers guided groups forward to fill in empty spaces, all of them exuding that rough kindness that’s particularly Roman.
My friend said he was glad we were standing at the back; this would make it easier to get away for lunch afterward. About five minutes before noon, when the pope was scheduled to appear—and he did, exactly on time—I tapped on my friend’s shoulder and told him to look around. “Here Comes Everybody,” we nearly said in unison, quoting James Joyce’s definition of the Catholic Church. Literature clarifies. Because hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people were fast-walking into the square from north and south, arriving just in time for the pope to appear in the red-draped center balcony of St. Peter’s. There was cheering, there was listening, there were blessings, there was prayer. From where I was standing, the pope was a tiny white speck. That was okay. Having been granted eyes that could really see, I was finally using them in Rome.
