Last year, when I learned about Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the country, I told God that I wanted to see him, but of course everyone wants to see him too and there’s no way for me to easily see him coz a lot of people will be there and it’ll be hard. I told God that it’s okay if I won’t be able to see him in person, knowing that we’ll be on the same country, on the same land, is already enough. I’ll just follow the updates on TV and via internet.
I decided that I won’t tell anyone about my wanting to see Pope Francis. Basta wag na. I never told anyone that really wanted too, excerpt for God.
January 11, I suddenly woke up because my phone vibrated at 7:34 am. I don’t usually wake up from my vibrating cellphone but I did. I didn’t open my eyes to check the message though. I just took a peak at the time – past 7 am, I’m still sleepy. I can’t removed the tape on my eyes means I need to wake up and clean my very dry eyes & I need to wake up someone to help me pee, so I’ll just continue with my dream. Maybe it’s just one of the infotext from Globe or Sun…..but it’s not!
When I woke up at 11 am, I froze from happiness…
Then I realized, this is the reason why God woke me up that early. Dra. Becky from our PWD Parish Ministry asked me if I wanted to be one of the delegates at Pope Francis’ encounter with the Youth and the PWD at UST on January 18 and I like it very much!!!!!
Why do I want to meet Pope Francis? Does that even need an answer? Of course everyone wants to meet him. Period.
But I also have my reasons. Before he was elected as Pope, I kept on ranting to Michelle (during our walking exercises) about how “hopeless” the church is getting…and then Pope Francis became Pope! He never fails to amaze me..us! Right? And there’s more: He kissed and hugged a person with Neurofibromatosis(NF). It really means a lot to us. It’s comforting. It really touched our hearts. It’s like telling us that he’s on our team too. Kakampi natin siya!
If there’s a person whom you look up to or someone who you believe has the same outlook as you, same as the things you're doing, same beliefs, of course you want to meet him/her regardless of who that person is. I have a list of people I wanted to meet and Pope Francis is on top of that list (Abhie & Jen, you used to be on that list, seryoso)
Everything he does is just so amazing but he never fails to remind us that it’s God who’s using him to reach out to people. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
“And now I would like to give the blessing. But first I want to ask you a favour. Before the Bishop blesses the people I ask that you would pray to the Lord to bless me – the prayer of the people for their Bishop. Let us say this prayer – your prayer for me – in silence.” — Pope Francis
