Ite, Missa Est

In the evening, Cardinal Luige Traglia, John’s vicar for Rome, celebrated an outdoor mass for the thousands drawn to Saint Peter’s Square.  The spring breeze was so soft that the altar candles barely flickered, and the murmur of prayer seemed to hang in the air even after the mass ended.  A little before eight, Cardinal Traglia spoke the traditional words of dismissal, “Ite, missa est” (“Go, the Mass is ended”).
And at that same moment, upstairs in the dimly lit bedroom where Sister Death waited, the man born Angelo Roncalli and destined for sainthood as John XXIII, took a last gasping breath and died.
The Vatican press office issued the final bulletin:  “He suffers no more.”  Beyond the bedroom window, television lights swept across the piazza, packed with people, many on their knees.  And beyond the piazza, the world grieved, too.
Other popes had decried war and defended peace, praised virtue and condemned evil.  But in the experience of living men, none before John XXIII had ever moved the church toward the mainstream of human endeavor, or welcomed all men and all creeds to the good fight, or made it seem even remotely possible that they could win.
And even more deeply, the world’s millions were caught up with the man who lived beneath the robes of the supreme pontiff of the universal Church, bishop of Rome, vicar of Jesus Christ, and sovereign of Vatican City.  To the multitudes some devout, some disaffected, the peasant face with its undisguised warmth meant more than all the weighty titles.  “I am your brother,” he had told them.  And they had come to believe him.
—    Lawrence Elliot
From his book:  “I Will Be Called John“
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On This Day In:
2021	Everything Good In You
	Within Your Heart
2020	Keeping Christmas
	What Will You Give?
2019	Looking Forward To Tomorrow (2019 Version)
2018	Not One Cent!
	Looking Forward to Tomorrow
2017	Make Glad The Heart Of Childhood
2016	Sincerest Flattery
	The President-elect: Making Spirits Bright
2015	What Are You Looking At?
2014	Ite, Missa Est
2013	I Hear Voices
2012	Positive Thoughts
	Hope Works
2011	Look! Up In The Sky…
	Humility Before The Unknowable