Praying with the Pope

October 2, 2015

The Evening Before…

I stood at the large windows, 50 stories up, looking at the sunset over New Jersey. Directly in front of me was the new Freedom Tower and below, the 9/11 Memorial. As the evening progressed, the lights came on in the north pool and among the many trees that surround the pools and the Memorial Museum. It was Thursday, September 24^th, and the Pope was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral leading evening prayers. I was in New York waiting my turn to pray with the Pope at the interfaith service scheduled in the Memorial Museum the next morning. It felt like holy ground and a holy moment with a holy person as I gazed at the pool and remembered the unholy terrorism that had murdered almost 3,000 lives just 14 years before. Collapsing towers with thousands plunging to their deaths had deeply wounded the American and global spirit. In the end, there is no standing above such pain.

The Pope’s first words to the overflowing congregation at St. Patrick’s was to encourage all of us to pray for the more than 700 Muslim pilgrims who had died in Mecca that day. I reflected that praying for Muslims as I looked at the memorial pool felt absolutely right and profoundly difficult. And yet there is little doubt that the death of every child causes God’s heart to weep. The Pope reminded us of that.

The Evening After…

I suspect that we will remember the Pope’s first visit to the United States not only for his quiet and courageous words, but for his special love for children and the disabled, and the last and the least. Popes, perhaps because of the office, have all too often held themselves aloof from the touch of others. This Pope yearned to touch and be touched. That we will remember as well.

This morning in the Memorial Museum deep below the footprints of the World Trade Center buildings, the Pope was flanked by Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. Each prayed in his or her own language and we were moved to silence. The prayers for the Muslims who had died the day before in Mecca felt genuine and Christ-like.

I was honored to pray with a humble man who is the Bishop of Rome in the catacombs of the Memorial. I am happy to have helped welcome him into the rich mosaic of a land we call our American home. And I hope that his spirit and message, which is so accessible to the world as well as the church, will inspire us all to be more faithful in our call to be companions toward a more caring, just and peaceful world.

Gregg A. Mast, Ph.D.
President, New Brunswick Theological Seminary