A Beautiful, Holy Day

By Elizabeth Foss
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 4/28/05)

The day Pope John Paul II died was a dark one. I awoke with a start and checked the radio immediately to see if he had survived the night. Rain poured from the heavens and the wind blew mightily. The entire day had an ominous feel of impending gloom. I was talking with a friend on the phone, when my son told me the Holy Father had died. She immediately hung up, explaining that she needed to go talk to her husband. I couldn’t reach my husband for six hours. Loneliness enveloped me.

Seventeen days later, a much different day dawned. I awoke singing, "It’s a beautiful day, a beautiful day, a beautiful day to play!" My children scrambled out of bed and into play clothes. A picnic was packed; the dog hustled into the van. We were off to spend the day at my favorite place in the world: Bull Run Regional Park. Every year, in mid-April, we stop the world and hike a short way into the woods to the banks of Cub Run. There, we find the largest crop of Virginia bluebells in the country—God’s glorious herald of springtime blankets the forest in cerulean splendor. It’s really my favorite day of the year.

We were met there by some of my favorite people-- godmothers, godchildren, old friends and new ones. One young lady was celebrating her birthday; she had been born Easter Sunday, 13 years ago. She told me, as we set up camp, that today was going to be a very holy day. Forty minutes later the phone rang. Her words were prophetic.

Patrick, 10, scrambled for the phone, because he knew that if it rang, it was likely to be my husband, who was working from home with the television on, one eye on the lookout for white smoke. Patrick wanted to be the first to hear the news. I slipped running up from the creek and Patrick beat me to the phone. He handed it to me a minute later, disappointed to hear news of black smoke.

As I brushed mud from my jeans my husband said, "Wait a minute, honey; hang on; it looks white now."

I relayed the news to all those gathered and we all stopped—moms and kids and dogs—to listen for the bells. And when they rang, it was my husband who said to me, "Habemus Papam!" I relayed the joyful news to the gathered crowd and children went yelping the Latin phrase, reveling in the air of excitement.

He telephoned again a short while later and I had the delightful honor of relating to the dear people in the park the news of Benedict XVI. The sun shone; the creek rippled; and the whole world seemed to sing. I was not alone in the joy of day.

Later that night, an exhausted Nicholas, who is four, snuggled next to me as we watched a replay of the announcement on the balcony.

"I see Benedict," he said.

"Yes," I encouraged my tender-hearted boy, "What does he look like to you?"

"He has very white hair, Nicholas observed. "And his cassock is white, too. That’s for celebration. He wears white for celebration."

I waited a moment, watching with him.

"I wonder," Nicholas said quietly, "what color his hair will be in ordinary time."

Fighting laughter, I let him wonder and watched him fall asleep. I was so grateful for our beautiful day. My children will always remember the day as one of celebration and they will always have a sense of having participated in a momentous event as members of the Universal Church. A beautiful, holy day, indeed.

Copyright ©2005 Arlington Catholic Herald.  All rights reserved.