Lowly And Yet Chosen

My sleep was restless. Something at the back of my tired mind is the thought, no, a proclamation: "Habemus Papam!" At daybreak (Philippine time) my lovely wife woke me up gladly announcing: "Gang, may Santo Papa eon kita! Taga-Argentina!" That was the news I was expecting to hear. It sent me scurrying for a seat in our family room and watched the progressing news on TV even as I was removing those specks in my eyelids.

Somebody from Argentina. Was he a Liberation Theologian? He is to be called Pope Francis. After St. Francis of Assisi? Are we to journey together as Church of the Poor then?

There are lots of questions playing in my mind. The coffee came in late but even then, I was already wide awake.

As I surfed the net later in the day, most of my questions where answered. As I heard him addressed the crowd in genial Italian seeking for the faithful's prayer before giving off his blessings, I knew in my heart that the Church is graced again with a good shepherd to guide the faithful in their journey of love and brotherhood.

Lowly and yet chosen -- the motto of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, now elected as the 266th successor of St. Peter and is to be known as Pope Francis I 

In my journey of encountering Pope Francis today I am grateful for the information I gathered in the followings sites:

• First Things
• Deacon's Bench 
• Yahoo News Philippines
• God and Machine