“In front of him, the anger DISAPPEARED
 I can’t explain it, but it happened”

by Emanuele Braga

She had stopped praying, from one day to the next. Up to the previous morning, I had often seen her in church, waiting for work to begin at the Education Department in Buenos Aires, where she was a clerk in the administrative offices. Then, one night in December 2011, “My husband died suddenly of a heart attack. In a few minutes, he was gone.” For Patricia, 54 years old and childless, a piece of her life had disappeared. She and Osvaldo had been married for 17 years, and he had worked in the office next to hers. “I found myself alone, and angry at God. He had taken the thing I loved most, and I didn’t understand why.”

Her anger lasted 15 months, no more prayers, no more Masses. God disappeared a bit at a time from her horizon, until the day she saw the new Pope on TV, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, “her” archbishop. Patricia knew him well. “I was fond of him, and admired him.” But when she saw him, something was triggered, and her anger opened up. “I felt the need to return to a church, and I prayed an Our Father. For me, it was the Pope’s first miracle,” she told Monica, who works with her and has known her for two years. Monica says that “ever since the day of his election, people have been talking a great deal about Pope Bergoglio and the Church. Faith has returned in some way to being something that people wonder about. All of a sudden, faith seems closer to the life of the people. The other day, on the street, I heard an old man tell the guy at the newsstand, ‘Look, the Pope said that God is mercy, and forgives everything.’ The woman who helps me with my housework told me that she returned to Confession after years away from it. There are scores of people like this. It makes me think of what Jesus said: ‘I make all things new.’”
What “new” thing did Patricia see? “I was struck by the person of the Pope,” she recounts. “Precisely him, for the way I saw him, his simplicity, his words.” Why did it move her to the point of returning to prayer? “Something happened. I can’t explain it, but I felt good, in communion with God, closer. And I understood it was because of the Pope.” How does this “communion with God” help her in the pain she feels? “I feel better. The pain continues, but I feel accompanied. I don’t feel alone any more. For me, the election of Bergoglio was a sign of this.” Monica looks at her and smiles. “Patricia has always struck me, ever since I arrived here, because of the way she welcomed me, and also because of how close she was to her husband. But now she moves me.”

She hasn’t returned to Mass and to Confession.  “Step by step,” she says, “but I’ve started praying again, talking to God.” What does she ask of Him? “Nothing concrete. More than anything, it’s a dialogue. Certainly, I would like to know why He took my husband, but I am happy to be able to ask.” What most impresses her in the things the Pope is saying in these weeks? Patricia is quiet and thinks. “Everything. But out of everything, one thing: he continues to ask us to pray for him. This moves me.” Does she pray  for him? “Certainly!”