Refocusing Perspectives

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost becomes the 267th pontiff. He chose Pope Leo XIV as his regnal name and as such honored Pope Leo XIII (Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci). How Pope Leo XIII inspired Cardinal Prevost might probably interest some scholars who are in a perpetual curiosity to know the trajectory of continuing the reformation within the church. Perhaps, we may begin to understand by getting to know a bit of Pope Leo XIII's life in the 18th century. As such, this commence as arguments within the continuum of absolutes to recognize the variation of probabilities. About Pope Leo XIII Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci, later known as Pope Leo XIII, was born on 2 March 1810 in Carpineto Romano, Italy. Ordained in 1837, he began a distinguished ecclesiastical career, serving as Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium (1843–1846), where he honed his diplomatic skills and met prominent European intellectuals. Returning to Rome in May 1846, he found Pope Gregory XVI on his deat...

The sunset rays were basking the Saint Peter Square of Vatican City when the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel emitted white smokes with a seagull of heart-shaped wing-plumes next to it, signaling that the Cardinal electors have successfully chosen a new Pope to succeed Pope Franciscus on May 8, 2025 (Thursday | May 9, 2025 at 12:08 am; Philippines Time ). In Christian tradition, birds, particularly doves, have long been associated with the Holy Spirit — gentle, free, and descending from above. The hundred and thirty-three cardinals invoked the intervention of the Holy Spirit during the papal conclave by solemnly singing "Veni Creator Spiritus" before the election. While a seagull is not traditionally symbolic in sacred imagery, its presence at such a profound moment becomes metaphorically rich. The heart-shaped dark plumes of the bird's wings evoked divine love: the love that the Holy Spirit embodies, the love that binds the community of believers, and the love that should...

 On May 7, the great square before the Basilica of Saint Peter lay beneath a somber Roman sky, its ancient stones worn smooth by centuries of pilgrimage and supplication. It's regularly teemed with the faithful and the pilgrims drawn by either custom or curiosity of the soul, or an intentional waiting. All eyes, all longing, all silent invocations turned toward the unremarkable chimney above the Sistine Chapel where the cardinals congregate to discern and elect the next Pope.  Hedged by towering colonnades, the multitude gathered—not merely as spectators, but as souls motivated by history, a force older than time, older even than the stones and carved sculptures upon which they stood. They waited, hushed, the breath of nations stilled beneath the dome of Heaven. The air was taut with expectancy, and yet within it, moved the whisper of prayers, the murmuring of Latin devotions, the shuffling of feet as the weary shifted their weight. Some old women clutched worn rosaries, some ...

 "You speak in many tongues—of doctrine, of crisis, of hope—but my sheep knows my voice. And my voice does not come through ambition, nor fear, nor clever words. You seek a leader. But I ask you: are you seeking God?  You are not alone in this choosing. He teaches you to listen—to the cry of the poor, to the groan of creation, to the longing of a weary Church. You seek a shepherd. Then choose the one whose yoke is mercy, whose eyes are open to the last and the least. Not the loudest voice, but the heart that breaks for what breaks mine. For I did not come to be served, but to serve—and so must he who leads in My name. For, as has been said, light can enter an empty mind quicker than grace can unbend a stubborn will.  Beneath these painted visions of Creation and Judgment, remember: the Kingdom does not come by power, but like a seed buried in the earth. What you decide here will echo far beyond these walls—not in glory, but in whether the world sees in you the love with w...

5 CONCLAVE The hours will be solemn with eternity. The light that poured from the high, narrow windows of the Sistine Chapel lit brightly, but with a kind of sacred fatigue. Marble and fresco, gold and crimson, the faces of prophets and saints carved by genius and sanctified by centuries—all will watch in impassive silence. The air, will likely be heavy with incense, a scent older than kings. A few days ago, the Vatican revealed the installation of the stufa within the Sistine Chapel, that austere chamber in Vatican city, where history so often turns. It is here that the stove, an object at once mundane and sacred, awaits the anonymous hands that will feed it with the ballots containing the votes of the cardinals for a new pontiff. It will soon begin. May 7, 2025. As has been in the past. From the shadows, the cardinals --deemed as authorities between the temporal and the eternal-- will emerge in solemn and orderly file, clad in their crimson elaborate vestments, appearing like shawls ...

4 NOVEMDIALES LUCTUS The Frankincense scent wafting around the altar is both bitter and sweet, dry as the desert wind, yet warm, like the old pages of a Bible.  It ascended, curling slowly through the air with a dignity as ancient as Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God, or the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus often prayed in a grotto in solitude on the southeastern side of this mountain, near Tabgha and Capernaum. The thurible, emitting the incense, had in it the resin of suffering and the echo of sacred things in psalms or canticles. Absent of frivolity in a sacrifice of scent, it carries within it the breath of prophets, the sorrow of mothers, the prayers of forgotten saints. There were theologians who looked at the rising smoke as the material world being spiritualized, the finite matter consumed in flame, exuding fragrant offering to the Infinite. The incense became the outward sign of the “divinization of the universe”—the slow, aching process ...

  3 AD PERPETUAM MEMORIAM “I am not choosing a man. I am interpreting a silence that stretches back two thousand years. The Spirit does not rumble with the soul; it whispers through history. In this man’s face, I must see not only virtue, but vision. Not only gentleness, but the fire of prophets. I have grown old. I no longer walk the marble halls as I once did, nor do I rise in the night as easily to pray. But I remember. Yes, God forgive me, I remember. God help me—God help us all to remember rightly what we are." He came to us not as a prince, but as a question. We expected a lion—he touched a tiger, and carried a lamb. We looked for a scholar in silk; instead, we received a man who smelled of the streets and looked like he had wept into his hands. We asked for someone saintly to favor the hopeless, but we found a man, also in humility, regularly asking the faithful to pray for him. We expected a preacher and found a profound listener.  Jorge Mario Bergoglio.  They sai...