Arrupeans Met Pope Francis

Of the 40 or so (41 to be exact) “elephants” who had a private audience with brother Jesuit Pope Francis, 3 represented AIR: Fr. Rector, Rev. Joseph Cu, and Bro. Ajith. The two representatives were drawn from the list of AIR members by Fr. Tony Moreno, Provincial of the PH Province. At the audience, Pope Francis spoke highly of Fr. Arrupe at least three times, especially in the context of the pioneering refugee work that the Society has undertaken, and the promotion of faith and justice, in general. His Holiness spoke to us like his younger brothers, inspiring us to go to the “peripheries” (frontiers) and never to forget to pray. When asked about promoting vocations today, he said we should allow for imperfections in people and leave room for “purification” along the journey of formation. Of course, we could not forget his response when his attention was called to the fact that whereas in Sri Lanka 40 elephants welcomed him, here, 40 Jesuits are, to which he blurted out, “Oh, 40 illnesses!” You can imagine the laughter that followed. I think most of us expected that he would only spend some few minutes with us as he was just coming from a prolonged meeting with families in the Mall of Asia; but there was no hint of rushing on his part. In fact, our conversation lasted a good 50-55 minutes. Before coming over to the venue, we were asked to observe some protocols – like no taking pictures (as a Vatican official was tasked to do so); but when he came, His Holiness was so accommodating as to even hug at least one of us, sign autographs, bless rosaries, etc. We could feel he was so interested and happy to have met us. Our meeting was capped with us singing “In omnibus amare” at the suggestion of Fr. Joe Q earlier. And the Holy Father felt so touched and I guess so one with His companions and friends in the Lord.