Reflections on the Papal Visit (4)

Continuing our series of reflections on the Papal Visit, Fr Paul Nicholson SJ, Director of Novices in the inter-Provincial Jesuit novitiate in Birmingham, recalls what it was like at Cofton Park, for the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman.

The Jesuit novitiate's response to the papal visit started with eleven novices standing in a rainy field at 1.00am on the Sunday morning.  They were among a group of 850 volunteer stewards for the beatification Mass of Cardinal John Henry Newman, which was to begin at 10.00am.  I meanwhile managed to snatch three hours' sleep between a civic dinner that Birmingham council had laid on for 250 Catholics and others of the city (and at which I was seated next to a Byelo-Russian ecclesiastical dignitary who spoke only Russian and Latin to my monoglot English), and the journey to concelebrate at the same Mass.  Persistent drizzle failed to dampen the spirits of those who waited, but led to the bizarre sight of several hundred vested priests with transparent plastic ponchos over their albs.

By the time the Pope arrived, transferring from helicopter to Pope-mobile, more than 60,000 people had made their way into Cofton Park.  From my seat at one side of it, his entry onto the 'sanctuary', a stage incorporating the latest technology, was initially obscured by a double row of security men and press photographers.  Fortunately they were moved on as the Mass started, and after the Pope had incensed the altar he climbed to his central raised seat, giving a fine view to concelebrants and the crowds, either directly or on the huge screens dotting the park.  The sound system helped his voice to sound louder and firmer than it had on the television broadcasts of the earlier ceremonies I had seen, and he seemed genuinely delighted to be presiding over Newman's beatification.

The beatification itself was a very brief ceremony.  Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham made the formal request, the Pope replied with a short prayer, and Newman moved from 'Venerable' to 'Blessed'.  I was struck more by the fact that during the rest of the Mass he was being invoked under this title for the first time ever.  My memory of the homily is, if I'm honest, somewhat hazy - I look forward to reading the printed version.  The Pope spoke of the fact that this was the day that the country was celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and of what that meant for himself as one who had been coerced by the Nazi regime.  He remembered nearby Coventry, and the large-scale destruction and loss of life that it had endured from German bombers.  And he dealt at greater length with Newman, and his vision of a rounded education that could lead one to God, a system very different from that which aims simply to fit the pupil for the labour market, apparent in many schools in Britain today.

Other snapshots from the Mass for me included the way in which two of Newman's great hymns, Praise to the Holiest in the Height and Firmly I Believe and Truly, lent themselves so well to being sung by a crowd of 60,000, something that would surely have astonished him; and the moments of deep and reverent silence which that same crowd could then move swiftly into.  I think of the struggle that I had to keep up with the concelebrants' parts of the eucharistic prayer, recited rapidly by Pope Benedict in Latin.  The realisation, halfway through the gospel, that the deacon was the same man who had been cured after prayer to Newman (we didn't have the advantage of a TV commentary), also stays with me, as do the bidding prayers, in half-a-dozen languages, symbolising the diversity of peoples who call this country 'home' today.

I felt privileged to be one of the priests invited to distribute the eucharist, and this was another memory of the Mass that I will treasure.  At first I was sent a long way down the central 'aisle' that led from the altar to the furthest point of the crowd.  With a number of priests nearby, we had soon offered communion or a blessing to all those nearby.  But then, bringing the ciborium back to one of the marquees that had been designated as side-chapels, the steward I was assigned to suddenly veered off to a more remote corner where several hundred Vietnamese were gathered, and I was occupied there until the end of Mass.  Meanwhile two of the novices (all of whom are accredited eucharistic ministers) had shown some initiative.  Noticing a priest-free section of the congregation, they had asked for and received a supply of consecrated hosts from one of the chapels, and served the needs of their immediate neighbours there.

Ignatius of Loyola decided to place the Society that he had founded at the service of the Pope because in his view the Pope was in the position in the Church to know where the need worldwide was greatest, and thus to send the Jesuits there.  My experience at the beatification Mass, and throughout the papal visit to Britain, had something of that about it.  The Pope (no doubt with the help of an army of advisors from this country and elsewhere) had been made aware of the needs of Britain, and had come to address them.  He wasn't going to be able to change everything single-handed, or in the course of a single four-day visit.  But he could, and did, challenge, encourage, and point ways forward, to all those who heard him.  It would be for them, for us, to work to bring about the kinds of change that he spoke of.  And if receiving that message involved standing for a few night hours in a rainy field, or sweating in a plastic poncho in place of a chasuble, that was surely a price worth paying.