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In The Room

I started to write this a few weeks ago, the evening after I had the amazing privilege to be "in the room" with Pope Leo XIV. This was the first of 2 such happenings in that week, something that many Catholics would love to experience just once in a lifetime, and there I was, the son of an Orangeman.
It wasn't a private audience. I've never been in a larger crowd in a venue that hasn't involved a ball game or a rock band (the Brazilian youth string ensemble playing "The girl from Ipanema" as a warm up act didn't count). But our small group were lined up on the steps at the front of the auditorium to be introduced to him and get our "souvenir photo." 
But before he came to meet us there were two other categories of people. Those placed in a queue to meet him personally in groups no bigger than 4-5. I have no idea of the criteria for being in this first group, although some were clearly dignatories of one kind or another.
The next group was a row of people with a range of disabilities and Pope Leo was led down to greet each of them individually.
We were in the next rank, bunched up in our different groups on the steps with Pope Leo being led along to meet each group in turn.
Then came the crowd of newly-weds come to have their marriages papally blessed, before the Pope exited through the remaining thronging crowd who had left their assigned seats and jostled for position near the central aisle. It reminded me of the stories of Jesus passing through crowds and those who got squeezed out of the front row. But we didn't get to see him leave as we had already been shuffled out of a side exit. It was all a precision operation.
I came back to this today, which is "Transfiguration Sunday" and thinking about Simon Peter, James and John being chosen to be "in the room" or rather, on the mountain, when this amazing event happened. Did it cause a division among the disciples because of pride and jealousy? How did Andrew in particular feel about that? More on that tomorrow perhaps...
But for now, here is the piece that experience prompted in me...

Who should be in the front row,
Seated at the top table?
The movers but not shakers,
The great and the “good?”

Or the least and the lowest,
overlooked and looked down upon?
Those who have come to see
themselves as disposable?

Who should get shuffled to the back?
Along with Bartimaeus, Zaccheus
And countless unnamed women,
Reaching out to grasp a passing hem?

The remarkably unremarkable,
The interlopers and insignificant,
But those for whom the encounter
Would be undoubtedly significant?

Selah

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