by Sara Parvis

Somehow, when news broke on Easter Monday morning that Pope Francis had died, nothing could have seemed more fitting. It was sad, but it was perfectly timed on his part. He had, it could then clearly be seen, been the Easter Pope from the beginning, and he remained the Easter Pope to the last. Throughout his pontificate, he kept reminding us even in the midst of sorrow that the victory was won, and we should never forget to rejoice.

There was not a great deal of joy around at the beginning of Lent 2013. It felt like a grim time in the Church. When Pope Benedict announced his resignation on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, two days before Ash Wednesday, there was widespread shock. A lightning bolt struck St Peter’s twice a few hours later. I admired Benedict a great deal for his decision, which was extraordinarily courageous. It showed a deep sense of history and an awe-inspiring trust in God, but it was unnerving, to say the least. We began Lent with no idea where the Church was going next.

Ash Wednesday was Pope Benedict’s last public Mass, and two Wednesdays later, in the second week of Lent, he gave his last public audience and then headed off the next day, 28 February, to Castle Gandolfo. What would happen next was anybody’s guess, but it looked as though it would be chaotic. Scandals swirled, Cardinals argued, and the rights and wrongs of it all were endlessly rehearsed. It was a Lenten experience indeed, and a shaming one. The press of various nations prepared to pick the bones of the Catholic Church clean once it was all over.

Dr Sara Parvis is a senior lecturer in Patristics at the University of Edinburgh.

Photo by Ashwin Vaswan at Unsplash