God. Are You here?
I accepted coffee and tried to be just normal Brigid while sitting opposite the Supreme Pontiff. He made small talk, and as he asked about the flight and accommodations, the tingling on my face extended to my folded hands and my crossed ankles, and I felt that special warmth inside my chest. The breeze circled the white furnishings, riffling the skirts on the pontiff’s chair.
Could the pope feel the breeze? I couldn’t tell.
He was saying in Italian, “I wanted to meet you, Brigid, because so many people are drawn to your church. Tell me, please, about what I think you call your ‘communications’ with our heavenly Father.”
When he said “il nostro Padre celeste,” present reality cleaved in the same way it had for me before, during enormous stress and in the presence of God.
I was looking directly at Pope Gregory and also looking down on the two of us from overhead. I saw the particles that I had only felt before. They were like flecks of gold floating away from me, swirling within a vortex around the pope and me like the fallen autumn leaves eddying around the feet of Bishop Reedy’s dappled horses.
God, are You here?
The resonance, almost like a voice, came to me.
Be with Gregory.
I was with the pope, seeing myself through his eyes. I saw my long, curling hair, my hazel eyes, and my mother’s heart-shaped face. I saw the details of my dress: the darts, the tucks, the stitches in the hem, the cutouts in the lace of my scarf.
My view swiped to the left and flowed past the centuries-old gold-framed painting of Jesus’s resurrection on the wall behind the pontiff. And then my view locked in.
I was back in my own body, looking at the pope in minute detail. But the most striking thing was, I saw that Pope Gregory was seeing me. He saw what I looked like, but also, I felt that he was reading my heart.
He asked, “Sei in presenza di Dio in questo momento?” Are you in God’s presence now?
I said, “Yes. I feel Him here.”
“Please describe this feeling.”
I had to tell him. At least, I had to try. I started out haltingly, but as I spoke, the words came out simply and truthfully.
“It is a feeling that I must call exalted, Your Holiness. I feel that God is with me and I am being directed by Him. I remain in place, and, simultaneously, I leave my body and can see things that don’t exist in stationary reality. I have an expanded awareness of myself, and of the moment, and of other people who are with me. Sometimes I am powerfully aware of people who have died, and I feel that they are aware of me-as if they were living.
“Right now, Your Holiness, I have an expanded awareness of you.”
“Do you feel a slight breeze?”
He waggled the fingers of his ring hand beside his face.
I swallowed hard and said, “Yes.”
He placed his hand over his heart. “Do you feel warm inside?”
“Yes, I do.”
The pope nodded and said, “I too. I see a very soft light around you. And I hear an intonation in here.” He touched his temple. “Be with Brigid.”
I gasped. I had never told anyone about the directives: Be with Colin. Be with James. Be with Gilly. I had told no one at all. And now Pope Gregory had said, “Be with Brigid.”
He was also with God, both of us were, together. I felt almost consumed with love for him.
I said, “Be with Gregory.”
His face crumpled with emotion. He crossed himself and kissed the plain cross he wore on a heavy chain around his neck. As I struggled to stay with Gregory, His Holiness said, “Will you pray with me?”
We prayed, the pope in his ornate armchair and flowing vestments, I in the more austere seat and black clothing, across from him. I folded my hands and kept my feet flat on the ground as the pope asked God for peace and unity in the world. A breath of air whispered through my clothes and hair and whirled around my ankles.
We said “amen” in unison, and just then, Gilly ran into the room, her shoes clattering on the polished floor, her face flushed with excitement.
The pope stood and reached out to her, and Gilly went directly to him and threw her arms around his waist. He gave her a hug she would never forget for the rest of her life.
She said, “Thank you for letting me see your wonderful home.”
The pope looked down at her fondly and said, “I love having you and your mother as my guests. God’s blessings on you both.”
Father Raphael took photos, and then the pope kissed the top of Gilly’s head and put his hand on my arm.
“Please keep me in your prayers,” he said. “Go safely with God.”
Chapter 113
THE CHURCH of the Sacred Heart was at the juncture of two narrow, winding cobblestoned streets. The street was choked by protesters and some who supported JMJ.
I was torn. I didn’t want to bring Gilly into this chaos, but, at the same time, it was Maundy Thursday. I felt compelled to go to this church that had received an unspecified but still credible threat.
“Gilly, stay in the car with Alberto, okay?”
“Not okay,” she said. “Mom. I’m coming, too. No one is going to hurt us. I’m sure of it. Besides, the pope has given us his protection.”
“Gilly, stay.”
“No.”
Giuseppe and Alberto, big men with guns, were still with us. They cleared the way as we waded into the constricted, crowd-filled Via di Santa Maria Maggiore. I was recognized immediately. There was just nothing subtle about my tall frame, my flame-red hair, and my mini-me, tripping along beside me. People gathered around us.
I squeezed outstretched hands and said “Buongiorno” and “God bless you” as our bodyguards urged us forward.
We entered the church, an architecturally perfect ninth-century basilica with Byzantine mosaics in the apse and granite columns forming the side aisles. Behind the high altar was a magnificent oil painting of the Crucifixion.
Gilly and I genuflected before the altar, and then Sacred Heart’s priest, Father Vincenzo Mastronicola, introduced himself.
I said, “Father, I only heard about the threat last night. I am so sorry.”
“Thank you for coming here to say Mass. So many people have come to receive Communion from you.”
Within a few minutes, the crowd on the street filled the church out to the walls. After I was introduced, I spoke to the congregation about how much it meant to me to be with them during Easter week.
I had just begun Mass when a cracking boom reverberated throughout the church. People screamed and hit the floor. I ran down to where Gilly sat in a front pew and covered her body as I had done at JMJ Millbrook when Lawrence House had pulled his gun.
As I crouched on the floor, waiting for bullets to puncture flesh and ricochet off stone, I feared for Gilly and for myself. Had we lived the full extent of our lives? Was this the meaning of the visions I had experienced in the presence of the pope and of God? Was I ready to die?
I felt no breeze, no vortex, no shifting of place or time. The creaking of rusted door hinges cut through the moans and frightened sobs. Giuseppe had come through the sacristy doorway into the transept.
He shouted, “Everyone! A bomb exploded on Via San Giovanni Gualberto. This exit is the safest way to leave the church.”
Giuseppe helped Gilly and me up from the floor and out the side door, saying, “A car will pick us up on the next street. We have to get you out of here before all traffic is detained.”
As the big man led us out, people touched me, kissed my scarf. Tears wet their cheeks.