Our Francis: The Pope Who Loved Creation and Quoted Tolkien

Waking from the joys of Easter Sunday to the tender grief of Easter Monday, I picked up the nearest little canvas to give myself time to be with the news of the loss of our Pope Francis. Sometimes, my eyes were too full of tears this morning to see quite properly, but as I listened to broadcasts and worked from the beautiful photo I've had in my home for the past decade, somehow, Francis' joy became even more pronounced than in the original. It is like the photograph, but feels somehow like right now to me, eucatstrophic, full of the promise that this best of Holy Fathers in my lifetime is rejoicing today.

The picture is taken with my notoriously fuzzy cellphone, but I hope you can see something in it if you are in mourning today for the Pope who talked like an Ent about the need to protect Creation and who quoted from Tolkien at a glorious Christmas Eve Mass. Francis' encyclical on Climate Change, Laudato Si', may be the most important prompting every to come out of the Vatican, given the industrial ruins of our Earth. The machines that wrecked the countryside of J.R.R. Tolkien's English boyhood have become the inheritance of us all, and Francis' writings invite us to get on the right side of the fellowship and rescue our common home for love of all that is holy in it.

My mother, Caren, tells me that the death of a Pope is often followed by miracles. On the Vatican website, they are calling Francis the Merciful Pope. In a few weeks, my book on the merciful authorship of Tolkien will be coming out. It's a theme of life that resonates so deeply with me, and a miracle I will pray for is a flowering of mercy for all our fellow travelers on the shared Road. Francis taught that we are all in need of mercy. He was here with us through so many hard years. The image of him leaning on the staff of the monstrance in the dark rain in Saint Peter's Square at the beginning of the pandemic is one I will never forget. My mother and I both felt as if the world might have ended, seeing him alone there in the silence.

But the world goes on, and if we no longer have this special man to lean on, may we lean on the teaching he has left us about the beauty of our world and the necessity of holding onto hope so that we can protect it. This is a hard, hard day. We were blessed to have him. May miracles of mercy follow.