Revealing the Face of Jesus

An Essay by Hannah Woldum Ragusa

We had just woken up at my in-laws’ house on New Orleans’ West Bank on the morning of New Year’s Eve, when we learned that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had died in Rome. Although we had known of his deteriorating health and had been praying for him, we were not expecting his death so soon. In the moment, I said a silent prayer for the repose of his soul before jumping out of bed, ready to eat breakfast and pack up our Christmas gifts.

On that last day of the old year, we were exhausted. We had just completed a two-week Christmas road trip to visit family members in Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Louisiana. We were ready to return to our home in Baton Rouge and enjoy the last several days of the Christmas season in peace, drinking cocktails, reading books, and watching holiday movies in our own living room before a roaring fire. On the drive home, however, a thought began to simmer: what if we went to Rome for Pope Benedict’s funeral? I did a quick google search. His funeral was already scheduled for Thursday, January 5th, in St. Peter’s Square. That was the twelfth day of Christmas, I realized—a fitting and symbolic date for the funeral of the emeritus pope who had died in the morning on the last day of the year. 

This suggestion to drop everything and head to Rome was not quite as radical as it might seem. I had already done so once before, in February of 2013, when Pope Benedict announced that he was relinquishing the papacy due to his declining health and old age. At that time, I was living in Berkeley, California, working toward dual M.A. degrees in philosophy and theology, and writing my masters’ thesis on the relationship among beauty, faith, and reason in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger. I had the sense then that I should fly to Rome to be present with the pope during his last days and hours in office. Having immersed myself in his theology for the past two years, it seemed fitting that I should stay with him to the end, so to speak. It would be a pilgrimage undertaken alone, and I would bring with me the prayer intentions of family, friends, and fellow students. I remember praying in the adoration chapel inside St. Peter’s Basilica on Pope Benedict’s last day. At the appointed time, I ran out of the basilica and into the square just in time to watch him fly over in a helicopter, so low that all of us in the piazza could see him through the window, waving to us as he headed toward Castel Gandolfo. 

Now, almost exactly ten years later, I had the same sense that I should go to Rome. It was fitting that I should be personally present for his funeral, praying for him in this very last journey to his eternal home. Now, however, I was married—to Christopher, one of those fellow students I’d met in Berkeley. We had just moved from the Washington, DC area to Baton Rouge for him to begin a job teaching moral theology. Life was no longer as flexible as it had been a decade earlier. We talked about all of these things in the car on the way home, attended a vigil Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and by the time we pulled into our driveway, we had decided to go for it. I purchased plane tickets and made hotel arrangements online that evening, just minutes before the fireworks began to erupt throughout the neighborhood, signaling that the New Year had arrived.

Thus we began the New Year with an unexpected pilgrimage to Rome. We asked relatives, friends, and acquaintances to share their prayer intentions with us, and we were humbled to receive an influx of deeply personal requests even from people we do not know well. We brought all of these with us, praying through our list at a holy site each day.

We landed in Rome in the afternoon of January 4th, just in time to visit St. Peter’s on the last night  Pope Benedict lay in state. The long line to enter the basilica was filled with people like us who had come to pay their respects at the last hour. St. Peter’s Square was beautiful at dusk, with a giant, luminous Christmas tree near the central obelisk and a life-sized nativity scene glowing nearby. 

Inside the basilica, barricades were set up so that visitors could move in one direction only. We were funneled up the center aisle, moving slowly, part of a giant procession making its way toward the baldacchino. When we were still only halfway up the aisle, a choir began to sing; it was the haunting strains of a requiem, part of an evening Mass that was just beginning at the altar of the Chair of St. Peter in the basilica’s apse. As we reached the end of the aisle, we saw the body of Pope Benedict, flanked by Swiss guards, lying in front of the main altar under the baldacchino. On either side, in areas roped off from the public, bishops, cardinals, and dignitaries sat or knelt in keeping with the  solemn, prayerful atmosphere. 

We then joined the Mass that had just begun at 6 p.m. The homily spoke of the life and papacy of Benedict XVI, and the prayers of the faithful all mentioned him. We were grateful for this unexpected gift of attending a pre-funeral Mass for the repose of his soul. 

As we walked from our hotel to the Vatican the next morning, the streets were mostly empty, silent, and drenched in a thick fog. We arrived at the security checkpoint at the Via Ottaviano entrance to St. Peter’s Square an hour and a half before the funeral, but all of the chairs had already been filled by pilgrims who had arrived before sunrise. We found a place to stand to the lefthand side of the basilica near a large screen where we also had a view of the altar that had been set up on the steps of St. Peter’s. 

The hour before the funeral was damp and chilly. The dome of the basilica could not be seen at all through the thick fog. The atmosphere among the thousands who had gathered there was somber and contemplative as we prayed the rosary together, and then the funeral began as Pope Benedict’s wooden casket was carried out onto the steps. 

The funeral itself was beautiful, simple, and solemn. I was especially struck by the readings, perhaps in part because the English translation offered in our booklets was not the one we are accustomed to in the United States. The first reading came from Isaiah 29: “In a short time, a very short time, shall not Lebanon become fertile land and fertile land turn into forest? The deaf, that day, will hear the words of a book and, after shadow and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see.” Psalm 22 was sung: “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” The second reading was taken from the first chapter of the first letter of St. Peter: “You did not see him, yet you love him; and still without seeing him, you are already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described, because you believe; and you are sure of the end to which your faith looks forward, that is, the salvation of your souls.” The Gospel reading from Luke presented the conversation between the two thieves crucified next to Jesus. It ended with the last cry of Jesus: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When Pope Francis gave the homily, reflecting especially on these last words of Jesus, I was surprised by how exhausted he looked. He spoke in a slow, quiet voice. At the end of the funeral, he bent for a moment in prayer and lightly rested his hand on the casket of Pope Benedict. It was a touching gesture, and the thousands in the square broke out in spontaneous applause. 

The end of the funeral was accompanied by a beautiful final commendation and farewell spoken by Pope Francis:

“May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the Apostles and Salus Populi Romani, intercede before the Eternal Father, that he may reveal the face of Jesus his Son to Pope Emeritus Benedict and console the Church on her pilgrimage through history as she awaits the Lord’s return.”

This final commendation, unassuming as it seemed, was brimming with meaning. Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was invoked under two names—one that speaks to her place of honor in the universal church (as Queen of the Apostles) and the other that speaks of her role as the protector of the Roman people (Salus Populi Romani). To this day, the beloved Salus Populi Romani icon hangs in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome; it has been honored by many popes, including St. Gregory the Great during a terrible plague that assaulted the people of Rome in the sixth century. Just as Mary is both the Queen of the Apostles and the beloved mother of the Roman people, Pope Benedict was the pope emeritus of the universal Church and the retired bishop of Rome. I think, in the days and years to come, Benedict’s resignation will be better understood as an act that subtly communicated an important ecclesiological point: the pope is both the one Vicar of Christ and the Bishop of Rome, the supreme pontiff of the universal church and the ‘first among equals,’ as the Orthodox like to say.

Even more poignant was Pope Francis’s prayer that the Father would reveal the face of Jesus his Son to Pope Emeritus Benedict. This comment alluded to a major theme from the first two readings, the desire to see God. This was also a profoundly personal comment, a subtle nod to a deep vein running through the theology of Joseph Ratzinger. Ratzinger described his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, a project undertaken during his papacy, as “an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Ps 27:8).” Indeed, in many of his writings both before and after he became pope, Ratzinger spoke of the many images that reveal to us the face of our Lord. From the study of the planets to the study of cells, the natural sciences show us “vast new images which let us recognize the face of the Creator.” In the Old Testament, God is “the One who cannot be represented, but as such he is still the One who has a face, who can see and be seen.” Man’s search for God’s face is only fulfilled in Christ, for “He himself is for us the face of God.” The beauty visible in the disfigured face of Christ challenges our assumptions but gives us a genuine hope in a world filled with sin and evil: “The one who is Beauty itself let himself be slapped in the face, spat upon, crowned with thorns…in his face, which is so disfigured, there appears genuine, extreme beauty: the beauty of love that goes ‘to the very end’.” The many icons that fill our churches, the transcendent music that lifts our souls, the living witness of the saints—these beauties reveal to us this mysterious face of Christ. Every icon must “bear within itself the dynamic of transcendence, of pointing beyond itself; it must be an invitation that sets us on the way, on the search for the face of the Lord—an invitation that leads us beyond all material things and keeps us continually on the journey following after, which in this life is never completed.” 

The funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was, of course, also the funeral of Joseph Ratzinger the theologian, who has impacted so many of our generation, including myself. We encountered pilgrims from Australia, Spain, France, and Germany, all of whom—like ourselves—had come to the funeral on account of a personal love for this holy man and a profound gratitude for his theological writings. Just as this funeral Mass prayerfully recalled Ratzinger’s exit from this life and his entrance into the riches of eternal life, where he encounters the face of the Lord whom he loved, may the witness of our beloved Pope Benedict and the many writings he has left behind continue to point us beyond the present moment to Jesus Christ, the Logos incarnate and the face of God.

Hannah Woldum Ragusa is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the Catholic University of America. She also teaches philosophy at FranU and LSU in Baton Rouge, LA.