A Time to Remember...

Pope John Paul II elevated 44 prelates, including New York's Cardinal Egan, to the College of Cardinals during a sublime week in Rome filled with prayer, song, ceremony and celebration.

It was a historic event: the largest consistory ever, and more than likely the most diverse, with cardinals from around the world. Thousands came to Rome to take part in it, including those who came to honor the three new cardinals with New York ties: Cardinal Egan, Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., of Fordham University, and Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, D.C., who grew up in Manhattan and was ordained for the New York Archdiocese.

The week was filled with color. The consistory took place in St. Peter's Square under golden sunshine and a brilliant blue sky. National groups proudly waved the flags of their homeland. Some New Yorkers wore scarves bearing Cardinal Egan's image. But the brightest color was the scarlet worn by the cardinals--a sign, the pope told them, that they must be willing to shed their blood for Christ and his Church.

His words were a reminder that the appointment to the College of Cardinals is a call to greater sacrifice, deeper spirituality, closer following of Christ, more willing service to his people and his Church.

Each cardinal was assigned a titular church in Rome, symbolically making him a priest of the Diocese of Rome. Cardinal Egan's church is the Basilica of SS. John and Paul, built on the site where its patrons were martyred. Offering Mass there, the cardinal asked the joyful congregation--friends, relatives, colleagues and the faithful, most of them from the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Bridgeport--to look back on the week not simply as a trip to Rome but as a pilgrimage, "a time when we prayed together, laughed together and renewed our commitment to Jesus Christ and his Church."

In that sense, it was a celebration in which everyone--those who were in Rome and those who were at home--can share and rejoice.