It was September 2015, and I was in the midst of my Regency, the middle stage of Jesuit formation.  My provincial sent me to St. Joe’s Prep, the Jesuit high school in Philadelphia, where I spent two wonderful years working as a teacher and campus minister.  This particular September day was different, though, because the pope himself was in Philadelphia and we at “the Prep” were hosting “2Philly4Francis,” an intentional, spiritual journey (not a vacation!) to coincide with Pope Francis’ visit to my hometown.  I worked for months with a team of students and adult volunteers to prepare to welcome more than 400 teenage pilgrims from 43 Jesuit high schools for a 5-day, 4-night event filled with talks, breakout sessions, prayer, and, we hoped, more than a few sightings of His Holiness.  
 
I’d had plenty of experience in high school ministry, but I was still nervous; I couldn’t sleep in the days and weeks leading up to the event. Some of these pilgrims were literally traveling across a continent for this.  I wondered, is this really what God is asking of us?  What if we’ve made a mistake here?  How will this event help these teenagers respond to the pope’s call for encuentro – an encounter with the Other?
 
After all, it’s my experience that teenagers love walls. We all do. Safe and protective, walls help to keep things just comfortable enough that we don’t have to become vulnerable or change too much. Walls allow us to keep true encounters to simple surface-level interactions, they make it possible for us not to interact with each other at all, if we so choose.
 
True discernment, however, requires a level of vulnerability before God.  To really discern God’s will, we must work to lower our carefully-constructed walls and allow the God of all Love to gaze upon our deepest and truest selves, because it is to the depths of our hearts that God speaks, and it is there that God’s voice can be heard most clearly.
 
Back on the sidewalk, we watched as Pope Francis did a double-take in the popemobile, turn in our direction, and flash that wonderful smile of his. He heard us. Reaching out, he offered our group a blessing.  As the group cheered (and I cried) I realized that my own walls were lowered, too, and I had encountered God myself that afternoon, and heard him whisper in my own heart: It is good that we are here.