The Barque of Peter:  Wednesday morning about 10:30, the popemobile entered St. Peter’s Square. It wove back and forth along the narrow lanes kept clear so that the Holy Father could greet as many as possible. From where I sat in front of the Basilica’s façade, it looked like a little white boat, the Pope its captain standing at the wheel, the popemobile sailing through a sea of cheering, waving, clapping, loving pilgrims.

Yes, a boat: long ago, the writers of the Gospels compared the Church to a boat (Mt 8, Mk 4, Lk 8), and the image served for looking back on an eight-year pontificate: “I felt like St. Peter with the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee: the Lord granted us so many days with sunshine and a light breeze, days on which the catch was abundant.

There were also moments of turbulent waters and contrary winds, as has also happened throughout the history of the Church: the Lord seemed to be asleep. But I always knew the Lord was there in the boat, and I always knew the Barque of the Church was not mine, nor ours, but His. And the Lord does not allow it to sink. He is really at the tiller via the ones he has chosen, because thus has been His will.” So I witness the one most recently chosen by the Lord, stepping down in favour of his successor at the helm of the Barque.

Private Life: As a fellow-introvert, I was fascinated to hear him reflect on becoming Pope. The private dimension vanishes from one’s life, and instead one belongs always and totally to all, to the whole Church. “I have experienced it,” he testified, “and I am experiencing it right now: one receives life precisely when one gives it” – a clear echo of whoever loses his life, will find it (Mt 16, Mk 8, Lk 9). At the Audience, I could practically see the truth of Jesus’ saying with my own eyes and heart. For in stepping down, the interrupted career of the former Cardinal Ratzinger will not be taken up again with its meetings, receptions, conferences, etc.

Later, at a press briefing, Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. identified a climate of “profound emotion and serenity” and then added: “The Vatican television feed showed a face of the Pope that was very beautiful and extremely serene, with a radiant smile." Why such radiance and serenity?

Ora et Labora: The Pope turns to his namesake to explain the new phase his mission. St. Benedict’s basic rule is ora et labora – pray and then work. This shows us “the way to a life which, active or passive, belongs wholly to the work of God”. The work of God which, as professor, archbishop, prefect, pope, he had always tried to do, he would from now on do in prayer and reflection.

St. Ignatius, much inspired by St. Benedict, combined the two elements a bit differently as “contemplation in action”. So in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, he describes the first quality of a Jesuit Father General: “He should be closely united with God our Lord and have familiarity with him in prayer” (§ 723).

And this, as Pope emeritus, is exactly what the Holy Father is embracing as his mission in continuity with, but beyond, being Pope. One of the countless banners flapping above the crowd like sails in the wind seemed to understand. “Benedict,” It implored, “hide us with you in Christ.”

Compound:  The Holy Father also spoke of that place where he was going to pray and reflect. “In the service of prayer I will stay, so to speak, in the recinto of St. Peter." Recinto means "enclosure" or "surrounding wall", and the Vatican-watchers don’t seem to catch its significance.

But in Africa where I spent eight years, the whole family normally lives in a recinto or compound. Here distinctions between my father or uncles, my elder sister or aunt or mother, my brother or cousin, tend to fade and blend together. The very eldest, the great grandfather, will of course live in the compound in communion with the Ancestors who have gone ahead and the Progeny who are still to be born as well as with those who are busy living here and now. He is there to be and to pray.

Now maybe without knowing that a recinto is a compound, the Pope “really has brothers and sisters, sons and daughters all over the world, and he feels secure in the embrace of their communion, because he belongs no longer to himself but rather to everyone, and they all belong to him.” This is indeed the Church as Family of God, the Mystical Body of Christ.

Good-Bye:  After greeting the crowd in eleven different languages, the Holy Father led us 200,000+ in singing the Pater noster. He blessed us. We said “Good-bye” which means “God be with you.” He sailed away.

And now that night has fallen on the 28th of February 2013, I look across the Jesuit Curia rooftop terrace towards the Apostolic Palace. The two windows of the Holy Father’s apartment – which since April 2005 have always been brightly lit except when he was away on a trip or at his summer residence – are dark and still, awaiting the 266th Successor of St. Peter.