He was praying in his chapel, the small private chapel in his apartment in the Vatican, he was kneeling on the purple-carpeted altar steps, the crucified Christ gazing down on him from one painting, the Mother of God looking at him from another, St Peter peering down at him from the clouds. The Pope was praying for Christians and for the enemies of Christendom, he was praying orbi et urbi, he was praying for all the world's priests and all the world's atheists, he prayed to God to enlighten the governments of the world according to His Holy Will, and he prayed to God to vouchsafe His Presence also to the rulers of rebelliously inclined empires, he sought the intercession of the Mother of God for bankers, prisoners, executioners, policemen and soldiers, for atomic physicists and for the sick and maimed of Hiroshima, for workers and for businessmen, for cyclists and for footballers. By virtue of his Holy Office he blessed the nations and the peoples, and the crucified Christ looked down on him in pain, and the Mother of God smiled at him sadly, and St Peter had probably lifted himself off the earth into the clouds, but there was still some doubt as to whether he had reached heaven, because the clouds are only at the very beginning of the way to heaven, floating in the clouds doesn't mean anything, the journey has hardly even begun.
