JAMAICA — Almost 10 years have passed, but Sister Maria Virgen Morena still remembers how her knees shook when she met Pope Francis at JFK Airport.
“I was very, very nervous!” Sister Maria recalled.
The meeting took place when Pope Francis, on his apostolic trip to the United States in September 2015 — a journey that included a visit to New York — came to JFK Airport to board a plane to Philadelphia.
Sister Maria was among a group of cloistered nuns from the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin Matará who met the Holy Father before his departure on Sept. 26, 2015, and presented him with bouquets of white roses.
The sisters shared something in common with the Argentinian pope. Their congregation was founded in San Rafael, Argentina, in 1988. Now, in the wake of his death on April 21, they recalled their airport encounter with him as a big moment in their lives.
“When you meet him, you are meeting the vicar for Christ on earth,” said Mother Maria Del Redentor. “That’s the most touching thing, I think. It’s something you cannot forget.”
The meeting itself was highly unusual. As cloistered nuns, the sisters lived in the Monastery of the Most Precious Blood in Borough Park, spending their days in prayer and contemplation, and rarely venturing beyond the monastery walls.
Bishop Emeritus Nicholas DiMarzio, who led the diocese at the time, invited the sisters to meet Pope Francis at the airport. The congregation jumped at the opportunity.
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Early that Saturday morning, the sisters left the quiet of the monastery for the trip to one of the busiest airports in the world. In the car, “there was joy but also nerves,” Mother Maria remembered.
Sister Maria remembers she had a plan, or so she thought.
“In my head, I knew what I would say to him,” she said. “It did not go like that.”
That’s because when the pope arrived at the airport and the sisters were permitted to approach him, Sister Maria felt her knees quivering. She remembers at that moment that whatever she had planned to say “went out of [her] head.”
The sisters also brought Mate, a popular Argentinian drink, as a gift to Pope Francis. However, they had a change of heart when they arrived and didn’t give it to him, out of fear that the “strong drink” would make him sick on the plane, Mother Maria said.
More than anything, she said she remembers Pope Francis’ manner.
“Humble,” Mother Maria said. “He was a humble person.”
The Holy Father asked the nuns to pray for him, which they promised they would. Standing there looking at him, Mother Maria said she thought of the burden he must have felt as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“The pope is a spiritual leader, so he has to do things in connection with God, with the Holy Spirit,” Mother Maria noted. “To do this, he needs prayers.”
The sisters who went to the airport that day have since moved out of the monastery and are now living in convents all over the world. Mother Maria and Sister Maria reside in Argentina.
A decade has passed since the encounter, but the sisters often think about the day they met the pope.
“I will remember it always,” Sister Maria said.