Pope Francis gripped his hands and asked a Franciscan a favor

Pope Francis held onto Wil Tyrrell's hands and wouldn't let go.

Tyrrell now teaches religion at Academy of the Sacred Heart girls school in New Orleans, but in June 2015, he was the director of the Duchesne Center & Study Abroad Program, and the Catholic chaplain at Manhattanville College, north of New York City, attending a conference in Rome.

And in June 2015, he was looking into the eyes of Pope Francis, their hands locked together.

They were in a grand room in St. Peter's Basilica, a private audience the pontiff held for 25 Buddhists and 25 Catholics at the end of the conference on human liberation and suffering.

When Francis reached Tyrrell in the receiving line, the man from Manhattanville spoke to the pope in his native Spanish. The pontiff clutched Tyrrell’s hands — “he wouldn’t let them go,” Tyrrell recalled — asked him about his home and his work. Before turning to the next person in line, Francis switched to speaking English, leaned in and asked the Franciscan a favor.

“Brother, pray for me,” Pope Francis asked Tyrrell.

A brief chat with Pope Francis 'seemed like an eternity, in a good sense'

“We spoke for maybe 40 seconds, but it seemed like an eternity, in a good sense,” Tyrrell recalled in 2015.

When the leader of the world’s Catholics asked him for his prayers, Tyrrell said his heart dropped.

“What a simple request, but when it comes from your leader, my boss, ultimately, there’s a powerful humility that was transmitted at that moment. That the leader of the church would ask you to keep him in prayer was phenomenal.”

“He’s just like you and I, but he’s completely, 100 percent, present to you at that moment," Tyrrell said. "I’ve never had that kind of enveloping of another person in your midst.”

As someone who has been closer to Francis than most will ever get, Tyrrell remembered the Argentine pope, the first pontiff from the Americas, as “extremely authentic and real.”

Catholics know the Prayer of St. Francis — which begins “make me a channel of your peace” — but Tyrrell in 2015 said he had a prayer for Pope Francis, a prayer he said he offered at least twice a day.

"My prayer is that God keep him healthy and energized in the ministry, because it can really beat you up, like any job,” he said at the time.

Pope Francis 'the ordinary pope'

Tyrrell called Francis "a breath of fresh air" who challenged Catholics to be engaged in the world, to be more compassionate and merciful.

“They talk about Saint Pope John Paul II as ‘the extraordinary pope,’ and he was extraordinary in how he did things," Tyrrell said. "But Francis will be remembered as ‘the ordinary pope.’ With the people, walking in solidarity with them.”

Tyrrell said he has been given a gift.

“How many people get that type of experience?” he said. “That I had that opportunity, it just carries you forward, no matter what’s going on. It just energizes you and propels you forward in the midst of all the negativity in the world."

Peter D. Kramer is a 37-year staffer who writes long-form narratives on a variety of topics. His story looking back on the Oak Street fire in Yonkers won a national Headliner Award for outstanding news specials/feature column. Reach him at pkramer@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Pope Francis gripped his hands, locked eyes with him and asked a favor