The Year of Faith has ended with a man at the helm of the Catholic Church who is redefining the papacy and bringing it a new authenticity. It has profound consequences for personal belief, too Quietly enough the Year of Faith began. And quietly enough it continued, with the usual parish and diocesan initiatives – the devotions, the pilgrimages, the talks. After six months there was an astonishing series of events when one Pope retired and another was elected – a man who immediately and definitively broke the papal mould. We were not expecting any of this; we are still coming to terms with it all.Once while driving along the Flaggy Shore in West Clare, Seamus Heaney remembered those sudden gusts of wind which come at the car sideways “and catch the heart off guard and bl