Papal Mass

Well, I heard that Father Michael Wurtz wanted to make an appearance on the blog. He will since he is coming to dinner tonight. But I think he figured that might not do it, so he gave us tickets to go to the Papal Mass this morning. It was the conclusion of the African Bishops Synod. I don't know if that was why there was such a long processional or if it is always like that, but WOW!

We got up at 6am and left the house about 7:20. We caught the 115 bus over to St. Peter's and then got in line. I think we were in line about 7:45. You can see that the Piazza in front of St. Peter's was nearly empty. The line to get in started over at the right side of the colonnade and wound all the way around to the other side. We were about in the middle of the line, straight in front of the Basilica. The line finally started moving about 8:20. We went through security and then into the Basilica. Fortunately, we got good seats. We were in the front third of the nave and there were only 2 people sitting between us and the aisle!

Here is a photo I took during Mass. It is hard to see because I had to crop the photo, but right in the center in front of the altar is Pope Benedict XVI. Paul took a photo of him during the processional, but he got bumped by a security guard and the photo blurred. I will let him tell about that.

The Mass was neat. It was in several different languages and the second reading was in English. Since the Mass is the same everywhere, it wasn't too hard to figure out what was happening. Unfortunately, the Homily was in Italian and I didn't understand it. However, I can assure you that the Pope talks longer than both Father Michael and Father Brad!

Paul was able to get a good photo of the recessional. Impressive photo, huh? Paul and Elizabeth were able to stand right on the aisle and were probably only 3-4 feet from Pope Benedict XVI! (John says this is about as close as Notre Dame's offensive line ever gets to the end zone!)

After the Mass, Pope Benedict XVI went out to the steps in front of St. Peter's. There were thousands of people in the piazza who had watched the mass on huge closed-circuit televisions. He spoke to the crowd out there in eight different languages - Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, German, and Polish. Each language brought a cheer from a different part of the crowd. While he was speaking to the crowd, we had to wait inside. We could hear him speaking through the sound system. Afterward, he returned to the Basilica and then we were able to leave. The last photo is of the piazza . Thousands and thousands of people!

Thank you, Father Michael. We had an amazing time and it was definitely something we will never forget. Thanks, John, for agreeing to go! It wasn't so bad, was it?

-Terri