The history of this city is so closely tied to the papacy and many do not even realize this. Sure, everyone realizes that the churches here are a product of the papacy but there is so much more things besides these magnificent places of worship. First bridge to cross the Tiber since ancient Rome? Commissioned by a pope. Restoration of the aqueduct system? Done by a pope. The Trevi Fountain? Commissioned by a pope. The iconic symbol of Rome, the Mother Wolf with Romulus and Remus? Commissioned by a pope. First public museum? You guessed it!! Done by a pope.
Now starts my story. Students who study abroad in Rome find themselves in St. Peter's Square for a blessing from the Pope. This is always an exciting moment for students and they have their group usually called out during the Pope's Angelus on any given Sunday. They cheer and life is great!! I was expecting this same experience and assuming it was the typically distance from the window like in the picture below:
This was all I expected. The Holy Father speaks to us from the window of his apartment. Many of my friends who came for a J-Term program or for the John Cabot program had this type of papal blessing so this is what I assumed. MAN!! It's amazing how wrong I was about our Wednesday audience. It was pouring rain and as my group went to St. Peter's for the papal audience, it was not to the Square that we were going but to the Paul VI Auditorium. And the Pope was not ant-sized for me. Rather, I was quite close to the Holy Father as you can see below:
Needless to say, I was "a little kid in a candy shop" excited about this opportunity!! I would probably say it was the best Wednesday EVER!!! (Well, soon to be second best Wednesday...) To be in the same room as the Holy Father was a truly blessed experience and one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. It really brought me to see how Benedict XVI is a man just like us and has this gentleness to his aura. Yet, this man is the leader of the universal Church. This man wields the power of the largest congregation of faithful followers in the WORLD. And he is right in front of me. A true blessing!!
That following Friday, we had the opportunity to take the Scavi tour under St. Peter's Basilica. While everything we saw down there was amazingly historical, I had a clear favorite five minutes or so. Our tour guide said, "See that red light in that crevice WAAAY over there? That's the tomb of St. Peter. That's the closest you'll see the tomb." It was a clear twenty or thirty feet away but I was happy to see the tomb of The Rock. Then, a twist in the story!!
The Prince of the Apostles, The Rock upon which Jesus built his Church, the Gatekeeper of Heaven and first Pope of the Holy Catholic Church was moved from his original grave!! Since I could not take pictures in the Scavi itself, I cannot show up all what I saw but you'll have to have faith. The bones of St. Peter were no more than ten feet away from me and completely visible. The man God himself entrusted the Church to was right in front of me. Absolutely incredible!! Why am I so blest with these opportunities?
That following Sunday, after attending a ROCKIN' Mass at Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia just a block away from the Vatican (recommend it for any English speaker for a Sunday Mass in Rome), we went to St. Peter's Square to attend the Pope's public Angelus. Then I had that awkward moment when I realized Franz Biebl's Ave Maria is actually the Angelus put to music... here is the song for those unfamiliar with it:
So I stood there and shared this midday prayer with the Holy Father and about a thousand people or so (in Latin may I add!!). It was the second time I saw the Holy Father in a week, which I thought was pretty awesome!! To give everyone a frame of reference, this was Sunday, February 11th.
Well, the next day I was checking my Yahoo! email when I saw something I could not believe. Then I saw that CNN, Fox News, NY Times, MSNBC, BBC, and every news outlet in the world picked up the same story:
So as the world already knows, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he will be abdicating the Throne of St. Peter at the end of this month. When I first heard the news, I was sad because he has been an excellent Pontiff for this Church. His intellectual teachings have sparked the hearts of so many and have brought many people back to the faith and to discover their vocations. I will miss him a lot but then I realized something... I'm going to be in Rome for the Conclave!!!! I am going to be IN the Square when the new pope is revealed to the WORLD.
In the next two days, we organized to attend the Holy Father's last public Mass for Ash Wednesday (best Wednesday of my life!!). Seeing the Pope on two separate occasions was nothing compared to attending the Most Holy Mass where he is the celebrant. We stood in line for three hours and had amazing seats. Many of my fellow classmates were in the seats right next to the aisle but I was off to the side, though I am 100,000% not complaining!! As countless priests, bishops and cardinals filed in, I was overcome with awe. The Holy Father is such an amazing man and I am so honored to have attended a Mass with him.
As the Mass ended, Cardinal Bertone gave a heart-warming farewell to Benedict before you processed down the center aisle of St. Peter's for the last time as Pope. It was such a bitter-sweet moment to witness and made many cry around me. As the Holy Father exited, he had nothing but a smile on his face. He was so peacefully proceeding out of this Mass and out of Holy Office. He reminded the world in this exact moment what we must do everyday: listen to and accept the will of God.
I leave you with a quote from Mother Theresa of Calcutta that was not written. I learned of it from a sister from the Missionaries of Charity who knew her personally.
"Give to God all that is takes and take from God all that he gives, with a BIG smile."
Thank you Pope Benedict for showing us how to discern the will of God to know what is good, acceptable and perfect.
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