The Papal Audience...

On Wednesday, October 6th, my day started very early!  I woke up at 6:00 AM and tried my best not to wake Cuyler up while I was getting ready.  I steamed my blue shirt and black pinstripe pants the night before.  By 6:50 AM, I was all dressed, hand my religious items in a bag and was ready to go!  I met Casey and Bliss at the tram stop at 7:00 AM and we all decided that it was way too early to be up!  We took the tram line #8 to the end on the line through our neighborhood and met Laura at the bus stop.  All four of us took the #40 Bus to Piazza del San Pietro and walked up to St. Peter's Square.  The square didn't open until 8:15 AM, so we had a little time to kill.  We waited in line and talked for a little bit.  Soon, the line to get into the square was HUGE and we were happy we had gotten there early.  All of us were dressed up expecting to be going into the Basilica to meet the Pope.  We were all excited.  When the Polizia Vaticane opened up the gates at 8:15 AM, all hell broke loose!  People started pushing to get through the security point and get in line in the square.  Laura and CAsey got through just fine.  I got shoved by two little old ladies in a tour group, and Bliss got sucked in and almost pushed out of line.  There were people running through St. Peter's Square and the Swiss Guard was telling them all to be respectful and slow down.  As we got closer to the Basilica, we noticed that we had different tickets than some people.  The people with red tickets get to walk toward the Basilica and the people with blue ones (the ones we had) got diverted towards the center of the square.  As we walked in the proper direction, we saw this big sea of chairs.  Quickly, we realized that we weren't going to be going inside the Basilica in a little group like we thought, we were just going to be sitting in St. Peter's Square and seeing the Pope from afar.  Luckily, since we were in the front of the line, we got pretty good seats.  We were up near the front and had good views of the Papal chair.

The Pope was going to make his appearance at 10:30 AM, so the girls went out into the city to get us some breakfast.  While they were gone, I met this American couple from Chicago whose son was studying in Rome through Loyola University.  They were asking me about St. Norbert, and wished me well the rest of the semester.  The girls finally came back with breakfast around 9:45 AM and we ate sugar donuts quickly before the Pope arrived!  They were so good!!!  We also looked around right before the audience started, and the square was PACKED!

Around 10:30 AM, the Swiss Guard marched to the front near the canopy and Papal chair and then the crowd fell silent.  All of the sudden, we heard cheering from the left side of St. Peter's Square and there he was!  Pope Benedict XVI was riding around the square in the Pope Mobile!  He had a little red hat on that looked like a small version of a sombrero.  Seeing the Pope Mobile go through the square was awesome!  He drove up and down the aisles waving to all of the faithful people who came to see him in the Square.  It was so neat to be so close to the Pope!  Definitely a once in a lifetime experience!

When he was done making his way through the crowd, the Pope Mobile drove right up the steps of the Basilica and dropped the Pope off at his little canopy.  Different priest stepped up to the microphone and introduced large groups of pilgrims from different language groups and then gave our well wishes and blessings to the Pope and the Catholic Church in that group's language.  In turn, the Pope read a speech to each different language group and blessed our families, friends, and any religious items we had with us in the Square.  We tried to count the different languages, and we could distinguish Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, and Portuguese.  It took so long to do the same speech and the audience lasted for about an hour and a half.  The audience ended with the Pope leading everyone in the Square by singing the Our Father in Latin.  It was very hard to read, and I don't think I could ever read it!

All in all, it was an awesome experience!  I was so happy that we got to do it and be part of a Papal Audience!  Although it turned out differently than any of us expected, and I guess I really didn't have to dress up that much for the audience, I was still thrilled to dress up and see the Holy Father.  What a great time!