Blessed: The Papal Audience

Blessed: The Papal Audience

Once every semester the John Felice Rome Center cancels Wednesday classes so that students can attend a Papal Audience. Each week that the Pope is in Rome he greets a crowd at the Vatican. The program consists of small readings and teachings from the bible, which are translated to several languages, reciting of the Our Father in Latin, an Apostolic Blessing of the crowd, and blessing of any religious articles–such as rosary beads.

The Papal Audience draws a large crowd, so in order to get the best seats we possibly could my friends and I hopped in a cab at 4:30 a.m. There was already a crowd of other Loyola students standing at the gate when we arrived. With no other Romans or tourists in sight. Considering it was a rainy, cold January morning we could have started our trek hours later and still beat the crowds, but it’s all part of the fun, right?

The first few hours were mostly just miserably cold and uneventful. Closer to 8 a.m. the guards opened gate #1 which caused a mad dash to gate #2 where we had to wait for them to file us through a metal detector. The opening of that gate involved a lot of shoving, then a nearly polite single file line through security and another mad dash to the auditorium. Our group was herded into the 3rd section back from the stage, but my friends and I snagged aisle seats–which are the best seats in the house because the aisle is where Pope Francis makes his entrance.

When most of the crowd was seated, some of the cardinals announced large group in attendance according to their country. When Loyola University Chicago was announced our group probably topped the charts in loudest yells. After some more waiting, a band starting playing and I caught my 1st glimpse of Pope Francis making his way down the aisle. The mood of the auditorium changed from exhausted and aggravated to pure joy as soon as he entered the room. When he began his walk everyone around us pushed up to the walls of the aisle and we were left standing on the chairs. I had the perfect view of his procession to the stage, but was just out of reach and couldn’t touch his hand.

The reading and teaching Pope Francis shared with the audience was from Ephesians chapter 6 and centered on the idea of a father’s role in the family. After the Pope shared the message in Italian, a cardinal would read a translation in his respective language. This was followed by the Our Father, which was sung in Latin and then the blessing. Because we were beyond exhausted at this point my friends and I left before Pope Francis blessed the religious articles.

My experience as a whole was a positive one, but certainly different than I had expected. Pope Francis is quite the guy and attending a Papal Audience is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I am incredibly grateful for.

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