THE CANONIZATION

So I'm sure many of you are wondering, how was the canonization? Well, it was an experience of a lifetime.  Never before had 2 popes (St. John Paul II and St, John XXIII) been canonized at the same time and certainly not by 2 Popes  (Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis) concelebrating the mass!

Early in the day I jogged to St. Peter’s to scope out the scene and strategize. There were lots of people in the shops and walking around the square. Some civilian protectors told me they close the square and Via della Concilizatione, the large street leading to St. Peter’s, at 11pm, forcing anyone in the area out until 5:ooam. So we thought to set up camp at the end of the street at 7:30pm so that when they closed the street we would stand out ground and the others would have to walk behind us.

Well, from 7:30pm -10pm we read and talked semi comfortably. At 10:00pm they announced a little girl named Bernadette was missing and a group stood moved forward and we became much more squished. At 12:00pm they surprised us and did open the gate. A mass of people all around us began to push their way down the street.  

This was the beginning of the great discomfort. The crowd progressively pushed forward, realized they had pushed to far and rebounded back, like a spring, squeezing our bodies together so compactly that there were multiple moments where I breathing was difficult. Body to Body, people were fainting in front of us, strecthers were being called over, waters were being passed out. I learned the Italian phrase “no spingere” – don’t push! and hundred of Italians cried and yelled it to the crowd helplessly. 4 of us- Sarah, Delaney, me, and a man we had just met- got separated from the rest of the group and held on to each other by the edges of our backpacks. Letting go meant being lost in the crowd for good.

2:00- 5:00am was the worst. The pushing stopped but now we were standing- no room to sit. I did meet a really nice group of missionaries who were singing praise and worship songs in different languages and our group met a solo JPII fanatic. 5:00- 8:00 the pushing began again and more people were taken on stretchers and we neared the square. At 7:00 am they started street cleaning by the square holding us up another hour- only in Rome would they street clean at ta time like this!

At 8:00am we were close. They told us to enter at the right hand gate. We walked over, hopeful.  They suddenly said the right hand gate was closed. People yelled. We walked back to the front gate and they said it was closed. There was plenty of room in the square. People were lying down. The pushing continued; people thought they could still get in. Now it was 9:45 and the mass started soon and a civilian protector came over and said NO. We could not get in. The pushing subsided a bit.

So at this point Sarah and I realized we were parallel with the colonnade standing inside a white line. We determined that was the line for the square and that we had made it into the square for the canonization of St. John Paul II & St. John XXIII. We couldn’t see anything, but we could hear it and we had the translated booklet to follow along.  And the rest is history. I can’t say I had a very prayerful experience, but I witnessed a great moment in the life of the Church, celebrating two men who brought hope and pastoral love when the Church and the world needed it.

In Pope Francis' homily he preached, "John XXIII and John Paul II were not afraid to look upon the wounds of Jesus, to touch his torn hands and his pierced side. They were not ashamed of the flesh of Christ, they were not scandalized by him, by his cross; they did not despise the flesh of their brother (cf. Is 58:7), because they saw Jesus in every person who suffers and struggles. These were two men of courage, filled with the parrhesia of the Holy Spirit, and they bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness and mercy."