The morning was overcast when we awoke. It had rained last night and threatened to continue into today. We got up early, dragged ourselves out of bed and into our uniforms. We ate a great breakfast of chocolate flavoured cereals (at least two kinds were available), soft boiled eggs, cake, nutella and shared a large chocolate to a Kinder surprise toy in it. The sugar fixed provided our boy with the energy they need to wake up. Then we received a minor setback, our bus was late. This made us arrive in St Peter’s Square 45 minutes behind schedule.
Upon our arrival at St. Peter’s Square at 8:20 am we made our way through security and thanks to the advance work of Father Thomas and Brother Nicholas we obtained fantastic seats close to the m ain altar. Our Timber wolves and Explorers quickly settled in to awaiting the start of the Easter Sunday Mass. Some of them took a nap, some read, some prayed and others played with their Rubix cubes. Some of the maintenance staff members were so impressed with their skill with the Rubix cubes that they took photos and videos with the iPhones.
At about 10:20 am with the square filled with approximately 200,000 people a band of police officers march in followed by a troop of Swiss Guards. The Swiss Guard wore their traditional polished silver armour. Some of our boys thought this was “so cool”. Then from our right side the mass procession began with the Pope in his open Pope mobile followed by a cross bearer, altar servers, a deacon and a priest. The procession went up to the main altar with the many thousands calling out, “We love you Papa”.
As if on cue the overcast sky cleared, the Sun came out and a warm breeze floated through the square. The Vatican choir sang like no other. The main altar looked beautiful and surround by gorgeous flowers imported from Holland. Father Thomas again performed a wonderful job of translating the non-English parts of the Mass for us so that we could fully participate. The Mass was especially moving as at least one of our leaders and several of our boys were moved to tears of joy and bliss as they came to realise the grace bestowed by this special Easter Mass.
As the wine and bread were elevated and transformed into the living body and blood of Jesus Christ, we all sunk to our knees in respect and awe. Together we celebrated the great joy of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ – Thank You Lord! Grey Wolf/Akela had a feeling of extra ordinary peace, joy, thanksgiving, and love for our Lord and all those people that he placed in his life.
At Communion time hundreds of priest distributed themselves throughout the crowd with assistance holding a white and yellow umbrella over their heads. Our group has to join a few lines to converge on a priest in order to receive communion. Our group had to approach three separate priests before the whole group received communion. Almost each time we thought a priest would have enough host, they would run out before all our boys could get there. In desperation, Akela/Grey Wolf moved to the side railing we he worked hard to gain the attention of a passing priest. The first priest that passed responded to the desperate pleas for the Lord saying “Sorry, I have no more host”.
Members of the security team noticed our frantic efforts and gained the attention of a priest who came over to provide the Lord to us. Our guess is that our uniforms aided our request. In the end the all of our boys received Jesus on their tongues with the last host to the last boys who was eligible to receive Holy Communion. What a gift to receive Holy Communion at the Easter Sunday Mass celebrated by our Pope – Pope Benedict 16th. On our 2007 pilgrimage we were not as fortunate to be able to receive Holy Communion. We were more fortunate this time. As Mass ended our Holy Father entered St. Peter’s Basilica where he came to the large window to extend Easter greetings to the whole world.
Our Holy Father also extended a plenary indulgence for the remissions of all sins and all punished due to sin to all those who were eligible. To receive this indulgence you would have to attended confession, detached yourself from sin and prayed for the Pope. What an awesome gift! The was truly a Special Easter Sunday!
After Mass we waited for the crowd to thin out before moving our group. After most of the people left (it takes very little time the square to empty, especially with the encouragement of the maintenance staff) we took the opportunity to take a few groups pictures. On our return to the seminary via our coach line our first order of business was for a few our boys to use the washroom. It seems as if at a certain point in time the washroom in St Peter’s Square are closed as a few members of our group found out. Baloo volunteered to take a few boys to the washroom and had to battle through the crown to get out of St. Peter’s Square to us the public washroom just outside the square. However, by far the biggest challenge was getting back in the St. Peter’s Square. Apparently to police are under orders not to let anyone back in for at least 20 minutes after mass ends. Let us just say where there is a will there is a way and nobody got hurt.
We immediately had lunch. This was the first time we say all 350 plus seminarians and priest in the same room apart from at Masses. The lunch was great feast. We had a sliced meat and cheese platter for appetiser, tortellini pasta, chicken and salad. The adults had red wine and the boys were server coke to toast Easter, our pilgrimage and our Holy Father. To top it off we had a dessert which was a carrot cake with a lovely cream dressing on top. Indeed a lovely meal.
By 3 pm we were on the road to the resort on the Mediterranean Sea. Most of us took the opportunity to take a nap on the way to the resort. What a wonderful nap it was. The resort is owned and operated by Father Thomas’ brother Kevin Murphy and his wife. Our boys had an awesome time on the beach. This time around many more boys went into the water; some made great sandcastles and enjoyed themselves in other ways. After a fun few hours on the beach we returned to the resort to enjoy great meal of pasta, chicken and salad, and deserts. Again, we had to remind our boys that they were in Italy and pasta is served as the appetiser. We had an awesome time.
On the way back to the seminar, we encourage Brother Nicholas to share his talk with the Timber wolves with everyone else. Akela/Grey Wolf had heard from the Timber wolves how much the appreciated his talk. We were really impressed by what we heard. We got back to the seminary for a shower,
Map of trip Easter Sunday Mass with the Pope:and changed into their PJs for another dynamic evening. We gathered into a large classroom for a group discussion, and question and answer period led by Brother Nicholas. During this session, Brother Nicholas discussed various facet of our Catholic faith. Brother Nicholas fielded a very wide range of deep and well thought out questions that enlightened, entertained and informed all involved. These questions included:
- What should you do if you don not know your vocation?
- What motivates Father Thomas to pray and be charitable?
- If someone does not believe can they be saved?
- Why should someone who does not become a priest not get married? Why just be single?
- Is it a sin to abandon ones vocation?
- Why are saints called saints?
- If you are called to become a priest and you decide to get married is this a sin?
- What do we do if we do not know what God’s will if for us?
- Why would God call someone to remain single?
- If Jesus was drowning and your father was drowning, who would you save?
- I know that God created me and he wants us to be generous, but I love my family more than anything is that bad?
- Brother Nicholas, how old were you when you decided to become a priest?
We had a set time for a future a follow-up session as many of our Explorers and Timber wolves did not have their questions answered. Our boys then moved to the main theatre for Brother Nathan’s magic show! Prior to becoming a seminarian, Brother Nathan was a professional magician and he entertained our boys to a number of card, money and rope tricks. His performance awed both youth and adults alike. We finished the evening by examining our conscience to see where we fell down and how we could do better in the future. We sent the boys to bed shortly afterwards as we need to be at St. Peter Basilica early for Mass in toms of the Popes.
Map of trip to Hotel Le Najadi, Santa Marinella, Italy
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