Saturday, April 23, 2011

Day 7 – Day Three of Our Pilgrimage – Papal Audience and Vatican Museum – 20 April 2011

Today is a really big day as we get up early to be with Pope Benedict 16th. Our boys bound out of bed full of anticipation, hope, excitement and love. In less than 60 minutes we got up, changed into our uniforms, had breakfast, cleaned up our tables, and headed out the door to catch the train to St Peter’s Square.

We are quickly learning that the riding on the Italian train system is at times challenging when it is filled with regular commuters. The regular passengers do not have a habit of moving to allow other passengers to get on board the train. We quickly learn how to split up one teams and use multiple doors to get on the train. We have to politely push our way on at times. After a brief 14-minute ride we arrive at the St Peter’s Square station (Roma San Pietro) and promptly exit the train. We are at St. Peter’s Square in 10 minutes and eagerly await our audience with Pope Benedict 16th.

You could hear their excitement as cameras swing into action on our approach to St. Peter’s Square. It was a beautiful sunny day and great Cathedral look so majestic. Some of our Explorers had carried knives in their pockets without realising that it would be a problem at the security checkpoints.

Tommy hid his knife at a local gas station to be picked up later while the others felt nervous about the potential loss of treasured gifts from loved ones. In the end we gathered all the knives (8 in total) and asked one of the brothers to present them to the guards. The brother made a request of the guard that the boys be able to collect them when we left the audience. The guard agreed after he saw us in our uniforms. Thanks to Father Thomas and his team we were able to secure good tickets and we arrived early enough to obtain great seats. From there we awaited for the arrival of Pope Benedict 16th.

The Swiss Guards do not allow themselves to be photographed by the public. However, they make an exception if they are photographed with our boys present in the picture. A plain-clothed dressed commanding officer of the Swiss Guards approached Akela/Grey Wolf and greeted him with the proper scout hand shake. The commanding officer introduced himself as a former member of our international movement the FSE! He was very happy to see us and welcomed us to the Vatican. We prayed the Rosary together for our Holy Father. We hung our FNE and Canadian flags from the crowd control stanchions when we heard that our group may be announced to the Holy Father. 

As we waited for the Pope to spend time with our Brother Nicholas shared some history about St. Peter’s Square. We were stuck by how many people died or were buried in the immediate area because of their faith.

At 10:35 am the organ sounded and we noticed 4 Swiss Guards march out of the main entrance into St Peter’s Square as the roar of the crowd increased. Our Explorers and Timber wolves become more excited as the moment arrived. Suddenly, there was our Pope traversing the square in his open Pope mobile. We all yelled as loud as we could – We love you Papa, Long live Pope Benedict 16th. He drove around once waving and blessing the crowd. Our boys were excited and joyful, especially for the fact that the Pope by our spot twice.

The Pope then when up to his chair and the general audience began. Pope Benedict spoke in such a calm and reassuring voice as he delivered his homily in many different languages. The Father Thomas translated the different prayers and reading for us so that we could follow along through our headsets. In between prayers the Holy Father listened to the announcements of the various groups present in many languages. During the announcement for the English speaking group, “..from Toronto, Canada, the FNE Explorers!”. It is amazing how many languages that were spoken during the general audience, they included: French, English, Italian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Polish, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. 

We exploded with joy, waved our Canadian and FNE flags and rang out together, “We love you Papa!” The Pope formally acknowledged our presence by waving his hand in response to our outburst of joy and love. You could see the joy and love on the faces of our boys. At the end of the general audience, the Holy Father extended his Apostolic blessing to all present, to their families not present with us today, especially for are sick at home.

After the audience ended, we went to another section of the square to have lunch in the shade of some of the columns. As we ate we watch the thousands of people stream out of the square. After lunch we went over to the Vatican Museum. This museum is by far one of the leading if not “the’ leading museum in the world. Father Thomas and the brothers secured us group reservations so that we could avoid the 90-minute line up to enter the museum. We then split into teams of four with Father Thomas or a brother leading each team.

Father Thomas and the brother took us on a great tour of the museum. We studied many of the major pieces of art on subjects such as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Mother Mary with Baby Jesus; we say great carvings, statues and much more. For the most part our boys were attentive, listened carefully and asked many questions. We spent over 3-1/2 hour in the museum in the end we could not do much more. There was too much the take in.

By far the best part of our visit was seeing the Sistine Chapel. It is very beautiful. For most of us this scenes were overwhelming in their message. The messages are so strong, inspiring and real. One could spend days in here review the messages shared by the images. Before we left, we prayed together in thanksgiving for our Pope, our families and movement. One of our boys remarked about the lack of respect from members of the public and the difference between a ‘tourist’ and a ‘pilgrim’.

At the end of a long but exciting day we moved our sore bodies for our train trip back to the seminary for Mass and dinner. Father Thomas celebrated Mass for us in the Legion’s beautiful huge chapel. We sang our hearts out as our voices bounced off the walls of the chapel and gave thanks for yet another incredible and special day. We had dinner before returning to the chapel for evening prayers and a good night’s sleep.

Facebook stored photos: 
Link to Day7 photos

Link to the General Audience with the Pope:
Hear the Pope´s address

Map of our travels:

Link to map of our travels on Wednesday

1 comment:

  1. I love all of the ancient history in Italy!I am just absolutely fascinated by Rome Italy tours. I cannot WAIT to go there one day!

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