All Else Confusion

A year ago I was here.

It was crazy. My mother, my sister, and I were to spend a week in Normandy with my grandfather who is a D-Day veteran. We flew into Paris on Wednesday morning, and seeing as how we were already in Europe, decided to take a side trip to Rome. An 18 hour car trip later, at 4 in the morning, we were knocking on the door of a convent just blocks from the Vatican. It was a good thing we got there so early in the morning or we would never have been able to get anywhere near the place.

There was a rumor in Rome that the line to view John Paul II was closed. The day before people had stood in line for 16-20 hours and it was feared that the crowds would be even larger on Thursday. In the afternoon, we set out toward the Vatican, wanting to be part of the crowd, even if we couldn't view the Pope. My mother and my sister had never been to Rome before, and I kept heading them toward the Via della Conciliazione so they could at least get a look at the front of St. Peter's. We kept walking until we hit a mass of people and could go no further. That's when we found that we were in fact in line for the viewing of the Pope. The line wasn't closed after all.

The atmosphere in that line was amazing. Every where there were flags and signs. There were people from all over the world of all ages, a great many of them young. The women behind me were from New York. One lived in Rome and the other had been visiting when John Paul II died. She had extended her flight a week to be in Rome during the funeral. They stood behind me trying to remember how to pray the rosary.

A short 4 1/2 hours later, at almost 9 o'clock at night, we entered St. Peter's Basilica. An aisle had been created down the center, leading to the body of the Pope before the altar. People were being kept moving to the left and right of the altar and back out again. I maneuvered my mother and sister to the right side so that we would exit past the Pieta. Everywhere, people were pausing to sit or kneel, to remain in the moment a little longer.

Outside, we quickly hit the shops to buy prayer cards and rosaries and then made our way back to the convent. We passed through one square that had been closed off and was being used as a sleeping ground. The square and all the streets leading to it were lined with young people in sleeping bags or sitting in groups, praying and singing. I have never seen anything like it, even at World Youth Day.

We had heard that the road into Rome would be closed the next day for the funeral, so we decided that it would be best to get out that night. At midnight, after 20 hours in Rome, we were headed back to Normandy.

As we headed out, we saw the lights of buses and cars still heading into the city.