Students' Mass with Pope John Paul II, Dec 14, 2004, Claire
From MemoryArchive
Who: Claire Barber What: Students' Mass with Pope John Paul II When: Dec. 14, 2004 Where: St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
In the last month of a semester spent studying in Rome, I learned that Pope John Paul II would be holding a mass specifically for students. It was a sort of blessing for those pursuing scholarship, and I found the idea rather intriguing. At the time, I was living in an apartment with six other American girls, and we were all studying at John Cabot University in Trastevere. I was convinced by two of my roommates that it would be an interesting experience, if nothing else. Although from a Roman Catholic family, I have never been very religious and often feel that this religion has been responsible for more negative than positive historical events. I decided, however, to find a ticket to the event and go. Three days before my 21st birthday, I found myself standing in line with three friends to enter the Basilica. While I had already played the tourist several times, the feeling I had while walking through the doors was quite different. Thousands of chairs had been set up in the main center aisleway of the Basilica, and they were already half full an hour before the mass was scheduled to begin. We found chairs just next to the center aisle and waited patiently, trying to read the hymns and verses covering the pages of the Latin/Italian program. The entire seating section filled within fifteen minutes, and people began standing along the edges. By the time the Pope entered the Basilica, I had no idea how many people were inside, because there was no way to count them. Anywhere that a person could possible sit or stand in that gigantic building was occupied by someone.
I looked forward to seeing the Pope, not with excitement or trepidation, but instead with simple interest. What would a Pope, the living embodiment of God for Catholics, look like in person? Would he have some sort of glimmering aura around him or perhaps just have the "look" of someone important? This question sounds a bit silly now, but the mythology surrounding the Pope and his office has built over centuries, and even a doubter such as myself felt a bit awestruck at the idea of seeing the man in person. As the procession began, everyone stood, craning their necks to see the Pope's chair moving out of his private entrance. As the hundreds of bishops, monseignors, and priests passed me, I was filled with a sense of the ceremonial history of Catholicism. Their beautifully embroidered vestments combined with the gold leaf on the walls to make the building glimmer, almost as I had imagined the Pope would do. I finally saw the platform on which the Pope was seated moving towards us, and I whispered to my roommate, "There he is!"
What I was most surprised by when I saw him two feet away was his resemblance to my grandfather. My mother's father had died two years before, a long-time sufferer of Parkinson's, just like Pope John Paul II. The Pope's hands shook as he made the sign of the cross; he hunched in his chair, tired shoulders no longer able to pull themselves back. He looked almost as far from a god as I could imagine; but, he looked just like my grandfather. Despite his obvious physical limitations, the Pope participated in almost all of the ceremony, and throughout, I couldn't help thinking of my grandfather and what these two men must have felt entrapped in their failing bodies. A member of the United States Navy and the State Department, my grandfather had traveled the world in various capacities working for the government. I honestly can't even tell you what he really did, because he never spoke to me about it. I do know, though, that he was a man who held a fair amount of power, not just in his professional life, but also in his home life. The frustration of losing the ability to move unaided and even speak must have been incredible, and the patience to endure must have been so difficult to find for men who had wielded such power.
As we left the Basilica, my traditionally Catholic roommate asked me what I had thought of the mass, and I told her about my grandfather. We were never close, so I rarely spoke of him to anyone, but that day, I felt closer to both "my" religion and my grandfather than I had in years. Something of the tranquility I had felt in church when I was a child returned to me while I was within Vatican City. I haven't attended mass since then, but I haven't forgotten that feeling. With Pope John Paul's death a few months later, I did not mourn him like most did; I breathed a sigh of relief that he had been liberated from his bodily prison, as my grandfather had been.
