Operation: See the Pope

    Today was Operation: See the Pope. It was a pretty hilarious endeavor . So normally the Pope will have an audience outside, and our teachers gave us directions (pretty much military plans) to stake our a place in line early, and get to the very front so we could have a chance to shake his hand or be kissed! Unfortunately, the night before we found out that it had been moved inside. Which meant he wouldn't drive his Pope mobile through the aisles. That aside, we were still pretty pumped for the Audience  We lined up early in the front of the line, and then the gates opened/ And we might have stampeded toward security with a force so strong it knocked one girl over and we might have just left her on the ground and continued our quest to be the first ones there. Once through security, the Swiss gourds were telling us not to run, so we ran. Giggling the entire way we tried to make our crazed running look like walking and we got to the first section and took up as many seats as we could get.

    As the people filled in, you could see all sorts of different groups and countries holding flags and banners. And we started having a  cheer off. It was such a heart warming thing. Tons of different cultures and languages and groups cheering and singing and chanting. We yelled U S A as loud as we could, people from Africa were doing some dance, these polish people were singing loud and proud in polish. We were all so different, yet we were all there because we were members of the Catholic Church. And it was grand.
    Papa Bene came out and the readings were read and reflections were given in several different languages. It was a long morning and we finally left around 1 and made our way to a great cheap pizza place.  We hit up a couple super cheap and beautiful Catholic trinket stores and stocked up on gifts. Then spent the rest of the day roaming Rome.
  My favorite part of the trip started at 3:30pm. Right at the hour of Divine Mercy, I was blessed to be able to climb the Holy Stairs which Jesus himself climbed the day he died to be sentenced to death in front of Pilate. Each step has it's own prayer and you climb it on your knees. It was a beautiful meditation and I absolutely loved it.
     Afterwards we had Mass at St. John Lateran. After Mass we headed to Santa Croce, which contains a Relic Room with actual parts of the thorns from the crown, a nail from the crucifixion  splinters from the true cross and a replica of the Shroud of Turin.

It was a beautiful, well spent day last in Rome. Off to Assisi in the morning!