The Wednesday General Audience

As the Bishops met yesterday morning with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and with the Congregation for Catholic Education, another priest and I joined the priests in the Institute for Continuing Education at the Pontifical North American College to attend the Wednesday General Audience with Pope Benedict XVI.

The audience was held in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall and was filled to capacity with a great many young people, families with small children, priests and religious, and adults from various parts of the world.

When the appointed time had come, the Swiss Guard took their places prior to the arrival of the Holy Father:

A few moments later the Holy Father came out to greet the thousands of pilgrims who came to see him and to listen to his words.

As is his low-key and simple style, after an initial wave to the crowd, he simply walked across the stage to take his seat.

Pope Benedict XVI made the sign of the cross and greeted the faithful.  Afterwards, the passage from the Gospel of Luke was read in several languages.  The Holy Father devoted his reflections on the three last words of Jesus found in Luke's Gospel.

He concluded his reflections, saying:

Dear brothers and sisters, the words of Jesus on the Cross in the final moments of His earthly life offer challenging pointers for our prayer, but they also open it to a serene confidence and to a steadfast hope. Jesus, who asks the Father to forgive those who are crucifying Him, invites us to the difficult act of praying even for those who wrong us, who have harmed us, by learning how to forgive always, so that God’s light might illumine their hearts; and He invites us in our prayer to live in the same attitude of mercy and of love that God shows in our regard: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” as we daily say in the “Our Father.” At the same time, Jesus who in the final moment of death entrusts Himself entirely into the hands of God the Father, communicates to us the certainty that, however difficult our trials may be, however difficult our problems, however burdensome our suffering, we shall never fall outside the hands of God, those hands that created us, that sustain us and that accompany us on the path of life, for they are guided by an infinite and faithful love. Thank you.

Afterwards the various groups were introduced to the Holy Father and they cheered as they were introduced to him and some sang a short song for him (of varying quality).  The more enthusiastic a group cheered, the wider was his smile as he waved to them in appreciation.

At the conclusion of the audience, the Holy Father blessed a replica of the Jubilee Doors of the Basilica of Saint Peter that, I believe, are going to be placed in a museum for Blessed Pope John Paul II in Poland.

After he blessed the doors, Pope Benedict XVI waved again to the faithful and departed.

This is the third Wednesday General Audience I have had the privilege of attending (1 with Blessed Pope John Paul II and 2 with the present Holy Father).  Each time my faith is strengthened and my hope renewed.

Additional pictures can be viewed here.

The Secretary and the Bishop

Bishop Paprocki and I waiting to be received by the Holy Father Benedict XVI

With Peter and his successor: A dream fulfilled

Yesterday morning the Bishops and their accompanying priests  concelebrated Mass in the Basilica of Saint Peter at the altar at the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles.  It was a profoundly moving experience and during the Mass I prayed for my friends and family, for the many people who have asked me to remember them in my prayers here in Rome, and for you, the readers of this blog.

After the Mass we returned for breakfast and the Bishops then left for their meeting with the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization.

The priests and seminarians accompanying the Bishops met up with them after their meeting to go with them to the audience with the Successor of Saint Peter, Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the states of their Dioceses and factors common among the concerns of the Bishops (the Bishops of Wisconsin will meet with the Holy Father tomorrow).

We entered the Apostolic Palace through the Cortile San Damaso.  After exiting the elevator we found ourselves in a magnificent hallway leading towards the Pope's library:

We passed through several magnificent rooms, each one more splendid than the previous one and filled with beautiful furniture, paintings, tapestries and even books.  Each room also had a throne for the Holy Father, but each of them were in a somewhat different style.  This one is my favorite:

Before long we were instructed by the Papal Gentlemen to wait in one of the rooms until the Holy Father was ready to receive us.  This room had a red damask covering the walls:

Of particular interest to me was its ceiling:

If I ever get to build a church, I'd like to incorporate colors like this into it.

As we waited, we visited with each other and some decided to take a peek out of the windows:

The window looked out toward the Porta Santa Anna and gave an excellent view of the city.

 

After several minutes passed, we were ushered through two additional rooms where we were given a few brief pointers on how the audience and pictures with the Holy Father would proceed.

Finally, when the Holy Father was ready to receive us, we were brought into the Papal library and were introduced to Pope Benedict XVI.  After greeting the Holy Father, we posed for a picture before he gave us a rosary.

Pope Benedict XVI is a small man and his age is beginning to show.  Still, his smile - which is not always captured on film - is genuine and his interest in those he meets is sincere.

Afterwards, the priests and seminarians were escorted back to the room in which we had been waiting while the Bishops of Illinois met with His Holiness for about one hour (the Bishops of Indiana met with him after the Bishops of Illinois).  When the Bishops emerged from their meeting with the Pope, we returned for lunch.

Photos from the day can be viewed here.  Bishop Paprocki also wrote a few observations from the day.

It was a morning I will not soon forget.  Yesterday a great dream was fulfilled and I am deeply grateful.

Bishop Paprocki speaks about the ad limina

Before leaving for Rome, Bishop Paprocki sat down to answer a few questions about his ad limina visit to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Because the video starts automatically in Blogger, please follow this link to watch the video.

Rome, at last!

Greetings from the Eternal City!

Today Bishop Paprocki and I arrived in Rome after several setbacks and delays.

As we waited yesterday in the terminal at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, we were happy to see that Their Excellencies the Most Reverend Joseph L. Imesch, Bishop Emeritus of Joliet, and the Most Reverend Dale J. Melczak, Bishop of Gary were also on our flight.

Everything seemed in order until it was announced our flight was delayed thirty minutes because of a mechanical difficulty.  After the thirty minutes were up, it was announced that the plane on which we were to fly was unserviceable.  We were placed on a later flight in a different terminal to make our connecting flight to Rome.  However, that second flight was also delayed and we missed the first connecting flight upon landing, and the next flight, as well, because we didn't make it to the check point in time.

This did afford us a visit with a very kind man who has worked at Heathrow for some sixty years and will only retire when his wife tells him he can.  Many years ago he played cricket at the Vatican against a team of priests and monsignors.

As we made our way through the airport we kept asking him which way we needed to go next.  He simply repeated, "Just stick with me and you'll get there."  He took us through several lines that on our own we could not have used.  May the Lord bless us for his kindness!

We did finally manage to board a flight to Rome but as the plane began to taxi down the runway to take off it returned to the gate for another thirty minute delay due to a technical issue.  The issue was resolved and finally we arrived in Rome, somehow only five hours later than originally planned.

Since we missed the initial overview meeting for the ad limina, we were briefed during dinner.

Tomorrow the Bishops of Illinois and Indiana will meet with the Holy Father and yours truly will be introduced to Pope Benedict XVI.