I arrived at the Vatican before it opened.
The line for Saint Peter’s already wrapped around the square, so I skipped it and went straight for the Vatican Museum.
Somewhere between the marble statues and ceiling frescoes, I stopped looking carefully. I found myself reading room numbers instead of paintings, wondering how much farther it was to the Sistine Chapel.
When I finally reached it, guards shouted over their whistles. Tourists ignored the signs forbidding photographs, filling the room with pulsing flashes. The crowd surged shoulder to shoulder.
I found a corner, pressed the audio guide to my ear, and tried to simply exist.
Some time later, I was sitting on a bus with my head against the glass.
The bus lurched and jolted me awake.
Daylight filled the window. On my lap was a copy of my itinerary.
Another museum.
I groaned.
“Just stay for an hour,” I told myself.
Then something outside caught my eye.
A church draped in red and gold banners. Thousands of people covered the lawn. Priests, monks, and nuns stood in clusters, their habits a mix of colors.
The Pope.
It had to be.
~
I remembered the fireworks twelve months earlier.
I was in Nicaragua.
They’d lurched me awake.
Then church bells. All of them, each with their own timber and rhythms—all different except for their urgency.
It sounded like the entire city.
I sat up and looked around.
The Granada sky was dark through my dorm window. No one else in my crowded room had awoken with me.
The hostel’s security guard caught my attention as I stumbled for my shoes.
“What’s going on? I mean … ¿Que Pasando?”
He replied in English.
“It’s nothing. Go back to bed.”
I did like he beckoned. Soon enough, the noise subsided, and I fell asleep to the sound of the bugs filling the still night air.
At daybreak, the beat of a marching band awoke me once more.
This time, I ran outside to see for myself the cause of the commotion and saw the tail end of a marching band as they turn the corner at the far end of the street.
I grabbed my shoes and ran after it. The band stopped at the city’s Central Park.
The day before, I’d seen workers pulling up the paving stones from the walkways of the park’s main square and erecting large timber posts in their place.
Now I could see those posts formed the structural backbone of an enormous wooden stage completed sometime during the night. Flowers and crucifixes covered it, and a choir and a small worship band played on the stage.
Below them, thousands of people gathered in the park to sing hymns, pray, and rejoice.
I ran into the park, approached the first spectator I saw.
“¿Por que es este fiesta?” (For what is this party?)
His eyes lit.
“¡El Papa fue aqui!” (The Pope came here!)
“When? Where? I mean. … ¿Donde? Uh … ¿Cuando?”
I looked around but saw nothing.
The man replied at last.
“A las tres en la mañana.” (At three this morning.)
He’d grabbed my shoulders and shook me in his excitement.
~
Back in Rome, I folded my itinerary and waited for the bus to stop.
When it did, I jumped off.
For the next hour, I wandered through the square, found a patch of shade, and eventually settled where I thought I’d have the best view.
Near sundown, a priest walked through the crowd handing out thick booklets.
I asked if he had one in English.
He smiled.
“Of course.”
When the service began, everyone around me seemed to know exactly what came next.
They stood.
Knelt.
Sang.
Answered.
I kept one finger tucked into the booklet, turning pages to keep up.
The translations matched perfectly.
Every prayer.
Every response.
Every hymn.
Pope Benedict spent most of the service sitting motionless with his eyes closed. From where I stood, he looked almost asleep.
Then he rose to speak.
His voice carried across the square with surprising force. Everyone around me listened without looking down.
I looked back at the booklet.
When the final blessing ended, the crowd began to move.
Priests lifted banners. Incense drifted into the evening air. People fell in behind the procession as it disappeared into the streets of Rome.
I watched until the last of them had passed.
Then I folded the booklet, slipped it into my backpack, and walked back toward my hotel.