Today my say started with a 7:30 train from Firenze to Roma, my goal: to see Pope Benedict deliver his last Sunday Angelus. I left all my opinions about the Catholic Church behind and headed south to Rome open to whatever the day would bring
What is the Angelus? Well as it has been explained to me by locals the Angelus is celebrated Sundays at noon whenever the Pope is in Rome. The Angelus is a prayer, it recalls the moment when Gabriel tells Mary that she will be giving birth to Jesus, it is followed by three Hail Mary's, a message and blessing from the Pope. It is a tradition that was started by Pope Giovanni XXIII.
I arrived to St. Peter's Square with plenty of time to get a good spot, but the crowds were slowly starting to gather. I heard music and headed to find where it was coming from, and I found myself amongst a group of Mexican priests who wanted to praise the Pope with songs and chants of : "Arriba, Abajo, el Papa es Mexicano!" or "Que viva el Papa!!" between songs like Cielito Lindo, Amigo, and Mexico Lindo y Querido. And what do you know???, I knew the words for all three so there I was singing with them, as more people joined. There was the nun from Brasil who heard the music of Amigo and she joined the group singing it in Portuguese, after all Roberto Carlos made the song famous (I'm not sure if he wrote it).
The were also some ladies from Argentina that joined in and then more people joined in, even the Italians were humming the words and joining in the Ay Ay ... of Cielito Lindo. It was actually pretty cool and made the time go by fast, although we kept recycling the same songs over and over...
The crowd kept growing,people from all over...
Noon strikes and...
Here's a little clip I took, I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed being there...
RSS Feed