St. Peter's [jenna]

A vast aggregate of humanity thronged the city, more varied than I'd ever seen anywhere: casual Americans like myself, svelte Italians, African nuns in simple white habits, flocks of Asians, Latin-praying French traditionalists, perky Germans, an enormous class of Chilean students in matching suits of dark blue, Hungarians in bright uniforms, the Swiss National Guard in even brighter ones. People speaking languages I couldn't recognize. And as always, the Romanian gypsies with their open containers.

In St. Peter's square, gathered under a sky that threatened rain, people from more countries and cultures than I could count packed themselves into chairs. The young girls in front of me spoke German. One of them had a chunk of her hair dyed pink. She dropped her lipstick, and said "Danke schoen" in a cheery voice when I handed it to her. I just smiled, unsure what the reply would have been in German. Russian or Spanish or French, I could have managed. But not German. The smile seemed to be enough.

Pigeons and gray jays kept a watch on the ground, ready to dive at dropped food. The rain held off. I scribbled in a notebook, whiling away the two-hour wait, pausing occasionally to stare half-seeing at the statues that lined the top of the colonnade, or at the enormous pillars of the basilica. Behind those pillars were doors, and behind the doors was St. Peter's.

I had hardly been able to get enough of the basilica. With my husband and his parents and friends, I'd climbed the five-hundred-and-some steps to the top of the cupola and later toured the excavations below the crypt. We had seen the Vatican museums, which culminate in the Sistine Chapel. We'd been to Mass a few times, where I whispered along with the Latin introit on All Saints' Day and listened in tears when several men sang an Italian hymn—the tune, at least, of which was Nearer, My God, To Thee.

My first entry into that church had been marked with tears. I'd walked through the doors, glanced to my right, and been immediately arrested by the sight of Michelangelo's Pietà. How do you not cry before that beautiful, heartbreaking image? Then I'd gone down the length of the church, stopped under the dome, and read the words written around that massive circle. Tv es Petrvs et svper hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam. Tibi dabo claves regni caelorvm. "...You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." The words blurred over as the end of that splendid verse came to mind: "...and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Those memories kept near me as I sat out in the piazza, under the still-threatening, still-withholding sky. The Swiss Guard walked around, stern and quiet, making sure the crowd stayed within the fenced areas. The Hungarian band played something brassy; a soprano sang something pretty. I didn't understand the words.

When the little white car drove out along the colonnade, several thousand people moved as one to stand on their chairs.

The German girls prattled, excited, peering around. I stepped carefully onto my seat, hoping I wouldn't fall and make dominoes of my row-mates, and turned to follow the car's progress. I am not much of a celebrity watcher—I might read tabloid covers in a checkout line, but mostly out of boredom or admiration for the beautiful faces. This was different.

Cameras were everywhere around me, flashing, probably catching a blurry head of thick brown hair in one corner as Pope Benedict XVI came near. The old man in the white robe stood holding to his safety rail, waving, dark circles under his eyes. The car carried him within a few yards of us and rolled slowly on around the piazza. At last it drove halfway up the terrace and stopped.

Once settled under the canopy, he prayed. He gave a little homily in Italian, and a short version in English—then French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and last, a Polish speaker read out a translated copy. The pope blessed a number of couples who had been married in the last year, and then the audience was over and the crowd began to thin, the jays still hoping for a little free food, the Chilean students standing about in clusters.

Lou and I went down the Borgo Pio—far enough down to escape the overpriced shops at the front—and ordered cappucini. We drank them slowly, talking over the trip and everything we'd loved.

We would leave St. Peter's for good a day later. My final thought, while trying to keep the tears back one last time, would be it helps to know it's there. Art and the sacred, working together. An image of unity amid diversity, greater than any I've ever found. And on the altars, the same beloved sacrifice found in the farthest and the poorest corners of the world—and in my own church, back at home.

And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.