Pope Francis: 80,000 Modestly Dressed Swarm Central Park

pope francis, pope, papacy, seat of peter, Fiducia Supplicans

 

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As I stood waiting for Pope Francis and observing the crowd around me, I could just image the headline: “80,000 Modestly Dressed Swarm Central Park!” But that is exactly the first thought that entered my mind as I waited in line for three hours to see Pope Francis. The crowd’s attire was a stark contrast to the usual dress in New York City where the shorts are a little too short, and the clothing doesn’t always clothe. This atmosphere was a most pleasant surprise.

A Different New York Crowd

I think more people smiled at me that one afternoon than in all of my thirty years in New York City combined. Very few people were staring at their cell phones – most were actually talking – to one another. Despite the twelve block lines and the two hour wait after that, I heard very few complaints and not one single curse word. Now for New York that event has to go into the Guinness Book of Records. Many were wearing crucifixes, which might be the reason I joked, “These waiting lines are psychologically designed to thwart terrorists; only Christians would endure it for three hours. Terrorists would give up after ten minutes.” My assessment got a few laughs. Later in the day, Pope Francis put it a little more elegantly, “Hatred is not capable of dealing with and overcoming any difficulty. Only love can do that.”

Yes, only love for something holy, something good, and true, and beautiful can do that. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear any quarreling among this congregation of what appeared to be people from every continent of the world.

The Crowd of the World Community

Some people in the crowd were draped in their national flags; one was from Mexico. I asked a woman wearing two flags what they were and she told me Uruguay and Argentina. I shared with her that many of my neighbors are from Uruguay. She commented, “Are they nosey?”

“No, no,” I laughed.

All of us were waddling and quacking our way into Central Park like ducklings frantically seeking the mother duck. I recalled the Scripture –

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem… how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?” (Matthew 23:27)

We were running after our Shepherd now. A young woman from Argentina turned to me and said, “I never realized there were so many Catholics in New York.”

Most of the conversations were about people’s churches: “They sing a lot at that church so I take my nieces there.”

“There are so many charisms in that group.”

“There are forty ministries at St. Nick’s,” was a comment from my companion Tess Consuegra. She is my Bible Study group co-leader and her brother, Jeremiah, was with us. They were born in the Philippines. He was immensely grateful I had a spare ticket to share with him.

Now Tess seems to have a skill for finding the best vantage point for Papal visits. She steered us to a spot not far from a group of Sisters of Charity Nuns, underneath a 150 year old oak tree that towered above Columbus Circle. I wondered if this majestic tree had ever witnessed anything like this in its lifetime.

As we continued to wait, I spotted two babies in the crowd and another nun in an all-white habit who looked to be from Southeast Asia.

We waited in the shade and after many false starts of the crowd cheering for an ambulance, a fire truck and a Parks Department golf cart; “It’s the ice cream truck” I joked, greeted by laughs from the crowd.

Pope Francis is Here!

Then finally, the shrieks of the women, the roar of the men, and screams of “Oh my God, there he is!” The Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, was here. My legs trembled and I thought for a second that I couldn’t stand up, but I stamped my feet and changed position so I wouldn’t fall down. There he was. I could make out his radiant white zucchetto hat then his white cassock, and finally his face and hand waving for a few seconds. “Papa, Papa!” we yelled, “Papa Francisco, Papa Francis, Papa Francesco. God bless you, Papa Francisco!”

Then I watched the back of this figure in white gliding up over the hill, at a distance, like an apparition or one of those processions of the statue of the Blessed Mother. He was gone. But the memory is not. It will always remain.

As if in a haze, we all started slowly leaving, when a woman said to me that there had been two pictures on Twitter showing rainbows above as he passed. Where else do you post pictures of miracles?

“A miracle,” I said, and I didn’t doubt it for a minute.

Pope Francis headed down Sixth Avenue to Madison Square Garden where my friend was among the 20,000 waiting. “The happiest day of my life!” she said, “I actually got to see the holiest person in the world.”

She had given her spare ticket to the woman who runs the homeless shelter and the food pantry at our church. Exactly what Francis would have wanted.

 

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2 thoughts on “Pope Francis: 80,000 Modestly Dressed Swarm Central Park”

    1. Yes, the Philippines had a great showing. 90% of the country are Catholic. My 2 companions were from there and told me the same thing; but for security and crowd management they only issued 80,000 tickets in NY. That’s all they could handle for a 13-block stretch of Central Park. Viva Papa Francisco!

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