Just Another Day in Rio

I love when a plan comes together, and yesterday seemed as though it would run very smoothly. We went from Catechesis, taught by Archbishop Chaput to Copacabana where we dug in to wait for the arrival of the pope. A generous handful of people guarded the bags as the rest of us went exploring.  With a handful of the boys, I found lunch, harassed pigeons, and  bought a pair of flip-flops. When we arrived back at the beach, we found that a roadway had been barricaded to prepare for the Pope's arrival. There were two crossroads, we were told-at the far ends of the beach. So we walked a mile or two trying to find one. Eventually, we found a tiny gap in the crushing mass of people pressed against the fence hoping to catch a glimpse of Christ's Vicar. It was wide enough to permit a single file stream of people walking sideways to pass through if the held their breath, and it was guarded by Brazilian soldiers. With no other options, we barreled through it offering token apologies as people shouted and grumbled. 

By the time we arrived back at our meeting place, the crowd had swelled to an astonishing size, and pilgrims had taken post around our settlement to discourage squatters and pilgrims anxious to make our precious little  free space a public walk way. By the time the Pope arrived more than one million people had gathered on the beach. 

The Holy Father is kind, gentle, and limited in the languages he speaks. His remarks were delivered in Portuguese, and though Fr. Christensen had a radio and tried to pass the translation along to us, the wind, rain, a d babble of the crowd diminished my ability to hear much of it. He spoke of revolutions, and our call to enter into the Revolution of Faith.

After the Holy Father left, so did the pilgrims. It takes a lot of busses and trains to transport a million people. We waited for the crowd to diminish, but sadly the regularity of busses diminished as well. A lengthy walk ultimately brought us to a place where we could get a ride home. We were mostly in bed b around 1:00 AM. We decided to arrive slightly later for catechesis this morning. When I woke up, I felt like I'd been hit by a train.

In other news, the originally scheduled location of the vigil and Mass with the Pope have been changed due to flooding. We are going back to Copacabana, but we will not be sleeping there. It is going to be exciting trying to get there, but I won't complain about a warm bed for the night. 

Today we go to the beach for Stations of the Cross. Escaping this evening should be a simpler affair. Anyway, it is time for confessions. Until later...