Of…last week’s General Audience.
This was my second GA, but the first indoors. I really do think I prefer the indoors experience, simply because you can get a better view of the Pope.
I got there super early because I woke up early and really had nothing better to do. So I hopped on the 870 and made my way over, arriving a little before seven. It was still dark.
This is the Church of Spirito Santo, dedicated to the Divine Mercy. (If you click to enlarge, you can clearly see St. Faustina’s image. We went to Mass there last time, and I think Mass was in Polish. Michael can correct me if I’m wrong.)
Someone’s awake:
You’d think that they could make an exception to the “let’s cover scaffolding with advertisement” rule for St. Peter’s Square, but apparently not.
By a little after 7, a small band had already gathered at the barriers. The doors open at 8 (for the 10:30 starting time) If you look to the left of the group, you’ll see a woman in a long white dress (with a jacket). She’s one of the brides who come for a papal nuptial blessing. 
Spaniards in uniforms and huge mantillas came. Someone in the crowd declared them to be Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre, but I don’t know if that is correct. All I know is that I’m glad I didn’t end up sitting behind one of those women.
They were supposed to start letting people in at 8, but it turned out to be more like 8:15. You go through security, and then make a rather mad rush to the Paul VI Hall (or if it is outside, just to a seat), trying to get, not only to the front, but to the side of the place where the Pope will walk. I missed out on that latter part – and observing the way things went, I think, at least in the hall, those seats were reserved, after a fashion, anyway.
It’s okay. I was very close, even though these awful pictures don’t prove it. The extra feature of this audience was the presence of Armenian Catholics. The Pope and the Patriarch exchanged greetings in English, the latter speaking without notes in a very vigorous, energetic tone about the need for the RC and the Armenians to work together to bring the light of Christ into the world. Then – best part – the Armenian clergy stood up and chanted. Marvelous.
The basic structure of a GA is: Pope enters, greetings are exchanged, Scriptures are read in several languages (Italian, Spanish, German, English, French and Polish), then the Pope offers his remarks in Italian. Then greetings are offered to the Pope on behalf of the various national groups present, with specific pilgrimage groups noted, all of which are met with raucous cheers from said group and sometimes a snippet of a piece of music, if the group noted is a choir or band. It takes a while, but is really marvelous. It is a great portrait of the universality of the Church (well, sort of – since it’s pretty Western-oriented at this point), and quite a joyous experience. After each national group is noted, the Pope gives a synopsis of his talk in that particular language.
The Pope, if I may say so, looked mahvelous. Very healthy and energetic, delighted to see the various groups come to the audience.
After the audience proper, there is time for more individual greetings. The sick are brought up for individual blessings:
The wedding couples are blessed, and the Pope receives gifts from various individuals. (She said with clenched teeth – that’s for the few readers that will understand.)
And then back for lunch, I suppose. But, of course, the Square is still busy, as it will be the rest of the day, and the wedding couples take advantage of a pretty good background for pictures.
And what did the Pope actually say? Well, of course, he is still exploring and explaining Paul, and of late has been focused on the issue of justification.
Here’s the text of last week’s remarks.
Here’s the summary of today’s (full text not yet posted)
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