Festival atmosphere prevails while faithful wait patiently to see pope
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
NEW YORK – Evelyn C. Murphy was on her way to her Bradley Beach home from work in Princeton April 9 when she switched on the car radio and heard there were 5,000 first-come, first-served “street” tickets available for Pope Benedict’s early morning arrival at St. Patrick’s Cathedral April 19.
During the hour-long commute, Murphy prayed there would still be tickets by the time she reached her home computer. She needed two – one for herself and one for her mom, Alice Carroll.
“I went on line as soon as I walked in the door,” said Murphy. “I got a confirmation right away but it didn’t say for how many tickets.”
Murphy, an assistant vice president of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, got her answer April 14 when she returned home from work, checked her mail box and found two tickets for the street line.
“I was thrilled,” she said. “Thrilled that she and I could both go.” The women knew they’d have to leave the Jersey Shore resort town no later than 5 a.m. to make the 7 a.m. deadline set by the New York Archdiocese to get into the viewing area, so Carroll drove down to Bradley Beach from her Syracuse, N.Y. home the day before.
Mother and daughter set off before dawn and by 7 a.m. found themselves wedged along with 5,000 other folks into the cordoned off approach to the cathedral. There, they would stand for two hours to see the pope arrive. They would remain throughout Mass, watching on the jumbotrons and remain in the area while he had lunch.
They’d be there at 1:15 p.m. when he departed down Fifth Ave. in the popemobile. “It was a wonderful experience,” said Murphy a member of Ascension Parish. “We were able to see the entire Mass and hear it watching the jumbotron. We were as close to the cathedral as you could get and we could see everything.”
“When the Pope finished Mass, one of the police officers announced that he was lunching with (Cardinal) Egan. The officer told us that we could go and take a break ourselves and then get back into position.
“We did that and when we came back, we had our same spots on the corner and we were able to see the popemobile go by really, really close,” Murphy said. “We saw him very clearly!” Like so many people along Fifth Avenue throughout the morning and afternoon of April 19, Murphy and her mother savored the atmosphere of hope that ran like a ribbon throughout the Pope’s visit.
“One of the most striking things was the number of seminarians in the group,” she said. “It was so refreshing!
We are always worried about vocations and the shortage of priests. And we were also very close to a number of young women from Ave Maria University,” Murphy said.
“They were right on the street and they turned football cheers into chants – ‘We love, we love Benedict XVI’ and they were engaging the crowd turning it into a huge chant. It was just wonderful… my mother was ecstatic about the young people.
“The other thing that was really moving was sharing the sign of peace during the Mass with hundreds of perfect strangers,” said Murphy. “There we all were together. We enjoyed it. It was perfect. When the motorcade began, the outpouring of love that the crowd gave and the way the pope smiled back, beaming at everyone, it was thrilling.”
By the time the one-mile-long motorcade got underway from the Cathedral at 50th Street to the residence of the Vatican’s observer to the United Nations where the pope was staying, crowds along Fifth Ave. were 15 deep in many places.
Praise music with a Latin beat pulsed along the cobblestone sidewalk that skirts Central Park courtesy of the many groups of the Neocatechumenal Way. Pilgrims were besieged in a gentle way by vendors offering all type of papal memorabilia.
Buttons, banners, paintings and T-shirts were among the goods on sale and they were going like proverbial hotcakes.
On the corner of 63rd and Sixth, the celestial sounds of Bach and Mozart in four-part harmony wafted into the air without ceasing.
Clare Sully of Princeton and company were planted there to stay until the popemobile whizzed by. For hours, the quartet – Christian Burset of Barnardsville, an ’07 Princeton grad, Amanda Brown, ’06 and Colin O’Brien of the Queens, raised their voices in soothing hymns of praise.
“We got here at 8:45 a.m.,” said O’Brien at just about 1:15 p.m. They had come to sing Pope Benedict down the street. “We had a good spot in the sun here so this is where we stayed. “We hang out together and we sing,” said Sully. “We wanted to sing for the pope. I was just received into the Church so, he’s my first pope. I have a huge amount of respect for him. A huge amount of love.”
In the blink of an eye, Benedict swept by in his popemobile, turning toward the four singers who stopped long enough to see him pass by. They cheered and some bystanders around them burst into tears at the fleeting vision and then, he was gone.
It had been a very good spot in the sun.
Lois Rogers is available at lroger@ dioceseoftrenton.org
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NEW YORK – Evelyn C. Murphy was on her way to her Bradley Beach home from work in Princeton April 9 when she switched on the car radio and heard there were 5,000 first-come, first-served “street” tickets available for Pope Benedict’s early morning arrival at St. Patrick’s Cathedral April 19.
During the hour-long commute, Murphy prayed there would still be tickets by the time she reached her home computer. She needed two – one for herself and one for her mom, Alice Carroll.
“I went on line as soon as I walked in the door,” said Murphy. “I got a confirmation right away but it didn’t say for how many tickets.”
Murphy, an assistant vice president of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, got her answer April 14 when she returned home from work, checked her mail box and found two tickets for the street line.
“I was thrilled,” she said. “Thrilled that she and I could both go.” The women knew they’d have to leave the Jersey Shore resort town no later than 5 a.m. to make the 7 a.m. deadline set by the New York Archdiocese to get into the viewing area, so Carroll drove down to Bradley Beach from her Syracuse, N.Y. home the day before.
Mother and daughter set off before dawn and by 7 a.m. found themselves wedged along with 5,000 other folks into the cordoned off approach to the cathedral. There, they would stand for two hours to see the pope arrive. They would remain throughout Mass, watching on the jumbotrons and remain in the area while he had lunch.
They’d be there at 1:15 p.m. when he departed down Fifth Ave. in the popemobile. “It was a wonderful experience,” said Murphy a member of Ascension Parish. “We were able to see the entire Mass and hear it watching the jumbotron. We were as close to the cathedral as you could get and we could see everything.”
“When the Pope finished Mass, one of the police officers announced that he was lunching with (Cardinal) Egan. The officer told us that we could go and take a break ourselves and then get back into position.
“We did that and when we came back, we had our same spots on the corner and we were able to see the popemobile go by really, really close,” Murphy said. “We saw him very clearly!” Like so many people along Fifth Avenue throughout the morning and afternoon of April 19, Murphy and her mother savored the atmosphere of hope that ran like a ribbon throughout the Pope’s visit.
“One of the most striking things was the number of seminarians in the group,” she said. “It was so refreshing!
We are always worried about vocations and the shortage of priests. And we were also very close to a number of young women from Ave Maria University,” Murphy said.
“They were right on the street and they turned football cheers into chants – ‘We love, we love Benedict XVI’ and they were engaging the crowd turning it into a huge chant. It was just wonderful… my mother was ecstatic about the young people.
“The other thing that was really moving was sharing the sign of peace during the Mass with hundreds of perfect strangers,” said Murphy. “There we all were together. We enjoyed it. It was perfect. When the motorcade began, the outpouring of love that the crowd gave and the way the pope smiled back, beaming at everyone, it was thrilling.”
By the time the one-mile-long motorcade got underway from the Cathedral at 50th Street to the residence of the Vatican’s observer to the United Nations where the pope was staying, crowds along Fifth Ave. were 15 deep in many places.
Praise music with a Latin beat pulsed along the cobblestone sidewalk that skirts Central Park courtesy of the many groups of the Neocatechumenal Way. Pilgrims were besieged in a gentle way by vendors offering all type of papal memorabilia.
Buttons, banners, paintings and T-shirts were among the goods on sale and they were going like proverbial hotcakes.
On the corner of 63rd and Sixth, the celestial sounds of Bach and Mozart in four-part harmony wafted into the air without ceasing.
Clare Sully of Princeton and company were planted there to stay until the popemobile whizzed by. For hours, the quartet – Christian Burset of Barnardsville, an ’07 Princeton grad, Amanda Brown, ’06 and Colin O’Brien of the Queens, raised their voices in soothing hymns of praise.
“We got here at 8:45 a.m.,” said O’Brien at just about 1:15 p.m. They had come to sing Pope Benedict down the street. “We had a good spot in the sun here so this is where we stayed. “We hang out together and we sing,” said Sully. “We wanted to sing for the pope. I was just received into the Church so, he’s my first pope. I have a huge amount of respect for him. A huge amount of love.”
In the blink of an eye, Benedict swept by in his popemobile, turning toward the four singers who stopped long enough to see him pass by. They cheered and some bystanders around them burst into tears at the fleeting vision and then, he was gone.
It had been a very good spot in the sun.
Lois Rogers is available at lroger@ dioceseoftrenton.org
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