By Sheila Mallon

Our journey had an inauspicious beginning. Due to fog, our plane was an hour late leaving Atlanta - then we arrive in New York in driving rain and even heavier fog. We circled the airport for an hour and by the time we landed, we had missed the rest of our party and our connection to Rome.

For a pessimist, it was a portent of things to come - for an optimist the worst was over and the rest of the trip would be halcyon. The optimists won out - our sojourn in Italy was delightful.

We stayed in Rome and indeed we could have spent our entire nine days there and not scratched the surface of what there was to see. Rome is a feast for the historian, the beauty lover, the artist, the architect and especially for the pilgrim.

Romans are warm friendly people and share their visitors delight in their “bella Roma.” They were especially thrilled with my halting attempts to speak Italian and were quick to offer helpful correction of my grammar and accent.

We visited the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Circus Maximus and the Forum, all which have been standing for almost two thousand years. Although we had seen pictures of all of them, we were really not prepared for the reality. They were magnificent and you had to wonder how the Italians had managed to keep them from being razed for some monster skyscraper or blacktopped for a clover leaf or a parking lot, as they do in our country.

It must be that in Italy their sense of history and national pride has overcome their greed. They even have a law in Rome to insure that no building can be more than six stories. This preserves the wonderful skyline of spires and domes. Our days were a melange of sightseeing - from the Markets of Trajan to the Arch of Constantine. We had visited Tivoli and Hadrians Villa and the cities of Florence, Naples and Sorrento as well as Pompeii.

But the height of our trip had to be when we first walked into St. Peters Square. The marvelous colonnade - the masterpiece by Bernini seemed a fitting frame for Michaelangelo’s dome and the beautiful facade of St. Peters.

Within we saw Michaelangelo’s poignant Pieta with the young Virgin’s lovely stunned face bent over the lifeless body of her Son.

Facing toward the dome, we beheld for the first time Bernini’s masterpiece. “The Altar of St. Peters Chair.” The sun was setting and the translucent, fluted oval window carved from alabaster marble shown with a life of its own and made the bronze rays and cherubs surrounding it dull by comparison.

Each time we visited St. Peters it was filled with tourists, but it was very much a working church with Mass and confessions going on somewhere almost all the time.

The Sistine Chapel was of course the highlight of our visit to the Vatican. We sat at the end of the chapel with our heads bent backwards and tried to imagine how Michaelangelo could have possibly completed something so powerful and awe inspiring in just four years.

His rendering of the Last Judgment behind the altar was painted 24 years later and it also took four years. The whole thing was accomplished in eight years and here we were over 470 years later and millions of visitors later still awed by the magnificent talent God had given his servant Buonoratti.

We had only one disappointment on the trip - we had hoped to attend a papal audience. On our arrival in Rome, we contacted the American College and were told that the Holy Father would be on Retreat all week and would not be holding his usual audience. We would have to be content with the Papal Blessing from the window of the apartments facing St. Peters Square.

On Sunday just before noon with over 10,000 other tourists and visitors we waited for the red banner to be hung from the window signaling that the Holy Father was about to appear.

A band was playing somewhere in the crowd and we could just make out a young musician here and there. They were playing mostly American tunes and it was pleasant to listen to while we waited.

Suddenly the white robed figure appeared on the balcony - arms raised high and the reaction was electric.

His address of course was in Italian but he spoke slowly and distinctly and I was able to make out that he was discussing the recent death of the Vatican’s Secretary of State whose funeral Mass Pope John Paul II would say on the following Thursday. He also spoke of a visit he planned to make to a poor section of Rome - much troubled by crime and poverty.

Then to our surprise he began to speak in English - he greeted the visitors from the United States and thanked them for coming. The Holy Father said the he wished to especially greet the young members of the Layfayette Louisiana High School Band who had been playing for him and he praised their skill. It was a very moving movement - the young band members were so happy the Holy Father was speaking in English a distinct honor. We all applauded madly, all the while fighting down an unexpected lump in the throat and blurry eyes.

After the blessing, the Pope left the balcony and then suddenly reappeared to ask the band to continue playing. More wild applause and then these lovely Louisiana lads and lassies played with vigor the Notre Dame fight song. It was a very American moment. All of us visitors in this land sought each other out to comment on the spellbinding gracious charm of the Pope.

We would have to leave the next day but with only the best memories and the hope of returning some day to “bella Roma.”