By Suzanne Haugh, Staff Writer

ROME, ITALY—“Seven days a tourist; eighth day a pilgrim,” my husband said as we both wiped away tears from our eyes following evening Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.

It had been a long day, and not like we had envisioned when we booked flights to Italy for a Jubilee pilgrimage three weeks earlier. We planned our trip to coincide with the Jubilee celebration for families and a papal Mass at which Pope John Paul II would preside at the marriage of couples from around the world. My husband and I looked forward to renewing our vows after first professing them on August 15 eight years earlier.

We rose at 5 o’clock that morning to wait close to St. Peter’s Square until the crowds were able to enter at 7 a.m. But those waiting, anxious to find the best seats possible, rushed the blockade moments before the entrance time and mayhem erupted. The scene was what I would envision more for a bout between rival soccer teams than of pilgrims journeying to hear the word of God and share in the Eucharist.

Along the way, however, pressed chest to chest, we came upon two couples from Puerto Rico’s Marriage Encounter community. My husband and I made our first Marriage Encounter weekend last February and partly attribute our decision for the pilgrimage to the impact of that weekend on our relationship. We greeted the couples before being whisked away and finally were able to find seats.

Once comfortable and enthused by our closeness to where the pope would celebrate Mass (we would still get our best view from the large screen televisions located to the sides of the square), our attention turned to clouds beginning to appear. With the warm, sunny days we had experienced previously in Rome, we quickly banished any possibility of foul weather from our minds earlier in the morning, thus leaving our rain jackets behind. Unable to search out vendors selling umbrellas since the ushers often denied re-entrance, we were at the mercy of Mother Nature.

The rain came, and came, and came. My husband and I hunched close in our seats, protected only by his suit coat. A few minutes later I felt a tap on my back and a hand appeared holding a small plastic bag that I tore open and put over my shoulders. “Grazie,” I said.

We had more than an hour before Mass would begin at 9:30 a.m. While we waited, I stared mainly at the backs of three young women sitting in front of us wearing hooded raincoats and holding three umbrellas between them. Very rarely have I been positioned as a “have not” among “haves.” Their refusal of the request by our unknown benefactors behind us to share an umbrella had me examining my own conscience.

Peeking out through the Walgreens bag I had wrapped around my fannypack were pictures of our extended family that we had carried with us throughout our trip. I thought of our 2- and 4-year-old son and daughter back in Florida spending time with their grandparents and other relatives. The night before my excited mind kept me awake as it jumped from images of being at a Mass with the pope to envisioning the kangaroo leaps of our youngest child upon our arrival home.

My husband and I continued on, not saying much but hoping for a break in the weather: “If it would just stop raining.”

Minutes before Mass began I felt another tap and again a hand appeared, this time with a box torn open to provide us more coverage. “Grazie, grazie,” we said again, feeling limited by language.

We graduated to standing and aimed our view in the direction of one of the large screens. We watched as brides in elegant gowns and grooms in finery indicative of their respective countries took their seats followed by clergy holding umbrellas. Eventually the pope appeared and the Mass began. I found it difficult to concentrate on what was taking place on and around the outdoor altar. The 62-page program, mainly in Italian, was left unread. My thoughts ranged from how refugees living close to the elements must suffer long and hard; how families present were faring with their young children; and how the words “This, too, shall pass” brought comfort.

The marriage vows we hoped to exchange so lovingly were disjointed and cemented with a quick kiss. Trembling with cold and tired of balancing the cardboard box on our heads, we headed for warmth at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist after enduring three hours of rain.

I wore my disappointment of the morning as if I was my husband’s suit coat: I was cold, wet and heavy. My experience wasn’t about being in the presence of the greatness of a humble pope or about receiving the Eucharist or about renewing my marriage vows. It was about being unable to escape my physical discomfort and feeling isolated by language.

After a long trek to find a taxi my husband and I resolved to spend our last full day in Italy close to warmth and our hotel. But a warm shower and an early afternoon nap, plus the promising appearance of a faraway clear sky, awakened the desire to end our pilgrimage on a spiritually uplifting note. We wanted to attend evening Mass.

Another $10 taxi ride took us to St. Susanna’s Church, an English-speaking parish we tried to call without success. Arriving at the church as the rain came again, a sign informed us that 6 p.m. Mass is offered every day, except Sunday.

“When I think about this day,” I told my husband as we walked in the rain toward the Basilica of St. Mary Major, “I want to cry.”

We arrived late but the basilica had an evening Mass in Italian. There was room for only one to sit along the last row of chairs. My husband stood behind me.

I felt my emptiness well up into tears after taking a quick inventory of what had been a glorious week of artistic masterpieces, food and wine, church history, spiritual insights and precious time spent with my husband. “How could it end this way?” I thought.

During the homily, given in Italian, I escaped my isolation through art. My eyes caught one of the many scenes depicting Mary’s life found on the basilica’s ceiling: the Visitation. In this visual translation, the artist had Mary and Elizabeth huddled close in a loose embrace as if having an intimate conversation. I imagined how Mary, far along in her pregnancy, must have felt after her journey. How had she coped with a possible backache or swollen feet? Had she come across cursing people or felt the touch of a person sympathetic to her situation? Surely she hadn’t thought of the physical discomforts pregnancy would bring when she spoke her beautiful and selfless “Yes!” at the Annunciation, I thought.

Then I was struck by how the words “Yes” or “I will” or “I do” or “Amen,” uttered in a breath, can cause a flooding of endured hardships and implosive joy working simultaneously throughout God’s providential history. And I am, the Asian-born mother and toddler in front of me, the Italian woman and man sitting on either side of me are earthly sojourners, both muddled by sin but then also triumphant over it.

My isolation melted with the sign of peace shared with my neighbors and my husband; how transcendent became the language of the Catholic liturgy, the climax to come with receiving the Eucharist.

As I approached the altar to receive Christ’s body and blood, it was the culmination of my desperate need for this union and the profound joy at actually having it that translated into an almost inaudible “Amen” on my part.

I walked back to my seat and pulled out the prayer list my husband and I had read at every church and pilgrimage site we visited. Suddenly what had been a rote reading of names copied from our address book brought us to tears. With each name came a distinct story of needs and joys experienced. “Tim and Becky long for a child; Michele and Michael, after many years of trying, are finally having one. Connie’s Dad recently found out he has cancer; my Dad is enjoying life with his cancer in check.”

I understood the God who gives us what we need—however contrary to our wishes and expectations—when we need it if we have the faith to patiently endure.

I had moved from being a tourist, an observer separated from my destination, to a pilgrim who—sometimes readily, sometimes reluctantly—approaches God’s plan of suffering and joy and says “Yes!”