At the papal audience in St. Peter's Square, the singer Arisa was there too. She was sitting in our section, near us. She wore a hat to blend in, but a small group recognized her by her voice. She has a distinctive way of speaking, though when she sings, you'd never know it—her voice is fine, sweet, musical, melodic. After the audience ended, we caught up with her at the exit and hummed her song nearby... "SINCERITY"... and she laughed and hummed a bit of it with us. That's when we snapped the photo. She told us she was there with her home parish, Pignola in the province of Potenza.
What about the pilgrimage itself? Beautiful, but chaotic. At times you could see a lack of organization.
I'm not really built for this sort of thing, but I decided to try it anyway, and it left me with a wonderful memory. I was struck by the sheer number of people, the energy, so many cheerful, carefree, happy faces. Smiles and hugs throughout the day. But at departure time, I saw tears too—people moved, emotional, saying goodbye to one another. It touched my heart.
Still, you have to appreciate the effort the organizers put in and the time they spent making the pilgrimage happen. You could see that some of them were never relaxed; they were always moving around, checking that everything was running smoothly, watching for problems. I hope that at some point they got to enjoy the pilgrimage too, and I hope their hard work paid off.
It was a regenerating experience—a rediscovery, a recharge. It gave us energy to face the different situations that come our way. It's a shame we couldn't take part in the exchange groups. They would have been a wonderful enrichment for so many—real dialogue, an exchange of ideas between people from different countries, different situations, with different experiences. A real moment of personal growth. For next time, it would be wonderful to have a day devoted entirely to that.
