Some moments on a journey cannot be planned, however carefully we prepare each day, visit and encounter. Everything that drew us to travel suddenly gathers into a few minutes, and we realise we have experienced something that will stay with us far longer than memories of cities, monuments and sights. I experienced such a moment on a Sunday in St Peter’s Square in Rome, surrounded by around fifteen pilgrims from Croatia among thousands who had come from across the world to pray the Angelus with the Pope.
I have visited Rome many times. I know its streets, churches and squares, and the Eternal City’s unusual ability to reveal another layer of its almost three thousand years of history at every turn. Yet the pilgrim’s Rome is different. History is experienced as a living reality in which we ourselves participate, at least for a moment. St Peter’s Square, especially at noon on Sunday, may be one of the most powerful places to feel that reality.
Beneath Bernini’s Colonnades
Even as we arrived, it was clear that something special awaited us. Bernini’s colonnades, those two enormous stone embraces intended symbolically to welcome the faithful, were filled with people. Everywhere were flags, pilgrimage groups, religious brothers and sisters, priests, families with children, young and old, people of different languages, skin colours and customs. Some prayed, some sang, others simply watched the windows of the Apostolic Palace, waiting for the Pope to appear. There was an extraordinary beauty in that diversity. So many lives, distant homelands and personal reasons for coming to Rome, yet in that moment we were all waiting for the same thing.
A Song before the Pope’s Arrival
As we waited for the Holy Father, St Peter’s Square became a great, joyful gathering of pilgrims. Communities from different countries sang, greeted one another and waved flags. In that expectant atmosphere, my brother in Christ, Marko, began a song. Anyone who knows him knows he needs little encouragement to sing, but what happened that Sunday morning was special. His voice led our pilgrims, and soon the song rang across St Peter’s Square. Among thousands in the heart of Rome, around fifteen pilgrims from Croatia sang at the top of their voices, adding to the wonderful fellowship filling the square before the Pope’s arrival. No stage, no sound system, no need to prove our importance to anyone. Just song, joy and a sense of belonging.
I watched my companions’ faces. There were smiles, excitement and that sincere delight adults sometimes forget to show. At those moments, nobody was thinking about everyday worries, work awaiting our return or problems temporarily left at home. We were simply there, present and together. I thought how this was one of pilgrimage’s most beautiful experiences: people who set out as acquaintances or friends returning connected by memories that will accompany them throughout their lives.
The Angelus with the Pope
When the Pope finally appeared at the window of the Apostolic Palace, applause swept across the square. Thousands of hands rose towards him, flags waved and the joy among the crowd felt almost tangible. After the singing and eager anticipation came a different, more solemn moment. Following the Pope’s address, we began praying together. The Latin Angelus, a prayer that has marked the rhythm of Christian days for centuries, suddenly united everyone gathered across that vast space.
Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.
The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Those simple words hold one of Christianity’s greatest mysteries, the Incarnation. Traditionally prayed morning, noon and evening, the prayer recalls the moment when, according to the Gospel, Mary’s assent began the story of God coming among humanity. Its Latin invocations echoed for centuries through monasteries, churches, village squares and family homes. Now they echoed across St Peter’s Square, spoken by people who might never have met before and would probably never see one another again.
My Grandfather Bepo, the Bell-Ringer from Supetar
As I prayed, my thoughts unexpectedly travelled far from Rome, across the Adriatic to my island of Brač and the town of Supetar. I saw my grandfather Bepo, who spent forty years as sacristan of our church, caring for it and its daily life. He was a bell-ringer, one of those quiet, unassuming people whose faithfulness is measured in thousands of ordinary days spent simply being where they were needed.
I thought of his hands, the church keys, bells, altar and candles, and all the tasks most people never notice but without which parish life would not be the same. Forty years! How many Sundays passed through his life, how many Masses, feast days, weddings, baptisms and funerals. How often he heard or spoke the very words I was now praying with the Pope at the heart of the Catholic Church.
I do not know whether my grandfather ever stood in St Peter’s Square. I do not know whether he could imagine his grandson standing there one day among thousands of pilgrims, praying the Angelus with the Pope. But at that moment, I felt an unusual closeness to him. As though the small church in Supetar and the enormous Basilica of St Peter had joined in one prayer. As though only an invisible thread connecting generations, rather than so many years, lay between his quiet service and my Sunday experience in Rome.
Perhaps this is one of faith’s most beautiful dimensions. It is both personal conviction and an inheritance, something received from people who lived before us, often without our realising how deeply they shaped our lives. My grandfather Bepo left me no great theological arguments or learned books. He left the example of someone who served his church for decades. That Sunday noon beneath the Roman sky, it seemed greater than many words.
The Joy of Fellowship
What particularly moved me that day was that Christian fellowship appeared both in the solemn prayer and in the ordinary human joy preceding it. Sometimes we associate faith too closely with seriousness, silence and renunciation, forgetting that joy is one of its deepest messages. In St Peter’s Square, this was visible almost everywhere. People sang, laughed, embraced and waved flags while awaiting the Holy Father. Their joy did not come from forgetting life’s burdens, but from feeling, at least briefly, that they were not alone.
This was the first time in my life I had prayed with the Pope. Although I had visited many great Christian shrines, stood before renowned altars and entered churches holding centuries of history, this experience had a different power. I was more than a visitor observing an important place. I was part of an event, one of thousands of voices joined in prayer. One small person among a multitude, yet not lost within it.
Someone may say it was simply a Sunday prayer repeated in St Peter’s Square almost every week. They would be right. For Rome, it is part of the usual rhythm; for the Pope, part of his mission; for many pilgrims, a highlight of visiting the Vatican. But repetition need not diminish something’s greatness. Perhaps the wonder is precisely that the same prayer continues rising from the same place, Sunday after Sunday and year after year, gathering new people, stories and lives.
Memories beyond the Lens
When I look at the photographs and videos now, I hear the voices, singing, applause and murmur of St Peter’s Square again. I see Marko beginning the song while we await the Pope, our pilgrims joining him and the enormous square filled with people. Then I remember the Pope appearing at the window and our prayer together. Photographs cannot record everything, though. They cannot show what I felt while speaking the Latin words of the Angelus, or the thoughts that carried me to my grandfather Bepo and his church in Supetar. Some memories remain beyond the lens.
Perhaps that is ultimately the most important thing I brought back from Rome: alongside the memory of praying with the Pope, special as it was, the understanding that the Church’s great history and our small personal histories continually meet. A connection between Bernini’s colonnades and a church bell tower on Brač cannot be measured in kilometres. A Pope’s prayer, my brother Marko’s song and my grandfather Bepo’s forty years of quiet service belong to the same great story.
I was granted the grace of feeling its beauty, at least for a moment.
When I return to St Peter’s Square, I know I will look towards more than the window from which the Pope leads prayer. I will also look towards the sky, remember a bell-ringer from Supetar and silently repeat words that took on a special meaning for me that Sunday noon.
Et Verbum caro factum est. Et habitavit in nobis.
And the Word was made flesh. And dwelt among us.
