‘Several times I was moved to tears’
Mary Anne Tager’s pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium to attend Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XIV was “a very moving experience” that has changed her life.
“It renewed my faith and gave me a greater sensitivity of those who are truly in need and the energy to do my best to help them.
“Several times during the Mass, I was moved to tears,” said Tager, who is blind. “I think that there was a sense of anticipation in the air before the pope arrived,” said the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul parishioner, adding that being in the crowd of thousands of worshippers felt like being in a large community filled with Christ’s love.
“Once the pope arrived, it was electrifying,” Tager continued. “I sensed a great deal of love and respect for him.”
Tager sat with the diocesan pilgrims behind home base, where the altar was positioned. The group watched the Mass on several large screen televisions and saw the pope when he traveled around the stadium in the popemobile.
Tager believes that Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States allowed American Catholics to learn more about the Holy Father and to see him as a warm and loving shepherd.
“There was a great deal of warmth,” Tager observed. “I felt the spirit of God present. It made me reflect on my ministry as a lector and how I proclaim the word of God.”
She was impressed with the amount of security.
“Everywhere you turned, there were security personnel,” she said. “There were policemen and FBI agents all over the stadium.”
“For me being given the opportunity was something special and something that I will never forget,” she said.
On a lighter note, Tager said that she stood in line for more than an hour hoping to purchase a snack.
“The lines were so slow,” she recalled. “Finally we got up to the counter and someone yelled ‘No more hot dogs.’ Someone else yelled ‘Get back to your seats. He’s coming.’ I didn’t care about the food. We were getting another kind of nourishment.”
Catholic Church is ‘alive’ among youth
Michael Wahl, a senior at Bishop Hendricken High School, Warwick, and the winner of the Words of Welcome National Papal High School Essay Contest, said the Mass proved to him that the Catholic Church is “alive” in the United States.
“There were a lot of young people who were so excited,” he said, describing the worshippers as “very prayerful and respectful” despite the size of the crowd.
Wahl said the most moving part of the much-anticipated event was watching the pope travel around the perimeter of the ball field in the popemobile and seeing the Holy Father wave to the crowd.
“It was amazing,” Wahl said. “The people were filled with joy and hope being in his presence.”
Mass a visually stunning event
Adam Lesnikowski, a member of St. Adalbert Parish, and a student at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, described the Mass as “impressive. It was interesting to see the pope and to be with my family,” he said. “The altar was stunning, and decorated with the papal colors of purple and gold.”
The young man said he was inspired by the Holy Father’s homily, in which the pope emphasized the need for present-day Catholics to “move forward with firm resolve” and to continue the legacy of faith established by their forefathers.
“It was good to hear from the pope,” Lesnikowski said. “It rang truthfully and was true to me.”
Praying, singing with thousands awesome
Despite only being able to watch the Holy Father celebrate Mass on giant video screens, Emily Clary, director of campus ministry at Mount St. Charles Academy in Woonsocket, said the Papal Mass at Yankee stadium was awe-inspiring.
She traveled to New York City on the diocesan bus along with three of her students early Sunday morning.
The best part, she said, was the magnitude of the event and its communal feel. "It was neat to say the "Our Father" and sing the hymns with 60,000 people." The huge outdoor venue was a first for Clary and her students, who had never attended a comparable Mass, "being outside... you could really tell that God was there."
She walked away from the event with a renewed sense of hope about the Church: "You hear so much about how Catholicism is dying out and how it's becoming such a secular culture, but seeing 60,000 people... I think religion is still alive and God is still a big part of people's lives."
The students she traveled with enjoyed themselves as well, "I don't think they realized going in what a powerful experience it would be. They loved... the enthusiasm of the entire event," Clary said.
The entire day of traveling and experiencing a Papal Mass was "a reminder of how important our faith is," she said.
‘Benedict, we love you!’ rings out
Love was in the air as Sister Ann Hyacinth Genow, the principal of St. Pius V School in Providence, sat in Yankee Stadium with five of her fellow sisters from Rhode Island. When the popemobile entered the stadium there was "an eruption of real love for him" from the crowd, she said.
Another pilgrim far away in the uppermost section of the stadium felt the love as well. Sister Ann said that as the stadium was becoming quiet again, a young man shouted above all the other voices "Benedict, we love you!" to thunderous applause from the rest of the people in the stadium.
She had the sense that the pilgrims wanted to "make our love tangible for [Pope Benedict XVI]."
She and her fellow sisters also had the opportunity to attend the Mass at St. Patrick Cathedral and the youth rally at St. Joseph Seminary the day before, experiences they will not soon forget. They had not expected to receive tickets to the St. Patrick Cathedral Mass, and were shocked when they arrived at the school the week before the event. Their names were on a waiting list, but because of the high demand they never expected there would be enough tickets for them. "It was a great surprise for us."
They had seats inside the cathedral, along with some 3,000 religious men and women and priests, bishops, and cardinals, and spent the morning "anticipating the Pope's arrival."
"All of the sudden, the cathedral became quiet and you knew he had arrived," she said. The large doors in the back opened and the Pontiff walked up the steps into the cathedral stepping into a pool of "incredible light" from the sunny day outside. There was "an eruption of greeting to him" as he made his way down the center aisle accompanied only by a few members of the Secret Service. Sister Ann said that despite the numbers of people, the event felt intimate. And, as he walked by her pew she reached out her hand and he grabbed it. "He brings such a gentleness and a kindness... it was very tangible," she said.
Two-mile walk raises expectations
During the two-mile walk toward Yankee Stadium from the street where the diocesan bus parked, Michael Lavigne, a religious studies teacher at St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, and the three students he brought with him grew more and more excited as they anticipated the Papal Mass. “The closer you got to the stadium the more intense the atmosphere, the more excitement,” he said. “My students were just getting caught up; the closer they got to the stadium the more caught up they were in the historical moment that it was.”
The students’ anticipation only increased his own, Lavigne said. “I was getting excited because I saw them getting excited.”
During the Mass, Lavigne said he was struck by the diversity of the crowd and the range of moods, from quietly prayerful to exuberant and celebratory. It was a mix of “youthfulness and reverence and excitement.”
Lavigne and his students were moved by the profound simplicity of Pope Benedict’s message, especially when he spoke about the call to vocations. “My prayer is that it leads to one vocation out of the three [students],” he said.
