Pope Visits the US

I had not planned it all that well, mostly because my schedule had been extremely busy in the weeks leading up to the visit.

Suddenly, he was here, and then, just as quickly, he was visiting his last city. Philadelphia. It was the weekend, and I had wanted to see him.

Taking the weekend off (actually, it was supposed to be just Saturday, but wound up being the entire weekend, I looked online for ways to get to Philadelphia without driving, since they had essentially shut down the city entire to traffic. Managed to find public transportation, and took it without a problem, with no incident.

The city was not quite as packed as I had expected, and we were able to travel through the eerily abandoned streets (at least free of cars, anyway) with ease. Got to Independence Mall, and waited. I actually fell asleep, having worked the night before. But hours later, it was time for the pope to make his appearance.

We caught a glimpse of him rather unexpectedly. The motorcade came from the opposite direction than expected, and we saw the vehicles pull up, albeit at a strange angle.

Then they cross the mall itself, cutting right across the crowd and allowing almost everyone in attendance to really catch a glimpse of him. The pope mobile is much higher than the other vehicles (higher than I expected, frankly), and since it is surrounding by glass, you can easily spot the guy wearing those white robes.

It was such a thrill to see him, and to see the reactions that people had towards him.

At one point the motorcade stopped, and we watched as the Pope took a baby into his arms and kissed and presumably blessed him or her, with the crowd clearly touched. It actually made me a bit emotional just watching it. Moments later, he did the same with another baby.

We saw him once again as he cut in front of Independence Hall, and then finally again once the door opened and he came out to deliver his speech.

Much of our attention during the speech itself, however, gravitated towards the large screens, because the speech was in Spanish, and we needed the translation (although certainly not everyone in the audience had the same limitation).

He spoke about immigration, and he spoke about the strength of the tradition of liberty in the American nation- particularly in regards to the American people.

One thing that he said which resonated with me particularly strongly was his reminding everyone to keep how much they have been blessed in life with in mind.

Indeed, I could probably be a better and happier person by doing this exact thing on a regular basis. I have tended to forget about all that I have been blessed with, choosing instead to focus on those things still eluding my grasp.

So, that was what I, personally, got out of this. That I should make more of an emphasis, from her eon in, of taking a moment every single day to count my blessings, for I have many, and not to focus so much on what I do not have, or what seems to be missing in my life.