"Super magic" adventure in Rome (third post; read one below first)

Leaving the St. Peter's Basilica Info Office gift shop just off St. Peter's square (got some nice post cards), we sort of wandered around a minute wondering whether to try to get into the church for a glimpse, when a 50-something Italian woman approached us with a couple big yellow tickets and in quite broken English asked whether we wanted to go in for a speech of some kind.

She didn't seem like a scammer, but how good could some random street offer be?

I read the card:

Celebrazione dei Vesperi
presieduta dal Santa Padre
Benedetto XVI
Giovedi 17 Dicembre 2009
Basilica Vaticana - ore 17,30

Near as I could tell this was a ticket to hear the Pope at a special Verspers service (lots of music) two hours thence.

She said her two friends couldn't make it, and the tickets were free to her as a faculty member of one of the Roman universities.

Couldn't pass this one up.

We'd wondered what the long line we'd seen on the other side of St. Peter's square was for, and now we knew.



Our hostess was a charming/perplexing combination of a very sweet and intelligent professor of "Plant Systematics" and a pushy, rule-ignoring Roman.  She looked at the impossibly long line and decided we needed to be near the front of it.  So she just pretended that we knew someone else who'd been holding our places, and we were in.


It was amazing.  We had our own guide/interpreter.  And before too long we were passing the metal detectors and walking in through the main doors of the biggest, fanciest church in the world, walking past guards, both decorative and scary, past bigger-than-life statues of various saints, past the student section, being seated in the fourth row right in front of the altar (mounted by "God's four-poster bed"), reserved for university faculty and guests, and attending an actual papal service.



As far as the service goes, it was all Latin and Italian to us, but it was quite a moving experience, so privileged to be there with "Maretta," seated next to the choir and orchestra, singing along with the congregation, watching the Pope enter (just after a lot of African drumming and singing), etc.



The basilica is usually dimly lit, to save power according to Maretta, but the lights were all turned on for much of the service, and it was pretty glorious.  Bernini's "Dove Window" was especially amazing.  (The pieta was hidden behind some draped scaffolding or something.  We were told we could see it tomorrow at 7am.  Better finish this now!)


So, amazing magic on our first outing in Rome.  Maretta said "God chose you," and that we were now family, however far away.