Images of a mourning rain

MICHELE MARR

“A man’s goodness is not measured by his popular appeal,” someone

told me recently as I talked to them about the funeral of Pope John

Paul II. Just look at Hitler and Clinton, he said, by way of example.

As I first eased my way into the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd on

April 8, watching the funeral of Pope John Paul II on Jumbotrons in

front of Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica, I have to confess that what

I felt most was jet lag. My plane had arrived three hours late after

running short of food in flight. My luggage, I discovered after

waiting another 45 minutes at the baggage claim, stayed in New York

when I went on to Rome.

I wanted a nap and I wanted lunch or breakfast or dinner, but not

as much as I wanted to see the man I had looked forward to meeting,

when I’d signed up for this trip six months ago, laid to rest.

When my flight had landed at Leonardo da Vinci--Fiumicino airport

an hour earlier, I’d been expecting to stay at the Residenza Paolo

VI. Until the beginning of 2000, it was a monastery, but now was a

small, elegant hotel of 23 rooms with upper terraces overlooking St.

Peter’s basilica and square. From there, I could have had an

unimpeded view of John Paul’s funeral Mass.

But the driver, who had waited with extraordinary patience to meet

me outside of customs, informed me that everyone staying at the

Residenza had been displaced to other hotels all over the city in

order to accommodate some arriving bishops.

No doubt I could have seen the real thing a lot better from a

terrace of the Residenza than I could see from the bottom of the

stairs of St. Mary Major, gawking over shoulders and through crooked

arms from my feet-on-the-cobblestone height of 5 feet. Though I

imagine I would have experienced far less.

For the overflow of pilgrims who couldn’t squeeze into St. Peter’s

Square -- even if you added to it the smaller, adjacent Piazza di Pio

XII and the long, wide Via della Conciliazione leading to it -- huge

video screens were set up outside the city’s three other patriarchal

basilicas, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary

Major. Along with the Jumbotrons came refreshment stands, first-aid

stations and dozens of portable toilets.

Later in the week, I would meet journalists who said police and

other authorities in and around St. Peter’s Square seemed, if not

anxious or panicky, overwhelmed. It was a difference inherent,

perhaps, in tending hundreds of thousands instead of the mere

thousands around St. Mary Major. The patina of jet lag may have

softened my view too, but at the basilica atop Esquiline, the highest

and largest of Rome’s seven famous hills, I didn’t see .the funeral

Mass.

Everyone -- the uniformed, the civilians, the clerics and other

religious leaders -- was quiet, calm and rapt. Every generation,

every socioeconomic sector appeared to be represented in the dense

gathering. I was thankful to find myself there.

I spotted the basilica, the big video screens and the multitude

surrounding them from the car on the way to my reassigned hotel on

the other side of Rome. I laid a virtual breadcrumb trail along the

neighborhood’s streets, as orderly as a toss of pick-up sticks, to

trace my way back to it.

Some people in the square clutched photographs of John Paul to

their chests as they grieved. Others lifted them above their heads.

Children braced themselves on the shoulders of their fathers, or

perhaps grandfathers, uncles or cousins, in order to see. Here and

there, small groups held banners proclaiming their affection for the

Holy Father.

People of all ages cupped rosaries; the lips of many moved,

apparently in prayer. Now and then, applause rippled across the

crowd, an Italian demonstration of respect.

The air was cool enough for a light coat or sweater, but not

chilly. The cerulean sky was clear except for a scattering of

pristine cottony clouds.

With the grounds of the ancient Circus Maximus -- where so many

pilgrims had made camp -- an easy metro ride or long walk from the

basilica, I expected many in its square to be foreigners like me. If

they were, I never found them.

The simple coffin that held the pope’s remains was followed by a

small procession to the Vatican grottoes for burial, and the crowd in

St. Mary Major Square began to mill about. I asked a few people, in

the best Italian I could assemble from a phrase book, “Siete un

residente di Roma?” or “Do you live in Rome?”

Each man or woman to whom I posed my question answered, “Si,” or

“Abitos qui,” accompanied by an affirmative nod.

Then, just minutes after the funeral’s end, the blue sky vanished

behind a drape of gray, swollen clouds. And it poured.

As I unfolded my umbrella, a young woman next to me opened a palm

and held it toward the sky before unfolding hers.

“Il cielo ... ,” I thought I heard her say, but I didn’t catch all

her words.

“Cielo?” I asked.

“Il Cielo,” she said, and ran a thumb in a vertical line under

each of her teary eyes. The hint of a smile bent her mouth as she

lifted her palm again to catch a handful of rain.

Oftentimes, a man’s goodness isn’t accurately measured by his

popular appeal, but at times it is.

Il cielo. The heavens. For John Paul II, even the heavens cried.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at michele@soul foodfiles.com.