Pope Francis in Central Park

A couple of weeks ago, my father emailed me letting me know that he had access to four tickets to see the Pope in Central Park, that he would not be able to use them (he was going to be away)… would I like them?

I told him give me a day, I’ll think about it.

A half-a-second later, I jumped at the opportunity, and immediately tried to make up for those times where I failed in “Honor[ing] thy father and mother.”

Bea and Jonathan

My wife did not like the idea of going. She’s not into crowds, lines, and hours of baking in the sun. She also did not think our children were up to the task of enduring this day.

So I had three extra tickets. Selling them was out of the question. Sure, it would be lucrative, but selling them would be going against the nature of this event. Ultimately, I decided to casually remark on Facebook that I had some tickets available, for anybody who wanted to go.

Immediately David from Denver responded. He said his wife, Bea, worked for the airlines, and could easily arrive in New York with their son, Jonathan, for which this would be a dream ticket come true. The tickets were theirs.

I did have one extra ticket after this, but because of some screw-up on my part, it appeared that I did not. So I closed the doors on this.

How I Prepared

I knew this was going to be an endurance test, so I needed all the help I could get. I opted to bring the following items:

• Fire Phone (camera, phone, and texting)
• iPhone (Facebook, Periscope)
• iPod Touch (loaded with music, and an audio recording of *Laudato Si*)
• MiFi (portable hotspot)
• Portable radio
• Two sets of headphones (one with a microphone, one over the ear)
• Y-connecter for multiple listeners)
• Rosary
• Sudoku puzzle book and pen
• Three protein bars

Since I could not bring a backpack, I purchased cargo pants that week shove these into my pockets.

Arrival

The earliest I could arrive at the park was between 10 and 10:30 am. Bea and Jonathan were already there, since 8:30, so they were near the front. They saved me a spot. How awesome. Considering that the line was already a few blocks long, to be near the front was really nice.

At 11 am they began the process of letting this line through the metal detectors. My portable radio almost didn’t make it. I had to take out everything and turn them all on. They all passed. Unfortunately, in the process I lost my Y-connector and my rosary. Time to upgrade.

We were escorted to an area which, to our dismay, was not next to the street, but behind a closed-off VIP section, which was. We were first to arrive, and this is where we were going to be? I couldn’t argue with NYPD, they had their own system, who knows who had access. Perhaps it was for a group of individuals who truly deserved it, for whatever reasons.

Knowing what I know now… everybody else in the park would have killed for the very spots that we were at. As my father later told me, most of the pictures taken were of people taking pictures. Seeing the pope was like seeing a white dot in the midst of the crowd, almost like how we “kinda saw” Halley’s comet all those years ago. Where I stood, I had a clear shot of the pontiff and his pope-mobile.

The Long Wait

For the next six hours, I passed the time by listening to Laudato Si (finished it!), as well as doing Sudoku puzzles and occasional listening to news reports. I had also been misguided in thinking that there was going to be a Catholic radio frequency for New Yorkers, but somehow that was not set up in time. One of the stations was dead air, and the other one was the vicious sounds of a hair band bellower (“PREPARE for your DESTINYYYYYYY”). Nope, that wasn’t EWTN.

Thankfully, WCBS newsradio was giving exclusive coverage to the Papal visit. Which was tough, because John Boehner decided to resign that same day. Only later did I discover that his decision came about shortly after the Pope’s address to Congress. I wondered if this would make conservative talk radio finally warm up to Pope Francis.

I talked to Bea about their plans for that evening. They hoped to catch a flight out of Newark airport at 7pm. I told her that this was impossible. New York traffic is bad enough, it’s worse on a Friday during rush hour, and even worse considering that she was fighting against thousands of people walking in one direction leaving. She was hopeful, but she was prepared to make last minute accommodations near the airport.

At around 2pm I laid down in the grass and napped. One thing I did like about our spot: we had grass to lay in. The (sorely under-attended) VIP section in front of us did not. They only had concrete and dirt. Take that, you VIPers, you….

The Rainbow

At around 3pm, there was talk of a rainbow overhead. Sure enough, when I finally got around to seeing it, it was about an inch long. Almost like it was directly above us. This was interesting, especially given the fact that we had no rain.

It was also around this time that I began to realize that my MiFi was proving to be utterly useless. Yes, I had 4G-LTE (whatever that meant), but it was constantly trying to secure some place in the hotspot-universe, along tens of thousands of other electronic devices. My dreams of Periscoping the event was starting to become wearisome.

At around 4pm, I began listening to newsradio exclusively. The pope was now in a Catholic elementary school in East Harlem where 3rd and 4th graders were giving the Pope a look at their projects to help solve the environmental crisis. My kids are in 3rd grade. I wonder what they would have done if they were at that school.

Some of the news reports were talking about the mad rush of people trying to get past the metal detectors, that there was still a long line to get in, and that the NYPD got more metal detectors for this task. Are you kidding me? Where we were at (at the beginning of where the motorcade will be), it was vastly under-populated, with the special VIP section in front of us being the most sparsely underpopulated spot of all. We were obscured by some hills and such, but we weren’t far from the 72nd street entrance anyway, and from our vantage point we just didn’t see the thousands who were there. The only indication was my lumbering MiFi.

The Pope’s Visit

At long last, around 5pm, I began receiving messages on the radio that the Pope was on his way, and that the FDR drive was blocked from regular traffic for his route. I started up my MiFi one last time, and managed to get one last Facebook post out… that I was starting my Periscope. And then my MiFi died.

So without any Periscoping, I then did the next best thing. I got my Fire Phone camera ready and prepared myself for the view. At long last, the newsradio trumpeted that the motorcade was starting… and at that moment we saw the police cars, police trucks, police motorcycles, two black vehicles adorned with Vatican flags, and then a giant white Car. Omigosh, that’s the POPE!!

The pope was sitting, but as soon as he saw the people in view, he stood up, and began, I presume, blessing the people before him. Me! Us! Them! Everybody! Everybody!

As the popemobile approached, I hurriedly got my camera in view and started snapping as many pictures as I could. It’s hard to take in the full moments of what was transpiring before me, as I was adamant on getting these pictures through this device. Here was reality, and I had to see the reality through a tiny screen.

In a minute, it was all over. The pope had passed. The entire group before us ran with the popemobile as much as they could, before being stopped by the gates that kept us in our zone. Roars of approval could be heard from the thousands after us.

Aftermath

When it was all over, we were still kept in our containment units until the police gave their approval to release us. I waved Bea and Jonathan adieu, as they hurriedly rushed off to their fool’s errand on somehow passing all this traffic and catching their Newark flight within an hour.

To wrap things up, it was upon leaving that I saw the thousands that had obscured my view. It was incredible. I really was fortunate to get as close up to the pope as I was, no matter how much I had bickered on the under-populated VIP section before us. After finally released from Central Park, I headed down a side street until I caught glimpse of a local coffee shop and patronized them for some coffee and their free WiFi. My Periscope was going to happen, even with my photo slides.

I am gratefully appreciative for the opportunity to see His Holiness as close as I was. My father was so generous, and I’m so thankful for his thinking of me. And now that this whirlwind weekend is over, it’s time for me to download the addresses and homilies that His Holiness made in the United States and read them on my own.

And Bea and Jonathan made their impossible flight!