SIENA--The emotional moment occurred at the end of the mid-day Sunday Mass on June 30 that Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin celebrated entirely in Italian at the cathedral of Siena.
As the archbishop processed from the altar, a boy ran toward him, put his arms around him and hugged him--a hug that Archbishop Tobin returned with a smile.
"The archbishop must have said something during the Mass that really connected with the boy, and the boy just reacted," said Carolyn Noone, the director of special events for the archdiocese who is coordinating the archdiocesan pilgrimage that Archbishop Tobin has led to Italy since June 25. "This is the first time on the trip that I really got emotional. It wasn't planned. It just choked me up. It was wonderful."
That moment between an American archbishop and an Italian boy seemed to represent the unity between the Italians who attended the Mass and the 80 pilgrims from Indianapolis who made the cathedral their home for Sunday Mass. It also reflected the unity at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on June 29 when Archbishop Tobin and 33 other archbishops from 19 countries received their palliums--a symbol of their leadership of their archdiocese--from Pope Francis.
"He told us on the bus (to Siena) what he would be talking about," noted Ralph Nowak, a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis. "He said we need to make sure there are things in life that don't get in the way of following Christ."
That message--and the archbishop's example of reaching across cultures to unite people--resonated with Tony Hollowell, who is preparing for the priesthood in the archdiocese at the North American College in Rome. Hollowell, who grew up in Nativity Parish in Indianapolis, joined the pilgrims on the trip to Siena and was the server for the archbishop during the Mass. He was impressed by the archbishop's command of the Italian language.
"It was impressive to see his ability to connect with the Italian people," Hollowell said about Archbishop Tobin, who served the Church for more than 20 years in Rome before becoming archbishop of the archdiocese in late 2012. "It's given me an example of how to use different languages to spread the Gospel in some way."
The 2000 graduate of Roncalli High School in Indianapolis paused before he added, "You see that people are hungry for that message of salvation, that forgiveness of sins, in any language. So many people are looking for the same things that we're looking for in Indianapolis--to be loved, to know the love of the Father, to be forgiven by him, and to receive the body and blood of Christ."
Sometimes, the fulfillment of that longing happens on a pilgrimage. And sometimes it's expressed in a hug.
See a photo gallery from Day Five of the pilgrimage
No comments:
Post a Comment