The truck that has just arrived from Rome is unloading the Popemobile still packed under the watchful eye of the Carabinieri. In the square of Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia the heat is starting to be felt but preparations are in full swing and there is a lot of coming and going of law enforcement, civil protection volunteers and health services. In the early afternoon this place will be the centerpiece of Pope Leo’s visit who arrives in Lombardy to pay homage to the tomb of Saint Augustine.
The faithful are starting to appear one by one and the young volunteers from the staff organized by the diocese are busy welcoming them. Among the yellow bibs are Lucia, 21 years old, who comes from the province of Bergamo and two twenty-year-olds, Sofia and Matteo, university students away from home in Pavia.
The three young volunteers. From left, Lucia, Sofia and Matteo.
The invitation to make themselves available as volunteers came to them from friends and through the university ministry and the Communion and Liberation movement. And they accepted. «Welcoming the Pope is an emotion», says Sofia. «In him I see the symbol of the Church which for me is a reality in which we can experience great things together. Matteo also agrees: «He is the heir of Peter, the guarantor of the continuity of the faith for two thousand years, and soon I will see him pass in front of me. The Pope, as his motto says In Illo uno unumIn the one Christ we are one, he is the one who makes us be in communion.” «My friend who invited me», Lucia comments, «told me: “There is a service to be done for the Vicar of Christ”. And I said yes.”
In front of the Romanesque facade of the basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro next to the Augustinian brothers who are preparing to welcome the Pope, there is father Francesco Maria Giuliani, 57 years old, who arrived from Rome for the occasion, where he is the parish priest of Santa Rita in Tor Bella Monaca. According to Pope Prevost’s brother, who knows him very well, the one between Leo and Saint Augustine «is an ecclesial bond: the Conclave chose this Pope because in this time an Augustinian charism was needed on the throne of Peter.”
The tomb of Sant’Agostino in the basilica of San Pietro in ciel d’oro in Pavia.
(Getty Images)
Father Giuliani recalls that «Pope Benedict XVI, coming to visit Pavia in 2007, said to the Augustinian community: “What a blessing to live every day next to the holy Father Augustine.” And it is the same reason why Leone comes here today, to pay homage to the saint who is our “father”.
The 5,000 passes for the faithful made available by the diocese of Pavia to access the squares where Leo XIV will hold his speeches are all sold out. But many other people are expected along the Popemobile route. There are groups of parishes and associations and, above all, many individual pilgrims. The extraordinary heat these days doesn’t scare anyone.
