My hometown pope : NPR

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Alberto Pizzoli/AFP through Getty Pictures Sure, I cried after I heard that Pope Leo XIV is from Chicago. And I considered St. Peter's Church in Chicago's Loop, the place I used to go to Mass from time to time.

It was often a 5:30 Mass. Many attending had been cleansing and upkeep individuals, already of their work garments. They stopped in to hope on their method into work, as suit-wearing workplace employees from the skyscrapers handed them, heading residence.

Marta, a cleaner in our workplace constructing, had informed me about what was referred to as "the cleansing crew Mass." Marta was from Poland. Once we all recited, together with the priest, "I imagine in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth…" you would hear accents round us from all around the world: Poland, Mexico, Italy, China, Lithuania, Eire. It put a glimpse of the world into our phrases.

The Lots weren't massive. And they also felt private, and the faces turned acquainted. Most of us had been on our personal, like Marta, stopping in to hope earlier than her worknight started, or like me, on the finish of a workday. Once we gave each other the signal of peace—that a part of the Mass the place individuals attain out to these round them, clasp their fingers, and say, "Peace be with you…"—I generally questioned the place else may you share such a poignant second with individuals from all around the world? We would have all prayed for various issues, however wished one another peace in our lives.

I bear in mind, too, the enjoyment that Marta and others from Poland felt when Pope John Paul II, the primary Polish pope, got here on an official go to to Chicago, in 1979. I put a rosary from Marta in my coat pocket after I lined the Mass in Grant Park, and after I returned it to her, she clutched it to her chest and mentioned, "I really feel him right here."

When Pope Leo XIV got here out to talk from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday, I considered that different St. Peter's, in Chicago. The working individuals at these Lots at the moment would possibly see Pope Leo, as soon as recognized on the South Aspect as Father Bob, and inform themselves, "He has walked amongst us."