150 students attend mass hosted by Pope Francis in Philadelphia

A delegation of University students attended the mass conducted by Pope Francis at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Sunday.

The mass was expected to draw as many as one million participants, according to USA Today.

Francis told attendees that holiness, similar to happiness, is always contained in little gestures. Those little gestures, he said, get lost amid all the other actions humans perform, but they do help to make each day different.

Student organizer Clare Sherlog ’17 explained that the trip was an all-day affair, with students departing the University early in the morning in two buses.

In Philadelphia, the students were broken into small groups, with each group led by student chaperones, Sherlog said. The chaperones for each group included two upperclassmen and one sophomore. The trip returned at around 11 p.m., she added.

Father Bryan Page, the chaplain at the Aquinas Institute, explained that there were three separate trips coming from the University – a group of 106 students led by him that took two buses, another group of 15 students that went separately and a group of 30 graduate students who had tickets to the event and went by train.

Both Page and Aquinas graduate fellowship member Danna Hargett GS explained that the delegation to visit the Pope is not just a trip but a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage, Page said, is like taking a walk with God.

“A pilgrimage doesn’t have to be something that you do for very long periods of time – it can be an intense one-day experience,” Hargett said.

Page added that the trip was open to non-Catholics, noting that some Jewish students, two Hindus, a Mormon and some declared atheists also attended.

The Catholic community on campus had wanted to organize a trip to see the Pope ever since they heard the Pope was coming to the United States, Hargett said. He said the impetus was always to go, it was just a question of how, and the “how” became possible when the organizers received access to two buses.

Student ministry member Alex Cuadrado ’16 explained that the ministry is composed of both student and non-student members, and both had a hand in organizing it. Sherlog explained that the non-student members of the ministry, such as Page and Hargett, had put together the trip logistics including making arrangements with the bus companies, while the students took responsibility for spreading the word and managing the students during the outing.

“As Catholics, everyone wants to see the Pope,” Hargett said. “Much like you saw the enthusiasm when the Dalai Lama came to campus, people are attracted to that much holiness and spirituality in a single human being.”

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She added that while seeing the Pope has always been a desire among Catholics, Pope Francis is doing a good job drawing people who would ordinarily not be excited about seeing a person in his role.

Page said that Pope Francis has done an especially good job speaking the language of the people and using soundbite form to sum up what the Church is saying.

“It’s absolutely amazing his ability to capture 2,000 years of tradition and tweet it,” Page said.

Cuadrado said that everyone who went as part of the delegation had a different personal goal in doing so, and the job of Aquinas is to provide everyone with the opportunity to fulfill those goals.

“By providing a way to go on this pilgrimage, each pilgrim can fulfill their own goals,” he said.