Editor’s Note: Pope Benedict XVI invited all ecclesial movements and new communities in the church to celebrate Pentecost with him at the Vatican June 3-4. Several groups of pilgrims from the archdiocese traveled to Rome, including representatives from the Charismatic Renewal Center and Christian Life Movement (CLM). Sean Salinas traveled with the group from St. Anthony Mary Claret Church.

    For months, we pilgrims had done everything we could to prepare ourselves. Physically, mentally and spiritually, we were about as ready as we were going to get. Midway through an intense day of travel, we found a final eight-hour flight from Newark the only thing standing between us and our final destination.

    We were to celebrate the feast of Pentecost with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, at St. Peter’s Square, where he was to preside directly in front of the Vatican. To say we were anxious could qualify as the understatement of the year.

    Two meals and plenty of cumulative sleep later, the plane landed and our passports were stamped. Settling in for the first day, we do our best to adjust our bodies to the seven-hour time change. We are going to need our rest. Tomorrow is a big day.

    Backtracking for a moment, it’s easy to wonder just how we were able to receive this chance of a lifetime. Surely we had applied and been selected from among a group of highly elite candidates. On the contrary, the trip was made open to any and all parishioners of St. Anthony Mary Claret Church.

    Paola Juárez, the parish’s confirmation director and youth minister, saw this as an opportunity to inform others about the Christian Life Movement (CLM) to which she belongs. She admits its integration into the parish is still “just beginning,” but feels confident that this trip could serve as the catalyst for increasing awareness of the movement at St. Anthony Mary Claret Church.

    The CLM is a relatively recent formation of faith within the Christian community, created in 1985.     According to the movement’s Web site, www.clmusa.org, “Luis Fernando Figari, the founder of the Sodalitium, conceived the idea of gathering [other] people and initiatives together in an ecclesiastic movement. Thus, the Christian Life Movement was born as fruit of an apostolate that had been blessed by the Holy Spirit.”
    Fitting, it seems, that Pentecost was to serve as the event with which many of us would experience our first encounter with the CLM.

    Rising bright and early at 6 a.m. (11 p.m. San Antonio time) on our first morning in Rome, we prepare for an audience with the Holy Father. We arrive at a St. Peter’s Square full of people from around the world, of every color and tongue. Adam Barajas, a senior at Holy Cross High School, probably sums it up best: “It can be a frightening experience being a tourist in another country. However, it is not frightening being a pilgrim…we are all on a common road to spirituality and communion, all barriers are broken and we can all share in each other’s love.”

    These individuals, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, may not understand our words, nor we theirs, but we all know the reason for their presence — the language of our faith is universal.

    As he makes his way through countless multitudes of individuals, the sight of the Holy Father is enough to produce a massive array of emotions. Shouts of “Benedetto!” enthusiastically pierce the morning air. Some shed tears of joy, ecstatic to be in the presence of the leader of their faith. Still, many remain speechless, overwhelmed at their place in the world at this very moment.

    We listen as the pope greets every one of us in many of our own languages. He speaks of his visit to Auschwitz, the site of the infamous Nazi concentration camp. For some, like Ernest Herrera, Jr., a sophomore at Columbia University, it is particularly moving: “It was the first time I listened to something so personal from the new pope. The enthusiasm of the people gathered and the energy Benedict had to offer us confirmed for the first time for me how important the Holy Father is to the church…the Holy Spirit truly did seem to be upon us.”

    The following two days are just as special as this one. We attend the Pentecost vigil, a day full of song and celebration, followed by Mass on Sunday morning.

    Courtney Moran, a sophomore at the University of Texas at San Antonio, remembers those days well: “I remember sitting in St. Peter’s Square for the vigil of Pentecost and as the sun was setting and a cool breeze was in the air, I closed my eyes and listened to the psalms being sung as a four-part harmony and I remember this feeling of peace. I thought, ‘This is what heaven will be like.’”

    Four weeks later, the memories remain just as strong, the images just as vivid and the experience just as powerful.