– It was very early in the morning, a few minutes after six, I had a service on Terra Loggia – the third floor. Like my other colleagues in the guard, who were also guarding at this time of day, I knew that the Pope was walking on the roof terrace and praying the Rosary. It was enough to look at the window to see his white figure. He walked back and forth, reached the very edge of the roof, leaned strongly towards Rome, looked at the city from above, stopped for a moment in this pose, so nostalgically, then turned around and continued to circle the terrace.
Watching him was an extraordinary experience for me, because those were moments that no one knew about. This peculiar code of his morning prayer was known only to us – the guards, those who were on duty in this very place – in the corridor of the palace under the roof, early in the morning. His walks were like a clock: regular, daily… A thought always crossed my mind: aha, the Pope has already got up, walks on the roof and prays before the world wakes up for good. He was a man of powerful, unimaginable prayer. Prayers with a capital M.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
pages: 105 – 106
