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Pilgrims leave 40,000 prayers at Knotted Grotto

Will pope visit grotto honoring his favorite painting, ‘Mary Undoer of Knots’?

Knotted Grotto visitors write a prayer request on a strip of cloth, then choose and pray for a stranger’s. (TOM GRALISH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Knotted Grotto visitors write a prayer request on a strip of cloth, then choose and pray for a stranger’s. (TOM GRALISH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)Read more

THROUGHOUT THE DAY, hundreds of pilgrims from the World Meeting of Families made their way to the Knotted Grotto, beside the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul, to write their prayers on strips of cloth and add them to the 40,000 already tied there, stirring gently in the breeze.

Each pilgrim wrote a personal plea, tied it to a fence, then untied someone else's prayer, carried it inside the grotto, tied it to the wood frame and prayed for a complete stranger, bound together only by a mutual Catholic faith.

The grotto, by artist Meg Saligman, was inspired by Pope Francis' favorite painting, "Mary, Undoer of Knots."

Project HOME, which is sponsoring the deeply moving installation, is hoping that the pontiff will honor it by visiting.

The knotted prayers ranged from "Send your Son back soon" and "Please protect my children from harm's way" to "I am not my disease" and "Pray for those suffering from addiction."

Having seen Pope Benedict XVI at the 2012 World Meeting of Families in Milan, Boris Korencan, his wife, Karolina, and their daughters, Elizabeta, 19, and Marjeta, 12, traveled here from Slovenia to share the experience of seeing a pontiff again.

Elizabeta acted as interpreter.

The World Meeting, Korencan said with feeling, is powerful because, "Here, with so many people from all different countries, you get an image of how many people pray the same prayers you do, go to church the same way you do. We all pray for our children."

The Korencans are all big Pope Francis fans. "He's more like the common people," Elizabeta said.

"He understands our needs," Karolina said. "He is so down to earth."

Korencan said when he and his family celebrated Mass with Pope Francis during a trip to Rome, "the spirit of the Mass was different because there were so many people there."

"It was raining," Karolina said. "So many people came out in the rain. You got a feeling of how deep the faith is."

Ruby Aguilar, who traveled here from North Dakota with her husband, Mel, left a prayer at the Knotted Grotto because, she said, "It's a good way for people to pray for other people, and with all the chaos in the world, we all need these prayers."

"This is a way to pray for each other very personally and very forcefully," she said. "And hopefully, when Pope Francis comes, lots of miracles will happen. Wherever he preaches, miracles happen."

Danny Lites, who drove here from Bossier City, La., with his wife, Brenda, said Pope Francis will bring "lagniappe," which he said was Louisiana French for "a little something extra," to the World Meeting of Families.

But, he added with a smile, all the closed streets and the expected hundreds of thousands of pilgrims on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to celebrate Mass with the pope "will make you wish you had a horse and buggy to get here."

Brenda said she loves Pope Francis because "you can see he loves everyone in everything he does," including leaving the heavy security of his schedule for spur-of-the-moment visits to the homeless and the destitute.

"When he feels called to do something, he just does it," Brenda said. "He's so trusting because he is very much in love with God."

On Twitter: @DanGeringer