Flowers for Our Lady: Pope Francis in Santiago

(Vatican Radio)  The head of Vatican Radio's English Programme, Sean Patrick Lovett, is travelling with Pope Francis in Cuba and describes the scene of Pope Francis' arrival at National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre on Monday afternoon.

Listen to Sean Patrick Lovett's report:

The road up to the Sanctuary has been freshly tarred, the vegetation scrupulously trimmed on either side. All the way up the hill, every house and wall sports a conspicuously new coat of paint, only on the side that faces the road, of course.

The Papal motorcade moves quickly.  This is hurricane season in Cuba and it’s raining so heavily the Sierra Maestra mountains are a black silhouette in the background.

People huddle in doorways and under leaky umbrellas and they wave timidly as they strain identify a man in white in every car that splashes past. 

And when he does drive past waving back to them encouragingly, there are none of the wild chants and cheers that usually accompany a Papal arrival.  That’s because this is sacred soil. 

This is the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.  It’s here that one of the most revered Marian icons in the world is preserved: a tiny, wooden statue of Mary and the Christ child that’s over 400 years old. 

More than a statue, it’s a symbol of Cuba itself.  It’s an image so sacred that even Earnest Hemingway felt its charisma and donated his gold Nobel Prize medal to the Shrine in 1953.

Both John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI came here, both of them bearing gifts – a gold crown and a golden rose – in 1998 and in 2012, respectively. Because that’s what you do when you visit a Marian sanctuary.

And it’s here, far from the cheering, chanting crowds that Pope Francis chose to meet and pray with the bishops of Cuba – a private, closed-door meeting with no official speeches, no cameras, and no microphones – a chance to speak freely and frankly with his brother bishops about what really concerns him and them.

After they talked, they prayed. And after they prayed, Pope Francis left his own gift: a silver vase filled with a dozen yellow and white ceramic roses.  Because that’s what you do when you visit a Marian Sanctuary, especially this one.