Rena Dombrosky awakened her husband, Dan, dozing in front of the living room television, to tell him they had won the lottery. So, that night in late March, he presumed they had struck it rich.

Instead of winning the Mega Millions game they sometimes play, he learned that their prize is two tickets to Pope Benedict XVI's papal Mass in Washington D.C. on Thursday. "His first reaction was that if we had won the money we could afford to go see the Pope in Rome," said Rena.

The couple are members of St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in downtown Roanoke.
But there's plenty of excitement in the Dombrosky house in Botetourt County and elsewhere among the 24 Catholics in the Roanoke area and New Rivery Valley who entered an on-line or mail-in drawing held by church officials in Richmond.

"We're going to be part of welcoming this holy man to the United States. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us," said Rena. "I never thought we'd have a chance."

Now they're among 46,000 ticketholders nationwide for the event, the first visit by a pope to Washington since 1979.

If you have a personal anecdote or observation about the pope's visit, please let us know.
And if you aren't Catholic, are you still interested in the pope? Is he somehow relevant to your faith?

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• Posted by Rob Johnson in Catholic
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