Once again I find myself back at the Kartause after an amazing experience in another country. This time it was Italy! This past Sunday I returned from a 10-day pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi. It definitely packed full of holy things and lots of pasta. People who come back from a semester here often say they came and “got their face blessed off.” Never has that felt so true.
A few days before meeting up in with Franciscan in Rome, I flew down with a few friends and one of our chaplains. We rented a car and road tripped around Italy to see some saintly sites (yeah, there are a few of those). Holding our breath (and sometimes closing our eyes….“Father Brad! What are you doing!?”) through Italian traffic…and countless hours of bonding time in our “5-seater” rental car (Italians must be very small people) was an experience I won’t forget so easily.
Our road trip itinerary included Loreto, San Giovanni-Rotondo, and Lanciano.
(The “unlimited mileage” option in the rental car package has its perks).
Needless to say, it was incredible. The entire trip was just one blessing after the next. You could say things started off with a bang when our first stop was the house of Mary, the Immaculate Mary…Our Lady herself! in Loreto. We sat and prayed where the Annunciation happened! Where God became man! The Word was made flesh! How else can I express myself!? I am blessed beyond belief!
If that weren’t enough, the next day we visited the tomb of St. Padre Pio, prayed in the cave where St. Michael appeared, and have a private mass right in front of the Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano.
There’s a line from Genesis about God “opening the floodgates of heaven” when it was time to flood the earth. It felt like the floodgates opened again, and the heavens just poured down grace.
Anyway, many thanks go out to everyone who made the first couple of the days so incredible…the Vietnamese Sisters of St. Joseph who let us crash at their convent in Rome, the sacristan, Phillipe, at the Church of Purgatory in Lanciano who showered us with prayer cards, rosaries, saint bracelets, 200-year-old church documents, and unceasing words of affirmation, the sacristan at the church in Lanciano who asked us if we wanted to have mass there, and Father Brad, our chaplain, who [not only successfully maneuvered through Italian traffic, but also] said the mass.
Come Saturday afternoon, when it was time to meet up with the school, the five of us decided that we could have just returned to Austria without seeing Rome sans regrets after those first few of days.
God is so good.
Peace and blessings,
Mary
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