Here I Am vs. What Do You Want?

1 Samuel Chapter 3 tells the story of the calling of Samuel.  It is one of the more well known stories in the Old Testament.  It goes basically like this.  Samuel is sleeping in the Temple, and God keeps waking him up by calling his name.  Samuel does not understand and believes it is Eli calling him.  He presents himself before Eli and simply says, “Here I am.”

What an interesting response.  ”Here I am.”  It is open ended.  Samuel did not come with expectations.  He simply opens himself up to the one he thought was calling.  When Eli realizes that it is God calling, and tells Samuel as much, Samuel adds “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”  This is a deeper openness.  Samuel is not bringing his will into it.  He wants only to answer the call, wherever it leads him.

This is a very different answer than most of us would give.  If someone calls us, we would ask, “How can I help you?” “What can I do for you?” “What do you want?”  It is a natural inclination to know what is before us.  However, when God called Samuel, he wanted nothing more than to be present to God’s will:  ”Here I am.”

So, when God calls you, what is your response?  Do you have the tendency to demand details?  It is normal if you do, we are human after all.  But next time you hear his call in your life, try just responding with faith.  Tell him, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”

The Word Made Flesh

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it…
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.

– John 1:1-5,14

Today, take the time to try and appreciate what we celebrate.  It is not just the birth of a bouncing baby, boy (although it is that, too!).  It is the time to celebrate how heaven and earth became forever intermingled.  Heaven came to earth, and even more amazingly, the Son of God from heaven chose, in obedience to the Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to make himself earthly.  To empty himself of his majesty on high, and become the most humble of creatures, a human child.  We are now capable of reaching the heights of heaven, because heaven’s King became one of us.  There need be no separation between God and humanity, because God became human, and remains human and God forever in Christ Jesus.  We are joined forever. For unto us a child is born, unto us the Son is given.  Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth, peace to people of good will!

Happy Holidays?

This phrase gets a lot of flack these days, and maybe rightfully so.  I see no reason to be angry at someone who groups all the holidays we celebrate during this time of year into one, but then I see no reason to group them either.  So, this is my strategy.  I only offer people good wishes for one holiday at a time.  So, until recently I said “Happy Thanksgiving,” no matter how much Christmas stuff was already up in the stores.  Now I either say “have a Merry Christmas” (because it’s not Christmas yet) or to those Catholics and other Christians I know well enough, I’ll say “Happy Advent.”  That last one is not catchy or anything, but you never know… it may catch on.  Then when Christmas Eve rolls around, I’ll switch to “Merry Christmas.”  Then on New Years Eve comes, it’ll be “Happy New Year.”  Lastly, I’m very serious about continuing to wish people “Merry Christmas” until the Christmas season actually ends, which is January 8 this year in the US.

I don’t have to be preachy, but I can speak the truth!

Waiting for Salvation

Any parent can probably tell me about their experience with this phrase:  ”Are we there yet?”  Children in the back seat, maybe a complaint like “He’s touching me!” or “She’s took my juice box!”  The parents up front turning the radio louder and louder by increments to keep their cool until the next stop… in 60 miles!  This may be a bleak image to use in this wonderful Advent Season, but it also may be appropriate.

We have been waiting on our journey toward salvation for quite some time.  This is 2011.  That means it’s been two-thousand and eleven years since Jesus’ coming as man.  Even before that the people of God were waiting for salvation.  In today’s Gospel at Mass, we have a witness to this anticipation in John the Baptist.  He “was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist.  He fed on locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6).  This is an image of the Prophet Elijah.  The prophets had been looking forward to our deliverance by God for quite some time before Jesus.  John the Baptist quotes Isaiah today.  The original text from today’s first reading cries out: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” (Isaiah 40:3).  Isaiah ministered over 600 years before Christ, Elijah over 1000, and some estimate the time of Abraham at around 2000 years before Christ.  So, all in all, we’ve been waiting for God’s salvation of humanity for over 4000 years, and still we wait!

We are not just in the backseat of a car on a long family road trip, we are people in a world full of war, violence, hatred, pain, and suffering.  Why would God make us all wait so long under such conditions if he is going to save us anyway?  St. Peter gives us the answer we are seeking today.  ”The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).  God’s patience in bringing the world to it’s fulfillment is ordered toward our salvation.  If Jesus would have ended the world when he came the first time, none of you reading this would have existed.  You would have never had the opportunity to know Christ, to experience God’s love, or to live the life of grace.  In fact, billions of souls have been created by God to join our family and taste salvation.

So, we wait.  However, waiting is not all we must do.  We are not passive passengers on the highway of life.  Our duty and joy lies in both “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12).  How can we hasten the Kingdom of God?  If “we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (ibid. 13), then we show this future by being agents of righteousness.  We oppose the evil of abortion, even though we believe that God will bring the innocent children to his love for eternity.  Why do we do this?  Because standing for righteousness shows the truth and light of God and helps others to see it.  We stand up for the rights of the poor and downtrodden, even though we believe that those who suffer will know the comfort and peace of God in the end.  We do this so that others may witness the love of God enfleshed in human existence.  We work for all righteousness so that we can be missionaries for Christ, and add to the number who come to know him.  Thus, as we await our salvation, we also hasten the day of the Lord in the lives of our brothers and sisters.

How are you faring during our long wait?  Are you ready should the end come?  Are you a missionary for Christ, taking advantage of every moment of possibility for righteousness?  This is our duty, our privilege, and our joy.  We are those who wait for our God, we are those who trust in the faithfulness of our Lord.  In faith we pray, “Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation” (Psalm 85:8).

Rubrics, Piety, and Innovation

I have been MC’ing more and more lately (MC = Master of Ceremonies at a liturgical celebration), and something has been increasingly coming to my mind.  This is the question of “proper” liturgical practice.  Many different voices are involved in this conversation, and no easy answer seems to present itself.  However, there are several phrases that continuously come up:  ”conscious, active, and full participation of the faithful” (GIRM 18), “do the red and say the black,” and “tradition vs. adaptation.”  I’d like to look at these three phrases as a way to find a calmer conversation on the liturgy that is “is the center of the whole of Christian life for the Church both universal and local, as well as for each of the faithful individually” (GIRM 16).

Full, Active, and Conscious Participation

First up is a quote from the General Instruction to the Romal Missal (GIRM), which is the document of the Church that guides the way we celebrate the Holy Mass (the Roman Missal is the name of the liturgical book that we use to pray the Mass together as the Church).  The Church envisions that all of God’s people in their own way an in their own vocation worship God together “fully” (with every part of their being), “actively” (there are no spectators at Mass only people in active worship of God), and “consciously” (everyone is aware of what it is they are doing).  Everyone should be involved.  We are one Church, the Body of Christ, and the liturgy is “the action of Christ and of the People of God arrayed hierarchically” (GIRM 16) giving all worship to God.  This is great up front, but what do you do when different ideas about how the different groups in the Church are to all celebrate “consciously, actively, and fully?”

Do the Red, Say the Black

We should start to answer this question by examining the Roman Missal itself.  The phrase above about the red and the black refers to the different colors of print in the Missal (not, unfortunately, to the school colors of my alma mater).  The parts that are to be spoken by the priest celebrant, concelebrating priests, deacon, congregation, lectors, cantors, or other specialized ministers.  The actions and orientations of the people in these various roles are specified in the missal in red lettering.  The Latin word for this red writing used in medieval documents for the described purpose is “rubrica,” from “ruber,” meaning a shade of red (Oxford Etymological Dictionary).  So, the rubrics are literally the red words (of course that word’s meaning has expanded).  The main point of contention between the various voices in the debate on “good liturgy” tends to be on the carrying out of these rubrics.  Recently, the words to be said (in black) have been under scrutiny in the English speaking world.  That question has been settled by the Church in the new translation we will begin to use this Sunday, so we will not treat it here.

Tradition vs. Adaptation

There tend to be two “factions” in the Church that make the most noise (we very much like being stratified here in the US these days it seems).  One faction seeks to aid in full, active, conscious participation of the faithful by exalting what it sees as “traditional” practices, practices documented from the history of the Church’s liturgical celebration.  The other faction seeks to realize full, active, conscious participation by interpreting/adapting the rubrics to the particular parish or worshiping community’s situation and needs.  Both groups find support in a way from the GIRM.  Pope Benedict XVI exhorts us in the newly translated edition’s forward:  ”These texts contain riches which have preserved and expressed the faith and experience of the People of God over its two-thousand-year history.  However, the GIRM also asserts that “part of the new Missal orders the prayers of the Church in a way more open to the needs of our times” (15; for a full treatment of both points of view in tension, see the entire Introduction).  So, the so called (sometime self-labelled) “traditionalists” will many times confront those who seek to make adaptations in order to keep up with the times, and the so called “progressives” confront those who seek to conserve that which has gone before (these names are completely arbitrary and I use them only in order to have a name by which I can signify the groups).  A progressive then might get frustrated by a traditionalist making profound bows to the presider while serving at the altar.  A traditionalist might balk at a progressive who decides to play a little light instrumental music in the background of the Prayer of the Faithful.  What is to be thought about this.  The progressive might label the pious actions of the traditionalist as “additions” while the traditionalist might label the pious actions of the progressive as “innovations.”  My thesis is that both are accurate descriptions, and both are to be avoided.

Both factions seek to supplement the rubrics for pious reasons.  Piety, in the way I am using it here, is a personal act of reverence.  Such practices include: saying “My Lord and my God” at the elevation of the blessed sacrament, holding hands with the person next to you, extra genuflections or bows, raising ones hands in prayer, praying personal prayers after receiving communion, lowering one’s eyes or bowing one’s head in prayer, etc.  In Mass, there are host of pious actions one may carry out if it enhances one’s prayer.   These pieties are beautiful and should be respected.  However, there is on major rule that must be remembered:  Piety at mass must remain personal.  This is because the Mass is the action of the whole Church and does not belong to the individual, even the presider.  When one is acting in an official role at Mass, that person must remember that this action is not his or her own.  This is the reason we have rubrics.  Any piety that is imposed on the liturgy, in an official (especially presidential) manner is rightly called an “innovation.”  Innovation is to be avoided, because it fractures unity.  My parish celebrates the Mass yes, and we are a particular community with a particular character, but we celebrate the one Holy Mass of the Church.  If a server teaches other servers that they must take two steps back after handing the celebrant an item and then make a profound bow, the server is innovating.  The rubrics do not call for it, because the action of the server is not important to the liturgy and therefore should not be made an event.  If a choir member thinks that a little background music to the Prayer of the Faithful is necessary to enhance the power of the moment, the choir member is innovating.  The Prayer of the Faithful is already designed to bring all people together into the one Prayer of the Church, and there is no rubric to indicate that help is needed.

Traditionalists often criticize progressives for innovating, but it is often they who innovate the most, but they do not do it exclusively. Rather, why not simply trust the Church?  Many very, very smart and well-versed men and women have spent amazing quantities of time to develop the current edition of the Roman Missal (and its rubrics).  Should we not celebrate the one liturgy as they have laid out?  Do the red, say the black, and celebrate it well.  Each parish will take on its own character in liturgical celebration natually, but there will be no loss of meaning if we take our own pride out of it.  Liturgical innovation ultimately comes down to this, pride.  I think I know better than the Church!  Why come at liturgy with suspicion and a desire to “fix” what’s “broken?”  Celebrate well (fully, actively, and consciously) that beautiful liturgy that was so carefully constructed, drawing from our Church’s tradition history and adapting it to today’s circumstances as our needs progress in time.  The Holy Spirit guides the Church, let’s trust her and leave our innovations out of it.  Be we traditionalist or progressive in our leanings, pride is a sin that leads us all to the same end.  In humility, may we celebrate together in Mass, always respecting “the integrity and unity of the Roman Rite” (GIRM 399).

Our Examples of Holiness

How blessed we are this day to stand here in the presence of the Lord as “the children of God.  Yet so we are” (1 Jn 3:1).  On this Solemnity of All Saints we give praise and thanks to the God of our salvation, He who calls us to share his very life.  In a special way today, we honor those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith and the life of grace, the Saints of God in light.

The visionary John tells us of his “vision of a great multitude, which no one could count” (Rev 7:9), those saints of God who stand as our witnesses to the life of holiness.  The truth is that all of us are called to saintliness, to holiness.  St. John’s letter reminds us of the call we have to holiness, we who hope God’s promise of salvation.  “Everyone who has this hope based on [God] makes himself pure, as He is pure” (1 Jn 3:3).  So this is our goal as Christians, to be holy as God in heaven is holy (cf. Mt 5:48).  It is a difficult goal to be sure, but Jesus gives us examples of what it is to be holy and blessed in his Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1-12a).

Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  These describe the life of holiness, but it may be difficult to achieve them without help.  Never fear my brothers and sisters, because today we celebrate the life of the saints, our great examples of the blessed life.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”  Saint Francis of Assisi, under whose patronage our archdiocese was formed, showed us this beautiful witness.  He gave up his great wealth to seek the simple life.  We can learn from him by simplifying our life, rejecting distractions and trusting that “the Kingdom of heaven” will be ours in Christ Jesus.

“Blessed are they who mourn.”  No saint embodies the blessing of mourning more than Our Lady, la Dolorosa.  Saint Mary, our mother, trusted God even as she held the lifeless body of her beloved son in her arms.  Through her faith she hoped in the resurrection and was not crushed by despair.  In our suffering may we turn to God and “be comforted.”

“Blessed are the meek.”  Here we can turn to Mary’s husband, Saint Joseph, who as a righteous man could have denounced Mary publically when he heard that she was pregnant before their marriage. He however acted in patience, kindness, and meekness.  God then revealed the great grace he was to experience as Mary’s husband and foster father to Jesus.  In this difficult world, we can grow in holiness by being meek and patient with those around us, allowing God to work in all situations, and thus “inherit the land” that God has prepared for us in our lives.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  Our great patron, Saint Anthony of Padua worked tirelessly to speak out against errors and injustices in his day.  He did so with love and passion, and teaches us to stand for what is right, so we can “be satisfied” in the light of truth and justice.

“Blessed are the merciful.”  All of us are sinners, but Saint Faustina taught us through her conversations with our Lord that our God is a God of mercy.  If we are to be holy as God is holy, may we extend mercy to our brothers and sisters.  In this way, we “will be shown mercy” by the God who forgives us “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

“Blessed are the clean of heart.”  Saint Agnes, maintained her purity even when her life was in danger, thus showing us that if we reject all of those things that cloud the soul we will be able to “see God.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”  Our human family was created good by our God, but we know that we all fall.  Saint Catherine of Siena knew this when she helped the Church put aside its petty divisions and brought unity, even to the papacy.  May we never forget that we are called to bring peace to all those “called children of God.”

“Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”  This last lesson is so important in these days when being Christian, standing for holiness, is under attack.  St. Peter and the Apostles gave their very lives in witnessing to the Gospel, trusting that “theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”  My friends, you too must remember that “blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you, and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of” Jesus our Lord.  We cannot expect to walk in the very life of God without joining our Lord on the Cross.  But this persecution is not the end.  “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven!”

We can do this my sisters and brothers!  We can live the life of holiness.  Our God created us to do it.  It is your birthright as sons and daughters of the Father.  Today we remember with gratitude that “salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb” (Rev 7:10).  Christ, the great Lamb of God has won us a share in salvation, in the life of the Saints, in the life of holiness.  May all the saints and angels who stand before our God in Heaven, pray for us as we walk this blessed path.  One day, through God’s grace and their intercession, may we stand before the heavenly throne and cry out with one voice:  “Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” (Rev 7:12).

Quo Vadis?

It was just last Sunday, that we were praising the faith shown by Simon Peter, the rock on whom Jesus built his Church.  Peter had proclaimed a great truth, that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16).  Today we pick up, right after this exchange, with Jesus describing how he is to be handed over to the leaders of the community, to suffer, and to die.  Peter pulls his Master aside and starts to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you” (22).  To this, Jesus replies – something I am certain none of us would ever want to hear from our God – “Get behind me, Satan!” (23).  This is a seriously harsh statement.  Jesus rebukes Peter, whom he had just praised for his faith, and calls him a devil!  This is no Mama from The Waterboy talking here as a joke, this is the Lord.  Why did Jesus react so strongly to Peter’s refusal to believe the Messiah had to die?

The problem was as Jesus put it, that Peter was “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (ibid).  Peter was not accepting, as many of us do not in our own lives, the very central reality of our Christian faith, the reality of the Cross.  We are Christians, and we adore the cross, it is the symbol of our faith.  In our Catholic faith we have a crucifix present at every mass, to remind us of who we are.  Maybe you have never let this fact wash over you.  If God calls us to give our life for the faith, we are to obey. In our contemporary world, we often forget this charge of our Christianity.  Still even if as you read this you feel like Jeremiah that the Lord “duped” you, and that you let yourself be duped (Jeremiah 20:7), it is true all the same that center of the Christian life is to give up one’s life for the good of the world in God’s will.

In the beautiful novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a tradition about Peter is dramatized that has long been held by Christians, and that shows Peter coming to full terms with what it really means to be a Christian.  The book paints a picture of Nero’s Rome, a city of debauchery, selfishness, licentiousness, and excess, where the top value was one’s individual pleasure.  It was a world where “I get mine, and could not care less if you get yours.”  Sadly, my friends, this bears a striking resemblance to the world in which we live today in the West.  A world like this cannot (and in the case of Rome, did not) sustain itself.  It is a dying world.  The solution was given to the world by Christ, self-donation and self-sacrifice.  The answer to the problem of human suffering is the acceptance of suffering for the good of others.  Jesus gave his life “as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  In Quo Vadis, the Apostle Peter is in Rome during the great persecution of Christians that broke out after Rome suffered a horrific fire that consumed most of the city and killed hosts of people.  This fire was very possibly started by the insane Emperor Nero himself (which is the narrative given by the author), but to save his skin it is thought the Christians were blamed as the arsonists.  As more and more of Christ’s followers were rounded up to be fed to lions and other wild beasts, Peter was urged by his flock to leave Rome.  After all, he was our leader, and he needed to live to keep guiding God’s flock.  On his way out of the city, Peter has a vision of the Jesus.  The Christ asks him “quo vadis, domine?” – “where are you going, lord?”  In this question, Jesus sums up why he reacted to Peter in today’s Gospel the way he did.  He pointedly calls Peter “lord,” to show that we are always so tempted to put our will before God’s will, even though God truly is the only Lord.  And the questions “where are you going?” cuts so poignantly as well.  Where else should Peter be going?  Sienkiewicz presents these words from Jesus: “When you abandon my people, I must go to Rome to be crucified once more” (chapter 83).  This is to say, someone had to do it.  Someone had to put their life on the line to witness to God’s power.  In the face of such a world, the witness of Peter, and later of Paul, served to galvanize the selfless love of the Christian community in that center of civilization.  A better way, a way of self-gift fought and overturned the rule of self-love.

This question then is being asked of us today.  Do we identify ourselves with the cross?  Where are we going?  Our world is in such a need of selfless love and belief in the truth of a God that gives all, that it is literally destroying itself to find what it needs.  However, why is it not finding Christ?  God is not to blame in this.  It is us, the Christian community that holds this burden.  We turn away from the Cross and expect our faith to be lived without pain, fear of rejection, persecution, and suffering.  This cannot be so.  As Jesus told Peter and the disciples: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it” (Matthew 16:24-25).  We must be willing every day (even if it is not in a bloody martyrdom) “to offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).  The comforts and praises of this world are not part of our identity, and we cannot “conform [our]selves to this age” (2), but rather witness against anything that is wrong in it and show a better way, even – and especially – when it costs us dearly.

Peter finally came to terms with the cost of discipleship and the building of the kingdom of God.  He found the truth, like Jeremiah, that the need to speak the truth of the kingdom “becomes like a fire in [one's] heart” (Jer. 20:9).  Our soul “thirsts” for the Lord our God (Ps. 63:2), and we can no longer hold in our love for him.  Our destiny does not end in the suffering our witness demands, it ends even as Jesus promised his disciples with life after death.  He was raised on the third day, so that “whoever loses his life for [his] sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25).  Our destiny is in heaven with the Lord.  May the martyrs’ witness remind us of the true meaning of Christianity.  God give you the strength to answer well his question when the presented with the great choice in your life.  Will you turn away to follow your own will and fail to witness to the kingdom, or will you turn to accept the Cross that saves.  Quo vadis?

Day 7 – Assisi-Rome

My phone is dying and my adapter was left at a previous hotel stop, so this blog will have to be short.

We woke up leisurely again today, praise Jesus!  There was a very beautiful cloud layer surrounding Assisi this morning.  After breakfast we had Mass in one of the chapels of St. Mary of the Angels in Portiuncola (the church where St. Francis’ little church is inside).  Mass was just phenomenal.  Archbishop’s homily was perfect as we meditated on our pilgrimage and the gentle yoke of Jesus.

After Mass we took a group photo (with select cameras), and left back for Rome.  I had the great pleasure to be greeted by my good friends Garrett and Jamie Skloss, who I haven’t seen in years.  Garrett is stationed at the Navy Base in Napoli, and they came up for a visit.  We had lunch in the second oldest café in Rome, Café Grieco, established in 1760.  This means we ate at a restaurant that is older than the United States.  Just crazy.  I did some errands for my Archbishop in the afternoon and then rested a bit (I stayed up very late last night).  Then we had a meeting to reflect on our time together as pilgrims, followed by our last dinner together.  We shared stories, and our tour guide, Fulvio, shared his recipies for lemoncello and a cake called mimosa.  There were many goodbyes with the group from Mexico, who have a later flight (jealous!), and with others who are staying on in Italy or other places in Europe.  Tomorrow we start our journey home.

Day Six – Assisi

Assisi is the city of peace, and today was a very peaceful day.  We awoke later than usual, had a nice breakfast, then loaded a bus for the basilica of St. Clare (Santa Chiara).  There we saw the story of Clare’s life, her unbelievable faith, her miracles, and the relics of her life here on earth.

Next we went to the convent of San Damiano, and saw the place of St. Francis’ conversion and St. Clare’s life.  In San Damiano we also prayed at the site of St. Clare’s death and birth to everlasting life.  There are scattered pictures, because photos are typically not allowed at the Assisi shrines.

We then had lunch, when a bee tried to eat my prosciutto… weird.  Then we made our way to Santa Maria degli Angelic, or St. Mary of the Angels.  The Basilica built around a little Church called Portiuncola.  This is the church Francis thought Jesus was talking about when he said, “Rebuild my Church…”.   We had a tour of the grounds, including the tiny hut in which Francis lived.  We prayed the Rosary guided by Archbishop Gustavo, in one of the chapels, then when home for rest and dinner.

A couple of us went to the main square where a 50′s American Cover band was performing live, good times.  Lastly, we just finished hanging out with some random people from California who are also leaving Assisi tomorrow.  God is good.

Day Five – Rome-Assisi

God is good and made a nice leisurely morning for us all.  We had breakfast and checked out of our hotels.  The Pilgrims got ready to proceed to Assisi, while Archbishop, Bishop, and I headed to the Vatican for a meeting to take care of some needed business.  It was about this time I notice I left my phone in the Hotel.  Sad.  Luckily, Ms. Gigi Zapaian got a message that it had been left, and she and her bus turned back to get it.  Thanks to all of you in that bus, I hope you had not gone far before turning back!  Because of my phone being with them however, I have no pictures until Assisi.

Now, after our meeting, the Archbishop wanted to lift the Archdiocese up in prayer before the tomb of Blessed John Paul II.  We got to go behind the divider and pray up next to the tomb altar.  Fantastic!  We also prayed in St. Peter’s Blessed Sacrament Chapel, which is more beautiful in and of itself than most Churches I know.  Also, while I know that there is only one Lord, and He is always the same in the Blessed Sacrament, He seemed closer in that Chapel at St. Peter’s.  We visited the Pieta before departing, and then we went to St. Clement’s Basilica before going to the train station (may as well see the church of another Pope, right?).  That place is great!  It is a 12th Century Basilica (with original mosaics), built on top of a 4th Century Catholic church, built on top of a 1st Century pagan temple.  We got to walk all around the excavated churches and see ancient frescoes and architecture.  What a blessing.

We then had a leisurely lunch and boarded our train for Assisi.  The Umbria region here in Italy is gorgeous, so green and fertile with gentle rolling hills and some mountains… like the one I’m on right now.  The countryside made the train ride even more fun.  When we arrived in Assisi, it was just in time for Mass at St. Francis’ Basilica.  We had Mass there, for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, at the Chapel of St. Catherine if Alexandria, with Archbishop presiding.  Before Mass I took a few pictures before I was sternly told “No photos” (like it said on the sign I hadn’t read).  Afterwards, I visited the tomb of St. Francis.  It is the most amazing place.  Peace is tangible in that place, it sinks into your mind, body, and soul.  Thank God for St. Francis.

We then walked up to our Hotel Giotto in the rain (which was weird to me coming from drought-ravaged South Texas).  The Hotel is beautiful, and my room has a little balcony that overlooks the Umbrian Valley.  I am too lucky!

I got to rest, and then went down for dinner.  Afterwards, we took a walk to the central piazza here in Assisi, had some gelato (café e creme for me!), talked, laughed, and enjoyed the beautiful cool night that settled in after the rain.  Tomorrow more churches and our one full day in Assisi!