Each semester our program brings the students to Rome and Assisi for a 10-day pilgrimage. Each fall our family's gone together, and then I go in the spring semester on my own while Courtney holds down the fort at home. This time we were so grateful to have Courtney's mom in Gaming to help while I was away.
On Friday, February 23, I boarded one of two buses with about 130 students and some staff headed to Rome overnight. We arrived in Rome by Saturday late morning and I headed off with a dozen students to Dar Poeta, the best pizza in Rome. After a month of gluten-free suffering, the glory of this pizza matched my greatest hopes for a carb-heavy meal.
One of the best parts of the spring pilgrimage is that we are joined by the LCI Program, the students coming from Eastern Europe, China, and other foreign countries that spend the year in Gaming studying English and theology. This year we had 2 Byzantine priests with our group, so each liturgy included both Roman and Eastern Rite priests on the altar.
Pope Saint John Paul II described the combination of East and West within the Church as "breathing with both lungs," and this was cool to visualize at our first mass together on Saturday. On the altar we had 2 priests on one side in their Byzantine vestments and 2 Roman Rite priests in their purple lenten vestments. It was a beautiful image of the 2 lungs of the church flanking the heart of our faith, the Eucharist.
On Sunday morning we walked to the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls for mass in Italian, and afterward everyone made their way to St. Peter's Square for the Angelus with Pope Francis and a tour inside St. Peter's Basilica by NAC Seminarians (a group of English-speaking seminarians, mostly from dioceses all over the US). The day ended with dinner back at the hotel followed by a holy hour at a parish church nearby.
We were warned that snow was a possibility for Monday, but we had no idea what that would mean (other than cool pictures). It turns out that Rome isn't prepared for snow- so most public transportation was shut down and many schools and businesses were simply shut down. This is great if you're a student in Rome, but stressful if your Monday morning is supposed to begin with mass for 200 people inside a now-closed St. Peter's Basilica. I was about to re-learn an important lesson about my plans and God's providence.
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| St. Peters with snow |
Someone found a daily mass just inside the Vatican gates at Santa Ana, and our massive group of mostly American pilgrims must've been a surprise to the handful of locals that showed up for morning mass. As I was scrambling to figure out a backup plan for the rest of the day's schedule, the mass ended and the priest led the congregation in the ancient Marian hymn "Salve Regina" (Hail Holy Queen). Hearing the church fill with voices from all over the world singing the same song, I was stopped in my tracks and reminded that just maybe everything would be okay that day, even if it would look nothing like we had anticipated.
After mass we sent the students on a walking tour of Rome's city center led by our professors, a priest friend, and a professional tour guide. The afternoon's planned tours of the Vatican Museum and Scavi (excavations under St. Peter's Basilica) had to be scrapped as these offices were closed for the day.
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| The only people working in Rome that day |
One of the highlights of the pilgrimage is always our Monday night visit to the Pontifical North American College (the NAC) where seminarians lead us on a tour of their home and then offer a time of prayer, confessions, and adoration led by priests, deacons, and seminarians living and studying in Rome. About 70 of our students braved the cold and stayed out in the city to walk with me to the NAC Monday night. My phone had just died an hour before we walked there, so I didn't find out until we arrived at the NAC that the event had been canceled. Without a moment's hesitation, the students all decided that they still wanted to praise God that night. We walked to St. Peter's square and everyone just started singing. The cold temperature (about 15°f) was insignificant to the students lifting their hearts and voices to God. We sang until the police kicked us out of the square.
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| FUS Students praising God |
The day began and ended with plans falling apart, but the day also began and ended with voices coming together to praise the God who is bigger than our plans and deserving of our worship in any weather.
This memory is one of the many experiences I think of when asked why I love Franciscan University. The Franciscan friars and sisters that serve us are wonderful, the professors are excellent, and the students especially are pretty amazing.
Tuesday's schedule went pretty much as planned- mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major followed by another walking tour.
Then on Tuesday night we were informed that Wednesday's papal audience had been moved inside due to weather. Traveling with us this semester was a professor's family with 4 young kids. We had given the students detailed instructions for how to get the best seats and the prime section to get close to Pope Francis for the papal audience, but all of this was based on the assumption that the papal audience would be outdoors like normal.
Despite the last minute change, our students rose to the occasion once more. They arrived hours early so that they'd be the first ones let into the Paul VI hall where Pope Francis would address the crowd. The entire main aisle, on both sides, was lined with Franciscan students when the Holy Father walked in. He shook many of their hands, and he even blessed all 4 of the professor's kids!
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| Pope Francis up close |
On Thursday morning I flew back to Austria to be with my family while the rest of our group traveled to Assisi to continue the pilgrimage. It was a great trip, but I was excited to get back to Courtney and our kids.
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