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As many of you know, St. Catherine’s recently hosted a parish pilgrimage to Italy – May 12–23, 2019. Traveling with Fr. Joe and Ann Marie were 24 parishioners and 5 people from our neighboring parishes. Because not everyone was from St. Catherine’s, we caught people asking the “so, are you from St. Catherine’s” question only to be surprised when the answer was yes. The trip made us realize how fragmented our community can be based on the Mass you go to and the groups you belong to. It was nice to watch the whole group grow in comfort with each other as the days (and miles) went on.
What makes a trip a pilgrimage, you may ask? A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place to deepen our faith through prayer and experience. Pilgrimages bring us closer to God by inviting us to pay attention to how God is working in the world, both in the past and now, and working within us as well. Often people think that people on a pilgrimage are only doing “holy” things, but we can assure you that our trip to Italy included a lot of good food and wine, lots of laughter, great conversations, and lots of art and natural beauty—all of which made the experience holy ground.
We started our pilgrimage in Assisi, home to St. Francis and St. Clare. Assisi is a walled city built on a hill and it has been around (in some form or another) since about 1,000 years before the time of Jesus. By the time Francis was born to a wealthy cloth merchant in 1182, Assisi had become a thriving city. Today Assisi is mainly a pilgrimage destination because it is so connected to the life and ministries of Francis and Clare.
Our first stop upon arriving in the area was to the Santa Maria degli Angeli (St. Mary of the Angels), which is a large basilica built around the small chapel which Francis rebuilt in the midst of his religious conversion. The picture captures a bit of how weird it is to find this simple chapel in the midst of a huge baroque church, but it was a great first stop to be able to pray where Francis prayed and to visit the site where he died (also in the basilica) in 1226. We then got settled in our hotel, which had a magnificent view of the valley below, and enjoyed our first Italian meal and, for many, some wonderful Italian wine.
Day two in Assisi included two different walking tours, the first through the Basilica of St. Francis and the second introducing us to a few of the other churches and sites within Assisi. We began the day with a private Mass at the tomb of St. Francis. All of us felt very honored to be able to celebrate Mass together in this holy place. After Mass, we had a tour of the basilica and got our first encounter with a story of the major earthquake that hit the city in 1997. The vaults (domes) of the upper church of the Basilica collapsed in a second earthquake, killing four people who were assessing the damage from the first earthquake. The basilica was closed for two years while they repaired the physical structure to the church, but the frescoes on the vaults were lost forever. After some time on our own for lunch, our second walking tour introduced us to the Cathedral of St. Rufino, the Basilica of St. Clare, and the history of the town.
It was at the Basilica of St. Clare that we were able to see the San Damiano Cross, which is the cross from which Jesus spoke to St. Francis, telling him to “rebuild my Church." He heard this message in a small church down the hill from Assisi known as San Damiano, which many of us visited after our walking tour. San Damiano was also the convent for St. Clare and her Sisters, and it is where St. Clare died in 1253. Our evening ended with another great meal, some shared wine bottles, and evening prayer.
Day three in Assisi was a beautiful weather day, and our first stop was hermitage of St. Francis, which is located near the top of the mountain above Assisi. About half the group decided to accept the challenge and to walk up the steep roads that lead to the hermitage (over an hour’s walk). The rest of the group admired their determination and physical efforts but enjoyed a taxi ride to the same location. The hermitage is in the midst of a forest, on a river gorge. St. Francis and his followers would go there for prayer and to live simply. A small friary still exists on this site today. We had a chance to walk the grounds where legend has it St. Francis preached to the birds and they responded. As one of our group commented, “I don’t know how he got a word in edgewise” because of the cacophony of bird sounds that we experienced at this site. Most taxied back to town, with some stopping at the fortress that sits at the top of the town, others returning to the town square, and all finding their way back to the hotel by 2 p.m. for our next adventure.
We left Assisi for an afternoon at the Arnaldo-Capra Winery, where we had a tour of the winery, learned about the local grapes and the wines they produce, and then had a wonderful wine tasting of five of their wines. We spent over an hour sitting on their outdoor patio, just taking in the beauty of the region, talking, and, for some, purchasing some wonderful wine to bring home to share with others. We ended our day with dinner at the hotel and then evening prayer.
In preparation for our pilgrimage, we asked people to let us know who we could pray for during our pilgrimage. Prior to each of our Masses and Evening Prayers, Ann Marie would read some of the petitions. On this particular night we prayed for all the youth and adults who were receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation that evening in Ithaca. Carrying those prayers with us throughout the week, putting the list on the altar at each of our private Masses, and praying for some of them each day was a powerful experience for our pilgrims.
Our fourth full day in Italy meant that it was time to leave Assisi and head to Florence. Florence is home to many pieces of Renaissance art and architecture, and in our few hours in Florence, we got just a small taste of a few of them. Our first stop upon arriving in town was to the Galleria dell'Accademia, which houses the statue of Michelangelo’s David. We had to stand in line for some time to enter the museum, so our tour guides gave us some great information about the Renaissance period, Michelangelo’s life, Florence, and how to not get killed by Italian drivers! All good and important information! Within the museum we got to see a few other paintings and sculptures, but the focus of the trip was on David, which truly is a masterpiece. Our second stop was at the famous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the red-domed Cathedral of Florence that you have probably seen in pictures. We didn’t go into the Cathedral or the Baptistery of San Giovanni, but did get to see the beautiful doors on the baptistery and the amazing statues and artwork that adorns the cathedral. Our tour continued through a few more plazas, seeing more statues, hearing more history, and ended with the knowledge that one can’t really see Florence in a few hours. We had a few hours on our own to eat some lunch, do some shopping, and visit some additional sites. Our visit ended with an unusual happening in Florence—hundreds of cars that were taking part in the Mille Miglia (1,000 Mile Race). Ferraris were at the front of the line and slowly made their way through the plaza that was our meeting place, so we got to see one- and two-million dollar cars up close as they paraded past us. On our way out of town, we were passed by hundreds of other cars—some sports cars, other vintage cars, and some “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang”–type cars. It was a fun end to our day in Florence. We then traveled to Siena, where our hotel was located just outside the walled part of the Siena, and enjoyed dinner at the hotel before retiring for the night.
Day five was spent in Siena. Siena has a walled city center, surrounded by the larger city that has grown beyond the walls. One of the most unique things about Siena is that it has retained a ward-centric culture from medieval times; the wards were originally created for the city’s defense. There are 17 wards (or neighborhoods) that are easy to spot. Each has its own colors, animal mascot, and flag. Even the lights on the streets are decorated for each individual neighborhood. St. Catherine belonged to the goose neighborhood; our tour guide for the day, Francesca, belonged to the turtle neighborhood. These wards meet regularly for dinners, celebrate major holidays and feasts together, and, most importantly, to cheer on their horse in the yearly running of the Palio. Each neighborhood knows how many times they have won the race and there is great pride among those who have won the most. The Palio horse race has been happening since 1633! Here’s a great explanation of how important these neighborhoods and this race are to the people of Siena: https://tinyurl.com/PalioRace.
Our day began with a walk to St. Dominic’s Church, where the head and right finger of St. Catherine are on display. The rest of her body is in Rome, which is where she died. The people of Siena wanted her body back, but knowing that they couldn’t smuggle a whole body, thieves secretly took her head and finger, hiding them in a bag. They were stopped by Roman guards, but it is said that when the guards looked in the bag, all they saw was rose petals. They have Catherine’s right finger because, although illiterate, at the end of her life she was able to write her own thoughts and prayers. I don’t think any of us were overly eager to see these two relics, but see them we did. From there we went to Catherine’s family home which has become the “Sanctuary of St. Catherine.” It includes a church and two other spaces that contain frescoes of scenes of her life within what was once her home.
Siena is built on three hills, so anywhere you go in Siena you are walking up or down. We next walked up to the Cathedral. One of the things we learned while we were there is how often the building of a great cathedral or church was really a way of drawing money and power to a particular region. Siena’s cathedral, finished in 1263, is huge, but 76 years later it was to be expanded to become the biggest church in the world. This enlarged cathedral was abandoned when the Black Plague hit in 1348. Two outside walls of this abandoned structure still remain today, and you can even walk up to the top of one of the walls for a great view of the city, although I don’t think any of us did so because it was a rainy day! We finished our guided tour of Siena at the Piazzo del Campo, the shell-shaped central square of Siena where the Palio horse race is run. This was a fascinating walking tour of Siena that was full of information, insights, and history. From there, we went off in small groups for lunch and to explore on our own. A heavy rain fell that afternoon, but most of us were able to tour the inside of the cathedral, do a little shopping, have a nice lunch, and walk up and down the streets of the city. Dinner that night was at a wonderful restaurant near the hotel.
Day six began with Mass at St. Dominic Church, just a few blocks from our hotel. We joined the local community for Mass and Fr. Joe served as one of the concelebrants. It was all in Italian, so few of us were able to follow the homily, but we had our prayer books with us to follow the readings in English and the bulletin had the responses in Italian so that we could join in if we wanted. Mass was held in a chapel below the larger church, a beautiful space without the tourists that fill the upper church whenever it is open. After Mass, we again dispersed to do some additional wandering around Siena, getting lunch, visiting some additional churches or shops. Because it was Sunday, there were a lot of people out in the neighborhoods, and Fr. Joe and Ann Marie even stumbled upon a First Communion celebration at one of the local parishes. Around 2 p.m. we returned to the hotel to head to Rome.
We arrived in Rome with enough time to do a little exploring of the great neighborhood in which our hotel was located. Some walked up to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, others to the gelato shop, some stopped at a roadside café for a little wine, and others went over to the Coliseum, which was only a few blocks away! We regathered for dinner and evening prayer and then, if we were smart, got a good night’s sleep before a long next day at the Vatican.
Our day at the Vatican began with about 30 minutes to explore St. Peter’s Basilica before it was open to the public. We then had a private Mass at the tomb of St. John Paul II. This was a great moment for our group. We even had time to take this photo before the heavy curtain that was drawn, creating our private space, was pulled back and the public swarmed John Paul II’s altar for prayer. We then had a tour of St. Peter’s with Rosanna, our tour guide for Rome. For many of us, the tomb of St. John XXIII was a place where we got off the tour to stop and pray for a few minutes. At the end of the tour of St. Peter’s, we were able to go on a Scavi tour, which took us to the newly excavated area under the Basilica of St. Peter’s where the apostle Peter was buried.
Very few visitors to St. Peter’s get the chance to go on the Scavi (Italian for excavation) tour, so it was a rare opportunity for our group. Within the tour, we learned that Pope Pius XI asked archeologists to look for St. Peter’s grave under the basilica, and this work happened between 1940–1949. It has always been thought that St. Peter was buried where the Vatican currently sits because it was close to where he was martyred; people venerated the site where he was buried, and some chose to be buried close to him. About 100 years after his death, a shrine was erected over his grave. This same area then became the site of the first St. Peter’s, which was replaced with the current Basilica of St. Peter’s. During the excavation in the 1940s, they found a large number of mausoleums which included family names and dates as well as the site that they believe, with certainty, was St. Peter’s grave. They also found bones elsewhere (believed to be moved) that could have been St. Peter’s. Our tour took us underneath the current basilica, and we got to look into the mausoleums, hear the history, see the area (from a distance) where St. Peter’s grave was, and see a box of bones believed to be St. Peter’s. Our tour ended in the area below the altar that contains the bodies of many of the popes. It was a fascinating hour. (Check out Vatican Necropolis on Wikipedia if you want more information.)
After eating lunch, we reassembled and took a tour of the Vatican Museum. The Vatican Museums are the homes of an immense collection of art. Tourists can see three floors of the museum, but there are seven additional floors that aren’t open to the public. There are said to be about 70,000 works of art owned by the Vatican, about 20,000 of which are on display. The museum even has modern pieces of art, including this gold orb, which our tour guide was able to easily spin, giving us a very unique look in the plaza of some of the museum buildings. During our short visit to the museum we saw a tiny fraction of the art and spent quality time with only a a very few pieces. We ended our visit in the Sistine Chapel, and prior to getting there we got a good amount of information about the famous ceiling describing the story of creation and wall painting of the Last Judgment, both done by Michelangelo. Like Florence, the Vatican Museum is someplace that deserves much more time than we were able to give it, but we were happy to see what we did. After our very long day of tours, we returned to our hotel for dinner and evening prayer.
We started day eight of our pilgrimage with breakfast and morning prayer. We then went on a walking tour of a few sites around Rome—the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which is the church that houses St. Catherine of Siena’s body, and the Pantheon. Rome is known as the Eternal City, and the longer you spend there the more it is obvious why. The Pantheon, for example, was finished in 125 A.D., built as a Roman temple and now serves as a Catholic church. It is an amazing building that highlights the architectural geniuses that built it. It is so well preserved because it has been in continuous use—for almost 2,000 years! Later in the afternoon, after a lunch, we went to the Colosseum. Construction began in 72 A.D. and it only took 8 years—the largest amphitheater ever built. Did you know they used to flood the floor of the Colosseum? They know how they got the water in, but don’t really know how they got the water out. That was in the earliest days, before they put in elevators that would lift gladiators, animals, and criminals up to the stage area. Slaves made these platforms rise and lower. It is estimated that 400,000 people and 1,000,000 animals were killed in the Colosseum over the years. We were pretty horrified listening to the stories of the gladiators, the executions, the ways animals were used to kill people but also were killed themselves by other animals or humans. It would be easy to say that it was a different world then in terms of entertainment, but Game of Thrones might prove you wrong. We ended our day with a quick trip through the Roman Forum, which is a collection of buildings and ruins in what was the hub of life in Rome for centuries, beginning in the 8th century B.C. This was a place of government, commerce, religious life, and public events. This was one of the places where having a tour guide was essential for understanding what we were seeing, but also a place where you should spend more than 30 minutes!
Our evening ended with dinner on our own. We invited everyone to make sure that they had people to eat wit,h and the group divided into small and larger groups. As fate would have it, both the hotel and Viviana, our tour manager, recommended the same restaurant, so much of the group ended up in the same place, but everyone reported having a great dinner with good company. A word about our food in Italy: Lots of people have asked about the food, which was very good, but one of the realities of traveling with a group is that most of our meals were planned for us. We only ate in restaurants for lunch and for three dinners, and two of those meals were part of our tour as well. The food at the hotel in Assisi was quite good and the setting and staff were excellent, so we all really enjoyed that. The food and service in Siena was good, but not great. The food and service in our hotel in Rome was fine, but it was a little harder to not want something better because we were surrounded by restaurants just a few steps from our door that we knew would be excellent. We did have a lot of choice at lunchtim,e and we always had time to eat a big lunch if we wanted to. People made a lot of different choices and there were often “oh, you should have tasted the _____ I had for lunch” comments when we got back together. I never heard any negative comments about our meals, but I am sure that others who have gone to Italy and explored on their own probably had a broader, better food experience than we did.
Our final day in Rome was our chance to see Pope Francis. We were up and out early to get to the Vatican in advance of the Papal Audience. We weren’t all together for the event because the Roman police and Swiss Guards directed us in different directions. Some of us were in the second row of the second section, which meant that we got a great view of Pope Francis in his Popemobile when he came through the crowd. Others were in the first section of seats, so they were a little closer to the action that happened on the stage. We were officially welcomed to the Audience when “St. Catherine of Siena from Ithaca, New York” was announced by the English-speaking emcee for the event. After the official welcomes, the Pope spoke, and then his message was translated into about six languages, with each language spoken by a different emcee. The Pope was talking about the Our Father in his message. Here is a synopsis of it: https://tinyurl.com/pope5-22-19.
We spent a little more time in Vatican City after the audience, mostly for shopping purposes, and then we had the rest of the day on our own to explore. Some people returned to the hotel to set off from there, and others were dropped off at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran to visit the major basilica and the Scala Sancta, the Holy Steps. This staircase is the one that Jesus ascended in Pontius Pilate’s palace on the day he was condemned to death. Saint Helen had it moved to Rome in the year 326, and pilgrims have climbed the stairs on their knees for centuries. Since 1723, the stairs have been covered with wood to protect them, but they were opened in April (uncovered) and were accessible to the public for about six weeks. Amazingly, it corresponded with the timing of our trip, and so some of our pilgrims went and made the climb on their knees in remembrance of Jesus’s passion. We regathered at the hotel and took the bus to a local restaurant for our final dinner, which included an Italian singer and pianist. The dinner was a nice way to spend our last night together, and the trip participants gave Fr. Joe a beautiful stole from Assisi that you will see him wearing at church regularly, and they gave me a beautiful tablecloth, a rosary of local (to Assisi) beads, and a great book. These gifts were generous and lovely and completely unnecessary, since both of us had a wonderful time on pilgrimage with the community.