Assisi

Well this day is definitely going down as one of the most special in my life.

Puita and I are not too sure that we are going to be able to get train tickets and make it to the right city on the right day, but we are game to try.

While standing in the bus line, a kind Agent takes our arm and says I will help you! Assisi a Nove I insturct him. We have our ticket. Firenze tomorrow I tell him. Which turns into a ticket from Rome to Firenzi for tomorrow which will not do. Now we must exchange for Assisi to Firenze and Firenze to Roma. We now have five minutes to find the train. We have NO idea which one. While searching around at the terminal we get lost from each other. I ask an agent, "Treno" and show my ticket. He says something I do not understand at all. Suddently, it hits me what he has said. Due. Track two. I meander that way and bump into PUITA again. I think Due. Well the Due train departs at right time 9:36 but says another city. We shrug and hop on. The conductor announces the cities. Assisi. Alleluia. Five mintues later we are asked to move, we are in somebody elses seat?

We have to trade trains in Foligio. Thankfully there is only one train to choose from. It says Firenze. Again we shrug not knowing if this is the right one or not. In a short while we hear Assisi. Oh happy day we are here. Wow, it is cold and we have no jackets. We order Caffe Latte and Croissants in the station. Find a bus. Try to get on the bus. We were supposed to buy tickets in the magazine shop. He waits for us to buy our tickets. Hey, we are on our way. We head to the Basilica of St. Francis. We see fleece jackets in a shop and snag a few of those. Wow, Assisi is just BEAUTIFUL. It looks like a ski town all nestled into the side of a mountain, but all the buildings are so old and made of stones and ladder step one on top of the other, each peeeking above the other over the valley below. It is the country out here and when you turn to look at the valley below it looks like a fake movie set. There are farm pastures and mist hovering over and little trees here and there with a basilica rising in the distance. The air smells so clean and it is not as loud or busy as the city. It is very very peaceful here. The basilica of St. Frances is so majestic and dwarfs any other close building. It is not ornate as the Vatican. It is more stone but absolutely beautiful. We head inside and move immediately down to the tomb of St. Francis. Wow, all is hushed. We move down, down, down into a crypt with little wooden pews. We buy a few candles to bit lit under his tomb for your intentions. We have come to Assisi to pray for our intentions. We have talked about doing so for a year and now here we are. The moment has come to pray. We shuffle quietly in the line up to his tomb. There it is. Above a tiny altar, nestled in the middle of a stone pillar, his coffin. We kneel on the side of the altar and look up to the remains of this humble, simple man who revolutionized the church with his simplicity in a time of decadence and overindulgence not to different from modern times in general. We pray for our vocations. We bring the intentions of our friends we have carried within our hearts from the US and we lay them at the base of Francis to ask him to present to our lord for us. I had read that Francis had a friend who was a married woman with two children, Jacobi who was Francis' "Veronica". When he was on his deathbed he called for her to be by his side and comfort him as he was dying. She asked to be buried close to him. She was the first secular Franciscan. On our way back out of the crypt I see her headstone. She is directly across from Frances, closer than even Clare. Since she was a married woman, I ask for her to pray for my vocation.

Time for lunch, but a pizza shop is all that is open. Next comes San Damiano. The bus drops us off and we head down this delightful mountain lane with vineyards on either side of us. We are the only ones on the lane. This is so completely beautiful and charming. We take a bizillion pictures on the way. We reach the church. Silenzio signs are everywhere. This was where St. Francis saw Christ speak to him on the Crucifix, "Francis rebuild my church." Also, St. Clare had her first monastery here. We enter the little chapel where Christ spoke to Francis, the Portciuncula. This is such a special building for me because we have a replica of it in Steubenville on the campus, and I have had so many fruitful prayer times there in Ohio. We had the blessed sacrament exposed 24 hours seven days a week there. The "Port" the students all called it. Here I am, in the real port. It does look so similar. Here I am. Where Jesus spoke to Francis, where the Franciscan order began, where the revolution of earnest simplicity began in the church. I am sitting in the EXACT spot. I pray that Jesus will speak to me now and let me know what he desires of me in my life. I pray a decade of the rosary. I gaze up at the huge Franciscan Crucifix into Jesus' eyes and I am held captivated there. It so peaceful and calming to be here with him. After so many grand and spectacular buildings it is calming to be in such a small, simple and intimate spot with Jesus. Alone with him in the mountains of Italy. I don't want to leave. Jesus does not speak to me directly like he did to Francis, but I did feel that what God wants from me is to help him to build the church in Dallas. This is such a Franciscan spirit. I think of the Peruvian and how he started Eucharistic Adoration at his church. He definitely has a heart to help build in the church. He would be a good companion for these efforts. Well, I don't know exactly what God wants me to do, but I pray that when I get back to Dallas he will show me.

We continue walking around the grounds and see the little stone room where all the St. Clares slept on the stone ground, their dormitory. We see the square. Again, what holy ground we are walking on, the same halls as St. Clare and her cloistered nuns. We find lovely watercolors of Assisi in the shop.

Next on our stop is the Basilica of St. Claire, but we miss this stop and get off on the next one, Piazza Matteo. We see on the map that there is a 4KM walk to a remote church where St. Francis lived. This seems like a good idea at the time. We start walking. After 15 minutes I am panting like a dog. What we failed to realize is that we are in the mountains! This will be 2.5 mile hike up gruelling hills, and we are carrying our bags as well as now the stupid paintings. We trudge along a while longer. We have been hiking for 40 minutes now. We don't even know if we are on the right road, there is no sign and no other people at all. Puita is not sure if we are on the right road. Well, we've put this much into I say let's go another 10 minutes and we can turn around if we don't see anything. Puita, who is trianing for a marathon is not even breathing hard. I have reached my limit of physical exertion. I can see now, that she doesn't want to stop. My pace is slowing and at each bend she races ahead to look up to see if she sees anything. We reach the 10 minute mark. It is time to go back. We are both distraught. This is supposed to be a pilgrimage for our vocations. What does it symbolize if we walk a long laborious path but never reach our destinations! Despondently, I say, well let's go to next switchback and see if we see anything. We get there. We have both resolved ourselves that we will turn around, and that the lesson must be that we can't know what is ahead of us. Damn if there is not the very first sign we have seen for the past 45 minutes. EREMO, 1KM. We ARE on the right path. We WILL reach our destination. We are jubilant on so many levels. Puita looks expectantly at me with those big eyes that silently say,"Can you make it?" "I'll take your bag she says." "I can make it 1 more Kilometer I say." The sun is sinking, and we know that we will be hiking back down in the dark. We are slightly worried about this but nothing is going to stop us from making the top of the mountain now. We arrive at the gates of this "little oasis in the woods," the brochure says. There is a group of a half dozen Italians. "Uschita!" they cry out Closed!. You've got to be kidding me. We look at him so despondently as we gasp for breaths. He looks at us and holds up seven fingers. O.K. you have until 7 he must be saying in Italian. It is 6:15. We run inside. This is again, a most glorious spot. It is at the top of the mounatin, nestled into a side of it and the views over the mountain are spectacular. You are in the middle of the woods. We climb into the small little chapel inside. Chiasini de Bernardino. It is no bigger than a dining room. There are two individual kneelers. We each plop down into one and without words bow our heads in prayer. Our hearts are full, we have reached this little oasis in the woods, after a long journey of doubts and exhaustion and irritation and small signs we are here in this intimate spot, where God is telling us that we will meet our destination. We have our picture taken on self timer. We are simply giddy and skipping along. We head back down the mountain in the dark. The Italian man points to the sky and says bella stella. The beautiful stars. Going down is easier, but still work. So, all will not be simplicity once we have found our vocations, we still must work, but its downhill and the stars are beautiful. Half way down a french family picks us up. We tell them we are from Dallas. The boy says the only time I went to dallas was on my trip to Peru. Peru huh? We reach our hotel around 8pm completely exhausted. We plop on our beds and look up. A picture of two pink roses. One is blooming, one is a bud. Hmmm.. Little signs upon the way. A beautiful encouragement to keep climbing though you know not the final destination.

We have dinner in what be the quantest little restaruant in the hotel sole. An Italian man comes over to chat with us. He is an art teacher. He taught at the University of Dallas in Irving! Wow! How amazing and what a small world. He gives us tips on what to see in Firenze the next day. We wish him good night and climb the stairs to our rooms. We have no alarm clock and there is not one in the hotel. We are not sure how we will wake up for our train. We are supposed to meet C in Firenze but we have not made arrangements with her and we cannot figure out how to work the phone. We shrug for the millionth time that day, trusting that thing will work out how they will and we drift off into blessed sleep.