Rome Youth Pilgrimage

Dear Parish Family, 

There’s an extended layover in Newwark before heading to Fiumicino. We carry your petitions in our backpacks. We will be praying for a safe trip and for your needs throughout these days. We also place these needs before the saints of God as we visit their resting places, their tombs and monuments. The Church’s teaching on the communion of saints comes alive in our experience through this piety, and we gladly and willingly offer it to family, friends and parishioners and all those who requested our prayerful support. We look forward to sharing the fruits of this gift & pilgrimage with all of you on our return, as God would have it. 

In His Love, 

The Pilgrims

Day 2

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

We prayed before the tomb of Antonietta Meo in the Basilica Church of Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome. This young girl died at age six, but not before she received the gift of great suffering of bone cancer. 

In her last letter of June 2, 1937 she had this to write to her blessed Lord,

“Dear Jesus Crucified, I love you very much and I adore you! I want to be on Calvary with you and suffer with joy because of the knowledge that I am on Calvary. Dear Jesus, thank you for sending me this illness because it is the way to heaven. Dear Jesus, tell God the father that I also love him very much. Dear Jesus, I want to be your Lamp and your Lily.  Dear Jesus, give me the necessary strength to bear this pain for sinners.”

If you want to learn more about her inspiring life of self offering the book “Lamp & Lily: The Letters and Writings of Venerable Antonietta Meo” is a must read. The little book will make a great gift for children preparing for confirmation and first holy communion.

In another room next to where Antonia Meo is buried, there are several large relics of the true cross including the sign that was nailed to Jesus his head over his cross which read his crime, “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews”.

New research has lent credence that this sign—brought back to Rome from Jerusalem by Saint Helen, mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine— is in all probability the real deal.

The sign written in Hebrew Latin and Greek reads from right to left, not from left to right as when we read a text. A Semite would’ve had to carved this these letters into the wood instead of a Greek or Roman that always would have written a text, like we do today, from left to right. 

The calligraphy of the letters match more closely texts written from the first century A.D.

Pollen from plants existing in the Holy Land from in the first century AD, but since then, became extinct, are found in samples of this wood. 

We prayed for your requests throughout the day and we look forward to sharing our stories with you when we get back,

The Pilgrims of Holy Cross

Day 3

We stood in the underground dungeon where Sts. Peter and Paul in all probability spent their last nights on earth. The Mamertine prison is a dark and dreary hole in the ground where legend has it that a Roman guard asked our first Pope for baptism. To heed that request, one needed water. As the tradition goes, a spring immediately appeared on the prison floor and a small pool of water formed, which, as we supposed, was the explanation for the puddle we saw on the floor of that musty cell. And we prayed to St. Peter for the virtue to remain faithful to our baptism. And we prayed for you, our spiritual family at Holy Cross. We touched our holy cards of St. Peter against the floor of this area and considered them our special relic. 

From there we began some sightseeing in the historic center city of Ancient Rome. The Church of Saint Agnes impressed many of us with its breathtaking frescoes and vaulted ceilings. We never saw something so beautiful before. Truly, that’s what some of us said. We knelt as a group before the tiny skull of St. Agnes and remarked how small it looked to us. We prayed the prayer of Saint Agnes on the back of the holy card and on bended knee prayed for the things God put within our hearts. But it’s on our minds constantly to visit Saint Peter’s and St. Paul’s tombs. This, God-willing, will happen in the days ahead. 

Let’s also all pray for those suffering and who have died in Ukraine this day. We’ve walked over 10 miles on this day alone, and the pains associated with this unusual schedule serve us well to offer the little discomforts for those who are asking for prayer. We can do this them and we do this also for each other.

Again, we are storing deep within memory the blessings of these days that God has wonderfully given us, and we pray that our lives grow in bear much fruit in His plan for us. 

Looking forward to sharing these graces as best we can on our return…

In His love,

The Pilgrims

Day 4

Our sojourn through Rome has led us to the tombs of Saint Paul & Saint Lawrence. There’s no way to properly experience perspective and grandeur without being in these holy places. We took her time to gaze upon the resting places asking the martyrs  for their prayers. We’ve all come to pray for the things that God moves us to ask for. Perhaps that’s the difference between a pilgrim and a tourist.

We visited the place were ancient tradition remembers that Bishop and Martyr Saint Ignatius of Antioch suffered his death from wild beasts that were purposely starved to make them all the more aggressive towards their prey. We also visited the crib of Baby Jesus at Saint Mary Major Basilica brought back by Saint Helen and placed under the altar of the first church in the world dedicated to our Lady. 

Pray for us, we have prayed for you and all these places and we will continue to do so. Some of us have been moved to tears throughout this experience. 

The Pilgrims

Day 5

Dear Parish Family,

Day 5 brought us to the St. Peter’s Square and Basilica. We are 33 pilgrims, each of us representing one of the years that God’s Son walked among us. 

It was about 59 degrees and sunny when we met our guide at the doors of the world’s largest basilica Church. We waited in line about 30 minutes to clear Covid protocols and security. Our guide led us to Michaelangelo’s ‘Pietà’ which remains in the Pope’s vesting sacristy. At a distance we could appreciate the enthusiasm of a 23 year old artist in the prime of life who spent many weeks in a monastery before taking up chisel and hammer to a single block of white marble and reveal what he meditates. 

We made sure to get our copy of ‘Pure Faith’—a prayer book for teens. As a parish in miniature we gather together in the lobby each night and every morning to offer prayers for you, our Parishioners, and the graces needed to welcome God’s immense blessings. Rome is a target rich environment, a sensory overload. We are constantly having to return to the understanding that God is loving us through this experience, drawing our attention in different ways to tell us He loves us. He’s told us this so beautifully through the art, through the liturgies, through the sculptures, the paintings, through the mosaics and artistic reliefs, through the beautiful choral pieces and organ recitals  we’ve heard, to the ring a bell towers with crisp deep gongs marking the hour of the ‘Angelus’ prayer. 

The Church in Rome has built a bold  outward expression of Catholic belief and faith expressed on street corners everywhere to the tune of some painting depicting one of the 20 mysteries of the rosary. Our youth noticed it too. Someone thought it would be a good idea to have a mosaic placed on the eastern wall of Anderson Hall facing power Road. That idea has our pastor mulling over the possibility. He may be planning something sooner than later. Let’s see what he does. 

We continue to remember your petitions daily. 

In His Love,

The Pilgrims

Noli vinci a malo, sed vince in bono malum.

The Duomo of Siena

Day 6

To be poor like St Francis is to forsake the world. We were left with different impressions visiting his house, his tomb and his sister’s tomb, St. Claire. Some of us realize that so much emphasis is on the possessing and not the real treasure of being rich in God’s mercy and love. 

St Francis felt the call to rebuild God’s most holy Church. The Franciscan founder took it literally at first but then began to realize that the mission was of universal proportion. The Franciscan family is found everywhere throughout the Church. Today we filed past the friars and nuns walking throughout the streets of Assisi and we held onto our secret admiration‘s for the lifestyle they adopted. We have yet to learn much about detachment, but at least we could see it lived in this place, albeit for a little while. 

St. Francis choose a radical form of detachment from the world. He made us think deeply about our attachments. He was detached but not miserable, because his experience of God as his one true treasure was his constant source of referral. He never became a priest but choose rather to live as one who served the poor because he was poor. The virtue of poverty, as we’re learning call it, Frees us to be available to one another. And what we share with one another has to be fruit of our prayer, has to be fruit of our encounter with God, otherwise we’re not truly poor in Spirit. 

Remembering your prayers in our own,

The Pilgrims

Frescoes above the tomb of Saint Francis

Day 7

JMJ!

We pilgrims had time to slow things down on day seven because the furious pace of our group being so young took a toll on some of the others that we’re not quite so young in our group. It was Sunday. Someone to see our Holy Father’s address in St. Peter’s Square. A few others decided to perform an act of penance a penitential act by ascending the holy stairs near St. John Lateran‘s Square offering up that discomfort for those intentions dearest to the pilgrim’s heart.

One thing no one seem to complain about is how well the Italians fed us. One or two pilgrims have suggested buying Italian cookbooks as they get back, but to make things taste back home the way they taste here really boils down to culinary art. Doritos has to come off the list.

We ate meals with six and seven courses, amazing ourselves we took to the streets again burning off all the calories. On one day we walked 10 miles and earned the next large meal. We tried comparing it to things we ate back home, but it’s just a different diet. Honestly, we all appreciated it, just ask us. Stuff was homemade, grandma secret recipe, using fresh products, no additives or preservatives, that was our conclusion. You have to be there to experience it. And yes, we were so grateful to God at the beginning in the end of our meals for the abundance. Italians know how to eat. They know how to take their time savoring the dishes.

We had mass every day, only twice in the hotel, the other times in some very beautiful places and churches that had us angle our heads up above to see the cupola the mosaics and the frescoes as much as what was happening on the altar. Wherever you looked there was a spiritual message to be found. Fr. Larry taught us to lock our attention on to what drew us, to what was interesting, and little by little, makes sense of the scene. To fix our gaze in one area Instead of running through the museums like wild horses. Many of us could understand the biblical stories from the artwork—and we didn’t even have to know Italian! Little did we know that the church evangelizes her children, even the illiterate, through some of the most beautiful artwork ever concentrated in one country. 

In particular we prayed at the place where in 1994 a bomb went off in the Portico of St. John Lateran’s, an event that most likely had been planned by a local organized crime syndicate. We offered a mystery of the rosary in reparation. We visited the baptistry of St. John Lateran where catechumens each Easter Vigil for 1600 years would descend into and what amounts to a nice sized swimming pool. They would come out the other side as the newest Christians. 

We stumbled upon an ancient aqueduct overhanging a residential area of Rome. Someone commented, “I guess it doesn’t make sense to call the plumber to come and fix it when there’s no running water from the city.”

It’s bittersweet knowing that we have to go home in a couple of days, but we are looking forward to going home. We’ve remembered you in our prayers throughout this day.

In His Love,

The Pilgrims

Ancient plumbing coming into your house—a 2000 year old ancient Roman aqueduct in someone’s backyard.

Inside the main church on Monte Cassino.

Pilgrims assembled at prayer at the tombs of St. Benedict and Saint Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict.

George and Alexis, pilgrims