Allora...

Allora…
It has been far too long since I have updated this blog- nearly a month! Yikes!- and much has been happening in the mean time, which is why I have been slacking! I hope that this finds all of you well and enjoying that true joy and peace that comes from Jesus our Savior and our Hope. I am going to give a brief run down of what has been going on with some photos sprinkled throughout. So here goes!

After the Palio I had two weeks left in Siena and they flew by. School was great there, and I really feel very blest to have studied there. I had a great individual tutor every afternoon and she was just a delight! (She is in the picture to the right with those of all of us who studied in Siena... she cooked us lasgana one friday for Prazno!) She was a very faithful and fervent Catholic and we were able to spend our two and a half hours each day talking about the beauty of Catholicism, philosophy, liturgy, and literature- all in Italian. It was great, and it was sad having to leave the school because I really had enjoyed my time and the friendship that I had formed there. The weekend before leaving we headed to Florence on Saturday and spent the day there it was so cool- the Uffizi Gallery, the Convent of San Marco where Beato Angelico’s frescos are, Ponte Vecchio, Santa Maria dei Fiori and the Basilica of San Miniato which has a spectacular view down on the city. I have always wanted to get to Florence and it was pretty surreal (like a lot of things over the past two months!) to finally be there walking across the famed Arno and munching on some gelato in the shadow of the famous duomo! God is good.

We left Siena on the 26th of August and headed back to Roma. In the first couple days back in Rome were packed with incredible happenings. We got to pray at the Tomb of Saint Monica (Saint Augustine’s mom) on her feast day, and it is a tradition that we pray for our moms and grandmas there at her tomb. (I am thinking about you both! I love you) The next day we got up early to head over to Saint Peter’s at 7AM to have mass at the Tomb of the Prince of the Apostles. Words cannot explain how powerful it was to hear Matthew 16 proclaimed when I was but a few feet from the very Rock upon which Jesus built, and continues to build his holy Church- our mother and teacher. If that were not enough we had the chance on Sunday to go out to Castel Gandalfo- about an hour from Rome- to see Peter’s Successor, Our Holy Father and Christ’s Vicar on Earth- Pope Benedict XVI give his Angelus message at 12:00. After which we got a guided tour of the Papal Gardens by his secretary, Archbishop Harvey, who went to the PNAC and is from Milwaukee. We were able to sing the Salve Regina in at the Grotto there where Benedict prays his daily rosary and where JPII used to often visit (we also saw the swimming pool that JPII had built and which he used daily when he was able! Haha)

Monday, after a few days of fun, we headed back to Italian class! We have a teachers that come and teach us for four hours in the morning. My lessons have been going well, and on Monday we have an Italian exam at the Gregorian where I will be studying which we have to pass to be able to study there (pray for us!). In the afternoons we have had various conferences orientating us to life at the seminary here, and getting us acclimated. It has been a good time and has been great getting to learn about this place and I am very excited and grateful to be studying a living in a place so dedicated to forming good holy priests for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. After the afternoon conferences I have made a few trips around Rome to see various Churches and sites. I even got to have a tour of the Swiss Guard Barracks in the Vatican! They had some sweet stuff! haha. It was particularly graced to go to the tombs and shrine of saint on their feast days for example going to the Church of the Holy Cross where Saint Helena brought the relics of the True Cross on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, or to the tomb of Saint Robert Bellermine in the Church of Saint Ignatius (my confirmation patron!) on his memorial. The communion of the saints if more real here than I have ever known before- and be assured I bring you all in my prayers to all of these places, asking the Holy Spirit to pour out his abundance of divine life into your souls!

The other pretty awesome thing we have had the chance to do was going to Assisi the second weekend in Rome. It was a great weekend of quite to make a mini retreat and to take in the sights and scenes from the lives of Saint Francis and Saint Clare. It was particularly cool one of the days when we hiked up this mini-mountain to a hermitage where Francis prayed immediately after his conversion and we had Mass up in the hills. It was a beautiful day since that weekend the 90-100 degree weather finally broke and God sent us a sunny day in the high low 80’s which felt so good! We also had a tour of the Basilica of Saint Francis by a Franciscan from the States and it was awesome to go inside of the monastery and also to be able to pray at the tomb of this Saint whose name is known throughout the world! (Despite the fact that he is known and perceived more as a hippie than the true servant of God and ascetic that he was!)

Whew! There it is- this crazy and unbelievable life which for some reason I have been offered here! We have a week left of Italian to go (thanks be to God!) and then we head onto retreat for a week before returning for a week leading up the Ordination of this year’s deacon class and then school starts on October 12th (the longest summer ever!) I really can’t wait! I have already chomping on the bit to get started with theological studies and have taken advantage of our great library here at school to pick up a few good reads! If you have any questions or just want to say hi please do- it would be great to hear how you are doing! In any event be assured of my prayers and please, in your charity, remember me in yours. Have a good Saturday! God bless. Live Jesus.

P.S. A priest from Saint Louis, Fr. Larry Brennan, is here for sebatical. He studied here 30 years ago and has been showing us around! Here is a picture of he, Charlie (my diocesan brother here) and myself at the Spanish Steps from last weekend! Peace.

Il Palio di Maria Assunta

Last weekend, the 14-16th of August, was a big weekend here in Siena, probably the most anticipated of the year. There is a 700 year old tradition here of a great celebration surrounding the Feast of the Assumption. The tradition goes back to the 13th century when the Sienese were in a war against their Florentine neighbors to the north. The people of Siena consecrated themselves to Our Lady of the Assumption and under her protect they were able to defeat the Florentines in one particularly famous that was won, the name of which I have forgotten. But anyway, in memory of this they have been annually celebrating in magnificently on the feast of the Assumption for some centuries now. The main events are not of particularly religious nature, and center around the oldest horse race in the world- the Palio.

The Palio is run on the 16th- this year Sunday- the day after the feast of the Assumption. There are several events that lead up to the race in which I was able to participate. The first is the selection of the horses, which took place the Thursday before t he race. Some trainers out in the countryside pick thirty horses which seem to be promising racers. Then they bring these thirty to the city and have them run a couple practice runs around the track- which actually the outer rim of the Piazza del Campo (the main square in Siena which in the week preceding is filled up with dirt and medieval looking grandstands!) After these trial runs they select 10 horses which will be the ones in the race. The ten horses are then randomly selected and assigned to a different contrada or neighborhood in the city. There 17 of these throughout Siena and they have been around since the 12th century. Each one is a different part of the city, and they are originally associated with different medieval guilds. Every year 10 contradas are chosen to race and the other seven sit out, and are guaranteed a spot in the following year’s race. Anyway- the horses are drawn in this elaborate ceremony where this young boy draws numbers out of what appears to be a medieval raffle wheel and then draws the name of one of the contradas- corresponding to that horse. It is a huge deal and the square was pretty full. Whenever a neighborhood got drawn all the men would come down and grab their horse and then start marching through the city back to their part of town (where there is a building call- no joke- the horse house, where the horse stays till race day!)- chanting these fight songs all the way!

After that there are various provos or trial runs that occur each night so that the horse and the jockeys can get used to the track, and also so that the locals can have an idea on who to bet on! I actually didn’t make it to any of these because at the same time as these happened there was also a Novena at the duomo preparing for the feast of the Assumption. We went to mass nearly all nine days of the novena (I missed a few when I was in Ravenna), with all the old church ladies from Siena- it was great! Haha. On the last night this priest who is the rector of the cathedral came up to us and asked us if we were seminarians- I guess we kind of stick out as the only people under 50 there… But after we told him who we were he invited us to serve the Solemn Mass on Saturday with the Archbishop of Siena! Pretty insane! Naturally we accepted! So on Saturday morning we got to the Cathedral at 9:15 before the 10AM mass and got all prepped for the mass with our servers albs and directions on what are roles would be during the mass! The bishop got there a few minutes before mass and we got to talk to him for a bit- a really nice and holy man! It was awesome! I was a vimp and held the bishop’s mitre during the Mass, and it was pretty surreal to think that in the midst of a church full of Italians there were six American serving the mass! It was amazing- God works wonders and it is so amazing that for the second week in a row I was graced to be able to serve Mass in one of the most famous churches in the World!

Anyway, Sunday was the big day of the race and we got up early to go to Sunday mass down in the Piazza del Campo with the bishop. (This is a special mass where he actually blesses all the jockeys before the race- it is crazy how much they get into this!)After that we hung out until about 2 pm when we went to one of the neighborhoods around the school (the monastery I live in is in the Bruco (which means caterpillar- they all have animal mascots!) neighborhood which wasn’t competing this time around unfortunately) and witness the blessing of the horse. This is a traditional ceremony where they bring the horse up to the altar of the local parish and the priest blesses the horse! And then yells, and I mean really yells, at it, “Va, e ritorna il vincatore!” which means “Go! And return the victor!” It was pretty awesome! But each contrada does this and then the whole contrada processes around the city following the horse that is preceded by some men dressed up in some intense medieval garb- I have attached some photos so you can see what I mean! They stop by all the famous places in the city including the Duomo where they are blessed by the bishop who stands in his palace’s window! They do this for about three hours! Eventually they get to the Piazzo del Campo which is the race track and then process around there for a while and then we just have to wait till the race which began at seven.

We got to the Piazza about two hours before race time and it was packed! They close all the entrances to the piazza but one and it took a good half an hour to get in- they fit on average about 40,000 people into this little piazza for the race! We just kind of chilled there- munchin’ on some bread and taking in the scene until it was time for the race about 7:00 when the Palio- a banner that is given to the winner- arrived on this cart being pulled by four huge oxen! Following this the race is supposed to start within a few minutes- and indeed the bareback horses and their riders all came onto the course- but when seven rolled around the race did not start! We had to wait for nearly an hour and half for the race to actually start because the horses all just line up on the starting line and they do not easily do this- especially when their jockeys have made deals and the different neighborhoods work together to gain advantages! As I was standing there I realized that Americans would never put up with something so disorganized- but it was quintessential Italy as I have come to know it! When the race finally started, it was an exhilarating minute and a half and when the dust settled- two riders were down, and the Civetta, or the Owl, contrada had won the race! The place went nuts with that neighborhood’s fans going crazy- they hadn’t won in thirty years!- and the rest of the mob trying to get out the place. We made it back safe a sound to our monastery, avoiding a few fights we passed on the way, and called it a day.

The infamous Palio of Siena was quite an event- unlike anything I have seen before- and once was enough!

More updates on life here will be forthcoming, all is very well but italian classes and orientation have sucked up my free time! But be assured of my prayers, keep me in yours.

Holy Mary Gloriously Assumed into Heaven, Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death!