This past Monday night I returned from my ten-day break traveling around Italy. The school sponsored a trip to Rome and Assisi, and gave us a little bit of time before and after to do some traveling, so I went to Siena, Venice, and Padua as well. There is so much to say about all of these places, and so little time, so I will attempt to limit myself to just some of the highlights of the trip.
I went to Siena with my household sisters as our traditional household pilgrimage, as St. Catherine of Siena is one of our patron saints. Siena I must say is one of the most beautiful cities to which I have been over this entire semester. The winding cobblestone streets, the terra cotta brick buildings, the beautiful Tuscan countryside. The hostel we stayed at was next door to the house where she grew up and lived. The hostel was one of the nicest ones I have stayed in - albeit it was not cheap - but it was full of images of St. Catherine! It was as if we had fallen into her sweet embrace, she was leading us and guiding us through her earthly home. The hostel smelled like my paternal grandmother’s house - my grandmother died this past summer - this also gave it a very comforting feel.
In her house we saw the cell where she had lived and prayed, a chapel which contained the crucifix that had given her the stigmata. The chapel was my favorite part. There was a little Italian Dominican sister doing a holy hour in the church when we arrived. As we were praying I caught her eye and she smiled at me. I cherished that smile. We also went to St. Dominic’s church where she would have gone to Mass and been exposed to the Dominican spirituality. There was a painting of her saying the Liturgy of the Hours with Christ walking next to her. There was also a side chapel where her head is venerated. The chapel was covered with beautiful frescos of her life, including one of Bl. Raymond of Capua, a Dominican and one of her confessors and close friends. We had a good day there as a household, had dinner together, exchanged stories, browsed the little shops, finished the night with Lord’s Day and leaving a voice mail for our sisters back in the U.S. The next day we spent the morning wandering the streets of Siena. We wanted to check out the cathedral but it didn’t open until later when we had to be heading to the bus to catch our train. That was a shame, as I had read that the cathedral has four organs and I would have appreciated seeing them here in Siena. But it wasn’t meant to be. We also returned to St. Dominic’s, where we met up with some other Franciscan students who had also gone to Bologna, the burial place of St. Dominic. I didn’t get to speak to them, but we prayed in front of the side chapel. I was glad for the chance to pray a rosary and pray Morning Prayer in the church, two distinctly Dominican prayers : St. Dominic promoted the praying of the Rosary, and St. Catherine was a devout prayer of the Divine Office. Later though, we met up in Rome and my friend Hannah, who was in the group who went to Bologna, came up to me. I had been praying my rosary next to her in St. Dominic’s. She said that she had felt like we had had an entire conversation even though we had not said a word to each other. We left later in the morning to make our way to Rome to join up with the rest of the school.
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