Hi people,

Just a note to let you know that today is a gorgeous, sunny (just a few puffy clouds chasing each other towards the horizon) clear, no humidity, bright day here. It makes me feel like doing what this guy does, which is probably similar to what Francis and his brothers used to do. Let’s join in, shall we?

(better to go to youtube and click on “watch in high quality”)

Check it out!

I’ve finally gotten around to uploading my Assisi photos. You can find them here, or just click on my Flickr badge and look for the Assisi set or simply look at the photostream as is.

Here’s a taste…

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begunAlong the Long Road and on down the Causeway
Do they still meet there by the Cut

There was a ragged band that followed our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by force of some inner tide

At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There’s a hunger still unsatisfied
Though down this road we’ve been so many times

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist growing
The water flowing
The endless river

The first time I heard this song was about 5 years ago on a business trip with my boss, who is a Pink Floyd fan (and with this I admit my total ignorance about Pink Floyd ). We were with a distinguished English journalist guest, on a visit to companies which have purchased our machinery. The journalist wanted to write an article about us and, being a wizard with words and not at all at a loss for interesting angles, he started off the article talking about…pink floyd and that same song which had mesmerized me that hot June day!

I don’t know if it was the bell ringing that got me, or the first words: “beyond the horizon”, or the melancholy tone of the music, but since then this song has been one of my favorites. Or maybe it was just that I heard the song at the moment I realized I was going to survive that trip! At one point, the Englishman told my boss he’d be happy to drive if he was too tired, and so began a hair raising 1/2 hour, to say the least. My boss sat in the back, snoozing, and I was hanging on for dear life in the passenger seat, trying to look calm and collected (one can’t just start screaming in the presence of a dignified brit!).

It wasn’t just a matter of driving on the right side of the road or not being used to a busy Italian highway–no, no…The guy was actually downshifting the gears on a high speed road!  He just plain knew nothing about driving, period!! I finally put an end to the ordeal by weakly asking him to pull into the next rest stop. …”but we just came out of a rest stop when I took the wheel!”…to which I mumbled “sorry, but when you gotta go, you gotta go!”  As we got out of the car, I took my boss aside and through clenched teeth, choked out: either you take the wheel right this instant, or you can leave me here! So, he got back in command at the wheel… and then I was really in trouble. I guess he wanted to show the guy the proper way to drive in Italy: at supersonic speed! I was even too weak to pray at that point! My show-off, Dr. Jekyll boss finally got back to normal after a bit, and that’s when this song came up on the dvd player.

I was a wreck and the lyrics..and that ringing bell…wow! 

********

Well, the real reason I’m writing this is because my friend Angie is coming to Italy for the first time in a couple of days. She’ll be here for about two weeks and will be coming to stay with me for a couple of days next week. I think the song is perfect for this special event: she promised me 27 years ago, when we graduated from college together, (Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, which reminds me of Cambridge, seen in the video) that she would one day come to visit me. I am just ecstatic about it!

So here’s to the High Hopes we both had on graduation day, many of which have come true for both, praise God! And here’s to the bells ringing right now in the church steeple which I can see from my loft…and to the swallows playfully chasing each other in the clear blue sky, and to the breeze coming in through the window…

After over 4 months, Drusilla has posted an update on her condition. Will you join me in praying for her, and perhaps leave a message of comfort at her place…? Thanks…

My mind still can’t get around it: there we were, near the altar in the “miracle church“…  I never could have imagined that I’d one day be standing together with the man who did me so much harm, to receive a blessing in a place that is so important to the Church and to me.

So many years of pain and solitude…where have they gone?

I feel their weight no longer. I am free. Thank you, my Lord and my Savior.

(Ps. Thanks to Hush’s (and my) Father Rabbit, for this post, which fell like cheese on my spaghetti at the right time…)

There must have been a lot of praying going on these days, in reply to Br. Freddie’s dilemma… It’s nothing short of a miracle!

I want to thank teresa_anawim for stopping by to visit yesterday. I’d recently been to her place, where she is doing a great series of reflections on St. Paul (the conversion story par excellence), so I left a comment regarding my visit to Rome about 3 weeks ago, when my friends and I stopped into one of the churches in Piazza del Popolo.

The church is Santa Maria del Popolo (website in Italian, written by a guy who did his military service as a guard in that church for over a year. He has a lot of interesting things to say, but unfortunately, I can’t translate them for you. I loved the pictures, so that’s why I’ve linked to him.) There are a couple of peculiar photos at the end, of skeletons. One of them is “Death Defeated and Imprisoned”. Pretty scary stuff, eh?

It is one of the richest churches in the world in terms of works of famous artists hanging on the walls or standing in the niches. The weird thing is that ever since I saw these two paintings by Caravaggio, they have been etched in my mind, and then I came upon teresa’s posts about Paul, so now they are even more vividly present to me and I thought I’d share them with you.

 There were lots of people milling about, tourist books in hand whereas I on the other hand, had no idea what I was looking at (typical italian tourist…), but I did get a clue when I got a little closer: the special use of light in the paintings led me to understand that they were Caravaggios. I recognized the crucifixion of S. Peter, simply because I noticed he was being crucified upside down… I couldn’t get a clear look at St. Paul because both paintings are facing each other in a little chapel and it was just too crowded, so I went snooping somewhere else. There was an icon of Santa Maria del Popolo, which reminded me of Gabrielle and Laura.

In the other chapel, to the right of the altar, there was a beautiful painting of Pope John Paul II, of which I have found only one blurry image online. I have no idea who the artist is, but I think the painting is just marvelous!

Teresa,  I’m glad you stopped by! When looking for your blog yesterday, I noticed I didn’t have the new one (or the old one anymore either) in my blogroll. Sorry!! I’ll make ammends immediately!

Today is the liturgical feast day of St. Gemma Galgani, one of my patron saints. so I am re-posting a couple of my previous posts about her.  During my meanderings today, I happened upon a passionist blog! You all know how much I love the Passionists, so go take a look!

Originally posted in August, 2006
I really wanted to post a picture of her here, but you’ll have to follow the link, especially the second one, to see how beautiful she was. She went through terrible physical, spiritual and emotional torment, but you can see a piece of heaven in her eyes. I still can’t believe she came to me in a dream, when I truly knew no more than her name. I didn’t know she was a mystic, or a Passionist, or that she had suffered the physical signs of Christ’s Passion in her body. When I told my parents about it my dad told me his mother was very devoted to her. His mom died in 1948, just after the war and one year after she had finally moved to the US to be reunited with her husband. In the first instants of the dream, I actually thought I was talking to my grandmother.
I’m still in the dark about all this, but it is one of those sparkling gems I keep in my treasure box…

I was in a dark room, but I could not make out any details of it. At the center of the room there was a young woman dressed in a long black dress, sitting on a chair. She had black hair, and although I could not distinguish her face clearly, I could tell she was very beautiful. I had no idea who she was, but I felt drawn to her, and knelt down in front of her because I felt an irresistable wave of love radiating from her.
I rested my head on her knees while she caressed my hair and spoke, while I was overcome by a feeling of deep peace.
She said “Do you know who I am?” “No”, I replied.
“I am Saint Gemma Galgani”.

Then she embraced me and I felt so indescribably safe and deeply loved, I would have wanted to stay there forever. After a few moments I moved slightly and St. Gemma winced with pain. I pulled away, feeling so sorry that I had made her suffer and I asked myself what could have caused that pain.

She answered my unasked question: “Didn’t you know that I experienced the flagellation of Jesus and his Stigmata on my flesh?” Again, I replied “No”.

“Do you love Jesus?” she asked, while in my heart I began to feel afraid.
“Yes”, I answered, raising my eyes hesitantly to meet her gaze, because I knew what the next question would be.

“Do you know what that means?” There it is, I thought…
“Yes, it means that I must accept to carry my cross like Him… But I am so afraid!”
She hugged me again, and said “You must learn to love.”

I woke up a little frightened, both by the things she had said, and by the disconcerting thought that slowly rose up in my subconscious, that said “wake up! You’re dreaming of a SAINT!!

A few weeks later I found a booklet on the life of St. Gemma at my local Catholic book shop. In reading her story, I was amazed to see that she indeed had suffered Christ’s wounds, and that she really was a very beautiful young woman, who had ardently desired to become a Passionist nun, but her ill health and God’s plan did not allow it. Because of her sincere devotion, she was allowed to become a member of the Lay Passionist family. She was buried in the black habit of the Passionists.

Elsewhere, (an odd site, but the article is interesting) I found this quote from her diary. “If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love.”

I walked into the thankfully cool, dark church on a scorching hot, blindingly sunny day. It took me a few seconds to grow accustomed to the darkness…and the quiet, which hit me almost as hard as the hot sun had until just a few seconds before. I’d never been in that church - for that matter, it had been years since I’d set foot in any church at all- except for a few weddings (including my own and later, my children’s baptisms - all of which I’d experienced in total oblivion of the true reason for what I was doing…)

As part of my job at the time, (I was a PR for a research center), I’d gone to “check out” the church, to see if it would be worthwhile to propose it as an interesting place for scientists and their families to visit during their stay. I’d heard about the legend of Longinus, the centurion who’d pierced Jesus’ side with a lance, who became the first convert: “Truly this man was the son of God” (Mc 15,39), and who was standing guard at the tomb on the day of the Resurrection. The legend goes on to say he was from Lanciano, and that he returned to his home town as a disciple, and converted many of his townfolk to the new Faith, but there are also clues that instead, he lived and was martyred in Cappadocia and/or Mantua, Italy. In any case, a church was erected in his honor in Lanciano, where something very special was going to happen one day, hundreds of years later.

I knew that the “legend” was, for the most part, quite true: the Roman legion stationed in Palestine during Pilate’s governership was from Abruzzo, the region Lanciano is located in. Pilate himself was from Sulmona, a mountain town located about an hour’s drive from there, so there is reason to believe that Longinus may really have been from Lanciano. These conjectures seem to have found consistency in the fact that the first and most complete Eucharistic Miracle of the Catholic Church (complete because it exists under both species) took place in Lanciano, in the church of St. Longinus (or San Legonziano), the very church built in his honor…

The story is that one day, a Basilian monk was celebrating Mass in that church as he did each day, despite the torment of his lack of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, when suddenly his whole world was overturned: after pronouncing the consecration, the host suddenly turned to flesh and the wine turned into blood. To this day, there is a painting in the church depicting that event: the awe mixed with consternation vividly and stupendously represented by wide eyes and dropped jaws…

The flesh very significantly contains all of the main components of the heart tissue, the blood type is AB, just like the Shroud of Turin, and the miracle is still “miraculous” , in the sense that, besides the fact that these human remains have not disintegrated after more than 1200 years, tests performed a few years ago (by the same experts of the Shroud) showed that, when examined under a microscope, the blood behaved as if it had been freshly drawn. That means LIVE BLOOD.

All of that information, that I had gathered here and there, came to mind as I blessed myself and walked up the empty nave. To one side, about halfway between the door and the altar, was the sacristy, souvenir store and confessionals -  all in one room! There was a friendly friar behind the counter, who gave me some brochures in English about the church, to give to my future guests. He asked me a few questions about how I, an American, had ended up living in the area. I told him a bit about myself, including the fact that I hadn’t been to church in a long time. He delved a bit into that and I gave him the lame excuse that I couldn’t participate fully in the Mass because I didn’t know the Italian version of the liturgy.   He handed me a little mass booklet (for free!)…”no more excuses”, he said…

Several more years passed before those words took root, but the seed had been planted…and that holy place slowly but surely has taken hold of my heart. It has witnessed my long but true healing, it’s witnessed my doubt, my pain, my joys and gratitude. Last week Padre Paolo, in that very church, now dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, spoke about how “faith and doubt are inextricably connected” for everyone, and it’s so true…I know for a fact that I’m at least as doubtful as the Basilian monk (and Mother Teresa) was, but every so often, I encounter flashes of Truth that help me build up and preserve my faith. Flashes of Truth, simply stated, such as this:

 ps ..thanks to br. Freddie for showing me the way to these great M. Teresa videos!

Pps: the reason why I am posting this is that I’ve been keeping up my Italian blog much more consistently, but it’s hard to keep up Beyond the Horizon, and I’d been again thinking of shutting down. However, after careful consideration, the truth is… that there is no way I can give up BTH, because this is where I feel most at home. My few, but faithful readers, the true relationships that have grown from this “adventure”, have all given me a veritable treasure trove of love.  Although my italian blog has a totally different purpose, one of service, BTH and the friends I have made in this venue, is where that treasure is replenished. Deacon Dan recently posted about the situation regarding faith in Italy, and I must admit that it’s all so sadly true. My Italian readers are people who are in pain, but most of them have not (or had not) yet turned to their Faith, no matter how inadequate, to find a path towards healing. So, that is the place for giving, totally, without reserve, to my Italian readers. Beyond the Horizon, instead, and you, my dear friends, is where I receive and thus am able to give.  For this, I am truly grateful and I hope we can continue on this adventure for a very long time.