Thursday, March 7
Whew! What a day! I
started the day waking up at 6:00am in Roma and am ending it writing this
blog-to-be at 11:57pm. Since I
don’t have my computer or internet access, I decided to write my blogs for each
day down with the intention of posting them all later. If you’re reading this now, you know
that intention has become a reality.
So,
obviously, I began my Poland pilgrimage today. The entire day has been one miracle after another! We started the morning by leaving the
villa at 6:30am for St. Peter’s to go to a Mass being said on the tomb of
Blessed John Paul II. This would
be a great way to start out our Poland pilgrimage, since John Paul II is from
Poland. We didn’t have our own
priest to say Mass for us, so we were planning on just asking if we could
attend with whichever group happened to be there. We got there and found out that there was going to be a Mass
in French at 8am. Great, it’s Mass
on John Paul II’s tomb, it’s all good.
So we waited…and waited…and waited…and waited until it’s around 8:45am. Still no priest. Suddenly, a Dominican priest THAT I
KNOW walked by the altar. He
walked away. I waited for five
more minutes then decided to try to track him down and ask him to celebrate
Mass for us. I found him walking
out of the sacristy, prepared to celebrate Mass. I got his attention, reminded him who I was (he remembered
me!), and asked him if he would say Mass for us on the altar over John Paul
II’s tomb. It turned out that was
exactly what he was on his way to do!!
Deo gratias!! Mass was in
English and the whole homily was about Blessed John Paul II. What a perfect way to begin our
pilgrimage.
After
Mass, we celebrated the Lord’s generous little miracle with 30-cent
pastries. Yum! I ran some errands and got back to the
villa with 30 minutes to eat, pack, and laminate something. All of that was accomplished in the
allotted amount of time. Praise
God.
My
flight to Poland was good. The
plane was pink and purple!
Funny. I just slept and
rested the whole two and a half our flight. It was nice, and much needed!
Poland
is beautiful! We landed in Warsaw
and took a bus to the city center where we walked around for an hour or
so. It’s very different from Rome,
less people, wide streets, clean public areas, and more…. We stopped in a few churches. One of the churches had Chopin’s heart
entombed in it. When he was alive,
he said he “left his heart in Warsaw;” when he died, they took him literally,
chopped out his heart, and took it to Warsaw. Be careful what you wish for…
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| Downtown Warsaw |
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| Downtown Warsaw |
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| Church with Chopin's heart in it (see inscription on the pillar on the left |
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| Downtown Warsaw |
We
had a delicious homemade dinner by one of our host families. They have a giant dog that runs 20km
everyday. The host family I’m
staying with tonight is SO sweet.
Well, more tomorrow. I’m
exhausted!!
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