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I go to see the Pope.

Assisi

Sunday, Our day of rest.

A Day of Silence

So today was our day of silence. We started at 8:30 this morning and remained in silence until mass at 5:00. It was a truly wonderful day. I can't really say that I came up with anything profound in my 8 1/2 hours of reflection. But it was really nice to just be silent.

Tonight we had dinner on the roof of the Mother House. I took the picture above of the sun setting behind St. Lasalle Chapel from the roof.

Afterwards a big group of us trooped down the streets to our favorite Gelatorium. I had Nutella gelato. A young man came in and ordered a gelto sandwich. They take a bun made of brioche, slice it half way through, fill it with scoops of gelato and top it with whipped cream. It was huge. They also make Nutella crepes. I didn't see one, but can only imagine.

It's officially Day Five.

Sorry, no pictures tonight. I am so tired I can hardly think. We had a very long day today. It is midnight and I am just getting back to my little room.

We heard from three very good speakers today. In the morning we heard Fr. Alejandro Crosthwaite who spoke on Catholic social teaching. In the afternoon we heard Br. Anton De Roeper who spoke on Catholic social teaching in a Lasallian context. And tonight we met with Br. Alvero Rodriguez the Superior General.

As usual the time between sessions was spent in meetings of special issue groups and with my new and old friends from Bethlehem University. There is so much to discuss and people are ripe with innovative ideas for collaborations.

Tomorrow we have a morning speaker from the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Our afternoon is supposedly free, but I'm meeting with the VP for Academic Affairs for Bethlehem to have lunch and talk about some potential collaborative projects.

Tomorrow night we meet with the Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

And I need to do laundry.

This experience is so much more than I bargained for. There is so much to digest and reflect on. But right now, I just want to go to bed and put my feet up. They are killing me!!!

A visit to St. John Baptist de La Salle

The current home of de LaSalle

The reliquary up close. I think I've seen a thousand pictures of this from exactly this angle. For some reason I thought it was very large. It's only about 3' long. If you click in it and enlarge the pictures, you can see the various jewels mounted on the reliquary.











Here's a picture of the actual relics. (I asked and was told it was ok to take a picture..in case you're wondering.) In the picture you can see his skull and what someone suggested was a femer. I think it looked more like vertebrae. I'm going to go back for another look when I have more time.











I took many more pictures in the church, and will load them later. James Miller wasn't there, but there were two more Saint's relics. There are also a couple of stained glass windows I'm trying to get a good photo of. I'll try again later this evening when the light might be a little better.

Gerard Rummery Day!

I want my cactus to bloom like this!













One of the hundreds of rodent traps around the outside of the Motherhouse. Cats come and check them almost hourly to see if dinner is served.





The most hated sculpture at the Mother House. This sculpure was donated by a school in Switzerland that closed. Every brother I've talked to tells me they wish it had stayed in Switzerland.

The glass behind the statue is actually a glass hallway between two courtyards. The court yard I was in was in the shade. The one on the othe side of the hallway wasn't. Hence the back light.
I'm not sure how many court yards this place has. I can count 5 off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are more. Almost everywhere you turn there's another court yard. Some have scupltures and others don't.

Today Gerard Rummery gave the presentations. He is a Austrailian Brother and one of those historians who makes you feel like you're listening to a wonderful story when he talks about history. His morning topic was: John Baptist de La Salle: Biography in the Cultural, Ecclesial, Educational and Political Context of 17th and 18th Century France and Europe. In the afternoon his topic was: The Brothers of the Christian Schools 1680-2007. It was fascinating and really explained our mission and why the Brothers do things the way they do. It's incredible to think that the mission we follow today is basically unchanged from the original mission of the brothers back in the late 1600's.

Tomorrow we have Br. Tim Coldwell speaking on Lasallian spirituality and Br. Antonio Botana speaking on Lasallian association. I haven't read any of Br. Tim's work, but I have read some of Br. Antonio's work.

I promise to have actual pictures of de La Salle tomorrow. I tried to take them tonight, but the Brothers were in the church praying. I don't think they would have been overly thrilled if I had marched up to the front of the church to snap a picture of the Founder during their interior prayer.

St. Benilde is also there as are a number of other Saints. I think James Miller might be there too. Or at least there is something that has to do with James Miller in the Church. I'll look.

A few more pictures...

This is on of the many water fountains found all over the property of the Mother House. They are very popular with the birds. They like to sit below them and try to catch drips of water as they fall.

This is Casa Delasalle where I am staying. It is located on the back of the property. The pink building to the right is a big controversy. The brothers sold that property to a developer to build housing for low income people. The man was running some sort of scam and is now in prison. The building was never finished and is a eye sore for all of Rome...or so it is said by the Mayor of Rome.

Tonight's dinner was rissoto. It was very good. I didn't leave the property today. We worked through our afternoon break.

I had lunch with members of the Phillipines delegation, dinner with the French delegation and a cigarette break with the Palestinian delegation. Our translator does a good job, but of course everything is a little behind. And I get tired of wearing the headphones. At my work table today English, Spanish, Italian, Phillipino were spoken.

Tomorrow promises to be a good day. Br. Gerard Rummery is meeting with us. He's kind of the rock star of Lasallian teaching. He's an elderly Austrailian brother who is the narrator of a video that I use for teacher training.

Gelato makes everything better.

Long day. Our meetings officially began at 5:00 with a Mass in English and Spanish. Afterwards we had a social and then dinner. Because I know certain people are interested, they served little sandwiches with brie and dill or basil at the social - and of course wine. For dinner we had antipasta as a first course. The second course was pasta with garlic and pancette, the third course was beef with peas and a type of pesto.

For desert, Br. Bob, Valerie from Winona and I went out for gelato. I had lime and chocolate.

Now I'm home and getting ready for bed. I don't have new picture to post, but will take some tomorrow.

Oh the flowers!

I wandered around the grounds this afternoon and took some pictures of flowers. I don't know what that one is above, but I have seen it at Linders.

This is a little green house on the property. Those are grape vines on the trellis.

The gardenia trees are in full bloom. The fragrence was the first thing to greet me this morning!

I'll have many more pictures of flowers. They are everywhere!

Day Two

This is the Generalate or the Mother House as they call it. The balcony above the apartment of the Superior General.

It is a beautiful day in Roma. I got up really late (about 9:00) and took a walk along Via Aurellia. I managed to get lost, but found my way back to Casa Delasalle eventually.

I met up with Br. Bob and went with him on a "supplies" mission to the local grocery store. I bought some laundry detergent (or at least I think it is) and got lectured by the check out lady because I gave her a 10eu to pay for something that cost 1,50 eu.

We got back at 12:45, just in time for my first lunch at the Mother House. First course: fresh vegetables, lettuce and bread. Second Course: pasta in a red sauce with fresh grated parmesean. Third course: roasted pork and potatoes. And of course wine...in a huge plastic pitcher. It was all very good. And that's not the wine talking!

This is my room.

And so it begins...

Welcome to my Roman Holiday. So far it has been interesting, but not exactly a whole lot of fun.

My lovely ankles will attest to the length and of the day!

I started out yesterday at the Mpls. airport with getting hit on by a TSA employee. Apparently they hire really creepy people with bad judgement to keep us all safe.

On the flight from Mpls to Newark, I was surrounded by teeth pickers. Not just random getting the spinach out of one tooth with a tooth pick. These two people had big plastic dental tools that gouged in between their teeth and brought out big blobs of matter. It was possibly one of the grossest displays I've ever seen. Even weirder, the two perps weren't even together! There must be a whole underground cult of teeth pickers.

In the Newark airport I got hit on again. Honestly, I can't even remember the last time I was hit on before Friday. I actually had a little argument with myself if I was over reacting, but after considering it for a while I decided my first instict was right. (See when you travel alone you have to be your own consigliari.) Anyhow, the second character was a police Sargent from some suburb of Newark who was behind me going through security. He followed me to my gate and sat and talked my ear off for an hour or so. I think he thought I was flirting with him because I couldn't understand his accent and kept leaning closer so I could hear what he was saying more clearly. Actually, I'm still not certain what he was talking about most of the time. The Jersey was pretty thick.

On the flight from Newark to Rome I sat beside a lovely elderly couple. The man had moved to the US from Italy in 1956 when he was 18. He still has and had a great Italian accent. He tried to teach me Italian. They were a sweet couple.