To Italy: Pilgrimage Diary Day 4
If I write up the account of our extraordinary pilgrimage adventure I think I’ve got the working title: A Tour of Miracles. We didn’t plan it this way, but our tour has been one of miracles after miracles: St Rita of Cascia—an incorruptible, St Benedict, the Holy House, St Joseph Cupertino—a miracle worker and incorruptible, Lanciano, Padre Pio and Monte Archangelo.
Jim and Donna and I quite overwhelmed by the way Italy seems to be infused by the Catholic religion. From the multitude of saints, shrines, abbeys, convents, waside shrines and churches it makes me grieve for England that I love and think how different that dear land would be if Henry VIII and Cromwell had never happened.
This morning we woke early to a sunrise over the Adriatic viewed as I said the morning office in the Bed and Breakfast overlooking the cliffs and rugged hills down to the sea. An early breakfast with milk and cheese from the very cows who were wandering with their clanging bells in the fields below our house.
Then we set off for a long day’s drive (long by Italian standards anyway) West across the peninsula to the Amalfi Coast. First we navigated the torturous switchbacks down from the peak of Monte Archangelo then past Manfredonia and the flat straight roads across the Apulian plain and up again into lush hills and rolling farmland of the Daunian Mountains before passing through to the Amalfi Coast. What a beautiful drive through gorgeous, lush Italian countryside—from the switchback roads of Gargano to the twisting switchbacks of the Mediterrranean coast.
We’re taking a break from travel tomorrow. Donna found a nice apartment in Maiori—one of the smaller towns on the Amalfi coast. We’ll jump on the ferry that connect the scenic coastal towns tomorrow, then on Thursday a long day of travel because we’re headed North. I convinced my fellow pilgrims to take a few extra days to take in a few places we all wanted to see—thinking that this may be the last time we visit Italy.
More about that as we go, but today thanks for a safe day of travel, a beautiful place to stay— a delicious seafood dinner and the sound of the waves outside the window at night.
The miracles you see and read about, of course, are only given to help us see the miracles that are happening all the time around us. The Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano? It reminds us of the daily miracle of transubstantiation. The miracle of Joseph Cupertino flying? We will all fly away one glad morning. Give thanks for all the miracles we are given and give thanks for a contemplative heart with eyes to see them
Thank you for letting us accompany you on Pilgrimage in spirit. I am half Sicilian and always wanted to visit Italy but that is not going to happen, so it’s wonderful to read all about it.
These accounts are so lovely. I look forward to them everyday. Way to keep me hanging on that “maybe the last time” and “more on that later!”