To Italy: Pilgrimage Diary Day 6

There was no time to write a pilgrimage diary yesterday because we had a full day of travel. We left Maiori for a drive to Rome to return our rental car. The first part of the journey took us back up the switchback roads and from the top of the mountain fantastic view across the wide valley of Pompei and Naples. Mount Vesuvius dominated the skyline in the distance and as we wound our way through the hairpin turns down into the valley we remembered that St Bartolo Longo’s shrine to the Holy Rosary was in Pompei. We had left plenty of time for our journey, so decided to watch out for signs to the shrine and take a detour if possible.

Bartolo Longo (b. 1841) was a young student training to be a lawyer in Naples when he fell under the influence first of rationalists, then occultists. He fell into the occult and spiritualism and was eventually “ordained” as a Satanic priest. This led to illnesses, depression and suicidal thoughts, but a priest and religious sister noticed his decline into mental illness and befriended him and gently won him back to the faith. Once returned to the Catholic faith, he dedicated his life to promoting the Holy Rosary. He built the beautiful shrine in Pompei and was just canonized in the Autumn of 2025 by Pope Leo XIV. Just last week the pope also visited the shrine.

Donna spotted some signs to the shrine as we made our way down from the mountains to the autostrada, and after a few wrong turns we found our way, found a parking space and then found a coffee shop for a cappuccino and pastry. We toured the shrine while morning Mass was being celebrated. Jim advised us on the quality (or not) of the late nineteenth century architecture and art. We said our prayers and returned to the car for the rest of our drive up the autostrada to Rome.

The itinerary for the day was to 1. return the rental car at Termini Station—the main train station in Rome, 2. Get the train from Rome to Turin in the Northwest corner of Italy 3. Make our way to the town of Avigliana and our hotel to be set to visit Sacra San Michele—another one of the Monasteries on the Sword of St Michael line.

This was a place I had wanted to visit for the last forty years. In 1987 I made a hitch hiking pilgrimage to Jerusalem from England, and while I was traveling across Northern Italy I spotted Sacra San Michele high above the Vale of Susa just on the Italian side of the French Alps. I was already aware of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and Mont St Michel in France, and it seemed to me that this other mountain monastery to St Michael was on a straight line geographically with the other two. At that time in 1987 nobody had really heard about the Sword of St Michael.

When I returned to England I told a friend who was Italian about my discovery of these three Michael monasteries in a straight line. He immediately said, “What about Gargano?” I didn’t know about the Michael shrine at Gargano, but it turned out to be on the line. Then he said—look further West. Check out a place called Skellig Michael. It was on the line. Then we extended the line Eastward and it looked like it went through Athens to Jerusalem. We have since learned about the Michael monastery on the island of Symi in the Dodecanese and that the line actually ends in Megiddo (Biblical Armageddon)—not Jerusalem.

Over the years I have watched as more and more people also share in what was (for me) a unique discovery. What is the significance of this mysterious “Sword of St Michael”? I don’t know. It is a mystery, and a mystery is “something that can be experienced even if if cannot be explained.”

So we made it to Rome and battled the one way system, the notorious double parking or Rome’s motorists, the electric bikes, scooters, mopeds, delivery vans trams, pedestrians and tour busses to finally find the parking lot to return the car. Then a quick lunch of lasagna in the station before catching the train North. It was 8:30 by the time we arrived in Turin, and still had to find the local train to the town of Avigliano. Tired and flustered by the prospect of figuring out how to buy a ticket and travel another thirty minutes late at night only to have to find a taxi in a country town to take us to our hotel we opted for a taxi and glad we did.

So this morning we found a driver to take us to Sacra San Michele—the monastery overlooking the Valley of Susa with the still snow capped Alps in the background. The drive was through yet more switchback mountain lanes until we reached the end of the road at the foot of the path up to the monastery. A steep climb and seemingly endless stairs to the church on the peak.

The monastery was built in the late 10th century and was a Benedictine monastery until the revolutions closed it down. The Rosiminians maintain a religious presence there now. The church is not a museum. Mass is celebrated regularly and there was a wonderful spiritual atmosphere—the air swimming with angels.

I have been to Mont St Michel in France many times and it is stupendous, but Sacra San Michele beats it in some ways. The views down across the valley with the backdrop of the Alps is truly wonderful, and the ancient church is full of light and life of the angels to be sure. This is the best kind of vacation—to turn it into a pilgrimage of the miraculous. The miraculous conversion of Bargolo Longo—the miracle of Sacra San Michele—that they built such a building in such a place at that time…and we think we are so smart because we can move around the world faster. Somewhere C.S.Lewis comments that we foolishly think we are so smart simply because we have learned how to move heavy things and go quickly from place to place—all the time taking leave of wisdom.

After coming down from the mountain we took a local train back to Turin, and tomorrow will venerate the Shroud and visit the relics of St. John Bosco. One of my repeated observations on this trip is “This country is infused with the Catholic faith.”

Like tea. That’s right.