On 21st August 48 of us woke up in Lanchester and went to bed in Assisi the Umbrian home of St. Francis.
We flew from Newcastle to Rome, via Paris and our coach was waiting to take us to Assisi.
Early next morning we celebrated a joyful Mass in the great Basilica which was built very soon after the death of Francis.
Good music and lively participation were features of all our worship on the pilgrimage.
We were given a very detailed visit of the three levels of the church by a Zambian who was full of Franciscan joie de vivre.
We marvelled at Giotto’s fresco biography of Francis, the Cimambue portrait of the saint, Lorenzetti’s lovely Our Lady,
but the most moving moments were spent praying for peace at the simple tomb of Francis in the crypt.

The rest of the day was spent in praying at the tomb of Francis’s great friend Clare, eating and drinking well and visiting the tiny little church
where Francis founded his great movement before we set out to Rome and our hotel next door to Saint Peter’s.

We were lucky to celebrate our first Mass in Rome at the tomb of Saint Peter where we remembered Dennis Malpass.
Later in the day we prayed at the tomb of Saint Paul outside the walls. In between we were guided through the catacombs of St. Callistus,
stopping for necessary cool drinks at the
Beda College which has a superb Fenwick Lawson Venerable Bede in the entrance Hall. Fenwick’s best known St. Bede is at St. Paul’s in Jarrow.

There was plenty of time for eating and drinking well in Rome’s many good restaurants and bars.
On the Sunday we went into Trastevere to see some of the best mosaics in Rome in the church of Santa Maria to find ourselves involved in a packed, joyful, youthful parish mass.
In the afternoon after visiting the Pope’s cathedral, St. John Lateran,, we had our own Mass in the Borghese Chapel in the very beautiful St. Mary Major’s.

Next day we had a very moving celebration in the
Basilica of the twelve Apostles where Father Bob Spence was ordained priest forty years ago.
It ended with a specially written motet to the tune of the Blaydon races! Canon Spence invited us next door to the
Birreria Twelve Apostles for a drink where he’d drunk his first pint as a priest with his father all those years ago!

We had a day away from Rome in the footsteps of Saint Benedict at Subiaco and Monte Cassino where we prayed and reflected at the great Commonwealth Cemetery.

On Wednesday Pope John Paul came in from Castelgandolfo and we joined thousands from all over the world to listen to him,
pray with him and receive the blessing of a very frail but immensely strong old man.
Dozens of newly married couples, many disabled pilgrims in wheelchairs and a lively group of Senagalese were given pride of place.

In the afternoon we went out to Lake Albano and saw the Pope’s holiday home, sampled the wine of Frascati and visited the tomb of
Bonnie Prince Charlie in the cathedral where his brother, the last of the Stuarts was Cardinal Bishop as well as Duke of York.

The last evening we walked from Trevi Fountain to the Spanish Steps. And of course we had already packed in the Colosseum,
Forum, Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, Piazza Navona and countless Caravaggios. It was all a pilgrimage to remember.