VOTF in Rome

The VOTF Survey

Siena! April 28

Catherine's Place

Today was for Siena and so near to Catherine's feast day (April 29); the town teemed with her spirit - purposeful, sunny and refreshing.

Siena sits on a high hill and so all who come to seek Catherine first look up. It is fitting.

I wanted my first look at Siena to be the valley of her first vision - and it was. Gleaming in the early morning sunlight, shimmering like a bed of emeralds, the Spirit of God inhabits it still.

Nothing in the town of Siena, except the tourists with cameras like necklaces and camcorders as extension of their wrists, is different from the days Catherine thought, and prayed and left here to speak her mind to the warring factions of Florence and then to Avignon to change history.

I pay tribute to Catherine at the cathedral named for her. I speak to her of Voice of the Faithful knowing that she understands. Near where her head is buried (her body is in Rome - it's an Italian thing) I lit a candle for us. Instead of putting the offering in the box, I decide to put it in the cup of the man I passed on the way in, sitting quietly begging. It seemed a “Catherine” thing to do.

At the campo - the field - in the direct center of town, Italy in all its glory is displayed. Restaurants rim the field where a race takes place twice a year, July 2 and August 16. Its history stretches back to the guilds; today's competition, I’m told, is just as cut throat.

The horse is the thing, say the Italians, and it’s the horses, not the jockeys, who are blessed inside the Duomo (the cathedral) and the parish church of each neighborhood. The competition is so keen that neighbors on one side of the street may be competitors of those across the way and if a husband and wife are from different competitors' home turfs, July and August can be stormy months.

The church of Saint Francis is the host - ponder the pun - to 220 consecrated hosts that were stolen in 1730, cast in the garbage by the thieves who only took the ciborium as booty. A frantic hunt by the townspeople was successful. The Body of Christ was cleansed and returned to its sacred place. From that day to this, there has not been decomposition of the consecrated hosts.

I pray in this chapel for a concentrated time. Our worries, our successes, our struggles, our needs; the survivors' needs; the priests’ needs - priest perpetrators, too; the bishops' needs; Pope Benedict's needs; and the Church's needs. These are placed before the Lord.

I write a message in the book that records the passage of pilgrims here. I entreat the Lord in the name of all of us, to spread His mantle of care over the survivors and provide clear direction to us. I light a candle for our gathering in Indianapolis.

I light another candle -and from it four that have been placed here in prayerful adoration before - the wicks are without flame yet the stems are not spent. This time the offering goes in the box.