March 24, 2016: 8th day: Maundy Thursday

We awoke early this morning because we needed to be checked out by 9:30. After breakfast we spent a few minutes visiting with Laura the clerk. She tells us that she lives outside Assisi. Assisi is expensive to live in and it is difficult to live here because of the hills and narrow streets.  She also tells us about St. Mary of the Angels church near the train station. She says we must visit there, it is very special. It is where St. Francis worked and where he blessed St. Clair for  her vocation and her new order of the Poor Clair's. As we leave we stop in the Chappel. We meet Sister Colette. She is very kind. She tells us that there are only 10 sisters left at her Monestary and that 2 of the sisters are in-firmed. She asked us to pray for them. Scotti and I talked about how sad it will be for this way of like to die out. 

We walk up the hill to the church where Francis declared his vocation to his father, by taking off his clothes and claimed he was leaving all his riches.  He was immediately covered with a robe by the bishop acknowledging his life now is given to God. 

Next to the church are the remains of the home that St. Francis grew up in.  We sit and reflect for a few moments in the small Chappel now there. 

We then walk to St. Rufino Church. This is the church that both St. Clair and St. Francis were baptized.  Outside the church are 2 large lions. They represent how people in the early church needed to be courageous to be Christian. There is one lion with a half eaten Christian in his mouth. 

We find that this church also has been designated as a Holy Door site. We go to the visitor center to the left of the church to find the doors.  It is confusing because the woman does not speak English. She tells us by pointing and showing us that they are downstairs in the museum of the church. The woman at the desk there can help us because she speaks English. After finding the crypt and the Museum the woman who speaks English tells us that we came through the Holy Doors when we came into the church. Like in Rome it is easy to slip through the Holy Doors.  😊

Time is running short. Next we look for the Roman Amphitheater but after some amount of wondering we cannot find it. We decide we must head back across town to stop at a gift shop and have lunch before our taxi arrives at 3:00. We find a wonderful restaurant with a patio overlooking Assisi and the beautiful green pastoral Umbrian country side. We enjoy our last Italian meal. Tonight we will be on a train to Rome. 

After being dropped at the train station by our taxi driver, we store our luggage and walk to Mary of the Angels church. The tiny church that Francis once rebuilt and worked from now sits inside the large church that was built to house all the pilgrims coming to Assisi. The small church sits directly in front of the alter of the new church. We stop to pray in the small church where Francis served and made God known to so many people.

We arrive on the train at the airport a little after 7:20 We plan to catch a shuttle to our hotel at 8:00 and as we arrive the shuttle is just leaving. The next one did not show up until 9:30. It was near 10 by the time we checked-in and near 11 by the time we printed boarding passes. The taxi will arrive at 3:45 to take us to the airport for a 6:00 flight!  Whew! I am exhausted just thinking about it!

Lessons Learned: Master grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to love as to love with all my soul.