Chronicle of Monday 18 August

Dear parents, grandparents, friends and all the other pilgrims,

Today we got up at 7:45 in the morning. So many hours of sleep in a row are not very common round here and, to be honest, we are grateful for these gifts from the Lord. Those who wanted to were able to get up a little earlier for a quiet time of prayer before the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

After breakfast, which all the pilgrims arrived at as punctual as a Swiss watch, we met in front of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore to begin today’s tour of churches.

First we visited Santa Chiara, where we saw the crucifix through which St Francis saw what the Lord was asking of him. There we also prayed for a while before St Clare’s tomb and we all prayed the Rosary together in the Blessed Sacrament chapel.

Our pious tour continued with a visit to the church of San Damiano. That was where the convent in which St Clare lived was. We were able to visit the rooms, the chapels and the different parts of the place as they were in the thirteenth century. There we met a very friendly Franciscan who spoke five different languages. He had a very pleasant conversation in German with Núria Holtman which, for the rest of us, could just as well have been about hair loss after fifty as about the apricot orchards of northern Italy: we couldn’t understand a word. On our way out of the convent, we had a time of spiritual reading.

Later we climbed “the most hardcore hill of our lives”, in the words of Gerard Gel, to reach the Basilica of St Francis. We were able to pray before the saint who has been with us all the way to Assisi and who will go on being with us until we reach Rome. We sang to the Blessed Sacrament in the basilica and then went back to the hotel to enjoy a fantastic lunch.

In the afternoon, we had a meditation in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and then celebrated Holy Mass there together, joined by the odd tourist and some local people. At the end of the Eucharist, we prayed for the last time before the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis, before going for a walk through the streets of Assisi looking for somewhere to have an ice cream.

Before dinner, we had a heartwarming get-together, in which the Gel brothers turned into the von Trapp family and delighted us with a version of Un Veneno, by C. Tangana. The Arroyo sisters also sang us a song in Catalan, La cançó del soldadet. The pilgrims who arrived yesterday bring so much to our big family.

To end the day, we had a good plate of macaroni with escalope and prayed Compline, all praying together for these days of walking which for some begin tomorrow and which will end in a week’s time at the feet of St Peter.