Youth Forum

(Hele writes....)

If you are wondering why I am usually the one to write and not Kev, it's not because he has been banned but because I am a blog hog. It is no reflection on his abilities to entertain you all, as I'm sure you'll all agree.

We have spent the last five days at a Youth Forum organised by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which was held at a place about an hour out of Rome. It is the 10th forum of it's kind, and this year was attended by about 250 delgates from over 80 countries and 30 communities. The ESM was in charge of the music, and a couple of other things. The topic this year was "Love". We are quite keen on this topic so we thought it was very good. There were some wonderful lectures, and it was great to meet so many young people from all over the world.

On the Thursday, all the participants were taken to St Peter's Basilica for a private tour. It was closed to the public during this time, so we felt quite special. We were able to pray before the tomb of the late Pope John Paul II, and because we were the only ones there, we had a good amount of time, and better still, everyone was in complete silence. It was very moving.


The tomb of John Paul II

After the tour, we joined several thousand people in St Peter's Square for a gathering with the Pope. But, just to add to our specialness, we were up on the 'sagrato' which is the 'sacred area' or 'stage-like-thing-that-the-Pope-is-on' which overlooks the Square and all the other people. It was great. Everyone got a free cap, a yellow scaff, and a candle. See the handsome model below....

Joyce, Theresa, Hele and Kev

Pope Benedict protected by Swiss Guards in their dashing outfits

All the other people far far away

Pope-mobile

(I would love to get a Wags-mobile like this where we had a driver and we got to stand up at the back).

The trip back to our accomodation in the evening was typical of what we have come to expect in Rome. There was an accident at the entrance of the underground carpark where our bus was leaving from. I would have thought that while waiting for the accident to clear, all the buses inside would turn off their engines,but noooooooooo. So it was a little tricky breathing, as the fumes were terrible. We waited for about half an hour in the stairwell, then were on our merry way.

Today is Palm Sunday and the last day of the Forum. We had Mass at St Peter's, and once again we were seated on the Sagrato. I was really really sad for a couple of minutes when I realised that I hadn't brought the camera with me. The procession of palms was so impressive, and the Mass was beautiful. I am always deeply moved by the liturgy on Palm Sunday when we hear the Gospel reading of Christ's passion. We now enter into Holy Week - one of my favourite weeks of the year, as we approach the Light of the Resurrection of Our Lord.

God bless

Out and about in our neighbourhood

(Helen writes...)

This week, Kev and I have been getting more involved with the ESM, and getting into more of a routine. We have been interviewing students for next year, and participating with the planning for the next few weeks leading up to Easter.

I was so pleasantly surprised to have a visitor on Saturday. I was at the School and was given a message that someone from the Vatican was here to see me. I went downstairs to find one of my very dearest friends Tiziana standing there. For those of you who don't know, Tiz is Italian and was on the Team at the school when I was a student seven years ago. We haven't seen her since she came to Australia for our wedding five years ago. We only got to chat for about half an hour, but it was so good to see her.

We have been getting aquainted with our neighbourhood. Within a five minute walk from our place, we have a park, many bars and restaurants, churches, supermarkets, clothes shops (yes, Oviesse), and a local theatre. On Saturday night, we went to a Classical Guitar Recital at the local theatre next to the Church. We didn't know what to expect. The audience consisted of 20 people, six of whom were with us (our friend Mark and three ESM students). It was fantastic! They were so talented and we all really enjoyed it. Then we went out for supper. The walk home was about 2 minutes. We no longer have questions about designated driver!

On Sunday, the four French students at the ESM hosted a French Cultural evening. We were treated to fine dining and a presentation on the history, art and culture of France. The other students dressed up. The guy from England dressed up as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Chinese student dressed up as St Bernadette or Lourdes, and Rita from Australia (originally Indonesian) dressed up as a French Kiss!!


Rita - French Kiss

Today we had Jackie, Conor and Finn join us at the ESM for lunch. It is such a blessing to have them living in Rome, even though we don't live very close to eachother. They are such a great couple, and Finn was a real 'hit' with the ESM students. And just like our days at the Catholic Bookshop, Jackie was a constant source of laughter. (we did lots of work too, Mary)


Wags and the Sweeneys - Kev looks a bit goofey because I insisted that he stop making faces and try and smile properly.

We just got back from dinner at the Anderson's. They have finally found an appartment to rent. It is absolutely huge, and only a short bus ride away. It was so nice to spend time with them in a relaxed setting, and Kev noted that it was appropriate that Kate cooked a roast, because he used to get my mum to cook a roast for us on Mondays back in Australia - he used to call it 'family night'.

We also got to have our first Skype call with my brother Alex and his little boy Michael, who is our godson. He has changed so much in six weeks (Michael, not Alex. Alex is much the same), but he still thinks that we are hilarious!!

Florence

(Helen writes...) Kev and I just got back from our Emmanuel Community Weekend in Florence. When in Australia, we would get together once a month at the home of James and Sarah McDonald in Clifton Hill. So our trip to Firenze was a bit different. Firstly, it took a lot longer to organise transport. Praise God, we have our wonderful friends Mark and Kate here who booked our train tickets for us. They were told that we would not be able to arrive at the main station of Florence on Saturday, and also that we would have to take our return trip quite late on Sunday because there was an old war bomb that was at the main station and was going to be removed. One of the Anderson's children said that they didn't want to go to Florence because there was a bomb. I tended to agree with him!

Anyways, The Andersons arrived at our place on Saturday morning with their five children, and we all headed to Termini station together. This was no small task - As I mentioned in the past, Rome is not really set up for pushers (strollers / baby carriers) so navigating around train stations with escalators is not easy. Also, we had a lot of luggage between us. Then by the time we found our train for Florence, we had trouble understanding what carriage we were supposed to get on. To cut an already long story short, we got on the wrong end of the train with about 7 seconds to spare. We had to lug all our luggage to the other end of the moving train with five children, a pusher, a baby's cot (crib) and all our luggage. We were very blessed to have a kind staff member who felt our pain and upgraded us to first class. The rest of the train trip was great!

In Florence, there was no one to meet us because of the situation with the wrong station. We got into two taxis and managed to get to the convent where the Andersons were staying. Then someone collected Kev and me and took us to the home of our host (member of the Emmanuel Community). The three of us arrived at the location for the Community Weekend at 4:30pm. It was great to catch up with people who I haven't seen in seven or eight years - Elena and Bepe, and Graziella. We received a very warm welcome. Including us and the Andersons, there were 11 Aussies, so they kindly interpreted talks for us and sang verses of each song in english. It reminded me of my old ESM days. The evening finished at 11pm. ARRRRRGGGG. The next day was short but sweet. It finished with lunch. After that a group of us hung around the beautiful city of Firenze. The weather was perfect and we had a great day.


The Wags and Andersons in front of the Ponte Vecchio



Can you spot the two discreet Aussies?

The trip home was a piece of cake!

Back from Dublin

Helehubbie writes:

We just got back from Dublin tonight. It was cold. It got really nice between 10am and 3pm today...just before we left. The mission was really quite awesome. The students of the ESM are really wonderful people with incredible stories. One girl drove out of the school in Columbine moments before the gunmen started shooting...more details to come!

Hele will probably write another essay tomorrow giving more detail. She is good at rambling on. By the way, my sister Kathleen had a little baby girl, Genevieve Anna on 6/03/10. She was just over 6 pounds. Apparently her hubby played some role in the event too. My best guess would be that he spent the time watching the 3rd Aus vs NZ ODI while Kath was doing all the pushing. I hope he wasn't interrupted too much, the game sounded pretty exciting.

Dublin

(Helen writes...)

Well, after four days in Vienna, we flew to Dublin to join the Emmanuel School for their Parish MIssion. Our flight was delayed due to technical problems on the plane (it was making very strange noises - we almost hoped that they would announce that the flight was cancelled, because we didn't really trust the aircraft, but all was fine). But, we arrived very late on Sunday night. Luckily there was a member of the Emmanuel Community there to meet us and to drive us to our host family.

We have been here in the parish, participating in the mission activities and having a lot of fun - in the freeeeezing cold. We have gone into the schools - primary and seconday; visited people in their homes, and done mission on the streets - all for the purpose of sharing the love and joy of Our God. Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming.

We have been very busy so we haven't had much time to respond to emails, but it is great to hear from you all. Thanks especially to those of you who have joined our blog as 'followers'. That makes you very special indeed!

We are able to spend a lot of time in the Church here,so we are praying for all of you and all your intentions. May you be truly blessed.