Christmas eve was very busy. The ESM spent the afternoon on the streets near the main train station, speaking with the homeless, and offereing them a small Christmas gift - some homemade biscuits. Unfortunately, I couldn't go, but it went very well.
Then in the evening, we went to the first of the four Christmas Masses. It began at the Youth Centre with Mass at 6pm, and was followed by a little party. Then we went to Mass with the Holy Father at St Peter's. It was a miracle that we were able to go. We weren't able to get tickets from our usual source, so we had to scrounge around for them. Slowly we started to get almost enough for the whole School to go - we needed 25 tickets, but only had 15. Then, by the evening we had 41 tickets and ended up giving them away to people on St Peter's Square.
After the midnight Mass (at 10pm) we went back to the School and continued with the celebrations - Fr Benoit brought out the whiskey! Soon we were joined by a group of our students. After this, Kev and I each called our families back home. I was so happy to be able to see my dear mum, dad, and brothers. (Unfortunately Alex and my sister-in-laws and nephews were not there, but I will see them soon!!!). We went to bed at about 3am.
Whiskey o'clock!!!
I somehow managed to get up in time for the dawn Mass at 6:30am. We insisted that Fr Benoit say this Mass in case anyone wanted to go, so I thought that I should be there. I am so glad that I went. It really made it feel like Christmas! - Then back to bed for another hour!
We then went back to the Youth Centre for Mass at 10am, followed by the Pope's message to the people in St Peter's Square.
Then at night we had our special Christmas dinner with entertainment by our students. It was a hoot.
We slept the next day.
The following day we went to Paray le Monial for the Fraternity Retreat. We were able to have lots of meetings with everyone who it is normally difficult to get in contact with, because they were all there too. It was great to see four students who did the School with me nine years ago: Leen, Olivier, Ricardo and Lili. We also got to see Julian, who lived with us in the Mission House in Sydney in our first year of marriage, and has just been ordained a deacon.
Hele, Deacon Julian, Kev
After a wild (not really) New Years Eve, we returned to Rome on January 1st 2012!
