Lithuania

I went to Lithuania for a four days last week. Kristina was there to meet me at the airport. I was very blessed with beautiful weather, although it was a bit chilly. This was fine though because I had expected it to be freezing. Firstly, Kristina showed me where I would be staying for the night. It was in a |Jesuit Monastery....very nice indeed.

Kristina and Caterina infront of the Jesuit Monastery

I dropped my bag off, and then we had a walking tour of the city of Vilnius. It is so lovely. We went to lunch at a local restaurant - I had 'cepelinai' or 'zeppelin dumplings'...very nice. After that we had a meeting at Kristina's work to prepare for a mission which we will do next year. This lasted a few hours. Then Mass (in Lithuanian) and dinner and the walking tour continued.

The next day we did more mission preparation. We visited schools and universities and lots of churches and cafes.

Then in the afternoon we headed off to a retreat centre in the countryside. The retreat was for people who might be interested in the Emmanuel Community, as there are only two members in Lithuania . It was a lovely weekend.

Beautiful place for a retreat

The weekend finished on Sunday. I got a taxi to the airport and then headed back to Rome. After travelling for 6 hours it was nice to get back to the apartment.

New Year - of Faith

We started another ESM year with a new group of students. As usual, we began on October 1st with a pilgrimage to Assisi. It was a great week. The students are lovely and so is the Team! We were also blessed to have two priests accompany us.

ESM 2012 - 2013

One morning we had our morning prayer at a little spot which looks over the basilica. We were singing joyful songs of praise, and we must have sounded pretty good. A television crew from Italy's history channel heard us and asked if they could do a story on us. So they filmed us praying and then interviewed us. Originally they were there to do a story on the Conference that was taking place, with a dialogue between 'believers and non-believers'. It will air on October 24th.

The programme was pretty-much the same as previous years - we visited significant sites, we prayed, we gave talks, we ate, and we had fun. One day we went to the Church of San Damiano which is where St Francis received the message from Jesus to rebuild His Church. It was a nice little walk to prepare us for what was to come later in the week....

Kev - donning his new hat

Each year we ask the students to put on a theatre night - the only criteria is that each act be related to St Francis or St Claire, and that they make us laugh. Well, did we laugh. They were hilarious. One of the highlights was, "St Francis - the musical". It was fantastic. In past years, the Team has been put on the spot because we haven't planned anything, but the students insist that we also do something. This has resulted in some terrible improvisations. This year we put our heads together for half an hour before the show, and the result was some terrible improvisations. Oh well, at least people laughed.

The next day we trekked up the hill (or mountain) to visit the 'Carceri'. This is an isolated place where St Francis used to go to pray, where he could be alone with God. It was a lovely walk, but almost too much for this old bird. By the time we got to the top, it was worth the effort because it is such a magnificent place. After wandering around for a bit, we had Mass at the outdoor altar.

Mass at Carceri (little prisons)

Just before heading back to Rome, we went to the Basilica of Mary of the Angels. The basilica was built on a site where St Francis used to pray. It is also where he died. We had Mass in a side chapel where he used to shed tears for his sins. It is called 'the chapel of tears'.

 Fr Fabian and Fr Rafael (not shedding tears)

On October 11th we went to Mass at St Peter's Square to celebrate the Year of Faith, which will finish in November next year. It was great for our students to be at a Papal Mass, and even better because two of them had been chosen to meet the Pope. Anna from Australia and Robert from the U.S.A. were given a message from the Pope, as representatives of the youth of the world. Here is an article about it from Zenit.

ESM students

 Pope Benedict XVI

Hele, Kristina, Kev

The following day we were the first group to lead a Rosary in St Peter's Square, as part of a daily Rosary for the Year of Faith. Check it out: Rosary in St Peter's Square

Now we are full-swing into the year. It is already very very busy...but we are managing to have fun!

A Quick Summary

I will write a quick summary of the last couple of months....

Paray le Monial - Jubilee Celebration of the Emmanuel Community
After the Youth Forum in Germany, Kev and I got a lift to Paray le Monial for the International Gathering to celebrate 40 years of the Emmanuel Community. We got there a couple of days early to vote for the new council of the EC.

The Gathering began on August 11th and continued until August 15th. It was a wonderful occasion to be with other members of the Community from all over the world. There were over 30 Australians - some of whom I hadn't seen in years. I also got to see students from my class-group of ESM as we had our 10 year reunion. We also had lots of meetings (as usual) and also worked on recruitment for new students.

Sydney
We left for Australia on August 17th. We were absolutely exhausted. Kev managed to sleep on the plane but I only dozed for about an hour (after travelling for about 30 hours). After arriving at Kev's parent's house, I did my best to stay awake so as to avoid getting jetlag. At about 2:30pm I almost keeled over so I went to bed. I woke up about 24 hours later and had jetlag for a week.

We got to see all Kev's family, including lots of gorgeous nieces and nephews. We got to know our new sister-in-law (Danny's wife, Laura) better as she gave us Spanish lessons! We had a lovely dinner with some former students - what a laugh!

Bernadette, Kev, Hele, Jess, Dave

 I also caught up with my godson Joseph, (not to mention his parents Dougie and Sandra).

Aurelia and Joseph

On the same trip I saw Julie and then Bishop Julian. We also had the great pleasure (and honour) to stay with the McDonalds for a couple of days. Such a delightful time was had by all.

 Jigsy, Lady Sarsy, darling kids, Hele and Kev

Gold Coast

We flew up to the Gold Coast for two nights. We stayed with my aunty and uncle - Carmie and Jack. We were able to spend some quality time with my cousin Tessie and her family.

Tessie and Hele

 Isaac, Sylvia, Paddy, Timmy, Joseph

Hele and Grace

The next morning we drove to Lismore to catch up with Kev's family. We had a charming lunch with his grandmother and some aunts and uncles. Kev's grandmother is so warm and welcoming. She really encouraged us in our mission and the work that we do for God.

Chris, Hele, Kev, Philip, Nan, Liam

We caught up with Kev's cousin Phil and his kids on the way back to Tweed Heads, where we stayed the night before travelling to.....

Melbourne

It was so nice to be home again. We got to spend lots of time with mum and dad and my brothers and their wives and the wonderful nephews: Mikey, Tibby and Chris  t  pher. We went to an Emmanuel Community Day so we saw lots of our friends. We tried to visit other family and friends, but we didn't have the chance to see everyone...we just ran out of time.

Kev and I went to the baptism of our new little goddaughter Susanna, who is the first born of our dear friends Sarsy Gal and Damian. She timed the birth and baptism beautifully to coincide with our trip to Australia!

We were so happy to see my best friend Dan Ban (Daniella) from school and her two boys. They came over one day and had a great time running around the back yard with boys.

 Dad and Tibby

Hele and Dan

 James and Liam

 Alex and Mikey

Nick and Tibby and Mikey

We had a great time in Australia. We had a little time to rest, lots of time to catch up, and also made time to stay up to day with work.