We've Arrived in Assisi!!!

After a week in Rome for basic orientation to our new school, we took a bus to Assisi to begin to study Italian. All of our Theology classes, when we return to Rome, will be in Italian; so it is a bit important to learn, and quickly! Luckily, our courses don't start until October, so we have two months to devote to learning the lingua bella. And this is what brings us to Assisi. We started classes on Monday at an excellent language school just off the town center. We have four hours of class in the morning, Monday through Friday, and then we break into small groups for two more hours of class in the afternoon. It can really leave us mentally drained by the end of it, but after four days I think I've already made significant progress.

It is incredible to be staying in Assisi. We are almost directly between the basilicas of Sts. Fancis and Clare. Yet it seems my excitement to come here was odd

ly misplaced. I thought a lot about my first day in Assisi: the holy sights to see and the deep peace I would find on this little hill in Italy. But when we got to Assisi on Monday, it was pouring down rain. My first time in Assisi, and spent it running with my head covered trying to avoid puddles! Moreover, it is amazing how, in the town of a saint whose motto was pax, it is incredibly hard to find a quiet place to pray. The sheer number of pilgrims (praise God for it) provides constant movement in the holy places here.

Yet I take solace in that I am not alone in the disgraceful entrance into Assisi. As the first picture shows above, there is a statue out front of St. Francis’ Basilica of the saint return from battle, weak and defeated. The young Francis filled his he

ad with dreams of glory and honor and what his future would be like. Yet on his way to earn it in war like the rest of the men in his time; he was captured and was held prisoner for a year. He returned defeated with hanging head. But, in God’s great providence, it was this failure that brought about the conversion of a saint that still has an amazing impact on the world today.

Defeat, weakness, failure is what brings about true discipleship. Our expectations and grand desires only express how weak we really are. But it is when we are at our very lowest that God’s grace shines through. It is when we are defeated and broken that we find the Crucified One.

(For more picture go to: https://picasaweb.google.com/114615063407525807083/Assisi?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIPb2Kenp5n0FQ&feat=directlink )