Today I had two wonderful spiritual opportunities. In the morning, I was able to attend Mass celebrated in Pier Giorgio’s room by a Polish priest who arrived last night. That was a very special privilege. Thanks to the beautiful universality of the Catholic Church, I could appreciate the Mass parts even though I could not understand a word that was being said. Jesus was there!
Later in the day, a young man arrived from France whom I met here last year. He suffers from polio and has a great devotion to Pier Giorgio. It so happened that it was also the day for the local priest to celebrate a Mass for all of the deceased down at the cemetery. So we headed down there for the evening Mass and spent a little more time visiting the Frassati/Ametis crypt.
Last night, I went out with four of the Polish workers here and we watched a fireworks display to end the weekend festival. It was a little bit of a communication challenge because we have just enough Italian between the five of us to get by. This afternoon, as we were waiting for lunch, there were four of us from different countries in the room: France, Poland, Italy and the USA. It took a bit of sign language to get any point across. The dymanic language situation here always amazes me. I can only imagine how many guests have passed through these doors from all over the world. I often wonder what they would say, if these old walls could talk… ///cmw