Wednesday, Oct. 10th

I catch six hours of sleep before the alarm sounds, but I can’t find the ringing clock in the small space between my bed and the wall for a good thirty seconds. River, however, doesn’t move. I sleep a little later but wake with enough time for a shower and a diet coke. The internet café opens early enough for firing off a couple of emails before I run back to breakfast, where some fascinating twinkie-like pastries are included for the first time since our arrival. After breakfast we walk to the edge of town and catch a city bus down into the valley. Now, the bus isn’t crowded before we boarded, but the additional forty or so American tourists pretty much pack the space to capacity. I’m fairly sure we lower the regular bus riders’ “what we think of Americans” quotient substantially. We follow the leaders off the bus about twenty minutes later onto a large public square in front of the huge “porcincula” basilica.

By this point I more or less tag along with the group without paying too much attention to our plans or destination. In turn, I am not prepared for the size and set up of this basilica. Here’s a pic from the square in front of the basilica.

http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/randomanthony/?action=view&current=ImportedPhotos00028.jpg

We avoid panhandlers in the square while waiting to enter. One of our group takes a prayer card from an old lady, which priest warned us not to do, and we all get to watch while she bangs on his arm until he gives her a couple of coins. The space inside the basilica is huge, and the “heights” fear returns as soon as I raise my eyes upwards, either inside or outside the building. I don’t realize, however, that there is a small church inside the large basilica until we enter. I also don’t realize, until Priest starts the historical lecture, that this was one of the churches that Francis rebuilt and where he spent a ton of time and eventually died (I think). Francis also apparently asked an angel (again, I think) that anyone who crossed the threshold of the smaller church be granted “pardon” for their sins. We can’t take pictures here, again, but I don’t mind. After a couple minutes checking out the larger space priest ushers us into the small church. I barely cross the threshold, standing in the back as priest sets up for mass, so I’m trying to figure out if I’ve entered enough to be pardoned. Priest runs us through mass, with groups of Italians joining us here and there for the service, but my legs are killing me so I don’t get much out of it. Priest really pushes the “mother as caretaker” angle today, I’m not sure why.

There are some cool artifacts in the basilica, too, so we wander around and see, for example, a rope Francis wore around his waist. After we leave BN explains that the concept of virginity fits here to characterize someone as “full of possibility.” Very interesting. There’s a little bookstore nearby, devoted specifically to Franciscan writing, so I walk through alone and go peruse the small English section. I find a book Priest edited but choose not to buy it. I read through some of the original Franciscan writings as well. Apparently Francis didn’t mess around with rule breakers in the order. The first page I read declares that anyone fornicating should be ejected from the order without question.

After a while BN leads us back into the building. We visit a few narrow hallways and pass a rose garden where Francis supposedly bled after he jumped into some roses to avoid impure thoughts. Gladys tries to coax a dove (pigeon?) down from the rafters by cooing at the bird until I want to smack her. The bird never leaves the rafters. Smart bird. Laura and I go through a somewhat boring museum near the church then wait outside for lunch. Priest recruits a couple of us to carry the boxes full of lunches back across the square into a small patch of grass. BN splits us in pairs by pulling names out of a hat. I don’t want to get stuck with anyone lame, as I’m tired and hungry, but luckily I draw an older Irish (at first I think Canadian) nun. She’s amused when I refer to her as Canadian. We first sit at a picnic table near a hospital, until some guy emerges from the building and yells at us in Italian. We move to the grass under a tree and chat for a while about the pilgrimage and health care (she works for a hospital system) while we eat. We run through the bookstore again, where a couple of our pilgrimage colleagues are playing the ugly American card by complaining about the lack of poster shipping tubes. We walk to the bus stop and discover just about everyone from the pilgrimage is ready for the next bus back. Teenagers crowd the bus with us, so I have to stand, but Ivan finds a seat and promptly falls asleep. I shake him awake when we near the city. We get off one stop too late, as a group, and walk down a long hill, next to a residential area, until I split off from the group for some shopping. I buy M a cool Assisi t-shirt and call home. Apparently Wisconsin is cold.

After returning to the Casa I catch some rest with the mp3 player in my room. My mp3 player and clock are slightly off, time-wise, so I synchronize the two and walk down to the evening lecture early so I can get a seat on the bench near the back of the room. The group talks about Francis’ desire for isolation. An old guy asks about “turning off the mind” and we have an interesting group conversation about drive, interaction, and solitude. After the lecture we pile into taxis and ride to the leper sanctuary (there are no lepers there now) just below Assisi. We park in a lot across from some modern crypts. The leper colony gates are locked, but priest somehow gets them open, and we enter a small grassy courtyard. You can see Assisi in the distance, so a few of us take pics:

http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i196/randomanthony/?action=view&current=ImportedPhotos00029.jpg

Priest gives the background and talks about a leper colony in Hawaii he visited. He also checks with me on the quality of the vegetarian food (it’s fine). Ivan and I talk about olive trees a bit more before we walk through a gritty alley, past a couple of cats, to a chapel that’s almost underneath a superhighway. BN reads the horrifying text from the mass through which lepers were supposedly separated from civilization back in the days of Francis and Clare. Scary. I touch the walls, described as holy, and let the electricity pour through me. I walk back alone, digging the silence, and wait for the rest of the group in the parking lot. We cab up to town again just as dusk falls. The old guy and I talk about Chicago for a while. He says, “You must be from the north side.” Yep. Not too many white guys from below downtown. We eat dinner at 7:30PM, way late for me, but I survive. The pasta is great. I hit the IC after dinner and email a couple people from work before running into Ivan and Gladys. We grab some gelato, hang out, then I separate from the group and head back to the Casa. I read a little bit of Murakami, take some melatonin, and fall asleep.