So It Begins...

Posted by: Deacon Bryan Kujawa

5 January 2015

Today was a full day, I tell you what.

Let's start at the beginning. One really great thing about Italy so far: they all like to sleep in. Back in the ol' USA I've grown accustomed to starting my day early - we all know the popular phrase, "The early bird gets the worm," - but here it seems the Italians are none too concerned about getting any of those proverbial worms. Thanks to this bit of information, we were all able to get a little extra sleep in the morning and didn't start our day until 9 o'clock. What a gift! This allowed for a little prayer, Scripture reading, and espresso before having to interact with anyone. I mean, who doesn't feel better after encountering those three things in the morning??

Anyways, at around 9:04 (our class ALWAYS has at least one guy running late and this morning was no different) we hopped on a bus and rode it downtown Rome. We got off at the last stop and walked a few minutes to the Mother House of the Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver, where we had Mass and were treated to some invigorating presentations by the sisters. This community of sisters serves in over 20 countries around the world and specialize in aiding other missionaries in their work. They reminded us that Christians must always consider their entire lives as a mission from Jesus Christ to announce his Gospel message of salvation. They also got us to sing some African songs of praise to God - we were all clapping our hands and some were even dancing around a little bit! Following their presentations, we were treated to another round of espresso, which is ALWAYS something to be celebrated!

After the espresso we headed back to the place where we're staying - the Domus Romana Sacerdotalis (only a five minute walk from St. Peter's!) - for a brief lunch before heading out on another adventure. We then headed toward the Vatican Museum, where we spent the entire afternoon. We had a very excellent tour guide, Christina, lead us through the huge museum and explain so much of it to us. It helped a lot that she was originally from Georgia so we didn't have to strain our ears through an accent or broken English - yet another wonderful gift from the Lord! I couldn't possibly explain everything she told us, but I will say the displays there were very impressive and some dates back as far as the time before Christ walked on the earth! We finished our tour with some time in prayer at the Sistine Chapel, which was very beautiful.

As a I write this post, my mind is very tired from all the information received throughout the day from both the Sisters of St. Peter Claver and from Tour Guide Christina. We had a full day, yes, but it was also a day filled with great gifts from the Lord. I look forward to even more gifts tomorrow, but I'll let tomorrow's blogger write about those. I can promise, though, that it will include more prayer and espresso, and that causes my heart to rejoice!

May the Lord give you his peace!

-dbk