Sunday, November 29, 2015

Dear Friends,

  Wow, more than a month has gone by since I last posted a letter.  Of course much of the reason for this has been my being out of the country for three of those weeks and then this last week, when I returned from Italy, being pressed by very demanding commitments with no time to do anything else.

  So, after an immense amount of sleep to catch up on all of this (9 hours the last two night, and hours nap yesterday after noon and an outdoor swim, and two and a half hours of sleep after breakfast and mass this morning) I feel much better and in the mood this afternoon to write this letter.

   From November 2-23 I was in Italy, first to stay some time with the family of the guide of the pilgrimage, Giorgio Abate.  He is someone who has become a wonderful friend.  He and I have teamed four times in the last ten years to co-lead pilgrimages either in Italy or in Spain.  Together we form a very well received team, and we have lots of fun doing them.   This latest pilgrimage began on Sunday, the 8th, in Venice, but I went earlier at the request of Giorgio's family to mark the 8th anniversary of the death of his only child, his first born son, Simone Pietro.  Simone, not quite 19 years old, was playing goalie in a soccer game.  His team was leading 1-0 and it was in the final seconds of the game.  The opposing team made one valiant effort to tie the game by bringing the ball down close to where Simone was standing guard and kicked it toward the goal.  With a full extension of his body Simone blocked the ball with his glove-covered hands but took a kick from one of the opposing players in the chest; the kick struck the vega nerve that controls the heart.  Simone fell to the ground,  briefly said he could not breathe, and then lay down and died.  The player who kicked him had been known to play like a wild man in soccer games and had been warned about this in times past.  However, he was not charged with any crime and Giorgio and his wife, Maria Pia, explicitly told the player that he did not kill their son and that they offered any and all forgiveness he needed.

  Each November 3 since then, Giorgio and Maria Pia have had a memorial mass for Simone at their parish, Santa Rufina, on the northside of Rome.  In fact, on the 3rd of every month they have a mass offered in his honor and pray for God's blessings on the foundation they established in his name, called Smiling Angel.  This is an outreach to orphans and very poor children, in India, in Albania, and elsewhere. With this effort Giorgio and Maria Pia have gone each December-February to either Agra, India or a village in Albania to be with orphans and to love them, play with them, and do physical repairs in their living quarters, and also to bring toys and playthings like slides, merry-go-rounds, teeter-totters, and make a playground area for them.  I truly admire how they have taken their grief over this devastating loss and with great faith and Christian love have channeled it toward those who have no parents or are extremely poor children.  It is a story made for heaven.  During the memorial mass I spoke in English at communion time and Giorgio translated for the congregation into Italian.  In essence I said that there are some losses and griefs we can never really get over and the only thing we can do is to bring them to the pierced Heart of Jesus and place them there.  There are no human reasons capable of explaining such losses, but only a love that is greater than death and has given Himself unto death for each of us.  Only this will ever help us make sense out of such losses,  Unless Jesus and His death means a lot to us, what I just said will be beyond our capacity to understand or accept, because one understands something like this only with a heart of love;  the mind by itself cannot fathom it.  I got the sense that a few had a sense of what I was saying.

  We then had a wonderful meal at the house of Giorgio and Maria Pia with a few family members.  The singing that followed the meal was so uplifting and I think furthered the healing for Giorgio and Maria Pia.

  The following day, after a late breakfast, I got in a good walk in the neighborhood and went with the family into downtown Rome to a restaurant to commemorate the death some three eys ago of Giorgio's uncle, a crusty character, Vincenzo.  The food was abundant and I got in a lengthy conversation with an Ethiopian man, in his early 40s, an actor and donning a head of long dreadlocks, looking like a hippie. and having a very gentle manner.   He was a guest as I was and we got into a rather engaging conversation about life, about how God works with everyone of us but only if we are humble enough to admit the truth of ourselves and own up to our weaknesses and needs.

  On Thursday, the 5th, the feast day of all Jesuit saints and blessed, I offered mass with Giorgio and Maria Pia at a chapel that is in their parish's charge.  It is a parish of huge importance to Jesuits--called the LaStorta Chapel--where Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, in November of 1537 had a profound mystical experience of God the Father answering a prayer Ignatius had prayed for more than a year.  Ignatius had asked God to place him and his companions with His Son, Jesus.  The Father places Ignatius and his companions with Jesus who in the vision is carrying His cross .  Ignatius experiences Jesus walking to Calvary say, "It is my will that you serve Us under the banner of the cross." And so this is what Ignatius experiences.  The Father had further said to him, "I will be favorable to you (and your companions) in Rome."  By this God intimated at the founding of the Jesuits, under the formal acceptance by Pope Paul III, almost three years later, in 1540.   What a consolation for me to pray the mass, the ultimate prayer of Christians, in this little chapel, big enough for 20 people at most, on that day.  (It was bombed and damaged by an American bomber during World War II (1944) and in the 1960s repaired.)

  On the following day, the first Friday, the three of us drove an hour west of Rome to a town right on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.  It is called Santa Marinella. Our weather was great and the setting was so peaceful.  We had driven there, the town where the fatal soccer match had taken place, to visit a chapel in a Carmelite monastery.  Two years ago I had read an article in the English Catholic magazine, The Tablet, about the founding nun being buried under the altar in that monastery and being absolutely preserved. The description of her life and way with God attracted me a lot.   I was curious and wanted to visit it.  So, after a great lunch at a Japanese restaurant and a lovely walk along the sea shore, we went to the monastery and had mass there.  The people we met, including the lay woman who had written the article, joined us in the mass.  One of the nuns there was from Tanzania, and so she and I said a few words to each other in Swahili and she just beamed.  Later, that evening, we had a home dinner in the house of Giorgio's niece with her husband and 5 year old son.  They asked me to bless their two floor home, then Giorgio's sister fed us with a fantastic meal.  Following that Giorgio and his nephew entertained us, each playing a guitar with a lot of skill, and leding us with songs we could sing along with.  What a wonderful evening was had by all.  Music is so powerful to transform people who at first are a little stiff into the best in spirit!  Some red wine helps too.

   On the next afternoon Giorgio and I took the train from Rome to Venice, a four hour trip, and had dinner together with two of the pilgrims, Isaac and Balssam Hanna who for a few days before had been sightseeing in Lake Como and Milan.  We enjoyed a great seafood meal and a nice evening walk in Venice.  The next morning the 33 pilgrims showed up and we began our wonderful two weeks together.  A day and a half in Venice, a two hour stop in Padua, a beautiful afternoon drive through the white wine area of northeastern Italy on our way to Florence.  We spent two full days, three nights there and took time especially at the famous art museum there and the exhibit of Michaelangelo's sculptures, especially of David.  On Friday, the 13th, the day of the massacre in Paris, we visited the Franciscan retreat centre called LaVerna in the mountains of central Italy.  It is the place where Francis of Assisi received the stigmata, the five wounds of Christ in his body, in 1224, two years before he died. What a holy place!  What an awesome place for beauty in the forests of Italy and spiritual power!  While there we met a group of Lithuanian Franciscans, maybe two dozen, who had come there to say 'thank you' for the support of the Franciscans of Italy and of that place especially for supporting Lithuanians during the Soviet occupation prior to 1991.by shipping them many crosses that the citizens could place on hills around their nation in defiance of the communists who controlled their nation at that time.

  We then visited Siena, marveled at the artistry in marble in their cathedral, then enjoyed all the life in that town square (really it is a big oval-shaped bowl) where their twice a year horse races go on. Then on to Assisi, one of the most peaceful and prayerful places on the face of the earth.  The weather was terrific there, as it was every day of our two weeks--no rain whatsoever and then sun with autumn colors in the leaves and across the many hills and mountains!  In Assisi Giorgio's wife joined us after driving up from Rome, along with his sister and husband.  At the end of our meal one of the evenings Giorgio treated us to a lot of his singing with guitar.  The whole dining room, with other hotel residents, got into the music and all had such a fun time.

  After two days and three nights there we moved on through the Rieti area mountains to visit a very small church in Greccio, a very small village.  This church is famous for what Francis of Assisi did there; he  began the Christmas crib tradition as his way for teaching illiterate people the story of Christ's birth.  The church has about 40-50 Christmas crib scenes from all the continents and many nations of the world inserted into the walls up on a second floor level.  So many of the scenes reflect the clothing and looks of the people donating that crib scene--Japanese, Nigerian, European, South American, etc.  We celebrated the Christmas midnight mass there, with music for Christmas.  How wonderful!  Then we went to a nearby restaurant and had a great pasta meal, with veal and red wine, then Giorgio serenaded the cook and his wife while we sang 'happy birthday' to them--it was not their birthdays-- and sang a few other songs.  No one wanted to leave!

  Finally, we went to Rome, first to the Jesuit church, the Gesu, and then the next morning to the pope's weekly gathering for pilgrims--always on Wednesday mornings-- in St. Peter's square.  We were outdoors under overcast skies as he rode around in his elevated pope-mobile, greeting so many personally, especially little children and the disabled, and came very close by our pilgrims.   We visited three of the great churches in Rome: St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Peter's.  Also the Vatican Museum and the Sistine chapel.  Also we got a close tour of the Roman coliseum and a visit to the church called St. Peter in Chains where the famous Michelangelo statue of Moses is housed.

  The personal highlight for me was the opportunity to concelebrate mass with the pope and 15 other priests in the pope's chapel at his residence, Santa Marte in Vatican City, on Friday morning, November 20, the last full day of our pilgrimage, and then to meet him personally and talk with him for about one minute.   After mass I was next to last in a receiving line.  When I was with him, two professional photographers were shooting many pictures with fast lens cameras.  I now have a wonderful album of great photos of the pope and us 16 priests and congregation of about 30 lay people and nuns praying mass and then of just him and myself talking, his blessing a few rosaries I had in my hands, then of my telling him how much we in Kenya were looking forward to his visit, which just finished, and then his asking me to pray for him (he is not comfortable speaking English!), and finally we hugged and said our 'goodbyes.'  It was truly a golden moment.  How easy it is to be with him.  He is quite gentle and welcoming in his manner.  After I left I chose to spend the morning in quiet rather than join Giorgio and the pilgrims while they toured the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel (I have been there twice before.)  I chose to stay inside St. Peter's basilica and just pray, to be quiet and off my feet.. (There is a wonderful 'adoration chapel with the Eucharistic host exposed in a monstrance off to the right side of the basilica, on the same side and not too far up from the Pieta sculpture by Michelangelo. I spent a lot of time there.  Many people came there to pray.  Very moving.)  I chose also to go to confession when at St. Peter's, and the priest hearing my confession was an American Franciscan who I later discovered was one of the other 15 priests who prayed mass with me and the pope earlier that morning.  We had a good chat after I finished my confession and it was then that we discovered we were together in the pope's chapel for mass that morning..  He had spent some years in Ghana, western Africa, and we briefly compared notes.  When I re-connected with the pilgrims at lunch time, they were so curious about my experience in meeting the pope.  I did not at that time have the photos.  I did not get them until the following day, after the pilgrims had left for their return flight.  I will have to show it to them next summer when I return for a visit to the Detroit area and we have a reunion.

  On last Friday I had a chance again to be in the same room with the pope.  It was the last day of his three day visit to our nation.  I was in a Jesuit staffed parish that serves the people who live in the Kangemi slum of Nairobi.  There were about 800 people in the church and the luck of the draw had me sitting in the front row, about 40 feet away from the pope.  When he entered, the place went wild with applause and African style music, clapping, saying of bodies, waving, and the occasional loud cry with wagging tongue and trilling sound that women will sound out.  It was a time of great excitement.  We heard some speeches by two people who work in that slum and then a 3.5 minute video that summarizes the awful state of life these people live in.  Then a group of children from the parish  came swinging and swaying down the long center isle to the rhythm of music African style and drums provided by the choir of some 70 members and the last person presented the gospel book. One of our Jesuit deacons read the gospel passage abut the sheep and goats, about those who go to heaven and those who end up in the hell of their own choosing, then the pope got up and spoke a strong, tough message about the injustices done toward the people of the slums of Nairobi, about the bribing, the lying and cheating of the poor, manipulating them out of their land, and how this cries out to God for redressing.  He told the leaders these much discussed social ills of political corruption and tribalism are killing the nation and it has to stop.  He spoke about the right to clean, drinkable water, about the right to decent housing, freedom from robbers and drug dealers who beat up people, for health care and protection against the mosquitos.  He challenged the elected officials of the nation to do something about the plight of these people.   60% of the nation lives on 5% of its land.  The biggest landowner is the president of the nation.  We shall see whether this moves him personally!

   We Jesuits on this occasion numbered about 80 and I think this scared off the pope from seeing us separately as a group, certainly from any individual greetings.  There was one group photo shot of him with all of us and then he left to go to a stadium where he was to have a big youth mass and rally before flying out to Uganda.  It was very nice for me to have had the individual time with him the week before in Rome.  I was more than satisfied with that opportunity, and so was not at all upset about the shift he had to make.   I think he made a change from his original plans to see us because he was behind schedule and was put off by the prospect of seeing so many of us Jesuits individually. Just too many of us!!

   I have more to share with you, about how the pilgrimage continues with me since I have come home, but I will do that in my next letter, hopefully in the next day or two or three.  Enough for this evening.  I have a preached retreat to give for 8 days starting Thursday evening.  Prayers please. Thanks.  I wish all of you a very blessed Advent, such a beautiful season.

Bernie Owens