Submitted by Chris Yakawich, Carroll College Campus Ministry
The Monday after graduation, we took 24 students on pilgrimage to Assisi and Rome. We had been preparing for this experience with months of formation, relationship, packing, and prayer together. We were all nervous and excited as we met for 4am mass in our on-campus chapel. As we left Carroll for the airport, a change began to take place in the group. An attitude of surrender to God’s providence began to set in. That is what pilgrimage is all about. Encountering God’s heart on the road.
After nearly a full 24-hour day of travel, we made it to Assisi. It was rainy and cloudy, and that made the already majestic city look even more mystical. We were tired and wet, but the enormous clouds surrounding the Basilica of St. Francis gave us a sense of grandeur, reminiscent of the shekinah “glory-cloud” in Exodus by which the presence of God led the Israelites through the desert to the promised land. We had arrived.
The next two weeks were full of adventure; from walking in the footsteps of St. Francis and Clare, to the wonderful religious that we met along the way, to the deep and powerful prayer that abounded at these holy sites. In Assisi, we journeyed to the San Damiano Church on the outskirts of Assisi, where Francis heard the words from the crucifix “Rebuild my house, which has fallen into ruin.” A copy of that San Damiano crucifix hangs in the center of our own All Saints Chapel at Carroll. We hiked to the hermitage of St. Francis in the mountains, ate incredible Italian cuisine (which is so different and better than what passes for Italian food in the U.S.), and explored this ancient city where so much renewal in the Church has taken place over the centuries.
In Rome, we saw the Pietà, stood before Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew and Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, contemplated Raphael’s Transfiguration. But the testimony of a student, Chris Szpilka, draws out the depths of what was really happening as we encountered all this heritage of the Church:
“In the midst of so much beautiful architecture and art, and surrounded by the saints, where they lived and walked and died, where I felt the most at peace was right in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In the Eucharistic adoration chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore, I found a peace that I didn't expect to find in such a busy place, and that I couldn't find in the all the man-made beauty that surrounded me, and I couldn't help reflecting that all of this beauty, all of the excellence, flows first and foremost from Christ, through his mother Mary. He is the source of all the beauty of the Church, He is the source of the holiness of the saints, and He wants to be in relationship with us.”
Pilgrimage was great way to end the school year together, as staff and students at Carroll, being reminded by the One who guides us every step of the way that he does in fact guide us through our lives. Junior, Luke Ostberg, shares, “God showed me that I was too often scrupulously trying to do exactly what I thought He would want instead of allowing Him to lead me with graces. In Assisi, I learned a lot about recognizing graces and thanking God for graces and then moving forward in gratitude after receiving the graces.” For a handful of pilgrims it was their final educative experience at Carroll, as they start their post-college walk with Christ, trusting in God to lead them in the paths that open ahead.