Assisi / the day after....

We checked out of our hotel and left for the train station. While hunting for .....you guessed it.....the bathroom, I ran into two ladies. One had a "Maryland" sticker on her suitcase, so I asked about it. She and her companion (Ann and Sharon) are both from Maryland!!! Ann lives in Hillendale, which is about a mile from the house where my mom is and where I grew up! What a freakin' small world!!
     The train ride home was fine ( meaning we got on the right train and didn't end up in Sorrento!!)
We spent the rest of the day recovering......in separate rooms.....needed alone time - we had been together 24 /7 for the better part of four days!!!  LOL!
     This morning we attended a talk given by a perfectly charming Irish priest whose 1st name is Michael, but who spells it and pronounces it in an odd way! After the talk, we had liturgy and I had planned it and served as cantor! It is a wonderful feeling to be able to do this in a foreign setting. The clergy that I have worked with here ( both at Caravita and at the Lay Center) "get it"!!!! They are good and holy men who spread the word of God with the gifts of the Spirit given at the Second Vatican Council!!! Yes, there are the cassock and lace crew who parade around the streets with their entourages, and there are the Tridentine adherents who don't care whether anyone is there or not, but there are also wonderful priests here, filled with humility, filled with the Spirit and filled with the desire to form community in faith! I am blest by their presence!
    In an hour or so, we will be off to the market as my cupboard is bare and I need DIET COKE and toilet paper - 2 staples of life - oh, and pastry.....can't be without pastry!!  Lol!!