With Dominic and Catherine on the Itinerant Trail
Mary Cecilia Murray, OP
By the time we reached the monastery of Santo Domingo in Calaruega’s central square, we had a thumbnail sketch of Spain from team member, Fr. Joseph Payne, and had met our liturgist Mary Ellen Winston. Each of us was given a private room and bath with beautiful views of the Castilian countryside. Lunch would be at 2:30 and dinner at 9:30; welcome to European meal schedules! At all our stops, menus featured delicious bread, wine, and either veal, pork or chicken. Given the long afternoon, some of us ventured out to climb San Jorge hill in back of the parish church of San Sebastian, which gave us a spectacular panorama of the whole area. Before dinner there was an orientation meeting, introduction of we 46 pilgrims along with our four leaders, and an explanation of the buddy system. Each of us would be responsible to see that one other person was present before the bus could leave a site. My buddy was our liturgist from Sinsinawa, Mary Ellen Winston.
Our days in Spain began with Suzanne Noffke’s class on the Guzman family and Dominic’s early life. (For me, days actually started with a run on the farm roads around the village!) Suzanne’s talks formed the backbone of our study experience, presenting Dominic, and in Italy, Catherine, their life, work, death, and impact on the Church and the Order. Padre Jesus Martin gave us a tour of the monastery and an explanation of Dominic’s well in the crypt chapel—the water was said to facilitate pregnancy in barren women! Later we met with the nuns in their traditional cloister parlor, sang the Salve with them, and purchased boxes of the home baked cookies, which are a major factor in their support. Thursday morning we explored the cathedral at Osma where Dominic served as a canon, then traveled north to the Benedictine monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos (the chant recording monks) at which Blessed Juana prayed for a safe delivery. When she had a healthy son, she named him for the patron of the monastery—so the Dominicans owe their name to the Benedictines.
Friday we rode around the Pyranees to Lourdes. At the Hotel l’Etoile the roommate experience began. Mine was Arleen Crimmins. Having been to Lourdes before, she guided me down the hill to see the afternoon procession of the sick. That evening we marched in the rosary candle procession, then had the next morning free. I collected water from the spring, joined in the Irish pilgrim mass at the grotto, explored the levels of the basilica, shopped in the village, and arrived at the bus clutching a lunch of juice, French bread, and a “praline russe” pastry in time for the noon departure. On to Prouille and Fanjeaux!
Arleen and I stayed at Prouille’s guesthouse, while others were quartered in Fanjeaux. A highlight of our time here was joining the nuns for mass and office (which they chant in angelic three part harmony) and meeting with them informally in the cloister garden. We heard about the effort to make the community international so the cradle of the Order will reflect its multinational character. There was a Sunday morning climb to Assassins Cross at the spot where Cathar heretics attempted—and failed—to kill Dominic on his daily walk from Fanjeaux down to say mass for the nuns at Prouille. That afternoon we had liturgy in Dominic’s room up in Fanjeaux and were joined by three Russian students who were hiking across Europe.
Day trips from Prouille took us to Carcassonne and Toulouse. Carcassonne is a medieval walled city in which Dominic preached to a Cathar audience. Besides the cathedral where this disputation took place, the town was filled with delicious things to eat (I sampled a “gateau grandmere” pastry—the French don’t worry about cholesterol!), and a chilling Museum of the Inquisition. Toulouse calls itself the “City of Violets”; it was a bustling, easy to get lost in (which I did) place with the first formal house of the friars and the Dominican Church of the Jacobins where Thomas Aquinas is buried.
Leaving Prouille led to a full day of riding along the French Riviera, with stops at Monaco and a chapel designed by Henri Matisse for a Dominican convent in Vence. All along the way, sisters from the various congregations had been telling the story of their communities. During the Riviera drive, I related the saga of Hope, and Arleen joined me to detail some of the struggles involved in our birthing. As soon as we crossed into Italy at San Remo, we saw the first of thousands of peace flags: the word PACE in white letters against a rainbow ground hanging from windows and balconies. I brought one home to hang on my door in Emmaus. A Best Western hotel sheltered us that night, close enough to the Mediterranean to allow wading in the sea after dinner.
One of the Adrian sisters described the next day’s agenda as “Pisa for lunch and Bologna for dinner.” But I didn’t have pizza in Pisa; instead a group of us settled for ham and cheese omelets in an outdoor café near the leaning tower. As the Alps gave way to the Apennines that morning, we passed the Carrara marble quarries and Father Joe serenaded us with “Carrara boom-di-ay.” Suzanne prepped us on how to get along in Italy; her tips included one simply must do item: try gelato (Italian ice cream). We dutifully followed her advice at every stop. As the hours on the bus lengthened, someone remarked, “Just think; Dominic walked this!” At Bologna, we reached the end of his journeying: the church and priory of San Domenico. By night we stayed at the Hotel Savoia which fed us five course dinners and left chocolates on our pillows. During the day we sat in the room where the Pentecost chapter of 1220 formulated the Dominican constitutions. We photographed the stark borrowed cell where Dominic died and stared at his ornate tomb which all agreed he probably would have hated. Then it was on to Catherine’s city: Siena.
Home for the next three days was Casa Pellegrino, a guest house attached to Catherine’s family home. Arleen and I shared a room next to the sacristy of the Catherine chapel and found our selves with a stunning view of the Duomo and a natural alarm clock of very loud mourning doves. Sunday liturgy was in the chapel where Suzanne pointed out Catherine’s mummified head. We toured the nearby church of San Domenico, home to the mantellate she had joined as a teenager. The next day we explored the city and heard about its most famous sporting event, the Pallio, a sort of Sienese Kentucky Derby held each summer in the Palazzo Publico. Into my souvenir collection went a scarf depicting the contest. From Siena we took a day trip to Florence and the monastery of San Marco. This was home to the Dominican artist Fra Angelico and the exquisite series of paintings he left in the various cells. After this Dominican morning, Arleen, myself, and Amityville sisters Barbara and Eva visited the Duomo, the Ghiberti Baptistry doors, the Straw Market, the Ponte Vecchio, then took a long walk along the Arno River to the bus pickup site. I fell asleep on the way home!
At breakfast the next morning, disaster struck. I bit enthusiastically into the heel of a crusty Italian loaf and nearly pulled out a front tooth. We were departing for Rome in just twenty minutes, so I kept my wiggling tooth covered throughout the day’s ride. We stopped for lunch at Orvieto, a city on a mesa that could only be reached by a funicular railroad. On the way up, we entertained the entire car singing “Funiculi, Funicula.” By late afternoon, we reached our final stopping place: Casa Santa Rosa on the outskirts of the Eternal City. Once more, there was the luxury of private room and bath, along with gardens and gray tabby cats to play with. I showed Mary Ellen Green my swaying tooth and came to an even greater appreciation of just how good a leader she was. She made a call to Margaret Ormond at Santa Sabina and the two of them researched emergency dental possibilities. It was now Wednesday evening; I would see a dentist in Rome Friday morning. After supper that night, we were in for a special treat: Jose Luis took us for a night tour of the entire city—an awe-inspiring experience!
On Thursday there was Santa Sabina and a delightful visit to the seat of the Order. Margaret Ormond greeted us and we divided into two groups for tours and the Dominican souvenir shop. Margaret had ordered a picnic lunch of six foot subs, soda and cookies. We listened to Suzanne speak on “Dominic and Catherine in the Midst of the Church” and agreed to have a follow-up discussion on charism versus institution after mass on Sunday. Then there was Carlos: Master General Carlos Aspiroz that is. He met us in the hall of portraits of all the past Masters of the Order and took us into his parlor where he posed in front of a yellow abstract and identified it as his future portrait. He then led us out to his balcony overlooking the city and announced we could be paparazzi with our many cameras. One of our number with a state of the art digital took a group picture. We bade him good bye and hurried to the bus for a quick stop at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on the way home.
Friday morning, Jose Luis dropped us off in the Vatican bus terminal. The others were headed for the Museum; Mary Ellen and I took a cab to a hospital with a dental clinic on an island in the Tiber. After examining my mouth, the dentist pronounced there was nothing to be done. “Be careful, Sister, and your dentist at home will have to reconstruct it.” Since there was no bus in sight, we turned itinerant and walked back to the Vatican along the river. It turned out to be a delightful expedition which ended at the Castel Sant’ Angelo bridge and the Catherine statue at the entrance to the Via della Conciliazione. By that time we were hot and hungry, so Mary Ellen guided me to a small ristorante just off the Piazza di San Pietro for a leisurely lunch, then introduced me to the Basilica. I had a marvelous afternoon exploring it from the top of the cupola to the crypt where many of the popes are buried. The most visited spot in the entire complex is now the glass tomb of Pope John XXIII. Said I to some of the others as we gazed at his well preserved body: “If it weren’t for him, we probably wouldn’t be here.”
Saturday we were bound for a part of the city not open to tour buses, so we had our first experience of crowded public vehicles. Our destination was the Dominican church and priory of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Catherine’s body is entombed there and she died in a house just across the square. After the Minerva, there was a choice of exploring the immediate area and going on past the forum and the colosseum to the Dominican church of San Clemente, or staying in the Minerva neighborhood and meeting the others at the bus stop. I opted to stay behind and contented myself with the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain (yes, I threw in a coin over my left shoulder), and a cool quiet hour under the wonderful blue ceiling of the Minerva.
Our last full day in Rome was Pentecost. It began with an outdoor liturgy, followed by our final session with Suzanne. Then it was back to the Vatican terminal and a short walk to a restaurant called Zi Gaetano for the final banquet. At the beginning of the tour, we had each drawn the name of a prayer partner. After dinner, we revealed who we had been praying for throughout the trip and presented gifts to our leaders and Jose Luis. One last pass through the souvenir shops, and home to pack.
Monday was a blur of farewells and pulling overstuffed suitcases through airports. However, something of the wonder of our three weeks on the Dominican trail must have been obvious. My seatmate on the flight to New York was a Chilean woman now resident in the United States. When we compared notes as to where we had been, she said, “I saw your group at the airport; you looked like such happy people!” Dominic would have approved!