Italia ... prego

Italy was a trip my sister and cousins treated me to ... God is good. Thank you, family!

Originally, the Italy trip had been planned some time last year ... and was supposed to be just Italy. However, when the offer to be sent to Paris to learn how to make pâtisseries came, it just made sense to do Paris ... and then also to just meet up with my family once the time for Italy came. I consider this more of a personal trip and one where I did not actively seek to network or work, so I'm not really going to write extensively on this part of the trip.

Briefly, I will mention the cities we visited and the Saints are in parenthesis:

• Roma (St. Josemaría Éscriva)
  
• Siena (St. Catherine)
  
• Lucca (St. Gemma Galgani)
  
• Pisa (St. Ranier)
  
• Firenze
• Venenzia
• Verona
• Assisi (St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare) - We also visited on St. Francis' Feast Day, Oct. 4, and were able to see the Crucifix of San Damiano

I think the two important things I will mention is where I had the greatest impressions.

Visiting the saints, seeing where they had grown up or lived, seeing their relics, being in their geographical element, and the results of their radical love and fidelity to serving Christ is something I will never forget. It encourages me because they were just one person; and yet it was not just them alone ... but it was them and Jesus. And with this, they achieved. While what began initially started out small, God's providence allowed for His various projects and movements to develop to what we see today.

I am so happy we have the saints to look to because we know that it is possible to be human, to have faults, and to be real ... BUT with Christ and His grace, we are able to go beyond what we believe our capacity to be towards fulfilling how God intended us to be.

During our trip, I was impressed with the hard work of a family-run winery in the Tuscany region. They had multiple things happening at once: a winery, olive oil production, and even a rental business of a villa overlooking San Germignano. Their hard work impressed upon me dedication, perseverance, ingenuity, professionalism, and excellent products!