Assisi!

We are very sorry that we have not been updating the blog the past couple days. The hotel that we were at for the second half of our Rome trip had very spotty wifi. I just put up the two blogs from day 4 and 5.
Today we had the beautiful experience of going to Assisi! We saw the incredible basilicas of Santa Maria de Los Angelas where the portiuncular chapel, the chapel that St. Francis received his call to rebuild the Church. We were able to pray and adore our Lord in the very church that St. Francis rebuilt with his hands. After this we went to the basilica of St. Clare. We were able to pray before the incorruptible body of this incredible saint. We begged her intercession for the rest of this beautiful pilgrimage and that she may especially bless our poor Clare sisters in the diocese of Phoenix as they work on building their monastery. After the Basilica of St.Clare we made our way to the house where St. Francis was born and lived his life until he renounced everything. It has since been turned into a very beautiful Church. Personally it was my favorite in all of Assisi. A truly beautiful Church. We then ate lunch at a beautiful little Restraunts on the side of a road and had the best food we have had in Italy so far. Then we ran into Seminarian Fernando Camou and Kevin Grimditch as they were finishing one of their Italian classes. Both of these men are seminarians for the Diocese of Phoenix who have been sent to the Pontifical North American College in Rome to continue their studies in Theology for the priesthood. They are both currently studying Italian for four weeks in Assisi. We joined them for "the best gelato in Assisi" and then headed down to the basilica of St. Francis. We were given our tour by a Franciscan friar from Connecticut. He showed us around this incredible basilica built over 800 years ago. We were able to go down to the crypt where St. Francis' body is reposed. The Holy Spirit was so present in this small chapel two levels below the main basilica that it was tangible felt by all in the group. It was truly incredible to pray before the bones of one of the greatest saints in history. We offered all of our intentions that were given to us as well as many prayers for our parish and for our diocese before him. After our tour of the upper basilica we finally ran into the pilgrims from Most Holy Trinity and Northern Arizona University. It was great to catch up with our fellow pilgrims from Phoenix. We then loaded the bus and were off for Florence. Many of us spent the evening down at a local laundry place washing all of our clothes. It was quite the experience trying to figure out what we were doing when everything was in Italian and seemed to be optimized for maximum confusion of the noisy American tourists! After about two hours we were finally done and headed back to our hotel. Tomorrow we will wake up for mass at the local parish and then head into the city of Florence to see the many beautiful churches and attractions in the city.
Thank you so much for your patience and for your prayers. Sorry about the spelling errors. It can be difficult to write these on an iPad. Know that we are praying for you daily. Dios te bendigo!