Preparing for Rome

We had the first meeting of our Rome pilgrimage group this evening. About 20 students are accompanying me to the Eternal City in April: they are staying in a pleasant student hostel; I am staying in the even more pleasant Venerable English College. I did actually enquire if I might stay with them at the hostel - I wanted to express solidarity - but, unfortunately, I am over the permissible age for hostel residents. This evening we had a lovely pasta dish, some pizza and lots of ice-cream. We had a few ice-breakers, we learnt a few Italian phrases and by the end of the evening everybody seemed to have relaxed. I think we're going to have a great time: a Papal Audience, the Colosseum, St Mary Major's, the Spanish Steps. This is the second time we have run a pilgrimage so it's become a tradition. Last year, I was so keen that all the students got to see the Vatican Museum and St Peter's that we didn't eat at all between an early breakfast in England and a pizza at 8pm in a Roman side street. They bore it uncomplainingly, heroically, devoured their dinner and were then ready to go out to bars in the evening. That's the great thing about young people - they bounce back. One young women told us afterwards that that pilgrimage was the high point of the whole of her time at Leeds Trinity. Occasional comments like that are enough to keep you going with, well, with brio! Here are some of our new gang with John, our volunteer helper and husband of Chaplaincy Administrator Dominica, on the right.

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