Long time, no blog! Well, let’s see here..
On Thursday (10/7), Mrs. Newton, one of the Karatuse mom’s drove us to the train station because we were pushing it on time.. we boarded the train and continued on until Salzburg.. where we missed our connection to Venice. (as did about 30 other FUS kids) A very nice conductor dude helped us all get to our specific destinations and we arrived in Naples 2 hours later than planned, at 4pm on the 8th. (Which was Rachel Rea’s 20th Birthday!! WOOHOO!) We arrived, met by 2 volunteers with the MOC’s, who walked us to the convent (thank God they were there.. we never would of made it, it was all back alleys) Naples isn’t really the prettiest city or anything, quite dirty actually..and the convent was just a little hole in the wall.. but it was beautiful. The Sisters led us to our room, which was this cute little apartment like thing—with a classroom type thing for the little kids that come once a week, a ‘dining’ room area, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a door to the outside where there was a sink to wash our dishes and also steps that wound up the back of the building to a roof where we could do our laundry!-- We got situated, took a nap, ate dinner, and went back to sleep for the night.. ready to start fresh in the morning!
Saturday (10/9) rolled in and we went to morning mass at 7:15 with the sisters, which was in Italian, but was amazing. After breakfast we were told to split up 2 and 2, one group going upstairs, one going down.. Jen and Danielle went down, where they worked on organizing the donation closet all week, while Hannah and I went upstairs to the men’s home. Sr. Marie Bernadette, a feisty older sister from Italy, runs the men’s home, which is a place for handicapped or poor men, both physically and mentally. Our first task was to sweep and scrub all of the steps of the 6 story convent.. 68 large steps later, we went back upstairs and scrubbed the floors of different rooms and moved furniture around in the hospital type room.. Sr. was QUITE picky and indecisive, changing her mind after we moved furniture over and over again. “Yes, we will get it right!.. I am very similar to Mother Teresa, she was like this, too!” So although working under her was at times frustrating, we grew to just love her and appreciated how precise she was. The medical situation was so poor there.. many men had casts on that looked very old and grotesque, Hannah and I were sorting random boxes of pills and medicines, a man came in and gave himself an insulin injection.. it was just sad I guess.. hard for Hannah especially since she’s already a LNA and will be a nurse.. we also washed the men’s clothes and hung them (exactly how Sr. liked them) After work was done (around noon) we ate lunch, took a nap, and then had adoration with the Sister’s at 2:45. After that, we cleaned a disgusting barrel of grapes together and saw a group of women popping off little fishies heads and throwing them into the sewer-like canal they had there. It was rather disgusting.. but don’t you worry-I’ll come back to this! :D After that we had our first of many encounters with the soup kitchen!! About 500 men and women (not including the 50 or so from the men’s home) came for the kitchen in 2 round, about 350 in the first and 150 in the 2nd. We worked both shifts. I was always with 3 other Italian volunteers, who would try to speak to me in Italian, but then be super excited to find out that I was American! (: It was here that I learned the most Italian words, ‘beese’ means more, and ‘paco’ means little/half/less, and formagio means cheese.. and that’s about it. Between the two shifts, we’d have to hurry up and wash as many trays as possible for the 2nd shift..
after that we had an experience of a lifetime.. before we got to eat our dinner, Sr. Luccia (the sister from Egypt who was like our main sister/helper) asked for our assistance in the kitchen. Danielle and I went, where we found the bucket of the decapitated fish from earlier.. which they wanted us to help fry. So Danielle got the job of placing the grotesque fishies into a bucket and giving them to me and I sprinkled them with a flour mix to fry. It was the 2nd grossest thing I did the entire time there, but nonetheless, it was quite the memory. There we met ‘the fish lady’, who didn’t speak a word of English, but was hilarious. She scolded me numerous times for not properly covering the fishies and then when Jen and Hannah came to help, she saw how frightened Jen was of the raw fish in the bucket and chased her with one of them.. she was a riot and we all loved her very much. We also met ‘Uncle’ Angelo this day.. who spoke a wee bit of English and told us that his brother is in the mafia in New York (“Me, good..he, bad”) After the fishie adventure and Uncle Angelo, we ate our delicious Italian dinner and went to evening prayer.. which is in English because the MOC’s main language is English, which was nice (: After they prayed and sang to Our Lady (like Carae Domini!!) , Sr. Luccia asked us if we’d like to go out with them! Of course we said yes, even though we didn’t know where we were going.. So us four, 3 sisters (Luccia, Joselise[Poland], and Mother Joes Elaine) and some of the men from the men’s home all ‘snuck’ out of the barred convent doors and walked a few blocks, in the busy Saturday night life of Naples, and knocked on the back door of a church.. where a man in Italian told the sisters, no.. but w/ persistence we were allowed in.. Mother, from America, said “Oh, we cause trouble everywhere we go!”.. so we all snuck in and got to watch about 25 minutes of Naples popular opera type drama/play about the martyr of Naples, St. Gennario.. It was VERY interesting, but fun ( : On our way home, Sr. Joselise stopped by a crying child and comforted her.. most
heartwarming thing ever. Then we got back to the convent and went to sleep.
We started the week on Monday (10/11) with quiiite an incident! We went to morning prayer at 5AM and I was holding the key to our door, Hannah (who is quite the prayer.. aka she would of stayed there all day if we would of let her) asked for the key to leave.. so I knew something was up.. so I let her go for like a minute and then followed her down-Thank God I did! She sat on a chair in our dining room and told me to find her a bucket, while I was looking for a bucket I saw her falling off the chair.. I was a little too late, but I caught her legs before they hit, however her head already smacked onto the hard floor. She had passed out and I panicked. After a few choice words and prayers, she came to. The nuns spoiled her the rest of the day! H slept during morning work, so Jen and I went upstairs with Sr. Marie Bernadette again, while Danielle chopped veggies in the kitchen! It was raining quite badly.. but we went to serve and so we did! Sr. asked us to pull the awnings over the outside patio/roof where the men often gathered to hang out.. so we did, me in a white tee and all! We pretended we were in a water park w/ the MOC’s.. it was great (: we then washed clothes, under a roof, but then hung them to dry.. not under a roof, so they got all wet again? It was interesting.. btw this is all hand-washing! I had motherly skill during 10 day.. it was impressive to say the least! Jen and I then straightened up and made some people’s beds, Sr. asked us to find the one man a sweater and said, “I hope he doesn’t get any fatter, but I can say that because I, too, am getting fatter!” She was so funny. Lunch, adoration (where the fish lady gave Jen cough drops), soup kitchen and then we organized some of the closet that Jen and Danielle did the day before, where we made up a song about fish lady. This was the first day I felt very spiritually dry, I just was so mad at myself for not taking full advantage of being with the MOC’s, taking a break from school.. kind of like I do in general here in Austria, often getting frustrated with myself for being depressed or upset because I’m here and I should take advantage of it, right?.. I was just distraught and I thought it was mostly spiritual.. I’ll continue on with this later..
On the 13th, we did the normal morning routine where we ‘swopped’ the men’s home (that was how Sr. Marie Bernadette said mopped) Hannah and I also cleaned the men’s kitchen.. which was VILE! Where the 2nd nastiest thing happened to me, while cleaning the bottom counters, I found a dish that smelt like dog vomit, where I found some type of solid in an oil/grease/fat base.. after almost vomiting, I took it to Sr. who asked me to drain and clean it into the sewage system(hole in the wall).. which I did. GROSSSSSSSSSS! I’m not going to keep repeating myself about my day unless something interesting happens just so you know.. at adoration on their little chalkboard w/ the #’s for mass was written, “In thanksgiving for our friends from USA”.. I almost cried. It was so freaking adorable. The Missionaries of Charity were thankful for us!!! AHHH. Later that night, we were singing ‘umbrella’ (ella, ella, ella.. a part) and Sr. Marie Bernadette came out of a door behind us and goes ‘AA-AA-OOH-AA!”, it was HILARIOUS. She was such a joy. After the night activities, we wrote the sister’s a letter of thanksgiving and wrote our intentions and we planned to give it to them after night prayer w/ our donation.. however we got the surprise of a lifetime when all 6 of them came into our room about a half hour before night prayer! They hung out for about 10 minutes, a couple of them gave us little gifts, including a miraculous medal which is really special to me because that’s what Momma T always gave out. Sr. MB was again hilarious, as always.. and after we said good-bye they invited us to sing w/ them in front of Our Lady that evening and process around the church by candlelight for the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.. TALK ABOUT AWESOME?! WE SANG A DECADE OF THE ROSARY AROUND THE MOC’S CHAPEL IN NAPLES, ITALY BY CANDLELIGHT FOR OUR LADY OF FATIMA.. WHAT?!?!?!? <33333 it was the best possible way I could of asked to end our time there. 
The next morning we cleaned up, went to morning prayer and left the sisters :\ We had some train confusion for a bit, but figured it out enough to get to Pompei! We found our hotel, which we didn’t expect to be much, but was ADORABLE. It was a small little community-ish hotel where the man spoke very good English and was like the sweetest and most helpful man ever. Our room was gorgeous and it was just perfect and the Lord really rewarded us! We got cleaned up and situated and then got gelato (had to in Italy!) and saw Our Lady of Pompei/Our Lady of the Rosary before heading to the ruins, which were really sweet! The land is like massive, so we didn’t get to see it all because we were pretty tired but we stayed for about 2-3 hours and left, very cool though! We went back to Albergo Pace before metro-ing to Sorento, one of the most beautiful ‘beaches’ in Italy.. I put it like that because it was more just a beautiful water location, we looked for sand and water for awhile.. and we found this really small boat docking area that had black sand.. so we hung out there. But it was so gorgeous nonetheless! We drank a little wine while having our feet in the Mediterranean sea! Very neat. We had dinner at this place, Pizza and Pasta, where we got 10% off because we were staying at Albergo Pace.. I got gnocci and Hannah got pizza and we split it, delicious!! After that, we returned home where I got on the computer to look up our hotel reservation for Friday’s hotel.. but then saw my dad’s email that something at home had happened.. so I called right away. I found out about Mary Kantoski’s passing and my heart just sunk. I forgot all that the Lord had told me at the Missionaries of Charity and was selfish to be upset with the Lord for taking yet another person out of my life. I was/am to an extent sick of people dying, especially such beautiful and wonderful people in the past year or so.. after being upset in the hotel, I went to the church (only a block away, so nice) which was locked, so I sat on a bench by a fountain outside the church of Our Lady, where the Lord just took my heart and held it closer to Him than ever before. Everything I felt/experienced w/ the MOC’s was to prepare me for Mary’s death, He wants me to be His Beloved more than ever and I have to realize that when I finally say yes, I’ll be giving Him all situations like that. I can’t be at home to console friends and family now, and I won’t then either. I can’t talk to my parents and tell them how upset I am here in Europe, and I won’t be able to then either.. get me? The Lord is just great, and Mary holds me like a child all the time. I LOVE IT!
We woke up on Friday to a lovely breakfast at the hotel! We metroed back to Naples where we had lots of train issues.. transportation and us weren’t too good of friends over 10 day! Our train was super delayed and because of that we would miss our connection, so we decided to take a bus to Foggia (outside of San Giovanni Rotondo), which took like 3-4 hours I believe? When we got there, the bus to San Giovanni left in about a half hour, so we got some lunch and then hopped on another bus! The turns to San Giovanni were super duper steep/turny just like in Ireland! When we got there, we walked around a bit until we found our hotel.. which was beautiful on the outside but our room was miniature-bumma. And then we went to Padre Pio’s shrine.. where his body is no longer exposed(bumma!!!) but we got to touch his casket in the most BEAUTIFUL mosaic chapel ever. They were so modern and large and beautiful, I just can’t express how much I loved that chapel! And the mosaics weren’t the normal ones you see.. Jesus during the temptation in the desert w/ the devil was one of them-very cool. We got to see that, some of his articles/things, his confessional that he used almost 11 hours every day!!! And used until the day before his death, we saw lots of pictures of him, and some of his outfits, his letters, his cell, his first casket, the place where his body was exposed, and the cross from which he received his stigmata! After our Padre Pio high was over, we tried to go to Mont St. Michael, a grotto where St. Michael appeared and consecrated an altar (the only church not consecrated by a priest because he did it!) but.. because of our luck w/ transportation, we got on the bus to find out that there was no bus back to San Giovanni Rotondo.. so we got off at the first stop we could and went shopping at a thrift store type thing.. we then walked back to the hotel and slept!
In the morning we went shopping and got some Padre Pio things and then got on a bus back to Foggia, where we took a train back to Gaming and got in Sunday morning at 9am! It was a long day of travel, but it was so great to be back at the Kartause. It would have been better to be coming home to 677 Avalon Road.. but that’s okay, soon enough!! : ) I lectured at the 10am mass, which was really great, and then I just slept and was lazy all day.. which was SUPA! And much needed. And now here I am! Just trying to catch up on work and papers and such.. praying for all of you every day, striving to be saintly. Thanks for reading this massive blog, you’re great and I’m proud of you for doing so! You are a true Erin blogger devotee! Woot-woot. <3
To Jesus through Mary,
His Beloved, EB
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