“May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam...” – An Irish proverb

I do “roam,” as you know from this column and I am truly blessed to say that this proverb describes not only my travels but my daily life.

My Dad always called me his “roamin Catholic” and once again, I am safely back in Rome after an amazing week in Washington, D.C. As you know from my columns last week, I spent Election Day in the U.S. for the first time in 24 years. Friday night, the real focus of my U.S. trip, I attended the 11th annual Umiltà Awards held at the Willard Hotel and sponsored by the Pontifical North American College.

The Umiltà Awards began in 2002 and are named for Our Lady of Humility, an image above the main altar of the stunning chapel in the building that in 1859 became the first campus of the North American College – the American national seminary - in downtown Rome near Trevi Fountain. Known today as the Casa Santa Maria, the four-century old building is located on Via dell’Umiltà (humility), a street that took its name from the image in the chapel.

The Casa Santa Maria today serves as the College’s house for student priests pursuing graduate studies, and hosts the Bishops’ Office for U.S. Visitors to the Vatican. Perhaps many of you, my readers, have visited this office to pick up tickets on a Tuesday afternoon for the Wednesday morning papal audiences.

This annual award dinner honors people who have shown notable support and collaboration with NAC in its work of priestly formation. Honorees this year included Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, and Bill and Sue Cicherski of Irvine, Texas, members of the College’s Council For Institutional Advancement.

It was a wonderful evening for NAC and for the archbishops, bishops and laity in attendance. I enjoyed my first participation in this dinner (as you know I write every year about the Rome equivalent of this dinner, The Rector’s Dinner) because I knew so many of the guests, laity and prelates.

Over my years here in Rome, I have met countless young seminarians, watched them grow in their four years at NAC, including ordination as a deacon in October of their last year, and, when possible after their ordination, I’ve tried to follow their lives as priests and pastors. And some have become bishops!

I spent a wonderful weekend with friends, the first since late September that I did not have weekend obligations for the synod or, as was the case of the first weekend in November, my commitment to give an annual talk on stewardship at all the Masses at Santa Susanna.

As soon as I get all my photos uploaded and sorted by event, I will bring you to the Blessed John Paul II Shrine, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and military memorials around Washington.

A very good friend of mine who lives in Virginia, retired Navy Captain Ted Bronson offered to be my guide yesterday, the U.S. holiday marking Veteran’s Day, to a number of monuments in D.C. honoring our military. We went to Arlington National Cemetery, which I had visited after President Kennnedy’s death, but I never saw it like I did yesterday as Ted had not only special permits to drive to sites that many visitors might never get to, he had extensive, wonderful knowledge about the entire cemetery. Tomorrow I’ll post some of the photos that I took at Arlington.

We also visited the World War II monument (which I had never seen) and drove to the Iwo Jima memorial honoring the Marines which I realized, to my great surprise, I had never visited! And yet it has always been a favorite of mine!

Ted comes to Rome once or twice a year for various events and this was the first time we met in America!

After lunch he accompanied me to Dulles airport for my flight to Rome. I wanted to write a brief column yesterday but never had a minute to even open my computer – but that’s fine because the time I spent as a visitor gave me material for many columns!

Stay tuned!

Write to Joan at:
joansrome@ewtn.com 

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