My recent European adventures included an unexpected spiritual journey. While we intended to visit many cathedrals, synagogues, and churches, what wasn’t on the agenda became the most important discovery on my trip.
Cattedrale di San Francesco was the first Catholic church we visited in Livorno, Italy. As I passed over the threshold, I dipped my hand into holy water and crossed myself for the first time in nearly four decades.
The church was bathed in beautiful afternoon sunlight that shone through the small, yet vibrant, stained-glass windows near the altar and the cross. The halls and frescas were lit by the light from candles that had been left by those who offered up prayers for themselves and loved ones.
I passed the baptismal and smiled as I imagined which heads of state and influential historical figures may have been baptized in the carved marble shell.
I’ve been to several churches over the years, including familiar Catholic ones, but this time was different. I stepped forward, pulling my scarf over my head to cover my hair as a sign of respect, in accordance with old-world customs. Walking toward the pews, I felt it.
A woosh of warm air curled around my ankles and crept up along my spine, landing on my shoulders like the hands of a parent guiding me forward. The heat settled into my neck and raced through my chest, swirling in my heart and down to my arms and hands. I felt lifted as my steps bounced me to a pew in the middle of the church.
“Welcome home. I’ve been waiting for you.” I heard the voice so clearly in my mind. “Where were You?” I whispered under my breath as I took my seat. “I was with you the whole time.” Typical, I thought to myself. Queue the “Footprints” poem.
I bowed my head as I grabbed the back of the pew in front of me. Tears streamed down my face. “I’ve missed You,” I said out loud. “I thought You abandoned me.” I swallowed hard as I tried to catch my breath without quivering out loud.
The warm breeze hugged me tighter. “I am here. I will never leave you.” I sat up, lifted my hands in prayer and meditated for the next thirty minutes. I didn’t notice my travel companion slid into the pew beside me, listening to me pray in broken Spanish and Italian.
I spent more time listening than asking for favors.
“You don’t write enough. You’re wasting the gift I gave you.”
“I don’t have anything new to say,” I quipped.
“There is still plenty to be said.”
Who was I to argue? Rarely do I have a long bout of writer’s block.
The divine downloads I received that day were only the beginning. At each destination city, I spent time with Spirit, reconciling, forgiving, and reconnecting with not only my God, but with my roots and myself.
In Roma, I passed by St. Peter’s Square’s basilica doors, opened for celebration of Jubilee, to receive absolution of my sins and the grace I so adamantly believed that I did not deserve. My spiritual journey through dozens of churches over the next ten days across six countries changed all that. I gave myself the gift of acceptance, forgiveness, and most of all, love. For once, I truly allowed myself to be loved by me.
I’ve grappled forever with my identity and my woefully turbulent and strangely mysterious beginnings, but my return to church, where my grandfather Dutch spent so much time, reminded me to be proud of who I am and my real family origins: Scotch-Irish with only a faint splash of Latin spice. It’s time, now that I’ve traveled to discover and make peace with the parts of me that would not heal, to open my heart and my mind to new experiences and opportunities, accepting my identify and those who gave it to me rather than downplay its significance.
Life doesn’t always place us in families, relationships, or circumstances that we like, nor does it keep us there if we’re not meant to stay. Often, this can create a lonely existence fraught with questions that go unanswered and closure that is not given. Those realities are not for us to understand, but to accept as things that are outside of our control and should be left to the Divine to sort. We are all worthy of love, forgiveness, acceptance, and second chances. All that must be done is to ask in earnest, with integrity and honesty in our hearts and truth on our lips.
Since returning home with my two new rosaries, I’ve recommitted to my spiritual practices and meditative time with Spirit, thankful for the good in my life instead of demanding answers for the bad in it. Strangely, the more grateful I am, the less negative life is. Funny how that works.
Peace looks good on me, and I like how it fits. It took a journey of 5,000 miles away from where I live to rediscover, really uncover, the depths of my faith and fully embrace the One who will eventually call me home.
Onto the next adventure,
Mia