Selflessness and Sackcloth

Post no 9. Assisi is very difficult to describe. My first glimpse of it was from the bus on our way to Loreto. It was high in the distance as I looked out from my window and it was a majestic sight, even from so far away. It looked like a walled fortress city, purchased high up on top of a mountain. It was a misty grey mid-morning and clouds hovered around the top level of the city (I think it has three tiers). The sight was intoxicating.

Travelling back from Loreto, I was lost in thought about what I had seen that day. My eyes looked out from my window seat as we wound our way back down the mountain and then at one extraordinary little town after another. I know my descriptions are beginning to border on cliches but it all seemed so surreal. These little hamlets were of course built hundreds of years ago. A few of them looked as if their days of prosperity were over, but like I am about so many other things, I may be wrong. The walls of many of the houses were crumbling, gardens were over-run and there were few people out on the streets. There were quaint shops but I was unable to see if they were open or if anyone was in them. There was some building activity happening but it was mostly focused on road works. Outside the townships, as inside, the roads were narrow, winding and treacherous but our tour bus driver, the incomparable Fausto, was more than equal to every challenge!

We arrived at Assisi in the evening. I learnt that apart from the old fortress city on the mountain top, the main commercial part of the town is situated a little away from the base of the mountain, and that is where our very comfortable hotel was located. There were lots of shops - very expensive ones mostly - and I even found a laundromat at which I later did some 'emergency washing'. Here, with two of my tour colleagues Colleen and Therese, I met three young men from the Italian boxing team who had just returned from overseas after a successful international amateur tournament. Seemed ironic that we would meet a group of boxers here in Assisi but I have long since given up contemplating the peculiarities of life in Italy. They were very friendly, spoke no English and smiled repeatedly at my forlorn attempts to use the washing machine.

On this lower level of the town, there was also a another breathtakingly beautiful basilica inside which St Clare (see below) is buried. There is also a small museum that provides an account of her incredible life. We visited it just before leaving on the second day. There was a Mass taking place inside at the time for local hospital chaplains, welfare and support staff. There were about 200 at the Mass. The majority of these were habited nuns. There 71 con celebrating priests.

I stayed behind at the hotel for the first part of the tour of old Assisi and joined the group mid-morning. I estimated that they would be at our second tour destination by the time I got there - St Damiano's Church - so that is where I asked my taxi driver to take me.

St Damiano's is a small, simply adorned but strikingly beautiful Church (more of a chapel really) and the spiritual home of the the Poor Clare Sisters which were founded by St Chiarra (Clare) who based their charism on the example her dear friend and mentor St Francis. On the wall of a small entrance room just outside the main part of the Church is a mesmerising crucifix that I simply could not take my eyes off. I sat in one of the old wooden seats for about 10 minutes, by myself (there was no-one else in there at the time), and just looked at it. The representation of Jesus on the Cross was confronting but I remained transfixed by it. I tried to just sit, listen to my own breathing and think of nothing. There was a moment when I felt as peaceful as I had felt for some time, then some other people came in and that moment was gone. I got up and walked outside, took some pics and waited for the rest of my group to arrive.

During the day, we visited the rest of the St Damiano's, including the cloisters where St Clare and her community of nuns lived and prayed, the main township of old Assisi, including its magnificent churches, its quaint streets and shops and its many monuments. I stopped for a time to change some equipment on my camera when a man of about 40, dressed in sackcloth and barefooted, stepped out from a nearby laneway chanting something about Assisi over and over again. He wasn't asking for money, he smiled constantly and after a time, simply stopped chanting and stepped back into the laneway. I did not see him again for the rest of the day. I was later told that he was something of a town oddity but that he was looked upon with affection.

My favourite part of this tour was visiting the mountain retreat of St Francis himself and seeing the cave inside which he often stayed for days at a time in contemplation and prayer. I have such admiration for people of deep conviction where their focus is not on gaining or asserting power or privilege but on service to others. (I am sure you know people like that. My good friend Maya Cranitch, who has done so much in the cause of supporting refugees and asylum seekers and is currently working as a volunteer trying to bring education to desperately need refugees on the Thai/Burma border, is someone like that). St Francis had the most intense love of God that manifested itself in foregoing everything of material value to focus on prayer and the service of others. I felt completely inadequate being in what was once his space - I wanted to see it all but felt I had no right even to walk the same paths as he and his followers walked.

For me, this has been the most spiritual experience of the pilgrimage so far (there, I used the word pilgrimage). I guess it must be had to balance the notion of providing an opportunity for people like us to see and hopefully experience some of the sacredness of places like Loreto, Assisi et al and still ensure that their sacred, spiritual core is not swallowed up in the commercial realities of modern commerce. I wonder what St Francis himself might have thought about even those who so ardently admire and pray to him being here in this capacity. Don't quite have an answer for that question yet. All I can say at the moment is that it is a privilege to have spent time here.

Introspectively yours
Mark