Rome oh sweet home!

       For some reason today, memories of my time living in Roma, Italy washed over me like a pleasantly warm breeze. Those days remain vividly in my memory no matter how much time passes. Having been blessed to travel to Roma on three separate occasions, I have a wide range of memories stemming from each stint in the Eternal City but none more vivid than the last two trips I took; one for three months and the other for a month and a half. There is something so enthralling, so evocative, transcendent, and even sacred about spending time abroad
outside of one's home country that it is difficult to put into words. Yet my last two stays in Roma I was blessed to spend studying, exploring, travelling, praying, making pilgrimage, and very simply, just thinking. The ancient streets, majestic and romantic buildings, tucked away shops and restaurants and the hubbub of Italian chatter with little understanding on my part make for an atmosphere most conducive to reflection. It is true that the best times of reflection occurred either while away from the center of the city or late at night awaiting the last train home to Aurelia.
       Each of the last two times in Roma, myself and those whom I stayed with had amazing opportunities to experience Roma in ways most never see. Traversing through the Vatican Gardens, both legally and not, the latter being the most exciting, was a special treat  I was blessed with during both my stays in Rome. To see the Vatican from a perspective that millions of tourists never even dream exists was really something to remember... and remember it well I do! Some of the other wonderful surprises included attending an audience with the Pope of no more than two hundred, attending an international bioethics conference, meeting Alice von Hildebrand at a conference on the philosophy of her late husband, and of course spending time in the Tuscan countryside sharing wine, song, and laughs alongside Italian nobles. Watching the sun set over the valley below the ancient Italian village in Tuscany, waking up to watch the sunrise with only a small campfire and border collie as company, and hiking through fields of wild flowers reaching nearly to my shoulders are some of the fondest memories of the small village of Casaglia in Tuscany. Did I mention, travelling to some of the most exquisite cities in Italy including Florence, Padua, Venice, Assisi, and the jewel of them all the five breathtaking cliff side villages, the Cinque Terre. Lastly, but perhaps most special was the opportunity to spend an evening enjoying the glorious strains of Handel's "Messiah" in the company of his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, and being blessed to shake his hand as he entered Paul VI hall in Vatican City. What an extraordinary bunch of blessings these few months in Roma have been for me. They have been a wealth of magnificent experiences but also a time of learning to know myself and my country, a time of learning about life in general, and the marvelous life of the Church and her rich tradition and heritage.
       Spending time away from all that is familiar is a most precious opportunity that I wish everyone would be able to experience, especially alone. For it is then, especially if you have time away by yourself, from all that you know, it is almost as if you are able to see yourself in your old life much more clearly. When you look from the outside and see your life as a whole it makes more sense... or possibly less, than when you are mired in the day to day tasks and details. So my advice to you, is if you are ever presented with the opportunity to be abroad, take full advantage of it, but be prepared to be frustrated  to be lonely, to be rejected, to fail, but also be prepared to grow and to become better than you were before. Whether or not you are ever able to retreat from life as far as Roma, or any other foreign city or country, make the space and time to at least get away to a place of quiet for a couple of days. Alone. For it is when you are alone with yourself, away from familiar comforts, that you really begin to learn who it is you have been living with your whole life. Often times what you learn is not pleasing, and can even be disturbing, but the comfort is, who you are now is not who you have to be tomorrow. So take advantage of any such opportunities or even considering making the opportunity yourself. Start saving, start planning, and go!
       It has been almost eleven years since my first trip abroad and I can say that each time I have ventured outside American borders, I have been blessed to grow in self-knowledge and to have memories of absolutely unforgettable experiences. I hope that it is not too much longer before I am able to travel again. Once you have gone once, you always want to go back!