By Michelle Harvey
About a year ago, I was mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed when I noticed an ad for a trip to Italy. St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church in Surprise, was offering a Jubilee Year pilgrimage to Italy, and I decided to go when I saw that it would be led by Fr. Greg Menegay. This would be my second pilgrimage with Fr. Greg; he also led a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico with Fr. Williams Abba in the Winter of 2023.
After we landed in Rome and placed our luggage on the bus, we traveled to Orvieto. There we had Mass in the Duomo in the Chapel of the Relic. The Chapel of the Relic holds the Eucharistic Miracle that occurred in Bolsena, Italy in 1263 during a Mass celebrated by Fr. Peter of Prague. During the Consecration, blood began seeping from the Host and landed on the Corporal, staining the Altar Cloth. Fr. Peter took the relics to Pope Urban IV, who was living in the Orvieto Cathedral. The Pope investigated the event and subsequently enshrined the Corporal in the Orvieto Cathedral. This miracle directly led to the establishment of the Feast of Corpus Christi.
This Eucharistic Miracle is kept in a closed reliquary above the altar in the Chapel. Normally, the reliquary is not exposed for veneration and as a rule only Popes may say Mass in the Chapel of the Relic. However, the miracle was exposed for veneration due to the Church celebrating a Jubilee Year. And since our visit was made during the interim period when we had no pope, priests were allowed to offer Mass in the Chapel. This was a truly miraculous experience!
Our travels also took us to the site of another Eucharistic Miracle, this one in Lanciano where a Basilian Monk experienced the Miracle while praying the Words of Consecration during Mass. The Host visibly changed into flesh and the Wine transformed into blood which congealed into five globules. The Miracle is placed between the Church and the Chapel so that the faithful may Adore and Venerate the miracle without disrupting Mass.
This journey was truly amazing, and it was just getting started! We would travel to Assisi to see the Basilica of St. Francis as well as the Basilica of St. Clare, the Patroness of the church I was traveling with. We venerated the bodies of St. Padre Pio, Blessed Carlo Acutis, St. Cecilia, St. Paul, and Saints’ Benedict and Scholastica. We even braved the Catacombs of St. Sebastian! So many holy places! So many miracles!
Before we went to Rome, we stopped at Mt. Gargano and prayed a Chaplet of Divine Mercy at the Grotto consecrated by St. Michael the Archangel himself. There, I experienced a healing while praying. I had lived with constant noise in my head, which is not unusual for people who work with audio and video for a living. After we prayed the Chaplet, during a time of silent prayer I noticed that it was as if someone was turning a volume knob down on the noise in my head until the noise could no longer be heard. I sat there thanking God for this blessing and was afraid to leave the Grotto that the noise would return, but to this day, it has not…Praise God!
The time had come to call on Rome sweet home, our home for the next three days. The hotel was about a mile away from the Vatican and we arrived the day before the Conclave began. We entered St. Peter’s Basilica through the Jubilee doors and offered our intentions silently. Inside the Basilica there was breathtaking beauty and quiet reverence. While we were able to tour some of the Vatican, much of it was off limits due to preparations for the Conclave. However, we were able to have Mass in the Chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa, directly under the floor of St. Peter’s Basilica and very near the tomb of St. Peter. Everything about this pilgrimage was working out favorably!
Over the next three days, we entered the Jubilee doors at the other three major Basilicas, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Maggiore and St. Paul Outside the Walls. We honored the tomb of Pope Francis, prayed at the spot where St. Paul was executed, and venerated the holy skulls of Saint’s Peter and Paul, which are housed in a reliquary above the Baldacchino in the Lateran Basilica. So much rich beauty and history in a short amount of time can be overwhelming, but that is why we take photos.
It was day 11 of our 12-day Pilgrimage and the best was yet to come! Even though we arrived in Rome prior to the start of the Conclave, it did begin during our stay. Our tours were rearranged so that pilgrims could be present in St. Peter’s Square when the ballots were counted and the smoke rose from the chimney. As history has recorded, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, an American, was elected Pope on the third ballot and chose the name Pope Leo XIV. The bells were ringing, people were crying and laughing and the air was absolutely electric with joy! And this was OUTSIDE of the square, because you see, our group were unable to be in the square at the time. Here is a photo taken from inside St. Peter’s Square of some of the kind pilgrims who traveled in our group.
What an amazing way to end an amazing pilgrimage! This was the fifth pilgrimage for me, and the third to another country. Besides Mexico and Italy, I also made pilgrimages to Fatima/Lourdes as well as the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana, and to the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Each journey left me spiritually uplifted with new life-long friends and memories on which to reflect.
If you are interested in joining me and fellow parishioners on our pilgrimage to Mother Seton, watch Fr. Williams’ video in this issue.
