It's about 9 am local time, and we are on the bus from San Giovanni to Lanciano. We will have Holy Mass there around ten am with yours truly as celebrant and homilist. We came down out of the mountains where Padre St. Pio's monastery was located, into a great, flat plain, bounded by mountains on many sides. It is all good farmland; many of the fields are freshly plowed. We have seen a few cows and goats; no chicken houses such as are common around our area, nor pig farms. The crops around here are often fruit trees and many, many olive groves. Also what may be wheat, and certainly hay. Of the other crops I can only offer an ignorant guess so I will refrain; Wikipedia is likely a better source. Just to our right is a quarry now in sight.
Lanciano is the site of a famous Eucharistic miracle. I will attempt to take, and then post, some pictures later. Now I must prepare something for Mass.
1 comment:
I am envious. My wife would love a trip like that. I have a friend whose brother would 'holiday' from London every year in the Italian mountains. He finally decided to buy a worn out old house that had olive orchards around it as a vacation home. He was in the village buying supplies to fix it up and was approached by some locals who wondered what he wanted to do with the olive trees. "I don't need them. You can harvest all you want." Not only were they delighted, but he found out that the locals had been harvesting them for years while the property was vacant. The orchards are taxed in Italy and the locals were getting basically a tax free harvest. He told them he was going to pay the taxes anyway and would like only some of the oil from his own trees just for the pleasure of having it. When he came back to visit his place the next month it had been completely restored and his pantry filled with bottles of olive oil. He always brings gifts for the village and it is their little secret.
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