Assisi for orientation.

We just got back from Assisi. It was a beautiful, exhausting weekend. Assisi is about three hours away, so we took four buses loaded up. Only resident cars are allowed inside the city walls, so the buses parked and we walked up the hill in the pouring rain through the town to the retreat center. We had a solid lunch and then split into two groups: one to stay at the retreat center and do floor meetings and one to head out through town on a tour. I was in the rainy tour group :) so we walked to the Basilica of San Fransisco. We saw the crypt in the basement, the lower cathedral above it, and the upper cathedral which was built above that. It was all very ornate and fancy, which seemed a little contradictory to Francis' main beliefs, but -hey! Apparently, its not for Francis, its for God. I mean, obviously. There were some beautiful frescoes though. I really liked the art. After that we went and saw the old Roman temple/courthouse/something. That was cool, and we looked at it and spoke about it from under a beautiful painted alley (that had just been excavated three months ago).Then we went over to the Cathedral of San Chiara, or Saint Clare. This was wonderful! It was my favorite part of Assisi. The church is on the very edge of the city and rests right on a square with the most beautiful view of the Umbrian valley (I'm sure that its breathtaking when the weather is better)! Inside the nave, the walls are mostly white. Towards the choir there appear to be cracks in the walls, but they are really the remains of the old frescoes. The images around the altar are still fairly intact, and the crucifix above the altar is exquisite. Off the main church there is a chapel that houses the Crucifix of San Damiano, of which I have a replica at home! The chapel was locked all three times I attempted to see it this weekend, but it is the crucifix that allegedly spoke to St. Francis telling him to "rebuild my Church, which you can see is falling into ruin." The tour went in, did a little loop around the upstairs nave (skipping the chapel!!) and peaced out, but three of us (Annie, Deacon Tom, and I) hung back so we could look around more. Tom has lived in Rome for four years and he took us downstairs to see Saint Clare's tomb. Since she is one of the few incorruptibles, this was a very interesting part of the church. When we went downstairs there happened to be a Poor Clare singing a beautiful song somewhere near an air duct or something, because we could hear it nearly perfectly. We saw Clare, wearing a brown habit similar to Francis' and looked at the posters on the wall. They described all of the frescoes that used to be on the walls of the church before the last major earthquake a few hundred years ago that destroyed them. They depicted different stages of Clare's life, including when her sister Agnes (also a saint) ran away from home to join Clare. Her wealthy father sent people to collect her and carry her home, but a miracle occurred and Agnes became so heavy that no person could lift her! On the other side of the basement there was a display of Clare's and Francis' robes and a silver box containing Clare's hair (she was supposedly the most beautiful woman in Assisi. When she took her vows, she cut off her blonde curls as a symbol of her piety and kept them in this box).After the tour we went back to the retreat center for a delicious four-course dinner. After dinner we heard another speech or two and then had some free time, which for me was obvious- bed! So a good number of people went directly to bed, but unfortunately, the rain continued. This encouraged those in our number who felt inclined to party in this small, quiet town to go buy wine and drink it in their rooms, which sounded like they were all on my floor. Luckily I fell asleep before I had to yell at anyone, although others were not so lucky.We had heard that Assisi is best in the early morning, so about twenty of us woke up to walk around at about 6:00 a.m. This was definitely a good choice. We checked out different parts of the city, and stumbled upon the home that Francis grew up in, now called the Chiesa Nuova. It is kinda like a church but small and unusually shaped. We walked over to St. Clare's Cathedral and watched the "sun rise" (it was so cloudy that it just kinda got light, we couldn't see a sun rise) from the square out front. Another lucky thing about this was that this was the best weather we had all weekend, because it started raining again during breakfast. After breakfast we checked out and had some floor meeting time. Afterwards we went to walk around the other parts of the city that we hadn't explored yet, so although we missed seeing the castles, we saw the other major church in Assisi: the Cathedral of San Rufino. Saint Rufinus was the city's first bishop. He was martyred in 238. This church was very interesting. A good deal of the floor was glass, showcasing the layers of previous buildings upon that spot. This church also holds the baptismal font that Clare and Francis were baptized in. Another unusual thing about this church was the old cistern that was hidden off to the side. It was the city's emergency source of water when they were at war or under attack. We also visited a bookstore that is apparently the most famous one in Italy. It is operated by a man who hand designs, prints, and binds journals and stationary. Apparently it is discussed in "Under the Tuscan Sun." After another four-course meal, this time for lunch, we went down to the valley town outside of Assisi to check out the Basilica Maria degli Angeli. This is a huge church that contains inside the original chapel, the Porziuncola, that Francis chose as his favorite spot. This is the church that Francis restored after the crucifix of San Damiano spoke to him. When he was on his deathbed, he asked to be brought here to pray. After he prayed, he asked to be brought outside so that he could die in nature, right outside of the chapel. He died on a rock that is displayed inside the Basilica. This church was very pretty, but it was so huge that it wasn't really my style. The statues of cherubs inside were maybe ten to fifteen feet tall, and the ceiling is over 246 feet high! We ended our tour of Assisi here, and headed back home to Roma. Classes start tomorrow! Woo hoo!!