Off to Western Australia, the Holy Land, and Italy...

Very early on Friday morning I will fly off to Perth via Melbourne. I'll have the weekend in Western Australia – my first return visit since I moved back to Tasmania for work in 2009 – and then, together with a large group of fellow pilgrims, I will fly via Dubai to Amman, and travel from there into the Holy Land. After two weeks or so, we will fly on to Rome via Istanbul, and, after a week or so in Italy, at last return home (I will get back in the evening of the 1st of February). Of your charity, please pray that the trip proves safe and spiritually rewarding; I will remember all friends and readers in prayer at the holy places.

I may or may not have the chance to blog about all this, but hope to do so.

My European Itinerary

As I've mentioned in previous postings, I'm off to the Old Country, and thence to Italy, for a few weeks after Christmas.

For the benefit of my friends and well-wishers, here are my finalized travel plans:

Wednesday 30th December

Fly to Melbourne at 9:55 am, arriving at 11:00 am; depart Melbourne at 10:25 pm for Dubai...

Thursday 31st December

Arrive Dubai at 5:40 am local time, departing at 7:45 am; and arrive London (Heathrow) at 11:35 am GMT.

(It'll be interesting to see the UK, but I must admit my images of London are largely informed by watching The Bill; at least my accommodation is just down the road from Liz and Phil...)

Friday 1st January

At some point during New Year's Day, my mate Michael (whom I'm meeting in London) and I will travel up to Oxford, weather permitting!

Sunday 3rd January

Back to London...

Monday 4th January

I fly from London (Gatwick) at 8:20 am, arriving Edinburgh at 9:45 am.

Thursday 7th January

Depart Edinburgh 6:10 am, arriving Paris (Charles de Gaulle) 9:10 am, then flying on from there at 10:05 am, arriving Florence at 12:10 pm.

(It will be good to get back there: Firenze - città bellisima!)

Saturday 9th January

I will take the train down to Rome in the morning...

Thursday 14th January

Depart Rome at 8:25 pm, bound for Dubai.

Friday 15th January

Arrive Dubai 5:05 am, depart 9:40 am; arrive Singapore 8:50 pm, depart 10:25 pm.

Saturday 16th January

Return to Australia: arrive Melbourne 8:45 am.

(My friends at the Dominican Priory in Camberwell have kindly agreed to let me stay the night there.)

Sunday 17th January

Depart Melbourne 3:20 pm; return home to Launceston 4:40 pm.

Maps generated by the
Great Circle Mapper -
copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

Many thanks to Great Circle Mapper, with which I've plotted my course (excl. Oxford and back, about 200 km)... it turns out I'll be travelling around 37,000 km in total, about 90% of the circumference of the earth - I love trivial facts.

Finalizing Holiday Plans

Persevering readers of this blog (if there are any) will know that I am heading to England, Scotland and Italy for a holiday at the very end of this year and the start of next - which is quite typical of me, being so contrary as to head to the far north in mid-winter! I know Traddies like to be climate change deniers out of a general sense of contrariety, but I for one wouldn't mind some warming coming up very soon...

While I have to sort out the English leg of my holiday, it will be spent in London and Oxford; but for the benefit of my Scottish contacts, my very distant relatives, I can confirm that I'll fly up to Edinburgh on Monday the 4th of January, and stay in the Athens of the North over three nights, before departing for Florence on Thursday: so I'll keep Epiphany in Scotland.

Firenze - città bellissima! I can't wait to get back there - I'll stay at my usual hotel on the banks of the Arno for two nights, and then take the train to Rome on the morning of Saturday January 9th. The local Carmelites tell me I simply must make it to the shrine of one of their incorruptibles, St Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart, of their Order...

Once in the Eternal City, I will catch up with several other Aussies, and we should have a pleasant time, hopefully at last including a day-trip to Assisi, before I have to leave for Australia on Thursday the 14th: I will have the weekend in Melbourne before finally getting home on Sunday afternoon.

Burns reminds me that best-laid plans gang aft agley... I trust the Lord will preserve and guide me, as He ever has.

Off to the Old Country...

Thanks for any prayers offered: I've managed to get affordable tickets for flights to and from Europe for my upcoming trip.

I will arrive in London just before noon on Thursday the 31st of December, and hope to spend about nine days in England and Scotland, probably visiting Oxford and lastly Edinburgh... then it's off to Italy to meet up with a friend of mine, with whom I'll do some travelling about - probably mainly in Rome and Florence (a visit to Gricigliano hopefully), plus Assisi, before flying to Australia from Rome on the evening of Thursday the 14th of January; I'll have the weekend in Melbourne, and get back home on Sunday afternoon.

Pray that all goes well! I look forward to meeting various people during this upcoming holiday!

Petition for Temporal Benefits

Pray, please...

As mentioned below, I am very much hoping to travel to the UK and Italy in early January 2010.

Unfortunately, it is proving incredibly hard to find affordable plane fares for travel at this time of year, and I may well have to give up on this trip.

Therefore, please pray for me that my travel agent may turn up an affordable option for my travel to and from Europe: it would be sad to have to abandon this, but c'est la vie.

In any case, God's will be done.

Italian Police Forces

Entities ought not be multiplied beyond necessity.

However, in Italy there seem to be an extraordinary number of different police forces, all with rather shoddy looking uniforms. I think they all aspire to be paramilitary, strange to think, for everyone knows the Italian army is best only at running away.

There is the carabinieri, the polizia municipale, the guarda di finanzia, and so on and so forth! Mi scusi per il poverello Italiano...

Just yester-day I saw the most fearsome variety, a set of heavily-armed grim-faced he-men in flak jackets that looked like extras from a film about gladiators of old; they were guarding Silvio Berlusconi, who made a short impromptu public appearance on the Piazza Colonna just as I wandered by.

He's a short little fellow, this Prime Minister of Italy - and clearly whips up the passions of those around him (allusion to his personal life intended), for some were nearly delirious, taking his photo with their cell phones, while others derisively shouted Buffone ("buffoon").

It was great street theatre.

Santa Maria in Vallicella

The titular of the Chiesa Nuova, seat of the Roman Oratory and resting-place of St Philip Neri, is Our Lady, and the patronal feast is kept each passing year on her birthday - the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the 8th of September, some nine months having passed since her Immaculate Conception:

On the eighth of September 

Saint Anna gave birth 

and all of the world 

was filled with joy and mirth: 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria, 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria.

Whatever of this little ditty (to the tune of the famous Lourdes hymn), on the 8th of September I will arrive early in the morning in the Eternal City, and hope to keep the feast of Our Lady's Birth  at her famous church there.  

Infant Mary, Joy of earth,

We with all this world of mirth,

Light-hearted and joy-laden,

Greet the morning of thy Birth,

Little Maiden.

I note certain other saint's days of special Roman relevance ensue:

• Thursday the 10th is the feast of St Nicolas of Tolentino: his church, San Nicola da Tolentino agli Orti Sallusti ("in the Gardens of Sallust"!) is home to Rome's Armenian Rite Catholics;
  
• Friday the 11th is the commemoration of SS Protus & Hyacinth, specially venerated at both Propaganda Fide and the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (where St Philip and his first disciples conducted their devotions; they even had charge of it for some years);
  
• Monday the 14th is of course Holy Cross Day, and I hope to go to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to adore* the portion of the Holy Cross and other relics of Our Lord's Passion preserved therein;
  
• Thursday the 17th is the commemoration of the Sacred Stigmata of St Francis, and an excellent day to visit Assisi, being the day before I return to Australia (and that day itself is amusingly appropriate: it's the feast of St Joseph of Cupertino, a holy Franciscan best known for his miraculous flights and levitations, who is thereby a patron saint of air travel).

[* To relics or icons of the saints, one pays a relative veneration - since it is directed not to the material object, but "through" it to the holy elect of God whose relic or image it is, since to such friends of Christ in heaven are due our love and reverence - while to relics or icons of Our Saviour, one pays a relative adoration - not adoring the object, which would be mad and detestable idolatry, a bowing down to sticks and stones, but a faithful direction of our worshipping gaze beyond the material to God the Son Incarnate; and in the special case of relics of His Passion, such as fragments of the Holy Cross, the Lance, the Nails, the Crown of Thorns, we must ever bear in mind that these were drenched in His Precious Blood, in the Gore of God!]

Remember to pass on any useful hints for a first-time traveller to Italy...