As I wrote before, today was the day we left St. Benedict's to check in with our host parish and the families that we will be staying with. Fr. Bernard was kind enough to both take us to the parish to drop off our luggage for the day, and then drop us off at the ferry so we could go into the city to visit St. Mary's Cathedral.
It was a rather interesting experience in many ways. As I was pulling together our tentative itinerary, I made some inquiries as to which places might take longer to get through due to the number of pilgrims coming in, and St. Mary's Cathedral was near the top of the list. Of course, our estimation of time has been off from day one, and it took longer to get into the city than we had planned, especially since we stopped to convert a few US Dollars into Aussie bucks.
So when we finally arrived at the site after eating lunch on the go, I tried to hurry everyone inside and then realized that we could just set a meeting point and take the cathedral in at our own pace, since some people were still finishing lunch and others were taking pictures. My own plan was to go in to see the relics of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, which are at the cathedral for World Youth Day. Once I entered the cathedral, it was clear that there really had been no reason for the hurry. All exhibits seemed to be on one floor, winding through the Church, and though the relics were displayed quite nicely, there was not the crowd that we (read: I) had anticipated.
After praying for a while, we made our way back out to the rest of the group, and I made my apologies for rushing everyone on for no apparent reason. Most everyone seemed to not really know what I was talking about, so that is good. I am learning that the greatest lesson of this pilgrimage will be allowing time to become irrelevant and going with the flow, realizing that the Lord will get us where we need to be eventually.
We went from the Cathedral onto our host parish, but again, between getting a bit of a late start and travel taking longer than we thought, we arrived after the Mass, which turned out to be just fine. The welcome was unbelievable - pilgrims from around the world, parishioners coming out to greet us and on top of it all, a grand feast! If there is one thing that we will not be deprived of in Australia, it is good food! During dinner, we began to find our host families and get acquainted with them so we could meet up with them after getting our pilgrim packs, badges and having our evening prayer together. Everyone was very welcoming and accommodating, with some of the families offering to come back and get us later in the evening so we could get everything settled.
As I began to hand out our passes for all the events, I thought my disdain for math had caught up to me and I was trapped in a story problem from the 4th grade. "There are 9 pilgrims in our party but only 8 tags. In what combination might the tags be distributed so all pilgrims can participate in the maximum number of activities?" Yet, it wasn't a story problem, but a real one. After finding the accommodation coordinator at the parish (Sybille, who is wonderful!), we realized that they had not added the group leader into the count of event and meal passes. They called the main office, only to be put on hold for what can't have been less than a half hour. During that time, another lovely woman who picked up all our passes called some others directly to try to solve our problem. At this point, I am relying on the chaos, and the grace of God of course, to make it all work out. I'm still without any passes, but the solution presented was to be sure I had my pilgrim's backpack on at all times I'd need a pass, and they'd let me through with the rest of my group. Carol did leave me with her number just in case we had any trouble.
Although things have not always gone according to plan, everyone we have encountered has gone out of their way to make sure that our time here is nothing but blessed. We can face all struggles with the knowledge that in the end, all will be well. Hey, if I don't make it into the events, I can always have my own personal retreat at our lovely beach house...
Oh, did I not mention that part? We opted for the "simple accommodation" package for the week, which placed us in host families. Anna and I are with one host family, and our family for the week lives on the beach in the bay. The car ferry is right down the street and there is a great view of the city skyline from their balcony. I feel a little bad staying somewhere so incredibly nice and calling it "simple accommodations!"
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to connect to their wireless internet, so I will have to upload pictures when we get back to the monastery on Sunday. Until then, I hope you enjoy our written accounts, though pictures are in fact worth more than a thousand words in many cases!
Good night, and God bless!
Rakhi
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