Sunday, April 10, 2016

Procession for the Festa di Santa Scolastica

Spoleto, one of those beautiful but very steep Italian towns in which the most important question you must ask yourself when you are driving through it is, "Does this street end in stairs?"

Also, flying buttresses!


Getting ready for the procession of the festa di Santa Scolastica.
Fr. Benedict: "You're not really going to take that picture, are you?"
Yep.




































In the chiesa di Santa Maria Addolorata






































Fr. Cassian, carrying the reliquary of Santa Scolastica, followed by the bishop.








































To all a good night.



~

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks forthis. could not do it here in melbourne australia. It might contravene OHS laws or the TRAFFIC ACT or the sensitivities of the GREENS and their constituents the Gay community

Chloe said...

Dear Hilary May I do a pen drawing of the first photograph?

Anonymous said...

So, I have this dream, fed by your blog, to sell everything, pack up my family and move to Norcia from Kansas. This is enough of a reality that I have been researching real estate and farming. My husband could quit his stressful and time consuming job (that keeps him away from his family) and we could run a small farm and attempt to be mostly self-sufficient. We have done this before with chickens (layers and fryers), cattle, horses, a large garden but it was mainly myself and our children that did the work bc my husband was always gone. Please, just tell me if I am crazy or is this even a possibility. Goals- working together as a husband and wife, growing in our faith...growing in holiness. Your blog makes this look so amazing and so what I long for... :)

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Agricultural land around here is quite cheap. Lots of people are talking (to me, anyway) about doing this. It is quite possible. I did it.

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Chloe,

of course, dearie.

Gerald said...

One of the nice things about getting to Norcia is the option of getting off the train at Spoleto exploring before taking the bus to Norcia. Spoleto is a very fine maze of a place, packed full of interesting churches and capped by a dramatic castle and one of the finest medieval bridges in Europe. On my way back from Norcia once, I hiked up the hill through the town, exploring the higgeldy-piggeldy alleys and tunnels and stairs everywhere as the still hush of the night descended. The sight of the bridge sparkling over the shadowy gorge will always be ingrained in my memory. Spoleto might be my favourite hilltown in Umbria---that is, if Gubbio didn't exist!

Anonymous, I hear you! Fortunately there is the Clear Creek Monastery in Oklahoma (though it may not be as close to Kansas as I guess---I'm from New York!), but Norcia is special. I stayed at the abbey of Fontgombault last November, and as wonderful as it is, it is surrounded by a community that doesn't take much interest in the monks. In Norcia, the residents signed a petition to invite them in!

Like you, I'd like to go there myself. My mother's family is Italian, and I still have many cousins on the western end of Umbria. Perhaps, perhaps.... A living must be made, of course, but that is possible in most places if you throw off the expectations of a modern consumerist lifestyle.