Reformation Tour in Rome and Assisi

After our few days in Austria, nine young people from the Kisi Kids joined us for our overnight drive to Rome. Torrential rain poured down for the Austrian segment of the journey, but had stopped in time for us to see the sun rise as we paused for a breakfast break at motorway services on the Italian side of the border.

Fortunately, most of the younger team members had managed to sleep in the vehicles, because our first stop was in Assisi, where we spent the morning visiting the basilica and hearing about the role that St. Francis played in reforming the society of his day. After a time of prayer and a picnic lunch, it was time to continue our onward journey to Rome (where we were staying in a Hungarian retreat centre. Rather strange to be in Italy and to see all the signs written in Hungarian!)

Before our Reformation Tour began, I had written to the Pope, asking if we might be able to meet with him and pray for him. The timing didn't work out for us to do this in the context of a private audience, so instead we went to hear him preach (from his window) at St. Peter's Square on Sunday lunch time. I was quite surprised to discover that I understood a fair bit of his sermon (in Italian) on the parable of the sower. The pope finished his message by asking the people to pray for him and so, although we hadn't been able to do it in person, we took time there on the square to pray for this man who has such an influence on the church and on society today, both in Europe and beyond. Some of his recent sermons have highlighted the need for us to be "reformers" - agents of change in the church and in the world around us - so we wanted to pray for those words to reach listening ears and open hearts.

The picture above shows our combined KKI and Kisi group at St Peter's square. The building on the extreme right of the photo is the one where Pope Francis appeared at the window to preach his message, and the dome on the left is where some of our group climbed up later in the day to have a time of intercession for the city of Rome. More about that in the post below.