Across the Big Pond: A Pilgrimage Across the Water

How do you describe something new—but old, simple—but full of life, elegant—but humble?
I asked myself that question as I stepped onto streets that had been walked for centuries. The stones seemed to hold more memory than I ever could. Nothing there felt rushed. Nothing needed to prove itself. Assisi did not try to impress me. It simply existed—quietly, faithfully, as it always had. And somehow, that was enough.

I had crossed an ocean expecting beauty. I found it, of course—but not in the way I imagined. It was not loud or grand in the way new places often try to be. It was steady. Rooted. Almost as if the land itself had nothing left to prove because it already knew what it was. We traveled to Assisi, Spello, Orvieto, Gubbio, and Loreto.

My main objective was to see my patron saint’s bones. Saint Francis was laid out for visitors for one month, and my husband surprised me with the trip. I have a vivid imagination—I am always making up stories in my head about how I would respond to certain moments. At nearly forty, I’ve learned there’s probably a medical reason for this creative weirdness, but it is also just part of who I am.

So, naturally, I imagined dramatic scenes.

Picture me walking slowly down a chapel aisle, dressed in black, weeping and wailing for my long-dead spiritual friend. Or another version: heaven’s light shining down as I approach, and suddenly—the bones rise. A miracle. Dry bones restored.

Silly? One hundred and fifty percent.

Reality looked different.

We actually moved our viewing time earlier in the day, which resulted in unexpected cardio. We ran across Assisi—what should have been a 15–20 minute walk, we turned into a 5–10 minute jog. I suppose there was still some drama in that. After all, how many people run across a medieval town to see bones?

Inside, the line moved quickly. Too quickly.

As we walked through the lower basilica, I noticed the iconography telling Francis’s story. The comparisons to Christ were unmistakable. And I couldn’t help but think—he would not approve of this. Not at all.

Francis spent his life bringing glory to God, not to himself. In his Testament, he insisted that his brothers live in simplicity and avoid anything that contradicted holy poverty. Later accounts make it even clearer—he resisted anything that would turn him into a figure of grandeur.

He was told to rebuild the Church, and he did—stone by stone, prayer by prayer.
But he never meant for anything to be built for him.

And yet, here we were, standing inside a massive basilica raised in his name.

I couldn’t help but imagine him walking through it—turning over tables, clearing out the gift shop, painting over his own image. Not out of anger, but out of truth.

His bones were brown. Fragmented. There was not much of a skull left. His spine, though, remained intact. A quiet witness to a life lived fully and given away.

I expected to feel something overwhelming.

Instead, I felt… hurry.

Hurry, so the next group could move through. Hurry, so no one lingered too long. There was no time to stand, to gaze, to process. Just movement.

“I’m here,” I told myself. “I made it.”

Still—no dramatic emotion. Just the quiet press of time.

Next was Saint Clare—Chiara, more properly. The English version feels like it strips something away. Key-ar-uh carries more beauty, more dignity.

In her basilica hangs the cross of San Damiano—the cross that spoke to Francis and told him to rebuild the Church. I sat and looked at it, silently asking God to speak to me too.

The rational part of me knows that moments like that do not repeat themselves across history.

Still—I asked.

After a few minutes of quiet pleading, the lights went out.

Not divine intervention. Just the nuns telling us it was time to leave.

We made it to Clare’s body just before that. She rests at a distance, preserved in wax. Even so, it was a beautiful moment—to be that close to someone who had walked so faithfully beside a man who would change the world.

Back in the streets of Assisi, everything seemed to rise gently toward heaven. The narrow paths, the worn stone, the quiet that settled even among the crowds—it all carried a stillness I hadn’t realized I was missing.

I slowed down without trying. I spoke less. I noticed more.

It was not just a place to see—it was a place that asked something of you. Not just to look, but to receive.

I could have wandered those stone streets forever.

From there, we traveled outward.

Orvieto felt like something pulled straight from the earth—rising on volcanic stone, suspended between natural and divine. Turning the corner and seeing the Duomo for the first time felt almost unreal.

It did not demand attention. It held it.

A cathedral built not for convenience, but for glory. Every detail—from floor to ceiling—crafted with care. Built to last, not just to function.

My first thought, after the initial awe, was simple:

We don’t build like this anymore.

We build fast. Cheap. Efficient. Driven by time and cost. But places like this were built for something beyond the builder. They were acts of devotion.

And that changes everything.

What struck me most across all of these places was not just their beauty, but their posture.

Nothing strained. Nothing rushed. Nothing tried to become something it was not.

They simply were.

And in that, I began to see something about myself.

I am used to movement. To noise. To measuring time by what comes next. But in those hill towns, time did not disappear—it deepened. It stretched. It invited me into presence.

Somewhere between the stone streets and the open sky, I realized:

I had not just crossed an ocean.

I had crossed into a different way of seeing.

Maybe that is why it feels so difficult to describe.

Because how do you explain a place that does not try to change you—yet somehow does?

How do you describe something that is both ordinary and sacred at the same time?

Maybe you don’t.

Maybe you just say this:

I went looking for something new.
And instead, I found something that had been there all along—waiting, steady, and quietly full of life.