During my senior year of college, a couple of my friends started planning a summer trip to Europe. The next thing I knew, I was planning to join them for two weeks in Rome. I had a family friend, Regina, who split her time between her native Rome and her adopted city of Baltimore, and she would be only too delighted to welcome us to the Eternal City. She even had space for us to stay.
A trip to Rome. I couldn’t wait.
I remember boarding the plane alone for my first-ever flight – my first time outside the United States. I had just earned my college degree a week earlier, and I had no idea what the future would hold. To be honest, the trip seemed a little cavalier and frivolous for someone who had no job lined up and significant college loans to pay.
But I also had lots of faith – and all the time in the world. Over the course of my trip, I encountered the warmth and hospitality of the Roman people. I fell in love not just with the rich history, art and architecture of the city but also the exhilarating sense of discovery – about myself and about a city that offered such a wealth of experiences. My friends and I enjoyed way too much gelato, ate simple bread and cheese lunches in the sunshine, soaked up air conditioning in museum after museum, and went everywhere we could afford.
Along the way, we visited church after church and realized some of the most magnificent masterpieces were hidden in nondescript churches you’d find just around the corner or tucked into a piazza.
When Sunday came around, we decided to go to the Vatican for Mass. When we arrived in St. Peter’s Square, however, we found it was entirely roped off. There was a huge event that day, with an outdoor Mass. You had to have a ticket to get in, but we didn’t realize that, and a guard – frustrated with our poor grasp of Italian phrases – just waved us in with the crowds. We found a spot standing in a group of people far from the altar – but still at Mass. And Pope John Paul II was celebrating the Mass! We couldn’t believe our luck.
At the end of Mass, we received the Holy Father’s blessing and went on our way, walking back through the city toward the apartment where we were staying. It was just one experience in an incomparable trip, but it has stayed with me for years.
Every May, as the trees bloom and graduation season begins, I think of how I started off that next chapter in my life with a trip to Rome. My travels opened my eyes and changed my world in ways I could never have expected. I learned more about myself and who I wanted to be, and I came to appreciate how much a place can become part of you.
There’s a sense of newness to this time of year, and I like to think it offers an opportunity to embrace a new opportunity, take a little leap of faith, and be open to unexpected change. We might not need to board an airplane to try something different or turn a page in our lives, but this season presents a time when we can pause to consider beginning over again in a different way.
“We can always start all over again,” St. Bernadette Soubirous said. “Enjoy God’s amazing opportunities bestowed on us. Have faith in him always.”
Faith. That’s what I embraced when I boarded a plane more than 20 years ago. And it’s what we carry with us every day with all the new experiences we encounter. Who knows what the weeks and months ahead will bring? Maybe not a trip to Rome, but you never know. After all, I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain.
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