Myself and three other ‘new men’ (Josh and Dennis from Wheeling-Charleston and Nick from Bismark) spent an extended weekend in Greece. It was fantastic and I will share some highlights of it briefly.
Nick had planned out our itinerary. We arrived in Athens early Friday morning (12:00 or 1:00 AM) after the deaconate ordination (for the 4th year men) and reception in Rome. We rented a car at the airport and I volunteered to drive. I had a blast because it has been nearly 3 months since I have had the opportunity…plus the driving regulations are a little less stringent, ok there really aren’t any (it seems) in Europe. For example on the way to the hotel I was driving down a one-way street and there were some scooters going the wrong way coming head-on. I braked and tried to merge into another lane but cut-off a cab driver. He honked his horn for half a block at me, pulled up beside us at a traffic light and yelled a bunch of Greek at us. He saw our blank looks and eventually said in English exactly the following: “Be careful, the streets”. We had a good laugh and finally found the hotel at around 2 AM. That was the nicest way to be yelled at. We expected some cursing and the like.
The next morning we left early and drove west. We visited Delphi and saw what was once considered the center of the world, the place where from all over Greece people sought guidance from the oracles and paid tribute to their gods. It was very fascinating seeing all the ruins and the view from Mount Parnassus was fantabulous.
From Delphi we traveled to our main destination, Nafpaktos, also called Lepanto. It is a small city on the coast of the Gulf of Corinth and we happened to be there on Oct. 7th, the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary. The city is very important in the history of this feast day since it is the commemorative feast established by St. Pius V celebrating the naval victory won by the Christian fleet (a holy Crusade) at Lepanto against the Turks in 1571. The Christian fleet should have lost but pope Pius prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary and they won against all odds, hence the feast.
We spent Friday night and Saturday eating some great Greek food, visiting the castle in Lepanto, and seeing the spectacular naval reenactment of the battle that night. It really was something impressive. They had lights, videos, music, fireworks, and burn to a crisp a boat in the port.
Sunday morning we left very early to return to Athens and see the Acropolis. We wanted to stop at Corinth (one of St. Paul’s stomping grounds - check out his letters to them in the Bible) but sped through it without realizing that we past it (another very fun driving experience – two lanes turned into four, with cars driving into each other’s lane).
We spent a great afternoon in Athens at the Acropolis. It was so extraordinary. The highlight for us seminarians was standing on the Areopagus where St. Paul preached (please read the short passage about his trip to Athens in Acts 17:16-34).
There were some ruins of a church named after Dionysius (Dennis) below the Areopagus, one of the few who heard, believed and followed Paul. He was a member of the court of the Areopagus. It was a special day for Dennis (one of the four of us on the trip) because it was also the feast day of St. Dennis, Oct. 9th (albeit not the same Dennis as the one in Athens but the first bishop of Paris).
In the middle of a busy marketplace in downtown Athens we happened onto a place that sells Orthodox icons made by Greek Orthodox monks and of course we had some more great, authentic Greek food before driving (quickly) to the airport to return to Rome.
It was a great trip and I hope you can tell by the photos that we had a lot of fun. Now classes have started and I am trying to keep my head above water. The schedule is very packed it is a struggle to keep up with the lectures given in Italian. Even some of my textbooks are in Italian! Trustful surrender will get me through. Please pray for me and all seminarians.
|  | 
|
