Some Silence and Wild Boar Sausage

To prepare for the start of lectures at the Greg a few of us headed out to the little town of Norcia in Umbria for some nice rest and relaxation. Umbria is the region that Assisi is in, so if you can imagine the landscape you can imagine the surrondings of Norcia. I think Norcia is prettier though since there is less development, less touristy, and it is greener. It is famous as the birth place of Saint Benedict, and also for its wild boar sausage.

WHY DID I TAKE A PICTURE OF BENEDICT'S BACK? To show that he leads me and many others in prayer. As someone leads you, you see their back, hence the imagine of the priest facing the same way as the people during Mass, it is the priest leading his people to heaven.

Norcia has everything you would imagine a little Italian town to have. More churches than you could possibly visit, a nice example of a medieval town wall, beautiful little narrow streets, good food, friendly people (almost no one knows English), and at least this weekend Oktoberfest (wait, Oktoberfest in an Italian town?). This is my friend Jeff from Portland and I enjoying some nice tasting German style leg of pork.

This is the main church in Norcia, the Basilica of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, they are twins. It is built above their place of birth. Even though it is one of the most important places for the Benedictines, for a long time they had no monastery here in Norcia. Recently a group of American Benedictines re-founded the monastery here. They hosted us, and taught us what Benedictine hospitality was all about. They also sing real-real-good. You can check out some of their music on their website: http://www.osbnorcia.org/
As I said Norcia is famous for its wild-boar sausage. Now a little ITALIAN LESSON: If you want to know where to buy something in Italian, find the same for the item in Italian, and add -eria at the end, and you got the name of the store. Example: gelato + eria = gelateria. As you can see this is a Norin-eria. They sell a little bit of NORCIA! These are all products typical of Norica that we can bring home, and it shows how proud they are of their community and really I think this can be an example to the US, which well each town seems like the next one. Be proud of what makes your little town unique. Perhaps when I get pack to the US of A, I will see a Green Bay-eria, or a Manitowoc-eria?

THE FOLLOWING ARE PICTURES FROM MY RETREAT AT THE

VENERABLE ENGLISH VILLA

WHICH IS ACROSS THE LAKE FROM CASTLE-GONDOLFO, THE POPE'S SUMMER HOUSE

The Apostolic Palace from the front door of the villa.
During the retreat I did a lot of hiking. The retreat house was half way up the mountain from the Lake Alban, so there was some very scenic hikes on the way down to the lake. The land is so steep that is slides down the side of the mountain, taking trees with it. This creates a "hanging-forest" appearance that I really liked. This area also includes some Roman ruins.