One of the benefits of traveling alone is flexibility with everything I do. It’s up to me. I don’t have to confer with anyone or make compromises. At a whim I can change my plans. Yesterday morning I started out with the intention of walking along the Arno. But no, instead I turned toward the Piazza della Signoria, stopped for a cappuccino, and then entered La Badia Fiorentina, where Lauds was being sung by the six monks and eight nuns that make up this monastic fraternity of Jerusalem in Florence.
As the service ended men and women in all kinds of dress and nationality began coming in to help set up for 11 o’clock Mass, including a medical volunteer wearing a yellow vest. A man of Indian heritage, dragging a suitcase, lit a candle. One of the gypsies that I’ve seen around the city begging for money, sat in the back corner.
This place was alive with with people reaching out to God. You see, the call of this fraternity is to be present :“In the heart of the cities in the heart of God.” Their mission— to help the poor, and the homeless, to meet them where they are.
In the entrance way is a statue of a homeless man sleeping on a bench. The inscription quotes Matthew 25:6: I was naked and you clothed me.
As the service ended men and women in all kinds of dress and nationality began coming in to help set up for 11 o’clock Mass, including a medical volunteer wearing a yellow vest. A man of Indian heritage, dragging a suitcase, lit a candle. One of the gypsies that I’ve seen around the city begging for money, sat in the back corner.
This place was alive with with people reaching out to God. You see, the call of this fraternity is to be present :“In the heart of the cities in the heart of God.” Their mission— to help the poor, and the homeless, to meet them where they are.
In the entrance way is a statue of a homeless man sleeping on a bench. The inscription quotes Matthew 25:6: I was naked and you clothed me.