The Feast of St. Francis -- Oct 4

This weekend was the Fall break for the students.  They all went away and we had plans to visit some friends in Rome.  Our plans didn't work out as we had hoped, so we stayed at the Villa and had a quiet weekend.  On Saturday we went into Florence to enjoy the city again.  We found an Oktoberfest market in the piazza in front of Santa Croce.  There were lots of brats, beer and crafts from Germany.  We went to the Saturday vigil Mass at Santa Croce.  It was the feast of St. Francis, and Santa Croce is a Franciscan church, so there were special festivities there.  The Cardinal Archbishop did the Mass and the Florence City Council attended.  There was a procession, which I tried to get a picture of, and failed.  They had special Florentine costumes on, they held banners with the Florence flags and they blew trumpets and carried flowers.  It was all very unique and special.

Tomorrow we leave early for our Rome trip to see our friends, Father Hart and Mrs. Hart from Fort Worth.  Maggie will be receiving the sacrament of Confession from Fr. Hart.  

Today we decided that it is time to come back home.  So we changed our tickets and are making arrangements to leave when the semester is over here.  We will be flying on Ryan air into Frankfurt and flying from Frankfurt back to Kansas City.  We should be arriving home on November 20 in the evening.  The semester will be ending with ten days spent in Rome with the students.