Day 6 - Monday - a free day to do as we pleased!

Monday was our last day in Rome and we were given the chance to do whatever we wanted as long as we were back at 3.30pm to go to the airport.

Some got up early and headed to St Peter's to find a Mass (none of which seemed to be in English!) while others had a long lie in and even missed breakfast! St Peter's was beautiful first thing in the morning (see picture below).

We all had a pretty relaxing day. Some went back to the English College to continue catching up with friends, a couple of others 'broke' into the NAC for Mass and Confessions while the rest continued touring the many Churches there are to see in Rome.

In the middle of the day we all heard the news that everyone is now talking about - Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI announced that he is to resign at the end of this month. I think we are still in shock. We did have a few emails and messages asking what we had done on our trip to make the Pope want to resign. I assure you we were all on our very best behaviour while in Rome! Now we must take this time to pray for our Holy Father and for our Cardinals.

We made it safely back to London on Monday night and are now getting back onto the swing of things at St. Patrick's.

Day 5 - Sunday - A day of rest??

A day of rest, on a pilgrimage - no chance!!

It was such a busy day it has taken me three days to write about it here! Well in all fairness we did have a more relaxed breakfast, we did not need to leave the hotel until 8.45am, which is late in comparison to some of the other mornings we've had. Our first stop was up the hill to the NAC (North American College), where we had a beautiful Mass and then brunch with the seminarians. They were all very welcoming and showed us around. They definitely have one of the best views in Rome from their rooftop.

From the NAC we headed down to St Peter's Square to pray the Angelus with the Pope and to listen to his message. We were in for a big surprise - he welcomed us, the young people of St Patrick's Evangelisation School! We all looked at each other wondering if we had heard him correctly. Yes we had! We were shocked and very pleased that our Holy Father had mentioned us and welcomed us to Rome.

Still in shock we headed towards the Venerable English College where we were due to have lunch and a tour. Again we were made very welcome. For some of us it was a chance to catch up with some of the seminarians that we know from back in England and a chance to see how they are getting on. We arrived during exam time so both seminaries were a little quieter than others.

From the English College we began our afternoon of being 'tourists' rather than 'pilgrims', although we still ended up in some Churches on route. We visited the Patheon, Trevi Fountain and finally Spanish Steps - all of which were beautiful, especially on such a nice day as we had. AtSpanish Steps we had some real Italian ice-cream, which was long overdue.

Right beside Spanish Steps is the congregation that Sr Mary, our Parish Sister, belongs to so we had arranged to call in and visit them. They are a lovely congregation and considering two of them that we met are Irish they had some real tea for us. We were told the story of their congregation, the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, which has its roots here in Soho. We had a lovely evening with them and then it was time to head back to our hotel for our last night in Rome.