Buona Pasqua!!

Happy Easter to you all!!  It's been an unforgettable Lent and Easter season here in Rome.  The first couple weeks of this semester, I was overcome with feelings of incredible loss, worry, loneliness, homesickness, and depression.  So throughout this Lent I kept a journal in which every day I wrote down at least three things that were happy about my day/little ways I saw God.  It really was a great exercise in positive thinking and reminded me that even when I am at my lowest, God NEVER abandons me.  Just a few of my many blessings this Lent:

• Attending Pope Benedict's last public mass on Ash Wednesday
• Getting to know my fellow study abroad girls & connecting with some much more than I thought possible
• Experiencing TV journalism firsthand through meeting, connecting, and being interviewed by NBC employees
• Finding churches with mass in English!
• Cards and care packages from loved ones back home
• Witnessing the white smoke and election of a new pope 
• Connecting with friends studying abroad in Europe
• Traveling to Paris, Belgium, Northern Italy, Siena, Pisa, and Cinque Terre
• Attending the installation mass of Papa Francesco
• Meeting with other American Catholics and bonding over our shared faith and culture
• Good Friday mass at Saint Peter's with Papa Francesco, followed by Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum
• Easter Sunday mass in Saint Peter's Square on a beautiful (non-rainy!!) day in Roma

Wow.  If anything, this Lent has put me back on track to see things in perspective.  We all have our crosses to carry in life, and although my struggles have not disappeared, I do know that we do not struggle alone.  The one True Cross offers hope.  Hope in eternal life.  

I will leave you this Easter Sunday with an excerpt from Pope Francis's Urbi et Orbi message today: 

"What does it mean that Jesus is risen?  It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom.  The love God can do this!.......Bear in your families and in your countries the message of joy, hope and peace which every year, on this day, is powerfully renewed." 

Buona Pasqua a tutti e pace a tutto il mondo!