From Hilton Head to Holy Doors

c-rzec@stfrancishhi.org (Colleen Rzeczycki) — Wed, 21 May 2025 15:34:18 GMT

Join the Wolf Family on their journey for the 2025 Jubilee Year!

Travel along with the Wolf Family ("party of 8") as they make their way from the shores of Hilton Head Island to the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica and beyond, for the 2025 Jubilee Year. Look out for surprise parishioner appearances along the way!

Day 1

Before starting our pilgrimage to Portugal and Italy, we prayed a St. Christopher Novena. We also ask for your prayers as we travel. We will be praying specifically for parishioners at St. Francis, families of St. Francis Catholic School, and anyone following along on this journey.

To briefly introduce ourselves, Alan and Laura have been married for 19 years and there are six Wolf pups. Since the earliest years of parenting, we have dreamed of making this pilgrimage some day with our kids. That some day is here, thanks be to God.

Today on Day 1 we flew into Lisbon at 6:00 am and hit the ground running! Our first stop was in the Portuguese town of Santarém. In 1247, there was a Eucharistic miracle at the Church of St. Stephen (now named the Church of the Holy Miracle). A very brief version of this story is that a woman stole a consecrated host, and when she ran away from the church holding the host it began to bleed. She became worried and locked it in a chest inside of her home, and then the host began to beam light! You can view this holy Eucharist, still bleeding today, behind the sanctuary.

“We all got to climb the steps and were like 4 feet away from the actual miracle. It was truly amazing. The host was deformed and it was bleeding real blood. The church was beautiful.” – Gus

Here is a picture of the Shrine of the Holy Miracle:

Here is a photo of us walking down the same stairs that the woman ran down, after she stole the consecrated host.

Now it’s time for the game “Where’s Walter?”

See if you can find Walter hiding in the park across the street from the Shrine of the Holy Miracle in Santarém, Portugal. Hint: Walter has curly hair.

Next, we traveled to Fatima. We were in awe of this massive holy ground dedicated to Our Lady. Mass was being celebrated in Portuguese during our visit, in the Chapel of the

Apparitions. The kids were particularly struck by the pilgrims who crawl on their knees as an act of penance at Fatima – they crawl for 182 meters! Do you think you could do that?

Let’s end our day with a little trivia!

- What year did the Eucharistic miracle at Santarém happen?

- Why do pilgrims crawl on their knees in Fatima?

St. Christopher, pray for us! See you tomorrow!

Day 2

Today we spent the day in Nazaré, Portugal. This town is best known for having the largest waves in the world during the winter! We did visit the site of the waves on our rented e-bikes.

“The beach’s waves were bigger than Hilton Head, but way smaller than in the videos we saw, which were in the winter.” - Morgan

On our journey around town, we came across the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Nazaré. Nazaré is Portuguese for “Nazareth.” The history of this church had a very interesting miracle associated with it. The church itself is located in the Sitio village which is high atop a rocky promontory.

Here is a picture of the front of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Nazaré.

We also really enjoyed walking through the streets and narrow alleyways in Nazaré.

It was in an alleyway where we saw this beautiful tilework.

Sagrado Coração de Jesus, have mercy on us! St. Christopher, pray for us! See you tomorrow!

Day 3

Today we flew from Lisbon to Rome. Again, we hit the ground running! We did a walking self-tour of….

Campo de’ Fiori…

Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon! The Pantheon, built in the 2 ^nd century as a temple for Roman gods, was “converted” and has been a Catholic church since 609. Pretty cool!

And yes, it was hot and so we stopped for gelato of course.

The final part of our day was a visit to the Colosseum. We learned that stones from the Colosseum building were used to build several churches in Rome. Another interesting fact is on Good Friday the Stations of the Cross are prayed in the Colosseum. Lewis, our family’s history buff, can be seen here pretending to be a Gladiator about to go out and fight the wild animals (he doesn’t look too confident):

St. Christopher, pray for us! See you tomorrow!

Day 4

Today we saw the Pope and walked through Holy Doors!

There was a special event this particular weekend called Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly. Pope Leo XIV presided for the 10:30 Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Square and it was beautiful! The Wolf kids squeezed their way up very close, and Alan put Gus on his shoulders so he could see better. Here was the best pic they could take:

Today we also had the gift of walking through two Holy Doors, open to pilgrimages for the 2025 Jubilee year! Here is the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. John Lateran:

And here is a photo of us walking through the Holy Doors at Papal Basilica of St. Mary:

What a gift today was! St. Christopher, pray for us!

Days 5-8

We headed out of Rome and spent these next four days with fellow St. Francis parishioners, the Perilli and Borgmeier families! What a gift it was to be with them in Perugia! Fr. Anthony, a Capuchin Friar and family friend of the Perilli's, also accompanied us on this portion of the pilgrimage. Here is a map of the path we are about to embark on:

We stayed in a beautiful villa in Umbertide and of course took a day trip to… ASSISI!! Here are some photos of the St. Francis by the Sea kids in Assisi:

Fr. Anthony celebrated Mass in a chapel in the Sacred Convent of St. Francis of Assisi. God bless Fr. Anthony! (As a side note, the Perillis and Fr. Anthony visited the Eucharistic miracle in Orvieto on their way to Umbria. They had a wonderful experience there!)

During our tour of Assisi, we were also able to view the body of Blessed Carlo Acutis (soon to be saint!) and pray for his intercession. This was especially meaningful to the teens in our families. In fact, he was Drew Borgmeier’s confirmation saint!

We also enjoyed spending time together at the villa. The adults hung out on the veranda while the kids played soccer in the field. Andy and Alan whipped up some delicious eats for the group!

All of the kids got busy cleaning out the chapel that was on the property. Fr. Anthony celebrated Mass twice and offered confession for our group in this little chapel during our stay. Thank you, kids, for getting the dust out!

Our next stop was a spontaneous visit to the site of St. Veronia Guiliani. She is an 18 ^th century saint who wrote a 22,000-page diary!

After that, we continued on to the town of Gubbio. Our family has read St. Francis and the Wolf by Richard Egielski about 500 times, so this was a must-see for us. It was a picturesque little town, and the statue of St. Francis and the Wolf (referenced in the book) is actually there!

We also took a day trip to Siena, where we learned more about the Palio horse race from our tour guide. We visited the stunning Siena Cathedral!

Fr. Anthony also celebrated Mass in a small chapel at Basilica Cateriniana San Domenico. St. Catherine’s head was above the altar!

These days that we spent with friends were definitely a highlight of the pilgrimage! God is good… all the time. St. Christopher, pray for us!

Note: The kids are reading your sweet comments, and we would love to hear any stories that you have, if you have visited any of these places yourself. God bless you all - we love our parish!

The Final Stretch, Days 9-12

We left the villa early this morning. It was difficult to say goodbye to our friends, but fortunately we will see them soon back in Hilton Head! Here is a map of our upcoming travels.

Our first stop was Loreto. We missed the confession opportunities back at the villa with Fr. Anthony, but fortunately when we arrived at Loreto the Capuchin priests had us covered! Don’t we all look recently confessed? Ha!

Next, we visited the Holy House of Loreto. This is the home in which it is believed that Mary had lived. The small home is inside the sanctuary pictured above. There are no photos allowed inside of the Holy House, but here is a picture of the exterior.

Our next stop was to visit the Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano. It took us a while to find it, and by the time we did it was unfortunately SIESTA TIME! Since the church was to be closed for a couple more hours, we did not have time to wait for it to re-open. We said some prayers outside of the church and continued on our day’s journey.

Our next destination was San Giovanni Rotondo. At this point in our travels, the landscape began to change dramatically. We were passing vast farmlands in the valleys and ascending rocky, mountainous terrain to get into town. It was beautiful. St. Pio of Pietrelcina (better known as “Padre Pio”) was from this area. Here is a wall of bookshelves containing thousands of letters that were written to Padre Pio.

We visited the old church…

And the new church…

The new church is modern, but does a wonderful job of telling Padre Pio’s story.

Our final stop after traveling over 400 miles this day was our “trullo” house in Locorotondo, with a distinctive roof that is a symbol of this region. The kids thought it looked like it was out of Ewok village. We bumped our heads on the low doorframes many times over the next couple of days.

The next day, we went on a tour and tasting at Extravergine Savoia olive grove. This was a family owned business and we learned so much.

On Pentecost Sunday, we went to Mass at Cattedrale Maria Santissima della Madia, in Monopoli. The parishioners there were so friendly, and they made sure that we visited the Marian chapel on the upper level of the church. Look how gorgeous it is!

We spent the rest of the day in Monopoli. We had never seen anything like this coast before! It was spectacular. We ate lunch right on the rocky coast, overlooking a small beach full of colorful umbrellas. After lunch, we jumped off of a cliff into the clear blue water.

The next day, we briefly stopped in Matera. The town has interesting history but was difficult to navigate through, so if you ever go there definitely book a tour! We will do that the next time we’re there.

After our brief stop in Matera, we reunited with the Perilli family in Pompeii! The Perillis had been staying in Sorrento for the past couple of days, and they could see Mount Vesuvius from their apartment! Our tour guide was wonderful, and this was a favorite activity for the kids. Can anyone guess where we went to lunch?

If you guessed McDonald’s, you are right! A little taste of home was exactly what we needed.

Our final stop of the entire pilgrimage was to the sites of St. Maria Goretti. We went to her house in Le Ferriere, and it was very interesting to see this landscape that was previously Italy’s Pontine Marshes. We then visited the hospital where she died (and forgave her murderer) in Nettuno, and saw the beautiful Basilica dedicated to St. Maria Goretti in Nettuno.

After dinner in Nettuno, we headed to Rome airport and began the flight home (with a layover in Lisbon). These flights went so fast because we were all exhausted and slept for the majority of the time.

It will take some time for this pilgrimage to “sink in.” It’s hard to explain, but the number of things we saw and experienced need to “settle” in each of us as we reflect on the last 12 days we shared together. The kids have journaled along the way and so it will be fun to talk about what they’ve noticed throughout the trip. Hopefully, with God’s grace, they have each become closer to Jesus and the saints throughout this journey, in their own way. We are grateful for everyone’s prayers and that you followed along with the tales of this pilgrimage. And above all, we thank God that we were able to travel as a family and with our friends. A happy and blessed Jubilee Year to each and every one of you Pereginantes in Spem, Pilgrims of Hope. And… St. Christopher, thank you.