Back In Europe 2024, A Truly Memorable Trip

By: Maria Girlie Pascual

Our last trip together to Europe was back in May of 2022. Back then, the long-awaited nuptials of Elizabeth Cambay Regacho’s London-based niece, Shailini, to Chris Walford finally materialized in a beautiful winery in Tuscany, Italy when they had to halt their 2018 initial plans due to Covid. Elbert & Elizabeth, my sister-in-law Dodjie Garcia-Pascual, James Delacruz and I, all traveled from Chicago, while Sonny Madera flew form Los Angeles to attend this very special, super-romantic wedding. The experience back then, touring Tuscany, Florence, Milan and Pisa, made us vow to go to Rome the next time around, and so here we were. Elizabeth wanted to travel instead of throwing her usual 150-people birthday party, and invited us to celebrate her 65th birthday in Rome. We decided that six days in Italy, and four days in France will give us the time we needed to explore these two regions. So off we went and this time, our small group included Elbert and Elizabeth Regacho, Sonny Madera, Salvy Marino, Fritz Hammer, James DC, and yours truly.

We landed in Rome a day before Elizabeth’s birthday and she just had one special request, to attend a mass at the Vatican, at St. Peter’s Basilica no less. Her actual birthday was Sunday, October 20, and we landed in Rome October 19 at 8:00 am direct from Chicago. As soon as we checked into our local Vatican City AirBnB, we took the Italo Train from Rome to Florence, a breezy one-hour and forty-five minute ride to the city center. This short train ride fulfilled her second request, to look for her favorite things at her favorite shops in Florence. We spent the whole morning at the famous San Lorenzo Piaza, then boarded a shopping bus to THE MALL FIRENZE for the high-end Italian shops we liked. After a long day of getting our retail needs met, we left Florence to get back to Rome and prepared ourselves for the next few days to soak in the scenes, the sights, and all of Rome’s history, gastronomy, architecture and delights. But Sunday, the following day, we had no clue, was to be the highlight of our trip. We woke up at 5am, got ready to meet our Uber ride, and at 6:30am, joined a big crowd already lined up at the gates to St. Peter’s Square to get inside the St. Peter’s Basilica.

We hoped we were early enough to get into the 8am mass, but as the crowd got bigger, we were all wondering why no one was being allowed to enter the huge plaza until the guards started to let the people in at around 9am. There was a proper Oompah Band from Germany, a lot of different priests, nuns and monks from various countries, some visitors in what we thought were in Scottish garb were holding on to their bagpipes, and our excitement grew as we realized that Pope Francis might actually officiate the mass! For security purposes, the public was not made aware of these special masses that the Pope officiates for obvious security reasons, but after going through several screenings and saw that chairs and a big dais was set up at St Peter’s Square, we then knew that we were about to witness an event that we were just plain lucky to have been there that day.

Fourteen saints were to be canonized that day. There were the so called “Eleven martyrs from Damascus”, a group of men killed in Syria in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith, St Guiseppe Allamano, an Italian priest who founded the Consolata missionary orders, Sister St Marie-Leonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal known for being “the humble among the humble”, as one who dedicated her life to serving priests and founded an order for that purpose, and St Elena Guerra, who is hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit” was born in 1835 also in Italy, founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit and although bedridden much of her life when she was in her twenties, and continued her apostolic work despite her illness, even starting the first novena to the Holy Spirit to be prayed between the Feast of the Ascension and the Pentecost. Her work involved meeting with Father Arnold Jannsen to expand what she called “the militia of the Holy Spirit” that would be dedicated to working against the Freemasons and this is how this event became quite personal to me knowing this. Father Arnold Jannsen was a German-Dutch Catholic Priest that founded the Divine Word Missionaries, and more touching to me, the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, the nuns that ran our school in Manila where I went to school, the College of the hOly Spirit in Mendiola. Wow! I found that out writing this piece for Viatimes. No wonder I felt such a connection to the mass that day.

It was a high mass that started at 10:30 am and did not finish until 12:45 pm. The mass itself was held in Latin, the Gospel was chanted in Greek, the Homily by Pope Francis in Italian. More than 1000 members of the Consolata order traveled to Rome for the canonization of their founder, and pilgrims from Kenya, Uganda, Spain, Italy, the Middle East and Asia including our very own Cardinal-Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle was there for the ceremony. Much to our excitement, being only 8 rows from the dais where Pope Francis held the mass with the other Bishops, the “Popemobile” actually was driven up the steps to the dais, collected the Holy See, who waved to Back In Europe 2024, A Truly Memorable Trip the crowd that stayed another hour before dispersing from the plaza.

But the happiest of our bunch was the birthday celebrant herself, Elizabeth Cambay Regacho, one of the most deserving recipients of Pope Francis’ special blessing after the mass held that day, October 20, 2024, at the St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City in Rome. More power to you Mi Dushi. You never once announced to anyone who you have helped, have lent a hand to, assisted, aided, and provided comfort to, as a wife, a mother, a sister, an aunt, a grandmother, an Emergency Room nurse, a home health owner, as a regular, God fearing, law abiding human being. You just listen, go out of your way to assist or help in any way you can, and by doing so, raised three fine young men with your husband Elbert, John, Michael, now married to Amy, and your youngest Paul. You are now grandma to Ella and little Isabel, two vibrant pretty princesses that bring you and Elbert immense love and joy as you move past your 65th year. Needless to say, although Rome, with all its sights and historical monuments and rich history, and Paris with all its glamour and excitement, its castles and wo

ndrous beauty, food, wine and the good life, all these things could never come close to the special feeling of gratitude and blessings we received as Catholics that day, being part of the canonization mass of all these saints that in some way or another, was woven into the fabric of our own humble existence. To God be the glory indeed! And I would like to end this piece by saying thank you to the good Lord above who blessed this short trip, made His eternal presence known through Pope Francis and through the good, and sometimes challenges we encounter in life, and amongst our true friends that in life and through it, stay a constant with us. Happy Birthday Elizabeth, until our next trip friends!