Sacred Woman Time

My family is here! I feel so grateful to be hosting my mom, grandma, and youth minister from home in London this week. They arrived in London on Friday, and we immediately hit the ground running. We have continued my quest to find the yummiest of each cultural food in London (so far we have had Spanish tapas, Italian pizza, Chinese dim sum, English fish ‘n chips, Egyptian lentils, and Indian naan), toured Westminster Abbey, visited a couple markets and museums, shared High Tea, and watched Beautiful the musical.

Planning this trip was different from any other vacation I have adventured on with my family before. This is the first time I have hosted any of my family members in a place that is solely “mine.” Hosting family at Notre Dame is always incredibly special because it is my home and because it is a sacred family space: my parents met, got engaged, and were married on the Notre Dame campus and my brothers and I grew up visiting for my mom’s band reunion football games. Campus is a home on so many levels for me, one being that it makes me so happy to imagine my parents and so many other members of the Notre Dame family going before those of us there now.

London is another story: none of my family members have lived here before. There is no set path laid before me: there are a thousand ways to get to any one destination. Everything I have the privilege of showing my mom, grandma and youth minister is, in a sense, my own. Thus, while planning the trip, I was largely in charge of picking activities out for our itinerary. This was an entirely new experience for me, as my mom is the master planner for our family. And though she did a huge amount of planning and organization in order to pull this trip off, she allowed me to design a pilgrimage of sorts through London to show her my new home. She, my grandma, and my youth minister – three of my biggest role models – handed over the role of leader to me this week. What an empowering gift.

My guests are here for five days and then we will all head to Rome for the Holy Week pilgrimage organized by Notre Dame’s Campus Ministry. I had anticipated that our time in London would be highly touristy and filled up with seeing my favorite spots in the city and that Rome would be our time for spiritual pilgrimage. But one of my favorite things we have done in London so far has been something rather unrelated to the (wonderful) typical touristy activities we have engaged in: beginning our pilgrimage here.

On Saturday, we traveled through the Holy Door at Westminster Cathedral, the Mother Church for Roman Catholics in England and Wales. Sunday, we attended Palm Sunday Mass to kick off Holy Week at St. Patrick’s Church in SoHo, the church I have come to call my London parish. Again, we processed through a Holy Door there. We have blessed our food with a prayer very special to my family at every meal, including those we have shared with my friends. We have said night prayer at Westminster Abbey and in the chapel of my dorm with several friends from the London program.

Holy Door at Westminster Cathedral

Participating in these things with my mom, grandma, and youth minister has emphasized a very important, very timely reminder just before we head to Rome: pilgrimages are just as internal they are external. Our special time in London has begun to prepare us internally for our encounter with Christ in Rome on Easter morning. And over the next several days, as we continue journeying through Holy Week, everything we encounter will further this preparation.

Tomorrow, we head to Rome. I can hardly wait to experience Italy for the first time and to taste its world-famous gelato. But even more so, I am looking forward to making a pilgrimage to one of the most important places in the Catholic faith with three of the most important women in my life.