The following letter was written by Jacob Aldridge, age 13 after attending the Pilgrimage to Italy with the Saints in August 2006.

As a foreword, I would like to thank Mrs. Di Cecco for giving me the folder listing most of the places we went and what we were able to see there. It really refreshed my memory!

Three of my sisters, my dad and I made up the part of my family that was on the pilgrimage. My sisters sing at our church so they were invited to sing on this pilgrimage. With the help of a couple other young ladies also on the pilgrimage, they sang wonderfully. I liked when we got to stand up at the front of the bus and I held the microphone while they sang.

We visited many wonderful places, but I think that my favorite place was the House of Loreto. It was so much fun because, when I was touring the house and the church around it, I was with Father Tomas Scott. He explained most of the places and lots of the paintings to me (I had my camera with me at the time so I took lots of pictures). We got to go into a locked place where the monks would sit (or kneel) and pray or meditate on the things that the beautiful paintings on the wall depicted. One of the things I was really surprised at was one of the paintings on the side wall near one of the altars. The paintings were occurrences through history. There was a painting of what resembled 2, 6 foot tall, astronauts. They appeared to be wearing padding and a walkie-talkie ear piece with full helmets glass screen on front of helmet included.

Another place I liked was the stairs that Jesus walked up to go to Pontius Pilate. I got to go up the stairs on my knees praying the rosary. I also got to touch my scapular and my rosary to the stairs. The stairs were covered with wood except for a few parts. If they were not covered with wood then they would be worn down to nothingness because of all of the people that go up the stairs.

Saint Michael’s cave was another pretty interesting church. This church is actually a cave. It was never consecrated because Saint Michael said that Saint Michael himself consecrated this church. Saint Michael also said that one day his church would be taken over by the devil. Inside and outside of the cave there were lots of beautiful statues that also made very good pictures. Also about 1/3 of a mile from the cave was a large castle with a dried up moat. This castle was very good for taking pictures of when the sky is only a little bit partly cloudy. It makes the castle look so majestic.

Our Lady of the Rosary church was another place I liked. If you say 10 Memoraries at the altar and what you ask for will be granted as long as it is not bad for your soul. This church is a lovely church that has many wonderful paintings.

Another place in Bologna was the tomb Blessed Imelda Lambertini. Her parents knew that she was no ordinary child. She held no value for things if this world. She spent most of her time praying and meditating. When she was 9 years old it was no surprise to her parents when she asked them if she could enter the convent. She entered the convent and was so holy that she was a model to all of the other older nuns. The quote I liked that she said was when she asked one of the sisters, or a priest: "Tell me, can anyone receive Jesus into his heart and not die?" But when she was 11 years old, in 1333 on the feast of the Ascension, she went to Mass. On that day she prayed fervently during this particular Mass. When Mass was over the nuns started leaving but Imelda kept praying. The nuns were about to beckon her over to leave when they saw something strange. A gleaming bright white Host was suspended by nothing above her head! The nuns immediately went to go get a priest. The priest came and brought with him a paten. The Host descended onto the paten. The priest picked the Host up and gave Imelda her First Holy Communion. She instantly went into ecstasy from which she never recovered and on that same day she died. Her First Holy Communion was to be her last.

There was a very beautiful church in Orvieto. Orvieto is a city with no defensive wall. This is because Orvieto is on a cliff. Now, someone might think this was a ideal place for a city but it had 2 major restrictions. These were: the citys [sic] size was limited because of the cliff, and because hills are kind of a long way up from the water table and big cities need a lot of water. No one ever fixed the first problem, but the people of Orvieto fixed the second one. The people of Orvieto built what they called Saint Patrick's well. Originally known as the Fortress Well it was designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger so that the people could go to 64 meters down into the earth with their beasts of burden to get water and bring it back up to the surface. This city also has a marvelous church. On the outside it has statues, frescos, and sculptures. The sculptures include the sculpture of hell on the forth pillar of the façade. There were sculptures including Saint Mark's lion, and Saint Luke's winged ox. Saint Mark's lion is a winged lion with its paw on a book a little bigger than the lion face including mane. Saint Luke's winged ox or bull is a rearing ox with wings that look as of they are flapping. If you would like to read more about this church the go to: www.bluffon.edu/~sullivanm/italy/orvieto/cathedral/duomo.html.

There was a very interesting painting in the church of Our Mother of Good Counsel. The painting was originally located in a shrine near Scutari, Albania’s capital. The Mohammedan invaders were attacking Albania right and left. At that time the moors were soon going to attack Scutari. But before they did, before the very eyes of astonished devotees, the fresco suddenly detached itself from the wall. The painting slowly moved in the direction of the Albanian sea. At the same time Our Lady told two of Albania’s citizens to follow the fresco. The 2 people walked over water following the fresco until it entered Catholic Italy. It went and rested near a wall in an unfinished church in Genazzano, Italy. The 2 people from Scutari followed the painting to Italy then lost track of it. The searched for a long time then they finally heard of what happened in Genazzano. They went to Genazzano and found that the painting was the one that they had followed from Scutari. When the painting arrived the people of Genazzano went to the church to venerate the image of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus and to help finish the church.

Another place I liked was Saint Rita. When Saint Rita was a baby during her baptism a swarm of bees, white as snow, was swarming about her. As she lay in her cradle, happily sleeping, she yawned. Immediately 2 bees went into her mouth and then came back out again without harming her or causing her to awaken. The priest could not figure out what this mystery meant. Later in her life Saint Rita explained this: because of the singular sweetness and simplicity of her manner and by the eminent of sanctity of her life God would not allow the bees to harm her. Saint Rita’s body is in a glass case where you can see it, it is incorrupt. When she was a little girl she wanted to enter the convent. The mother superior gave Saint Rita an ordinary stick and said: plant this in the ground. Feed it and water it every day. When that stick grows, you may enter the convent. The stick grew and she was allowed to enter the convent. The stick is now a thick vine about 4 or five inches wide at the base. Hanging from the branches when I went there were what looked like bunches of grapes. There is a fence around the vine but about 6 feet from the ground there is a place where the vine touches the fence. When I was near the vine there was a very small piece of bark, less then 1 inch long and less then 1/5 of a centimeter wide, that I took by pinching it with my fingernails and pulling down. I have the piece of bark in a plastic Ziploc bag in my room.

There is one thing that I think everyone has to do if they go to Italy, and that is ….you have to get Gelaiti ! My personal favorites are the berry flavors. I like the raspberry and the strawberry best, but they have almost every flavor known to man or at least more than I have heard of! And another thing that is very good is their Italian ice. The texture is kind of hard to describe. The kind I had that was good was the lemon flavored kind.

Also what I thought was very fun was I got to serve at Mass the whole trip every day!

The pilgrimage was very exiting and I would like to have stayed for a longer time. Everyone on the pilgrimage was kind, polite, and pleasant. I sincerely advise anyone who reads this to go on this trip if: you like pasta, or eating in general, want to improve your soul, want to get lots of good pictures, or just want to go on vacation. Just wanting to go on vacation was my reason. I was VERY impressed with the wonderful work Mr. and Miss. Di Cecco did planning and conducting our tour. They are 2 VERY nice people.