Heading Home Soon

This morning we went back to the mother house here in Lyon and worked on our projects that is part of the requirement of this pilgrimage and must be completed at our ministries in the next 1-2 years.  After lunch we toured the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fouviere also in Lyon.  We had a private meeting in the small chapel part of it where Mother St. John Fontbonne would walk to pray in every morning. (For those who are not familiar with the sisters' names, they give up their first name when they enter the order and are given a new one.  So, she is not a saint, her new first name was St. John. Or, here in France, St. Jean.)     In the chapel everyone presented their projects to the group. 
Tonight is dinner by chef Paul Bocuse.  Apparently he is a very famous, international chef but I would have to Google that to know for sure.  Maybe some of you culinary types know who he is. 
Well, with mixed emotions that is probably it! Traveling home tomorrow.
Leave Lyon at 5:30am for an 8:15am flight to London.  Then, leave London at 11:05am to arrive at LAX at 2:20pm.  So, by the clock, 8:15am to 2:20pm is just over 6 hours to get home even though we will be traveling for about 18hours. 

   
    

Lyon

Lyon has been a city since before Christ.  Of course it was not France then.  It was the capitol of Gaul under control of Ceasar.  As with most large European cities it is on a river, actually between two. 

Mother St. John Fontbonne came to Lyon when the French revolution ended and bought these buildings to resume the Sisters of St. Joseph.  All of the American groups came from her.  She sent sisters to the United States in the early 1800s. 


There is a Heritage Center for the Foundress here at the convent.  This is a bronze statue of her and one of her habits.  There is an Exposition room and her bedroom.  We also went to the cemetary left flowers and gifts on her grave, said a prayer, and sang a song. 

                                                                                      

Mother St. John Fontbonne

1759-1843

Mother Superior, Sisters of St. Joseph, Lyon 

Can I just get a diet coke?

Do you want to try and guess what we had to drink with our dinner?  We had eight people at our table. 

This is another picture especially for Andrew and Noah.  I'll tell you about this when I see you soon.  Miss you both tons!

I'll get back to the Heritage details tomorrow morning.  We learned a lot about Mother St. John Fontbonne today.

France Facts (if you are interested)

Bad news bathrooms:  Besides the hotels most of the bathrooms are communal or quickly turn communal as soon as the line at the women's "toilettes" gets to long.  Michael was using the urinal and a woman just walked in.  Also,  some of them are just holes in the ground.  Below you can see an example of this and the brown stuff left behind.  Very smelly and no toilet paper.  The third picture is of Sister Jane, Deborah Proctor and Michael all in the same bathroom as proof of the communal nature.

This is actually a very nice bathroom (for France)  at the convent on Lyon.  There were stalls for the toilets and urinals. But don't they look like one, big, happy family!

More bad news:  Most of the young people (16 - 30) are smoking and every where you go smells like smoke.  Also, there is graffiti all over.  Even in good neighbotrhoods, on churches, and on schools.  

                         Now, isn't this nicer!  Lyon is a major fashion center and you could burn alot of plastic here.  But the people look very simple.  Usually carrying, bread, wearing funky shoes and riding bicycles or scooters no matter how old they are.     



Traveling On

Two last pictures in Le Puy before we headed out.  The blue sign up on the wall of the shell and the stone mosaic of the shell are both markers for the pilgrims that you can find throughout these cities.  

Mother St. John Fontbonne is one of the sisters that hid during the French revolution.  This was her her home parish church where she was eventually arrested.  The revolution ended the day before she was to be executed.  Then, she moved to Lyon, where we are tonight, and restarted a house of Sisters of St. Joseph.  

                   Ok, this one is for Andrew and Noah?  Where's Credo?

Tonight in Lyon we are in a very nice hotel that is modern.  This city is the second biggest in the coutry and actually wealthier than Paris.  However,  this makes it 4 for 4 in hotels with these beds.  This is the first one where the 2 twin beds were pushed together.  We had to do that ourselves in the other three hotels.
So much for a second honeymoon!

Dinner Last Night

For all of those interested in French food. Which, we continue to have to much of. 
Started at 7:30pm.         
7 courses (not including the sorbet to clear the palate which makes 8 courses in my book)
4 different wines with the courses
Ended at 11pm.  (way past our bedtime)
Luckily I screwed up on ordering my lunch, with a french only menu and waitress, and ended up with just a bowl of lentils for my meal.  Probably not a ton of calories there.  

 

Yummy!  Actually, even though that was sarcasm, they were pretty good.

Today Michael and I had brownies for lunch because we could just point at them in the bakery case and knew what they were.

Le Puy and Pradelle Pictures

This is Pradelle that I told you about.  It was an amazing hike coming into this town. 

You can see all of us hiking through the valley.

Well, I am very frustrated with this photo because I cannot get it to rotate for me.  But anyways, this is Cathedral Notre Dame of Le Puy where the Christian pilgrims start out from.  I forgot in the blog this morning to tell you that we sang the Salva Regina here. This is the cathedral that the song was actually written in.     

This is a picture of a lady making lace by hand. Le Puy is the lace center of France.  Michael and I bought a white vail from her to bring to our niece, and god-daughter, for her 1st communion.  I have a full picture of her but it was another one that would not rotate so I picked this one instead.       

Le Puy

Sorry that I havn't put anything up for a day or so.  I have very shotty internet service where we are.  Tomorrow we move on so it might be better there.  Cannot get the picture to upload so just text today. 
Sunday:  We drove from Carcasonne to Le Puy.  On the way we stopped in the forest and hicked for about one hour into a small town called Pradelle.  This would have been one of the paths that Fr. Medaille would have walked.  We had to walk by ourselves silently and we were in the beautiful country of the south of France.  Then we finished our trip into Le Puy, the town where father actually founded the order. 
Monday:  A very full day.  We went to the Notre Dame Cathedral of Le Puy which has been a sight of worship since before Christ.  It was made into a church honoring Mary starting in 400AD.  The actual large cathedral was built about 1100AD.  This is the launching point of Christian pilgrims walking to Compostella, Spain which is 950 miles away.  We were blessed by the priest as pilgrims and left intentions for the pilgrims to take with them.  They leave every morning at 7am and it takes them 45-70 days to complete the trip. 
Another emotional experience was standing on the square where 5 of the sisters were beheaded for their faith.  We said a prayer for them there. 
I will send the pictures of all of this tomorrow as we are due into Lyon.  Today is more exploration of Le Puy including the original convent of the sisters and their achives.   

May Day clarification

I just noticed that the text on the flowers picture didn't post unless you hit "read more".  This was a post for my mother.  So, if she didn't hit "read more", these were french flowers and the closest that I could get to a May basket.  She will know what that means.  Also, being in France where Mary is very important, May Day was very important and it was even more exciting because it was the beatification of John Paul. 

Carcasonne

What is a Carcasonne?  It is the largest completely intact medieval city and the only  double defense walled castle.  Carcasonne is the birth place of Fr. Jean Pierre Medaille who is the founder of the order of the sister's of St. Joseph.  This picture was taken from our bus believe it or not.  We walked between the two walls and it is 2 1/2 miles.  Our inn keeper made a special traditional dish for us for dinner.  It was cassoulet and is a stew made with beans, sausage, pork and duck.  It was delicious and definately "comfort food".  As with every lunch and dinner it was served with wine.  The wine was actually made with the grapes from these vines.  That was most of yesterday including the church where Fr. Medaille was baptized, where he lived and the Jesuit college that he attended.  This all occured for him in the mid 1600s so just a little bit older than our entire country.  Later tonight I hope to blog on today.  I'll try to put in more pictures.

May Day

Lourdes Again

I was browsing through the pictures in my camera and found this one.  This is the basilica that is build on top of the grotto.  I took this picture from the top of a hill with a small castle on it.  Michael and I hiked up there to look at the castle and the city of Lourdes.  Today we spent the day in Carcasonne.  But, we are very tired from enless pilgrimage steps, to much French food and wine, and still some jet lag.  So,  tomorrow I'll download some amazing pictures for you and share another fabulous day. Love you all.

Lourdes

Lourdes is 500 miles SW of Paris in the foothills of the Pyreness.  The town has 15,000 residents and over 5million visitors a year.  Every night, 365 nights a year they have a candle light procession through the grotto and around the down town behind a statue of Mary.  The Knights of Malta carry hundreds of people on these blue "liters".  Our group lit one of the very large candles for the Health System community and we all signed it ahead of time.   We stood for more than 1/2 hour before we could join the procession behind these liters.  The picture of the Grotto is difficult to see.  This is where a young
a young, poor girl, St. Bernadette, saw Mary on

several  occassions.  Mary told her to dig

in the dirt and a spring came up that still has been

unlimited.  This water is believed to be

holy and miracles happen when people

go in it or drink it.     

There are dozens of these candle sheds throughout the grotto with thousands of candles.  I am lighting a candle for one of my sons in the bottom picture.  This is a young boy from Northern CA that I met.  His name was Hayden 

Beginning of Lourdes

As you can see Michael had no trouble sleeping on our almost 10 hour flight.  I didn't do so well.  But, we have never traveled 1st class before and it was WONDERFUL.  Now we are in Lourdes and it has been unbelieveable.  Tonight will be doing the interesting stuff.  We will be taking part in the candle light procession to the Grotto of Saint Bernadette.   

This is our hotel in Lourdes.   I slept well here.  Everyone in town today was watching the Royal Wedding as most of you were probably doing.  I am hoping to be more of a religious pilgrim from here on out.

Traveling

Here is the token airport picture.  Hopefully we still look fresh because we have a lot of traveling today/tomorrow.  Here is the list of vehicles and places:  OC to Dallas flight 3 hours

             2 hours in Dallas airport

             Dallas to Paris flight 9 1/2 hours

             Paris to Orly by bus 1/2 hour

             (with 6 hours to do that)

             Orly to Lourdes flight 1 hour.

We are in Dallas now and the first leg was wonderful.  We had great food, wine and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.  Then a private golf cart picked us up at the gate and took us to a private club where we are waiting and blogging for the flight to Paris.  Next flight we get dinner and breakfast on the plane.  Isn't that fun! 

Preparation

We have received many prayers,goodbye wishes and inspirational thoughts. Thank you very much everyone. The books about our travels and completing a pilgrimage are read and we are very excited to begin. Michael and I have been given SJMC lapel pins and shells that we are supposed to carry with us and leave in special places. I guess that we will understand this tradition more when we actually get to do it. One goal of our pilgrimage . .
Visit the past, Savor the present, Enrich the future.

Packing

We are packing today and will be leaving Wednesday, April 27 for our great pilgrimage.  Hopefully we will be able to keep you filled in on our adventures.  Remember, our time will be 9 hours ahead of Pacific Time.