ORLANDO  |  A cross, music and Mass made a Eucharistic pilgrimage to Rome, Assisi and Orvieto life-changing for students from Bishop Moore High School. The group of 26 students and six chaperones traveled to Italy for 10 days in June, partaking in His Presence and discovering His universality.

Father Anthony Aarons, Missionary of Mercy, led the group on the grace-filled journey with daily Mass and Eucharistic Adoration.

“A number of them pointed out the same Eucharist they were pursuing in Italy is the same Eucharist that they have back home. And therefore, they can have that experience of Jesus right here,” he reflected. “The ways in which these young people responded, you could see that they were truly on a pilgrimage. It wasn’t just vacation.”

Several students noted it was their first time participating in daily Mass. “A number of them also pointed out that… the same Eucharist they were pursuing in Italy is the same Eucharist that they have back home. And therefore, they can have that experience of Jesus right here,” he said. After visiting the monastery where St. Francis lived and seeing the body of St. Carlo Acutis, Father Aarons said he hopes the students realize, “they have to chart their own course, that it’s not just trying to imitate any of the saints. I want them to be inspired by the saints, but not to try to imitate them because each person is being called to be that unique person in the sight of God.”

Senior Sarah G. said the trip exceeded her expectations. Visits to St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Mary Major altered her view of God. “Someone on my trip said, if this is what people can do, imagine what God can do,” she recalled. She thought of “the beauty that humans are capable of whenever they use (God’s) supernatural power.” She added it put her “in a calm state to just enjoy the presence of God.”

For Sam B., the trip changed his expectations. “I got a way more spiritual experience out of it than I initially thought it would be, which I actually really enjoyed and liked a lot better,” he said. Moved by the friars at the Franciscan Monastery Sacro Convento he said, “just seeing their peaceful way of life was really amazing to see and really touched me and made me reconsider how I live.” A favorite memory is that of an outdoor Mass at the outdoor Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, located at the Eremo delle Carceri, St. Francis’s hermitage. “

We were in nature and it was really easy to feel connected to God in that environment,” he recalled. “Receiving Eucharist every day was very uplifting, kind of like a spiritual reset each day.”

Participating in Mass at so many churches brought to light, “there are so many churches around, with so many tabernacles and Jesus is literally all over the planet.”

But the highlight of the trip for him was going up the Holy Stairs (Scala Santa) on his knees. “I never experienced pain in my prayer before. I really felt like I was sacrificing and giving something up to God, which was a new experience for me. That was really awesome because it made me feel like I was more connected to Jesus.”

Sabrina M. is also a senior. After a spiritually difficult junior year, she hoped to find a way to finally reconnect to her spirituality. “I was hoping that going to Rome, and maybe seeing literally living proof of God’s existence, would help me rekindle my faith and relight the flame in a way,” she said. And it did, but what she experienced in Assisi will stay with her always. There she had “a great encounter with Christ at the San Damiano cross.”

When they arrived at the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi and entered the chapel where the San Damiano cross hangs, Sabrina immediately looked up at the cross in awe. “I’d never seen a crucifix that beautiful before,” she said. “I ran to the front of the room and I knelt on the ground and just kept staring at it.” Overwhelmed she told Christ, “Jesus, you are so beautiful.” It was a mantra that kept repeating in her head. She got even closer.

“And as soon as I looked up at Jesus, it was almost like the cross turned 3-D in a way. And so, as much as I was longing for Him, it felt like He was longing for me too,” she recalled. She began weeping and could do nothing more than gaze upon Him. She said Jesus smiled, and it was almost as if His hand was reaching out to touch her.

She felt a gust of wind that opened her arms. As she repeated, “Jesus, you are so beautiful,” His smile now disappeared. At last she understood and said, “I’m beautiful.” He nodded, smiled, and her arms withdrew. “Because Your beauty is reflected within me, that’s why I’m so beautiful,” she said. “After I admitted that and had that security, the cross went back to normal.”

She began to see beauty  in everyone around her.

“Now I can say with such faith and such joy, that these people are now my brothers and sisters (those on pilgrimage with her). Because through this clarity in both of our lives now, in all of our lives, we have now realized that we’re all connected in the best way possible.”

That connection became evident later that day after Mass when Father Aarons asked Sabrina, who had been assigned to coordinate the music for the trip, to lead her choir members in song. He described it later as hearing “angelic voices”. The music drew a crowd and soon a visiting Italian choir responded in song. Despite the language barrier, it affirmed the interconnectedness of humanity.

“I came home with, not only my faith being so much stronger, but I also found a new purpose,” she explained. “One, in my passion for music because while we were singing in Assisi I felt so touched by the Holy Spirit and I realized that doing music is the way I feel most fulfilled. And that is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Because not only is it connecting with God, but it’s something that He allowed me to be good at. … Not only did I get clarity about what I want to do in my life, but I also found a new purpose in myself and how I can basically minister to others… And my job now is to spread that same joy that I experienced in Italy here to my family, and everyone around me.”