The weekend is over here in Northern Italy and it will now be a week since I left the United States for Venice.  This was a pretty productive weekend and today featured an incredible event: my first Catholic Mass outside of the US.

I awoke at 5 am with a horrible charlie horse, and I wondered if this was going to be the beginning of a bad day.  Thankfully it wasn’t.

I headed to St. Mark’s Square at 9 am to get ready for the 9:30 AM English Mass at Chiesa di San Zulian, a catholic church located just behind the square.  I got in and began taking pictures before I was yelled at for taking these photos.  Turns out photography is not allowed inside San Zulian.  Woops.  The church is not a large one, with only eight or nine rows of pews that did not go from one end of the building to the other.  The walls were adorned with paintings of God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other Christian scenes.  There were about four or five shrines located in the Church, and the roof featured a beautiful painting.

People began arriving and by the time Mass began there was about 35-40 people including nuns.  I looked down at the pamphlet for Mass and realized that this Mass was not in English, it was in Italian.  I discovered the English mass had moved to 11:30.  So here I was, an American Catholic with no knowledge of Italian whatsoever, sitting in a beautiful Catholic Church in Venice.  The organ began and everyone stood as a young priest came to the altar.  He looked about thirty-five years old and began in Italian.  I wondered if I would be able to make it through the whole thing.

I couldn’t understand what the priest was saying, but my knowledge with Catholicism helped me to get the gist.  I recognized the Gloria, the Holy, Holy, Holy and other chants and was able to sing along with them.  The couple in front of me sang quite loudly, and it was quite peculiar because they had their dog in Mass as well.  The priest came around and sprinkled everyone with holy water and delivered what appeared to be a powerful homily.   I had no clue what he was saying, but his hands were going everywhere and everyone around me nodded like they were entranced in his message.

St. John’s Catholic Church in Oxford, Mississippi recites the Agnes Dei in Latin and because of that I was able to speak along with the rest of Mass.  I went up and received Communion from a Deacon and returned to my seat ,noticing that the wafer was a lot thinner than American ones and it just dissolved in my mouth.

After Mass, as I prepared to leave, one lady approached me and could tell I was American.  She told me that it was exciting that I had gone to an Italian Mass and wished me and my family back home a blessed New Years.  I talked to the Priest for only a second, and he wished me a pleasant stay in Venice.  He spoke very little English.  I then headed back to the hotel and stopped for a croissant.

At about 1:30, a few of us went and got food from a pizza and kebob place.  I had a slice of cheese pizza and it was quite good, but it cause a filling to fall out and now it looks like I will have to get another  filling for my tooth.  We headed back to the hotel and the entire group headed for the Accademia Vaporetto Stop (WaterBus stop).

We boarded the vaporetto to head towards Isola di San Michele, also known as Cemetery Island, located in the Venetian Lagoon.  Anyone who dies in Venice or wants to be buried in Venice, is buried on the island.  We had to take the Vaporetto from Accademia and transfer at St. Mark’s to catch the boat out to the island.  It took about an hour to arrive.

We were given free reign on the island and went to the different grave plots.  We saw the grave of poet Ezra Pound and the grave of composer Igor Stravinsky.  We also saw the Children’s Cemetery, which can only be described by the word “haunting”.  We then went to the front gates, where all those buried on Cemetery Island are processed through.  We then boarded the vaporetto again and headed back to St. Mark’s Square.

We found a restaurant where they served spaghetti and meat sauce and they headed back for the hotel.  We stopped for some gelato, before retiring for the night.

Tomorrow sees the group head to Venice’s Lido, which is the beach area for the region.  The Lido is an 11 mile sandbar on the Adriatic Sea and it promises to be an interesting experience.  So for now Ciao from Venezia.