A FAMILY PILGRIMAGE TO SAN FRANCISCO
In all of the years that I have been doing pilgrimages within the state of California (day trips), it has been very rare to have my immediate family with the group. Maria went on one trip to Abbey New Clairvaux, but that is it. And my sons? Not once have they had the time and/or interest in attending. This trip to San Francisco was different. Maria had taken off the entire week from work, and Nico's gift to us for Christmas was to spend time with us. So, when Maria suggested that we go hiking somewhere, I immediately suggested that we do a pilgrimage to somewhere and hike nearby. The more we talked about it, the more the idea of San Francisco kept coming up. We headed to the City on Tuesday, the 29th of December, with no specific plans other than to spend time together.
We hit the road at about 10 AM, missing all of the morning commute. Maria had talked about maybe hiking in the mountains above Berkeley, but the more I thought about it, the less interesting and more time consuming that seemed.
"Why don't we just hike or walk somewhere in San Francisco?" I suggested. There were no complaints, so we headed for the Bay Bridge.
Our first stop was at the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul. I had been then before on a different pilgrimage to San Francisco, so I knew that it would be an enjoyable visit for both Maria and Nico. We started to walk around a little, but then noticed that Mass was about to begin. We didn't want to be poking around during mass, and had already gone before leaving Modesto, so we decided to eat lunch before completing our visit.
We hit the road at about 10 AM, missing all of the morning commute. Maria had talked about maybe hiking in the mountains above Berkeley, but the more I thought about it, the less interesting and more time consuming that seemed.
"Why don't we just hike or walk somewhere in San Francisco?" I suggested. There were no complaints, so we headed for the Bay Bridge.
Our first stop was at the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul. I had been then before on a different pilgrimage to San Francisco, so I knew that it would be an enjoyable visit for both Maria and Nico. We started to walk around a little, but then noticed that Mass was about to begin. We didn't want to be poking around during mass, and had already gone before leaving Modesto, so we decided to eat lunch before completing our visit.
Deciding on lunch should have been one of the easiest things to do, but on a limited budget and in San Francisco (and with one unnamed picky eater), it took us a little to finally find a place that was acceptable. We ate at a cute Italian diner that had very delicious Paninis. Lunch was very tasty, in spite of the temptations of yummy looking beer at many of the tables around us. I made due with water, but it didn't look anywhere near as refreshing as the beer at the other tables.
|
After lunch, we walked the short trip back to Sts. Peter and Paul's to complete our visit. The church is filled with multiple statues of different saints, both Salesians (the parish is run by the Salesians) and non-Salesians. It is nice to see such devotion to people in heaven who can help intercede for us to Jesus.
|