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s2smodern

The view from my room at Monte santo di Lussari/ Višarje/ Luschari (Italy, province of Udine) opens to three adjacent valleys: Drau in Austria, Sava and Soča in Slovenia. Behind my back is the valley of Bela/ Fella, a tributary of Tagliamento in north-eastern Italy. For centuries (660 years to be exact) this shrine has been the destination for pilgrims from these valleys. (Did I mention that the water from “my" part of the building flows into the Black Sea whereas the other half of the roof feeds the Mediterranean Sea?) Geologically, we are a dividing point, a continental divide. Spiritually, we are a meeting point of three major European ethnic groups: Slavic, Germanic, and Latin peoples.

Their encounters were not always peaceful. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died during World War One along the Soča front line (Isonzo) of Hemingway’s fame. Benito Mussolini, Erwin Rommel, and Rudyard Kipling all had an intimate knowledge of this battle line. After Italian occupation of the Kanaltal (and Lussari), thousands of German speaking inhabitants opted for the Third Reich and resettled — every summer their descendants come to the shrine to remember the fateful decisions of their ancestors. Over these passes, countless refugees fled the communist terrors.

The start of a joint pilgrimage

In the 1980s, when the iron curtain hung over the Predil pass 10 kilometres from Lussari, the bishops of Udine, Klagenfurt (Austria) and Ljubljana (Slovenia-Yugoslavia) started a joint pilgrimage. They prayed for a free and peaceful Europe. No-one could have imagined, then, that one generation later the three countries would be members of a single European Union. Less than a generation after that, we have gotten so used to not having border checks and ideological police that we take it for granted, as our birth right as it were, as something that is owed to us. We could not be more mistaken — a minuscule virus brought back both the border checks and nationalist egoisms.

Why am I writing this? Since 2016 I have been responsible for pastoral activities at the shrine. That is made easier by the fact that we are 1800 meters above the sea level, which means that the pilgrimage season lasts from June through September. This summer, after a five-year hiatus and in the middle of the pandemic, I proposed to the successors of those bishops to make a pilgrimage to Lussari, to pray for their peoples who are threatened not only by the corona virus, but also by the virus of nationalism and egoism. They responded without hesitation and together they prayed on this holy mountain. The youngest of them made the pilgrimage the traditional way, on foot from the foot of the mountain (1000m elevation).

Lending a hand to Our Lady

Personally, I see my service here in very simple terms. I lend a hand to Our Lady, making sure that their children are well taken care of. Every one of them, without discrimination, and all together as one family. I greet them in languages that they speak (my deep gratitude goes to my Jesuit education and to all people who made it possible). Our masses are multi-language. In my homilies, I liken God to the sun whose rays got caught in the mantle of Our Lady (the fresco above the ambo): His warmth sustains us in life, His light enlightens our search for happiness. I absolve them from their sins. I pray for them and offer them a bed if they ask for it (mostly to pilgrims who do the 6-8 day "Cammino Celeste” on foot).

I am not doing this alone. Other priests and religious do their service here, including my Jesuit brothers. Every summer, between six and ten seminarians from local seminaries are sent here for their pastoral experience. And there is always a room available for a priest or religious who wants to do a retreat or vacation.

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s2smodern