I’m just back from a two-week tour of Italy with a group from my old seminary, Regent College in Vancouver.
On a beautiful Sunday morning, halfway through the tour, our bus makes its way through the dreaming, undulant landscape of Tuscany on our way to Siena, home of St. Catherine. Our tour is called “Martyrs, Monks, & Mystics” and she is two out of the three.
After a very busy first week, I’m tired, and being no morning person, I’m still a bit grumpy from having to start yet another day about two hours before I’m ready. But as the hills of Tuscany flow past my window, a famous song comes on the bus’s sound system. It’s “Time to Say Goodbye,” a track from Andrea Bocelli’s DVD Tuscan Skies. And oh, my goodness, how my heart soars! The lilting music seems perfectly matched to the softly rolling hills, and suddenly I am no longer part of a tour group — I’m in Italy!
Being on a tour of Italy is not the same as being in Italy. The tour has many benefits, but in itself it is a somewhat artificial construct, and if you want to get a feel for the country itself, somehow your tourist hat must come off and you must break loose from the artifice. This will happen to me several times on this tour, and this is one of those times. The Bocelli album is called Tuscan Skies, and here I am looking at the Tuscan sky! It’s right there! What could be more magical? As Andrea and Sarah Brightman sing, I am reborn and I enter this day, this day that the Lord has made. It’s a little foretaste (as I receive almost every day, in one way or another) of the coming resurrection.
Sant’Antimo
En route to Siena, we stop at the old Romanesque church of Sant’Antimo, a former Benedictine monastery near Montalcino. After exploring the church—an ancient, simple, hallowed space—we retreat to the monks’ herb garden for a snack. Our guide, Vincenzo, opens some bags of biscotti and spreads them on the picnic table, and sets out a couple bottles of wine.
Italy, of course, is wine country, and especially the district where we are today is world famous for its vintage. I’ve already explained to Vincenzo that my route to faith was through Alcoholics Anonymous, and I’ve been sober for 48 years. I do permit myself a sip of wine at a Communion service, but certainly not at a common meal or picnic, or any other time. However, Vincenzo doesn’t quite ‘get it.’ If you turn up your nose at wine in Italy, you’re being rude. This doesn’t bother me, but I think it bothers him if I don’t accept his hospitality.
So there we are, munching biscotti under the Tuscan sky on a Sunday morning. An inspirational talk is given, and we sing a hymn, but otherwise there is no hint that what is happening here is about to become a church service.
And then everything changes. As the wine is poured into little cups, the Holy Spirit comes down, and suddenly we are participating in a eucharist. The biscotti become the body of Christ, and the wine His blood, and it is perfectly obvious that we are not in ordinary time any more but in a moment of eternity.
Without hesitation, I accept one of the glasses of wine, raise a toast to Vincenzo—who flashes me a big beaming smile—and then down the hatch. It is a holy, holy moment.
Never before have I experienced a eucharist like this one. Nobody on earth planned this, there is no liturgy, it is absolutely spontaneous. Our Host is Jesus Himself, whose presence is palpable. At the end of the trip, when we’re asked to describe a highlight, this is the moment I’ll remember, and shall forever.
In Paul’s account of the Last Supper, when Jesus serves the wine He says, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor 11:25-6).
I’ve often pondered that little word whenever. It seems to imply more—much more—than just the context of a weekly church service. Taken literally, doesn’t it mean that whenever we drink wine or share a meal with fellow believers, we are to remember Him? We don’t need an altar—a picnic table will do. Nor do we need a series of long prayers and rituals, for Jesus Himself is our Host and Priest.
He certainly was that Sunday morning in Tuscany.
Many thanks to Bronwyn Spilsbury for hosting this amazing tour of Italy, in conjunction with Regent College. Learn more about Bronwyn’s tours at pilgrimway.ca.
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