While Pope Francis opened the Synod on Synodality in Rome on St Francis’s feast day, I was some 80 dusty miles away, co-leading, with Mgr Keith Newton and our guide James Jeffrey (see his ‘Life & Soul’ Asissi Diary) our latest Herald pilgrimage along the Way of St Francis.
Over the course of 70 miles (110 km) we punished soul, body and liver, and ended up renewed physically and spiritually. Admittedly, our pilgrim band probably ate better than humble St Francis did in 13th-century Umbria (it is truffle country, after all) but I like to imagine that his spirit lives on in the soil and vine of every Assisi Grechetto wine we drank.
