Arrival in Germany

Asher Kaufman, at 18, set out on June 28, 2025 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He went on to visit Belgium, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Italy. This most recent post highlights his arrival in Germany. Asher has a love of history which animates this post. Today is also the 1 year anniversary of the day he set out on this trip.

Upon my departure from Assisi, I had on Monday a multi-leg day of travel, beginning with a 5:20 a.m. ride from the Casa Papa Giovanni down to the train station. At 6:10, I boarded my train for Arezzo, where I changed trains and embarked on a Frecciarossa in the direction of Rome. From the Roma Termini station where I got off, I then used the Leonardo express to take me directly to Fiumicino airport where I had my flight to Amsterdam.

For this period of my trip, it was a bit unclear up until the last minute where exactly I would be visiting; however, a couple of weeks before, a very nice German priest named Fr. Ansgar Lammen who had started a Children’s Rosary in his diocese of Osnabruck some years before, told me I could come visit his parish and that we could go together to a Eucharistic Congress in Cologne called the Kommt und Seht conference. This is an annual event organized by the Archdiocese of Cologne with many priest and bishops from all over Germany attending. Thus, having accepted Fr. Lammen’s kind invitation, I decided to start by going to his residence in Osnabruck. This meant that upon my arrival in Amsterdam, I immediately got on a German train heading in the direction of Osnabruck. The train was one of Deutsche Bahn’s new fleet, and I must say that with its cushioned, comfortable seats, carpeted floors, thick insulation, spacious bathrooms, silent sliding glass doors, and restaurant car, it was a very nice train. After about nearly three hours of riding the train, we arrived in Osnabruck. The train station was a quint, brick structure, and it was my introduction to the beautiful architecture of Germany.

After hauling out my bags from the train and tripping down the stairs and onto the plaza, I took an Uber to Fr. Lammen’s parish. That day had involved quite a large number of trains, and I was just glad that I had not committed some silly mistake like I had done on the way to Cascia, for in this instance, even the slightest error could have caused numerous downstream problems.

Fr. Lammen was on hand to receive me, helped me move the bags inside, and gave me something to eat before going to bed.

The next day, I had a meeting with Fr. Charbel Obeid, a Lebanese priest working in Münster. Münster was a short distance away by train, and it turned out to be a beautiful city to visit. I took the whole day to do this, especially since Fr. Lammen was busy with pastoral work.

I arrived around 11:00 a.m. and met Fr. Charbel at the train station. We went together to Mass at the Münster Cathedral and then walked around the city a bit. I had been eager to meet Fr. Charbel since he is in charge of a number of Maronite parishes in Germany and in the Netherlands. He is based out of Münster, however, and he was very familiar with the city.

The downtown of the city is very charming and has the appearance of being quite historic, even though in fact it was mostly destroyed during the Second World War and had to be built back postconflict. I have included some pictures as it is a nice area for walking around and munching on a strudel.

The story of Münster is quite an ancient one, and one place to begin is with Liudger, a pupil of Æthelbert in York, a very important bishop and scholar of the 700s. Liudger was one of a number of missionaries that Æthelbert sent out into northern Europe, which was still pagan at that time.

He arrived in Münster around 793 and built his community on a little hill called Horsteberg. Since this community was a monastic one, the name “Münster” comes from the Latin term “monasterium.” For the next several centuries and throughout the Middle Ages, the city continued to be an important center of trade and commerce. It found itself in the Hanseatic League, a loose alliance of states and guilds that shared economic interests.

The city, however, was shaken as much of Europe was by the nascent Protestant reformation that burst out of the small town of Wittenberg, far to the east.

After 1521, when Martin Luther publicly burned the Papal bull from Pope Leo X urging him to recant his heretical writings, the Protestant reformation was set off in earnest. In the wake of this act of schism, there were several different directions taken by the newly liberated vanguard. Luther himself emphasized his belief that salvation came through faith alone and that only the Bible served as a reliable source of authority for the Christian life.

Of course, another major sect of the nascent Protestant movement were the followers of Jean Calvin, a French theologian living in Switzerland who emphasized the doctrine of predestination, that is to say, that one is saved completely by God’s grace.

However, there was another group of Protestants, which are sometimes termed, perhaps unfairly, radical Reformers. These are probably best known by the figure of Heinrich Zwingli. The followers of Zwingli came to be known as Anabaptists. They were perhaps best known for their rejection of infant baptism. The Anabaptists sprang up in various of the more Protestant-inclined regions of Europe, such as Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, but one of the most notable stories of their early years comes from Münster.

In 1533, John of Leiden, a Dutch Anabaptist leader came to Münster with his religious mentor, Jan Matthys, and the two quickly gained notoriety for their speeches and writings, even being regarded by some as prophets.

On Easter Sunday of 1534, they rose up in a rebellion against the established leaders of the city. Matthys was killed, but the rebellion was successful, and Johann became the leader of the city.

For the next year, Münster underwent several quite radical measures under John’s leadership. Polygamy was not just permitted but normalized. Redistribution of wealth was taken to an almost proto-communist level. Citizens were even required to be naked to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ.

However, the new Anabaptist theocracy was short lived. By the next year, a German prince named Franz von Waldeck defeated John’s army and stormed the city, and its leader was captured. What ensued was a really quite regrettable series of tortures and executions, not just of John of Leiden but also of Bernhard Krechting and Bernhard Knipperdolling, two other accomplices and leaders of the city. The three men were ripped apart with red-hot tongs while being held in place by an iron-spiked collar and were then run through the heart with daggers. This was all done in the central square, and once that was finished, their bodies were hung up to the steeple of St. Lambert’s Church in cages. Though the bodies have long since been removed, the cages remain hung to the church steeple to this day and can still be seen. I, unfortunately, did not get the chance to visit St. Lambert’s Church while I was in Münster, but if I had, I would have been able to see the grim sight.

Just over a hundred years later, however, the city of Münster again made its way into the history books in a perhaps much more notable case. Another name for the city is Westphalia, and indeed the Peace of Westphalia was signed in this very place.

To understand the import of something like the Peace of Westphalia, it is absolutely essential to understand the conflict that preceded it, namely the Thirty Years’ War. The Thirty Years’ War was likely one of the bloodiest and most brutal conflicts Europe had known up until that time, and it involved almost all of the major geopolitical players of its time. 

To properly understand it, one must begin with the state of the Holy Roman Empire at the dawn of the seventeenth century. At that time, the Holy Roman Empire (roughly Germany and Austria today) was in a state of political and cultural disarray. It had still a rather decentralized political structure as compared to the ascendant absolutist monarchs of France, England, and certainly Spain. The number of Lutherans and Catholics were almost evenly split in the empire, and the Peace of Augsburg from the 1550s left local towns to decide which church they would follow. For example, in Fr. Lammen’s region, the towns were a patchwork of Catholicism and Lutheranism, even within a few kilometers of each other. By the early 1600s, small rival leagues had formed amongst the different little principalities, divided along religious lines. Culturally, Italy had been the center of the Renaissance a century before and had retained a place as a center of art and literature. The Northern Renaissance had emerged out of the Netherlands and Belgium, and the Elizabethan era had led to a flourishing of English artistic expression, such as the works of Shakespeare. All of this left the Holy Roman Empire quite behind politically and culturally.

By the 1610s, a new religious sect appeared on the scene, the Calvinists. These had not previously been in the empire, and their existence posed a threat to the already tenuous peace between Lutherans and Catholics.

Around this time, a particularly ambitious new emperor arrived on the throne, Ferdinand II. He wished to unify the empire along religious lines and reassert Catholicism as the dominant church within his realm.

However, the Holy Roman Empire did not operate along absolutist lines. The emperor was elected by seven princes from different regions. One of these regions, Bohemia, was largely Protestant and flatly rejected Ferdinand’s authority. They elected their own emperor, Frederick V, a Calvinist.

In response, an army loyal to Ferdinand marched on this rebellious province and defeated Frederick at the Battle of White Mountain.

However, as would happen often throughout the Thirty Years’ War, the hostilities did not cease as soon as they might have because Ferdinand overstepped his cards. He had the nobles disloyal to him stripped of their lands and the holdings passed over to his own henchmen, thus disenfranchising a whole faction of his empire. This would not hold.

While the German Protestants were still licking their wounds, many other states in Europe reacted in alarm to the new ascent of the Holy Roman Empire. King Christian IV of Denmark, a Lutheran kingdom to the north of the Holy Roman Empire, seeing an opportunity to step in on behalf of his vanquished fellow Lutherans as well as to seize additional territory for his kingdom, marched south to try to roll back the armies of Ferdinand II. In fact, Christian IV was also the Duke of Holstein, a northern German bishopric, and thus he was tied up in an alliance with Brandenberg and Saxony, two other Protestant regions whose dukes were concerned about the prospect of increasing Catholicization under Ferdinand II. The English, Dutch, and indirectly the French as well agreed to fund this new campaign in a bid to knock Ferdinand II off of his newly empowered position. Thanks to the support of this newly-bubbled up alliance, Christian IV planned a rather complex three-pronged attack south into Germany that would attack Magdeburg, Brandenburg, and Pomerania.

However, unfortunately for all of them, Ferdinand contracted the assistance of a powerful ally of his own, a mercenary general named Albrecht Wallenstein. Wallenstein proved more than a match. He was one of those highly intelligent and analytic but also quite ruthless calculators who often found ways to victory even if he incurred heavy losses.

Christian’s vaunted three-pronged invasion collapsed after defeats at Dessau Bridge and Lutter. Wallenstein pushed north and captured territory as far north as Jutland.

However, it was precisely at this point when Ferdinand had beaten back the nascent alliance just burst forth from the womb of political alliances to oppose him that he made perhaps the greatest diplomatic blunder of the whole conflict. He passed the imperial Edict of Restitution without consultation with the electors or dukes of the empire. The Edict required all Catholic lands to be returned to the Church and that all the state boundaries be brought back to the way they had been in 1555 and that many of the Protestant principalities become officially Catholic again even though they had not been so in many years. The edict was an imperial decree that did not need the approval of the local rulers, but here Ferdinand was dangerously overextending his political clout. He was also overextended militarily since had committed troops in Italy to aid the Duke of Guastalia to claim rule over Mantua. Not only this, but Ferdinand’s main ally, Spain, was rapidly losing ground in its war against the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands. Recall that until this point, the Low Countries were controlled by the Spanish. There had been a conflict going on for many decades known as the Eighty Years’ War in which these largely Protestant kingdoms attempted to gain their independence from Spain. In the 1620s, they had scored victory after victory against the Spanish, forcing Philip of Spain to play more conservatively with the German Protestant princes.

Smelling copious blood in the water, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, another Lutheran kingdom, decided to throw his hat in the increasingly crowded ring. He had just been freed from a war against the Catholic Poles by a diplomatic treaty in part brokered by the ever-active Cardinal Richelieu of France. However, Richelieu did not stop there. In order to grease the gears of alliance between Gustavus Adolphus and the German Protestants, Richelieu committed to extensive funding of the Swedish offensive. A whole separate sidenote is likely warranted on Richelieu, one of the largest figures in statesmanship and manipulation Europe has known. I speak of him as though he were the ruler of France. Some of you might have already remarked that the official ruler of that country at this time was in fact Louis XIII, but Richelieu is often considered to be the real kingmaker behind French politics, someone who lived through more than one king and who was one of the most powerful men in Europe at the time. His dogged rather realpolitikal promotion of French interest above all else did much to contribute to modern European nationalism. To understand why the French, Catholics as they were, would play such a critical role in the support of Protestant interests, it is important to see that the Bourbon rulers of France and the Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain were consummate rivals, despite the Catholicity they shared. In fact, I would argue the Thirty Years’ War was far more about dynastic warfare rather than religious warfare since nearly every actor that entered the war did so for his own political and economic interests primarily.

To return, however, to Gustavus Adolphus, he encountered victory after victory in Germany, pushing as far south as Bavaria. However, in the Battle of Lutzen, Adolphus was killed by the imperialist forces. Wallenstein’s days were numbered too. He had always been a mercenary soldier, and his personality and constant absence from court had enabled negative rumors to begin to spread about the empire. The Spanish Habsburgs did not care for him as he had done nothing to help them in the Eighty Years’ War, and Ferdinand was dissatisfied with his repeated losses to the Swedes. Having made his decision to flee to the Swedes, Wallenstein sealed his fate. A dragoon of Scottish and Irish soldiers were sent to kill him, and so they did.

Left without their respective commanders, the Swedes and Austrians continued their campaigns, with the result of a Habsburg victory at Nordlingen in 1634. By 1635, the Peace of Prague is signed promising peace and re-unification of the Holy Roman Empire.

However, this peace did not please the French at all since it left the Holy Roman Empire in a strengthened position. Throwing his hat in the ring, Louis XIII sent in French troops to take on Spain and the Habsburgs.

The result brought about a great strengthening of the Dutch position to the point that by 1644, their independence seemed all but inevitable.

In Germany, the result was a bit harder to decipher. At first, it seemed the Habsburgs would win, scoring important victories at Tuttlingen and Herbsthausen. However, by 1646, the French and Swedes struck afresh as far as Bavaria and by May 1648 decisively defeated a Bavarian army at Zusmarshausen.

At this point, Ferdinand III (Ferdinand II had died some years before) realized that to continue fighting was futile. His cousins in Spain, beaten back after a pitiful campaign into Flanders that year, came to the same conclusion. With the Swedes and French riding high, peace was sued for.

The peace negotiations to such a long and complicated war, really a convergence of several wars, took years and involved literally hundreds of delegates and meetings. Recall that there even was an Italian theater to this conflict which I hardly described.

In the end, the lasting implications of the agreement meant that the Holy Roman Empire became more decentralized than ever. The power of the principalities was bolstered, and Germany was put in a weaker position than ever. Further, the empire was forced to recognize Calvinism as a co-official religion next to Lutheranism and Catholicism. Additionally, the Swiss Cantons as well as the Netherlands gain their independence, carving out two new small Protestant kingdoms in Europe, one split away from the Holy Roman Empire and one from Spain.

This would enable the Dutch commercial endeavors of later decades and even begin setting the fodder for the political context that would lead to German nationalism many centuries in the future.

(Source: Wiki Commons)

And a large part of those negotiations took place in Münster at the Peace Hall which is pictured above. If you have survived with me as far as here, hopefully you have an appreciation for the enormous importance of the Peace of Westphalia and thus of the city of Münster in tying together one of the most significant wars in European history.

Having given so much space to the Thirty Years’ War, I fear none is left for Münster Cathedral, and thus I leave it to the reader to do the corresponding research on that splendid structure.

After walking around a bit with Fr. Charbel, we made an arrangement to see each other again at one of his parishes on that Saturday afternoon, and I headed back to Osnabrück.

I arrived back at Fr. Lammen’s house just after he arrived that evening, and we had dinner together.

The next day we spent visiting some of the other churches of his parishes, and then we headed off to Cologne for the Eucharistic conference held there that week. Both of those events along with my meeting with Fr. Charbel and my subsequent trip into the Netherlands will be covered in the coming posts.

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Last Days in Assisi

Asher Kaufman, at 18, set out on June 28, 2025 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He went on to visit Belgium, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Italy. This most recent post highlights his last days in Italy. Asher has a love of history which animates this post. 

This is to be last post from Italy before I set off to Germany, and in it I will detail the last few excursions and events that occurred before the conclusion of my classes in Assisi.

On the day after my return from Cascia, realizing that I still had yet to pay a visit to San Damiano, the church St. Francis had heard the call to rebuild, I pointed myself in that direction.

It was only about a twenty-minute walk away from where I was staying, below the town itself. I, in my ignorance, had assumed that the Church was only memorable because it served to inspire Francis in his mission, but I soon found out that it also functioned as the place where St. Clare and her sisters lived for much of her later life as well as the location where the famous Canticle of the Creatures was written.

The chapel of the Church where I spent some time in prayer is small but packs much Franciscan history into the little space. At the back is the little crevice in the wall where St. Francis would store the money that he had begged for on the street for the repair of the Church. Throughout the apse are images from the life of St. Francis, including when he was disowned by his father and when Jesus on the Crucifix spoke to him. In that very chapel, too, is where St. Clare and the sisters venerated St. Francis’s body after his death in 1226.

As one walks past the altar of the chapel, one passes through a doorway into the compound and finds oneself inside the oratory. It was in here that the sisters would pray together, and the reconstruction faithfully shows the wooden benches and stalls. It was truly a humble existence.

Further on lies her dormitory where St. Clare slept on a straw mat and where she died in 1253. St. Clare was blessed to have received the Papal approbation for her Rule merely two weeks before she died.

St. Clare serves as a powerful inspiration regarding her willingness to give up the riches of the world every bit as much as St. Francis. She left her father’s house while she was still a teen to seek St. Francis’s help in establishing a community of sisters to follow a rule similar to what he was building with the men. It was likely much harder for a young woman of her age, vehemently opposed by her family, to go out into the ecclesial world by herself and attempt to found an order. One can imagine that were she to fail or become discredited, a future in marriage or entering an already established convent would be effectively closed off to her. She would become an outcast in society, and it was this very risk that she was running in addition to the comfortable lifestyle and honors. What a holy woman.

I wish to speak a bit also about the Canticle of the Creatures because this text is quite significant for the development of Italian literature. One must remember that in the thirteenth century, almost all texts in western Europe would have been written in Latin and that Italian as a standardized language did not exist. It would be Dante who, writing as a Florentine his stunning Divina Commedia, would set the standard as Florentine Italian. However, during St. Francis’s life, the Commedia was almost a hundred years in the future, and Dante was not born yet. Therefore, it is this short poem that is the first to be written in the locally spoken Italian. Since it is so short, I wish to copy it here below as it is a beautiful and profound reflection on man’s relationship with the natural world around him, created by God and giving glory to Him.

Altissimu, onnipotente, bon Signore, tue so’ le laude, la gloria e l’honore et onne benedictione.

Ad te solo, Altissimo, se konfano, et nullu homo ène dignu te mentovare.

Laudato sie, mi’ Signore, cum tucte le tue creature, spetialmente messor lo frate sole, lo qual’è iorno, et allumini noi per lui. Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore: de te, Altissimo, porta significatione.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora luna e le stelle: in celu l’ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per frate vento et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo, per lo quale a le tue creature dài sustentamento.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sor’aqua, la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per frate focu, per lo quale ennallumini la nocte: ed ello è bello et iocundo et robustoso et forte.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora nostra matre terra, la quale ne sustenta et governa, et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore et sostengo infirmitate et tribulatione.

Beati quelli ke ’l sosterrano in pace, ka da te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.

Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora nostra morte corporale, da la quale nullu homo vivente pò skappare: guai a·cquelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali; beati quelli ke trovarà ne le tue sanctissime voluntati, ka la morte secunda no ’l farrà male.

Laudate e benedicete mi’ Signore et rengratiate e serviateli cum grande humilitate.

As you might observe, the Italian is of course not the same as modern Italian, but it is nevertheless quite comprehensible. What strikes me perhaps the most is the understanding of creation as inherently pointing back to its Creator and the profound gratitude that pervades it. It reminds me of the verse that says one must be “as a little child” to enter the kingdom of Heaven. And indeed, it is most often children who are thoughtful and observant enough to say at prayer, “Thank you God for my father” or “Thank you for the stars” or “Thank you for the trees.” As we grow older, we begin to take these things for granted as though they exist because of some necessity. But they do not; they are a loving God’s gift to his children, and we would do well to follow Francis’s example and give thanks.

The first eight strophes were the original ones, and thus initially, the poem ended with the thanks for Mother Earth. However, at a later period when he was attempting to settle a dispute between the mayor and the bishop of the local city. He felt deeply grieved that the two could not make it up with one another but continually bickered over their differences. Therefore, he sent a brother to sing the second-to-last bit about repentance. The very last strophe comes from when Francis was about to die, and that was when he added the verse on Sister Death.

The whole poem has a beautiful unity to it, and I am reminded of the words of T.S. Eliot regarding poetry, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” I find that St. Francis’s poem, far from delving into any particular emotion of his, soars far above him and encompasses the very essence of nature itself, that is its divine reflection of the Almighty.

Another point that sticks in my mind from the last few days was a meeting I had with Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo of the Diocese of Assisi. We had originally met Msgr. Figueiredo back in 2025 by video call, and he had told me about the language academy in Assisi and the Casa Papa Giovanni where I was staying. He was originally ordained in the NeoCatechumenal Way but now is incardinated into the Diocese of Assisi. He is a very kind and gentle man and was very good to help me with my stay in Assisi.

Fr. Figueiredo introduced to me to a British friend of his named Gwen. Both of them are very involved in promoting devotion to Saint Carlo Acutis; in fact, they would be traveling to Australia and New Zealand to bring his relics to parish communities and the youth in that part of the world.

Gwen had moved to Assisi about eight years ago and had for the month of May begun a daily Rosary in English at the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva which I have spoken about in an earlier post.

Because she was traveling to Ireland with Fr. Figueiredo for a few days, she asked me to help fill in to lead the Rosary, which I happily did. I was very honored that she had asked me to do this.

My classes finished on Friday, and soon it was time to move on again. It had been a lovely time in Assisi, and I was thankful for all that God had given to me there.

I wish to close with some words from St. Francis which are inscribed on one of the arches leading into Assisi, words which he uttered in a prayer just before his death while facing the city from a valley not far away. I believe these words convey what is so very special about Assisi. He said:

“May the Lord bless you

Holy City faithful to God

Because through you

Many souls shall be saved

And in you many servants

Of the Most High will dwell

And from you many

Shall be chosen

For the Eternal Kingdom.”

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey, click HERE

All the Cardinals of the World Are in Rome

We were surprised to find out that an extraordinary consistory was being held at the Vatican. This means that the Cardinals of the world have been called "home" to meet with the Pope. As providence would have it, we have had the grace to meet some of those cardinals. Asher received a blessing from Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algiers in the morning today and then in the evening we saw him again and Asher was able to share some information with him about the Children's Rosary.

We spoke to Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa of Jerusalem. He was very receptive to the Children's Rosary, and we look forward to staying in touch with him.

Asher was excited to re-connect with Cardinal Rainer Woelki whom he met in Colgone, Germany, a few weeks ago. The Cardinal immediately recognized Asher and we had a very nice conversation with him.

We were happy to meet Cardinal Arthur Roche, who is the Prefect of the Dicastery of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. We had met with the Secretary of this Dicastery yesterday, so the Cardinal was well aware of the Children's Rosary when we met.

Yesterday we met Cardinal Virgílio do Carmo da Silva from Timore Leste. He was with seminarians from his Archdiocese. He was eager for us to share information about the Children's Rosary with them. 

We look forward to future collaborations and remain open to what is left in store for us in these last few days in Rome.

Mass Offered on June 25, 2026 for All the Members of the Children's Rosary

 

A Mass was offered on June 25, 2026 for all the members of the Children's Rosary and all who help the Children's Rosary. We continue to have a Mass said for this intention on the twenty-fifth of each month. The Eucharist is such a powerful gift from Our Lord that when we wanted to extend thanksgiving to all of you, we knew of no better way to express gratitude. May Our Lord's love be poured down on all of you through the powerful sacrifice of the Holy Mass. 

The pictures above are from the Children's Rosary at St. Francis Parish in the Aliwal North Diocese of South Africa.

Celebrating the Solemnity of St John the Baptist in Rome

Greetings from Rome. Asher and I are still in Rome spreading the Children's Rosary. We found a lovely church close to where we are staying called San Giuseppe al Trionfale. They have Adoration form 8 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. each day. We were able to make two visits to the Blessed Sacrament. I prayed in a special way for all the members of the Children's Rosary at Adoration. The Solemnity of St. John the Baptist has always held a special place in my heart. It was the first time I completed a Consecration to Jesus through Mary. We also filmed the first EWTN interview about the Children's Rosary on the Feast. It was not aired until September 29, 2013, but the filming was on June 24, 2013. Praise God that that interview helped to spread the Children's Rosary to more countries.

Visit to Cascia

Asher Kaufman, at 18, set out on June 28, 2025, for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He went on to visit Belgium, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Italy. This most recent post highlights his trip to Cascia on the feast of St. Rita.

In the last post, you might recall that I described my visits to Santa Maria degli Angeli, Pisa, and Eremi delle Carceri. These were really the halfway points on my trip, and the subject of this dispatch will be the conclusion of my visit to Assisi, which I think really was a lovely little break from some of the more frenetic few months that preceded it.

A few minutes after my hike to Eremi delle Carceri, I became sick again. I had not taken very diligent care of myself after my last illness, and this time it came on quite severely. Each day after finishing class, I would not usually have much energy left.

Nevertheless, the weekend was approaching, and I was remiss to “waste” it by remaining home instead of paying a visit to some nearby municipality of historical significance.

I had initially thought to visit Siena, given that it had been a preferred spot among my classmates at the Academy and that it was not hard to reach from Assisi. However, the day before I was set to leave, Fr. Youssef Abi-Zeid recommended to my mom that I visit Cascia. That Friday happened to be the feast of St. Rita, and the town was quite nearby to Assisi.

At once, I resolved to go. I soon discovered that thought the town was nearby, the method of arriving there by public transit was a bit tedious and required three bus changes. My mother recommended to me that I look into booking a ride as the car route was much more direct and would require much less complicated maneuvering between buses. Nevertheless, after the morning classes were over, I set out, determined to avoid booking a ride. I boarded the bus from Assisi center down to Santa Maria degli Angeli, where I was to catch the next bus. However, I was still not feeling well at all, and as I sat waiting for the bus to come, I began feeling a sneaking sensation of regret. Perhaps it would have been better, I said to myself, if I had just stayed back at the Casa Papa Giovanni. I belonged in bed, really; I had a bad headache, a nose that ran like a faucet, and the feelings of a low-grade fever. As the minutes ticked by before the bus came, I decided to book the room I would need that night, no easy task given the limited hotel rooms in a town like Cascia and the big feast occurring that day which was drawing in above-average amounts of pilgrims. Finally, I found a place not far from the town center that was available for that night. No sooner had I entered the credit card information and completed the payment than I looked up and saw the bus drive by…on the other side of the road. I had been standing on the wrong side. I could hardly have planned it worse.

I was now, as it were, caught out. I could not turn back, for I had already booked the room, and I could not well continue on as that was the last bus for the day. I found myself back at what my mother had originally suggested and what I probably should have just done from the beginning, booking a rideshare.

I quickly discovered that Uber was not to be relied upon in a place such as this. I tried calling a driving service I found online but hung up after only a couple of rings, thinking my proposal, an immediate hourlong ride, was likely preposterous.

Having felt sure that the Lord wanted me to visit Cascia on the feast of its patron, I uttered a short prayer to God and to St. Rita, “If you want me to get there today, you’re going to have to make it happen because I have run out of options.”

Just then, my phone pinged. I looked down. Someone with an Italian area code had sent me a WhatsApp message. It was someone the driving service I had tried calling, inquiring if there was anything they could help me with. Astonished, I responded, explaining my situation. He answered that his drivers could not help me but gave me two numbers of other taxiists to try calling. The first one of the two I tried told me his father could drive me and quoted me a reasonable price. Still not quite believing this extraordinary turn of events, I accepted and walked into the Basilica to wait until the driver would show up.

Upon arriving at Cascia and checking into the hotel, I discovered that it was a few kilometers from the town center. Thankfully, the lodging provided a shuttle, and I was informed that one would be swinging by at 7:30. Accordingly, I got changed, showered, and waited. When he arrived, the driver agreed to take me directly to the Basilica where St. Rita’s relics were located.

When we arrived, I expected to find the Basilica closed since online it had said that the normal closing hours were some time ago. However, I was surprised to see that the doors were still open; they must have extended them for the feast. 

I walked in, prayed, and just had time to venerate the relics of St. Rita before an usher came through, informing us that the Church would be closing. I made sure to mention the intentions I wished to present to St. Rita, said a prayer of gratitude, and then walked slowly out.

Once outside, I took a moment to look about me, appreciate at the village around me bathed in the gentle Italian springtime sunset, and marvel at how God had managed to take me in the palm of His hand, as it were, and bring me to this place. I reflected on the challenges that had to be overcome: my illness, the bus, the lack of taxis, the limited hotel rooms. And then, on top of that, He had gotten me here just in time before the closing of the basilica. It was not easy, I admitted to myself, but then I do not believe it was supposed to be. St. Rita herself had been a saint of enormous suffering, as I will relate later, so perhaps this was her way of doing things; she would get me there, alright, even if it wasn’t the smoothest of trips. And it would not be the end. 

Feeling a bit hungry for a nice warm dinner on that rather chilly Umbrian spring evening, I walked through the stone streets looking for such a restaurant. However, there were none to be had. All of the restaurants were filled with locals and pilgrims who had had the same thought as me. Three restaurants that I entered told me they had no open tables, and so finally, I simply wandered into an ice cream shop and bought myself two Kind bars and a bag of nuts; so much for a nice warm dinner on a chilly spring evening!

However, perhaps it was for the best because in the course of my futile wanderings, I came across an old church at the end of a long street of shops called the Chiesa di San Francesco, or the Church of St. Francis.

Seeing that it was still open, I went in and took the opportunity to say my night prayers. There was only one other man inside, and he was sitting in the row adjacent to me. He nodded smilingly at me when he saw me, and something about him told me this was likely a priest. When he finished praying and turned towards me, his Roman collar came into view, and this confirmed my suspicions. Thinking this was a perfect opportunity to mention to him about the Children’s Rosary, I did so and gave him a book and a flyer. He responded very positively, saying that he though this would be an apostolate that would fit in well in his parish. I am very optimistic about where that could go, and again, I was sure that this was the Lord’s and St. Rita’s doing.

Upon going back to the hotel, I remember feeling having not had the feeling of gratitude for a bed that I had that night in a long time.

The next morning, after breakfast, the shuttle again took me into town where I attended Mass at the basilica. During that Mass, the priest preached beautifully on St. Rita’s life and on her witness of trust in God throughout suffering. I remember that it really moved me. Here is what he recounted:

Margherita Lotti was born at the end of the fourteenth century in a small hamlet near the village of Cascia. She was a girl known for her piety and virtue, and though she wished to enter the convent, her parents would not hear of it, and they married her off to a young man named Paolo di Ferdinando di Mancino. Paolo’s family had been involved in a style of medieval Italian gang warfare in which families became stuck in a cycle of retribution and killing that lasted for generations. After their marriage, Paolo liberally took part in this, but after some years of being under the influence of Rita, his character began to change. He became a kinder, gentler man, and he renounced the wars of retribution, to the great embarrassment and chagrin of his own clan. The couple had two children, and all seemed to be going well.

And then, one day, Paolo was brutally murdered while riding on his horse by members of the rival family that still had a vendetta out for him due to something he had done years before. Such a tragedy would be the undoing of many people, but Rita was not one such person. Instead of reacting with outrage and a bloodthirsty revenge like many of those in her society at the time, she dove deeper into prayer and embraced forgiveness, determined to end the family rivalries. However, her two sons were not of the same mind, instead expressing their willingness to kill to avenge their father. Rita began to pray earnestly for them that they might not do such a thing.

A few months later, both of her sons died before her eyes of a sickness that swept through her town, and she was left with nobody. Rather than express indignation at God for this great Job-like tragedy (she had, after all, lived the life of a saint), she instead thanked God for the gift He had given to her of her husband and two sons and thanked Him that the souls of her sons had reached Heaven safely without being stained by the blood of their father’s killers.

After this, being now a widow and childless, she was permitted to enter the convent which had been what she had originally desired to do. During her time there, she was afflicted with a deep would to the forehead which would not heal, much like receiving the stigmata. This wound was so much a burden to her that often the other sisters did not wish to pray with her as the smell was so putrid. On one pilgrimage to Rome, she was quite old, necessitating that she be carried. The sisters were so resistant to having to be in close proximity to the smell for the whole journey, that, miraculously, the wound healed up just for the journey. But, of course, it came back once they got home.

St. Rita died on May 20, 1456, 570 years exactly before I arrived in Cascia, and her sanctity by that point was already widely known. For instance, the flowers in her garden were known to bloom deep into the wintertime when it was prohibitively cold for them to do so. As I say, this was my first experience with St. Rita, and I must say that I was deeply moved. She was so deeply a woman of God, a woman of suffering, and of patience that lies buried deep in the heart of Umbria.

After that wonderful Mass, I walked around the town some more and hiked up to the Church of Sant’Agostino. It was a wonderful old church with absolutely nobody inside, to the great contrast with what one would find below at the Basilica. I stayed and prayed in silence for an hour, drinking in the stillness and fresh interior.

Following this, I started walking back to the hotel. This was a walk of about 25 minutes, but it turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated since the road was quite narrow, and the cars traversed it at high speed. I was forced to walk on the other side of the jersey barrier, and in this spot the ground sloped down at an extreme angle; it was quite literally almost impossible to go on foot.

At the hotel, I waited for the ride to arrive that I had reserved to take me back to Assisi. Not long after, he pulled up, and we were speeding along the road in return to my home away from home.

In conclusion, it was quite apparent to me after I returned that that little excursion to Cascia, though it had not been without its tribulations, had also been a special experience well worth remembering and treasuring.

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Visit to Pisa

Asher Kaufman, at 18, set out on June 28, 2025 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He went on to visit Belgium, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Italy. This most recent post highlights his arrival in Germany. Asher has a love of history which animates this post. Today is also the 1 year anniversary of the day he set out on this trip.

On the Sunday that followed my Florentine adventure, having sated my desire for excursions, I stayed in and contemplated the rainy weather from my room. I was, moreover, becoming quite sick and could do with a bit of rest. I stayed in bed and listened to an audiobook.

By Tuesday I was feeling a little better and was badly in need of a haircut, having received my last such trimming in the Congo. Indeed, it was less of a trimming and more of a mowing since I had received the typical African buzz once finds on the continent. This had enabled me to continue on for a couple of months without another haircut.

One of my Italian teachers recommended a barber down in Santa Maria degli Angeli, the commune just below Assisi, and considering that I had not had much opportunity to see that area, I decided to go there. After the cut, I realized I had just enough time to attend Mass at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli and make it back to the Casa Papa Giovanni in time for dinner. This basilica is a very important one, and so I reflected that this was as good a time as any to see it.

In fact, the Basilica is a later addition, having been built in a Mannerist style which became popular in Italy as a kind of interim between the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It is a grand structure that completely encloses the Porziuncola, a small ninth-century chapel that was in pitifully bad condition at the time when Francis first heard the call to “rebuild [His] Church.” In addition to San Damiano, he worked to rebuild the Porziuncola, and the little chapel always remained dear to him throughout his life. This was so much the case that in 1216, he obtained in a vision with Our Lord the grace of complete remission of sins and temporal punishment for anyone who visits the Porziuncola with sincere repentance. Pope Honorarius III ratified this, and in the years after St. Francis’s death, the little chapel became so inadequate to house the throngs of pilgrims who came to make good on that grace that the large basilica was built.

St. Francis also came here to die at the end of his life, a fitting emblem of his characteristic simplicity and poverty.

I am embarrassed to say that I was quite ignorant of all of this history, thinking only that it was a remarkably large church that I had stumbled upon and that it had an evening Mass. I saw the Porziuncola inside but did not go in, I think because there were so many people there. It was only later that I realized its great significance, and the next time I went back, I went in.

For the rest of that week, the classes continued as normal. We had a tour on Wednesday that included San Rufino, the site where St. Francis was baptized.

That next weekend was, much as the last one, unplanned up until the last second. After some uncertainty, it became clear that it would make the most sense for me to go to Pisa, not just to see the Leaning Tower but also to see a nun, Sr. Ajayi, with whom we had been in contact with a few years back who was from Pisa.

After my morning classes ended on Friday, I quickly booked a train ticket as well as a last minute hotel room and was on my way. It turned out that I was on the exact same train with a lovely Ecuadorian couple that I had gotten to know over the last couple of days. They were originally from Ecuador but moved to Spain a few years ago since they had retired.

Upon reaching Pisa, on my way to my hotel, I walked past the famous leaning tower and the quite beautiful Pisa Cathedral. The hotel was quite close to the tower and was a charming little place with its wood-paneled walls and carpeted steps. The next morning, I met Sr. Ajayi who kindly took me to her residence, and we discussed how she might go about instituting the Children’s Rosary in her local, which she and her fellow sisters run. I gave her many Italian books and flyers that Stefan Borneis from Germany so kindly sent me. She is a really quite winsome person, and I was glad I had decided to go to Pisa for the weekend.

However, the weekend was not yet completed, and the next day, Sunday, having a free afternoon on my hands, I decided to take a stroll up to Eremi delle Carceri, a very high site elevated over Assisi. It was where St. Francis would go to meditate in some caves with his fellow brothers. The hike up there was certainly no walk in the park as it was about an hour and a half of pure climbing, but once I arrived, I found a lovely complex with hiking trails, a chapel, and the small structures in which St. Francis slept and said his hours with his brothers.

I was particularly struck by St. Francis’s bed which was in actual fact simply a rock, smoothed down by the many years of his body lying on it. It was really a powerful witness to me that this man would sleep for weeks on end on this slab of rock with minimal covering in the nighttime cold on the top of the mountain that I can imagine was brutal. As I side note, I think when one learns enough about St. Francis, it becomes clear that he was a man who cared almost impossibly little about his own comfort. Even the basic pleasures that I think every human looks forward to—a full meal, a cozy bed, warm clothes in winter, an elegant set of clothes—all of these he systematically denied himself for decades. It was a place that would definitely have been worth a second visit even just because of the extensive network of trails that were marked for hiking on. Though I must say, these paths were unexpectedly challenging; I remember coming upon one patch alongside a long slope that was quite muddy and pockmarked with long marks from others having lost their grip in the same spot. I am happy to report the same did not happen to me.

Instead, I managed to pick my way gingerly through the rough trails and visit each of the little caves where Francis and his brothers had prayed. I have included a picture of the cave just below where I poked my head in. People had left little objects of devotion behind, but no one would dare spend much time in there, I think. I myself hardly wished to crawl into the small, dank space. It is remarkable how the brothers would do so for hours on end for days at a stretch.

That evening, I walked back home by the scenic route and was back in time for dinner at the Casa Papa Giovanni.
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE