Assisi Diary - Day 18 - Bona Acquisita

Today started out very cold, about 35 degrees and windy.  There was snow on Subasio.

On my way down to Santa Maria degli Angeli, I stopped at the Monastery of Saint Colette (Suore Clarisse Colettine), home to a French order of nuns, followers of Saint Clare.

In the past I had noticed a small note in Italian on a side door, saying basically that Mass is celebrated at 7:30 a.m. on weekdays and anyone wishing to join them in prayer is welcome.

 

I've hesitated in the past, uncertain about simply entering a closed metal door with no windows.  However, today I opened it, stepped into a nice courtyard, then walked over and into a church.  The nuns were already engaged in morning prayers; the service was as warm as the outdoors was cold.

The cold, by the way, did not prevent an afternoon walk for a gelato.  I had planned to go yesterday to celebrate Easter; however, a heavy afternoon rain resulted in a day's delay.  Fortunately, Italian's also celebrate the day after Pasqua, so I went for my favorite flavor (cioccolata) and enjoyed it sitting on the sun-warmed stone wall above San Stefano, overlooking the very clear valley below. 

There's a 16th Century palazzo on the Piazza del Comune which is the site of a fine bookstore.

If one looks up carefully at the decorative exterior casings of the middle storey windows, one can see words engraved along the upper portions.  Combining the words from the five windows, they read:

BONA AQUISITA  MUNDANA TRANSITORIA  MOMENTA VANA

Which means:

DO GOOD  LIFE IS SHORT  INFLUENCE IS VAIN

Not bad advice.

Ciao.