https://reasonablycatholic.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/rc2015_3_171.mp3

Michael Reynolds recently returned home from a pilgrimage to Italy sponsored by New Ways Ministries. He was one of about 40 pilgrims to visit Florence, Assisi and Rome, including Vatican City, where he attended an audience with Pope Francis. Mike is the editor of a book, Our Place at the Table, in which LGBT Catholics and their loved ones tell of having been welcomed by their parishes; it is meant to be instructive to pastors and parish leaders. Among Mike’s insights from the trip is that the gypsies his group was warned to avoid have something in common with the LGBT community: they are treated as outcasts. Mike asks, how would Jesus treat them?

Click below to hear the episode:

Patti Vassia, now retired after having held leadership positions at various Middletown, CT, non-profit organizations, is a spiritual seeker who has learned the value of both putting down deep roots in one place and of traveling widely. She talks about her spiritual journey, including:

… her achievement in 2013 of a lifelong dream of being rebaptized, this time by immersion. She is shown here being baptized by Pastor Andy Eiss at Fellowship Church in Middletown.

Patti also reflects on her trip last fall to Machu Picchu, another lifelong dream. The photo on the lower right is of Agosto, a wise and helpful guide at the site — he led her to the shady spot where she’s resting in the photo above the one of him. He declared Machu Picchu the center of the world, a place where “we are all one.”