Anne Navalta: Surrounded by faith, united in prayer

My name is Anne Navalta, I work as a Civil Engineer in Training. I’m part of the SFXC group at St. Mary’s Cathedral and I was very fortunate to be one of the 46 pilgrims in the Jubilee 2025 SFXC Pilgrimage group to Italy. It was an incredible experience. I find it very difficult to recall a single highlight or even name a favourite city we visited, in part, because we did so many things and visited countless places within our 16 days there - it’s all just become one, big, beautiful blur - but also because every moment of the trip and every town we visited had their special significance that it’s difficult to choose one as my favourite.

What I loved most about the trip was the group and the routine everyone had together - daily Mass, daily morning prayer (Lauds), evening Rosary, plus the shared meals and conversations. Being surrounded by and communing with other Catholics daily who sought to deepen their relationship and appreciation of our faith while travelling in a country steeped in Catholic history, tradition, art, and architecture was surreal to me. It was also amazing to see different groups from countries all over the world congregating together to celebrate this Jubilee Year of Hope. In almost every town we visited, at the plazas outside the churches, we would see pilgrims waving their country flags, singing songs of praise and worship in their language, and inviting everyone to dance and join them in showcasing their love of God and His Church. A bunch of us even joined those dance circles a few times while other pilgrims from different countries were singing and playing on their guitars and bongos!

Having said all of this, one particular moment that stood out to me the most was from one of our first days in Italy, in Sepino, the hometown of Fr. Cristino’s family.

There, we were blessed to celebrate Mass at Chiesa Madre di Santa Cristina on July 24, the Feast Day of Santa Cristina, with the Archbishop of Campobasso. He said something that I think many of us will keep in our hearts for the rest of our lives: “Your pilgrimage begins when you go back home.” This, for me, set the tone for our pilgrimage. It made it more apparent that what we experience, the things we learn, and all the graces that we receive during the pilgrimage should not stay within the pilgrimage.

​We’re pilgrims for life. We are meant to pour what the Lord has filled us with during this time into our daily lives and into the people we surround ourselves with - extending the legacy of the Saints, many of whom we encountered throughout Italy, back to our community in our own way. I feel extremely fortunate to have been a part of this pilgrimage, and I have a deeper appreciation of the Mass, our Priests, the Sacraments, the Saints, and our Church as a whole.
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I look forward to continuing to pull from this experience and become a better instrument of God’s will in my life and in others’ lives.​

Written by Anne Navalta for Faithfully. Ann joined the young adults pilgrimage to Italy (Aug 2025) with St. Francis Xavier Chaplaincy. Photos courtesy of Ann Navalta.