Continuing their pilgrimage to Rome, Therese recounts the stillness of Venice, the Bridge of Sighs (so named by prisoners relieved to be crossing it toward their execution rather than kept forever in the dark prison cells of under Doge’s Palace), and especially Padua and Bologna where they venerated the relics of St. Anthony and Catherine. With brimming joy Celine and Therese visited the Holy House of Loretto home to the Holy Family itself, wherein she placed her Rosary in a bowl used by Jesus and – to their hearts’ delights --  they arranged to receive Communion within Santa Casa!

On to Rome and the Coliseum, Therese and Celine evaded the guided tour in search of a means to visit the barricaded arena area where Christian martyrs met their deaths. Finding a way through, and despite the shouts of their father, they found the small stone cross which marked a site where, “martyrs had fought the good fight.” Therese, pressing her lips to the dust, asked the grace to be a martyr too for Jesus, and, “At the bottom of my hearth I felt that I was heard.”