


It's late October and I'm feeling mellow and in the mood for fruit. I've just come back from Grenada where I've enjoyed the most exquisite fig mousse in my life. Recipe selected, downloaded and I on a roll.
Cycling along the leafy lanes around Capua, fragrant with Pine, I notice that there is still plenty of fruit. On the trees the ripe pomegranates glisten like bright red rubies. The olives are turning black, the lemons yellow , the oranges orange. Still plenty of flowers; even flowers of Zucca- good to eat. But where are I fichi? Where are the grapes? Where have I been? Autumn is almost over


What should I do? What would Eve have done? Quit the garden? Talk to the Almighty? Munch some Galaxy? A sticky issue i
ndeed!

What better way of combining all three than by going on pilgrimage? Yes they have recently undergone a resurgence in popularity. The Dean of Canterbury Cathedral describes them as offering: 'An ancient tradition in tune with today's needs, (which) gives us a ch



And what a saint he was! Persecuted much of his life by both the devil and the Catholic Church itself- who said he'd used carbolic acid to create his stigmata- he continued to dedicate his life to God until his death. Padre Pio spent 25 years in poor health planning the building of a hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo, to be named the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza or "Home to Relieve Suffering." The hospital opened in 1956. Padre Pio's detractors used even this project as another weapon to attack him, charging him with misappropriation of funds.

Bishop Wojtyła (later Pope John Paul II) wrote to Padre Pio in 1962 to ask him to pray for Dr. Wanda Poltawska, a friend in Poland who was suffering from cancer. Later, Dr. Poltawska's cancer was found to be in spontaneous remission. Medical professionals were unable to offer an explanation for the phenomenon. And likewise of his stigmata, which was a cause of shame for the man, and which he chose to keep covered. Food for thought indeed!
What struck me particularly, though was the poverty and sanctity of his family. They were illiterate peasants who lived in a style of house that hadn't changed much from its counterpart in Nazareth. Yet they imparted as much as of the Bible as they could remember to their children and attended mass daily. When the young Francesco expressed a desire to become a Franciscan friar, his father visited




Suitably chasten

