A spontaneous text brought senior Sarah McKeown and her mom on a 10-day pilgrimage to Italy with one of America’s best-known Catholic priests over spring break.

“I think in so many ways, being a senior, the trip was almost a reflection on life,” McKeown said.

McKeown said her mom jumped at the opportunity when she forwarded her the trip description.

“Within three hours, we had signed up for the trip, and we took some of the last spots, I think,” McKeown said.

Months later, she found herself at a gas station en route to Rome sitting across from Father Mike Schmitz.

Schmitz hosts the #1 ranking “Bible in a Year” podcast in 2022 and the weekly “Fr. Mike Schmitz Podcast” by Ascension Press.

“We’re sitting and eating lunch and he looks over and he’s like, ‘How’s your panino, Sarah?’” McKeown said. “I’m thinking, ‘What is my life right now? I watch you on video every week and you’re asking me how my panino is.’”

McKeown said Schmitz was influential in her journey back into her faith and speaking with him was one of the highlights of the trip.

“His life is not his own, and yet he serves other people so hopefully and so selflessly,” McKeown said. “He had tourists come up to him and his tour group would be stopped, waiting on him to have a conversation with someone. And he’s not the guy who simply responds to people. He’s the one who asks them questions and pursues people in a really beautiful way.”

Encountering holiness was a theme of the pilgrimage, McKeown said. While on a tour at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the group met Cardinal James Harvey, the archpriest of the basilica. Harvey stopped and spoke with them before they walked through one of five Holy Doors opened in the Jubilee Year to represent the passage into salvation.

“I think that was the most impactful moment of renewal in walking through a Holy Door, because we prayed with him before and you could feel his holiness and his presence,” McKeown said. “Everyone’s desperate to watch him. I think that’s also a really cool thing –– there is a deep attraction to holiness that you become a witness to all the time.”

McKeown said visiting the Pontifical North American College and seeing the seminarians’ devotion to their vocations was inspiring.

“Seeing the joy and the peace of the seminarians was beyond anything comprehensible, nor able to be articulated,” McKeown said. “It calls me deeply to this sense, ‘I want their peace.’ I think one of my biggest takeaways is that I have something that I’m meant to do in this period of time.”

Praying before the body of Carlo Acutis, and being blessed by his relic was particularly poignant for McKeown, who had leukemia until she was 6, the same disease that Acutis had. Acutis, a computer programmer who died at the age of 15, promoted Eucharistic devotion through his websites and will be the first millennial canonized this April.

“Being able to sit and pray and look at him was incredible,” McKeown said. “It was a deeply spiritual experience that I never thought I would have, and so bonding with my mom.”

Lara McKeown said one of the most impactful parts of the pilgrimage was being with her daughter.

“I will forever cherish the time with Sarah, sharing in this spiritual journey,” McKeown said in an email. “I’m beyond grateful for the time I’ve been able to be Sarah’s mom, watching her grow up, and now getting ready to graduate from Hillsdale. Nineteen years ago when she became critically ill, I was not sure if she was going to live, or if God was going to call her home. It was very scary and entirely changed my perspective. I fully realized there is a point at which I have no control — we live by God’s plan. So, being with Sarah on this pilgrimage was a blessing in many ways.”

After McKeown and her mom returned to their room each night, they journaled about what they had experienced that day, McKeown said.

“It makes you realize how rich life is when every day you go home and you’re desperately trying to hold on to every detail of every moment, as ‘This is where I saw joy,’” McKeown said.

Schmitz reminded the pilgrims of the purpose of their journey, according to McKeown.“He said, ‘This journey is not only about your personal spiritual life, but it’s about all the people that you left at home and that aren’t able to be with you. It’s about praying for them and being an intercessor,’” McKeown said.

Senior Charlie Miggins, president of the Catholic Society, said the year of Jubilee is a beautiful time designed for rejoicing.

“It is wonderful that the Catholic church has seasons, and just like the calendar year has seasons of winter, fall, spring, and summer, the Jubilee year is somewhat of a summer type season for the Catholic church, and it’s beautiful that we all get to participate in it together,” Miggins said.

McKeown said she was trying to finish typing up her thoughts on the pilgrimage before she got back to Hillsdale.

“I’m getting off the plane and I’m desperately writing my final reflections,” McKeown said. “One of my last notes before I reentered the Hillsdale bubble, because I so wanted to hold on to the feeling of joy that I experienced, was, ‘Lord, may I never forget your presence, your providence, and your propensity to show your immense love and graces.’ And I think that is the best way to sum up my experience, because it was just so fervently witnessing, experiencing, and wanting holiness.”