Day 28 - Vilnius, Lithuania - A Tour with Ignes

Joan's View

Bud guided us to our Bolt pickup place on the rear of the building. We waited a tad in the chilly morning air until the driver pulled up a little late. He drove us to the house where Saint Faustina lived while in Lithuania. There we met Ignes, our guide for the day. Saint Faustina had a majority of her visions in this house and received the message to paint the Divine Mercy painting there. The relics in the picture are St. Faustina's and Father Sopoćko's.

 The next stop was the Church of Saint Peter and Paul. The ornate ship hanging over the aisle was so unique.

Beautifully baroque

Saint Peter was a fisherman

The next stop was the Vilnius Cathedral with its impressive columns.

Inside the cathedral is the chapel of St. Casimire. The story of the three handed painting is that the artist painted two hands of St. Casimire and decided to change a hand, but every time he painted over a hand to change it, that original hand came back. Thus, St. Casimire has 3 hands.

Three handed St. Casimire

The highlight for the day was mass at the Shrine of Divine Mercy. We were invited to join the group from University Heights yesterday, so we asked our guide, Ignes, to change our schedule to allow us to go to their mass. The other Ohioans got there a little late, but the mass was beautiful. Father Lukas had a moving homily and spoke it in two languages so that his Lithuanian family, that surprised him to be there, could also hear it. He got a little emotional because the Shrine was also where he held his first mass. Ignes even knew Father Lukas and served the mass. We got more pictures after mass.

From there we went to the Sisters of Divine Mercy house. This is the room where the Divine Mercy painting was actually painted. 

It was past 3:00 so Ignes took us to a Lithuanian restaurant/bar for a late lunch.

With our tummies full, we did a few more stops before we said goodbye to Ignes. He is going back to his country home to work on his dissertation.

Artwork in the stream

St. Anne's church

A few more fun sightings along our tour:

Another friendly Lithuanian

More thoughts about Putin

Theresa's Extras

Beautiful day we had so many blessings. Our tour guide was wonderful and very informative.  The mass at the Chapel of Divine Mercy was so spiritual and moving. The churches and cathedral were all unique in their architectural design and art. amazing talent!  Bud and my highlight of the day was Joan's evening dessert. She experienced a delicious apple pie from a complete stranger when she stopped to comment on how good it looked. The kindness of strangers never fails to amaze me as he shared his pie with her.