What happens when this Columbus teen hikes 80 miles on a pilgrimage — with his mom?
As he thought about what he could do for his senior project, St. Anne-Pacelli Catholic School 12th-grader Jude Niemi considered the suggestion from his AP Italian teacher, Donna Carter.
She encouraged him to hike the St. Francis Way on a pilgrimage in Italy.
In 1209, St. Francis and 12 disciples, who focused on helping the poor and underprivileged, walked the 150 miles from Assisi to Rome to seek the approval of Pope Innocent III. According to tradition, the pope was reluctant. Then, in a dream, he envisioned Francis holding up the teetering Basilica of San Giovanni (St. John), preventing its collapse. So the pope changed his mind and officially recognized the Franciscan Order.
Considering his Italian heritage and Catholic faith, and recalling the friendly and inspiring Franciscan friars he met last year at St. Anne Catholic Church, Jude liked the idea.
“There’s this whole order of Franciscans that revered this man,” Jude told the Ledger-Enquirer, “so there’s obviously something special about him.”
Melissa Niemi, a science content specialist for the Muscogee County School District, initially didn’t believe her son was serious about taking such a trip.
“I really did not think that was going to happen,” she told the L-E. “I thought this was a thing and he’d move on to something else. But he did it. … This kid, when he wants something and he puts his mind to it, he makes it happen.”
Pacelli required Jude to have an adult accompany him on the trip. Melissa, a Pacelli grad, was the obvious choice.
“It was amazing for me as an individual myself,” she said, “but it was even more special for me as a mother.”
A donation from the Knights of Columbus fraternal organization helped Jude pay for the trip.
“They really came through,” he said. “I’m so appreciative of them.”
Preparations
Among the items he took on the trip, Jude wore a tau cross in homage to St. Francis. One of the friars visiting his church last year gave it to him at confession.
“I felt it was a reminder of what my goal was,” he said. “You get out there and thinking, you lose track of what you’re really out there for. You get into bed at night, and you take this off, and you’re like, ‘That’s what I’m here for.’”
The Niemis walked about 80 miles in six days, approximately half of the entire trail, because they didn’t have time to cover the whole length. Starting in Sansepolcro, they hiked in the opposite direction because Jude wanted to finish in Assisi at the tomb of St. Francis.
“I wanted a solid goal,” he said. “I didn’t want to start off seeing the big payoff. … Without having that goal in mind at the very end, I probably would have lost interest. It was a very long and hard walk.”
The ate breakfast in hotels or hostels. They shopped for provisions in a market before their walk each day: Nutella biscuits, water, crackers, maybe cheese. They lunched in towns along the way or, for longer stints, they packed sandwiches to eat as they walked.
Favorite moment
Jude was in awe beholding the beauty of Tuscany and Umbria in central Italy.
Walking into a forest, “you see the God rays through the trees,” he said. Reaching the top of a “really annoying hill,” he said, “you get to the top, and it’s just all rolling plains and hills in the background.”
His favorite moment of the trip, Jude said, was seeing the tomb of St. Francis.
When he finally was there, Jude said, “it was more of a serious moment. It wasn’t joy or like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m done.’ It was more like I knew him a little more. Just being where he’s been and seeing what he’s done, I had a better understanding. It was more of a surreal moment.”
Melissa cried, seeing her son soak in the scene.
“To watch him reach this goal,” she said, “this fulfillment of what he had worked so hard for, … he grew up right before my eyes in that one week.”
Jude put the significance in perspective.
“To go and to see the man who started the Franciscan Order to show people that a life of poverty is sometimes the best life you can have,” Jude said, “he flipped the whole notion of rich being the best. … To actually see the resting place of somebody so influential is definitely a life-changing moment.”
Jude explained why.
“People are taught a lot that you’re supposed to get a good-paying job,” he said. “You’re supposed to live a good life. You’re supposed to have the things you want. Sometimes the things you want aren’t the things that you need because material things don’t always find fulfillment for your life. Sometimes it’s family relations — your wife, your husband — living what you find to be fruitful, not what others think.”
As for his career goal, Jude is interested in getting an ROTC scholarship in college, majoring in linguistics and using his language skills to work possibly as a translator.
Toughest moment
The toughest moment of the trip, Jude said, came while walking about 7 hours without stopping to reach Gubbio.
“It’s difficult because you can see your destination off in the distance, and you’re walking, and you’re walking, and it’s not getting any closer,” he said. “You realize the sun is going down in a few hours, and you have to get there before the sun goes down.”
When they arrived in Gubbio and realized how long a walk the next day would be, they stayed there for a day to rest and visit some of the sights dedicated to St. Francis, such as the church built where tradition says he tamed a wolf that was killing townsfolk. Fortunately, that was their trip’s only rainy day.
They wore hiking boots and backpacks with essential items, such as food, water, ponchos, maps and extra socks.
The trail is well-marked most of the way, Jude said, but sometimes they had to rely on maps — even paper maps when digital versions weren’t available. He did the navigation.
“I have a horrible sense of direction,” Melissa said, “so I left that to him.”
Funniest and scariest moments
Twice, they had to walk in the dark because they still were on the trail at sunset.
During their first hiking day, they misjudged how long it would take to reach the next town. They used flashlights for about half an hour as they emerged from the woods into the next town. The owner of their hostel was in her car coming to look for them as they walked up the driveway.
Hostel owners also sometimes send a taxi to fetch pilgrims hiking the St. Francis Way if their guests don’t arrive before dark.
In the town of Pietralunga, a taxi rolled up beside Jude and Melissa. The driver asked Jude in Italian whether they had seen a woman who was another pilgrim. They hadn’t.
Then another taxi arrived, and the driver asked the other taxi driver, “Have you seen two Americans?”
Melissa and Jude figured he probably was looking for them. Although he was committed to walking the whole way, Jude knew it would be at least another 30 minutes to reach their hostel, and he thought, “God wouldn’t put us in a situation to get very hurt, so maybe it’s a sign, maybe it’s not. I’m not going sit here and argue to find out.”
Melissa didn’t give him a choice.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, and a taxi shows up,” she told him. “I don’t know what more of a sign you need than that. Get in the car.”
Advice for others
Jude advises folks who want to take such a trip to get themselves in sufficient hiking shape.
“Definitely do something smaller and similar so you know what you’re getting yourself into,” he said, “because, halfway through, you realize, ‘Man, sometimes this is not fun, and I really want to quit.’ I didn’t have enough time to really prepare.”
Wrestling practice, college applications and schoolwork interfered.
Jude also suggests hiking the St. Francis Way in the summer, when the later sunset allows for more hours of walking in daylight, or taking more days to rest and sightsee between hiking days.
What he learned
Jude learned more about himself during the trip. When his mother remarked about his positive attitude while they complained about their aching feet, he urged her with encouraging words to keep going.
“We’re almost there,” he told her. “We can do it.”
Jude didn’t know such an outlook was among his noticeable assets. All of which strengthened their relationship.
“Oh, for sure,” Jude said. “… A bond of suffering is one of the best types of bonding you can do.”
As for what he learned about this mother, who persevered over blisters, Jude said, “She’s tough, I’ll give her that.”
Melissa added with a laugh, “I couldn’t fall apart in front of my kid.”
Fellow mothers on the wresting team told Melissa they are jealous of the experience she had with her son.
“Relying on my son to have to communicate for me was very humbling at times,” she said. “But it was a very proud moment to watch him to navigate the people and the language and the culture.”
Jude also returned with more appreciation for appreciation, especially after the extra two weeks he stayed with an Italian family for a student exchange program in Arezzo.
“You get to realize some people don’t have the luxuries we have,” he said. “My (exchange) family I don’t think had a dryer. I slept on the couch with them. … It was an amazing experience to live with them and to see how they live. I didn’t mind it at all. I’m a very flexible person. I loved it completely. But you do get to realize what we have here in America is different. We’re independent. We have this ideal of liberty baked into our culture. Italians over there, they don’t drive til they’re 18. They stay in high school for five years. Their laws and systems are very, very, very different from ours.”
Reflecting on his journey, Jude came to a conclusion that surprised him.
“Honestly, I had expected something more grandiose, something more great,” he wrote in his blog. “But, I was foolish to think that a pilgrimage to see this humble saint would yield such a result. Walking in his footsteps has brought me to the realization that, yes he was an amazing man who did many miracles, but he also lived a simple and humble life. Through his life of poverty and simplicity he was able to connect with God’s creation. One does not need to be the most famous or popular to achieve greatness, one must have love for his fellow man, love for the Earth, and love for his creator.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
