When I met Claudio, a Franciscan monk, with whom I was to travel to Assisi this morning, I have to admit my first thought was Seriously? My idea of a monk was pretty close to the Benedictine Rule—quiet, sober, perhaps slightly intolerant men who had pledged their lives to God—not this energetic man who went tearing into the hospital to deliver a blessing before we continued on our way.

Back ten minutes later, Claudio quickly removed his cassock and rope belt, tossed them onto the dash of the van, revealing khaki shorts and a forest green shirt that wouldn’t look out of place on any piazza. Claudio seemed nice enough, but I was having trouble taking him seriously, even when he put the cassock back on.

He certainly proved to be an adequate tour guide as we wove through the cobblestone streets, telling us the story of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), the daughter of an aristocratic family who chose to follow St. Francis’s example, cutting her hair in the piazza and dedicating her life to the service of God. But I still was having trouble seeing him as a monk. Maybe the Monk from the Canterbury Tales?

Then we paused in a stone church during the worst heat of the day. The dark and cool was a welcome relief, and Claudio offered to celebrate a small Mass for us. “Very informal,” he said, and gestured for us to bring benches up close to the altar. “I like to be close.”

He was still energetic, still non-traditional (his cell phone went off while he was blessing the Eucharist and he answered it), but there was something that had changed. This was a spiritual moment for him, and when we rose to say the Lord’s Prayer, I could feel it too. Less than twenty of us in the church, but our voices filled in it, in Italian and in English. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

It sent chills down my spine and it made me chastise myself for my assumptions. Why can’t someone who races his friend’s car down the freeway still be a man of God? For that matter, why can’t Chaucer’s Monk, who “lovede venerie” (hunting) still truly be “a fair for the maistrie” (of the finest sort)? In the same way that I spent two semesters reading and rereading The Canterbury Tales before I could pass judgement on the Monk, shouldn’t I give a real person as much time, if not more?

I didn’t consider myself a pilgrim when I went to Assisi. I had no question I wanted answered, no particular sin I wanted forgiven. I had a camera and assumptions. But I certainly found an answer there, whether I wanted one or not.

Thy will be done, I guess.