Back in Rome-homeward bound

I am ready to be home.  Starting with last Thursday, instead of going to Tiber Island to see St. Bartholomew, I went to see St. Monica instead. She is in the church of St. Augustine, and is very close to the church of St. Louis.  St. Louis is important because it has my favorite Caravaggios, the St. Luke cycle.

 The St. Luke altar

The tomb of St. Monica

Assisi is like Venice in that it is a lot smaller than I thought it would be.  It also seems like everything is uphill.  We stayed with the Bridgetinne sisters, which I loved because they had the first hardwood floors I had seen in Italy (which was very nice and made me homesick) and because they are a Swedish order they do real dessert at pranzo.   The retreat was good, and we had plenty of time to see Assisi.  The Franciscans don't allow interior photography but I snuck a picture of the tomb of St. Francis.  I know I am my parents' child because I also snuck photos of the light fixtures I ideally want for St. Hubert's.

Basilica of St. Claire. Best rose window I have ever seen.

Basilica of St. Francis

The tomb of St. Francis

Tomorrow most of us go home, and I am very ready for American food and lifestyle, though I am not sure I am ready for Midwestern weather. I am also not looking forward to what a month of dust looks like in my room at the seminary.  Thank you so much for reading and all your prayers. The first thing I have to do after cleaning and unpacking is get my save the dates out for priestly ordination, but consider this a first warning. Ordination is May 30th at the Cathedral of St. Paul. Please pray for me, and if you are willing and able, attend.

Mass in the Grotto

We started today with mass at the grotto of St. Peter. Let me explain. When Peter was executed at the Circus of Nero, his body was buried on the Vatican Hill. The area around his body was turned into a cemetery about 20-30 years after his death. When that happened, the Christians in Rome built a smallish tomb called the Trophy of Gaius, because a Roman theologian named Gaius described it in the late 100's.  The Constantinian basilica build its high altar over the Trophy and filled in the necropolis (as well as cutting off a good chunk of the Vatican Hill).  The Constantinian basilica was itself destroyed to make room for the current St. Peter's, but the high altar was kept in the same spot. The area under the basilica was vaulted and used to bury people, where when they dug to bury Pius XI they found one of the pagan tombs and dug all around, actually digging into the trophy through a side tunnel and finding the body of St. Peter.  All of this can be learned on a scavi tour.

Map from Wikipedia, 8 is where we had mass.

We had mass today in the grotto where everyone is buried, which faces the eastern upper wall of the Trophy, which is what the stairs in front of St. Peter's high altar lead down to and is covered with an mosaic icon of Christ that is really old.  There is another, in my opinion, nicer altar on the west side built by Pius XII which has a view of the uncovered wall of the west side of the Trophy, but that is too small to accommodate our group (the other altar is also directly opposite the tomb of Pius XII (doing excavations gets you a nice location for your tomb).  You see all four sides on a scavi tour.  We were not supposed to take photos in the grotto, but my class mates did, so check the official blog for photos.

I did take a photo of Benedict XV, who is technically just

 past the no photo sign.  The rest of the area look like this.

I cannot believe I got this far without posting a picture of the Pieta

From there we went to the outskirts of Rome (seriously the bus and metro took almost an hour without the connections) to meet with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. For those of you from the Archdiocese, they are the African sisters who wear the bright blue habits who work at Sharing and Caring Hands.  They are great and really hammered home that they only want to see joyful priests in a mostly un-Midwestern directness.

In the afternoon, I wrote my final paper and started packing so I can trek down to one last church tomorrow before we leave for Assisi (Saint Bartholomew on Tiber Island).  While there I will be on retreat, and will be praying for you all.  There will be one or two more blog post when we get back from Assisi next Tuesday, but thank you for following my blog.

St Paul's and St. Peter's

As expected our morning at St, Paul's outside the Walls was very quiet. It was not as low key as I expected. We had mass with Cardinal Harvey, who is in charge of the basilica, and was head of the Papal household for Pope Benedict and for the last seven years of Pope St. John Paul.  His homily was great.  But what really surprised me is that he invited us out for coffee and just spent an hour talking with us.  Cardinal Harvey is originally from Wisconsin and he knows all the guys at the NAC who are studying for the North Central region of the US (he probably knows more) and made the connection to us.  It really shows his great humility.

The tomb of St Paul is behind the girlle.

They have my favorite holy water founta

After that, we had a rather somber talk from Father Miranda of the Institute of the Incarnate Word,  He had spent two and a half years of the last three years in Aleppo as it was besieged by Syrian rebel forces. The siege is still ongoing but he had to leave out six months ago because the Institute had sisters there and someone had to escort them out. There are still priests there, and you could see the guilt he feels for not being there even as the situation continues to worsen.  He had a great heart for the people of God.  To be honest, it made me thankful to minister in an area where there has never been a conflict on that scale (yes we had the Dakota wars, but nothing like the situation in Syria).  The only thing I can contextualize the situation to is Sarajevo, and this looks worse (and there are martyrdoms going on in Aleppo).  And yet even in it, the faith endures.

On that bright note, in the early evening we visited our last institution of the Roman Curia, the Secretariat of State.  There are two departments there: essentially those who prepare and translate stuff for the Pope and those who work in the diplomatic corps.  Our contact, Monsignor Gallagher,  works on the translator side (he helps prepare the official Latin texts of written documents), but we got to see the door to the Papal apartments where the Pope normally lives and where Francis keeps his office. For some reason we didn't get to tour there, but it was still a good visit.

I think they have the best view except for the Pope.

An afternoon with the Jesuits

I only did four things of note today.  I got an apostolic blessing ordered for my teaching parish, St. Hubert's, because they are celebrating their 150th anniversary. Hopefully it gets to the states and doesn't have any typos.  As a class we then visited the Apostolic Penitentiary.  Despite the imposing name, they are the court that deals with cases in the internal forum and grant faculties to absolve 5 crimes/sins reserved to Holy See (desecration of the Eucharist, breaking the seal of confession, a priest absolving someone he is sleeping with, physical assaulting the pope, and illicitly ordaining a bishop).  It was a good visit and the priest presenter was full of very good advice for dealing with confession.

They also had some seriously nice art.  My personal favorite.

From there we had our last class, and then in the evening we visited the Gesu, the mother house of the Jesuits. The church itself is amazing and has the golden idol type statue of Ignatius I made fun of on Saturday over his tomb. The reason I joke about it is that it's normally covered by a very nice altar piece and then in the evening they reveal it with a light show set to an orchestral mass and quotes of Ignatius. It still is an awesome statute (and church) though.

The unveiling of the statue,

From there we moved into the Gesu's attached building which still include a seminary and the rooms that Ignatius lived in.  We had mass in the room he died in and Deacon Alvaro gave a great homily.  Tomorrow we head to St. Paul's outside the Walls again, and I am really looking forward to a more low key visit.  Then two more days until we go on retreat!

Some of St. Ignatius's furniture.

Last Sunday in Rome

This morning we were free for mass on our own. I went to the church where St. Philip Neri is buried, and it was great because it's one of the few churches in the center of Rome to have what we would think of as active parish life (aka there were actually Italian families with kids there).

A view while walking this morning.

This afternoon was a little more exciting, we went to vespers with the Pope at Saint Paul's outside the Walls.  It is the last of the four Constantine basilicas we needed to visit as a class.  We will be going back, but one of the really cool things about it is that it has mosaics of all the popes.

When we go back we will get a class photo here.

My view from my chair. Turns out if you just keep going

in a cassock they let you into VIP seating (though not the best).

The mosaics of the last two popes.

My one shot of the Pope.  

After vespers and dinner a bunch of us went out for gelato because today is the patronal feast of the Seminary.  Tomorrow we are going to visit one of the Vatican courts and the Jesuits.

Monte Cassino!

Today I went to Monte Cassino and prayed solemn vespers and did laundry at the NAC. I bet you can guess what this post is going to be about.

To my surprise, Monte Cassino is actually on a mountain. I figured because of its history, where Benedict built it upon a temple to Apollo so he could confront the demons, it would be on a nice little hill called a Monte like Orvieto.  No such luck. I also learned you should always, always take the shuttle bus or a taxi up. Since I arrived 40 minutes before the first shuttle, I thought I would walk it. Bad idea, my enthusiasm failed about 2/3rds of the way up and then it was too late so I had almost a two hour trek up. While it was cool walking the old pilgrim trail instead of the very roundabout road, I was having flashbacks to character building camping trips in Montana.

I have an obligation to post mountain pictures since I mentioned the trips.

The monastery itself is only 60 years old because we (America) blew it up in WWII because we didn't believe the Germans when they told us they didn't hid weapons there.  Despite being new, it is amazing (and luckily the tombs of Benedict and Scholastica survived).

So we get a modern take on Baroque

The church itself is absolutely hysterical.  The upper courtyard before you enter is filled with statues of monarchs who were Benedictine oblates, the crypt church around the tombs is covered in marble frieze work of full sized Benedictine Saints. While the Jesuits have a gold and diamond encrusted Ignatius and the Franciscans have the miracles of Francis by Giotto, the Benedictines want you to know what the legacy of Benedict and Scholastic is aka Western civilization and more saints than you (you being anyone else).

An example

Scholastica 

Benedicf 

The aaltar

And just as a disclaimer, if the American Benedictines at Norca are ever given Monte Cassino, that is my sign to defect and join because Monte Cassino is just about my version of perfect.

Not joking about that.

Lateran day two

This morning was spent at the Lateran, which is the Cathedral of the Pope and heart of the Christian world.  It was my favorite site yet, and there is a really complicated history of the place.  We had mass in the chapter house, which was very cool and full of 22 inch high wood statues that I really want copies of.  Sadly the Romans have yet to learn to merchandize well (seriously, no models of these or the 12 apostles found in the nave at the Lateran or the founders of religious orders found in St. Peter).

The Latin outside the main doors.

"The sacred Lateran church of all the churches

 in the city and world mother and head."

One side of the choir in the chapter house

For example, if they had a replica of this St. Paul he would be coming home.

After mass, we explored the rest of the complex, including the baptistery, which was the only baptistery in Rome for over half a millennium.  It is decorated with very nice but wildly inaccurate frescos depicting the conversion and baptism of Constantine.  In them, the pope baptized him and in gratitude Constantine donates Italy to the Pope before going east (Constantine was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia on his deathbed and the donation document is a famous medieval forgery).  Still was very cool, and elements of it were found and are found in just about every baptismal to this day because it's that iconic.

The heads of Peter and Paul over the Pope's altar

The fount in the baptistery 

Before lunch we had an African missionary priest speak about missions in Africa, which really drove home how broad the Church really is. After lunch, I started working on the final reflection paper for our class and then I visited the Church of the Apostles, which is a very unassuming church down a random side street in Rome that houses the bodies of the Apostles Philip and James (the Lesser, James the brother of John is in Spain).  As I was ordained a deacon on their feast day, I spent quite a while praying there.  I then made my way back, stopping in the Oratorian church where St. Philip Neri is.  Then I and a couple guys made our way back to the NAC and spent the evening hanging out with guys who went to SPS for pre-theology.  

St Peter's on our way to the NAC

Tomorrow, I am bending the rules to head to Monte Cassino alone, but no one else wants to go (Florence and Naples top the agenda list for day trips) and I must see Benedict and Scholastica and this is my last chance.  So if there is no blog update by Monday, sound the alarm!