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.