Ah, Rome…the Eternal City, the City of Catholic Bloggers. Well, two of them, at least: The Roamng Roman and Zadok!
The Roaming Roman is a student at the Bernardi campus of St. Thomas University. She very kindly invited us to dinner at their residence Tuesday night – Mardi Gras, as it happened. We were instructed to take tram #19, and you’d think that by 4 days into this, we’d be experts…but we weren’t. Well, it wasn’t our fault. We walked to the stop, reasonably enough believing that we were in the right place because there were, you know, tram tracks embedded in the road. A man in a uniform came over to tell us, "There is no tram here." Huh. So then a bus #19 came up, and, although extremely doubtful, we boarded. And then were driven, with great effort because it was still rush hour, around the block, back to exactly where we started. Where we were, as I recall, told to get on another bus. But just then, praised be to God, tram #19 appeared, the uniformed man just shrugged in response to some glares, and we boarded. And waited, and waited, and waited.
This being Mardi Gras, or more accurately, Carnevale, there were some signs of celebration, namely children dressed in costume -that is the focus of the celebration in Rome, as opposed to the elaborate Venetian festivities. Three children and two women got on board and waited for the tram to move. The two little girls sat right in front of Joseph, who, up to that point, had been completely full of himself as usual, and, as usual, confronted with the presence of equally full-of-themselves other children, immediately shrank into his shell, and stayed there. Michael was sitting with him, and I was a bit behind, so I really didn’t catch what was going on, but Michael claims, the two little girls, clad as princesses were, in his words, "cursing" Joseph – I suppose in some sort of childish Roman fashion, sticking their tongues out at him and saying, in a mildly taunting way, "Capiche?"
I think he did.
We made it to the designated stop, then tramped around a bit looking for the place (my fault), found it, and had a good dinner with the group – a wonderful crew of energetic, interesting Catholic young people, studying hard at the Angelicum and experiencing Rome. There was another reason we wanted to meet up with this group, though – their chaplain, Fr. Joseph Carola, S.J., who is the program’s chaplain, teaches at the Gregorian, and, many, many moons ago, taught with Michael at Tampa Jesuit.
I tell you, if you’re Catholic, at any given time, there’s going to be at least one person you know living in Rome..at least! (Because there were more…)
Gave a very brief, probably not very good talk to some of the students – Joseph had by then come out of the spell those little girls had cast on him and was full of himself again, not to speak of exhausted. So, that was a challenge as usual. But it was not a challenge to get back on the right tram again and make our way back to our apartment.
As I reported early on, on the first Sunday we were there, Zadok the Roman took us on a tour of St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and, in between, Santa Pressade, and the Scala Sancta.
St. John Lateran is astonishing – a phrase, along with many others, that will go overused in this travelogue. Of course it has an important papal history, being the location where the papal power was wielded for a thousand years, before the Avignon Papacy. Across the street, next to the Scala Sancta, stands the (reconstructed) remains of an enormous wall with a curved, mosaiced ceiling – the impressive remains of the dining hall of the Lateran Palace.
Of course, in a city in which the tiniest churches could have books written on their history and art, St. John Lateran can’t be easily described – what was most striking to me, besides the contemplation of this history, were the enormous statues of the apostles, all with the symbols of their ministries and lives – Bartholomew holding his skin, and so on, the mosaics and the baptistry – which was, at it happens, about to be used. The obelisk that stands outside dates from 1500 BC. Got it?
St. Mary Major had a slightly different feel – I don’t at all want to say "lighter," but less weighty? The facade is decorated with a lovely mosaic which has been unfortunately obstructed by a later addition of another facade in front – however, when it gets dark, lights illuminate it, and you can see it better, which we did as we left.
The relics here are many, of course, at include those purported to relate to the nativity – St. Jerome is buried here in a side chapel, above some of those relics brought from the Holy Land – quite appropriate. As is the case with every bit of these churches, every piece of art has a story behind it, that can’t be grasped from just wandering by and looking at it. In that same chapel where Jerome lies:
The statue opposite the altar depicts St Cajetan holding the Holy Child, and is by Bernini. In a letter the saint wrote to a nun at Brescia, he explained that when he was once lost in prayer at this spot, the Holy Child climbed into his arms.
There’s a legend associated with the establishment of St. Mary Major:
The first church here was founded c. 350 by Pope Liberius, and financed by a Roman patrician and his wife. They were childless, and had decided to leave their fortune to the Blessed Virgin. She appeared to them in a dream and told them to build a church in her honour. It lies on the summit of the Esquiline Hill, which was mainly laid out as gardens in ancient times. Legend claims that the plan of the church was outlined by a miraculous snowfall in August (possibly in 358). The legend is commemorated every year on August 5th, when white rose petals are dropped from the dome during the festal Mass.
That I’d like to see!
Katie was particularly interested in the detail Zadok pointed out about the ceiling – gilded in gold, it is said, that was in the first shipment of gold sent over from the New World, and donated by Ferdinand and Isabella. At every church with a gold-gilded ceiling after that, she wondered if it was gold from her side of the world.
And yes, we saw Cardinal Law. Didn’t say hey. Vespers was going on in a side chapel, and he was seated in there, praying along. Michael marched right in (carrying the baby) and went to the side where he attempted to join in Vespers (he said it was different somehow – I don’t remember how – and the baby started squawking – so that didn’t last), and got a better glance.
In between the two basilicas was a visit to St. Prassede, a simply wonderful church that maintains quite an air of antiquity – the mosaics are simply fine, both in the sanctuary and in the side chapel of St. Zeno, the confessio contains relics of early Christians and fragments of early Christian tombs embedded in the walls (common in these churches – when fragrments of earlier Christian structures were unearthed, they were often placed in walls in various spots), and there are tomb slabs on the floor, one in particular, of a pilgrim who died and was buried there – identified in the carving on the slab, of course, by the shell hanging around his neck.
I did like St. Pressade, even though our visit was not quite calm – at that point, I was carting the baby on my back, and he had discovered that I had long hair that could be yanked. Hard. (This was a continuing problem when I carried him. Which, I admit, didn’t depress me too much since maybe it meant I wouldn’t have to carry him so much????? But no..we discovered that if I tied my hair back, the appeal of pulling was greatly diminished. At times, when no hair tie was available, we pulled out his own knit cap and shoved it on my head, which worked for a while, until he discovered the other game of pulling it off…)
Read Previous Post
