Take Your Stations

Happy Ash Wednesday! And Happy beginning of the great 40 days of renewal!

They have a great practice here in Rome that I'm discovering for the first time: each of these upcoming forty mornings Mass is celebrated in a different church of an early Martyr--the Station Churches. So today's Mass was at Santa Sabina--where she's buried, as with the other stations. The church dates back to the 400's, and amazingly, the original cypress door remains there to this day. Over the main altar on the ceiling is a beautiful fresco of the Good Shepherd with a stream of living water flowing from his feet to the sheep gathered around ('Not a baaa'd place to be,' I commented later). In addition there were saints and many Dominicans, as the church was given to them in the 1200's, and is now the headquarters of the Master General.

A whole crew of us Padres set out hiking en masse (get it: en masse, to Mass) in the early darkness to get there, and it was so great to walk past the ancient ruins of the city in the momentary quiet preceding the day's bustle. Praying the rosary en-route, we arrived to find the many white robes and purple stoles of a Lenten clergy.

Beginning the Mass while it was still dark outside, the sun rose during the Eucharistic prayer, and streamed in through the windows during communion--beautiful.

After Mass a crew of us went to grab coffee before starting the rest of the day. We have two CFR's here in town, so they were able to join us, providing us with some Franciscan balance to our Dominican launch.

Here's to 39 more days!