Los Angeles

That's what it would be in Spanish, but they don't speak much of that here. In Italy they tend to lean toward Italian, for whatever reason. So it would be Monte San Angelo, adding in a monte and converting the plural angel folks to the singular.

We went there from San Giovanni Rotondo, after spending a night and then getting to celebrate Mass in the tiny chapel in the Franciscan cloister where Padre Pio celebrated Mass for two years while he wasn't allowed to celebrate the liturgy in public. We also found the beautiful flowers at left, with the lady pictured who was willing to spend some time with us.

We drove the winding road east to the Adriatic coast, where we found the fourth century shrine that had been a major pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages--Saint Michael (part of today's cohort, in fact--celebrating the Annunciation, Gabriel is another of the archangel's whose names we know, with Michael and Raphael) appeared to a shepherd here way back when. The shepherd had wandered up into the hills to look for a lost sheep (familiar story) and Michael appeared to him in the grotto (cave, place underground in the rocks) which is now a chapel.

Michael's a good guy to keep around; renowned for trouncing bad guys, he has a foot up on knocking Lucifer from the stars (So hard he saw stars. 'How can I be seeing stars,' pondered Lucifer, 'if I've just been knocked out of them?'). In statuary, Saint Michael is also shown as having skills with a sword or spear--devices known to deal damage.
















Shown here with a sword, and getting a foot up on Satan.






The town of Monte San Angelo itself is beautiful. We had a multo buono lunch at a ristorante when we arrived, since the church was closed for two hours for the afternoon riposo. Surprisingly, the afternoon was so cold that in addition to seeing a cow walk down Main Street (unrelated to the coldness) we saw snowflakes coming down--so much for it being after Easter.











We also found very good meringues here.





To get to the grotto is a bit of a trek, actually. You enter the church at what you think is ground level, and then you descend flight after flight of steps, leading you down to where the very peaceful grotto has ridden out the centuries.










Very peaceful grotto.


It's so well illuminated you can't quite tell you're underground from this photo. But you're underground. In a grotto. Which is quite peaceful.

Roundabout

Roundly speaking, the Italians seem to like tacking the term 'rotondo' on to various names, so after Easter when four of us vehicularized to visit Saint Padre Pio's home, we were heading to San Giovanni Rotondo--Saint John the Round, or something around that.

The Capuchin monastery has had several enlargements added to it, since it's become an incredibly popular pilgrimage site among Italians, the most popular if the Vatican doesn't beat it out.

The mural at left is from the new church behind the main altar, where you can see Saint Pio asking Mary and Jesus what to do with all these visitors. Actually there's a bunch of angels, and the one to the left has a crown of flowers, so its probably much more profound, like, 'Where should we put the angels and the flowers?'

John Paul II canonized Padre Pio in 2002, and he is the opposite sort of saint from what a modern religion would want to have: accounts describe him walking in the air, showing up in two places at once, and most well known of all, having the stigmata of Christ's wounds on his hands, feet and side--all this doesn't square with becoming sensible and, well, normal.

The four of us were able to go behind closed doors because we'd been put in contact with Brady White, whose career as Santa Claus put him in great shape to bring us Christmas in late March. The Franciscan Friars of course still live in the monastery, so it was privilege for us to be able to go in and see the quarters where Padre Pio lived.

We were able to sit where he sat.









He was known to eat about as little as we did while sitting in his place.



Padre Pio was praying in front of this crucifix when he received the stigmata:





























Also in the corridor of the convent we came by this plaque. In the box below are numbered tokens--they correspond to the list which has different categories of souls in purgatory to pray for:



















It has 100 different designations, with the last, for good measure, being 'for all the souls in purgatory'.



With Padre Pio dying in 1968, I don't imagine this foosball table dated back to his time:















And of course, the most recent addition, across the hill from the convent, is the large church capable of seating, well, many people.












Brady was able to bring us down to the crypt where Saint Pio has been buried.











Or, at least, was.



Padre Pio was exhumed at the beginning of the month and was found to be partially incorrupt, as in 2003 when his body was examined in preparation for his beatification. Normally a million pilgrims come to San Giovanni Rotondo each year; this summer visitors will be able to see his body, and many more pilgrims are expected.











In the meantime, his body is kept here in the same crypt as his tomb.





Padre Pio was already well known in his lifetime. People came to him from all over for confession, which he would hear for hours on end. Many wrote him with prayer intentions or thanksgiving for answers received. It got to the point that the monastery had to create its own post office to handle the incoming mail; teams of friars were assigned to read through the letters.











The letters of thanksgiving have been kept.




The thousands of letters with intentions were first read and prayed for, and then the letters themselves would be burnt.










The three fireplaces can be seen to the left; and the church and convent in the background.

Vigilantes

As a priest assisting in communion distribution for the Easter Vigil, I and my companions were able to avoid the five hour + wait to get into Saint Peter's. The other perk is reserved seats--in good spots to see what was going on. After arriving in the Eucharistic Chapel, which was our sacristy for the liturgy, we vested in surplices and white stoles over our cassocks. Then we processed out to the entrance of the basilica, where the Easter Candle would be lit. We sat down next to the Swiss Guard who was guarding the candle, with the cardinals and other bishops sitting in front of us.

After Benedict's blessing and lighting of the candle, we processed in to meet something I had never seen before: a completely darkened basilica. You get an even greater sense of its vastness when there is no reassuring light shining down from the lofty arches.

We were seated next to the Sistine Chapel Choir again, but this time several of my classmates and I were in the front row below the baldecino over the main altar. Following the multiple readings and Benedict's homily, the pope brought several new members into the Church through baptism and confirmation, a practice that would be reflected around the world, as the forty days of close preparation in Lent concluded with the grace of Christ's resurrection being applied to those who turned to receive his new life.

The neophytes would soon be able to also receive communion for the first time, as we then turned to the main altar for the Eucharist, with myself and the rest of the assisting priests standing on each side of the main altar. The liturgy had begun at 9:00 PM, and at its conclusion several remarked on how quickly it had seemed to pass, even though it was near 1:00 AM when it concluded.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Holy Saturday is a quiet day, an anomaly liturgically, since technically it has no service of its own besides the Liturgy of the Hours, as the Church waits for the celebration of Christ's resurrection with the Easter Vigil service that night. Anomalies perhaps flock in clusters, because I presented something of one myself upon arriving to Saint Peter's that evening for the vigil. Several of us clergy traveled across town by bus with umbrellas on the ready in case the threatening clouds stopped being threatening and started being earnest. I, however, was carrying on my person a pair of shoes and belt for my underdressed but soon to be replete contact Luke (he has a great post on our Aosta ski trip, by the way), who was wearing torn sneakers and belt-free pants into the most solemn liturgy of the year--something you simply don't want to do.

This was not the full extent of my strange baggage, however. Part of our exchange included Luke porting in two pounds of bacon (hearkening in no way back to the Jewish temple sacrifices, kosher as they were) for me to appropriate for our post-vigil middle-of-the-night American brunch. Finally, I was also carrying in my great coat (great because it could do things like this) a copy of the estimable comedian Brian Regan's latest DVD, also in preparation for late (or early) Easter festivities.

Bacon and Brian Regan. I'm pretty sure that's a priestly first at Saint Peter's . . .

Niner Niner

Don't forget to pray the Divine Mercy Novena in preparation for Divine Mercy Sunday. A simple yet profound prayer--now available at your fingertips . . .

Good Afternoon

Almost evening, in fact. The Good Friday service at Saint Peter's was at 5:00 pm, prior to the outdoor Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum (which is technically a chapel, claimed as a holy site long ago because of the blood of the martyrs spilled there) at 9:00.

Holy Thursday I had presided at the Mass of the Lord's Supper with a community of Franciscan Sisters, and so hadn't gone to John Lateran's, but Friday I joined several of my housemates to distribute communion at the Vatican. Since the liturgy of Good Friday is not a Mass, as a priest you're not concelebrating (which in fact is only rarely done with the Holy Father), but assisting in communion.

The weather, continuing its rain of the night before, maintained its appropriateness for the event, and kept its showers falling from gray skies. As priests we were vested in cassock and surplice, with the red stoles of the Lord’s blood. We were seated next to the Sistine Chapel Choir, under the right hand column which depicts Saint Helena and the Holy Cross.

All of the readings were chanted, as well as the Gospel, with the responses of the crowd being sung by the choir. Franciscan Father Raniero Cantalamessa preached the homily, on the seamless tunic of Christ and the evermore urgent call for Christian unity, which will ultimately come at a moment we can not know, just as in the first chapter of Acts, when the disciples ask Jesus, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And Jesus responds to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” In the same way, we are called to proclaim, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the love that unifies God’s children, even as we pray for its fullness to be manifested soon.

Hopefully the English translation will be posted soon so you can read the homily in full . . .

Step It Up

Friday morning Jesus was taken by the priests and people to Pilate to have him condemned to death. The Roman praetorium was built to exude authority, and so the massive steps leading up to Pilate's presence were carved from marble--white marble that was splashed with red blood as a beaten Jesus was dragged up and down before his contending captors.

For centuries the recognition has been that the only way to ascend those steps now is on one's knees. Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, journeyed to Jesus' own land from Rome in order to bring back relics of his life and death--in 326, roughly, she brought back part of her own empire's architecture, relocating Pilate's front porch to the Rome it had symbolized.

And so Good Friday in the morning three of us, Father David, Father Larry, and myself, joined the long line extending from the front door across the street from Saint John Lateran Basilica. Pilgrims from around the world were praying the rosary, reading the Scriptures, or waiting in silence as they prepared to ascend the steps of Christ's trial.

It hurts to go up 28 steps on your knees--a tiny reminder of the vastness of a love that would suffer vastly more for our sakes.

Way to Go

The whole world is celebrating the saving mysteries of salvation. The whole world includes my parish in Northern California and Fuel'd Ministries, our above-average-cool youth program.

The youth of this above-average-cool youth program hit the road Friday to take up a 7 mile Way of the Cross while bearing a 100 pound plus cross. Outstanding photos and outstanding dedication from the kids.

Oil Get Back to You

Big stuff happens when you pack so much into one week: it isn't called Holey Week since it's full of holes, but instead so much grace hits all at once you're fit to bust . . .

So it was Thursday morning, even before we came to the evening liturgy of the Lord's Supper, we gathered at Saint Peter's (popular place this week--just ask the U.S. Bishops Office here in town responsible for getting passes for the liturgies to American pilgrims) for the Chrism Mass, where the bishop of the diocese blesses the oils (chrisms--a little Chris-mas in March) together with the priests of his diocese--and when that diocese happens to be Rome, that includes priests from the globe entire.

The liturgy expresses the union between the bishop and his priests, and so like the Mass later that evening which commemorates the beginning both of the Eucharist and so also the commissioning of the apostles as priestly offerers of that sacrifice, the Chrism Mass is a reflection of what it means to be a priest, as Benedict's homily showed (currently on the Vatican site only in Italian).

As a concelebrating priest you entered through the Bronze Doors to the right of the basilica itself, your clerical black wear contrasting the bright colors of the Swiss Guards.
















Note also the bright flag.





A friend in the congregation later said the priests' entrance procession took half an hour. While that might be an exaggeration, it would be only mild, considering the numbers of priests and bishops joining the cardinals and the Holy Father.












Said entrance procession passed by Constantine, here getting the 'In Hoc Signo' update.





One of the perks of being ordained: always have a seat reserved at Mass.


















In this case, a whole bunch of seats.






The whole basilica, as with all the liturgies of the week, was packed full, and after the Mass we spilled out into the piazza, which was now becoming overcast, in anticipation of the somber events of the evening and following day.









The olive tree stands before the central obelisk as we prepare for the tree of salvation to be lifted in the garden outside the city.





The rain hadn't started in earnest when Mass let out, so a group of us were able to make it over to grab a celebratory cappuccino.

You've heard of the CFRs? Crazy Friars in Robes, I think their name means. Anyways, they're here in Rome.











Come to Rome. Wear Robes. Be Happy.

End of an Era

Our homilist this morning noted that this was the last of our Masses in the Station Churches this year, as Lent draws to a close. Tomorrow we have the morning Chrism Mass at Saint Peter's, and then the Triduum starts in the evening with the Mass of the Lord's Supper at Saint John Lateran's.

Our final station church is one already familiar to us from our forty day trek. One of the four major basilicas of Rome, Saint Mary Major's is also happily the closest to my residence. The clouds were illuminated brilliantly as we hiked up to the church, whose piazza was already well populated by pigeons when we arrived.

Having returned from Aviano the day before, I had been away for Monday and Tuesday's Station Masses. Mary Major already showed signs of preparation for the Triduum, with chairs set up through the nave, and the massive Easter Candle resting in the sacristy.




The diameter of this candle is about six inches--the length over six feet.





















Resting in the sacristy, the massive Easter Candle.







A rare occurrence: a mosaic on the outside of a church. This is over the main entrance of the basilica:



















Below is the ceiling of the Baptist Church:













Wait, not the Baptist Church; the Baptistry inside the church.





And finally, just to give a different perspective than our earlier visits, the nave of the basilica as seen through the baldechino of the main altar:

Winging It

Over the weekend I went to the Air Force Base in Aviano to celebrate the Palm Sunday Masses. Just north of Venice, the base is at the base (appropriately) of the Dolomite Mountains. After having been in Italy for umpteen months, it was amazing to be eating American food again!

Happy Father’s Day!

Due to this being the earliest Easter of most of our lives (the last Easter on March 23^rd was like 90 years ago—the next some 200 years from now) good old Saint Joseph gets bumped this year by Holy Week.

Here he went to all that trouble of censusing in Bethlehem, fleeing into Egypt, building go-carts or whatever it was in Nazareth, and then 2008 rolls around and he’s just clipped right out.

Something had to be done about that, of course, wrongs like that couldn’t be left unrighted, so with all due decorum the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary was moved from March 19^th to the pre-Holy Week Saturday of March 15^th. Now you may think it an easy thing to move a Solemnity, but when’s the last time you tried doing it?

That’s right. This momentous occasion should in no way be misunderestimated and all stops should be pulled out: in honor of Saint Joseph drink that cup of joe, toll that celebratory bell, and give all Joe’s in your company a hearty slap on the back, or whatever the customary congratulatory greeting may locally be.

Circular Discussion

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Coliseum. It’s round. The Pantheon? Also round. Tasty donuts you may have given up for Lent? Round as well.

It’s no wonder today’s station church follows in rotundity. Its model of circularhood though is nothing local: it’s meant to imitate the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem—the place where Jesus’ tomb is.

Santo Stefano Rotondo (Rotondo, rotund, round, get it? Get it?) is almost identical to the Jerusalem church in circumference and diameter—which, when you’re talking about circles, if you’ve matched the one, you’ve pretty much matched the other . . .

Originally dedicated to the very first martyr of the Church, the deacon Stephen, another Stephen came along, King Stefan of Hungary of the 11th century, and they figured he was a good person to dedicate the church to as well. And maybe if you’re hung(a)ry you’re harder to turn away un-church-dedicated.

Anyways, Santo Stefano Rotondo does a pretty good job of giving the martyrs their due, as the full circumference of the church is covered in frescoes giving illustration to the way the martyrs headed homeward. Unfortunately I have no photos that really give these 16^th century frescoes their due. Drop in some time to see them for yourself, I guess.

Photo of frescoes not given their due.

Speaking of, it's hard to give any of this church its due in photos, because this roundness is hard to capture in a camera lens . . .

If after all this circumnavigation you feel like you're draggin' a little, here's a little dragon . . .

And finally: You may have bats in your belfry, but in Rome they apparently have grass, as witnessed on my post-Mass-post-cappuccino trek through the Forum.

Hard to Beat

Rome has a lot of martyrs. That’s been dawning on me.

The city of Ravenna has just one. We commemorate him today--Sant’Apollinare.

He probably should have known better: he hung out with those twelve guys whose leader had been killed, and they sure didn’t seem to have better prospects. Apparently, being born in Antioch, he got to know Saint Peter when he was in town, and then Peter sent him off to be bishop of Ravenna.

Ravenna apparently was the school of hard knocks, since they apparently didn’t take to Christians well. Beaten up three times and run out of town, he kept coming back. Finally, after Emperor Vespasian decided to just up and out banish Christians, Appolinaris was beaten again and left for dead. Left for dead isn’t good enough when it comes to guys like these—he was still alive, though he finally did die from the mauling he had gotten.

Here are some closeups of the apse--you can't quite make them out in the photo above.































Here's Peter ordaining Apollinaris.






And then of course, up above you have the crew that just hangs out.


























'Hanging out' being a technical term for angelic being.





Cappuccino seeking post-Mass brought us past this little construction.












What was the name of this place?

Bridging the Gap

San Marcello ranks right up there with Santa Maria in Via Lata in distance. Right across the street from yesterday's church, it was technically even closer, since it was on our side of the street. Yay for . . . closeification.

Pope Saint Marcellus I didn't quite make it to 'In Hoc Signo Vinces' (In this sign, conquer). That came three years after his death in 312, when Constantine heard those words in a dream with the image of a Chi Rho (Christ's initials) or cross, being told to paint the sign on his soldiers' shields. The timing for Constantine was significant, because he was on the banks of the Tiber with a bridge in front of him today called Milvio--the Milvian Bridge. Constantine had been up in England (Britain) hanging out in Eboracum (York), when his dad Constantius had died. His dad had been with him up in Britain fighting those troublesome Picts (You could say they pickt their battles . . . ), but his dad also happened to be the emperor. As in, guy in charge of the Western World.

Maybe there's something in the air in York (There sure is in New York, but we call that pollution . . . ). Constantius' troops thought it was a good call to nominate Constantine emperor number next. The guy who had some say in that sort of thing, Galerius, gave it the thumbs up, or more technically, sent Constantine a 'purple vestment' (Lent, anyone?) recognizing C as the E of the West.

Fine and dandy, except emperors tended to do their emperorizing from the little hamlet called Rome, and another guy named Maxentius who happened to be localized in that locality decided to start up the emperor gig when he heard Constantius had died.

Cue Milvian Bridge.

Constantine recognized the whole Rome thing and so headed south from Pict-sburgh, coincidentally with 100,000 guys they call Roman soldiers.

Maxentius, besides having the nifty things they call walls around his city, also had a hundred thousand men or more besides, so he was in good shape.

Then Constantine has his In Hoc dream, and Maxentius simultaneously decides to forget about the protective value of walls, and marches across that aforementioned Milvian Bridge.

Big battle.

Constantine's Chi Rho guys were able to push Maxentius' guys back, who discover that a river behind you is problematic for continued backing up.

Maxentius meanwhile discovers it's hard to swim with armor on, so that last retreat becomes the end of his emperoring.

That was October 28, 312. Maxentius had been running Rome since 306, when Constantius had died.

Thus the problem for Pope Saint Marcellus I, of today's station church. He had set up a church on today's site, in the home of Lucina. Maxentius showed his opinion of the matter by making the church a stable, and the elderly Marcellus stable boy. To old to be horsing around, Marcellus died there in 309. It would be after Constantine's victory that Christianity would no longer be harassed by the emperors and Co.









Today's church seems quite stable, though no longer a stable.



At no extra charge, we provide this complementary photo from our jaunt after Mass to get coffee:





















The column of Marcus Aurelius. They call 'im Marcus Aurelius.

Flood of Information

I should be worried. Regarding today’s station church in its early years, the NAC guide states that ‘continuous flooding by the Tiber made the foundations unsafe’. Said church is one block from my residence.

I like the foundations on my home being safe. It’s Biblical to have solid foundations. ‘Continuous flooding’ is a term that looms larger after the recent rain we’ve been getting. Residents of tree houses and tall towerlike structures may find me soon inquiring about rental rates.

The one block away thing did earn bonus points this morning, hikewise. Santa Maria in Via Lata already had major extra bonus points in ancient attributions: Saint Paul (as in, “I wrote half the New Testament”) is said to have lived here for two years (in imprisonment, so maybe tea and crumpets weren't always served) and to have written the part of the New Testament called Hebrews while here (seems he missed coffee while in prison, so thought of what he would do when free . . . ‘he brews’). Just to round out the whole New Testament thing, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Luke are also said to have to spent time here.

I need to start doing my Biblical study over there. Maybe there’s still some residual insight.

Dig This

Our hosts today at San Crisogono were the Trinitarians, whose emblem is shown at left. Founded to free slaves captured by the Turks, their full name is Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Ransom of Captives. Saint Chrysogonus, named in the First Eucharistic Prayer, ended as a captive--that generally being your state as a martyr right before you go from being captured to dead. Not much is known about him, with the possibility being mentioned that he was killed in Northern Italy around 304.

The year, not the time of day.



The beautiful church in the Trastevere district has extensive ruins beneath the present day structure, which makes it exactly identical to every single other building in Rome, except that these remains are extensively excavated.











Not the underground ruins.




Being extensively excavated, they also seem to be generally closed, except for cool days like today, when the door to the crypt was opened and we could wander extensively.










Frescoes from the original church.





The extensive excavations are in some part large because the original structure was quite extensive. It may have been the original house of Chrysogonus, who as a military officer would have had money to sink into a larger home ('sink', underground now, get it? San Chrosogono himself must be laughing at that one).



















Here you see a saint curing someone with a skin ailment--or a bad case of the spots.





Also underground were cool things like tombs:










Note the winged lion to the right.




a.k.a. sarcophogi















And skulls.





























I don't know if I mentioned how extensive the subterranean passages were. Here is a photo of a portion of the extensive dig.

Faith, Hope, and the Need for Prayers

A friend studying here in Rome has asked for prayers for her sister, Faith, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer a month ago. Faith's sisters are keeping a blog updated on how things are progressing--

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

It may not be Christmas in July, but we got close today in March, hiking in a splendid sunlit morning to the church of the guy celebrated widely on December 6th and patron saint of U.S. Postal workers, or at least one of their biggest addressees.

One of the notable elements of Saint Nick's church (San Nicola in Carcere) is after having walked past half a gazillion ruined temples (give or take) to get to it, it turns out it's built on top of another two or three. An additional notable element is the distinct lack of reindeer.











Inside.



I wish you could have been here, though, because the ceiling, one of the many splendid ones in Rome, is a deep blue that brillianted in the morning sunlight.













The photo doesn't begin to do it justice.

And still no reindeer.





After three days of rain, the sky was washed clean and the morning pristine as we went for a cappuccino after Mass.










Not the Collosseum, but the Theater (Theatre, if you're British--but these were Romans) of Marcellus.




Looking west from above Piazza Venezia down the Via del Teatro Marcello towards the Tiber:
















Looking at some trees and the sky and some domes and stuff: