The Absent-Minded Professor's Travels: Italy 2014 Day 07

Anne's good camera, steadied by my shoulder

Oh blessed day! A week earlier than in the US, Italian clocks “fell back” overnight. So we got an extra hour of sleep! – And get to do it again back home next weekend! I generally disapprove of "Daylight Savings Time" which puts our clocks an hour out of sync with the sun for about two-thirds of the year, but man! I do like "Fall Back Weekend"!

And the wake-up call came a little later by the clock, as well – 06:15 for a 07:15-ish breakfast. Although the spread was every bit as good as we’d had before (and the bacon was, well, infinitely better), I can’t say I liked the regimented way Hotel Cicerone did things – they had to confirm your room number and directed you toward specific tables, not always seeming to follow any pattern. I guess it’s related to something said by one of the padres a few days before – the main rule in Italy is that the rules don’t seem to make any sense, and they change for no apparent reason on a daily basis. Anyway, we started assembling about 08:00 for the bus to depart at 08:15 for Sunday Mass.

Santa Maria Maggiore

We attended the regular 09:00 Mass in Italian at one of the four Major Basilicas of Rome, the one of most significance to our group because it is the sister Basilica of our own Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Natchitoches – the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, “St. Mary Major” [LINK]. All Minor Basilicas are paired with one of the Major Basilicas in Rome. A Basilica was originally a style of public building in Rome, many of which became churches after the Christianization of the Empire in the 4^th century. Over time, the term was used of new constructions built along the same general pattern, i.e., generally rectangular with a central nave and aisles separated by colonnades, but gradually came to denote certain churches of major importance and granted special ceremonial rights by the Papacy [LINK]. St. Mary Major is the largest Marian church in Rome, and was built during the 5^th century, immediately after the 431 Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary to be the “Mother of God” [LINK]. Despite various damages and rebuildings over the centuries, it retains its core of original classical Roman structure, and houses a number of historically-important 5^th-c. mosaics which are among the oldest representations of the Blessed Virgin. The left transept, the Borghese Chapel, enshrines the ancient icon of the Salus Populi Romani, "Salvation of the Roman People," an image of Our Lady traditionally painted from life by St. Luke the Evangelist on wood from the table of the Holy Family’s home in Nazareth as he listened to her account of the life of her Son – which he would then record in his Gospel.

Salus Populi Romani ...
somewhat modified and touched-up

St. Mary Major is also called “Our Lady of the Snows,” which makes for a charming story. Per the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, “During the pontificate of Liberius, the Roman patrician John and his wife, who were without heirs, made a vow to donate their possessions to the Virgin Mary. They prayed that she might make known to them how they were to dispose of their property in her honour. On 5 August, at the height of the Roman summer, snow fell during the night on the summit of the Esquiline Hill. In obedience to a vision of the Virgin Mary which they had the same night, the couple built a basilica in honour of Mary on the very spot which was covered with snow. From the fact that no mention whatever is made of this alleged miracle until a few hundred years later, not even by Sixtus III in his eight-line dedicatory inscription ... it would seem that the legend has no historical basis” [SOURCE]. The air of skepticism with which this entry ends puts me in mind of two quotations which adorn my office door: “When the legend becomes fact, Mr. Ransom, print the legend” (The Newspaper Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance); and “It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad” (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

Waiting patiently for Mass to begin

Anyway, we entered the Basilica a bit before 09:00, wandered around a bit in awe, and assembled before the main altar … only to realize as the celebrants (including Fr. Chris, who was concelebrating the Mass; Fr. Ryan had earlier gone to St. Peter’s on his own and celebrated a private Mass) processed in that the Mass was actually going to be said in the Borghese Chapel – which explained why that side chapel had been slowly filling up. We ended up having to stand in the rear of the area, some even outside the gate dividing that chapel from the nave! Later, Fr. Chris revealed that he was as startled as we were when the procession took a left turn, and Debra apologized profusely for the failure in communication, but the sacristan with whom she had confirmed the Mass earlier apparently did not consider it important that we know the precise location of the 09:00 Mass!

Fr. Chris (at right) concelebrating Mass
in the Borghese Chapel

Mass in Italian was interesting. Based on my Latin, I could pick out words here and there, but could not make much sense of it otherwise. This seems to me an argument that in a “universal” – catholic – Church, there should be one common language of worship (Latin, of course), but luckily the structure of even the Novus Ordo Mass is the same no matter what language it is celebrated in and I got the gist of the critically important parts. Communion was an experience in itself. Debra had already impressed on us that Italians do not know the concept of a queue – and we got a perfect example here, as communicants pressed forward without any order whatsoever, practically elbowing others aside to make their own way forward toward the priests distributing the Sacrament. It was wild.

Entering St. Peter's Square

Once Mass was ended, it was back to the bus as quickly as possible to drive to the Piazza San Pietro – where crowds were already assembling for the Pope’s weekly Angelus Address at 12-noon on Sunday. We were basically let loose to find our own spots in the square, with only a predetermined meeting time and place for afterward, late enough to allow us time to find lunch after the Angelus. The time was to be 14:00; the place was to be in front of the Domus Artis gift shop just outside the square. Having a little while before it got too crowded in the square, most of us engaged in a bit of shopping there in Domus Artis, purchasing various religious items to be taken home with the Pope’s blessing at the end of the Angelus. And so, after we left Domus Artis about 11:30, Anne and I didn’t see anyone from our group as we pressed our way through the crowds to what we figured would be a good vantage point. It turned out to be excellent, up near the right where Bernini’s four-column-deep colonnade flares out into the arcs encircling the Egyptian obelisk that once adorned the Emperor Nero’s Circus on the Vatican Hill across the Tiber River from the Seven Hills of the city itself, and may well have been the last thing St. Peter saw – inverted – with his mortal eyes.

St. Peter’s 265^th successor, Pope Francis, appeared right on schedule, delivering his address in Italian (and acknowledging one group of pilgrims from Peru, I believe, who were there with a big procession, banners, even a big Rosary made of helium balloons that they released into the air – we would see it again) and praying the Angelus in Latin.

The Rosary launches at approx. 15:00 in

Of course, I had no idea what the Pope was saying, but luckily an English translation is posted weekly [LINK] [LINK].

Both were excellent!

Afterward, Anne and I made our way out of St. Peter’s Square, stopping at a couple of shops along the way – I went into the Pope Benedict XVI Bookstore – then finding a little café on a side street to the north of St. Peter’s. There seemed to be a good number of locals there, including priests, and for good reason. The pizzas and the wine were excellent. We followed them with gelato before meeting the others in front of Domus Artis at 14:00.

Walking back to meet the bus, we were then driven out of the ancient city-walls of Rome along the Appian Way to the Catacombs of St. Calixtus [LINK]. (Along the way, several miles from the Vatican, we caught sight of the Peruvian Rosary high up in the sky, floating merrily away.)

[SOURCE]

The catacombs are man-made tunnels which were built during the earliest days of Christianity, while the faith was still outlawed, mainly to serve as burial chambers rather than the more stereotypical places of refuge and worship. Undoubtedly during the worst persecutions they served these purposes as well. This particular group of catacombs are named for the deacon and future Pope St. Callixtus who created and administered them in the mid 2^nd century under Pope Zepherinus. They once housed the tombs of a number of 2^nd- to 4^th-century Popes, although by the 9^th century all relics had been translated to the various churches of Rome, leaving them empty but for a wealth of early Christian iconography for the long centuries when they were forgotten only to be rediscovered in the 19^th century. Under the direction of a priest of the Salesian order now overseeing the catacombs, we toured these tunnels where our earliest Fathers in the Faith once reposed.

The Pantheon

By 16:00 we were back on the way into the city, headed for an evening “out on the town” in one of the centers of Roman night-life, the Piazza Navona with twenty Euros each given back to us by Magnificat to buy our own dinners. But first we took a short side-trip at the Pantheon, one of the most ancient buildings in Rome, surviving with relatively little damage and rebuilding from the 1^st-century BC to 2^nd-century AD. On the walk from the bus park to the Pantheon, Anne risked getting fussed at for leaving the group to fulfill one of her goals for the trip, to procure for Tristan a scarf for the soccer team A.S. Roma, which she spied in a shop. I stood look-out, keeping my eyes on Fr. Ryan’s little bald spot receding into the distance as she concluded the transaction in record time – then we dashed to rejoin the group where they had stopped in the plaza in front of the Pantheon. We were back so quickly that no one even knew we had left.

The Oculus

The Pantheon was originally built by the first Emperor Augustus Caesar’s friend and right-hand man Marcus Agrippa just before the BC-AD divide. It was rebuilt after major damage due to an earthquake by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2^nd century, and has undergone little change since then – except for being repurposed from a temple to the Roman gods into a Christian church dedicated to St. Mary and the Martyrs. Its most distinctive architectural feature is the largest free-standing concrete dome in the world and the large circular hole or “oculus” at the very top of that dome, providing the only natural light to the interior. It contains the tombs of two of Italy’s modern (late 19^th-century) kings. [Virtual tours: LINK]

An expensive picture....
(Taken for us by Melanie Johnson)

After a short self-guided tour of the Pantheon, I let myself get snookered. Here’s how I treated it when I posted a picture on Facebook: “Learn from my mistake -- What not to do as a tourist/pilgrim/etc: They want money, of course ... I knew that. But I'm in Rome, outside the Pantheon, they are Roman soldiers. It was like catnip to me! All reason fled! Along with a number of Euros! Merda!” Enough said.

Fountain of the Four Rivers
in Piazza Navona

We then walked back to the Piazza Navona and were let loose. After marveling at the Fountain of the Four Rivers at the center of the plaza, a good number of us went through the Church of St. Agnes in Agony, including a secluded shrine displaying the skull of that young martyr (about thirteen years of age when she refused to give up her purity despite the Roman authorities escalating attempts to humiliate and torture her into renouncing her Faith; the name of the church actually comes from the Latinized Greek in Agone, referring to its and the piazza's location on the site of Diocletian's Circus, where games would take place as well as persecutions -- the Greek agon means "competition." But I think the English gloss with the modern connotation works quite well). Afterward, a group of about ten of us had dinner at an open-air restaurant named Tucci’s. It was excellent. We greatly enjoyed a jazz band playing in the piazza near our restaurant. And of course we followed it with a dash to a gelato shop.

At Ristorante Tucci, Piazza Navona
(Taken by my wiife)

At 20:30, we all gathered together and made our way back to the bus, and Luigi drove us back to the Hotel Cicerone after the longest day out yet since we arrived in Italy. I was barely able to get the pictures off my phone and Anne’s memory card to my computer before conking out, although we did also call and chat with Tristan for a few minutes. [Fri 31 Oct 20:14]