Spiritual Ecstasy: Saturday in the Third Week of Lent

Today's Lenten Station Church is, or rather, was supposed to be the church of Susanna at the Baths of Diocletian, but it is under restoration... so we went across the street.  The kindly priest at the 'Cheisa di Santa Maria della Vittoria (Church of St Mary of Victory) opened up at 0655, just in time for us to vest quickly for a 0700 Mass.  The exterior of the Church looks like this and mirrors the Church of Susanna across the street (which would be to your left):

I wondered at the title of the Church, until I stepped inside and looked up:

You can't see it, I know.  What you can take in with your eyes when you are standing there does not even remotely come through in a blurry little BBrry photo... and I couldn't find a picture of it on the internet either, which is unfortunate.  Anyway, the apse ceiling (half-dome above the main altar) which you just barely see above the beautiful sun-burst on the wall behind the altar, is a depiction of the Battle of Prague (1648).  The Catholic victory is attributed to the intervention of our Lady and hence the title of the Church.

Even though that is the name of the church, the real reason why this church is a favourite stop for tourists, art lovers and students of the spiritual life is a famous sculpture by Bernini called 'The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa'.

Okay, to understand this sculpture you have to understand the mystical life and writings of St. Theresa. Primarily, you have to read her 'Life', that is, her spiritual autobiography, in which she tries to describe the spiritual intimacy, joy and mystical union with God that she experienced as a contemplative nun.  She was a Discalced Carmelite nun... discalced meaning to go without shoes.  Remember when Moses turned aside to see the burning bush that although it was on fire didn't burn?  The bush contained the presence and glory of God and yet was not consumed by this intense 'overshadowing' or filling with the glory of God... And the Voice from the burning bush spoke to Moses and told him to take off his shoes for the place on which he was standing was holy ground.

Firstly, that represents to us the Blessed Virgin Mary who contained within her womb the second Person of the most holy Trinity, the Son of God, and yet was not consumed or destroyed for that fact... because she was 'full of grace', as the angel Gabriel said at the Annunciation.

Secondly, every consecrated virgin and nun, and in this particular case St. Theresa of Avila (Spain) seeks to be truly holy, and to be 'discalced', meaning 'made to put off their shoes' because they find themselves in the presence of God on holy ground, united to God in that mystical union in which they are filled with his presence to the extent that a human being can be, without perishing in the process.

 All that to say, that in her spiritual autobiography which she was compelled to write by her confessor (because she was too humble to do so otherwise), St. Theresa wrote of one intense experience of God:

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.

And this passage became the inspiration for Bernini's statue of 'St. Theresa in Ecstasy'. Foolish interpreters of this spiritual ecstasy have often made it out to be a kind of sensual experience because that is the only thing that this carnally obsessed society can understand.  They know nothing of what St. Theresa is talking about so they try to relate it to the one thing that dominates their own thinking and then blindly attempt to equate it to their own shallow and spiritually atrophied existence. No, my friends, this is spiritual intimacy, union with God who is a consuming fire.  This is holy ground... take off your shoes.

And Mary said to the angel (Gabriel): How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.... And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.

"And that's all I want to say about that."  More later today, perhaps.  I am praying for my friends and family who are following along with my sabbatical.  May God bless you.

At the TOP of the Catholic world.

Pilgrimage to Roman Station Church for Thursday in the Third week of Lent: St Lawrence in Lucina

On the way: spring has sprung in Rome - 30 feet of cascading lilacs in bloom:

From a different angle:

Below: St Lorenzo in Lucina

I am hoping that you remember St Lawrence from my description of the other church dedicated to him... he is the one that was 'grilled' alive as a martyr.  There are several churches dedicated to this saint.  He left quite an impression on the believers in Rome!  Today's church is one of several ancient churches in his honour.  Again, it looks pretty ordinary from the outside, but inside is as inspiring as ever.  When you see the pic of the main aisle in the nave above, you have to remember that there are usually 4 -6 side altars along each of the outside walls - beyond the pillars that you see. The painted crucifix that makes for the main altarpiece was incredible and drew my attention throughout the Mass.  It being a Friday in Lent, it was good to remember that our Lord was crucified on a Friday, and the altarpiece brought that home very powerfully.

My colleague Fr. James is looking at one of the side altars in the Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina.

Below, I wanted to show you the pulpit, again, perched halfway up the wall and halfway into the nave where the faithful sit.  See the sounding board over top of the pulpit to direct the priest's voice down into the nave?

The Station Church is always early in the morning before breakfast... we don't 'break' the 'fast' until we have Mass.  There is always a communion fast for Catholics - minimum of one hour of fasting before Mass.  To get up, walk for 40- 50 min to get to the Church, have Mass, and walk back is a lot of energy spent early in the morning with no food... but that's just the way it is.

After breakfast, Fr. James and I decided to climb up into the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. You probably can't tell that there are people up there in the zoomed-in picture I took this morning... can you find them?

If I didn't tell you ahead of time that there were people up there, and that I planned to climb up there myself, would you have thought to look for them?  I never imagined, ever, that the black ring around the top of the bluish dome (just at the base of the pillars) that that black ring is actually individual people looking back at the rest of us down below.  Waaaaay down below:

See the line that I am in... winding around from the right hand side of the picture?  40 min wait to get in. I'm not really that good at waiting in lines, or in traffic, at the bank, at the grocery store, etc.  40 minutes is all the more difficult right now because I get more relief from the sciatica when I am walking, much more than when I am standing still.  Climbing stairs counts as walking:

It starts off easy enough.  There are 550 steps, approximately.  The first steps are nicely inclined and wide enough to take two steps on each stair.  See above... I am still smiling.  It is about to get tougher, though, and narrower...

You can see that the walls of the dome are angling in as you climb higher.  It is a weird sensation to have the stairs square to the ground under your feet, but the walls tilting in on an ever increasing angle... so that you are walking straight, but leaning over to one side.

Whoaaaaa! Its like a carnival fun-house the way it disorientates you.

You can see the curve of the dome in this pic... but the floor is flat beneath you.  It is harder for taller people, of course because the wall comes right over to bump you in the head.  When's the last time you had a wall bump you in the head while you were walking up-right?

Fr James, climbing up the spiraling staircase.

 The next pics are the final few (20?) steps that are a tight spiral to the top.  So, tight, in fact, that they provide a rope!

That's not a smile on my face... I am trying to catch my breath and let the burning in my calves subside.

Finally, at the top of the rope-stairs you break out into the open air.  And what a view!  St. Peter's Square (which is not square).  See the statues of the 12 Apostles across the roof line of the basilica (at the near end of the square), they are probably 20 feet tall.

I can fly!!!  Not.   

The Pontifical North American College is the group of buildings in the middle of the picture, just in between the two sections of trees.  The yellow upper floor also has a terrace where I took the pictures on Day 1 or 2, looking in the direction toward where I am standing now, that is, toward St. Peter's.  I live in the Casa O'Toole which is the cream-coloured 4 story square building in the middle-right of the pic.

I am leaning out of the safety cage putting my Blackberry at risk in order to take a picture of the Sistine Chapel from above.  It is the brown roofed rectangular shaped building just beyond the edge of the white roof-line.  In the upper right you can just see the circular columns of St. Peter's Square.

 Again, with the Sistine Chapel in the immediate foreground.

The Vatican Gardens.

 Me and my safety cage.

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Now for the descent... Yikes!

 I'm guessing that this is where the Pope has chosen to live, rather than in the Papal apartments.


When you are half way down there is a break in the journey, as there was on the way up.  Here, I am standing BEHIND the statues that you see at the top of the roof line of St. Peter's.  They are statues of the 12 Apostles (except that Peter is down in the Square, with St Paul, so John the Baptist takes his place beside Christ.

Again, only closer.  Notice: the didn't carve the backs of the statues!

Walking on the roof of St. Peter's.  What a surprise to find a restaurant and a gift shop... on the roof!

So I bought a few gifts.  This Rosary is just like the one I use, so I bought it for someone who asked for mine.

We got to stop part way up the stairs to see the inside of the dome from close up, so I will include some of those pics here, without comment...

Over top of the Bernini baldachino (four poster canopy) and the main altar

A little cherub as a mosaic wall decoration. There were 12 of them.

Close up of the portion just under his wing.  See how intricate the mosaics are?

The dome itself, from the inside.

The altarpiece viewed from an angle that most people never see.
The sun shining through the alabaster is stunning.

All the previous pics were taken through these little holes in the safety screening.  

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Last of all, and briefly, I went to the papal penitential service tonight.  The first ever by a Pope, so I'm told.  I was within 4 people of him as he walked up the main aisle in procession... but to be honest, I was put off by all the people taking pictures as if this was just another tourist attraction.  You won't see any pics of this liturgy from me.  There wasn't enough priests to hear all the confessions... but it was a good first attempt.  They will work out the details in the future if they chose to do it again.  I kept the 'program', of course.  It included a nice examination of conscience in English, but it was mostly all in Italian.

Side Street Churches

Today I got up around 5 am, did some stretching exercises, and launched out on a back street adventure in trying to find Thursday's Station Church (Saints Cosmas and Damian -twins and martyrs).  It was good to walk, it actually helps... and it was a lot of fun finding my own way there.  Actually, I get close and then look for the horde of seminarians steaming up behind me at a far brisker walking pace... from there I just follow them to the actual church.  No stress.

As I descended those brick steps of the Juniculum Hill... more slowly than usual, I recalled my friend referring to them at one point in Italian as the 'Scale dall'inferno': steps from hell.

What I noticed, though, at the foot of the steps and out onto the path beside the Tiber was that at some point during my week off the trees had budded and the little leaves were giving a shade of light green to my morning walk.

That's the Tiber River on the left, through the new leaves.  Spring has sprung in Rome... although to be honest, it was 18*C and sunny pretty much since I got here.  This week has been cooler and rainy - so not quite as pleasant.  I know you folks in Canada don't really feel that sorry for me.

So, like I said, I wound my way through multiple back streets to get to the Church of Sts Cosmas and Damian this morning.  The church is very old, of course, and it is situated in a marshy, flood-prone area of Rome, so at some point the floor was actually raised 20 feet so today it was really interesting to sit in 'choir' because we were sitting close to the original ceiling!  You could really see the beauty and detail in the mosaics when you are 20 feet closer to the top of the building.

The church is tucked in behind this magnificent building, that I showed you before:

It's called the Vittorio Emmanuel II national monument.  Pictures don't do it justice.  Around to the left of this photo is Trajan's Victory Column I showed you earlier:

So, walking in between the Vit.Emmanuel monument and Trajan's column, amidst other ancient ruins of the Roman Forum... and before you get to the Colosseum, you discover the Church of Cosmas and Damian.  So, in this pic you are now behind the Vit Emmanuel monument - see it in the background - and the ancient ruins are at your feet in front of you, and the Church is still a little farther to your left (not in the pic yet):

If you do a 180* turn and look behind you, you will see the Colosseum in the distance (being restored -hence the scaffolding on the far left):

Looking at the picture above, today's Station Church is just on your right, but not yet in the picture (again!)

Yep, that's it.  Not much to look at from the outside, eh?  See the pilgrims waiting to get in?  Also, notice the yellow police tape?  That's right, Obama... again.  I was happy to see his helicopter leave this afternoon from the Vatican.  Remember I am close to the Vatican, so I saw it go.  Now they can take down all that tape.

Meanwhile, the Mass inside the Church with the raised floor was quiet, intimate and very peaceful. There were two Cardinals with us, Cardinal O'Brien who has been with us every day, and another one who celebrated the Mass but I didn't get his name.  The music by the seminary schola was excellent and added a very solemn mood to the Lenten spiritual reflection.

See what I mean about being close to the ceiling?  Usually that apse is waaaaay above your head. Those wooden benches that follow the rounded wall of the Apse is the 'choir' where I sat this morning... behind the main altar, so I couldn't actually see what was going on.

It wasn't hard getting a picture of the main ceiling (above) in the nave.  It was like you could reach out and touch it.

In a manner similar to my method of getting to the Station Church this morning, I took a series of back streets home.  Honestly, there was a church every second street... back street.  Churches that would be like cathedrals back home are tucked into the corners of little piazzas (squares that aren't square).  I stopped in at about 6 of them and took a few pictures.  I can't remember the names of them all.  Its really quite amazing.

The exterior

The interior space

Same church... the altar piece - a little bit like the sunburst at St. Peter's.

Another church, I liked the painting of St Michael the Archangel.

The choir loft and pipe organ.  You can't see it very well, but painted all across the balcony of the loft are a multitude of the heavenly host praising God on a variety of musical instruments.

Yet another church in the corner of a small piazza on a backstreet in Rome.  That is a pulpit on the left, halfway up the wall.  Many of the churches still have these... kind of different and perhaps not really needed in a church that is not the size of a basilica.

This is the altar piece of that same church... Mary and Joseph with Jesus and a Levitical priest (probably Simeon) in the temple in Jerusalem.  In ALL these churches, the biblical record is preserved and proclaimed through art for those who could not read... which was most people at the time.  Now-a-days, you often can't tell what a modern or post-modern artist is trying to communicate.  Here, art is in the service of the gospel and is meant to convey truth and reality as beautifully and as clearly as possible.

While I was in this church a man walked in, stopped at the open Bible and read the Scripture readings for today, and then went on his way to work.  What a great idea... which was probably more common when not everyone could afford a Bible. Don't believe that nonsense that Catholics weren't allowed to read the Bible.  After the disaster of the Reformation where each man interpreted the Bible for himself (resulting in 30,000+ Protestant denominations and counting), Catholics were not encouraged to make themselves into the sole interpreting authority of the Scriptures, but rather were encouraged to seek the mind of the Church (which wrote the Bible, BTW) on how it had historically interpreted difficult passages... but were they permitted to read the Bible, yes.

The Church near my house is 'Holy Spirit Parish' and it has a place for a round Rose window (as they are called).  Since the church is new, there is just clear glass there now.  I took this picture to show the Pastor there.

If I can get inside this church, I will get a picture of how the light shines through the window and take a picture of the details of the window.

I don't know how many pictures of Churches you can take.  I saw lots... I am posting a fraction of what I saw.  I can't describe the insides of each church... they are full of wonderful art, sculptures, mosaics, etc. and it gets to be overwhelming after a while.

If the door is open, I go in.  I can't help it.

Ah! Below is the exterior of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere.

The oldest, or nearly the oldest surviving mosaics in Rome:

And then... this.  Can you figure this one out??  Click on it to enlarge (like all pics)

 What do you think is going on in this painting?  Who is the lady in the blue dress who takes up the foreground (and therefore the primacy of place) in this painting.  What is she wearing on her head? Yep... that's the papal tiara.  Was there really a Pope Joan???  I see six cardinals in the back left, in some kind of disputation or presentation to a gathering of clergy... but no Holy Father, unless... hehehe.

No, this is actually of the Council of Trent and that is holy Wisdom in the foreground.

 I'll leave it there for tonight.