Roman Sabbatical - Tues 4 Mar 14

Today is an orientation day, for the most part.  I arrived at the Pontifical North American College (PNAC) yesterday around 1230 and was picked up at the airport which is near the ocean.  Rome is a little ways in from the coast, maybe about 30 min depending on how aggressively one negotiates the narrow lanes and intersections.  Our driver, managing a rather large (for Italy) van, delivered us safely at PNAC, though it wasn't entirely certain how he managed to do it.  In any case, the three priests he picked up did arrive unscathed, myself, another Canadian Fr Brian MacDougall from PEI and our American cousin to be named later.

Yesterday, in spite of being rather tired from the trip, I took up the invitation of three fellow priests: Fr Ed (who insists that we not call him Fred), Fr Kevin, and Fr Patrick, to go for a walk into the city of Rome.  For a first attempt at finding our way through the intricate tangle of uneven cobblestone (well, tiled) lanes, alleys and side streets of the inner city we didn't do so badly.  We managed to get to the Trevi Fountain - a marvelous depiction in stone of Moses striking the Rock in the wilderness:

After repeated efforts we managed to find our way to the Spanish Steps, although we found them from the top looking down rather than getting the more inspiring view from the bottom so as to take in the whole.  The steps were actually quite crowded, as was Trevi Fountain, which was a bit of a surprise for a Monday afternoon.  Nevertheless, we descended the Steps to the accompaniment of someone playing quite well on a violin, and although I recognized the tune, I can't name it.  There are more steps than appear here:

We also stopped in at two churches, the first of which was rather breath-taking.  I will have to retrace my steps, Spanish or otherwise, to get the name of that church.  First impressions, they say, are lasting impressions and I would like to re-visit that one... and perhaps get a picture.  This was a kind of 'out of the way' church without a great facade, almost like a store-front entrance without external ostentation, but quite beautiful and inspiring inside.

I think we covered about 6 - 8  miles and I was fairly tired by the end of the day, which ended with Evening Prayer with my fellow priests... which was quite nice, instead of doing it alone as is often the case.  The fellowship here will be one of the great blessings, I'm sure.

Today, Tues 4 Mar, is the beginning of our lectures in Moral Theology and our pastoral response to contemporary issues.  The lectures take up about 3.5 - 4 hrs of the day.  Other regular parts of the day are Morning Prayer said / sung in 'choir' (meaning we sit in two sections facing each other and responding back and forth as we say the Psalms and prayers.  Morning Prayer is followed immediately by Mass, followed by breakfast.  We eat lunch, the main meal of the day, with the Seminarians.  The PNAC is full with about 250 seminarians.  As I said above, the day closes with Evening Prayer followed by dinner.  They don't actually call the meals 'breakfast, lunch, and dinner'.  We have to use the Italian names for those meals.  More on that later, when I learn them!

Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, we begin the daily Pilgrimages to the Roman Station churches where the many, many Martyrs are buried from the persecutions of the early church under Nero, Diocletian, etc., but that is a blog for tomorrow.