This Station Church is Closed - Go Home

Yesterday afternoon, after attending the Traditional Latin Mass I walked home slowly along the Tiber toward the PNAC reflecting on what I had just experienced.  While I was certainly filled with deep appreciation, I was also struggling with the fact that it seemed so beyond me to learn it.  Its a bit of an uphill climb for me, to say the least... and at a certain point in my meditative walk home I turned left and came face to face with the stairs leading to the top of Juniculum Hill.   The photo shows part of the climb.  You have to turn left at the top of the stairs and climb again.  This is the climb that I face regularly, almost daily, sometimes descending in the dark before 0600, sometimes climbing back up at the end of a pilgrimage:

Standing at the foot of this imposing staircase of stone, it occurred to me that learning the ancient form of the Mass is kind of like this.  I have stepped up to the challenge, but have progressed only so far as the first few steps... with many still to come.  When I face the Juniculum Hill I know that I can make it to the top because I have done other Hills, other Steps... not these ones, but challenges that have taxed my skinny little chicken legs and made my muscles burn and ache.  In the past I have put one foot in front of the other and lifted my hulking mass up one step after another in painful protest from my back and lungs... but without quitting.

As you can see, these first steps are smooth granite, or perhaps travertine, or some evenly cut natural stone.  The foot falls easily into its place even if the climb is difficult.  What you can't see very well is how that changes over the ensuing set of steps onward right up to the top.  The steps become narrow bricks on edge, laid side-by-side parallel to your foot.  Some are sunken, some are chipped or broken, others have shifted their angle - the result of which is that every step becomes hazardous, every new step is new territory which is relatively inconsistent with the last.  Climbing is no easy task, although the 23-yr old seminarians negotiate these brick steps with greater ease than I do, and certainly make it look easy.  It is the same with learning something new in middle age... but if we don't keep learning, especially learning about Truth, Beauty and Goodness, even into our old age, then our mind and our will become sluggish and we are in danger of spiritual stagnation.

Having walked nearly 45 minutes across the various hilly terrains of Rome this morning we arrived at a Church called 'St. Peter in Chains'.  It is dedicated to the two times we know of that Peter found himself imprisoned for the Gospel, once in Jerusalem and once in Rome.  As you can see from the photo below, the gates were closed, chained if you will.  Not good.  Many more pilgrims began to arrive until the numbers rose to about 300 people.  Seven o'clock passed, then 20 min later it was announced that we would not have access to the Station Church this morning.

Not everything that is well planned by human beings comes to fruition.  Whatever circumstances or divine providence intended for us this morning, it did not include celebrating the imprisonment and miraculous release of St. Peter as part of our Roman Stations pilgrimage.  What was proposed to us was that whoever was able and willing was welcome to walk a little further and join the seminarians in the Chapel of Casa San Maria, the Graduate House of the Pontifical North American College.  So, off we went again:

Along the way I saw the remains of a fortress, a tower, and interestingly enough, a brass plaque identifying the Church associated with this ancient ruin as the principal church of  the Italian Military Ordinariate:

It, too was locked but standing back to take in the whole structure from the outside tells you that it is probably most impressive inside as well:

This is not 'Our Lady of the Airways', in CFB Uplands in Ottawa, where my Bishop calls 'home'!

Eventually we made it to Casa San Maria and came together for Mass in the Chapel.  Now this was a Chapel to settle into... it was small by Rome standards, and intimate, covered from the floor to about 25 feet up the walls with a warm reddish-brown marble.  It was the most inviting sacred space that I have been in.  It was the Chapel of a former convent and most of the sculptures and paintings were of heroic women of faith originally designed to inspire the nuns/sisters at prayer:

I took this picture from the back of the Chapel, so you can see that there are only about 7 or 8 benches with simple wooden kneelers, and yet, despite the darker marble it did not feel small or crowded... even though it was standing room only during Mass.

A Seminarian prays in the Casa San Maria Chapel after Mass.

Praying here this morning was like experiencing the comfortableness of God's loving embrace... a prodigal son's feeling of spiritual security within the home of our heavenly Father.  Or, I might express it differently given the history and beauty of the space... it was like being enclosed with the warm embrace and protective love that only a mother can give.