This morning I ventured out earlier than most of my fellow pilgrims and made my way down the Via Coronari in the early dawn, praying with each tender, blistered, footfall: "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus..." Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
The day started with this focus on the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the recitation of the Rosary, and it continued as I walked through the door of San Augustino. Immediately to your left at the very back of the Church is a statue of the Madonna of Safe Delivery:
Carved in 1521 by Jacopo Sansovino, the Madonna del Parto drew my attention immediately as I entered. It stands at the back as a sign of encouragement for expectant mothers who still gather there every year on the 9th of October. Hence the many acknowledgements of graces and mercy received which line the walls... thankful mothers bearing witness to their own safe delivery. One has to remember that when this was first sculpted 10% of women died in childbirth and a full 50% of children died before the age of 2. If you are alive, thank God and thank the mother who gave you birth. In our day there is again a decreasing chance of a child in the womb being brought to birth, though it is no longer disease or complications during labour that brings death to millions of the most vulnerable among us.
Turning completely about to face the front of the church, I spied the altar... though it is not inconspicuous. On the left pillar is St Ambrose and on the right pillar is St Augustine. St Ambrose is the Church Father who led Augustine to Christ and baptized him into the Faith. For those of you who don't know the story, Augustine lived a very dissolute life prior to his conversion... a conversion that was long and drawn out, much to the distress of his mother, Monica. He was a well known public figure - a lecturer in rhetoric and an intellectual who in spite of his natural gifts was restless and unsettled in his soul. He said of that time in his life:
'Tu nos fecisti ad te et cor nostrum inquietum est donec requiescat in te.'
You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.
Augustine's mother was a Christian, and being a widow, followed her famous son from place to place and prayed continually for his conversion - eventually living to see the answer to her prayers. However, on the way back to North Africa, their home, she fell ill and died in the Roman port city of Ostia in 387 AD. It doesn't matter if I die here, she said, or where I am buried, just promise me that you will remember me at the altar of God, wherever you are. Below is a photo I took of the altar at the Church of S. Augustino her son... and off to the left is a Chapel where the earthly remains of his mother St. Monica are entombed and honoured.
The Sacristy and the Vestry, which most people don't get to see, is where the preparations are made before Mass. Here, the priests put on their vestments and say their vesting prayers, and other prayers of preparation in anticipation of going to the Altar of God. This Sacristy/Vestry is just slightly larger than the tiny closets I vest in for Mass in military chapels...
Starting from the left, you can see a priest with his alb on, one just getting his alb over his head, the next tying an amice over his shoulders, and another walking with his purple stole (the liturgical colour of Lent) which is tied with a cincture around his waist. In the back corner is a purple chausible hanging on a clothes rack waiting for the celebrant to vest. Each of these items of priest clothing has a corresponding prayer as you put it on. For example (I won't write out all of them...), when putting on the alb which is white the priest prays:
Purify me, O Lord, from all stain and cleanse my heart,
that washed in the Blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy eternal delights.
And when securing the cincture around his waist the priest recites this prayer:
Gird me, O Lord, with the cincture of purity,
and quench in my heart the fire of concupiscence,
that the virtue of continence and chastity may remain in me.
Mass was solemn and beautiful this morning, prayerful - with chant and polyphony - and inspiring.
After Mass I decided to stay a bit longer to pray in the Chapel where St. Monica is buried. I didn't realize until I uploaded the picture that the light was streaming in on her sarcophagus at the time my friend took this photo. How appropriate. I stayed after Mass and said the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer in the Chapel of S. Monica and offered prayers of Thanksgiving for the faith of my own mother, and her constant prayers on my behalf. Truly, in reflecting on Monica's life, I felt the need to offer prayers of reparation for all the needless worry, anxiety and concern I must have caused her... and I prayed for my sister as well.
That's my Breviary in my right hand, my book of prayers for Lent, and just by my right hand is a little prayer card (unfortunately in Italian) of St. Monica which I put two in my Breviary and hopefully will remember to bring back with me, one for my mother.
After all of this, on the way out of the Church, in the last of several side altars, is this:
Its okay if you don't recognize it, neither did I, and I only knew to look for it because I read about it the night before in George Weigel's book Roman Pilgrimage which I purchased off Amazon a month before coming over here as a gift from my sister for Christmas. As it turned out, the author, George Weigel and the photographer, his son came to Rome for the first few Station Churches in the pilgrimage and spoke to our Sabbatical class on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. So, he graciously agreed to sign the book, along with his son. Nice.
So, about this painting. It is called Madonna of the Pilgrims by Caravaggio, one of the most gifted painters ever to hold a brush. It is priceless, of course, and you can't use a flash when you take a picture as the bright light, after many thousand times of exposure, will negatively affect the paint. This painting is perfect for pilgrims on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday. You can't see all the details, but I liked how George Weigel pointed out the dirtiness of their feet and the grittiness of Lent and the earthiness of this pilgrimage as well as its holiness. I couln't get close enough to see if Caravaggio had included blisters.
I did the Great 4 Days March in Nijmegen and the rigorous training before it, without many blisters... but I've got a couple now. Its nothing, of course. I just leave a little earlier in the morning and move a little slower along the way. It is good to slow down, breathe, pray, and offer up a little discomfort to the Lord.
On my way home I decided to take a couple of 'traveling' pictures. One is of the Via Coronari still early in the morning before the shops open and it becomes crowded:
...and the one below is of the Tiber River which flows mostly on the west side of Rome, near where I am staying at the PNAC. The humorous expression for those who become Catholic is that they 'swim the Tiber', that is, cross over to Rome. Although I 'swam the Tiber', I wouldn't want to swim here:
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