With the Apostles; Phillip and James (the Less)

Whenever I visit my cousin in Sarnia I try to make a point of stopping in the Watford cemetery to pay my respects to my father.  If we are cruising by on our motorcycles he very graciously allows me that 10 or 15 minutes to sit quietly on the bench we put by my father's grave and offer a few prayers for the repose of his soul.  It is time well spent, even if it takes a little while longer to get to wherever we happen to be going.  He understands my need to do this and waits patiently and respectfully until I am finished.

It is something like that here.  Everywhere I go there are places where my spiritual ancestors are buried, where their remains are kept sacred and where I am allowed a few moments to pay my respects.  In this case, this morning, I sat in silence and prayer before the tombs of St. Phillip and St. James (the Less), Apostles and Martyrs.  They rest in the Church of the Apostles, Rome.  

There are statues of the 12 Apostles standing watch on the top of the porch leading to this Basilica. Rome as grown up around it so that you can hardly tell from the outside that it is a church anymore.  A sidewalk café with umbrella tables on the right and condominiums on the left.  It is fully integrated into the very fabric of the city.  Very little on the exterior will draw your attention.  But, like every Basilica, Church, and Chapel I've seen in Rome, the interior is a feast for the eyes and for the soul.

The Franciscan cross of San Damiano greets you as you enter and tells you that this Church is served by the spiritual descendants of St Francis of Assisi.  The ceiling will tell you that too and I have included a picture of it later in the blog post.  It is a fresco called, 'The Triumph of the Franciscan Order'.

I was drawn forward, as one always is, from the street outside along the center aisle, the vertical beam of the cross, toward the head of the cross where the altar rests.  Most of these churches were designed in the shape of a cross.  The long aisle in the nave is intersected by the horizontal 'cross beam', the transepts on either side being the arms of the cross, and the altar and apse being the head, representing Christ... and so that area of the church gets special attention.

The Altar piece is a fine painting of the martyrdom of one of the two Apostle, though I confess I didn't make note of which one - Phillip or James?  I'll try to find out.

Although the original church was constructed in the 5th century, it didn't survive an earthquake in the 14th century and was abandoned for a long time.  It was rebuilt, of course and the Confessio or crypt was added in the 19th century to provide an extraordinary sacred space to hold the relics of Sts Phillip and James, as well as other martyred Christians from the catacombs.  An inscription explains that Pope Stephen IV walked barefoot in 886 from the catacombs to the church carrying the relics on his shoulders.

Come with me into the crypt...

Staircase descending into the crypt

The Confessio of St Philip and St James, Apostles and Martyrs

The tomb

Standing in the Confessio facing the stairs, looking through to where the other Christians from the Catacombs are reserved

Same view, standing at the foot of the stairs, among the pillars, looking back up into the Church

I guess I don't have to tell you that this is the ceiling

I just have to ask you to try to appreciate the significance of this Church and this Confessio.  I never knew this existed.  I knew, but didn't really grasp, the loving care, concern and veneration that the Church has given to its Martyrs, and of course, its first apostles.  I should have realized that they would treasure every aspect of what could be preserved from their life and death... these 12 men who turned the world upside down.  The sense of connectedness I feel to real history is profound.  I belong to this history.  I am one with the Apostles Philip and James, with the unnamed and unknown martyrs who populated the catacombs after the 'Games' in the Colosseum. 

Every day is a day of discovery... where I learn about my own spiritual heritage.  I am glad to share parts of it with you.  

St Lawrence... and Trajan: Studies in Victory

The idea of the blog is to let a few interested folks follow my short Sabbatical in Rome, and at the moment the primary focus for me is the Station Churches that are part of a pilgrimage for the faithful during Lent.  It is a very ancient practice going back over 1600 years, but only revived in the course of this last generation after falling into disuse.  For me to be here during Lent, and to be able to participate in the pilgimage every morning to the Station churches is a great blessing... and to con-celebrate the Mass there every morning is even better.

This is the road inside the Pontifical North American College grounds that takes me down to the main gate... can't really see the road very well yet, can you?  Me neither.

Its still too dark to take a picture when I leave, but it is getting lighter every day - as you can see in the colour of the sky.


This pic is taken on my way back home pointing back up the low incline hill... although at the end of the walk it seems so much steeper.

The actual seminary is on the left.  The little blue grounds keeper on the right, and his team, keep the place immaculate. The building at the end of the road is where I am staying.  It is called Casa O'Toole... funny name for a Casa in Italy, no?  But I'm part Irish, so I'm good with it.

Casa O'Toole

My room is on what appears to be the third floor... the two windows in the centre, to the left of the open window.  But it only appears to be the third floor.  When you get in the elevator, and in all the bulletins and internal correspondence it is actually the FIRST floor.  The entrance is called -1, the main floor on which you would find the Chapel and where we eat (refectory) is called level 0 and I am ... you guessed it, on the 1st floor.  It used to be a psychiatric care centre, which may explain the numbering?

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In any case, today I left about 05:55 for a 07:00 Mass at St. Lawrence in Panisperna.  Don't let the Panisperna part confuse you.  Its the name of the street / section of the city where you find the Church... but it has meaning, as all names do.  In fact the street name came afterward.  Panis is the Latin word for bread.  There is a famous Catholic hymn called Panis Angelicus which talks about Christ as the Bread of Angels, or the Manna / Bread that came down from heaven. Sperna is ham, and Panisperna refers to the diaconal distribution of bread and ham to the poor on 10 August every year on the feast day of St. Lawrence, the Deacon... the day he was martyred in 258 AD.

I will talk a bit more about his martyrdom in a moment, but for now I will point out something I saw along the way which was quite dramatic and took me by surprise.  I was making my way toward the Church and was still a good 15 minutes away when I decided to take a short cut.  (See how daring I am getting?)  Taking a different path from the one you know can be enlightening and, in this case, pleasantly surprising.  I was winding my way around yet another ancient church that is under restoration and on the other side of it I saw this:

... and then I looked up, and I saw THIS:

It is Trajan's Column.  You have to get up close to it to fully appreciate it.  Look:

Now scroll up to the full picture and imagine this kind of detailed carving spiralling all the way from the bottom of Trajan's Column to the top.  Wow!  Its amazing, really.  It is a victory column, finished in 113 AD, telling the story of Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars (101-102 and 105-106 AD).  There are actually winding stairs inside so that one could climb to the top... not that I would want to these days.

That is how Trajan commemorated his victories in war.  A little way away there is a Church dedicated to St. Lawrence which commemorates a different kind of victory.  A victory that looks for all the world like miserable defeat.

Not being Aug 10 today, there was no free bread and ham being distributed, but something better.  The approach to this ancient church looks like this:

... but only after you are through the gate into this courtyard.  I didn't go in right away.  See the little door off to the right?  I went in there first.  It is a grotto built on the spot where St. Lawrence was burned to death.  Early Christians made sure that these sites were identified, remembered and that relics associated with the martyrdom were preserved.  Lawrence's friends and fellow believers marked the spot and kept the relics.  They would gather on the spot to pray.  That's how it gets preserved.  That's why I can visit it today.

Inside the church there is a depiction of the martyrdom by fire on the back wall behind the altar.  I tried to take a decent picture of it, but I'm not sure that it really turned out that well.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

St Lawrence, the seventh of Pope Sixtus' deacons, in the lower center is being killed by burning, stretched out on a 'gridiron', yes, grill, to be tormented.  The murderous emperor Valerian is a mere shadow in the background as the angel of the Lord descends from heaven with a martyr's crown in his hand.

Also remembered in this Chapel are the martyrs Sts Crispin and Crispinian - brothers who were missionaries in France - tortured and killed like Lawrence, with beatings and fire before being beheaded.  Their relics which were held precious by believers were brought back to Rome and placed under this altar.  I had the privilege to say Mass here as a con-celebrant in the sacred liturgy, as I do every morning.

Then at 0930 I walked to Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini for my first 'lesson' in saying the Traditional Latin Mass.  More about that in another post.  The morning finished with another session in Moral Theology, followed by Pranzo (lunch).  I didn't make it to the afternoon session because I got caught up doing this blog post... hrmphf!

Santa Maria Maggiore and the Colliseum

If you have been following my blogs you will know what these are, and where they are and you can appreciate the challenge of doing them in the dark:

Never mind that... I'm getting used to them now.

Today's Station Church is Santa Maria Maggiore, or St Mary Major.  Like every other morning we leave early just before dawn with vestments and rosary in hand.  Today, I took a couple of wrong turns, one on the way to the Pilgrimage Church and one going home.  Both were propitious though, because on the way to the church we (Fr Ed and I) we bumped into another group of pilgrims from the Casa Santa Maria, including three nuns, who led us the rest of the way:

Following the nuns into the rising sun... 

Pilgrims approaching St Mary Major

SMM from the back of the Church

Again, the Back of the Basilica of SMM

I have decided that today's blog is going to be more pictures than words.  In the middle of publishing this post I left to go shopping for an alb, cincture and amice and now I don't have time before class to do a lot of typing.  So, I'm going to hit you with a series of pics (I took a LOT this morning) with only passing comments.  

While we were waiting / hoping for the Church to open, I took a couple of pictures of the front of the church... since you've seen the back already!

This pic includes the bell tower which was covered in light from the rising sun.  The second floor porch was quite spectacular, although you can't see it in this picture.  As the sun peeks over the horizon, it floods the porch, and what appears to be a brightly coloured mosaic inside the porch with light.

Altar and Baldachino at SMM

This is the view of the inside of Santa Maria Maggiore from where I was sitting this morning, in 'choir' behind the altar looking out onto the nave where all the faithful had gathered for Mass.  The Altar is over a grotto honouring the nativity of our Lord and the creche of Bethlehem.  No pictures were allowed there.

Inside the Apse: The crowning of Mary

Over my head is the dome of the church and inside the dome was this mosaic of the crowning of Mary in heaven by her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Yes, a mosaic.  You have to see it to believe that it is done in tiny little pieces of coloured marble.  The gold guilding makes it absolutely resplendent.  I tried to zoom in with my little phone camera, but it didn't show any better detail with respect to the mosaics
:

All through the Nave at the top of the pillars there were mosaics detailing the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  At the very 'head' of the church, behind the altar, was this beautiful depiction of the Nativity... for those of you who like Nativity scenes (you know who you are!)

This next picture, though blurry, gives you a sense of the space looking from the back of the Nave toward the Altar and Baldachino.  Honestly, I liked this baldachino better than Bernini's in St. Peter's.  Did I just say that?  Oh well.  Scroll back up a couple of pics to see it again.  

Okay, some of you aren't going to like this next part.  Pope Pius V is entombed in this church, above ground and in a coffin with a glass front.  He was Pope from 1566-1572.  He was a great reforming Pope who put orthodoxy above personalities, and was the Pope who formed the Holy League which defeated the Moslem / Ottoman invaders at the time of the great miracle of the Battle of Lepanto... attributing the overthrough of the enemy fleet to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and consequently instituting prayers to our Lady of Victory. 

Still, as great as he was, it is difficult for some to know that they can see him through his glass-sided coffin some 435 yrs later.  It was not difficult for me.  I stopped to pray there and I thought of how desperately we need reform in our day, and how we too are faced with some aggressive and violent Islamists in our day... I know first hand from the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I know you want a close up, right?

His mortal remains rest there, vested in his papal garments, a mask covering his face, but his soul is at rest in Christ waiting for the trumpet call of God to the resurrection of new life in the Kingdom of God.

Now, across from Pope Pius V is this crypt.  It was the original repository for the relics of the nativity of our Lord in Bethlehem until it was moved under the main altar.  St Ignatius Loyola said his first Mass in this crypt.

I will add a second blog post this evening about the trip home from the Pilgrimage.... we took the long walk back and went by the Roman Forum or Colliseum.  More about that later.

In hope of the Resurrection

Italy is not on Daylight Savings Time yet.  Although we still leave for the Stational Church in the dark, it is not long before the sun rises to encourage the walk - and assist in keeping us alive in the midst of traffic.  This weekend Rome, too, will 'spring forward', as they say.  The days are getting longer and warmer and everyone knows that spring is just around the corner... it is more obvious in Rome than it is in Canada right now, so I'm glad to be in Rome!

We left before 0600 again and made it to the Station Church for Tuesday in the First Week of Lent. This time the Church is 'St. Anastasia'.  You will notice that there is no fancy facade, no porch with columns and decorative capitals.  It shows you a relatively plain front with a single door... which was open this morning, even though I was a bit early.

This church is one of the oldest in Rome and has not been renovated multiple times since it was built in 4th century.  In the mid 1600s and once in the early 1700s the church was the object of the loving attention of popes and the artists they commissioned.  Michelangelo Cerruti (not the other Michelangelo) did a fresco in the apse called The Martyrdom of the Saints that is still quite original, but quite faded as a result.

The Martyrdom of the Saints by Michelangelo Cerruti

It was already a famous church by the end of the fifth century because it was the parish church of St. Jerome who eventually retired to the Holy Land to live a more ascetic life and to translate the scriptures into the Latin.  The Church honoured the life and work of St. Jerome, and the Latin Vulgate for a thousand years and more... even to today.  

Icon of St. Athanasia

But this is not the Church of St. Jerome.  It is a church dedicated to a martyr: St Anastasia.  It is difficult to accurately reflect to someone who is not a Catholic just how important this saint is.  If I say that this is the saint whose name appears in the Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer 1 in the Novus Ordo) it will hardly seem to carry the weight such a remembrance deserves.  There are handful of saints, who were not apostles, who appear in the Memento, that is, the Commemoration of the Dead which has been recited by the Church since sometime in the 400s.  Ponder that for a moment.  I mentioned in a previous post that the Church has remembered John and Paul, two centurions who gave their lives to the poor and suffered martyrdom rather than betray the faith in the service of Caesar.  I have already mentioned Felicity and  Perpetua who suffered horribly, though I did not give many details of their deaths while still young women.  These four are remembered in perpetuity every week in the prayers of the Church.  So is Agnes the martyr whose Church is outside the ancient walls and who is the subject of the book I am reading: Geometry of Love.  They are, in one sense, representative martyrs.  Men and women.  Often young, strong in the Faith, brave and courageous... coming to Christ from all walks of life. 

And now we have St. Anastasia.  Married to a cruel tyrant of a husband whose mistreatment and virtual imprisonment of her as a slave because of her faith resonates with women in distress the world over. Not content with oppressing her himself, he even gave instructions for the abuse to continue in his absence when traveling... and then while traveling he died, making Anastasia a widow.  Widows and other women in difficult circumstances look to Anastasia whose name means 'standing back up again' and thus by extension 'resurrection', and conveying in that name the grace, courage and determination to get back up on your feet so to speak; they look to Anastasia for inspiration and hope, and to ask her to assist them in their troubles and to pray to God for them that they might regain their footing and rise again after being beaten down by the cares of this life.

This godly woman, Anastasia, rushed to the aid of imprisoned and tortured Christians during the Diocletian persecutions of the Church, and to St. Chrysogonus in particular who taught her the faith. She so fully and publicly identified with the suffering prisoners that she herself was arrested for being a Christian, and after many trials was given three days to change her mind and reject Christ.  I don't need three days to think about it, she replied.  Consider this the third day, my answer will always be the same.  She was exiled and burned to death in the fire. In the picture below, behind the iron grate, below the altar, along with her relics is a recumbent statue (lying down / horizontal) of her in her dying agony and the moment of her birth in to heaven.

The statue which is quite remarkable when seen up close (and not through my camera phone).  

Close-up of St. Anastasia's martyrdom

Above it, you will see the martyr's crown.

St. Anastasia, death by fire.

So, that is my Station Church for this morning.  Today has been mostly an inside day from that point on... not because the weather is bad, but because I am taking a sabbatical from my sabbatical so to speak.  I think a day of rest is still beneficial while on sabbatical.  I feel like I have been going non-stop since I got here, so I took a bit of a breather today.  I even missed my morning class in Moral Theology!! Heavens!

God bless you all, especially my family.  You are all in my prayers.

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.