Fr. Frank's Rome Sabbatical: Week Two

Sunday was a quiet day. We had Mass and brunch with the seminarians. I had been doing laundry during the night. The machines are a little slower over here. It is over two hours for washing and another two hours for drying a load of clothes. I also went jogging in the afternoon. There were no vultures circling while I ran but it was still not a pretty sight. I covered five miles in one hour. My record was seven and a half, but that was years ago. I would still like to get close to six per hour just once before my 60th birthday. I have one year to do it. Monday I was not feeling well. I had caught a cold from one of my brother priests. It meant two nights of fitful sleep and long groggy mornings. I seem to be okay today, which is Wednesday.

Monday was the "SCAVI" tour below St. Peters. Scavi must be short for excavation. We learned the story and looked at the results of the hunt for St. Peter's body. No cameras of any kind are allowed down there so there are no picture to show, but the story was interesting.
Peter was killed by Nero with 900 other Roman Christians because Nero needed someone to blame for the fire that burned most of Rome. Most historians believe he set the fire himself to make way for a new building project, to rebuild Rome in his image. Peter asked to be crucified up-side-down and was given the honor of not being crucified in the way Jesus was. After his death some Christians were given a chance to quickly bury his body in the hill next to the valley where he died. They didn't use a big marker or that would have been asking for trouble, but they remembered. During the time of the Emperor Constantine it was okay to deal with the grave. They made a kind of monument for his grave. Eventually a church was built to honor it. It was placed right over the monument. By the time Michaelangelo was building the new St. Peter's the knowledge of this grave was lost. In digging for the foundation for this new St. Peters, they found a necropolis or city of the dead. Excavating this led to a long series of clues that took a few hundred years to follow. But they finally found his bone right where they should be. Right under the main altar of St. Peters. That is the shortest of short versions, but the evidence is remarkable. So is the hand of God in the finding of these bones.
Tuesday we went to the old North American College which is called Casa Santa Maria. This is now where priests stay when doing graduate work in Rome.

Most of us walked and I was able to take a few pictures of the Basilica of St. Mark.

Then we got to the old seminary. It is 151 years old. Below is the library.

They had three little chapels and one bigger one. These are pictures of one that has a distinctive Eastern Rite flavor to it. Above is the tabernacle. Below are some of the icons.

St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil

St. Cyril and St. Nicholas

St. Gregory and St. Athanasius

St. John the Baptist shown with wings.

Archangel Gabriel and the Prophet Elijah

St. Therese of Lisieux

They had this picture of the Vatican. The dome of St. Peters is dead center. Go just off the picture to the left of that and then slightly up and you can't see the building I am in.

They have a nice cafeteria.

This is their main chapel. This building was a convent for forty years before the Pope bought it for the American Bishops 151 years ago, so many of the images are women Saints.

After lunch one other priest and I went site-seeing. First we saw these monuments.

Then we got to this intersection which had a sculpted image on each corner.

We thought that they were appropriate because we had come across a couple of churches already but they weren't open. Most of them close from noon until 3 to 5pm for siesta.

The first one we got into was the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs of Rome. It was nothing fancy on the outside but inside it was amazing.

This a painting called "A Miracle of the Blessed Niccolo Albergati."

This is called "The Baptism of Water and Desire."

Here is the Crucifixion of St. Peter

This is Peter curing the paralytic.

A view of the main sanctuary. The place is big.

On the left is St. Basil saying Mass and the Emperor Valente, who was a Arian heretic, passing out. On the right is St. Peter winning against the Sorcerer.

This one is Mary, the Immaculate Conception, being pointed out by St. Gregory Nazianzeno, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony of Padua.

On the left is the raising of the widow Tabitha by St. Peter. The right is what you saw above.

There were a few odder pieces of art like this version of the Resurrection.

This is the exit and the scene magnified below shows a painting called "Expulsion from Earthly Paradise.

Then we have the head of John the Baptist and below an angelic holy water holder.

Luckily they had a book so I could know all these.

I'm pretty sure this was the only Methodist Church we saw. We didn't go in.

As the calendar says, these last seven pictures are of the Church of St. Carlino

These are from the Church of St. Suzanna. This is a church with English Masses. These first three images are of the story of Suzanna in the Old Testament.