Week five, part III

I am close to being caught up with these pictures for this fifth week.  This first one is simply some of the grounds of the North American College.  The Roman pines are very majestic.  The only problem is that the pine cones are bigger than my fist and could really hurt when they come from 30 feet in the air.

 This is one of the views of the seminary building.  For those of you who might know him, Fr. Joe Hannifeld's room would be the middle balcony.  His view is almost as good as mine, but his living space is four times the size of mine.

 It is hard to understand the joy of coming home to the North American College after and jaunt around Rome.  The good news is that there is a great view from our rooms.  The bad news is that everything is downhill from there, or uphill to there.  The last 1/4 mile is all up a very steep incline.  This shows one of the streets.  I would guess it is at about a 10% grade.  Then you can see the steps.  There has to be about fifty of them in this stretch.  It is great for working off calories after making a gelato run.

 This is where knowing Italian comes in handy.  You do know that I don't know Italian.  I took the picture of the sign on the church so I would remember which one I was at.  The only problem is  Messa is Mass and not the name of the Church

               So this first sign should have told me that Mass is in Spanish, not St. Messa of Spain.

                 I would have known that this one gives the summer Mass schedule.

                      I'm not sure if this was their previous pastor or not.

                  This image of Mary is more modern but is not unusual.  They have hundreds of them all over Rome, on the walls and on the corners of many buildings.

 This next one drove me crazy.  I spent 45 minutes looking for this Church one day and eventually ran out of time so I came back the next day and spent another 45 minutes before I finally found it, only to realize that I had been here on my other trip to Rome about seven years ago.  It is the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains.  I am happy to say I was not the only one having a hard time finding it.  There were dozens of us asking each other if we knew where it was.  So even when a 'guy' asks for directions it still doesn't help.

 St. Peter in Chains is famous for two things, the chains of Peter and this Michelangelo statue of Moses.  The word describing Moses' face when he came down from the mountain can be translated as "shone" or "horns".  Michelangelo chose horns, so if you look closely at this picture you can see his horns.  Below are the chains.

I love  this picture of the angel waking Peter up.

 This is the front of San Pietro in Vincolo or St. Peter in Chains.

 This is the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio

                               This one had great chandeliers.

 This church is dedicated to two martyred Roman officers whose house stood on this site.  John and Paul had served the first Christian emperor, Constantine.  When they were later called to arms by the pagan emperor Julian the Apostate, they refused and were beheaded in their own house in AD 362.  Above is the main altar, which has their remains in urns within it.

                         They were getting ready for a wedding.

                                          This is the body of St. Paul of the Cross.

                                          This next is the Basilica of Santa Maria in Dommica.

                                    This fountain seems to be a marble replica of a Galilean fishing boat.

         This is the view out my window at dawn.  No I am not up that early.  Dawn is just coming later now.

           Here I am with the priests and bishops getting vested in St. Peters for the deacon ordination.

At the ordination.

    This is the Church of San Crisogono or St. John Chrysogonus

                           I can only presume that these are the relics of St. John Chrysogonus

                                             These choir chairs in the sanctuary were beautiful.

               This Blessed Anna Maria Taigi must be almost a popular are Padre Pio in Italy.

                                            A typical Piazza.

                         These next pictures of the Basilica of St. Mary in Trastevere.

                                     Because of the lighting and glare from the sun I could only get pictures of a few of these images of Saints that were near the ceiling.

                       There was an excavation under the main altar that I think had a Cardinal buried.

     This next church is St. Peter in Montorio.  I did not get into the church but next to it is a dome that has a spot under it that some claim was where Peter lived.

                                                    Here is the dome and below looks into the area below it.

                                This is the area below.

                           They have more monuments than you can shake a stick at in Rome.