Fr. Frank's Rome Sabbatical: Week Eight

This is the Holy Land for you. Our bus driver lived in the same place in Jerusalem for 26 years. Last year the Franciscans decided it would be nice to help him remodel his home. As they were doing some of the work they found that below his rooms were several other rooms that were built in Crusader times and had been buried for centuries. They dug them out and his living space grew once the State of Israel okayed it.

This was one of the rooms they found.

Here is more space they found.

And more.

This room was one of two he had lived in and raised six kids in. Once he realized his blessing, he was asked and gladly offered to give the second room this size to his neighbor. So he lost one room and gained four.

This stairway goes down to the rooms they found

These next pictures are of the Notre Dame Guest House in Jerusalem. This is a model of Notre Dame in Paris.

These are in their chapel.

These next ones are at Holy Sepluchre in Jerusalem. The guy on the right runs Notre Dame guest house and was encouraging us to bring more visitors to the Holy Land.

These are all in the Chapel we had Mass in our last morning in the Holy Land.

These are the Stations of the Cross. It took me a while but I really learned to like them.

They believe that this might be part of the pillar Jesus was scourged at.

Jesus meets Mary after the Resurrection.

This is the most beautiful part of the Church of the Holy Sepluchre. Here is the dome.

From what I could guess this group was having a prayer service to rededicate the door and maybe the little chapel it leads into because it had just been redone.

This is one of the spots the believe may be the village of Emmaus. There are three options and this is the most likely.

This is St. Mary of the Resurrection Abbey at Crusaders' Emmaus, Abu Ghosh, Israel.

Another version of the Coke can. And then we flew back to Rome. It was a good trip and very powerful spiritually. I think we were in the place that every mystery of the rosary happened except the Queenship of Mary. I'm waiting to get to that one.

This kind of image of the Madonna and Child is on many buildings in Rome. Some are much simpler.

Parts of a fountain in Rome. The cherubs are playing with the animals.

Better close-ups of the statues in front of the Basilica of St. Andrew.

When there is space in Rome they put in some simple decoration like this.

This is a traveling icon that was at St. John the Baptist Church. They were loading it up to take to the next church.

These are at the Church of San Ivo alla Sapienza

The courtyard to the church.

Another picture of the front of St. Ignatius Church.

This is San Agatha die Goti

Saint Agatha

Relics of some martyrs.

These beautiful images were high on the walls.

San Gaspare Bertoni

In the courtyard of St. Agatha.

These next ones are at St. Gregory the Great. This church I had almost given up on finding open. It is amazing. It seems to be mixed rite, Roman and Orthodox.

These next ones were in a side chapel that seemed to be the Orthodox part.

There was netting below the ceiling to catch falling plaster, which make the picture less clear.

Here is the front of St. Gregory the Great.

When you walk as much as I did you come across amazing things in Rome. This was their version of the Open house at SAC. This was in one of the parks. It was a display of the equipment of the Italia military.

This is St. Omobono Church which seems to be closed because of vast need if repair.

These people on the scooters were publicizing a play they were going to put on.

These next ones are at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, or St. Lawrence outside the walls. It is a church and a big cemetery.

Entrance to the cemetery.

The resurrected Christ.

This is the actual church.

St. Lawrence.

An altar below the altar.

Pulpit.

S. Stefano

It is a big church that probably gets a lot of funerals because of the cemetery.

St. Lawrence again.

St. Pius XII

This is St. Agnes outside the walls.

St. Agnes.

The remains of St. Agnes (?and St. Emerentianae

It was too late to check it out but there was more burial spots below the church.

Front of St. Agnes.

The mausoleum of St. Costanzo.

Flat Stanley went nuts because he found an acorn.

But he broke it.

On Wednesday morning we stood in line to see the Papal Audience. There is a tradition that recently married couples in their wedding attire get greeted specially by the Pope. I don't know if it worked for these two but they did get front row seats.

The audience was inside and this was there to greet us. It is about eight feet across.

In Rome this is not an unusual sight, but they were waiting for the audience also.

Flat Stanley was pumped.

A fair number of babies came for the blessing.

Full house.

Just outside the hall.

The fountains at St. Peters were working again.

These pictures are at the Gregorian University. This is St. Ignatius. I sat in on one class. It was actually in English which is unusual. It is usually Italian. The professor was a Jesuit from Texas and the class was dealing with development of doctrine the role of Scripture and Tradition. I was even able to follow it all.