Grüß Gott!
A lot has happened in Austria over the past few weeks: namely, midterms and the Rome/Assisi Pilgrimage. Midterms led to lots of studying on everyone’s part. To me, at least, they were rougher than on main campus, possibly due to their being almost entirely essay tests. Also, the fact that we only have mid-terms and finals in most classes means we don’t have much chance to learn how a teacher tests: it makes these exams much more strenuous and exacting. Once midterms were finished, though, we had a break for our taxed minds: the 10-day Rome/Assisi pilgrimage.
Though many people left earlier to visit various other locales in Italy (I heard Naples and San Giovanni mentioned frequently), I traveled down to Rome on the bus provided by the school. It was a long ride, about 14 hours, including stops, but the multiple movies watched (The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Jim Caviezel of The Passion fame and Guy Pearce of Memento fame, and Roman Holiday, a 1953 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck) helped time pass, as did talking with friends. Driving through the Italian countryside was a beautiful experience: there’s just a special beauty that separates Italy from other countries. Whereas the Austrian country is much more mountainous and snow-covered, the Italian country is more characterized by olive groves and grape vines and farmland.
After the long drive, we arrived in Rome Saturday morning. We were actually earlier than our scheduled time, so we had to wait a while for the hotel to be ready for us to check-in. After check-in, a friend and I familiarized ourselves with the metro system (a very important aspect of Rome) by travelling to the Ottaviano stop, that is, the Vatican City stop, to see the Vatican Museums. Our hotel was only about a 10 minute walk (down roads my friend said reminded him of Florida) to the nearest metro stop: this closeness was definitely appreciated it. After arriving at our metro destination, my friend and I didn’t know which way to go from the station. We hadn’t done any research whatsoever: we just knew which stop to go to. He picked a way that “looked historical,” and, thankfully, the road led us straight to the Vatican. We knew we were going the right way when we passed countless people offering tours of the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica. After dodging these many salesmen, we located the entrance to the Museums, or should I say the queue to the Museums? One of the salesmen wasn’t kidding when he described the line as 400 meters long. Thankfully, we arrived early in the day, and the line moved fairly quickly, so the wait was only an hour or so, at most. The light rain didn’t make the wait very comfortable, but running into other Franciscan students helped pass the time. Once we finally made it through the line and through security, we spent a few hours wandering the Vatican Museums. These Museums, originally started by Pope Julius II in 1506, are very large. It didn’t take long to lose our way in the Museums: our group eventually just decided to see every room we could, and that meant a lot of rooms. After seeing maybe a dozen rooms full of statuary and other Greek and Roman antiquities, we arrived in the areas we were somewhat more interested in, the rooms full of Christian art. The Raphael Rooms, in particular, were decorated, floor to ceiling (sometimes including both floor and ceiling) with paintings depicting countless Christian scenes, such as the Baptism of Constantine, and even some pre-Christian scenes, such as the famous painting of The School of Athens with Plato and Aristotle. Eventually, after travelling through these rooms and the rooms housing contemporary art, we arrived at the jewel of the Vatican Museums: the Sistine Chapel, painted by none other than Michelangelo. The Chapel (which felt much smaller than we expected) was breathtaking in its artistic splendor, and it was jam-packed with people, so much so that we lost a member of our group there, not finding him again until dinner. After spending probably a half hour admiring the great work of Michelangelo, we decided it was time to leave and see more of Rome. Upon leaving the Museums, we had a common lunch for our Italian journey: pizza and gelato. Rome has excellent pizza (although I’ve been told that the pizza in Naples is the best in the world), and the gelato (an Italian form of ice cream) is phenomenal as well, with many unique flavors (such as Bailey’s Irish Crème, Nutella (a popular European spread with the flavor of chocolate and hazelnuts), and Ferrero Rocher (a popular Italian candy)). I myself am partial to the flavor of hazelnuts, so I always made sure to get some type of hazelnut-flavored gelato whenever I bought some.
Upon returning to the hotel, we rested until Mass at a nearby convent and dinner following at the hotel. I missed the dessert provided with dinner, because I decided to join two of my friends in going to an opera at St. Paul’s Inside the Walls (an Anglican-Episcopalian church that should not be confused with St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, a major basilica of Rome). The opera was La Traviata, by the famous Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi. While both the singers and orchestra were great, the acoustics in the church were not so great, and the sound balance made the opera not as enjoyable as we expected. The opera kept us out late, so as soon as it ended we headed straight back to the hotel to crash: the long bus ride and long day made us absolutely exhausted!
Sunday was centered around St. Peter’s Basilica. We had time to explore it in the morning, including climbing the cupola and seeing the Tombs of the Popes, and we had a Latin Novus Ordo Mass in the very front of the basilica (complete with beautiful chant). Following Mass, we met in St. Peter’s Square to pray the Angelus with Pope Benedict XVI; though he was in a very high window, it was still amazing to pray with him and so many other Catholics from various countries joined in the square. After time for lunch, we had tours of the basilica, guided by seminarians from the Pontifical North American College, a college in Rome where many seminarians will study for a year or so during their formation (my archdiocese often sends a few seminarians a year there, though I didn’t run into any I knew). Learning about so much of the art and history in the basilica was a great experience, and I’m sure there’s so much more information we could have learned. Following the tour, my friends and I decided to visit Ostia Antica, a first-century Roman town—nicknamed “the Pompeii of Rome”—that’s been well-preserved as an archaeological site. It’s well off the beaten path, and we made it with only a half hour left until closing, although we managed to stick around for an hour before finally being shuffled out. Though it took lots of travelling (and the missing of a free dinner at the hotel), it was worth it. The town was incredibly expansive (we didn’t manage to reach the far end of it), including many, many houses and other buildings, statuary and stone columns, and even a large amphitheater. It was an amazing experience to walk the rough stone roads and meander through the buildings of first-century Romans. I’d highly recommend Ostia Antica for anyone visiting Rome.
Monday included the first of our long tours of Rome. We began at the Colosseum and the Roman Forum and then toured many major churches throughout the city. Included were St. Peter in Chains, which houses (as the name indicates) the chains that held St. Peter when he was jailed (both in Jerusalem and in Rome), Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major), which includes the relics of St. Matthias and St. Jerome, Santa Prassede, originally a house church dating back to the earliest days of Christianity, now containing thousands of relics and a section of the pillar at which Jesus was scourged, and St. Clemente, a multi-level church that includes an early house church and remnants of a pagan temple underneath that we could walk through. The tour involved lots of walking, but it was definitely worth it. The other big part of the day was the Scavi Tour, which explores the Necropolis (“City of the Dead,” or Roman burial place) underneath St. Peter’s Basilica. That was an amazing experience, but I’ve been told to not reveal the secrets of the tour. You’ll just have to go yourself! The rest of the day, for my friends and I, consisted of mainly resting after all the business we’d been through the past few days. There’s a lot to do in Rome!
Tuesday began with a continuation of our tour of Rome. We saw many famous churches, so many that I only have time to recount a few. The tour began at St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs, a Carthusian church designed by Michelangelo that was built atop ancient Roman baths that used to line the street where it’s located. Throughout the tour, we saw other works by famous Italian artists, including Bernini’s famous statue of Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and Michelangelo’s Christ the Redeemer (at Santa Maria della Vittoria and Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, respectively). After stopping by the Trevi Fountain, we saw the Pantheon (a former Roman temple turned into a church) and the church of St. Agostino, where St. Monica is buried. I left out one incredibly famous church at the beginning of the tour, though: the Capuchin Boneyard Church, located next to the Church of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception. The crypt contains the bones over 4,000 Capuchin friars, many of them used to decorate the walls in designs such as the coat of arms of the Franciscan Order. While it feels a bit macabre, it shows how Christians have no fear of death because of our hope in the resurrection.
Following the tour, I joined a group of students heading to Nettuno, a coastal city which was the hometown of St. Maria Goretti, a young girl in the early 20th century who was killed by her neighbor for resisting his sexual advances. She is a martyr who protected her chastity at the expense of her life, and she is venerated by the Church for this, and for the holiness of her life in general. Her relics are contained in the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie e Santa Maria Goretti. The other students and I travelled the 1 ½ hour trip to venerate her relics, because she is such an amazing saint. After venerating her relics, our group spent the rest of the time until our train back to Rome enjoying the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. After a long trip back to the hotel, a late dinner, and a walk to get extra gelato (since it was Mardi Gras), we returned to the hotel for a long-desired rest before the beginning of Lent (and our last day in Rome) the next day.
I have lots more to recount, but I also have homework and classes, so I’d better leave the rest of the trip for another day (although hopefully it won’t take me too long to write again). Until next time, God bless! Auf wiedersehen!
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