Days 14 and 15

July 7th and 8th

The more blessed we are, the less time we have to blog about it!

Our Monday afternoon pilgrimage to St. Paul's outside-the-walls is amazing in itself, but add a tour by the archpriest of this basilica, Cardinal Harvey, and it is phenomenal! For one, all the lights are turned on when he comes in. Two, he has a passion for this spiritually historical site when he tells the story of its building, and rebuilding after the fire of 1823. Three, he takes time -- especially as we prayed in the crypt in which the sarcophagus containing St. Paul's remains is now able to be seen and venerated (and the guards quietly closed the gates while we were there). Three, he is another beautifully humble, holy and humorous man of God. 

Four, he visited with us as he treated us to gelato at the end of the tour! I wish we all had a chance to meet all our cardinals in this way -- the family of the Church seems much warmer, much closer to our hearts when "the Curia" is filled with familiar faces.

In the morning we again made excursions on our own, some back to St. Peter's, some to St. Mary Major for Mass, then Santa Prassede where there is the pillar of the scourging, San Alfonso with the icon of our Mother of Perpetual Help and San Pieto in Vincoli which displays the chains St. Peter had in Jerusalem and in Rome. The latter filled me with profound gratitude for the gift of being set free to live in greater interior freedom.



We will have one more time in which we can choose places to visit. Those of you who have been to Rome, which church(es) are a "must see" for you?

"The heavens declare the glory of God!" On Tuesday we had a delightful visit to Castel Gondolfo. Father David Brown, SJ, celebrated Mass in the parish church for us, then gave us a tour of the working telescope at Castel Gandolfo and the new center for astronomical research which is at this extra-territorial part of the Vatican in the far end of the garden. Their main research telescopes are now in Arizona due to the light pollution of Rome. 

We also drove by the Vatican farm and saw the papal chickens, and heard there were papal cows, but did not see a papal bull. (A Catholic pun -- if you didn't groan, it may help to know that a certain type of statement by a pope is called a papal bull.)

The group photo is taken from the roof of the pope's residence in Castel Gandolfo overlooking Lake Albano. You can practically breathe in the beauty.

The final part of this day was a trek to Subiaco to see the monastery of St. Scholastica and the Sacred Cave of St. Benedict. Words cannot describe, but here are a few in an attempt: cliff-hanging monastery, layers of chapels carved into stone, walls filled with Christ-centered frescoes, steep deep ravines, cities perched on mountain tops, deep admiration for our Benedictine forebears.