The church visits around Rome continued on Thursday, along with a trip to the catacombs. Once all the Maine teens were safely back at our home base at Castelfusano, I and another chaperone went back into Rome.
Friday, August 18
9:24 a.m., St. Paul's Outside the Walls
I'm sitting at the base of a column as the congregation claps to the song "Everybody Sing Alleluia." I saw someone else leaning against a pillar writing, and I figured I would too, especially because I did not write yesterday.
Also, the music literally repeats what we did here yesterday.
Cardinal George of Chicago spoke to us about freedom and making choices. Angela, a St. Anselm's College student, told Brian and me how she thought the church should have had better speakers. I agreed.
The cardinal gave a pleasant speech, although "workmanlike" is about the best I could say about it. I told Angela and Brian I would have liked to have heard from former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Catholic who is one of the best speakers around.
I have to admit, though, I was quite moved by how the whole congregation of teens that sung, cheered and waved their way together. A few minutes ago a line of people danced by me to the song, "Yes, Lord." So it continues.
Our mass began with a Kenyan man singing in Swahili [I think] as people from his diocese danced their way into church for the procession, followed by a long line of priests and the cardinal.
When I got tired of sitting or standing, I went to confession. Even though I had been about a week and a half ago, I went again to fulfill the requirements of the indulgence for the jubilee. Others included passing through the holy door, prayer and acts of charity. After confession, I looked at the crypt for St. Paul in front of the altar [he's supposed to be buried there].
The Maine group hopped onto buses to visit the catacombs and two remaining basilicas in Rome that have holy doors.
We drove to the outside of Rome to see the burial places of Rome's early Christians. Our guide Esther, who has a habit of finishing what she said with a high-pitched "u-h-h?" that Joe impersonated, was very knowledgeable.
The catacombs, she said, were not hidden from Romans because everyone knew where they were buried. The catacombs we visited were on the Appian Way, which made sense.
It looked like we were visiting farms, except the fields were simply covered with grass. A huge parking lot flanked the field and we joined a crowd of people waiting to tour the catacombs. Many drank soda while we waited. I got a Fanta, different from the orange soda from home because it is mixed with orange juice. I like it.
We went to a small amphitheater where a Salesian priest talked about the catacombs and who was buried in them. Unlike the Romans, early Christians did not believe in cremation. They were buried in graves carved from soft volcanic rock and were covered with marble or terra cotta. Rome simply did not have space for graves, which explained why the San Callixtus catacombs had about eight miles of them underground.
The priest said since the early 1960s bones started disappearing because people took them. As a result of the bone thefts, the catacombs did not hold bodies. We only saw portions on them.
What was nice was walking underground and enjoying the cool air amid all the graves. The rock was black and the spaces for the bodies carved inside them made them look like bunk beds. The bunks had no covers on them, so they were all empty. The walls of the catacombs had fragments of the covers of graves, some written in Greek, others in Latin. I wanted to translate the Latin, but the fragments were so small I could not see many complete words.
Later in our trip, our group saw St. John Lateran, an impressive Baroque structure whose massive size did not fit into the frame of my camera.
A stage stood in front of St. John Lateran. Music blared from speakers. One song was Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know," which included "Are you thinking of me when you fuck her," normally partially deleted in America.
Across the street from St. John's was a reproduction of the medieval basilica of St. John Lateran. It included a half-dome with a mosaic on it.
When I entered the new St. John's I was beginning to get a sense of its size when I heard the percussion start from Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" playing outside.
St. John's has white marble everywhere, which I liked. The massive amount of people lining up inside and outside was overwhelming. Fortunately the basilica has a large lawn in front of it.
The buses were crammed at our stop. We began a walk to Santa Maria Maggiore instead. I was glad we did. It was the first time I had walked through Rome.
The streets were tree-lined and the buildings gave shade in the late afternoon. We passed a convent wedged between two buildings that had a gate in front of it. A black nun stood outside, the first of many nuns we saw on our walk. Further down a road, we passed a platoon of Filipina nuns, all of whom seemed only five feet tall.
I looked for film. I was down to my last roll. I slipped into a narrow film store and picked up a three-pack of film off a counter. After saying, "Grazie," I headed back to my group.
I did not need to worry. We did not move too quickly and Ben, who is 6 foot, 7 inches, followed the back of the crowd wearing his orange Maine shirt.
We did have to stop for a girl who slipped on a pamphlet on the sidewalk and skinned her knee. That's when the Filipina nuns passed us. Fortunately the girl was fine.
Crossing a street Brian spotted a portion of an aqueduct in between two buildings. I took a picture.
Santa Maria Maggiore does not have the luxury of space. It has a small square and fountain in front of it, not enough for the crowd. Joe and the guys joined a crowd in filling up their water bottles from the fountain.
The church maintains its medieval interior with Romanesque arches. Like St. Paul's, it has plastic chairs too. The heat of the church combined with the number of people made the visit difficult.
Our guide Esther ... led us into the Sistine Chapel of the church [not the one in the Vatican, named after another Pope Sixtus]. Statues of four angles held the canopy. On the opposite side was Pope Sixtus, in statue and his remains. A glass case held his body, covered with robes and a death mask. His statue showed him smiling. It reminded me why people rarely smile in portraits and status. The pope had a wide grin like a circus clown.
Jeanne's niece, who will be a freshman at her high school in Virginia, said she had seen more dead bodies today than she had in her entire life (Jeanne is head of youth ministry for the diocese).
The cardinal of Toronto is speaking now over a poor speaker system at St. Paul's "God don't make no trash" got applause.
He was short, anyway, and I liked his tone. "My dear friends, thank you very much," he said at the end.
12:19 p.m.
outside the basilica in the courtyard
The gospel is being read inside St. Paul's and I'm writing. I ate shortly before noon. Plus I need to write. I was sitting on a bench in the left-hand corner of the basilica writing when I noticed the pounding of my keyboard could be heard amid the silence of mass.
The base of Trevi fountain is below street level, where many people turn their backs to throw a coin. It was so congested Brian and I stayed up on street level. He spotted a guy snapping pictures on the steps of a church in the piazza, and I climbed up to snap a few of my own.
I still can't get over the size of the statues. Oceanus appeared to be the size of a bus. All the figures were truly giants.
I walked to the right side of the fountain and threw two coins in, worth 700 lire. I bought postcards. Brian purchased a status of Caesar for about 140,000 lire. The vendor gave him rosary beads as a bonus. Brian wondered if he should have haggled (The vendor dropped the price once, "For you,140,000!"), but liked the statue, putting it in his shoulder bag. His boss is nicknamed "Caesar," so Brian bought it for him.
We picked a downstairs restaurant on the way to Piazza Barberini, where a subway stop was. We both ordered salads. Mine consisted of thick slices of mozzarella and tomato. I thought "grilled scampi" meant shrimp but they were crabs. Huge legs —once again, different from home. and good. Brian had minestrone and pizza.
Twice during our meal, the lights went out. Each time, Brian reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight, pointed it at his pizza, and started eating.
I should stop for now, because communion is being distributed with "Be Not Afraid" sung. I will rejoin my group.
But first — a note: these pillars out in the courtyard are covered with bird droppings. They are sooty and grimy too. I sometimes can't believe all the cigarette butts around the steps in front either. Italy is beautiful, not pristine.
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