Rome, Sweet Home (to rip off Scott Hahn a little bit)

(all photos in this post are copywrited by me)

"Heart of Jesus, desire of the Eternal Hills, have mercy on us." --Litany of the Sacred Heart

"It is truly right and just, with ardent love of mind and heart and with devoted service of our voice, to acclaim our God invisible, the almighty Father, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, his Son, his Only Begotten. Who for our sake paid Adam's debt to the eternal Father, and, pouring out his own dear Blood, wiped clean the record of our ancient sinfulness. These, then, are the feasts of Passover, in which is slain the Lamb, the one true Lamb, whose Blood anoints the doorposts of believers." --The Exultet of the Easter Vigil 

Hello lovely readers! And welcome back to the Sam-writes-posts-the-week-she-posts-them sort of vibe! I don't know if you're happy to be back to that, but there we are. Heck, I don't know if I'm happy to be back to that. But here we are. I've returned from my three weeks of travels and am going to stay put in one place for at least a couple of weeks. 

Anyway, Happy Easter again! It is, indeed, still the Easter Season, with all of the joy and alleluias and warm spring days that come with that. One of the things I love about Easter is that I feel like the season of Easter bridges the gap from the midst of spring to the beautiful first days of summer, when it's still not too hot, and there's a breeze, and we celebrate Pentecost. 

Good stuff. 

But I surmise you're not here to hear me talk about the Easter season. You're here to hear me talk about Rome. (And if you're not, you should be. And if you don't want to hear me talk about Rome, you can leave now. ;)) 

Rome. Rome, Rome, Rome. What to say about Rome? 

Rome was amazing. I really wasn't expecting how amazing it was, nor how the spiritual blessings and graces that I received there would stick with me. I kind of think every Catholic should do their best to visit Rome in their lifetime, because it really is our 'earthly homeland', and visiting it is an absolutely mind-blowing beautiful experience. 

And one that I'm going to have a hard time summing up in a blog post, I think. I'm going to do my best to give you the sifted, thoughtful, digested version, not a "first I did this, and then I did that" version, but in order to get my thoughts properly in order, I'm going to give you one list first, which is a list of the churches I visited. 

Churches Sam Visited In Rome (in a mix of English and Italian)
Sts. Anthony & Hannibal di Francia 
St. John Lateran
St. Lawrence in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum (aka the Scala Sancta)
St. Mary Major
St. Alphonsus
Sts. Silvester and Martin
San Clemente al Laterano
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme 
St. Peter's Basilica
Sts. Vincent and Anastasio
Oratory of the Blessed Sacrament
Santa Maria in Via
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva
St. Eusebio on the Esquiline
St. Prassede 
Santi Quattro Coronati 
St. Paul outside the Wall
St. Anthony of Padua
Church of Quo Vadis

(I still felt like I visited a mere paucity of churches, and it didn't help that I went to St. Peter's like four times instead of going to other churches. XD)

Okay, now I can commence my reflections. (Which, given that I'm writing them fairly late at night, hopefully will be intelligible. I apologize if they get a bit sassy...I was reading some posts by a (fun) sarcastic blogger for a bit before realizing that it was slightly impacting my writing style and I should save that until after I finished this post, lol.)

The last time a member of my immediate family was in Rome was when my parents were there for their honeymoon, roughly my age + 1 years ago. It was really cool, as their daughter, to be back there, in a place that I've heard so much about from the two of them. There were multiple things that were 'callbacks' to their time there, from going to multiple churches for the sole reason that Mom & Dad have mentioned them over the years (for instance: St. Mary Major, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Santa Croce, &c), to going to a restaurant that they went to on their honeymoon (more on that later) to praying for my family at St. John Paul II's tomb--when my parents were in Rome, they met him and got his blessing (we have pictures). So to be there, knowing that that was where his body was, and that the last time any of my family was in Rome, they met him and now he's a saint was wild, and rather beautiful. 

Which leads into something that was one of my biggest takeaways/spiritual blessings/graces/realizations from Rome. One of the craziest things about Rome is how many relics/bodies of saints are EVERYWHERE. Almost every church I went into had some saint's body, if it didn't have something else crazy. (There was a memorable day when I saw the Holy Stairs, the body of Pope Pius V, and the original Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon all within about half an hour, in three different churches.) It feels like every church in Rome has something there that, if a church had it in the US, would be the focus of major pilgrimages, constantly. 

Like. The body of St. Catherine of Siena. A relic of the manger that Mary laid Christ in. Multiple relics of the crucifixion. The body of JPII. The chains that St. Paul was brought to Rome in + his tomb. A Roman villa that was used by one of the early popes. A miraculous well that you can drink the water from. A stone with the imprints of Christ's feet in it. 

AND THEY'RE NOT ADVERTIZED. No one TELLS you that those things are there. Almost all of the things I just listed off were things I stumbled upon, not realizing they were in Rome. (In fact, only one of the things I just listed was a thing I went to see on purpose.) 

Okay, all of that was a massive digression on the actual point I meant to make. XD One of the cool things about all the bodies and relics is that they're often displayed in clear coffins. If the saint is incorrupt, it's just...their body. Chilling out and Not Decaying. If the saint isn't incorruptible, it'll be their bones in a metal or wax figure that looks like them. And it's crazy to have all of their bodies resting peacefully in plain view. 

And I'm sure you're expecting a "and death isn't that scary!" reflection. But no. I mean, yes. But the thing that I really took away from all of these amazing things in one place was a real and deep understanding of the Communion of Saints. 

*starts singing "We Are Family"* 

But really, the feeling I had about it reminded me of a family reunion. We're all here; we all care about each other. Everyone is praying for each other, and those who are in heaven are cheering on those of us on Earth and in Purgatory. It's not like I 'get' to talk to the saints I have a special devotion to and no other ones because they're mad I don't talk to them more often. All the saints have a vested interest in all of us getting to Heaven. They're our family. And it's maybe like the cousin you only talk to when you see them at a reunion. You love each other, you're family, and even if you don't talk often, the bond is there.

And then extend that to everyone who's in Heaven. It's kind of mind boggling. I don't know if I'm conveying it well, but let's just say it's given me much more confidence in just asking the saints for prayers, even if it's not a saint I know super well. Which I think is pretty cool.

So yeah, that was a thing. 

One of the somewhat strange things about the city that especially struck me as I was arriving into it for the first time is that it's a very lived in city. It's not 'preserved as it was' at all (except for the churches), and honestly, my first impressions of the city were awful. It didn't help that I was coming in by train (no city turns its best face to the railway, a Sam truism), and that I had only gotten three hours of sleep the night before, but my first impression of Rome was that it was crowded, dingy, covered in graffiti, with trash in a lot of places, and tons of plants growing up through cracks in the sidewalk. But, fairly disoriented, I found a (modern) church and stumbled into it to pay my respects, and things did start to look up from there (although it wasn't until the next day that I could really see the beauty that is Rome.) 

And even though there are areas that are graffitied and dingy, Rome is beautiful. There is an immense beauty in the Eternal City that has been lived in for so long, the scavi (archaeological excavations) coexisting with the streets, teenagers doing skateboard stunts with the Colosseum in the background. There are wide streets, colourful apartments, interesting plants, and old walls everywhere, and you can see that and rejoice in it if you look past the first impression of the city. :)

I'm pretty far into this post, and I've barely talked about what I actually did in Rome...oops? Although I did tell you I wasn't going to give you a play-by-play, and I'll stick to that. But I will share some anecdotes of a couple things that especially stuck out as experiences. 

On the morning of the Wednesday of Holy Week, I needed to go to the Vatican to pick up my ticket for Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square. I knew it was going to rain, so I wore my raincoat, but as soon as I came up out of the Ottaviano Metro station, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. It was raining almost harder than any rain I'd ever experienced before in my life--possibly comparable with an Illinois thunderstorm. Within minutes, everything not under the shelter of my raincoat was soaked through, sopping wet. The water started to run down my (saturated) wool leggings into my hiking boots. It was raining so hard I could barely see, but when I put a hand up to try to pull my hood forward to help shield my eyes, the water started running down my sleeves. By the time I got under the porticoes of St. Peter's Square (and officially entered Vatican City! and also a dry place!) I was wringing handfuls of water out of my skirt. 

And then realized I'd need to wait in the line in the open in order to get into the Vatican. 

Praise the Lord, the rain slacked off, and also Praise the Lord, my mother has been on a wool clothing kick the last few years, so everything I was wearing was wool, and the people who say wool is still warm when it's wet are not lying. So, everything wasn't quite as horrible as it sounds. XD

I finally got past the metal detectors and got to actually talk to a Swiss Guard in Italian in order to get to the place I needed to go to get my ticket. (To be fair, it was him talking to me in Italian, me comprehending, and then telling him thank you in Italian. I didn't speak a lot of the Italian involved in this interaction. But the Swiss Guards are SO cool and getting to actually interact with one was SO NERDY AND NEAT.) 

But please bear in mind that this entire time I, and all my chariots and charioteers (ironic Exodus for the win) are STILL soaking wet. 

So, ticket in hand (or rather, in backpack), I make my way up the steps to St. Peter's. I stepped through the doors. And, dear readers, I could not breathe for a solid thirty seconds. As soon as I got my breath back, I started crying. 

Perhaps some of that was due to being absolutely sopping dripping soaking wet, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly the beauty. Because gosh you guys St. Peter's is beautiful. It's beautiful in a way that no picture can express, and I'm pretty sure no one but a Catholic can fully appreciate. (On a different (sunny) day when I came back, I overheard a British (Anglican) dad saying to his sons "if you're a Catholic, this is basically the most important place in the world", and...yeah. Pretty much true.) I'm writing this post the day before it's supposed to be posted (I know, I know, who am I and what have I done with Sam) and so I'm not going to try to describe the beauty of St. Peter's in full (because that would be a full post by itself) but the thing that continued to make me cry through the first half hour or so of being in the Basilica were the inscriptions around the top of the church. Everyone knows about the "Tu Es Petrus" ("You are Peter") inscription around the dome, but did you know that there are a whole bunch of other inscriptions (in Latin! part of why I was crying so hard) around the top of each side of the transepts/nave/&c? There's "I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail", and "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not told you this but my Heavenly Father", and "Whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven", and "Simon Peter, do you love me?", and "And they will be one flock, one shepherd." 

And y'all. If you try to tell me that walking into this GIGANTIC GORGEOUS unbelievably large and full-of-Catholic-history-and-art-church built over St. Peter's tomb as a monument to that wonderful, flawed human man who became the first Pope, the first Head of Christ's Church in the world, and then looking to the left and seeing "Ego autem rogavi pro te ut non deficiat fides tua: et tu aliquando conversus, confirma fratres tuos" wouldn't make you cry... Well, I don't know if I believe you. 

(For those of you who don't read Latin, that's the "I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith will not fail" bit. ;))

Also, the Pieta is there. Did I mention that the Pieta is there? 

Okay, moving on from the beauty of St. Peter's that made me go back at least three times (I think I lost count...?). XD

I got to go to Mass almost every day I was in Rome, which is perhaps not surprising, but was definitely a huge blessing. A lot of the time, the Mass was in Italian (and did I mention I don't speak Italian? I can pick up about 50-70% of what's being said when other people are speaking Italian, but I most emphatically do not speak it myself). And that wasn't bad, because I know the Mass, and I could follow along with the abovementioned 50-70% of the homily. It did put a kink in my ability to respond to the Mass, though, which usually led to me saying the responses in Latin, as the language-I-know-that-sounds-the-most-like-Italian. 

(I'm pretty sure the thing that you're going to take away from this post is not "Rome is awesome" but "Sam is a huge nerd" which is fine, because if you didn't know that already I'd be shocked.) 

Anyway. There were a few times, though, where either Mass as a whole or just the responses were in Latin, and those times were amazing. Because Latin is truly the universal language of the Church, and enough people knew the Latin responses that people of a whole bunch of languages were all responding in Latin, and it was quite beautiful actually. 

I was (as I think I've mentioned?) in Rome specifically for Holy Week, which was in theory a great idea, but also led to a certain amount of stress about "so, where the heck do I actually go for Holy Week liturgies...?" Thankfully, I think the Holy Spirit had my back, because He led me to four amazing Holy Week liturgies which all seemed really perfect for the days I went to them on, and I ended up having an absolutely amazing Triduum. (Even if I was kind of homesick for both my home parish and Newman the whole time. I don't think that's ever going to go away, though, so I need to get used to it.) 

(My mom started calling me "God's Spoiled Brat" if that gives you any insights into how my Triduum went.)

Also, I'm going to try to include some definitions of liturgical terms, and translations of the Latin for those of you who aren't as fluent in those things, but I apologize to my non-Catholic readers, because without knowing a bit about the Triduum liturgies, I'm afraid this part won't make a ton of sense. And I don't have time to write out an explanation of all the Holy Week liturgies (although that could be a fun post for next year...), which I, again, apologize for. 

On Holy Thursday, I went to St. John Lateran, which is technically the cathedral of Rome, aka the Seat of the Bishop of Rome. Which is amazing. It's also an absolutely beautiful church, with white marble pillars and these huge statues of each of the apostles down the sides of the church. Like, larger than life sized. Big, and stern, and beautiful. 

One of the cardinals was celebrating Mass, and there were also six bishops and over sixty priests! The Holy Thursday liturgy is usually one of my favourites because of specific textual things, which are a lot harder to pick up in Italian, but the singing of the Gloria with the ringing bells (including the bells of the church tolling out loudly overhead) was transcendent, and the procession to the Altar of Repose, with St. Thomas Aquinas's Eucharistic hymns was just as beautiful as it ever is. 

I ended up doing the Seven Churches devotion (a devotion apparently developed in Rome by St. Philip Neri...the more you know), which is where you go to seven Altars of Repose (the altar to which the Eucharist is removed to commemorate Jesus going out of the city of Jerusalem and into the Garden of Gethsemane) at seven different churches before midnight on Holy Thursday, and at each of them pray with a specific Scripture passage, following Jesus through the long night of His accusation and condemnation. Usually, I do it with friends in Champaign, and we drive around frantically to the seven churches, getting back to Newman just before midnight for the repose of the Eucharist. It was a definite change of pace to be able to get to (more than) seven churches on foot. And although there were a few moments where I ended up walking through not-so-great parts of town, it was a beautiful journey, and I got to see some absolutely lovely churches. 

On Good Friday morning, I went to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to pray Tre Ore (a devotion where you stay in prayer in the empty church from 12 to 3, the time that Jesus was on the Cross). Unlike the custom in the United States, when I got to the church at 11:45-ish, the Eucharist was still present at the Altar of Repose. At exactly noon, though, the parish priest of the church came and quietly removed the ciborium from the tabernacle, leaving the door swinging open, and silently slipped away. That made an impression. 

Through a stroke of luck/being God's Spoiled Brat, I ended up with a fourth row seat in Santa Croce (a very small church that was absolutely packed to the gills) for the Good Friday liturgy. If you're not familiar with Santa Croce, it's the place in Rome that holds the biggest and the most relics of the Passion. They have several huge chunks of the True Cross, one of the Nails, several crowns from the Crown of Thorns, and the INRI inscription board. (And if you're wondering if it's amazing to see these things in person...yes. It's incredible, and very, very humbling.) So, along with a simply beautiful Good Friday liturgy...there was veneration of the actual True Cross. 

There is really no experience like hearing the "Ecce lignum crucis" ("Behold the Wood of the Cross") and looking and seeing the actual wood of the Cross. And then getting to go up and genuflect to it. 

Big wow. 

A friend of mine from Sheffield, who's also an exchange student from the Midwest (although not my part of the Midwest) was also in Rome Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so we ended up going to Good Friday and Easter Sunday liturgies together, as well as doing some sightseeing and shopping together. It was good to have company for a bit! On Friday night, we went to Stations of the Cross outside the Colosseum, which, although I was disappointed that it wasn't in the Colosseum, was beautiful. There was a huge crowd of people, all praying together, holding candles, on the day Christ died, right next to the place in Rome where probably the most blood of the martyrs has been shed. 

My friend elected not to go to the Easter Vigil, so I was free to choose to go to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, my favourite church in Rome (a cousin of mine pointed out that I'm allowed to say this, since St. Peter's is technically in Vatican City, and thus in a completely different country than SMSM). It is, coincidentally, run by Dominicans. ;)

(Yeah, okay, maybe not a coincidence. But it is the most beautiful church I saw in Rome, I'm pretty sure.)

And you GUYS they LIT THE EASTER FIRE IN THEIR CLOISTER GARDEN. 

I promise I have legitimate reasons for getting excited about this, but long story short, I've been doing absurd amounts of research about cloister gardens, and Dominican ones in particular, and to have them HAVE THE EASTER FIRE THERE! So cool. 

And while the Vigil there wasn't as beautiful as it is at my home parish or at Newman, it was still incredible. The Lumen Christi (the acclimation sung as the Easter candle is brought into the church) was sung in Italian in the exact same tone we use at home. The Exultet was sung by a friar with a gorgeous voice, in Italian but also in the same tone we use at home. Seeing all of the candles throughout the darkened church, in the hands of people who are solemn but utterly joyful and intent will never not be beautiful. And the homily (in Italian) was SO good--partially nerding out about the Gospel of Mark, and partially reminding us that Rome is still very much the territory of the Apostles, and how we need to have Apostolic faith. And gosh guys, renewal of baptismal vows is insane in Italian. Instead of just saying "I do" to everything, when the priest asks "Do you renounce Satan, and all his works and empty promises?" you say "Renuncio!" ("I do renounce!"), and then when he starts in on "Do you believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth?" you say "Credo!" ("I do believe!")

After the Vigil the Dominicans had a reception where I was gleefully given a large plastic cup of champagne by some priests who were enjoying popping the corks on the champagne bottles way too much, and then ended up talking to a priest from Corpus Christi, Texas who's training to be a Canon Lawyer, and another conversation with two African priests, with whom my common language was Spanish. I mangled the grammar consistently, but we understood each other for probably a half hour! Which was really cool. 

For some reason, Europe decided to do Daylight Saving's Time the night of March 30th, which meant I only got 4 hours of sleep between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, so I was a bit groggy, but Easter Sunday really took the cake. 

My Sheffriend (as Eomer likes to call them), God bless her, got up early to get in line for the Mass in St. Peter's Square, and because of her diligence, we ended up with seats in the fourth row.

The. Fourth. Row.

Meaning we were FOUR ROWS away from the Swiss Guards and FOUR ROWS (plus the steps up to the altar et al) from the Pope. 

Yeah. 

God's spoiled brat, y'know? Are you starting to understand my mom's joking chagrin? XD 

And like. It was Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square with thousands and maybe millions of other people. That is to say, it was amazing. There was the Victimae Paschali Laudes. There was nearly-the-whole-Mass-being-in-Latin-because-Latin-is-the-Universal-language-of-the-Church-heck-yeah. There was "O Filii et Filiae". There was THE POPE BEING RIGHT THERE. There was hundreds-of-priests-wading-out-into-the-crowd-to-dispense-the-Eucharist. There was the-Swiss-guards-coming-to-attention-as-soon-as-the-Eucharistic-prayer-started. There was also the Urbi et Orbi blessing that Pope Francis gave after Mass (To The City and the World). 

It was incredible, and I'm still not over it, although I needed a significant nap afterwards. 

And with that...Christ was risen, alleluia! My friend departed, and I was by myself in Rome again. 

This post has certainly taxed your patience for more than long enough, but one last anecdote before I bid you adieu and get back to the world of land management plans and AutoCAD. 

When my parents were in Rome for their honeymoon, lo these many years ago, they went to this little restaurant near the Vatican Museums called Dino e Tony (aka Dino & Tony's), and they have not stopped talking about it since. They were fed the most fabulous food, multiple courses that they were pressed to eat, and all for far less than they expected to pay. They've sent everyone they know who's gone to Rome to Dino e Tony's for the past my-age-plus-1 years. (Because yes, somehow, miraculously, it's still open, and still run by Dino & Tony, these two adorable old Italian men.) And as their daughter, I obviously had to go while I was there .

Except. 

I've definitely mentioned that I have food allergies. And those put a major kink in things like Eating Out. Also Eating In General. And sometimes Breathing. 

So, I was absolutely going to Dino e Tony, but I was prepared to be turned away because they couldn't feed me. And by "prepared" I mean "butterflies in my stomach terrified that they'd tell me they couldn't feed me". The way Dino & Tony's works is that you just sit down and they bring you whatever they're cooking--no ordering or anything--which is great, but also kind of intimidating if you have allergies. 

But I went in and had a thing pulled up on the translator app on my phone that was like "hey, I have food allergies, do you have food that won't kill me? My parents were here on their honeymoon, and I really want to eat here". 

And I went in, and lo and behold, Dino himself was like "oh yes, of course we can feed you, sit down, sit down, sit down!" (Except in Italian, of course.)

And then they (Dino, Tony, and their waitstaff) proceeded to feed me a FOUR COURSE MEAL that was completely free from any of my allergens. It was amazing. It was the most delicious food I'd eaten in Rome, and some of the most delicious food I'd eaten all year. And it was adorable because Dino & Tony would be running in and out of the kitchen (I was seated near the kitchen door), and they'd stop to make approving noises about me emptying my plate, or to pat my shoulder or my head. Also, every time I finished a course, Dino would yell to someone to bring [whatever the next food was] for "la bella ragazza!" Which basically translates as "the beautiful girl", or, if you will, "the bonny lass". It was adorable.

Also. Y'all. They asked if I wanted wine with my lunch, and when I answered with the affirmative (when in Rome...), they brought me HALF A LITER OF WINE.

Needless to say, I didn't drink all of it. (There was sweet after-lunch wine, too.) 

After lunch, I took a picture with Dino, and as I was going out, he did the kiss-on-both-cheeks thing that Italian people do, and it was just... so sweet. I loved every minute of it. 

(Also, when I talked to my mom later, it turned out I paid the exact same price for my lunch as my parents had paid for the two of them, my-age-plus-1 years ago. Which is kind of wild.) 

So yeah! This post is absurdly long, but I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed typing it up! I'm sure you'll be hearing more about Rome in the near-ish future, but for now...hopefully that was a good overview! :D