ROME (Day 4)

And this is the day we have our Papal Audience!
There was a pretty big line for security to get in, so after some time in line to get through security... with tickets in hand we headed to the auditorium!

We were there a good two hours before the Pope came in, to get good seats. It was worth the wait though :) here he is! 

This was probably one of the most exciting experiences. I think it was the bishops who announced the names of all the groups in the audience and when they announced Franciscan University, all of us students stood up, clapping and cheering before the successor of St. Peter and this huge audience of people - it was really intense and beautiful to be with this amazing group of students who I've been bonding with and getting to know all semester, essentially paying our respects to the living tradition of the Church and representing the future of our faith... and all of us were ON FIRE for it! It was definitely a moment I will never forget :)

The audience ended at about noon and Mark, our director of student life, told us about this British pancake restaurant on one of our tours and I wanted to go so bad because all semester we've been deprived of pancakes and waffles. Yeah I don't know what I was thinking but the whole attempt was a joke. As soon as we saw the prices on that menu, it was closed, and we left. We got pizza from a vendor instead... the life of a college student in a nutshell. After lunch, we headed to St. John Lateran Basilica. For the first time, we basically weren't running somewhere to arrive on time. Our time in Rome was so packed, we could have easily stayed there the whole time 10 days and still wouldn't have seen everything. In the afternoon we met in front of the Santa Scala next to the Basilica. Sister Joan Paul (one of the Franciscan sisters), gave us an overview of the history of the devotional ascent of the Hoy Stairs that Christ climbed to meet Pilate during His Passion. Climbing those stairs on our knees, praying the Stations of the Cross, was really powerful.

At the top we saw the painting of the image of Christ by St. Luke, "Not Made by Human Hands." Mass was at 4 in St. John Lateran. We met outside the church after some time to look around the Basilica. St. John Lateran is a major basilica which is the name given to the four highest-ranking Roman Catholic churches all located in Rome: St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, Saint Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major. St. John Lateran, the seat of the papal throne, is the oldest and the first in the established order of the papal basilicas before Saint Peter. All other churches that have the title of a basilica are called minor basilicas. This church also has the table where the Last Supper took place (I think it's the whole table but I'm not positive about that):

After exploring the Basilica for a bit, we met outside where Fr. Brad gave us a short tour. We were led to the church of Santa Croce where the emperor Constantine's mother, St. Helen lived and brought back some of the Passion relics from the Holy Land. We were able to see the actual sign posted above Christ on the cross that read, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," called the Titulus Crucis. We also saw two thorns of the crown, an incomplete nail, three small wooden pieces of the cross itself, a large fragment of the Good Thief's cross, and the bone of an index finger, said to be the finger of St. Thomas that he placed in the wounds of the Risen Christ.

After dinner at the hotel, we went back out to St. Peter's to see it at night. We sang praise and worship songs in the square, and saw the Pope's bedroom window! The lights were still on :) I also met three students from Christendom! They knew my friend Emi and were in Europe for their Rome semester study abroad program!