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!

ROME (Day 3)

We had another morning walking tour beginning with St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs which is a church dedicated to the Christian martyrs, known and unknown, as well as Pope Pius IV, whose tomb is located here.

Next, we visited Santa Maria della Vittoria. The main attraction at this church is the masterpiece, the Ecstasy of St. Teresa by the famous sculptor, Bernini. The statue depicts a moment described by Saint Teresa of Avila in her autobiography, where she had the vivid vision of an angel piercing her heart with a golden shaft, causing her both immense joy and pain. Notice the flowing robes and contorted posture of St. Teresa which really portray the ecstasy she describes of.

Third on the agenda was the Capuchin Franciscan Boneyard Church where the bones of many Capuchin monks are arranged in different patterns such as cross, floral, arch, circle, and triangles of a six-roomed crypt. A large clock located in the last chamber represents the idea that time has no beginning or end. This was a pretty incredible work of art by an anonymous Capuchin. Some of the students thought it was pretty weird and rightly so, it’s not exactly normal. No doubt, it was pretty amazing though! It is said that the Capuchin monks fled to the Capuchin Church of the Immaculate Conception in Rome to escape the French Revolution.

The Spanish Steps were our next stop - the longest and widest staircase in Europe. It was built as a monument and named for the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See located in the piazza below.

A little ways from the Spanish Steps was the Trevi Fountain, the most famous and arguably the most beautiful fountain in all of Rome. This fountain was what people said looked beautiful at night and the one we thought we were seeing the day before, haha. This one really was amazing! ;)

Then we headed to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, translated as the Basilica of Saint Mary above Minerva. This church is one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy and considered the only Gothic church in Rome. In it are the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena and the Dominican painter Fra Angelico. Also, the church contains the Cristo della Minerva, also known as Christ the Redeemer or Christ Carrying the Cross: a marble sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The first picture below is the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena and the second picture is Buonarroti's Christ Carrying the Cross:

The Pantheon was our next stop. Here's a blurb I found about it: “The Pantheon is a magnificent ancient temple in Rome that was later converted into the church of Santa Maria ad Martyrs. Dating from 125 AD, this is the most complete ancient building in Rome and one of the city's most spectacular sights. Until the 20th century, the Pantheon was the largest concrete structure in the world. Michelangelo studied its great dome before starting work on the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The Pantheon was dedicated to pan theos, ‘all the gods.’ When it became a church, it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs.”

Notice that hole at the top is completely open. It was raining, so the rain was coming through the hole and making a puddle in the inside. It looked really cool with the rain falling and the light shining through :)

Next we visited St. Agostino that had the tomb of St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine! It was SO awesome seeing all the tombs of great saints throughout history. It was a surprise every place we visited!

And also, the Madonna del Parto, translated, Our Lady of Childbirth, by Jacopo Sansovino

Finally, we visited Chiesa Luigi in Francese which translates to Church of St. Louis of the French. This church contains a number of paintings depicting the story of St. Matthew particularly, The Calling of St. Matthew by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

The tour was over about noon and Andrea, Terese and I took the metro to see the Church of St. Paul which was huge and has the images of the popes lining the ceiling:

This basilica also had St. Paul's chain of martyrdom:

We had a scheduled tour of the Vatican necropolis below St. Peter's basilica known as the Scavi tour at 2:30. We were told to be there at 2:10 and I figured 30 minutes would be enough time to get there by 2:10. Well, that was a fail. We left at 1:40 and sprinted the whole way there. We showed up 5 minutes before the tour was starting as our group was lining up to go. Andrea and I sprinted all the way up and as soon as I got in the gate, the Swiss guard told me my backpack was too big to take in... soo I was moved to the 2:45 tour. Terese had thought we had more time though so she said she would meet us there which caused her to be in even more of a time crunch! She showed up about 2:40 or so after sprinting too. So we were still in the same group together.

The Vatican necropolis, referred to as the Scavi, is the burial ground of mostly pagans from the Vatican area before St. Peter’s Basilica was built. It is located directly underneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Among the pagan tombs is the tomb of St. Peter as well as some of his bones which took extensive research and scientific testing before verifying them as truly the bones of St. Peter. His tomb is located directly beneath the altar of the basilica. To give you a feel for the atmosphere, the air was humid, dim lighting, and small, narrow passageways. Some of the objects can only be viewed one at a time – it’s a pretty amazing excavation site and the tour was extremely fascinating and well done!

After the tour at about 4:30, Terese and I headed out to see Tre Fontana where St. Paul was martyred. Well, the metro was a problem again because we thought we could get there before it was supposed to close at 6:00. Well about 5:15, we're sprinting through Rome again for the third time. We first went the wrong way and after asking three people at three different times for help we finally arrived at the church at about 5:40 - and the church was closed... we did everything we could to get in which included praying the rosary on our knees in front of the door. By the time it was 6:20, we really needed to leave in order to get back to dinner at the hotel at 7. We were super disappointed :/ but we can't expect everything to go perfectly. We got a ride with a sweet young Italian lady who was coming from praying in the other church nearby and she took us to the Marconi station (four stops closer to our destination) which was quite a blessing :) We finished our rosary on the metro back and found out dinner wasn't till 7:15. Yay!

ROME (Day 2)

We met in the morning at the Colosseum for an Ancient Rome / Early Christian Church tour. It was pouring down rain basically the whole tour and we ended up having to break up into two large groups without headsets since one of the three tour guides didn't show up and the headsets were late. So that made it three times harder to hear because of the huge group and the rain! First on the agenda was a brief history of the Colosseum.






The Colosseum was built in the 1st century AD and is probably the most famous landmark in Rome. It could seat 45,000 people and was the largest Roman amphitheater in the world. The most common events that took place here were the gladiatorial combats, fights and hunts with wild animals, re-enactments of famous battles, dramas based on Classical mythology and the possibly the execution of early Christians in addition to over 2,000 gladiators. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Colosseum has been believed to be a place of martyrdom and was therefore regarded as a sacred place. the Colosseum was also used as a Christian burial ground. Early Christian tombs have been found in three areas around the amphitheatre: in the foundations on the north and east sides and on the exterior ground near the present entrance. It is now preserved and taken care of by the Vatican.

The Arch of Constantine is located right near the Colosseum and is a large triumphal arch representing the victory of the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD of the Emperor Constantine over Maxentius.



Contemporary historians have recorded that the night before the battle Constantine had a vision. He saw the symbol of chi-rho (the first letters of "Christ" in Greek), or the cross in some accounts, in the sky with the words, "By this sign, conquer."

Constantine was desperate at this point and led his men into battle with the sign of Christ on their battle shields. This event is highly important in Christianity since this defeat caused Constantine to convert to Christianity, thereby ending Christian persecution and jumpstarting the development of Christendom. The event is commemorated by this Arch which represents the major turning point in the history of the western world.

We also saw ruins of a previous gladiator training school which was located just across the street from the Colosseum. Here’s a little blurb I found about these training schools, “Gladiators were trained at special schools originally owned by private citizens, but later taken over by the imperial state to prevent the build-up of a private army. Gladiators trained like true athletes, much like professional athletes do today. They received medical attention and three meals a day. Their training included learning how to use various weapons, including the war chain, net, trident, dagger, and lasso.”






Then we visited the Basilica of St. Clemente and toured the underground where the original church once was.



Then we visited the church with St. Peter's martyrdom chain and I think the part of the pillar where Jesus was scouraged was at this same church, but I'm not entirely sure about that.







Then we visited Santa Maria Maggiore church with part of the Jesus' manger during the Nativity:



It's that little piece of wood underneath the gold and silver covering... it's a little hard to see but it's there :)
This is also the church where the name, Our Lady of Snows comes from. I made it a point to remember this since there's a church in Leavenworth named Our Lady of Snows and we go there when we visit my uncle and his family in the mountains :)

The story of Our Lady of the Snow could be part legend but no doubt could have truth to it. Our Lady of the Snow commemorates the dedication of the Church of St. Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore) on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. An old Roman legend speaks of John and his wife who were both childless. They asked the Blessed Virgin Mary to make an heir known to them, someone to whom they could will all their possessions. On the night of August 4 or 5, Our Lady appeared to them in a dream and asked if they would build a church, on the Esquiline Hill (one of the seven hills in Rome). They were to find the exact spot for its location the next morning, outlined in snow. The same night Pope Liberius also had a dream by Our Lady who directed him to the same location on the Esquiline Hill. Both parties met at this spot which was marked by freshly fallen snow... on a hot August day. A basilica was completed within two year’s time. During the feast day Mass on August 5th every year, white rose petals fall from the basilica’s ceiling in honor of Our Blessed Mother. The ivory petals are a remembrance of the miraculous snowfall that graced Esquiline hill with Santa Maria Maggiore church.

The tour was officially finished about noon and Andrea and I went on the hunt for some lunch and then we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel for the afternoon. We got there about 1:45 and completely missed the usual huge lines which we found out die down between 1 and 2 so we were SO blessed! We heard most people were standing in line for 45 minutes to an hour while we just walked right in. We really enjoyed the museum and ended up losing track of time.







Someone was smart ;)



Sistine Chapel: Last Judgment by Michelangelo



Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

It was 3:50 before we had even gotten to the Sistine Chapel and we were supposed to be to mass at 4:30, two metro lines away. Well, we thought we could do it and after seeing the Sistine Chapel we began to head out but the museum kind of just kept going. When we finally got out we began running since by that time mass was starting in 15 minutes. I don't know what we were thinking but it was definitely 4:30 and we were still on the line A of the metro with five stops left to go and still having to transfer to line B... we gave up since obviously there was no way we would be there on time. We stopped to see the Fontana del Tritone which we heard was a beautiful fountain especially at night. Well, when we saw it, it wasn't interesting at all... turns out later we didn't actually see the Fontana del Tritone but this other random and obviously insignificant one :P We went to St. Peter's Square after and went searching for Soprani's Religious Goods store known for great quality and cheap prices. We stopped there for the rest of our free time and were back just in time for dinner at 7. Dinner is such an important event everywhere in Europe that it cut into our holy hour every night, which was supposed to start at 8:30. So this night's holy hour was definitely cut into a holy half-hour :P