A sempiternal journey

I am returned from my travels in Europe, which included, as I mentioned a few days before my departure, several days in Rome. I had a richly rewarding visit. Rome is a city of wonders, and I know of no city that more fires my imagination. In Rome I feel I can stand a little taller and stride a little more confidently than anywhere else. It is in Rome that the drama of human life – its possibility for better and for worse – is most evident and tangible. The gods made Rome great, and then God made her glorious, and all of that greatness and glory is lying in wait around the next corner, down the street, ready to pounce. There’s no escaping it, even if one wanted to. And I did not want to.

To be in Rome during the closing days of Lent was an unlooked-for blessing, and I tried to be responsive to the gift. I began most days with Mass at the great and beloved basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was in close proximity to my lodgings. On one morning I arose before sunrise and made my way across the city to St. Peter’s, arriving early enough to avoid the crowds. At that hour the church was largely empty, though in the many side chapels Mass was being celebrated in many languages by priests from many corners of the globe. It was a beautiful thing to witness the catholicity of the Church made evident in such a way. I wandered from altar to altar seeking an English priest, but without success. In one side chapel a small group of teenaged girls clustered near the altar, looking as though they were preparing to sing. They were dressed so casually and slouched so convincingly that I assumed they were a youth group from Wisconsin, and I trembled at the thought that they would disturb the peace of the morning with one of those inane jingles that passes for liturgical music in too many parishes. My cynicism, if that is what it was, received a beautiful rebuke when they did open their mouths: they sang a song of surpassing beauty, full of pungent harmonies and the hieratic splendour of Byzantium. I’m not sure where they were from, but it was not Wisconsin. Eventually I settled myself in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, the space reserved throughout the day for quiet prayer, and I was surprised by the commencement of an Italian language Mass. The celebrant sang the ordinary and the propers in Gregorian chant, so I was able to join in, and I was reminded again how fitting that music is to the liturgy, and how effectively it fosters a spirit of reverence and prayer.

A highlight of the visit was to enter the crypt under St. Peter’s and pray at the tomb of John Paul II. He has been given a very simple, unostentatious funeral monument. I stood there a long while, thinking. It seemed fitting that I honour him by remembering, there and then, in his presence, the life he lived. My first difficulty was to conquer my amazement at the thought that a man of such strength had really and truly been laid low, that a man of such eloquence had been silenced. I thought of his great courage, his unflagging and eloquent defence of the dignity of human life, and, more than that, his demonstration that a man lives most fully and beautifully when he strives after the highest things. “Do not be satisfied with mediocrity,” he said, “but set out into the deep, and let down your nets.” I thought of how he had carried the hopes and fears of so many on his shoulders, for it is a solemn thing to steer the barque of Peter in stormy times, and many who suffered under tyranny or faltered under the seduction of the nothing had looked to him for consolation and encouragement, and he had not disappointed them. I thought of those ringing words with which he greeted the world upon his election, words which fell like water on the parched tongues of so many: “Be not afraid!” I was thankful that, however belatedly, I had had him for a father, and I told him so.

I was also able to see, on two separate occasions, our present Holy Father. On Sunday, I and a few tens of thousands of others gathered in St. Peter’s Square to join Pope Benedict in praying the Angelus. Because the Italians had adjusted their clocks by one hour the previous night, and because I had been misinformed about the direction in which they adjusted them, and because I discovered the mistake at almost the last possible moment, I had to race across the city in order to arrive in time. I am willing to bet that in the entire history of the city of Rome, no one matching my description has covered the distance between the Esquiline hill and the Vatican hill faster than I did that morning. I arrived with moments to spare, and took up a position relatively close to the papal apartments from which he would speak. As I looked at the window where he would appear, and sized it up through my camera lens, I congratulated myself on the excellent photographs I was going to take. When he did appear, I realized with dismay that it was a really big window; he filled only a tiny portion of the bottom. Nevertheless, the bad pictures were not enough to ruin the occasion. After the prayers – in Latin, of course – he addressed the crowd in German, French, Spanish, English, and Polish. The Poles in attendance seemed particularly pleased at this.

I saw him again, rather by accident, on the day of my departure. I had planned to visit the Vatican museums, but when I arrived mid-morning I discovered an enormous queue already in place. Abandoning that plan, I sauntered into St. Peter’s Square again, only to find that the Pope was holding a public audience. It was a pleasant surprise.

During my visit I was able to revisit many of my favourite Roman landmarks. Apart from a late afternoon stroll through the Forum, I mostly ignored Imperial Rome this time around, choosing instead to visit Rome’s many splendid churches. I spent time at a number of the ancient basilicas: Santa Prassade, Santi Cosma e Damiano, Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Sabina, and my beloved San Clemente, each of which has survived since at least the fifth century, and each of which houses a dazzling apse mosaic. I also revisited Santa Maria sopra Minerva, a little treasure chest of a church. Not only is it Rome’s only Gothic church, but it contains the tombs of both St. Catherine of Siena and the Dominican painter Beato Angelico, as well as Michelangelo’s sculpture of the Risen Christ and a marvellous side chapel painted by Filippo Lippi with scenes from the life of St. Thomas Aquinas.

I was also able to visit quite a number of churches for the first time. One afternoon I took a long walk in the south part of the city, visiting a string of little known parishes: Santi Giovanni e Paulo (named not for the apostles, but for two soldiers martyred under Julian the Apostate), Santa Maria in Domnica (decorated in a charming nautical theme), Santi Nereo e Achilleo (constructed in the shadow of the Baths of Caracella on a spot where one of St. Peter’s bandages is said to have fallen while he was fleeing the city), San Giovanni a Porta Latina, and the diminutive San Giovanni in Oleo (built where St. John is said to have been boiled in oil). This route took me outside the ancient city wall, which I followed around to the Appia Antica, perhaps the oldest and most famous of the roads leading to Rome. I had thought that I would enjoy a quiet walk down the ancient paving stones, but was rudely disappointed by a noisy and noxious traffic jam.

I ventured one morning down to San Paulo fuori le Mura, which is sufficiently out of the way that I had missed it on my previous visits. I stood in amazement at the size and magnificence of this church, which was largely rebuilt in the nineteenth century following a fire. Built on the traditional burial place of St. Paul, recent excavations have uncovered a sarcophagus bearing an inscription that identifies it as Paul’s own. This sarcophagus, however, was not visible. Afterward, I went up to Rome’s cathedral church San Giovanni in Laterano and spent several happy hours.

There is more that could be said – much more, for nearly every hour of the day contained some marvel worth remembering – but I suppose I have gone on long enough.  All in all, it was a rewarding and refreshing few days. I marvelled, prayed, and walked a great deal, but I was walking on sunshine.