Sometimes though, you're stopped dead in your tracks, in the face of a person whose time on earth has had a ripple effect of grand proportions changing the world forever. You can't help but feel the weight of their lives, the centuries that stand between then and now, and the power of a life lived wholly for the Lord.
On my first full day here, I woke up with two goals: learn about the Italian language class offerings and well, I already forgot what my other goal even was. Instead I ended up following Jona (my roommate) to work (at the Vatican) and going on the Scavi tour she was leading. So after landing in Italy finding my shampoo and pajamas, the very first thing I did was descend below St. Peters and walk through 2000 year old graves, monuments and pieces of an ancient necropolis from the time of Constantine. We see a Christian necropolis with ancient frescos depicting Christ. We pass through a beautiful chapel that faces the burial site of Peter and who’s alter contains one of the first alters ever placed at that site. We see bits of a towering monument and a brick shelter built to protect and enshrine the grave of Peter. We see a wall of graffiti memorializing the centuries of pilgrims who came to venerate the place of Peter's burial. Name upon name upon name. Then, we round the corner and peer through glass and ancient brick and see encased in protective glass, the fragments of the bones of St. Peter himself.
In front of your eyes are the layers of centuries. And their foundation is the man proclaimed by Christ to be the rock on which the Church would be built. The top layer: the alter in St. Peter's basilica where only the Pope can say Mass.
As my roommate aptly pointed out, how appropriate to begin MY time in Rome with "the Rock" - Peter himself. The physical church is literally built upon his physical remains. When we exited the ancient tombs, we'd ascended a bit, but were still underground and we found ourselves in the Vatican Grottos - directly across from John Paul II's grave. RIGHT THERE!!! Then Jona took me up a restricted flight of stairs... and BOOM. I am in St. Peter's staring up at the 9 stories of bronze that is Bernini's Baldacchino. Magnificent. Everything. The whole church is beautiful, grand, amazing. It inspires such awe... to stand in this place, in the presence of towering monuments of our faith: the bones of centuries of popes and great saints and martyrs, sculptures by Michelangelo and Bernini, golden letters 10 stories up that are taller than me...
As I numbly wandered the masterpiece that is St. Peter's, Jona pointed out tombs of great men and women and famed sculptures. I paused for a moment and asked, "Who is this?" Gregory of Nazianzus. Great Doctor and theologian of the Eastern Church. Whose eloquence is memorialized in our liturgies and theological texts; whose mind informed much of our understanding of who we are. I've always been captured by brief glimpses of him throughout my life... and HERE he was. Now each time I walk the vastness of St. Peter's, I am compelled to pause by his resting place.
After a couple Sundays in the Eternal City, I had yet to hear MUSIC or SING at any liturgies. Heartbreaking for me. I LOVE to sing. My neighbor, a Byzantine Catholic by baptism, suggested I attend the Byzantine Liturgy at the church down the hill, Santa Maria in Trastevere. So far, in my daily Mass excursions, this had been my favorite place to attend Mass. I was already liking Santa Maria and having never attended an Oriental Liturgy before, I was in. Rachel, another girl from the villa, and I entered the beautiful piazza about 20 minutes before the start of the Liturgy. I could already hear singing. Without exaggeration, as I crossed the threshold of the door, I stepped into the most palpable, tangible, practically visible with power, wall of the Holy Spirit I have ever experienced in my life. The air was thick with His presence. Unbidden, my eyes burned with tears. The church was packed. Mind you, the congregations usually feel sparse due to the enormous scale of these churches and the fact that there are probably over 3000 Masses said here daily, which tends to spread out the faithful quite a bit! But there was hardly a seat remaining and every man, woman and child was singing along with the choir, in four part harmony. The lights were low, real candles were lit all over the alter... I was participating the Holy and Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. I think I wept silently until the reading of the Gospel. Rachel and the sweet woman beside me thought I was crazy! I just couldn't help it. I was in awe of the reverence, the beauty, the multi-sensory shmorgisboard of wonder and amazement. The Priests and Deacons process the book of the Gospels through the whole church as lights come on everywhere with candles taller than me and incense and do the same for the offertory preceding the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Everything is sung. It is like heaven. Angel choirs.
And today, on a "field trip" with my Italian class, I visited the Gothic cathedral of Santa Maria of Sopra Minerva, the Dominican church where the body of Saint Catherine of Siena resides. Her tomb is surrounded by glass within the alter. You can pause to pray mere feet from her. There is a side chapel whose walls are dedicated to frescos depicting her life. There she is: Saint Catherine. I don't have anything eloquent to say... it was moving to be there, but in a way I was there on behalf of my mother who has a sincere and beautiful devotion to St. Catherine. I was just grateful to be a part of it.
OK - that is LONG enough! :-)
Loooooove,
Elizabeth
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