VIDEO BLOG: Rome Becomes Real

Rome becomes real…

It is now our first day in Rome really…

Sleep did come but I am not sure if my eyes really did close… I finally fell asleep at 4 a.m. and was up at 7. I hope I will be able to sleep at some point during this trip…

Breakfast is provided for us on the first floor… (Side note: Their ground level here is the level 0, not 1, like in the states.) It is a simple breakfast of sliced meat and sliced cheese… No eggs… but a few breads and juice… I have never thought to have deli ham and cheese for breakfast… that is a meal I normally skip… but I think this is something I can do when I get back…

We meet down stairs to head to Santa Maria sopra Minerva.. The biggest most major church dedicated to Mary… We are taking our head count… there are two groups.... mine and one from Texas… The Texas group was all there but we were missing three people… I had not seen any of them for breakfast… so I sent someone up to get them… that person came back a few minutes later and told us that they did not wake up… OH MAN REALLY!?!?! Our years of getting ready… our hours of flying… and someone can’t get up in the morning????

So I am a little frustrated…. Plus I am tired… so I am a little jealous… but I decided that it is not fair to the rest of the group and I know the way to the church… I have been waiting for this day for so long I have studied that maps of Rome… I do not know the names… but I know the streets… I do not know the good parts or the bad parts… but I know I can go this way and that and get to there… so I send the group off… and wait… and wait… frustrated… alone… but alas they come out…

If you did not know, I am … I have two knee replacements and a fused ankle.  So I am thinking these two teens and one young adult should be able to keep up with my handicapped self… so I take off and start walking… I am looking back only in the reflection of windows… want them to know I am frustrated but we are in Rome and I do not see any reason to be angry or mad… I hear one say… it was not our fault… but in a way it is… but true sometimes we can not wake when we want to… so I just keep going…

I also know that we are due to be at a mass celebrated by our priest… we quickly make it the church and I want to go to confession… It has been many… many years… When we get to the church, there is a line for the only one priest who speaks English… There are others in my group who have confessed to me… but they really need to speak to a priest and they are wondering where to go…. So I help them along and move to mass when ready. I was able to look around some and get some good pictures… but not confession…

Mass is amazing… our priest lead the mass… My wife was the lector… It was touching to have a special mass in this one of the oldest churches in the world… This church holds fragments of wood that are believed to be that of the crib of Christ… Simply amazing…

We then exit and cross the street to another church… we try to get to in but it is closed and there is so much more to see today so we continue walking…

I brought two flag poles with us on this trip and now I am carrying one of them… and this makes it easier to keep the group together…  We walk the 15 or so blocks to the Lateran palace and St. John’s Lateran Cathedral Basilica. We worked our way around to the front of the church and entered… I could not believe how big it is… It is so many times larger than my own parish… As we enter my priest tells me that this is St. John as in … the same saint as our parish…

So I look around for a while… I find a beautiful statue of our patron saint below the altar… above the altar is a structure and at the top there are two statues… one of St. Peter and the other of St. Paul… these the two leaders of the church… one who went to Rome and stayed and the other who traveled around spreading the word… both of these statues their heads are gold… I am told it is because that under the gold is the skull of each saint… of to the right side of the altar and in the back is a gift shop… I went in there and saw a museum… so for a single Euro you can go into this small museum… It holds pieces from popes and priest of the past… I quickly go through paying the Euro and snapping pictures as I go…

When I come back I see an amazing statue of St. John the Baptist in the gift shop… This church is the church of the Pope… this is his cathedral as the Bishop of Rome… until recent history the popes have lived and said mass in this very building… and my parish is dedicated to the same saint… I have to get the statue… there is no question… OK, well, maybe the question of how will I get this home…. But I will figure it out later… it is only 12 inches tall…

We then exit… and begin a walk to another church (The Church of the Holy Cross) where they have a chapel with what is believed to be the wood of the cross. We talk about how many of the items that we are seeing on our trip are directly due to St. Catherine who was the mother of Constantine the Emperor of Rome. She went to the holy land to bring relics of the church to Rome.

As we enter the church we go to the left of the sanctuary and went up a flight of stairs and there was a small chapel. Here there was a glass case and inside were the remains of St. Helena are as well as what is to be believed as to be wood from the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

Here in this small chapel we prayed for the health of our friend Nicole who was not able to join us because she was diagnosed with Lymphoma. This is the first place in Rome that we were able to pray specifically for her. It is nearing siesta and the church is closing so we exit and head back down the street toward St. John Latern.

Across the street is the Scala Sancta… They are closed for siesta so we take some time to eat lunch as a group. We find a nearby restaurant and the food is good… We make our way to a local book store and then to the location of the Scala Sancta only to wait another 30 minutes to enter. So you are probably wondering what on earth is the Scala Sancta…

Well, it is supposed to be the stairs that Christ went up with the cross to where he was crucified. Thanks to St. Helena these were also removed from the holy land and brought to Rome. The stairs themselves have now been covered with another set of stairs to protect them… The tradition for devotion at this location is to crawl up the stairs on your knees and pray as you go… well kneeling doesn’t work for me…

Most of the group falls in with the crowd to kneel at the stairs. Me... I look left and right… and see that there are other sets of stairs for those coming down. So I use them to go to the top and look down at the group … I am able to get a few pictures… at the top of the stairs there is a window into a small chapel where the popes would say private masses when they lived across the street at the Lateran Palace.

At the top of the stairs to the left is the customary gift shop. And to the right is another chapel, this one larger than the one for the popes. As I wait for the group I hear that there is a private tour of the Popes chapel. So I start to make arrangements and gather the group. We are led in and the room is only about 15 feet by 15 feet, and it is hot. Inside there are many images that can not be seen through the windows at the top of the stairs. And we get as many pictures as we can.

There is also one image that we are told is to believed to have not been made by human hands… what this means I really don’t know… but I do know that they have images of Pope John Paul II kissing the image… and we are offered to do the same… Well if it was good enough for him to do… why not… I really respect the man and someday I might have the chance to go back and research more… I would rather say I did it on faith then shrug it off… so we all kiss the image…

There is also more wood here that is supposed to be from the cross of Christ… From here we begin walking in the direction of the coliseum. But first we pass another church of St. Clemente… We decide to go in and down under the church is caves where early Christians lived and prayed. It was amazing walking though the tunnels… it was so hot outside but cooler here… and there was one place where there was a well and we refilled our water containers.

After a short tour we were back on the road and off to the Coliseum. The Coliseum is a pilgrimage spot for Christians because of how many Christians were killed here. If the holocaust is important to the Jewish people this is our place as Christians of holocaust. It is not known how many Christians lost their lives inside this forum for the entertainment and spite of the Roman Empire. So much so that one of the Popes personally tried to take this structure down. It is already late in the day and the lines are long to get in. So we opt to stay outside and rest. We pick a meeting spot and give everyone an hour to go around. I chose to find a cool spot under the trees and rest. This day we covered a lot of ground and I am exhausted.

At the meeting time we cross the street to the metro station and catch a train back to the Terminali where our hotel is. We take a few minutes and then head off to dinner. It is the same place we had dinner the first night and it appears this will be our dinner spot for the trip but the menu is different and is still very good.

This evening everyone is quite tired and we just stick around the hotel. Some go to the Terminali to shop in the mall that is there and others hit the internet café. My wife and I try to find a place to do laundry and find out that it is too late at night to do so. So we do what we can in our sinks. And use the hair driers to dry our clothes… finally they are dry and it is time to rest… tomorrow is a day planned at the Vatican so we will have to start early…