More Photos

Well, it's taken quite some time, but as the other pilgrims found, it's not easy to keep up the momentum when Assisi isn't the only thing on your mind.

If you already looked through the blog, please look again, I've posted several dozens photos with the entries.

And... here are links to a few photo archives from other travelers:

From Diane Brose: http://picasaweb.google.com/brose.diane/Italy?authkey=Gv1sRgCMqm-qLI75S1fQ&feat=email#

From Jessica Schuster: http://picasaweb.google.com/jesschuster/Italy?feat=email#

From Jenny and Tom Walter: http://picasaweb.google.com/jennytom43/AssisiRomePilgrimage02?authkey=Gv1sRgCPbziIv_gb706gE#

From Nancy and Brian Chapman: http://assisipilgrimage2009.shutterfly.com/ (you may need the password "pilgrims2009" to view it.)

Next week, I'll be doing a short 5 minute presentation on why I wanted to go on the Pilgrimage, what I learned and how it affected me. It's part of our annual Franciscan Orientation for new hires at St. Francis College. It helps to explain the origin and mission of the College.

The Pilgrim Has Landed

Well, the first batch of pilgrims anyway from St. Francis College and Felician University. Others are still on their way to Chicago before heading to their final destinations.

Now that the trip is officially "over," I think there is a lot of processing to do and of course sharing of the experience.

Farewell

Another great, group dinner last night at a restaurant down the hill from where we were staying with plenty of wine, food and conversation flowing.

Before dinner we had a feedback session to talk about the trip. Among the highlights people spoke about were the mass inside the original Porziuncola Chapel, the time on the mountains at Carceri and La Verna and lunch at La Foresta with the people in the Mondo X program.

That lunch at La Foresta was the high point for me because it was a real world, living example of how Franciscanism can affect positive change on lives. This group of men had gone from trouble to being part of a productive, responsible community.

We also spoke about what we bring back with us to our various institutions.

Judy, John and I agree that the best thing we can do is to model positive behavior and try to continue and extend our involvement with our students to offer a helping hand and mentoring wherever possible.

The revelry at dinner came to an abrupt end as we needed to wake before 6 this morning to get to the airport. At the first check-point we bid goodbye and exchanged well-wishes with Father Andre and Sister Anne.

Andre is based in Mt. Vernon just north of the city, so I'm sure we will be able to reconnect in short order.

Now it's all about the waiting; at security, at check-in, security again, passport control, for the bus to the terminal and finally for boarding.

Stray Thoughts

Rome is kind of a dirty city - maybe because of all the motorcycles or diesel engine cars, I don't know but it feels pretty polluted when you walk around.

I found one Ferrari shirt with a Formula One car on it for the low, low price of 18 Euros - what is this Ed Hardy? I got Adam a Gianluigi Buffon soccer jersey - green with the number 1 and a map of Italy on it. That should work.

St. Peter's Basilica

We spent the morning at St. Peter's Basilica, first with a mass. Under the main nave by St. Peter's grave is a full circle of chapels of all different sizes. There are several services going on at once and you can hear the songs and prayers being recited as they echo through the chambers. Our chapel was built with donations from the Irish.

Afterwards Sister Anne gave us a tour, pointing out a lot of the information specific to the Franciscans; like the statue of St. Francis which is the first one from the main apse. And the statues of Francis and St. Clare among the ones that stand atop the collonades that ring the plaza outside.There are four rows of columns and in most spots you see all of them but if you stand on one specific circle on each side, it looks like just one column... here's a video to show you.



I had read that when St. Peter's was built they didn't want to put anything in there that would fade or deteriorate, so no frescos and limited paintings. Instead, it is marble and metals everywhere But, looking around, it seemed there were a number of large paintings all along walls and in side chapels. However, Anne pointed out that they were actually murals. The Vatican has a color palette of 35,000. On some of the murals, even when looking right up close it's hard to discern the individual stones. I was able to get a picture of a close-up and a mural at full size. I'll post that in a few days.

Francis' connection to St. Peter's goes back to the very beginnings of his conversion. He was on a pilgrimage when he came to the original Basilica and saw that people were only putting in small amounts of coins as tribute and donation to the church. So he made a big show of giving away much of his money, drawing lots of attention and shaming others into donating more. Afterwards, he sees some beggars outside and asks to switch clothes with one. He spends the day begging and feels a large sense of fulfillment in doing so.

I was told not to go to the top of the Basilica because it's basically a crawl space and I'd be hunched over for a looooong time. No argument here.

So after the tour we were set free for our last few hours in Rome and on our trip.

I went over to the Pantheon, an amazing structure and found some risotto. Food is awfully expensive here, even if you don't consider the conversion from Euros to Dollars. It's worse for me because I can't just pick up a slice from a stand-up cart or grab a sandwich. None of those places, that I've found, have anything gluten-free, only restaurants.

What can you do except be happy I live in New York and have lots of reasonably priced options.

Curious

OK, what am I missing here?

What do Italians love, besides food?

Soccer and cars, right?

So while I can get any number of soccer jerseys; all with the logos of teams and sponsors, why can't I find one single shirt that has a PICTURE of a soccer ball or a Formula 1 car?

This reminds me of when we went to Paris and could not find one single piece of anything with Madeline on it. They have books, dolls, videos in the U.S. She's French after all.

I think there may be a very profitable niche just waiting to be filled here.

St. John Lateran

History is a funny thing in that it goes hand in hand with cultural and communal amnesia.

We visited St. John Lateran, a church I'd never heard of before. But it's called the Mother Church because it was actually the seat of power for the Pope and the entire Catholic Church from the 300's to the early 1500's. Which means much of the Papal history we know about took place here and not at St. Peter's Basilca and the Vatican. I thought the Vatican has been the center from the start.

St. John Lateran was given its current name in 904 for both St. John the Baptist and St. John the Apostle as well as the Laterani family which owned the property until Constantine conquered Rome and took it. It's where St. Francis came when he had just 11 followers to ask Pope Innocent III to approve his rule of law. There were a number of sects popping up at that time and many went far afield of accepted religious practice. Francis wanted to get that stamp of approval to separate him from the others.

A series of dreams led to Francis gaining approval after at first being dismissed; the most important being the one Pope Innocent had which showed a straggly man holding up Lateran Church. He recognized that Francis was the man in his dream and gave verbal approval for his way of life. With that approval, the number of Brothers grew from a total of 12, including Francis, to thousands in just a few years.

The church itself is as magnificent as it is enormous. They took the giant metal doors from the old Roman Senate (possibly three stories high) and built the whole church to those gigantic proportions. Twenty feet high marble statues of the disciples line the main nave with gold flaked and vibrant colored designs blanketing the ceiling. The floor has intricate marble swirling patterns on intertwining paths and geometric designs that create wild 3D effects.

There is a holy door at the church also, one of four in Rome that people can go through every 25 years for absolution.


To immortalize Francis' dream, a statue was erected across the plaza that when viewed from the rear at the right angle shows Francis physically holding up the church.

We held mass in a back chapel then were able to walk on our own. Several Popes are buried there including Pope Innocent III who had died and was originally buried in Perugia.

Afterwards Father Andre took us to a great little restaurant he has frequented for almost 20 years known as Da Paulo (after the owner). We ate, drank and made merry, to understate things a bit.



Tomorrow is our last day. A mass and full tour of St. Peter's Basilica is on tap.