Hey everyone! Here is a quick review of the last few days:
Wednesday we toured the Fernesi Villa. This palace was adorned an all walls and ceilings with beautiful frescos and architecture. Even the bedroom was filled from the floor to the ceiling with paintings. It reminded me of something out of Pride and Prejudice or something, even though that wasn’t in Rome. It definitely was meant for wealthy and important people!
We saw the Spanish Steps also. The square there is always busy with lots of people, so it’s a bit chaotic, but fun. We didn’t spend too much time there, but I’m sure we will be back. I hear that the Church at the top of the steps has the most beautiful Vespers in the evening (Vespers is the evening prayer of the Divine Office).
Last, we toured the Church of St. Mary over Minerva. (Santa Maria sopra Minerva). Again, this was another beautiful church with lots of symbolism. It is the only completely Gothic church in Rome. St. Catherine of Sienna is buried there, right under the altar. As she is one of my favorite saints, it was exciting to be able to see this church right away.
Thursday we studied a bit in Piazza Navona, a very famous Piazza in Rome. It wasn’t quite as busy as usual, though there was still some vendors and musicians and a small corwd. There is a large fountain in the middle that was sculpted by Bernini which represents the four major rivers of the time. It was beautiful and we took a good amount of time to study it.
We visited the Church of the Gesu next. This church is really called the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, but just Gesu for short. This is one of the most famous churches in Rome. It is a Jesuit church, and the Jesuits still take care of it. The founder of the Jesuit order, St. Ignatius of Antioch is buried there. This church is probably one of my favorites, with the beautiful marble and baroque architecture. There are also many times for confession there in different languages. I would really like to make it there for confession and hopefully Mass a few times.
The next church we saw was the church of St. Ignatius. This was another beautiful church, with similar architecture. This church contains an enormous fresco on the ceiling of St. Ignatius being welcomed into heaven. There are a couple of popular saints buried here also, including St. Francis Xavier. Last we saw the Trevi fountain. This was very busy, as we got there as is was getting dark. It was good to see again and learn a little more about the architecture. We got some good pictures and stayed for a bit.
Yesterday was my favorite day so far...so I want to give you a good explanation of it!
We started it off by going to one of the most famous museums in the world…the Borghese Museum here in Rome. This museum has a great history and was certainly my favorite museum so far. Some of my favorite sculptures:
The Rape of Persephone, David, and Apollo and Daphne. If you google them you can get good pictures of them and understand why they are so famous! They are very realistic and beautiful. To imagine that the sculptures started out as just a large block of marble is amazing. Michelangelo used to say that the image was in the sculpture, and he was just searching for it as he did the sculpting. He used to get upset because he wanted the figures to come to life! But as I stood underneath them, I was almost expecting them to come to life as well!
After this, we made our way to the Sistine Chapel. Somehow, someway, father Shea arranged a PRIVATE tour of the Sistine Chapel for our group. If you’ve ever been there, you know that it’s always completely packed and it’s hard to move around at all. The whole experience becomes something not as sacred when it’s so loud and there is so much commotion. So to get a private tour is something very special and very rare. However, we almost missed it! After the Borghese, we ended up waiting a long time for the bus and got behind schedule as we were trying to make our way across the city of Rome. After we got off the metro we literally sprinted for a couple of blocks and up at least a hundred stairs to get to our appointment only two minutes before they would have closed the doors on us! But we did make it…somehow. I guess we all knew what was a stake.
Once we were in we saw the beautiful Raphael rooms..I’ve always loved the images of The School of Athens and The Exultation of the Eucharist. Like I said, the whole experience was very sacred and beautiful being there so alone. After these rooms, we entered the Sistine chapel. It was a completely different experience than what I had before because we were alone. We had a few minutes of silence before Pasquelline started to tell us about the works. During this silence you could really hear a pin drop. To be where thousands of cardinals had been, and many popes have been elected, and even many saints had walked was amazing. All the while the world is finding out that John Paul II, who was elected pope in that very room, is going to be beatified this year. Who knows why I was blessed with such an experience, but I’m so grateful!
After the chapel we headed to dinner with some campus friends, including a seminarian that I knew from Bismarck! It was a very loud, very huge, very delicious, very Italian dinner at a nearby restaurant. It was a perfect ending to a great day!
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