Rome - March 2001

Roman arch

Mark & Sandy at Trevi Fountain

Mark and Sandy at museum


Roman fountain


Painting of chariot found at ruins at Ostia


Ruins at Ostia


Ecstasy of St. Therese


Dying Gaul statue

Me and St. Peter

Pope John Paul II statue at Vatican


Scala Santa steps

The after-images of Rome still linger in my dreams and in my waking; the strange beauty and hominess, the memory of slipping back in time. I remember the small red bathroom, more closet than bathroom in a shop near the Pantheon, where I searched the maps in my search of the grail, the little French restaurant run by lay missionaries and called “L’ eau Vive” and where the cardinals of the church party and where, after dinner, comes the ritual singing of Ave Maria in French, sung in such sweet and childlike tones that the hair on your skin stands up. I found the little restaurant, where John Paul II had gone before his papal promotion and where discreteness is the word, but not easily. The little restaurant is a block or so from the Pantheon, just off a little medieval square where four streets conjoin and I ask various people where “Le Monterone” is and one shrugs, seemingly amazed he doesn’t know. A policeman knows but isn’t telling, another tells but doesn’t know. I walk the equivalent of a few more football fields and at last retrieve it from its obscurity (only to lose it again later that night when it is time to eat there). The pleasure of looking and finding was greater and it is that little area of Rome I consequently remember most - the little café stop Le Euastochio where big shots sip cappuccino, where the sudden appearance of Swiss guards occurred marching to the beat of a distant drummer, where religious shops line the square like a Geiger counters triggering the nearness of the ecclesiastical restaurant. We arrived at last that night, the late opening (7:30pm) eased by the delicious food and wine rich enough that to drink it fast would be a sin, and we waited to the bewitching hour when the lay missionaries came and offered us the novelty of prayer sung while eating, or just after eating.

Lay missionaries singing at L’ eau Vive

The scene outside my hotel window was literally a little window on Rome. I tried to imagine all the catacombed people who lived just within view - like those with laundry hanging outside. What made them who they were? The weather was always mellow, never harsh, very civilized. The windows lent themselves to being open. The sun was strong certain days, days we walked till we were dizzy from fatigue and hunger.

View from hotel room

I remember fondly the first time I saw the vision of the main castle at Disneyworld in Florida at the age of twelve. I was almost as if it wasn’t real, and that is kind of how I felt the first time I saw St. Peter’s. Inside it felt lighter, airier, and architecturally warmer than I expected. Of all the big churches I’ve seen - Dublin’s St. Patrick, Notre Dame in Paris and NYC’s St. Patrick’s - St. Peter’s felt the most …well, homey? This might be partially due to the fact that those other churches are Gothic and St. Peter’s doesn’t have the dark stained glass windows and severe grey-stone pointy arches. There was a huge mosaic band of lettering around the interior that lent a kind of literary feel to this largest of all churches. I didn’t know what the lettering meant, not knowing Latin, but thanks to “reverse tourism” I learned later that it was the scriptural verse from Matthew 16:18. It was a prayerful place, well-lit and awe-inspiring. We went to Mass there and were worshipping where for almost two millennia Christians have worshipped, giving sense of solidarity with previous souls and making the past come alive. Only Jerusalem and the Holy Land would be more special. Vivid images linger - the reassuring cadences of the elderly bishop, the dove representing the Spirit over the altar, the high windows, the pushy Italian nuns who formed an impenetrable line for Communion making it difficult to merge, the procession at the start and end. The day before we’d strolled around and come across Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, behind glass, and what surprised me (but shouldn’t have) was how much is missing in reproductions, like the expression of Mary, the tilt of her head and sorrowful innocence.

The previous day we’d also taken a tour of the necropolis (“city of the dead”) below the main altar of St. Peter’s. On the tour we saw a cross-section of altars, going back to Constantine who in 300- something A.D. covered the grave of St. Peter in a marble box. Inside the marble box there is what became known as the “graffiti wall”, which contained scrawl from the 2nd century saying “Peter is within”. It contained an opening where bones lay of a 60 to 70 year old powerfully built man. What is amazing is that there were ancient drawings of “Constantine’s box” but no one knew if it actually existed until around the time of the 2nd World War. St. Peter’s bones lay undisturbed for over 1500 years until excavations in 1939 found the Roman necropolis just outside the present basilica. It was like when I was a kid and teased my brother or sister by putting their present in a box and then wrapping it in another, inside another, etc…It was held the fascination of a secret within a secret, and then a secret revealed. This was the feeling I got looking at that cross-section of altars - and how incredible it must have been to have come across this Roman necropolis by accident.

The “Church of 40,000 Bones” as Mark called it was actually Santa Maria della Conceizione. Here, not quite entombed, were over 4,000 monks who donated their bones as the raw material for macabre decorations that illustrate biblical imagery as well as the brevity of life. (For example, the sacred heart with a crown of thorns adorns the walls via a unique combination of bones.)



When I read about this place I imagined it much more dark and dreary, a scary Halloweenish place. Which parts of it seem that way. But I thought it was about as cheerful as you could make it, especially if you forgot for a minute the archway decorations were bones. The message is the “as you are/ so was I/ as I am/ so shall you be” and is intended to give a sense of urgency in the spiritual life. These monks seemed to be taunting death and saying “where is thy sting?”. Another thing that I love about Rome is that so many of the characters of history have seen it. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain both visited this church and came away appalled. I liked how things tied together with things I’d previously knew. For instance, in London I’d been struck by a very moving statue of a woman who lay on the floor either dead or in a posture of supine obedience. I took a picture of it though I didn’t know the story behind it. Then in the Catacomb of San Callisto, we came across that very statue. The original was found here, in this particular catacomb (there are many around Rome), and it marks the grave of St. Cecilia, a martyr beheaded during the Roman persecutions. The tour guide explains that there is a visible line on her neck (symbolism for how she died) and one of her hands one finger is pointing (symbolism that there is one God, instead of the Roman formulation of many gods) and her other hand holds out three fingers (symbolizing three persons in one God).