Monthly Archives: April 2009

Ever since we visited Saint John Lateran and spoke to the Sisters of Divine Revelation, I wanted to visit their famous Grotto near the Abbazia delle Tre Fontane (Abbey of the Three Fountains).  It would be good to visit San Paulo Fuori le Mura (Saint Paul outside the Walls) nearby as well, for it is the year of Saint Paul.

The abbey complex, consisting of the Trappist abbey and two smaller churches, was built on the site of Saint Paul’s martyrdom.  Here, it was said, three fountains rose where he died, marking the site as holy ground.

We walked down a shady drive through a eucalyptus forest to the monastery.  Pilgrims walked quietly as well, mostly in groups of twenty to thirty, before us and behind us, toward the churches.  We visited two of the  three shrines, Baroque and mysterious, busy with attendants and pilgrims, and lastly entered the main abbey, a silent, large dim space.

It was 12:15 and bells rang.  As my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized that iron grillwork separated the massive choir from the rest of the nave where we knelt alone, except for a single Franciscan.  Six white-robed monks soon entered and began to sing, haltingly, with elderly voices, the noon office.   One lesson was read, more Psalms and the Gloria Patri sung, and by 12:30 the monks processed out slowly and silently, heading for lunch, one remaining to close up.

We left, thankful for this moment of peace, this moment of touching the lives of these men, who continue the long line of ora and labora, prayer and work, offering it all to the glory of God.  I learned later they are cloistered.  They make chocolate and a medicinal liqueur for sale in the shop.

We found the Grotto of the Divine Revelation outside the gate of the Monastery, across the highway, and up a forested drive. The Grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1947 to Bruno has been made into a small chapel, covered partially with a tented structure.  The grounds are filled with thank you plaques for graces and miracles.  The story was so reminiscent of the vision of Bernadette in Lourdes, France, a story I tell in my second novelOfferings, that I was particularly touched.  I would like to learn more about Bruno and his three children.  Evidently he died in 2001.

We found a taxi and headed for San Paolo, the massive pilgrimage basilica built over the grave of Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles.  The Pauline epistles, Paul’s letters to the early churches in the first century, explained the Christian creed to a Roman world.  A brilliant Jew and a Roman citizen, he bridged the gap between the culture in which Christ was born, lived, died, and rose from the dead and the culture of the classical world.

Second only to San Pietro in size, San Paolo is immense, and today the golden coffered ceiling was lit, the baldachin and High Altar were bright as well, and the vast apsidal mosaic spread across the transept in glory.  We walked down the center aisle, craning our necks, to the Saint Paul’s tomb beneath the altar, seen through a panel of glass in the floor.

Thanking God for Paul’s words and images, his commanding rhetoric, his humility in allowing God to work through him to God’s glory, we slipped out a side door and headed back to our hotel.

Today, Wednesday, the sun came out!

Last night we visited our niece in Trastevere (I finally learned to pronounce the accent on the second not the third syllable which is progress of a sort) who is here for her UC Berkeley semester in Rome.  We dined at Sabatini, a wonderful place on the colorful Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere.  Good wine, great food, and charming atmosphere, and I even enjoyed the serenading.  The owners posed with us for a picture before leaving.

This morning we donned our dark glasses and, with two copies ofPilgrimage tucked in my bag, headed down the hill to the Spanish Steps, on to the Anglo-American Bookshop on Via del Vite where a pleasant young man accepted my little book and the announcements of future releases.  We moved on down the hill to San Sylvestro in Capite, the English Church in Rome.

We had visited this church several times in the past, fascinated with their very important relic, the head of John the Baptist.  I wondered why it wasn’t under the high altar, but venerated in a small shrine off the north narthex.  The church is delicate and Baroque, and I paused in the first pew to say a prayer.

We found the Priest-in-Charge in an office off the narthex.  The charming Father John Fitzpatrick was most gracious about my novel.  He gave me a book on San Sylvestro in exchange and said a new reliquary was on its way for their famous relic.  I made a mental vow to attend Sunday Mass there the next time we visit Rome.

We continued down the Corso to Santa Maria in Aracoeli (altar of heaven).  I knew Franciscans cared for the church and hoped for more gifts for my Franciscan friend at home.  We climbed the 124 stairs of the Capitoline complex to reach the church (our workout for the day), a 13th-century basilica built over earlier churches that rose over a Roman temple.

The church has a layered and ancient history, even for Rome. It is said that Emperor Augustus asked the Tiburtine Sybil whether there would ever be one greater than he.  She replied that a God from heaven was soon to come to earth.  Augustus then received a vision of the Madonna and Child in which the Virgin stood on an altar and said, “Haec est ara dei coeli,” and Augustus built an altar on this hill, where a temple to Juno Moneta stood.

We entered the light and airy nave and looked up the long passage to the altar, the columns processing up the aisles, the many artworks, the frescoes lining the clerestory windows high above.  The miraculous Madonna di Aracoeli, painted on beech in the 10th century is venerated over the High Altar, a thoughtful image.  In the north transept Saint Helen’s remains lie in an urn over the 13th-century fesestrella altar.

We looked in on the Chapel of the Holy Child off the north transept.  A Franciscan in Jerusalem carved a statue of the Christ Child, using olive wood from the Garden of Gethsemane.  The original image dates to the end of the 15th century, but it was stolen in 1997, and the image we see today is a replica.  It is said that an angel finished the original painting of the sculpture when the friar ran out of paint, and other miracles of healing were attributed to the image as it made its way to Rome.  Today mothers visit the chapel to receive a blessing before giving birth and children sing here on Christmas Eve.  The Holy Child, the Bambino, is displayed on the Capitoline Hill on the Feast of the Epiphany.

Franciscans have cared for the basilica since the 13th century.  We found their gift shop off the north transept and added to our mementos a few small icons, a book on the church, and two taper candles.

(Open: 9:00 am-12:30, 2:30 pm-6:30; Masses: Feriale–8 am, Chapel of the Holy Infant), noon; Festivo–8 am, Chapel of the Holy Infant).

Nearby is Il Gesu, the Church of Jesus, and we arrived just before it closed (12:30).  The first Jesuit church in Rome, the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus grew from the Church of the Madonna della Strada (Madonna of the Street) honoring a miraculous Madonna that had become popular roadside shrine.  Ignatius prayed before this Madonna, and the new church created a chapel to house it.  He lived in the rooms next door.

We entered the nave of gold and marble, and stepping up the center aisle, looked to the ceiling and the fantastic trompe-d’oeil (trick of the eye) figures that seem to fall from the heavens. In the northern transept we found Ignatius’ shrine where his remains lie beneath the altar.  I paused before a massive sculpture, Truth Vanquishing Heresy, which I used in my Il Gesu scene in Pilgrimage.  The image, showing a woman with the lamp of truth conquering the snake of lies (a mirror of Mary in Revelation) continues to encourage me in this age of relativism.  While I realize everyone might see truth differently, objective Truth exists apart from our take on it, and that Truth is not changeable.  While we respect one another’’s beliefs and their individual journeys, each of us must search for that Truth in our own span of life. As a Christian, I believe that Truth is God, and that Christ is God’s revelation to us, a revelation of love, and I am blessed to journey with His Body on earth, the Church, a fabulous pilgrimage through time.

We stepped into the neighboring Chapel of the Madonna della Strada, and honored this ancient image of Mary, a sweet consoling face,which still moves me after all these years.  To think I was praying before it just as Ignatius of Loyola once did! Thank-you plaques for graces received line the walls.

We headed for a light lunch, our heads and hearts and minds full of color, image, soaring prayers, and thankfulness.

(Open: 7 am-12:30 pm; 4 pm-7:45; Ignatius’ rooms: 4-6pm; Masses: Feriale-every half hour from 6 am; Festivo: every hour from 6 am ,http://www.chiesadelgesu.org/ )

Tuesday was a remarkable day.

Umbrellas protecting us from a few sprinkles, we headed up the hill from our hotel to Feltrinelli’s International Bookstores on Via V.E. Orlando, near Santa Susanna, and dropped off a copy of Pilgrimage and information on the upcoming titles, Offerings to be released in May, and Inheritance this fall, then headed for the Economy Bookstore on Via Torino which had closed.  I wondered how many small book stores would be seriously impacted by the economy.

We decided to take Via Torino straight out to Maria Maggiore, the main Marian basilica in Rome and one of our favorite churches.  The road runs straight, like a spike, from Santa Susana, ending at Maria Maggiore.

The Basilica of Mary Major stands on the Esquiline Hill.  In 350 the wealthy citizen Ionnes Patricius had a dream of the Virgin Mary.  Mary asked him to build a basilica on the hill where snow would soon fall.  Pope Liberius had the same dream.  The following day, in the heat of August, snow fell on the Esquiline Hill, and Liberius planned a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

We entered the vast space.  Circular tiles of russet, green, and pink marble cover the floor.  White marble pillars line the nave under a Peruvian gold ceiling.  Confessionals stand in side aisles and light streams through clerestory windows.  Four giant columns support a square bronze canopy above the altar.

We walked down the central aisle and turned left at the transept, heading toward the Holy Sacrament Chapel.  As we approached, a mass was in progress, and the priest had just finished the consecration.  He held the large priest’s host up for adoration, and we genuflected, then paused in the back, as the faithful lined  up to receive the Eucharist in this chapel of pink-and-white marble, golds, and bronzes.  Above the altar hangs an earthy image of Mary dating to the 1st century, Sta. Maria ad Nives, Holy Mary of the Snows, known popularly as Salus Populi Romani, said to have been painted by St. Luke.  Revered in Rome, she is thought to be miraculous, having saved the city from the plague in the Middle Ages.  Above the icon is a bronze frieze of Pope Liberius marking out the site in the snow.

We turned back to the nave and the high altar and descended to the confessio where wood from the Christ Child’s cradle is enshrined in a gold-and-glass reliquary ark.  A giant marble sculpture of a pope kneels before the holy wood.  Once again I was touched by the earthy material made glorious, the simple stuff of wood and ancient pigments, of bread and wine.  God entering our earthy world, our wordly earth.

Every August 15 the Ceremony of the Snows is held.  Petals of “snow” fall from the coffered ceiling onto the congregation.

(Open 7 am-6:45 pm.; Masses: Sunday 7 am, 8, 9, 10 (Latin), 11, 12 noon, 6 pm; Monday-Saturday 7 am, 8, 9, 10, 11, 3 pm, noon, 6 pm;http://www.vatican.va/ )

Since I devote a scene in Pilgrimage to this church, I wanted to drop off a copy at the shop in thanksgiving.  We found the shop next to the baptistery off the southern aisle and purchased an icon of the Salus Populi.  She is a dark Madonna, serious and young, holding a boy Jesus on her hip, her face full of concern, her eyes carrying anticipation as she looks away to her right.

We walked down Via Carlo Alberto, a straight boulevard leading to the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, another major pilgrimage basilica.

Saint Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine, lived in the Sessorium Palace on this site.  In 329 she returned from Jerusalem with a piece of Christ’s cross and other relics from His passion.  When she died, Constantine converted part of her palace to a church to house the relics, called Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem.We entered the tiled narthex, and were startled to find a Russian icon exhibit.  I love icons, those carefully delineated, almost symbolic, renderings of holiness, that can be an encouraging reminder on the wall or a colorful aid to prayer.  Icons, they say, are painted with special pigments on wood, layered with gold leaf, and with each stroke the painter prays, a curious blending of spirit and matter.  This collection was Russian,with many from Moscow, from homes and from churches, 17th to 19th centuries.  They were mounted in the side aisles, and we toured slowly, captivated by color and detail, pausing to view the cerulean apsidal mosaic of the basilica itself, to me the loveliest part of this church.

We descended stairs to St. Helen’s chapel in the crypt, the original sanctuary, where the Sacrament is reserved above a golden altar, the vaults covered in pastel mosaics, and where the offices are said by Cistercians who occupy the adjoining monastery.

We returned to the nave and the Chapel of the Holy Cross and Relics off the north aisle.  Here, behind glass and protected in silver reliquaries, are displayed fragments of Christ’s cross: the sign reading, Here is the King of the Jews, two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, the finger of St. Thomas, bits of the column of scourging, a nail from the cross.

The lovely basilica, the story of Saint Helena, and the spectacular icon exhibit would be images I would hold close for days.

(Usually open: 6 am-12:30 pm; 3:30-7:30, http://www.santacroce.it/ )

Saint John Lateran, another major pilgrimage site, was nearby, and we took the wide path to this Cathedral of Rome, the seat of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.  A giant Saint Francis faces the huge basilica and raises his hands in blessing, the heavy traffic racing past.  It was here that the Pope granted Francis permission to form his Order of Friars Minor, after dreaming that the beggar from Assisi was holding up Saint Peter’s Basilica.

After defeating Maxentius in battle in the 4th century, Emperor Constantine built this church on the site of Maxentius’ barracks.  The adjoining palace was the papal residence up to the 14th century.

We entered and paused on the marbled tiles in the center of the nave.  At the transept crossing, the heads of Sts. Peter and Paul rest in the baldachin over the altar.  Giant marble statues of the Apostles leap from the side columns.  The ceiling is coffered in golds, reds, and blues.  Frescoes fill the apse.   I recall being overwhelmed by this church the first time I visited, its size, its shininess, its perfection, but over the years I have come to love it.

We walked up the central aisle and turned toward the northern transept chapel where the Sacrament is reserved beneath the frieze of the Last Supper table, said to cover a piece of the table itself, then turned to the glorious apse and the episcopal chair, and on to the shop off the southern transept.  After purchasing a few Saint Francis mementos for a Franciscan friend at home, I asked the Sisters at the counter what order they professed, noting their dark green-and-white habits.  One of them disappeared to a back room and returned with a sister, actually a postulate, from England.

Their story was remarkable, and completely new to me.  They are an order founded after the Virgin Mary appeared to Bruno Cornacchiol and his three children on April 12, 1947 in the grotto at the Abbey of the Three Fountains, a church on the site of the beheading of Saint Paul.  Bruno was Protestant and anti-clerical and had planned to kill Pope Pius XII.  Mary informed him that she was the “Virgin of Revelation.”  She converted him, and stated that she was bodily assumed to Heaven, a doctrine called the Assumption proclaimed by the Pope three years later.  She promised to “convert the most obstinate sinners with miracles which I will work with the soil of the Grotto.”  And according to my new postulate friend, Mary did just that, and the grotto is filled with plaques describing miracles and intercessions.  The new order called themselves The Missionaries of the Divine Revelation ( http://www.divinarivelazione.org/ ) and took on the job of education: catechism classes, tours to shrines in Rome.  At the Abbey of the Three Fountains, Minor Conventual Franciscans care for the Grotto, and the Sisters assist at the weekend liturgical services held in the Grotto.  I hope we can visit before we leave Rome.

All in all, a remarkable day: new visions, new friends.

(Saint John Lateran is open 7 am-6:30 pm; Masses: Sunday, 10 am, Latin, 5 pm, 6 pm; Winter: 7 am, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 noon, 5 pm; Summer: 7 am, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 noon, 6 pm, http://www.vatican.va/  )

We headed for Saint Peter’s this cool, brisk Monday morning, thinking the lines might not be too long, but they were, winding through the arching portico onto the plaza where they zigzagged back and forth. We considered Plan B.

The Rome tour buses lined the main street feeding into the piazza, and we chose Roma Cristiana, a Stop-and-Go tour of the downtown area, the major sites and churches. This would give us an overview.

We climbed up to the open-air seats, slipped on our earphones, adjusted the volume, and chose our language. Soon we were rolling along the river on the border of the ancient district Trastevere, once home to Jewish merchants living close to the harbor and now a thriving area of restaurants and colorful neighborhoods. I made a note to return – I wanted to revisit Santa Maria, the major basilica, considered on par with the larger pilgrimage basilicas, and famous for its mosaic apse. I remembered the apse from years ago, a stunningly breathtaking wall of shimmering images.  There was also Santa Cecilia, known for its interest and beauty, and San Francesco aRipa, marking the place where Saint Francis stayed when he was in Rome.

The bus crossed the river and headed into the Renaissance district of Rome, one of palaces and schools, past Saint Philip Neri’s church, Chiesa Nuova, between sixteenth century neighborhoods packed with Jesuit churches filled with Baroque masterpieces – painted ceilings, sculpture, marble and gold.  The Pantheon was nearby, I remembered from my bus perch, and theTrevi Fountain, and we headed up the hill toward the Diocletian Baths which had also become a large church.  This rebuilding over old Rome has always fascinated me, as I thought about the underground city or cities beneath my feet, and happy with the Christianizing of the pagan. No longer were maidens forced to martyrdom, no longer was one forced to worship the Emperor.  At each Roman altar I give thanks to God for our freedom to believe.

The bus headed toward Maria Maggiore, the lovely golden basilica on the hill (maybe they are all on hills) housing not only a ceiling of Peruvian gold, but a first century Madonna said to have been painted by Saint Luke and a bit of Christ’s creche venerated under the High Altar. We will revisit Maria Maggiore for sure, one of our favorite spots in Rome.

We turned down the Via Merulana, the long straight street connecting MariaMaggiore with Saint John Lateran, the basilica attached to the Lateran Palace, once home of the Pope, and considered the seat of the Bishop of Rome. A giant Saint Francis stands in the park facing the basilica, his arms raised, for it was here that the Pope granted permission to form the Order of Friars Minor. I must return, I thought, for this year, in addition to being the Year of Saint Paul decreed by Pope Benedict XVI, is the 800thanniversary of the Franciscans. I will return and give thanks for Saint Francis and all those who have followed in his humble footsteps.

The bus made its way down the hill to the Colliseum and I pondered again the terrible thrust of history in the bloody first years of the Church.We wound around the Palatino, past Isola Tiberina with its pretty San Bartolomeo, and back to San Pietro. I wondered what the next few days would reveal, for with each visit to Rome I have encountered another miracle or mystery woven into the tapestry of its history, waiting to be seen.

Friday was cold and rainy, but we managed a walk through Green Park to Westminster Abbey, in all of its Perpendicular Gothic glory.
We paid our fees and entered through the north transept.  Crowds milled.  The church is indeed a national monument, a witness to history, to England’s journey through time to the present, to England’s conversation with God.

We stepped into the choir, with its gilded stalls, the seatbacks shooting like ornate spires, the red mini lamps with their tiny shades.  I looked up to the soaring vaults, then to the High Altar, its retable rich with story.  We walked around the ambulatory, behind Saint Edward’s tomb (Edward the Confessor of the eleventh century who built the abbey), which is no longer accessible, past the stunning Henry VII Lady Chapel, the ancient coronation chair, and on to Poets’ Corner in the south transept.

We moved determinedly through the groups that seemed to form solid units of humanity, but parted willingly so that the two of us could make our way.  We stood on the plaques, the graves of the great, reading epitaphs, and found T. S. Eliot, “the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living,” from Four Quartets. This will be one of the chapter epigraphs in my third novel, Inheritance.
St. Faith’s Chapel was open off the southern wall.  I passed through a low door into the small vaulted space.  The chapel was as I recalled, a silent sanctuary in the bustling abbey.   Dim light.  A few prie-dieus, a few pews.  Damp stone.  The red lamp over the altar signified the Sacrament was reserved there, and I knelt and prayed for England and her saints, her church, her own walk with God.  A frescoed image of a woman in green against a crimson background rose over the altar.  Was this the French St. Faith, martyred in the third century for her beliefs?  She points to a grill she holds in her left hand, and indeed, she died from grilling and beheading.  Known in France as Sainte Foy and venerated where her relics lie in Conques, her name translates to Santa Fe in the U.S.
Faith Chapel has been closed over the years and I had missed this hidden holy place of prayer in England’s ancient abbey.  I was glad it had opened again.  A good, hopeful, and yes, faithful sign.