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We have been meandering through Venice, following the tiny lines on the map to campos (squares), along calles (alleys), over ponti (bridges). The crowds are dense around Piazza San Marco, but lessen in the neighborhoods. 

So today we headed away from the shoving crowds toward one of my favorite churches in Venice, San Zaccaria. The walls are covered in dark masterpieces and many visit this church for the famous art. But I was  more interested in the bodies rather than the paintings, for here likes Zaccaria, father of John the Baptist. He was where I recalled, in the south aisle. His sarcophagus seemed to have been cleaned and restored, now with better lighting. And there above him, in his own tomb, lay a second great saint, the fourth century Doctor of the Church, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria.

The close proximity of the two saints made me smile: the man of no words, struck dumb by the angel when he doubted Elizabeth’s pregnancy, lying near the man who whose words defended the Trinity against Arius’s heresy. Zaccaria was speechless; Athanasius spoke the truth that led to the formation of the Nicene Creed.

Briefly, the Arian heresy stated that God the Father and God the Son were not of the same substance, that the Father created the Son. Athanasius defended the One God in Three Persons, the Trinity, saying that Christ had always existed, was the Word himself from the beginning. Most Christian Churches espouse this Trinitarian doctrine, and the Nicene Creed, the statement compiled by the Council of Nicea in the fourth century, added certain phrases to the simpler Apostles’ Creed to specifically counter this Arian heresy. In essence, the Arian heresy is held by those today who claim Christ was a good man, a moral teacher, but not God. A big difference.

So I like to pay my respects and give thanks for St. Athanasius who, because of his great faith, was given the words to mold our beliefs into the shape of the Nicene Creed. And St. Zaccaria reminds me of the curse of doubt, reminds me that words are withheld when faith is weak. In the end, I must wait silently for the action of God in my life; I must trust each day that his spirit will not leave me, but will guide my thoughts, actions, and words. I must pray for this to happen. I must say yes to God.

There is a time for silence, for only in silence can we listen, can we hear the voice of God. So we retreated from the shoving crowds of San Marco’s piazza, the screams and the loudspeakers, the boat horns and the hawkers shoving goods at us, barring our path. We retreated to the alleys and waters and bridges of the old neighborhoods, getting lost of course, but finding our way back eventually.

It is easy to lose one’s way here in Venice. It is easy to take a wrong turn and then another wrong turn and end up at a dead end, all the while certain of the route. So, too, in life it is easy to lose one’s way, easy to be tripped and sidetracked by the hawkers of all kinds of wares. Without the lesson of Zaccaria and the words of Athanasius we would have less of a map to follow, if any. Others contributed to our map of faith, the path through life to heaven. The many saints, those who we meet in our daily lives and those who we honor with calendar feasts draw and have drawn the lines on our map. But it is the baptized faithful who form the Body of Christ, the Church, that makes sense of what God is telling us, prompting us. It is the Church that preserves and protects the truth, handing us the map.

A few bridges away we visited St. John the Baptist’s church, probably built over an earlier chapel dedicated to this son of Zaccaria and Elizabeth. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), the Baroque composer, was baptized here and was a member of the parish. I admired the colorful and balanced high altar painting of Christ’s baptism by John, but my thoughts kept returning to Vivaldi, particularly since his music played in the background. A north aisle chapel had artifacts dealing with Vivaldi’s baptism. A Catholic priest, he worked in an orphanage; many of his compositions were written for a female ensemble there. Although influential throughout Europe (Bach admired him), he died in poverty. The last century has witnessed a Vivaldi revival.

Vivaldi spoke with music just as Athanasius used words. And Zaccaria, after his time of silence, waiting for the birth of his son, spoke out the name John when asked what the child’s name would be. He had learned to wait and wonder and trust. Just so, we all must wait for the Holy Spirit to produce good within us, we must listen to the music of faith, following the Church’s teachings protected by the words of men like Athanasius.

In this way we shall map our route to heaven, and even, God willing, add a few signs along the way, composing for the world whatever God desires.

Yesterday we disembarked from the train and rolled our luggage to a water taxi. Soon we were motoring up the Grand Canal, gaping at palaces that tilted into the waters. Venice is like a dowager queen, with lacy white stone and red tile roofs, the blues of the sea at her feet and the blues of the sky her crown. Everywhere the domes of her churches proclaim her Christian past and hopeful present, and on Ascension Sunday the bells ring with great glee. She is on the historic borderland of East and West, and she remains a lighthouse to Christendom, calling the faithful to remember, to repent, to come home, to return to God.

Venice still celebrates her marriage to the sea on Ascension Day with a regatta of gondolas, a band, flags, all heading out to the Lido Island, where the mayor casts a wedding ring into the sea. This year they celebrated on Sunday and we watched from our attic window the flotilla of boats pass by.

But the true celebration was at the Basilica of Saint Mark, San Marco, to give thanks to God for the Ascension of Christ to Heaven. And this gilded Byzantine church, to my mind, is one of the most beautiful in the world.

As Madeleine says in my first novel, Pilgrimage, when she visits San Marco with her husband Jack on Ascension Day:

We entered Saint Mark’s through the north door. The service was beginning, and we found seats toward the front, then looked about, having fallen into a world of golden vaults.

They say Venice was founded on March 25, 491 AD, the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Goths drove the Venets offshore. By the eighth century, the settlement of marshy islands was taking shape, and Venice, protected by the sea, grew into a flourishing port, surviving attacks from both east and west. A crossroads of the Crusades, Venice collected treasure from eastern capitals: San Marco’s bronze horses came from Byzantium as well as icons, sculptures, and relics. In the thirteenth century the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, returning from China, opened trade routes of goods and ideas that placed Venice in the center of a new era of discovery. The city gloried in its wealth, stunning the world with art and music.

Venice’s original patron saint, the eastern martyr Theodorus, was replaced by the Western evangelist Saint Mark, who traveled with Paul and assisted Peter in Rome; his Gospel is thought to be based on Peter’s sermons. After Peter’s death, he became Bishop of Alexandria, where he was martyred.

When Venice “rescued” Mark’s relics from Alexandria and entombed them in the doge’s chapel, the city adopted the saint’s lion symbol, the winged lion. The lion was derived from Mark’s identification as the first of “the four living creatures” in the Book of Revelation, Saint John’s vision of the Apocalypse. As John relates in this last book of the New Testament, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him on the island of Patmos off the coast of Turkey and showed him a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle, images thought to represent the four Evangelists.

The doge’s chapel evolved into the Basilica di San Marco, its walls covered with precious stones from the East… San Marco fused the East with the West, the Byzantine with the Romanesque. Three naves formed the three arms of the Greek-cross plan, and the chancel and high altar, partially hidden by an iconostasis, became the fourth arm. Five domes vaulted the three naves, the chancel, and the transept midpoint, all glittering with golden mosaics…

The mosaics covering the domes told the ancient stories of salvation, and here, in these glittering tiles, suffering was made beautiful. Poverty and hunger, trial, torture, and brutal death—physical defeats redeemed by God—were transfigured into grace and victory. Across one dome, Christ, in vivid robes, rode a white donkey; the saints glowed in jeweled tones.

We sat on canvas chairs over sinking paving stones, riding the Venetian waters in an ancient ark protecting centuries of the faithful, the Communion of Saints. We sang Alleluia and I prayed that I too could ascend into God’s glory, that I with my silly sufferings, my earthy darkness, my mysterious demons, I could emerge from the watery world of earth and sea and fly with the angels, that I could be forgiven my sins, trapped as I was in my prison of self…

from Pilgrimage (OakTara, 2007)

Today we entered San Marco and sat on canvas chairs and stared at the golden domes dancing over us. Once again I was struck by the church as an ark, particularly in Venice where the waters are indeed rising. But the ark of the Church sails on, touching heaven with its golden domes, carrying its precious cargo, the faithful, Christ’s body, kneeling before the tabernacle holding Christ’s body. Today, as the choir sang Alleluia from a chancel balcony and incense billowed over the high altar, I was grateful for this moment of exquisite beauty, looking beyond the suspended sanctus lamp to the crucifix with the crosses at the end of each arm, to the apsidal fresco of Christ the King. For we follow the light in the lamp for good reason. We follow it to the Cross of Christ Crucified, and through the Cross arrive at the foot of Christ the King of Glory.

The celebration of the Ascension of Our Lord announces the glorious certainty that we, as members of Christ’s body, ascend with him. Through humility and suffering, Almighty God has made this possible by becoming one of us, one with us. We make this possible by partaking of his sacraments, so that we become one with him. Ascension bridges Heaven and earth, God and man, completing the great arcing act of salvation begun when Noah rode the rising flood waters so long ago.

On the way out, we paused in a side chapel and said a short Angelus, Hail Mary…, contemplating the haunting medieval Madonna of Nicopeia and giving thanks that Mary said yes to God, allowing all this to happen.

One of my favorite places to take photos of this Renaissance city, parted by the River Arno and rejoined by the many picturesque bridges, is the Piazza Michelangelo and then higher up the hillside, the Piazza San Miniato al Monte. Both are walking distance from the Ponte Vecchio, although a bit of a hike.

It was Ascension Day and a good day to climb the hill by way of the Stations of the Cross, a broad staircase still used on occasion for Lenten liturgies, with giant wooden crosses placed at intervals. I was perhaps the only one in sight that paused at each cross and repeated a prayer, making the sign of the cross and genuflecting, for I have been trying to increase my public witness bit by bit (grace at restaurants, etc.). At the tenth station, we arrived at the Piazza Michelangelo, where a broad viewing terrace welcomes tour buses, wedding photographers, and wide-eyed visitors snapping photos.

Florence spread before us, a 180 degree panorama. The domes rose from the red tile roofs, the city bordered by the green Tuscan hills of Mary’s May. The skies were blue for the moment, a celestial dome much more expansive than Brunelleschi’s, an opening between billowing clouds blown by the wind.

We continued up the stairs, completing the stations, to San Miniato, a medieval-Romanesque basilica honoring an early Christian martyr. We have in the past heard Dominicans chanting the noon office in the crypt where the relics of the saint lie under the high altar, but today we heard only the sounds of school children and their guides, moving from one aisle to another, their faces rapt, looking up in wonder.

It is a colorful church, with frescoes and mosaics and a haunting sense of the past, of the holy, of stepping into sacred space. We rested in a pew in the nave and I thought of Madeleine and Jack in my novel Pilgrimage who visit San Miniato, where she experiences another step in her healing. The church calls one to simplify, to be quiet, to listen to the still small voice of God. It’s vastness and its beauty filter into the heart just as perfect harmonies capture the ear. And perhaps it is the balance, the proportions of such a place that delight the eye. Perhaps it is the sense of history. Perhaps it is the mysterious mystery of God reflected in both the movement of the arched and vaulted stone and the pastel figures peering from the walls, these saints telling the story of God and his great love walking among us. My own concerns seem small in such a place, as though outranked by the luminous, but also there is a sense that they have been absorbed by God through my prayers. All I need do is give them up, give up my everyday worries and little fears. All I need do is say yes to God. God gives us the means to be happy, he shows us how. We merely need to say yes, to listen, to obey, to repent.

So I generally do that, again and again, repenting again and again, saying yes again and again, as I sit in a pew and gaze about me in such a holy place. Finally, emptied and full-filled, I leave through the bright doors onto the even brighter gravel terrace as though in a trance, changed. Florence lies before me, the same but different, more a background to life than life itself, not nearly as interesting and colorful as the mystery of the heartbeat of God, of his coming among us, dying, rising, and ascending to Heaven.

We followed the stairs down the hill to the river and found a cafe for lunch. We said little, contented with the peace of San Miniato, not wanting to lose any of it, holding it close. Words returned slowly, and we took more photos of the river and the quaint old bridge. We shared a some Chianti and pasta. We sighed and were thankful. It was a good Ascension Day, full of resurrection and new life.

Gift Shop, Fraternities of Jerusalem, La Badia, Florence

We found the Monastic Community of Jerusalem on the Via del Proconsolo, in residence at La Badia (the Abbey) Fiorentina. Via del Proconsolo runs between the Duomo (the apsidal end) and the River Arno. We had heard these Brothers and Sisters sing the noon office in Rome at Trinita dei Monti and looked forward to visiting them in Florence. We stopped in early to visit the gift shop, Monastica (only open 10-12:15, 3-6:15 p.m. Tues-Sat, Mon, 3-6).

There was singing coming from the shop. As I looked over the cards, icons, and books, blue-robed Sister Sara explained that the CD was a new recording of the chanting there at the abbey, “Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio.” Happily the CD’s were for sale. I also found a book on the Benedictine abbey in English, with a detailed and colorful history, going back to its founding in the tenth century by the wealthy Marquise Willa of Tuscany.

I thanked the ingenuous sister, who glowed with happiness, for the presence of these Fraternities in the many cities of Europe (now twelve locations), with their unique charism, to “live in the heart of the city in the heart of God”:

“The monks and nuns of Jerusalem strive to put the prayer in the heart of the city and carry the city in the heart of their prayer. They want to create an oasis in this urban ‘desert’ of alienation and anxiety, loneliness, yearning or indifference by ‘giving life’ to a place of silence and prayer which would be also a pace of welcome and sharing.” (fr. their brochure)

These young people are city dwellers who rent their housing and work part-time, part of the Diocesan church, have  no walled cloister, but only the cloister of silence and prayer. They sing the morning, midday, and evening hours of prayer in four parts. They bear the name “Jerusalem” because this city is patron to all cities; it is was the city where Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose to new life; it is where the Church was founded and where the first Christian communities were born; it is a symbol of our hope in heaven.

I thought of my friends in Rome. Sister Emanuel and the Missionaries of Divine Revelation in Rome bring the the Church into the secular world through education, by teaching the truths of the faith; Father Paolo and the Camillians bring the Church’s healing to the sick, the dying, the suffering throughout the world. The Fraternities of Jerusalem live and work among those who live and work in the cities, bringing to them the life of prayer and peace and beauty, an oasis in the desert. I am so thankful for all of them and have been so blessed to witness their work.

When I introduced myself to Sister Sara in the shop I explained about my little book, and she seemed eager to receive a copy, that the language was not a problem. So we have a new friend in Florence now. When you visit say hello for me (and do the same in Rome with Father Paolo and Sister Emanuela).

Sta. Croce, Florence

Before returning for the 12:30 prayer office, we braved a windy alley leading to Santa Croce basilica and the broad square spread before this white Franciscan church. Leather factories and shops lined the piazza. A band played Italian songs before a group of young school children sitting crosslegged, entranced. Pigeons fluttered and tourists snapped photos of the massive facade. The day was coolish with billowing clouds streaking the skies, covering the sun, but the drama played in the skies was welcome.

The line for a ticket (6 Euro, about $10) was not long, and we soon were moving through the vast basilica, past glimmering  apses of stained glass, into the southern transept chapel where Renaissance masters depicted the last days of Christ. There are many famous paintings here, but I always recall my characters visiting in Pilgrimage, my first novel, about a journey of healing through cities and villages in Italy. Even so, they have used the ticket proceeds well, allowing access to many restored masterpieces, with English information panels, something I don’t recall from before and definitely worth the admission.

It was time for our noon prayers and we headed back to the Badia to hear the Sisters and Brother and spend a quiet half hour praying for Florence, our families and friends, and the world. We tooks seats in the wooden pews and gazed about the old church with its vaults and frescoed apsidal ceiling. The space is larger than Trinita dei Monti in Rome and smaller than St. Gervais in Paris, with (it appeared) transepts, chancel, and nave of equal length, in a Greek cross plan. Before us, on the altar, a golden monstrance held the Host for adoration, and a number of faithful knelt before the Real Presence of Christ, spending a few precious and sacred minutes with God. Three Sisters knelt too, keeping watch.

Soon, more Sisters and Brothers entered and knelt. Their white robes fell to the floor, and it was as though they blended into the pale marble so that they would not distract us the focus of prayer. Icons, newly painted, stood to each side on massive pillars, and a painted crucifix hung high. A life size icon of Christ stood before the Holy Sacrament Chapel off the north transept. The Renaissance church had been gilded by these icons, and the eye was drawn to them for contemplation.

The grace and beauty of those thirty minutes restored my soul. We prayed with the figures in white, focusing on the vivid cross, and as the chanting of the psalms winged through the air, a quiet settled upon me. Gone was the rush of tourists and crowded sidewalks, the noise of traffic and sirens, the elbowing and push of tour groups eager to own Florence’s treasures. Here in this space, in this moment in time, in the middle of the desert, we listened to the singing as we prayed too.

We left silently, our hearts open to the world in a new way, open to God. We followed the road to the river where the gray and white skies hung low over the high waters, past the Ponte Vecchio, to lunch along the way back to our hotel.

A good first day in Florence.

Chiesa La Maddalena

Today is the Birthday of Saint Camillus, founder of the Camillians, Servants of the Sick. This year has been a celebration also of their fourth centenary, to end on July 14, 2014. It was natural for us to worship at La Maddalena, the order’s home church in Rome, for Mass, but we had other reasons to visit the golden baroque church one block from the Pantheon.

We first met Father Paolo Guarise, Vicar General and Priest-in-Charge of La Maddalena, a year ago when we visited Rome. The Madgalene Mystery was soon to be released and I wanted a contact person to whom I could send a few copies as a small thank you for the church (two chapters are set there). The story of that meeting can be found in an earlier blog, but suffice to say that Father Paolo was most generous with his time and attention and we have kept in touch. So we wanted to see him once more, in hopes of absorbing some of his love and energy and inspiration. And all the giant posters advertising the Camillian celebrations, posted on every church door in Rome, said he would be the celebrant. (I also wanted to give him a few more copies of my little novel.)

Nave, S.M. Maddalena

We arrived early and absorbed the beautiful space of gilt and marble. La Maddalena is not a large church (compared to some basilicas in Rome), so the color and glimmer and proportions lift the spirit intimately, as intense beauty often does. I turned to gaze up at the baroque organ loft behind us, gilded and dancing over the front door with its saints and angels. Higher above was the Camillian red cross, the same as the one emblazoned on the brothers’ black cassocks. It is the red cross that was eventually adopted by the Red Cross organization, one seen worn by those Camillians caring for the wounded on the battlefields of the last century.

The Holy Crucifix that spoke to Saint Camillus has been moved from the south transept chapel to a more visible site off the narthex, on display for the year but eventually to be returned to the chapel. The cross spoke to Camillus when he was discouraged with his work, nursing the sick and suffering in Rome:

“What is afflicting you? Go on with this undertaking and I will help you, because this is my work and not yours.”

It is good to be reminded that we are merely custodians, caretakers, given bodies and minds for a time on this earth. Our work is his work. To be sure, we are of immense value, unique creations, and if we say yes to God, allow him to work within us, he will work his will through us. We need not worry too much, as San Camillo did, about succeeding in every task. We say our prayers, are obedient to his commands, and we let him do his work in us, through us. We plant seeds, not knowing if they will be reaped or even who will reap them, for we may not be doing the reaping.

I have found that when I stand aside, getting out of the way, waiting and wondering what God has in store for  me (never knowing for sure), I see miracles happen. This is the thrilling joy of being a Christian. This is why, as St. Paul says (and Sister Emanuela too for that matter) we cannot be tepid in our faith. For we are part of a great drama, the salvation of the world. We are players, not directors.

Procession, S. Maddalena

So we arrived and took seats in the polished wooden pews and knelt and prayed and watched and waited. I lit a candle before the Madonna of Health in the south aisle, a charming image said to have worked miracles. I inhaled the flowers filling the chancel. I watched others step in quietly and and take their seats. I wondered what God would show me this day, the Birthday of San Camillo.

The procession formed off the sacristy in the north aisle and about twenty Camillian brothers robed in white processed down the north aisle and up the central aisle. They took their places and the Mass began. While in Italian, the liturgy was familiar, and I felt a part of it in spite of not knowing the language. The service ended with singing before the relics of San Camillo in the south aisle.

Procession, Birthday S. Camillus Mass

After many arranged photos of the fathers and brothers with the Camillian lay family who had come on pilgrimage, we greeted Father Paolo and chatted a bit. Father Alberto, the Secretary General for the Camillians, took photos (thank you, Father). Then I met an Irish priest who asked if I would tell his group about my novel set in this church. I was stunned to be asked to say anything in this church of St. Mary Magdalene, where such beauty often leaves me speechless, and I’m still not sure it was real. But I did speak, I think, and from the podium’s mike I mumbled and stumbled, trying to summarize the key points of the novel: Mary Magdalene and the first century Christians, the Apostles Creed and the triangle churches in Rome, the clues and the quest of my heroine, Kelly, the love story, the suspense story, the desire to correct Dan Brown, and a consideration of how scholars approach New Testament history, showing the preponderance of evidence for the Resurrection.

Christine with Father Paolo and Harry, the Medieval Magdalene in the background.

I wasn’t expecting such a welcome and interest from these lovely people from Australia, the Philippines, England, and northern Italy. The copies of The Magdalene Mystery I brought for Father Paolo soon found their way into the hands of these faithful folk and it is with great thanksgiving that I know they will circulate in these countries. We continued our lively chat in the adjoining house over a buffet lunch. Mary Magdalene smiled, the angels fluttered about us, and San Camillo was gratified for his Camillian children from around the world, that they had a home in Rome like La Maddalena, his own church.

I think I absorbed some of Father Paolo’s joyful energy. It radiates to all who work with him. Christianity is contagious, as they say, for it’s true. Thank you, Father Paolo and the Camillian brothers and lay family for your warm welcome. Thank you for your good work in Rome and, through these caring brothers and sisters, in the world. You are a true son of San Camillo.

For more information about the Camillians, visit http://www.camilliani.org/

Trinita dei Monti, Spanish Steps

The Church of Santissima Trinita dei Monti commands a magnificent view of Rome, located at the top of the Spanish Steps. But inside you can hear the Brothers and Sisters of Jerusalem sing the Psalms in a glorious Renaissance Baroque church where they are now in residence.

We first heard them sing their prayers in Vezeley, France, and often in Paris at St. Gervais near the Hotel de Ville and Notre Dame on the river. They are young, for the most part, men and women who work part time, rent their own accommodations. They gather for meals and to sing the ancient monastic offices. They are assigned a church to care for and to give a public presence to their prayers. Their mission is to pray for the city. They are now also located in Strasbourg, Florence, Mont St.-Michel, Brussels, Montreal, Rome, Magdala (France), Tarbes (near Lourdes, France), Cologne, Gamogna (Italy), Pistoia (Italy).

Brothers & Sisters of Jerusalem, Trinita dei Monti, Singing Noon Office

When I heard they were in Rome I knew we would visit to hear them sing the noon prayer office at 12:30. These prayer times originated in the earliest days of monasticism, when a 24 hour cycle was kept, consisting of seven “offices.” They usually form a thirty minute pattern with singing of the Psalms (in the local language), readings of Scripture, a short homily, intercessory prayers (often sung as well), and praise prayers (sung.) Today one can hear various communities sing the morning, noon, and evening offices. Some sing more – the Augustinian nuns at Quattro Coronati sing five or six offices a day, open to the public. They welcome visitors who keep the silence. Many offer booklets to follow along and join in.

I have always found the half hour a happy one, a time to gather myself together once again before God, a time to pray for my family and those I know who are sick (one friend in the last stages of cancer) and to pray for those who have asked for my prayers. I try and think of those who are needy and unhappy and for whom the Holy Spirit wants me to pray. I try to listen to God’s voice during these blissful moments as the ethereal sounds of the song-prayers fill my ears.

Music, Spanish Steps

I was particularly thankful for their presence in Rome, and within walking distance from our hotel. We stepped into the bright gracious nave and found seats in the first pew. Soon the white-robed men and women took places on kneelers and pads before the altar, and began to sing. The sound is like larks singing, but with a depth provided by the men’s harmonies, and I often think Heaven might be like this – the praising of God for all he is and does, through whom we live and have our being. I hope so.

Piazza Espagna

It had rained during the night, and the skies were gray when we had entered, but the sun came out when we left, and we carefully made our way down the Spanish Steps, past a violinist, for soup and salad at Babington’s Tea Shoppe, across the street from the house of Keats and Shelley.

Christine, S. Susanna English Library

Later in the afternoon, we stopped by the American Church of Santa Susanna and learned they were closed for restorations, but the library was open. I left a copy of The Magdalene Mystery and chatted with the ladies running a book sale. I explained that the story took place in part at Santa Susanna’s and they were intrigued. It was a story about truth and lies, I said, and the historical evidence we have that supports the Gospel accounts that it was the risen Christ and not a gardener that appeared to Mary Magdalene that first Easter morning. They nodded graciously, probably wondering at this chatty American.

The Fraternities of Jerusalem: http://jerusalem.cef.fr/

Chiesa Santa Susanna:  http://www.santasusanna.org/

Santa Sabina, Aventino, Rome

The weather has remained warm here in Rome so Thursday we headed for the leafy Aventino district, home to the once-imperial palaces that became churches in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Santa Sabina was quiet  as we entered  the vast space and considered the miracle of  the life of Saint Dominic. For it was here he established his university for seminarians and it was here that he and Saint Francis met. The two orders of friars reformed the Church in the twelfth century, long before Ignatius of Loyola and Martin Luther. 

Saint Dominic

As always, I think of my characters here in the church they visited – Jack and Madeleine in Pilgrimage – and how the experience of these many churches in Rome healed Madeleine and changed her life. Each time I visit I find that I am changed, a new part of me is revealed. God writes straight with my crooked lines once again in this holy city, at least he keeps trying.

Alessio under the stairs

We  walked on to San Alessio, which always makes me smile. The young man of a wealthy family converts to Christianity and renounces his wealth. He travels as a beggar to the Holy Land and returns, unrecognizable to his family. He lives under an outdoor staircase of his former home. When he dies the family learns the truth of who he is from a note clasped in his hand. A remarkable story, mythic in the sense of family separation and attempted reunion, the transforming nature of becoming a Christian and then living in a pagan world or a pagan family. But the most remarkable part of the story is that the faithful have kept the staircase and you can see it – a kind of relic – in the north aisle off the entryway. It is surrounded by statuesque marble and a sculpture of Alessio sleeping, but there it is, ancient wooden – fragile – stairs. Only in Rome, I often think. But then my next thought is, only in Christianity do you find the humble made great, the earthy made sacred. We are a sacramental faith, allowing God to work through the matter of our world, to make matter matter by sanctifying it.

We continued to San Anselmo, a great Benedictine church and seminary with an incredible colorful icon like crucifix over over the high altar. And we always enjoy visiting the gift shop in the garden. I can never resist the Trappist chocolate for sale. I asked the attendant if they had a replica of the crucifix, but alas, no. (Maybe on the next visit, I thought, as often happens.)

We followed our usual route, after visiting the three churches on the Aventino hill, down the path beyond Santa Sabina, leading to the river, then along the river to Isola Tiberina. This is a charming walk, and in May green with leafy trees and shady. The river rushed below us, tumbling between the stone embankments, and we passed several bridges before reaching Ponte Fabricio, a location in my novel, The Magdalene Mystery. This area along the river is ancient, home to

Isola Tiberina

the old Jewish quarter during the first century where trading ships docked at the wharves. The main Synagogue stands along the route to the right of the Tiber. St. Paul must have known this area, and St. Peter too, among many others mentioned in Holy Scripture. All these people peopled my thoughts as I walked toward the church of San Bartolomeo (thought to be Nathaniel in the Gospels) in the center of Isola Tiberina, Tiber Island.

San Bartolomeo

We entered the church and stepped into this warm, colorful, holy space. The tomb of Bartholomew is under the high altar. His relics lie in an ark-shaped sarcophagus that literally supports the altar. The side aisles have numerous chapels dedicated to modern martyrs – Nazism, Communism, Asia, Americas. It is an intimate church, unlike the great basilicas, and the small shop off the south aisle has lovely icons and posters for sale. This year they had a giant poster of the martyrs for ten Euro (about $15). It will be a challenge to pack it (ah, I’ll fold it I am sure, then try to iron it), but I couldn’t resist.

We headed up the river for more strolling under the giant shade trees, more photos of the Tiber, toward Piazza Navona for eggplant parmigiana and pizza and cokes.

A colorful, charming, day full of the past enlightening our present, full of fresh air and old stone and river walks. Just about a perfect day.