Skip to main content

Roma, day Three




We were going to go back to the Vatican to look in the Museum, but we woke up later than we should have, the opening hours were very limited, and we decided to save it till after Christmas day. Instead, we went on a tour of some other churches. San Giovanni, only ten minutes south of our hostel rooms, was the first legal church built in the city. It supposedly houses the heads of the apostles Peter and Paul. Yes, the heads. There are some lovely Popes buried there and even more lovely statues of the apostles--I think we took some pictures of Peter--which are, of course, very huge.



Across the street are the Holy Steps, which were apparently shipped over from Jerusalem and which Jesus walked up with his cross. The tradition goes that one can only ascend these steps on one's knees. Many people (mostly women, from what I saw, and several of them nuns) go there to climb the steps and pray, and the wood is worn with a thousand or so years worth of prayer. Not much of a sight for tourists, but a beautiful place for pilgrims.



From there, I cannot remember which one we did first, but we went to the Basilica of Maria Maggiore, and I didn't like it. It was gaudy without being beautiful, even though it bears many very very old mosaics, most of which I did not see because they are very high and we didn't feel like exploring.



We also went to St Peter in Chains, which houses, other than Peter's chains, Michelangelo's Moses. This was supposed to be the frontpiece of a massive tomb for the Pope, but Michelangelo was called away to do the Sistine Chapel and could not finish the job. The frontpiece is beautiful enough. Moses looks really complicated, like he's on the verge of doing something, and yet completely at rest. He looks both benevolent and concerned, waiting and active.... I don't quite know how to describe it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

Again in Gilead

I just finished reading this for the second time last week, thanks to the forever book group of Grace. It was equally as lovely the second time around, and while reading it, I wrote down a dozen more quotes from the incomparable Ames, who is both too beautiful a man to be real and too beautiful a man not to be real. (I'm grateful and amazed to know a few like him.) "It has been my experience that guilt can burst through the smallest breach and cover the landscape, and abide in it in pools and danknesses, just as native as water." (p.82) I have found this to be remarkably true. I see it in myself, and in many others as well. "I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect." (p.91) This seems to be about the only way I experience visions, but because memory is a rickety thing, I tend not to trust them much. Which makes me a poor prophet. "I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses, shelte...
Post a Comment
Read more

At the close of nine years

I'm moving to Texas in less than two months. I've lived in Long Beach now for nine years. Already I have stacks of books covering my dining room table that I'll be reading for my PhD program in the fall. I've quietly begun the tedious work of sorting and cleaning everything in my little apartment. I'm scheduling all of my last days with friends, moving through my calendar in reverse order from when I expect to slip into my car and drive away. This is the longest I've lived in one place, so I've never really experienced a leaving quite like this before. I remember the day I left Wheaton, closing the bedroom door on my best friend, walking down to Chaeli's car so she could drive me to the airport. (The greatest grace of Texas is that she will be there. Some friends we never lose completely.) I remember leaving California for Scotland—walking away from my mother in the Palm Springs airport. We leave people who have changed us, and we leave places that ha...
1 comment
Read more