Skip to main content

So Many Churches So Little Time!


 

Our adventure began as a two-hour excursion of seven churches. It was challenging to select only seven, but the route was based on a short list that I had created before leaving home and would take us on a leisurely, circular walk returning home for an afternoon rest. We began at St. Maria Minerva, where the body of St. Catherine of Siena (or at least most of it) is located. Here were found a statue created by Michelangelo sitting out in the open on display. 

After this church our detours began. We stumbled onto the Church of St. Ignatius. Before each altar in this church a small prayer card could be found. I have included one below. It’s a simple, lovely prayer that I will keep nearby, helping to center me in my own thoughts.  


We entered the Church of the Gesù where the tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola is located. After spending a few minutes venerating and examining the frescos, Christine approached a priest in the church to inquire about the images, she was told, “the frescos are of St. Francis. We are very ecumenical here.” How fitting for our journey! By the end of our day, we did visit seven churches, just not the ones on our list. This day was about the journey, discovering our faith, bringing us together in moments of quiet contemplation, recalling the maryters and saints, whose lives were examples of faith, charity and hope.
By Melinda





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Catacombs of Domitilla

The story of Christianity is awe-inspiring.  This is true whether you are a believer or not.  Within 50 years of the physical death of Christ, 12 believers had directly and indirectly converted thousands to the new faith.  Within 300 years, they had converted an empire. This tour begins at the walls of Rome within sight of St. John Lateran where we get our ride to the countryside of Rome.  Making our way outside the walls, the city changes to country quickly.  The Roman countryside is quite beautiful.  The hills begin to roll and the gated villas extend to farms of vegetables, rose hips, or barley.  The air cleaner and the sound clearer. Flavia Domitilla was the granddaughter of the emperor Vespasian.  As daughter of Domitilla "the Younger", Flavia was also the niece of the emperors Titus and Domitian.  These catacombs were founded on her property in about the year 120 A.D.  Flavia and her husband, Flavius Clemens, were likely ...

A Trini - Canadian walks into a Mosque, a Synagogue and Several Churches

       During my last week in Rome, I had the honour of entering both a synagogue and a mosque for the first time in my life. After visiting what seemed like a million churches in Rome and, (as a Roman Catholic), loving every one of them, it was a nice way to end off the interreligious dialogue component of our course.     The synagogue is located in the old Jewish ghetto of Rome. It is in this area that Jews were forced to live and had many restrictions put upon them in the past. Our visit included the museum under the synagogue where we saw a copy of the declaration that announced forming the State of Israel. The Great Synagogue of Rome A picture I took of the beautiful square dome inside the Synagogue Declaration of the State of Israel           Our friend and classmate Oded, who was born and grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel, drew my attention to an extraordinary black and white photo of crowds of Jews in Rome celebrating this d...

The Villa Borghese: Tainted Beauty

In the 17 th  century it was common for the pope to place a nephew in a key administrative role, for self-preservation.  Thus in 1605, at the age of 28, Scipione Borghese was made cardinal and papal secretary, head of the Roman Curia, by his uncle Pope Paul V, making Scipione the second most powerful person in the country.  Cardinal Scipione purchased a property in the north of Rome and began acquiring ancient Roman and contemporary Italian art.  The villa and its beautiful grounds were never a residence, only ever a gallery and conservatory. Cardinal Scipione became the patron of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, providing Bernini with the opportunity to cement his legacy as perhaps the best sculptor to have ever lived.  Though several pieces of furniture and adornment were sold off by the Borghese family in the 19 th  century to address fiscal problems, those have been replaced with copies, and the most famous and significant pieces of the original collec...