Cristus surrexit vere, sicut dixit! Alleluia!

Mark 16:1-7
At that time, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought sweet spices, that coming they might anoint Jesus. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came to the sepulchre, the sun being now risen. And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back. For it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed with a white robe, and they were astonished. Who saith to them, Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: He is risen, He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples, and Peter, that He goeth before you into Galilee; there you shall see Him, as He told you.

Cristus surrexit vere, sicut dixit! Alleluia!


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Down in Rome for a few days.

Here's some pics of adventures so far.

A feast for Easter morning. Staying with friends who have four little kids and it was a delight to see them searching the house for chocolate eggs and rabbits.


 
This Roman gentleman was getting the tram toward the centro this morning as I was off to the Mass. He'd just been to Porta Portese market, (every Sunday, Easter or not) and bought this beautiful book and allowed me to take a picture of it.

The Divine Office for Holy Week, published in Venice MDCCXC, which is 1790.
He told me he'd got it for 30 Euros. I said it was a great treasure.



I pulled my missal out of my bag and said I was going to the Old Mass, in Latin. He seemed surprised and said, "But you are so young!"


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One of the side chapels at Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, the FSSP parish in Rome, has one of the very few contemporary paintings of St. Philp Neri as a young man. Here he is shown welcoming sick pilgrims and the poor in the hospital he founded for their care - which is where the church gets its name: "dei Pellegrini" means "for the pilgrims". The chaps in the painting wearing red robes with white collars are members of the confraternity who were entrusted with the care of the convalescent poor. This confraternity has recently been revived at the parish and is now flourishing with new members. They perform many spiritual and practical functions.

St. Philip, the poor sick pilgrims and the confraternity as they are shown in the sacristy.

This little shrine to Our Lady was recently refurbished, and there was a queue of people waiting to pray here this morning, an encouraging sight.

Baroque art and architecture is meant to fool the eye, to make you think it looks smaller than it is. It is difficult to get an idea of the scale of that painting - the great masterwork of Guido Reni - but it might help to know that when new candles are put in the big gold candlesticks above the main altar, the whole thing reaches about 13 feet.

At Easter the parish pulls out all their precious Baroque portrait reliquaries. All those gold busts are gilded wood portraits of the saints whose relics are inside.

What Catholicism looks like.



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... He'll be here all week...

Take my mayor... please... 

I'm starting to feel toward Frank how I ended up feeling about Berlusconi... it's a bloody train wreck, but hilarious.

Yes yes... we're all very upset... blah, blah, blah...Evil pope destroys Church, yadda yadda...

But the sheer Italianness of it all is starting to be pretty entertaining.

The difference, of course, is that Silvio always did stuff with sly grin, like he realized it was all a joke and he was letting you in on it. Frank, on the other hand, is deadly serious, particularly about himself and his own wonderfulness, which makes the whole thing even better.

Yesterday's Papal comedy sketch was pretty good. Did y'all see him diss the mayor of Rome?

Pope calls Rome Mayor Marino a "pretend Catholic."

...
The unforgiving assessment of Ignazio Marino -- a man the Italian media love to hate -- further heightened tensions between the pope and the mayor in the run-up to the start of the Holy Year of Mercy in December, with the Vatican fearful the Italian capital is ill-prepared for the millions of extra pilgrims.

There y'go. One for the "pope of mercy" files.

Of course, once again as usual with Pope Frank, the move wasn't exactly "speaking truth to power." Marino is just about the most hated man in the country right now. Rome is falling apart (more than usual) and the people who live there, as they wait on stifling hot subway trains that stop for half an hour in the tunnels between stations, spend their time thinking of all the things the Roman Mob used to do to unpopular Emperors. So, you know, pretty safe target.

And funny thing... just for no reason at all and out of the blue and stuff, the next day, the Rome cops came to the streets around the Vatican and ticketed every Vatican employee car they could find.


In case you've never been to the Eternal Dumpster, this is Rome on a completely normal day,

... and none of it ever distracts the Roman police from their important flirting-with-women investigations.

Today's update on the papal vaudeville act:

A Rome radio station decides to prank the Vatican (a popular form of entertainment for Roman radio personalities). Someone from the Radio 24 satirical programme, La Zanzara (The Mosquito) impersonating the Italian premier Matteo Renzi, calls Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Holy See's Pontifical Council for the Family and one of Frank's lower level lieutenants, asking him how the pope felt about Marino joining the papal entourage in Philadelphia.

Paglia replied, not without embarrassment, that Marino’s “exploitation” of the World Meeting of Families on 26 September “infuriated Number One [Pope Francis]”.

Asked by the Renzi impersonator whether Marino had “gate-crashed” the event, the prelate quickly agreed in the affirmative. “Marino was very insistent on seeing Pope Francis [in Philadelphia] and this annoyed the pope tremendously”, said Paglia, adding: “The mayor is a good man, a good person, but nobody on our behalf invited him.”

120% increase in Rome fender-benders as Romans listening to the radio in the car go limp with helpless laughter.

...

I realise Americans tend to take the whole Vatican thing with absolute deadly seriousness, following the papal lead. But Italians are somewhat more ... errr... irreverent.

This man commands a cwack dicastewy!
He wanks as high as any in Wome!

"Centuwian why do they titter so?"

"Just some Roman joke, sir."

"Are they... wagging me?"

"Oh NO sir!"

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Things to do in Rome

...when it's too hot to be outside...

Highlights of my little visit last weekend: Corpus Christi procession, or as the call it in Italy, Corpus Domini...






























I helped with the flowers a bit. Then I got bored and wandered off.

(O'sP prize to anyone who spots me in the pics.)



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Home-home, homity-home!

St. Benedict also thinks it's a bad idea ever to leave the house.

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So far as is possible, the monastery ought to be so planned that all requirements, such as water, mill, garden and the various crafts, are all available inside the enclosure, so that there may be no need for the monks to go out abroad, for this is not at all good for their souls.

Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 66

Well, I'm home from the Old Smoke. It was great fun, and there was much excitement. Perhaps the best thing about conferences and meetings, especially when you've been doing the same sort of job for a very long time and some of the shine has worn off, is seeing old friends and respected colleagues. When I was a lay-about teenager, and terrified of entering adult life, I rather wish someone had sat me down and described the pleasures of working life, and how you create a social world for yourself of fascinating people, contacts and acquaintances, as well as close and enduring friendships, that will stand you well in every aspect of your life.

I must say that a weekend like that, no matter how difficult or tiring it may be (my brain kept whispering "You're forty-nine! You're forty-nine!") very much makes you appreciate the colourful, complex and deeply engaging landscape that a long and fruitful involvement in public work can create. I can't help but think that a big part of the reason people get addicted to these silly online fantasy games is that they have not made sufficient use of the real life they've been offered.

Life isn't just for "living," which I think many people equate with enduring until the weekend or until happy hour, it's for building. Your day to day life is really no more than a framework, a blank slate, like my little garden; just a piece of mostly empty ground with a few built-in advantages and disadvantages, upon which we must exercise our imagination and effort.

But I must say, I am very glad to be home. All the fun aside, the noise, the crowds, the confusion, the dirt and grub, the awful buses, the constant pestering at every corner by gypsy beggars... even the road surface, whether you're walking or biking or driving, is like a complete assault on the psyche. Rome is a hell of a lot of work to deal with, a great deal more than I'm comfortable dealing with, and I'm very, very glad I live far enough away to make it pretty impractical to go there more than once in a great while.

Norcia is certainly close enough to go if you have to, and - even better - for people to come here and visit quite a lot. In fact, I've had a nearly constant stream of visitors since I moved here, and there have been days when, if I wanted to get any work done, whether paid writing or simply gardening, I've had to pretty much avoid town altogether. I certainly don't lack a social life.

But nice as it is to see people coming through, and fun as it is to tell them all about it and show them around, and introduce them to the joys of stewed wild boar and monk-beer, it is very nice at the end of the day to go home and sit quietly upon one's own stoop, and sip the tea and watch the birds settling down for the night.



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Celebrity watching in Rome

So, this happened. He came to lunch with a group of friends after we'd been seated and got the table next to ours. We made a few polite noises, then left him alone. But later, the waiter realised who it was, and freaked out. Poor guy.





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Then paint!

It's a funny thing about Italy. Whatever your reasons for coming here, there is a kind of bug you catch, and those who get bitten by the Italy bug just seem unable to bring themselves to leave. When a new person arrives (and we get a fresh batch every year) you can tell right away whether he's going to just finish whatever it is he came for or be a long-termer. The long-termers get that look very quickly that says, "I'm going to stay here, even if I have to fake my death and create a new identity to do it."

The lovely and talented Kelly Medford nails down a few reasons why...

... the warm light in Medford's paintings is a dependable constant in her work from Rome. "When I moved here from Florence, what I noticed is that the light in Rome is so dramatically different," says Medford. "It's really warm, almost a rosy pink. When I moved here I had to keep buying so many different cadmiums because I couldn't find the strength I needed to depict it. I made a conscious choice to exaggerate the warmth here. Now I really see it that way -- that is really how I see Rome, and how I paint Rome."

I went into town yesterday to have a drink with my art teacher and said, "I still fear paint though." She said the obvious thing: then paint!!



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A nice place to visit...

So, here's what it's like to "run an errand" in Rome:

Still in your jammies and having your tea, you get a text message in the morning from the Apple Store in Rome saying your computer's fixed and ready to be picked up.

(Apple Store is in a neighbourhood in Rome that is a transit dead-zone, but you've been cut off from the outside world for three days and are desperate.)

You get on the 11:50 train into town, arrive Ostiense station 1 pm.

Get on Metro Linea B.

Switch to Linea A.

Switch to tram at the Flaminian Gate tram stop.

Realising you will not make it before riposo, you call the Apple Store from the tram and beg them to wait for you. A gypsy gets on and starts playing his accordion. You sit for the rest of the trip alternately considering offering him 20 Euros to shut up or simply gripping him by the collar and pitching him and his horrible noise-box bodily off the tram. Finally, you get up and move to another seat further away from the grating racket. (Is it actually a rule that you're only allowed to play O Sole Mio and the Godfather Theme on the accordion? I'd like to see the regulation.)

You are now in a neighbourhood in Rome outside the Aurelian walls where everything looks exactly the same as everything else. You get off the tram at the wrong stop, get lost and waste 20 minutes walking in the wrong direction.

You arrive at the Apple Store 1:45. They have waited for you (a miracle). You are at last re-united with your True Love, and take a moment to test it. Ooops! the new trackpad hasn't been connected properly. You are told the technico has gone for lunch. The nice Apple Store Lady who gave you directions on the phone, suggests a restaurant to have lunch in.

You have lunch at an over-priced Sicilian place. The nice Apple Store Lady calls you and says that the computer really is ready this time.

You retrieve it, pay the 400E, and leave, feeling for the first time in a week that your personal world perhaps isn't falling apart after all.

You get back to the tram line by 3 pm only to realise that the one you came here on is one-way and there is no sign telling you where to find the tram going back where you started (or to any part of the City you recognise). You twirl around helplessly for a full minute before accepting your fate and wandering off to try to find a bus... or something.

You find another tram line and get on tram. It takes you to a bus loop you've never heard of, where there is a bus labelled (thank God!) "910 Termini". Brimming with hope, you get on and bask in the glow of the knowledge that you can wing it when you really need to. You are a fearless explorer who can Handle Things.

The bus trundles uncertainly through the parts of Rome no one cares about, mostly inching along, wedged into the City's perpetual traffic jam, at less than a walking pace. You briefly consider getting out and running alongside for the exercise.

You arrive at Termini train station at 4:02 and find the departures board. You see that there is a Pisa train (fast) leaving in precisely 8 minutes. From the front entrance of Termini to Binario 28 takes exactly 12 minutes to walk. You sigh, and, seeing that there is a slow train to Civi leaving at 4:45, you hit the book store to kill the time.

You buy a new book, and make the 4:45 train, plug the Beloved into the power outlet by your seat and settle in with your internet stick.

Train (which is not late!) gets you home by 6:20.

It has taken you 6.5 hours to pick up your computer from the shop.

You now get to start the work for the day.



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What Rome is for

Busy weekend. Friday was the Big Day at the Vatican's stem cell research conference, and there is still a lot of work to do about it. It's always fun and exciting to go to these things, and really reminds me of why I'm here. You get to meet incredibly interesting people, have conversations you never imagined you would find yourself having. In this case it was me asking questions about the moral implications of nuclear transfer cloning and induced pluripotent stem cells with the Nobel Prize winning scientist who helped to pioneer the procedures.

Of course, this is not to say, for a second, that I endorse this kind of research, but the opportunity to talk directly with some of the people doing the work was for me extremely exciting, professionally. To observe at first hand what kind of people these are, what kind of arguments they make and what sort of justifications they have to answer the moral objections was fascinating. I was impresssed with how willing they were to talk, and how plain-spoken they were about their ideas.

Most of the time, when we're writing on this stuff, we are stuck conjecturing and guessing about how they think and what they want to accomplish. For the first time since I started this work more than ten years ago, I had a chance to ask the leaders in the field my difficult questions, and it was hugely enlightening.

So, that was cool.

Then, on Saturday, it was FIRST DAY OF CLASSES!! Yaaaay! Bozetti class first, which is mostly about learning to mix colours and match what you see on the model to teach you how to move on to portrait work. It's incredibly difficult, but I'm starting to push through the difficulties and get the general gist. Tomorrow morning I'm starting another cast drawing class. (And thank you again to all the kind people who donated funds to make it possible. What would I do without my readers, I just don't know.)

After, I went to lunch in the Ghetto with an old friend from Toronto and we had a little stroll from the nice Jewish restaurant where we had tacchino in marsala and mushrooms, down to the Theatre of Marcellus and the Porticus Octaviae, then back to the sacristy of the parish where I had my first lesson in reading Gregorian notation.

A friend of mine gave me a copy of the new Baronius Press edition of the Little Office of the BVM, the one with the music in the back that, if you know how, allows you to sing the office as it was intended. I have had a bit of experience singing the little squares in choir with various nuns I've visited, and in parish choirs, so following isn't difficult, but actually doing it by myself is just outside my range of skills. So my friend, who is sacristan at Smma. Trinita, sat down with me for about an hour and we worked out the tones and I went home happily singing a new Gregorian hymn.

Sunday was high Mass, (that through some miracle started on time!) and lunch with a selection of the gang.

The weather was perfect. April is Rome's best month, when the weather is warm, but the breeze is cool, and the evenings are mild and fragrant with wisteria. In a couple of weeks, the temperature will start to become oppressive, and I'll start thinking of ways to escape, but for now, it's like a dream. A nice dream.

I feel like I've suddenly come back to life after months of hibernation.



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Mystical Poetry prize

Who knew there was such a thing? And it's worth some pretty big money too! €7000 Euros is nothing to sneeze at.

XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry Fernando Rielo in Rome

The proclamation of the XXXII Fernando Rielo World Prize for Mystical Poetry, which includes €7000, publication of the work and commemorative medal, will take place in Rome, on December 13th, at the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See. The event will be presided over by the Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. In addition, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, will be present in a message that will be read by his representative, Monsignor José Manuel Del Río Carrasco.

I'll be going to see the Hobbit, but anyone else who's around, I'm sure there'll be really great snacks.



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Everybody pray

I don't think the Tiber has ever broken over the big banks (put up in the 19th century to stop the annual flooding,) but it was looking pretty worrisome yesterday when I walked over one of the bridges in the Centro Storico. The water level almost looked high enough to reach over and touch (it wasn't but it sure seemed that way,) and I thought if anyone fell in he'd be toast. Soggy toast.

This is what the Tiber at Ponte Sisto, the bridge closest to our parish and one of the oldest bridges in Rome, looks like normally




And this is what it looks like a few days ago a couple of hundred yards downriver at Tiber Island.

I you go through the neighbourhood of the parish of Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, between the Campo di Fiori and the Jewish Ghetto and the Theatre of Marcellus, you will see a lot of medieval houses built on top of a kind of colonnade of Roman columns, salvaged from the old temples. The spaces between the columns these days are often bricked up and turned into living spaces, but in the old days, before the banks were built, that part of the city flooded so often that you built houses that way, on stilts, to avoid getting flooded out. Most of the year you could stable your horses or house your servants there, but it was a good idea to be up as high as possible.

In Venice, of course, it's been flooded for a while, but everyone is pretty used to it...

This is how you get your morning coffee in Venice during flood season


This video must have been taken a few days ago, because it's risen at least another 8 feet since.

One guy interviewed by the BBC said as long as it doesn't go above the level of the bridge arches we'll be ok. Of course, we're only a few feet away and if it does rise over the top of the arches, the bridges will be in danger of being just pushed over and into the water. That's a hell of a lot of water pressure pouring through those arches.



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This is my parish

And this is my parish priest, Fr. Kramer.

It's every bit as awe-inspiring as it looks.



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Gutenberg comes home

The Vatican is having one of its terrific historical exhibits this week on the history of the Bible, and by extension, the history of The Book. One of the cooler things is a reproduction of Gutenberg's original press, that you actually get to work and make a page from.

Above is my friend Gregory getting instructions on how to work it.


Here's Gregory working it.


Then you get to take your page home.

Cooooool....!



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Province of Lazio declares "state of calamity"

Not making it up. And yes, they brought the army out.

Take THAT Toronto!

Everyone seems to be mad at the mayor, Alemanno.


Rome in the snow.




Romans, playing in the snow.

But Romans really shouldn't complain if all they've got is a little trouble with traffic.

260 die (so far) in record European cold snap.

the poor weather also hit boat passengers, when the ferry Sharden hit a breakwater shortly after setting off from the port of Civitavecchia near Rome on Saturday.

It caused panic among the 262 passengers who feared a repeat of a cruise ship tragedy in the area last month that is thought to have killed 32 people.

Coast guard spokesperson Carnine Albano said the accident, which tore a 25m hole in the ship's side above the waterline, happened after the vessel was buffeted by a violent snow storm from the north-east.

All passengers were evacuated and no injuries reported.

Apparently, 16 people have died in snow-related traffic accidents in Algeria.



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Looks like a picture in a book...



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Snow in Rome

Update:

This was taken in Rome Saturday morning at the Parco della Caffarella by Chris Altieri, denizen. Biggest snowstorm in 20 years. A friend of mine texted me just now to say he couldn't come over because he got "snowed in" in the City last night.

It's bright and sunny here today though. Not much sign of the last 24 hours of storms.

It's cold though. My radiators have been going full blast 24 hours a day for three days, and it's still not what you would call "warm" in here.


The pope's back garden.


Romans love snow as much as I did when I was a kid in sunny, non-wintery Victoria. What I want to know is how come Roman kids own snow pants?


He looks a little surprised.






Sliding (very few sleds) at the Circus Maximus.


Someone has one though.


"For Rent"

The sun's out again in Rome and it's so bright with light reflected off the white stuff that it's blazed out the webcam.


Photo hat-tips to C. Altieri, D. Kerr and others via Facebook



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Snow!!

Here's what St. Peter's Piazza looks like now



Here's the link to Vatican Radio's webcam.

I woke up this morning after running the heat all night and it was quite chilly. It's not snowing yet out here, but pouring with rain and really cold (for Italy). I'm bundled up in a wooly sweater, scarf and fuzzy hat.

I kept the link to the webcam open this afternoon and with my good Bose speakers plugged into the computer, I've been hearing the rolls of thunder in Rome, the bells chiming and a crow calling. It's made my afternoon very Goth...



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The 64 Bus

Everyone who has spent more than a week in Rome will be familiar with the number 64 bus that starts at San Pietro station, runs past the Vatican, crosses the Tiber and runs through the Centro, stopping at the Argentina tram stop and on up the hill to Termini train station.


If you get on it anywhere after the St. Peter's end of the loop, this is what it is like. We were trying to get home from the Quirinale the other night and that is closer to the Termini end of the route. We had to let six buses go by before there was one we could get on.

And then there's the gypsy pickpockets. There's a reason they call the 64 the Pickpocket Express, though I've been lucky so far.

Here's a tip for those staying in Santa Marinella: get any of the main route buses to Argentina, which is a major bus convergence point, and wait the extra few minutes for a number 70. This will take you up most of the route to Termini, but swings past Mary Major and takes you down to the other end of the Termini station. This will help you avoid all the horrors of the 64, the pickpockets, the sardine-packed crowds, and at the end save you a 10 minute walk down to the end of the station where the Civitavecchia/Pisa/Grosseto trains leave.

The 64 is somewhat notorious.


H/T to Vicky for the pic.



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Aestiva Latinitas Romae

A friend of mine here in Rome decided there wasn't enough Latin being spoken in this town.

Well, who can argue with that? So he founded a new school.

The mornings are spent at the St. John's University campus reading poetry and prose and commenting on the texts in Latin; the afternoons are spent doing the same thing at various sites of literary or archaeological significance. If you vacationed in Italy this June, you might have seen us standing around the Ara Pacis on a scorcher, offering competing Latin orations on the pax Augustana.

...

We descended into the Sybil's cave at Cumae to reel off the pertinent hundred lines of Virgil. We drew stares in the Forum as we declaimed latine (adv.: "in Latin") on the various points of interest. (One elderly Italian gentleman, several sheets to the wind, stuck with us for some time, offering applause and exclamations of "bravi" whenever he thought appropriate.) We stooped into the Catacombs of Priscilla or the bowels of the Basilica San Clemente, where a troupe of friendly Bulgarians listened to our Latinisms on the subject of Saint Cyril.

Sign up.



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Art for the Non-Stupid

So, everyone still seems pretty upset about this new JPII statue.

The Romans want to get rid of it:

"We don't want this statue, they have to get rid of it. It looks like a box and it's embarrassing us in front of the tourists," said an elderly woman quoted in Italy's Repubblica daily.

Mayor Gianni Alemano said [Termini train station] was "the best place for the statue, which will welcome and protect everyone".

"Homeless people will sleep in there in the winter: the welcoming sense is guaranteed," a protesting bystander told the Repubblica.

Now that everyone hates it so much the City officials are getting busy pointing fingers and saying, "Not my fault".

Rome’s superintendent for cultural heritage Umberto Broccoli has defended the city’s role in the commissioning process. He said that the scheme was endorsed by the Vatican authorities and the ministry of culture, both of which viewed computer-rendered images and photographs of the work in progress, and followed the project step by step.

Even the usually determinedly earnest CNS has had a bit of a laugh at its expense.

But I've really only got one thing to say.

The artist has a website. It was really easy to find out what his stuff is like.

Seriously, did anyone really think regular, non-stupid, non-trendy people wouldn't hate it?

Just ask the Tat Modern.



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Rome tourist trap tip

Ok, that aerial shot at 0:13 of Castel Sant Angelo reminded me of something I meant to warn y'all about.

When you're in Rome and you've walked across the Angel Bridge over the Tiber and you're heading over to meet up with friends in the Borgo for the after-Mass lunch, you will turn left at the end of the bridge and walk past the castle. Before you get to the street, there will be the entrance to what looks like a really lovely park.

You will say to your friend, "Hey, that looks nice. Look at all those nice shady trees and things. Let's walk down that nice park lane instead of walking along the horrible roaring street with all the terrifying traffic. It's bound to have an exit at the other end and let us out back onto the street further down, and closer to where we want to go."

WARNING! WARNING!

This will not work.

You and your friend will walk along the nice shady lane with the lovely trees and it will be lovely and will go all along to the place you want to go, but you will be CUT OFF. You will see that there is a big moat thing, about 20 feet deep and 50 feet wide, guarded by railings that you're pretty certain someone will yell at you if you climb over. You will walk around and around in circles in this evil, sweet-smelling, fly-trap of a park.

You will waste 30 minutes trying to find the back exit, climbing over railings and walking down steep banks sparsely covered in grass only to find yourself deeper in the park, surrounded by inexplicably happy-looking people with baby prams and sinister-looking smiling, laughing children, none of whom show the slightest sign that they are all in on the wicked plot to make you lost in an inescapable park-vortex while your friends are having lunch without you.

Not that this has ever happened to me. I'm just saying... Stay out of the Castel Sant Angelo park. It wants to eat you.



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