Wednesday marked our first full day in Rome. We didn’t let a minute go to waste.
We were up early, again, and headed downstairs for another modest, Italian breakfast.
A short time later, we prayed Morning Prayer and climbed into the bus to explore more of the city. This is the thing about Rome: you can be casually driving down a street and suddenly you catch sight of a movie set and realize: “Oh, wait. No. That really is the Coliseum. The real one. The original.”
Our first stop: the Piazza Navona, to celebrate Mass at the Basilica of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
Does your parish baptistry look like this?
Before Mass, we got to see one of the more unusual relics in Rome: the foot of Mary Magdalene.
A priest brought the relic to the altar, so we could receive a blessing from it at the end of Mass.
This turned out to be the first liturgy that we celebrated in the main part of a church, not in a side chapel. We had the place to ourselves. What a gift.
Deacons Freddy Medina and Nick Rocco served; my wife, Siobhain, was the lector.
After Mass, we had a chance to venerate the relic.
We then broke up for lunch on our own. There were a lot of places to sample nearby. It started to rain, so we didn’t wander too far away.
We headed with Father Ferdi to a nearby restaurant, where he enjoyed a light lunch: sirloin steak.
My wife had a salad. I plunged into my first Italian pizza of the trip.
Yeah: it was as good as it looks.
After lunch, it was time to visit another saint, Agnes, in the church on the square that bears her name.
Another saint, another amazing relic: Agnes’s skull, preserved on a side altar behind glass.
We bade farewell to Agnes and took a short walk from the square to visit another Roman landmark, the Pantheon.
The inside is an architectural wonder.
We exited the Pantheon and walked to a church that was very familiar to me: Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Here, back in 2016, I gave a talk to deacons during the 2016 Jubilee of Mercy.
The highlight: the body of St. Catherine of Siena. Her head is in Siena, but the rest of her is here.
Finally, it was on to our last stop of the day, one I’d been waiting to see since the start of our trip, St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, containing the tomb of the beloved martyr and deacon.
We were able to go downstairs, under the main altar, to pray at the tomb of Lawrence. I can’t begin to describe the emotions that welled up within me.
St. Lawrence, pray for us…
Before we left, the deacons gathered for a picture outside the entrance to his tomb.
We headed back to the hotel, then broke up to go to dinner on our own. My friend Father Victor Galier from Atlanta is on sabbatical and studying at the North American College for a few months. He generously invited us to join him and two other priests from Atlanta — Father Gaurav Shroff and Fr. Taun Tran — for dinner at a restaurant near the Vatican, Arlu.
It was a memorable end to a memorable day.
Coming up Thursday: we will begin with our first visit to St. Peter’s, where Father Ferdi will celebrate morning Mass.
To be continued…
