The City of the Martyrs - and Some Scoundrels Too

As I mentioned last week, one of my personal spiritual goals this Lent has ben to concelebrate as many of the daily Lenten stational Masses as I can (during those weeks of Lent that I am in Rome.) The Pontifical North American College organizes an early morning English Mass at the appropriate Roman Stational Church on each of the weekdays of Lent. We started on Ash Wednesday at Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the stations were S. Giorgio in Velabro, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and S. Agostino (where St. Monica is buried). Yesterday, Monday of the 1^st Week of Lent, the Station was at S. Pietro in Vincoli, a 5^th century basilica, with a 15^th-century façade, also known as Basilica Eudoxiana, because founded by Empress Eudoxia to house the two chains St. Peter was imprisoned with. In addition to St. Peter’s Chains, which are visible for veneration under the main altar, the Basilica is perhaps most famous for Michelangelo’s Moses. It also houses the tomb of the famous 15^th-century theologican, canonist, and cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), author of De Docta Ignorantia (“Of Learned Ignorance”), whom I first encountered almost 40 years ago in graduate school!

There is something special about going to these venerable Roman churches in the pre-dawn darkness, walking literally in the steps of centuries of Christians who have visited those same churches on those same days, celebrating Mass surrounded by the relics and memories of martyrs, then emerging in the early morning light to continue one’s daily work. It is a true experience of the communion of saints! As the Italian Humanist Petrarch (1304-1374), describing his experience as a pilgrim in Rome in the Holy Year 1350, wrote: “How inspiring for a Christian to journey to that city which is like a heaven on earth, sanctified by the remains of martyrs beyond number, drenched in the precious blood of those early witnesses to the Truth.”

Like all human enterprises, however, down through the centuries Rome too has had its less edifying episodes - as well as any number of colorful historical scoundrels. Thus to reach S. Pietro in Vincoli from Via Cavour, one climbs a stone stairway, Via S. Francesco di Paola, also known as Salita dei Borgia, because it passes under an archway which was part of the house of Vannozza Cattanei, mistress of Pope Alexander VI and mother of Giovanni, Cesare, Lucrezia, and Gioffre Borgia. Giovanni Borgia, Duke of Gandia (who goes by his Spanish name Juan in the TV series), was murdered there in 1497, possibly by one of his brothers.

To add to the charm of that particular place, the stairway is also the site of the ancient Vicus Sceleratus, so named because it was where the wicked Tullia (c. 535 B.C.) drove her chariot over the corpse of her father Servius Tullius (the 6^th of Rome’s 7 kings) whom her husband, Tarquinius Superbus, had just overthrown!

Popes, Kings, and Presidents

Walking past the Piazza del Quirinale yesterday, I discovered that the Quirinale Palace is open to the public for a special exhibit in honor of the last year’s 50^th anniversary of Italian unification. The exhibit ends in March – as does my stay in Rome. So this morning I decided to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity to experience the inside of one of the great palaces of Europe.

The Quirinale is the highest of Rome’s historic seven hills. Its name may be derived from a Temple of Quirinus – the name of Rome’s 1^st King, Romulus, after he had been deified. Its elevated location made it a desirable site especially in summer. So a palace built there in the 16^th century became the summer palace of the popes. It was the site of several conclaves, the last being that which elected Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1846. After the Italian conquest of Rome in 1870, it was confiscated from the Pope to become the principal residence of the King of Italy. From the perspective of the palace, the exhibit chronicles the reigns of Italy’s 4 kings – Vittorio Emmanuele II (1861-1878), Umberto I (1878-1900), Vittorio Emmanuele III (1900-1946), and Umberto II (1946), and their successors, the Presidents of the Italian Republic since 1946.

Located in some of the palace’s elegant state rooms, the exhibit focuses on the history in which the palace has been at the center – not on the actual art and architecture of the place. Even so, one does get to see some nice rooms, culminating in the elegant, early 18^th-century Sala dei Corazzieri, from which one can at least look through the open door into the Cappella Paolina, the former Papal Chapel, which is the same size as the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

Now used primarily for concerts, the Cappella Paolina remains a permanent reminder of the palace’s original occupants and primary purpose. Its baroque splendor recalls its origin in the post-Tridentine, Counter-Reformation era – one of the greatest periods of missionary outreach in the Church’s history. After the Italian confiscation of the palace, the chapel remained as a witness to remind its new royal residents that they were (as indeed they tragically turned out to be even in the short-term) ultimately only temporary sovereigns in this Eternal City.

One of Europe’s oldest houses, the royal House of Savoy had a complex relationship with the Church – as simultaneously custodians and protectors of the Holy Shroud and promoters of secular Liberalism. (On the other hand, at least two royal Savoy women in this period of Italian unification and after – one 19^th-century princess and one 20^th-century queen – are now Servants of God!)

The Savoys’ post-war republican successors in the Quirinale, for all the historic splendor and symbolic resonance of their residence, have been but party politicians, presiding over an increasingly dysfunctional society still not even completely reconciled to the Savoys’ supposedly successful project of national unification.

From Popes to Kings to Presidents! For the stately Quirinale it seems to have been a steadily downhill trajectory!

Ash Wednesday

By almost any measure, Ash Wednesday has to be one of the most popular days in the Catholic calendar. At my former parish in midtown Manhattan, blessed ashes are given out more or less continuously all day long, beginning at the first Mass at 6:30 in the morning. It makes one wonder: what is so special about getting dirt smudged on one’s face and being told that one is going to die that seems to be such an irresistible draw?

Could it just be because it’s true!

In this “information age,” we have become accustomed to receiving all sorts information which we have no real need for and derive no real benefit from. So it may be increasingly hard for us even to imagine hearing something that really matters – let alone something that matters because it is true. In a world saturated with feel-good propaganda, partisan political ads, and outright lies, we’re finally hearing something that is true. It has to be one of the great examples of the Church’s liturgical genius that it can take something so unattractive – but so true - as our inevitable return to dust, and ritualize it so popularly – and effectively – every Lent.

Lent is the Church’s annual wake-up call to us to get reconnected and renewed. That’s what Lent is all about. One Ash Wednesday a few years ago, I overheard someone explaining Lent to his friend as “a time to get connected with ourselves.” Well, Lent is most certainly a time to renew ourselves. But we do that not by getting connected with ourselves, but by focusing on the big picture, and where we hope to be in that picture – and on the only one who can get us from here to there. Lent is our annual opportunity to reconnect with Christ – Christ tempted in the desert and victorious on the cross, Christ descended among the dead and risen to new life, Christ living at the right hand of his Father and forever present among us in his Church.

Lent is our special time to allow him to make a real difference in our lives and to be transformed by that experience, because the kingdom of God really is at hand. because that’s what our life on earth must ultimately all about.

Getting Ready for Lent

For centuries, the Pope as Bishop of Rome regularly celebrated Mass in different Roman churches on various days of the year. These days included the Sundays of Advent, Septuagesima, and Lent, the great feasts of Christmas (3 Stations), Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, the Vigils of Christmas and Pentecost, the feasts within the Christmas Octave and the days within the Octaves of Easter and Pentecost, the seasonal Ember Days, the Rogation Days, and all the weekdays of Lent. (89 Masses, if my math is correct) The Seven “Pilgrimage Churches” of Rome featured frequently among these “stations,” of course, but other churches were also included – e.g., S. Maria in Trastevere is the station for New Year’s Day. The many weekdays of Lent obviously offered an additional opportunity to include many other “ordinary’ ancient Roman churches (among them Santa Susanna, which is the stational church for the Saturday of the 3rd week of Lent).

On the day of the station, the faithful once gathered in one church and walked from there in procession to the church where the Mass was to be celebrated that day. A modern version of this is observed on Ash Wednesday, when the Pope and clergy assemble at the 19^th-century Benedictine Church of Sant’Anselmo, from which they go in procession to the 5^th century Dominican Church of Santa Sabina, the stational church for that day.

The practice died out when the Popes abandoned Rome for Avignon in the 14^th century, and was never really revived. It survived in liturgical memory, however, at least until the 1969 Reform deleted the references to the stational churches from the Missal. Often the choices of prayers and readings for some of those ancient Mass texts could be explained with reference to the station. Thus, in the old Missal, the Old Testament reading for the Saturday of the 3^rd week of Lent was the Book of Daniel’s story of Susanna – namesake of the day’s station.

Although many of those prayers and readings have been altered and rearranged and so no longer reflect their stational origin, an indulgence is still granted to those who devoutly visit the Roman Stational Church named for that day.

In recent years, there has been an adaptation of the ancient practice during Lent among some of the different language groups in Rome. Thus, the seminarians at the North American College have organized a Mass in English at that day’s ancient stational church each weekday morning of Lent. So for that part of Lent when I will still be here in Rome I hope to join this traditional Lenten pilgrimage on as many days as possible. So tomorrow for Ash Wednesday, I plan to begin my 2012 Lent by concelebrating the stational Mass at Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill at 6:45 a.m.

Ad Petri Cathedram

The Consistory festivities continued this Sunday morning with a Mass at the Papal Altar in St. Peter’s, at which the new Cardinals concelebrated with the Pope. Earlier, Santa Susanna had secured tickets for me and my former Pastor from New York to serve as ministers of Holy Communion at the Papal Mass. So once again – but this time in choir dress - we went very early to St. Peter’s. After another wait in the cold Piazza, we were admitted to the Basilica and went directly to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where we joined other priests from around the world – among them several friends from New York. While the Rosary was being recited in the Basilica before Mass, we were taken past the Altar of the Chair (illuminated for the occasion with scores of candles) to our seats just behind the Papal Altar built above the Tomb of St. Peter. Once again, the silver trumpets sounded and the Sistine Choir chanted Tu es Petrus, as the Holy Father accompanied by the 22 new Cardinals began the Mass for the (anticipated) feast of the Chair of St. Peter (transferred in Rome this year because February 22 falls on Ash Wednesday this year).

When one assists at a pontifical liturgy, it is easy to get caught up in the choreography of it all. All we ministers of Holy Communion needed to do, however, was follow a few basic instructions and otherwise go where we were told. So it was possible to enter fully in the spiritual and esthetic experience. I have to say I was really overjoyed to get to sing Credo #3 - the standard setting of the Latin chant of the Creed that we routinely used when I was growing up!

At the Preparation of the Gifts, we were each given a ciborium and took our places on either side of the altar – amazingly just a few feet from the Pope himself. Then, at Communion time, we went, each to his assigned station. After Mass, we joined the even greater throng outside in the Piazza for the Pope’s weekly Angelus message and Blessing. .

The combination of the consistory and the feast of St. Peter's Chair highlighted for me the special sense of grace I always feel in St. Peter's Basilica, the sense of being at the heart of the Church.in the proximity of St Peter's tomb and in the presence of his Successor.

All in all, this was certainly one of the most exciting, awe-inspiring Sundays of my entire life!