Toan and Thomas
Ad Jesus Per Mariam
A little summary of our version of day 3: Mr. Romano, Nick, Blaschke, Thomas, and I split from the others so we could go buy some last minute religious gifts before Pope Francis blessed us, our families, and our items at the Angelus. Afterwards, we went to get a little treat, some cannoli (Mr. Romano's treat-Thanks!) and we had a nice little chat with the Italian men next to us. One of them gave Mr. Romano the evil eye for helping me when the guy tried to test my Italian. Afterwards, we went to the Obelisk to meet up with the other group for Pope Francis' Angelus, but we found out they were in line for St. Peters. The whole time it had been raining, but it felt like a blessing from God when the rain stopped about 15 minutes before Papa Francesco came out. When the Pope came out, it was amazing. You just had to be there. Back in the states, you see on Facebook the pictures, videos, and articles about Pope Francis, but it's an entirely different thing when you see the person (even though he was the size of my fingernail). We got all our religious gifts blessed, met up with the other group and headed back. The other group split from us to go eat lunch while we headed back to Angel house to rest up.
Mr. Romano and I went to get Austin so that we could go do a holy hour. But before we left, we made sure to put Neiers' in charge to meet us at the Gesu because the whole was asleep. Mr. Romano, Austin, and I headed for the Gesu and on our way we saw ancient Roman ruins. It was really cool because they had frescos on the wall and it was like a temple of worship. When we got to the Gesu, it was locked so we had to go to the church of St. Ignatius. The churches here are in a different league from the states. They are so ornate, beautiful, big, and detailed, completely unlike back home. I headed straight for the first tabernacle I could find because finding Him exposed in the monstrance, strangely enough, is hard to do in Rome. The other group met up with us at the end of our Holy Hour and then we just explored all the side altars. I did my Holy Hour before the side altar that held the remains of St. Aloysius Gonzaga which was special because the cabin house I led for Kairos was the Gonzaga cabin. Some other Saints there were St. Robert Bellarmine and St. John Berchman. There's a lot of genuflecting when there are so many tabernacles, but before the Good Lord, how can we do anything less. One of the crazy things was the fake dome in St. Ignatius church, which Blaschke wrote about earlier. The ceiling is really flat, but when you look at it, the perspective of the painting is so ingenious it seems like a dome.
After St. Ignatius church, we headed to the Jesuit's Gesu church. It was here we got to visit the very place St. Ignatius died, the house he lived in is attached to the Gesu. Before and after Mass, we looked around a bit and saw: St. Ignatius' chair, desk, shoes, a bust of his head placed at his actual height, his chasuble, his handwriting and signature, his books, and his cabinets. We had the privilege of Fr. Johnson saying Mass for us in the room where St. Ignatius died. It was first St. Ignatius' office where he worked, but near his death it was converted to his bedroom. It was crazy to think when we looked around, "this is what St. Ignatius was looking at near his last moments." I especially remember one point during the Mass when I closed my eyes at the "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord..." and thought about the hidden reality at each Mass. That is, each Mass is heaven on earth as the Church Triumphant(all the Saints) gather with us and sing the "Holy, Holy, Holy" in communion. When I closed my eyes, in my mind, I knew interiorly St. Ignatius looked upon us with favor. At Mass, Nick did the first reading, Austin the Psalm, and Neiers did second reading where at the end he forgot to say "The Word of the Lord" and Fr. Bravo stepped in to save him.
After Mass and a short thanksgiving, we went downstairs to what Fr. Reedy and Fr. Johnson called the "laser light show with dancing Jesuits." I finally understood what they meant when 5:30 pm the statue of St. Ignatius was revealed behind this painting by a machine. A heavenly choir did Gregorian Chant while certain spotlights illuminated different things to look at with a Italian narrator. Prior to the unveiling, we looked around the Gesu to pray before a multitude of side altars that held the remains of Jesuits such as St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier's arm, and Pedro Arrupe. If you have the time, look up one of my favorite prayers written by him "Fall in Love". The first thing we did was read this prayer at the cross in Italian that Brandon translated that spoke of the 21 Coptic Christians. It was at the Gesu I finally saw Jesus exposed in a monstrance, it was beautiful. It was a moment where I said to Jesus "You weren't lying were you. I sought You and I finally found You. I knocked and You opened the door. Thank You so much and I love You."
After the great unveiling, a few pictures, and a lot of genuflecting, I lead the rest of the group upstairs to a hidden place. The staircase was spiral and the first time I went up alone, I felt as if the stairs were never ending. It felt twice the length it took to get to the third floor of the STEM building. When we got there we saw part of the real cross that St. Ignatius actually prayed before. It was a 2nd class relic and so we did something insane. We got all of our religious gifts out of our backpacks and started touching all our gifts to the 2nd class with the intention of making our gifts a 3rd class relic. After realizing it was okay we moved explored the rest of the room that was dedicated specifically to Mary. It had all these ornate chasubles used for the Latin Mass and even the chair of the Pope(Pope Francis doesn't want to sit in a chair because he wants to be simple). Behind the big statue of Mary was a reliquary that held all these Saints' body part/belongings. One of the crazy things that I saw was what was believed to be the true cross that Jesus died on and part of the lance that pierced His side, along with one thorn from the crown. When we finished, we walked down the staircase. It felt like the stairway was leading us straight to hell because it was so far (joking!).
When we left the Gesu, we went to buy groceries and brought them home. We departed again to the pizzeria we ate on the first night with Fr. Reedy and we had a great time. Mr. Romano even ran into someone he knew who is now visiting his seminarians in Rome as the vocation director of Dallas. Fr. Bravo calls Sunday night at that place "clergy night" because we had, I believe, over 13 priests were present to eat. We ended the day with night prayer with our house and Fr. Bravo, Patrick, Austin, Martin, and Blaschke, and all headed home.
Written on Day 4:
Thanks be to God for the wonderful day. Today in Assisi I lit a candle next to the very cross(San Damiano) St. Francis of Assisi heard Christ speak to him from for all my friends, family, and those that support us. You are constantly in our prayers. May God bless you for all you are doing. Please pray that we don't experience anymore rain. And a huge, huge, huge, huge thanks to Mr. Chris Gattis for all that he did for us so that Asssis would go smoothly. Please offer up a prayer for him as well. Thank you and Deo Gratias.
Humbly yours,
Toan
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