Shampoo

+JMJ+
Today:
-Sleeping in! (until 7:50am...this is a big deal)
-Class
-Run errands, like checking churches for Easter Vigil times and picking up papal mass tickets.  Best errands ever.
-Go to the library for a few hours, during which I created this!  It is not finished yet...stay tuned.
-Meet friends to meet up with a priest from Peru for Mass and a meditation to kick off the Triduum
-Priest offers us coffee, tea, and cookies.  We accept and stay and chat for a while.
-Late dinner over a meditation
-Got my camera in the mail!!

Ok, now I must go to bed so that I can get up in the morning for the Chrism Mass with Pope Francis.

and MY FAMILY IS COMING TOMORROW!  Everyone, get excited.

Serious Teeter Totter Business

+JMJ+
While I do my homework, please enjoy these pictures of me teeter tottering early this morning.

Note: I bet if you click on the first one then scroll through them fast enough, the pictures will work like a flip book...just a thought.

Palm Sunday with Papa

+JMJ+
Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of holy week.  I was, once again, incredibly blessed to go to Mass in St. Peter's Square with Pope Francis.  A group of seven of us left the villa at 6am, which felt like sleeping in compared to last Mass's 5am leave time.  We didn't arrive nearly as early, but, to my surprise, there was only a small crowd gathered by the entrance.  Our group got split up when they opened the gates.  You have to understand that when they open the gates for a papal event, they are trying to send hundreds, if not thousands of people through about five or six metal detectors.  It's hilarious.  Imagine a giant funnel full of eager catholics bursting at the seams to to flow through the tiny hole in the bottom of the funnel to get into St. Peter's square, and you basically understand how the process goes.  There is much jumbling that goes on in the process.

I did manage to stay with one of the people from my group, so we ended up sitting together right along the middle aisle where the priests, deacons, bishops, cardinals, and Pope Francis would process in and out.  AND we could see the altar which meant we were also able to see the Mass being celebrated.  That spot was such generous a gift from God!!  Pope Francis passed us twice at the beginning of Mass and again after Mass.

Priests processing in 

Bishops processing in

Cardinals processing in

Pope Francis processing in!

I was able to take this picture from my spot!!!!  We were so close!!

Waiting to see if Papa will drive by after Mass.  My palm was taller than I am!

Swiss guard preparing the way for Pope Francis to pass by

In his homily, Pope Francis focused on three words: joy, cross, and youth.  His words were simple and straightforward, powerful and challenging.  Here a couple highlights from his homily, but you can (and should!) read the whole homily if you have three minutes or so.

And here the first word that I wish to say to you: joy!  Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad!  Never give way to discouragement!  Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst; it is born from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them!

Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection.  This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the Cross.  Christ’s Cross embraced with love never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death. 

The pope traditionally addresses the youth in particular on Palm Sunday.  Pope Francis continued this tradition.  He reminded the youth of their unique and important role in the Church and asked them to spiritually prepare for World Youth Day in Rio this summer.

You [young people] have an important part in the celebration of faith!  You bring us the joy of faith and you tell us that we must live the faith with a young heart, always: a young heart, even at the age of seventy or eighty.  Dear young people!  With Christ, the heart never grows old!

After Mass, we returned to the villa to find the religious brothers we share our campus with having a party!  And by party, I mean a huge catered lunch in the extensive backyard with 300 people and Lebanese music playing over a loud speaker.  They invited us to join!  I was only to happy to accept their generous invitation.  I ate delicious food, chatted with friends, and played soccer with one of the Italian boys there.  He was probably ten or eleven years old and he totally destroyed me.  I didn't expect anything less; Italians live and breath soccer from birth.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing homework and studying in great company.  Another full, beautiful day in Roma!

Cafes, and Catacombs, and Caves, Oh My!

+JMJ+
Where have I been the past two days?  Not out of the country (Italy, that is), not doing anything (unusually) extraordinarily exciting.  I've been sleeping.  With a full eight hours of sleep two nights in a row, there hasn't been much time for blogging, but I am recharged and ready for holy week!  Let's go!

But first, let me catch you up.  Oh my goodness, I just checked my last post and I've got four days to cover.  Here we go.

Wednesday
Wednesday was a day of classes and studying.  I spent the morning in class and studying.  After lunch, I walked around our neighborhood and discovered a church that has adoration practically all day long!  That was exciting.  Then, I had class again in the evening, dinner, and I don't remember anything after that.  I have a lot of end-of-the-semester papers and projects coming up that were assigned Wednesday.

Thursday
On Thursday, we had class at the church St. Agnes Outside the Walls.  The church was built over St. Agnes' tomb.  Agnes was a young girl, 12 or 13 years old, when she was martyred for her Christian faith.  Because of this, St. Agnes Outside the Walls has always been a church that young people like to come to.    We walked from this church to Santa Costanza, one of the few (if not the only), round churches in Rome.  It's round because it was built as a mausoleum for the daughter of the emperor Constantine, who wanted to be buried near the tomb of St. Agnes.  This church is surrounded by a lot of ruins of the original basilica.  The ruins now have grass growing in them and are open on top; they've been converted into a park.  When we were there, there were little kids running around and playing in the ruins.  The contrast between the 1700 year old ruins and the little kids climbing on top of them that day was striking and beautiful.

After our class in the morning, two of my classmates and I met with our theology professor.  We went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant with him.  It was really random, but fun!  It was so nice that he was willing, to take that time out of his day to talk with us, listen, answer questions, and eat Chinese.

After lunch, we walked from the Chinese restaurant up Via Garibaldi (near Piazza Garibaldi).  This is one of the spots in Rome that you can look out from and see the whole city!  My companions and I sat on the ledge for a while, sometimes talking, sometimes just looking our in silence and awe.  The weather was perfect and the scene was beautiful!  I had a letter to mail that I had forgotten about, so after we had gazed our fill, two of us traipsed back down the Via Garibaldi to St. Peter's Square so I could buy a stamp and mail my letter.  Done!

We wandered around the St. Peter's area for a while.  We ended up finding a grocery store we had been looking for for about a month.  We also found a beautiful Gothic style Dominican church.  We went in and stumbled upon what we came to conclude must be a second wedding.  The church was set up for a wedding, but there weren't many people attending, there were no kids, the couple looked older, and the bride was wearing a sparkly blue-green formal gown, not a wedding dress.  Still, it was exciting!

I came back to the villa, had dinner, and was in bed by 10pm.

Friday
I had every intention of getting up to go to the station Mass in the morning, but I slept right through my alarm.  Instead, I had a leisurely breakfast then headed down to the cafe down the hill and around the corner for some coffee and studying!  It was a most lovely morning.

After lunch, a big group of us had planned on going to Castel Gandolfo, where the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, is staying right now.  However,  a wrench was thrown into our plans: there was a public transportation strike on Friday.  Now, this does not mean that none of the busses run at all.  It means that random busses will run at random times and you can't count on anything.  Having already made the plans for the trip, we decided to attempt it anyway.  We got as far as the metro (one bus ride), only to find out that the metro was included in the strike: it wasn't running.  Castel Gandolfo would have to wait for another day.

Instead, a group went to a small park nearby, while another group of us (myself included) ventured off to find the Spanish Steps, even with the strike going on.  Sure enough, we did make it to the Spanish Steps, but not without taking an irregular rout and doing a little extra walking.  Still, it was great!  We went to the John Keats memorial house, right next to the Spanish Steps, walked to Piazza del Popolo, walked through Villa Borghese, then hopped on a bus back to the villa.  This was also unreliable, but we did make it back eventually.

After dinner, I was so tired the only thing I could do was curl up in a ball on my bed; this is how I went to sleep that night.

Saturday
Time for today!  I DID wake up in time for the station Mass today, even without an alarm clock.  The Lord knew I could handle it after I'd slept so much.  The station Mass this morning was at a church built on the site where St. John the Evangelist's attempted martyrdom is said to have taken place.  In other words, this church was built on the spot where they tried to fry St. John in a boiling pot of oil, but they could not hurt him; he didn't die, by the grace of God!

After Mass, a group of about eight of us took a bus to Subiaco.  Subiaco is the town near the cave where St. Benedict spent three years of his life away from the world in prayer.  We hiked up the path the the monastery that is now built over/around the cave where St. Benedict stayed.  When we got there, a wedding was going on in the chapel.  Best wedding-crashing opportunity ever.  It was great.  Because the wedding was going on, the regular chapel was closed to tourists, but the monks had opened a part of the monastery that was usually closed.  Awesome!  And we still got to see the regular sanctuary after the wedding ended.  It was a win win situation.  At the monastery, we saw the oldest known painting of St. Francis, that was probably painted while St. Francis was still alive.  We also saw the exact spot where St. Benedict lived in his cave and prayed.  There were beautiful frescos on the walls everywhere and the outside of the grounds were beautiful as well.  Until I have time to add pictures, this link will give you some pictures and more info about the place (I think, to be honest, I haven't read it).

Upon returning to the villa (Subiaco is about a half an hour on the metro and an hour on the bus), I was exhausted.  BUT I knew I had a lot of work to do, so I decided to break out my hammock and read for the hour before dinner.  That was a great decision.  While I was reading in my hammock, a fox (I think it was the same one) approached me three times and I had to shoo it away every time!  It was weird.

After dinner and some fun social time in the common room, I am exhausted and ready for bed!  I have to get up early again tomorrow to go to Palm Sunday Mass with Pope Francis.  More on that tomorrow.  Until then, ciao!!!

(also, I will do my best to add pictures soon)

Rome: It's a Party Everyday

+JMJ+
I've gotten a little behind on blogging.  Time to play some catch up!

Let's talk about Monday, if I can remember.  It's amazing how much happens in just one day here.  The day began as a typical day of classes, a good day.  As the day progressed, it got less and less typical and more and more exciting!  After class, I bought a plane ticket to Milan for the end of the semester!  I'm going with a small group of students to spend a day in Milan and then a few days at Blessed Pier Georgio Frassatti's house, hiking in the mountains!  That was the first unplanned exciting event of the day.

What else exciting and unplanned happened on Monday?  We got invited to go to the Polish pilgrim house in Rome to meet Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the current archbishop of Krakow, who was the personal secretary of Blessed Pope John Paul II!  We also got to attend Mass while we were there.  After Mass, a sister gave us a tour of the pilgrim house.  The house is dedicated to Blessed John Paul II and had many of his personal items, gifts, and notes on display.  What a surprise blessing!

Sister, giving us a tour of the pilgrim house 

Collection of ALL of Blessed John Paul II's writings.  There was also a library that held the books John Paul II would reference when writing encyclicals.  Some of these had personal notes from John Paul II written in them.

Take a moment to guess what this is.  Hint: it was a gift to Blessed John Paul II from a dentist.  Give up?  It's a violin made out of retainer plastic!!  I think this wins the prize for most random gift EVER. 

The chapel

Blessed John Paul II's papal snow boots

Monday turned out to be a pretty exciting day, a precursor to the excitement to come on Tuesday: the installation Mass of Pope Francis!!  Our professor was so good as to replace class with attending Mass. I considered sleeping outside near St. Peter's square because from what I'd heard, my chances of getting into the actual square for Mass were slim.  It was raining and icky though, so I opted for my nice, warm, dry bed.  I hopped out of bed at ten 'til 5am and was on my way to the bus stop by 5:10am.  The bus to St. Peter's was supposed to come at 5:30, but we (two other students and I) wanted to go down early, just in case.  Thank goodness we did.  As we were still approaching the bus stop, we saw the bus pulling up at 5:15!!  We all made a mad dash across the street for the bus (thank Mary for protecting us from traffic!) and hopped on the bus!  AMAZING.  Our timing could not have been more perfect.  Because no one knew the bus was leaving early, it only had to stop at one or two of the usual stops along the way.  The rout that would typically take us about 45 minutes we travelled in a mere 15 minutes!  We were in line by 5:30.  This was a miracle.

Right after we got in line, all smiles!

Looking ahead in line

The line moved!!  Approaching St. Peter's, early morning

Sunrise, looking out from St. Peter's Square 

As if that weren't enough, some of our classmates who had a ride to the square in a car showed up with coffee and pastries for all of us.  Around this time, we also overheard a guard saying that everyone in line where we were would get into the square.  With pastries and a spot in the square for Mass, I couldn't have been happier.

Some of my lovely classmates, enjoying our time in line for Mass

We made it!!  And even found each other!!

Or so I thought.  The Lord decided to be even more generous though!  Not only did our group get a spot in the square; we got a spot that was as close as you could possibly be to the front without being a clergy member or visiting dignitary!  Unbelievable!

My view from my spot in the square.  Like I said, only the priests and seminarians were in front of us!

Our spot was also close to the guard rail.  Guess who happened to drive by at close proximity...

Hello, Papa Francesco!!

On Tuesday, the Catholic Church celebrated the feast of St. Joseph.  The pope spoke a lot about him in his homily during the Mass.  Here is a short quote from it:

"Here I would add one more thing: caring, protecting, demands goodness; it calls for a certain tenderness. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man, yet in his heart we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!" - Pope Francis

You can read the full text of his homily here.
Here are some more pictures from the Mass.  (I'm not positive this link will work, let me know if it doesn't!)

After Mass, we celebrated with lunch in Trastevere, a "neighborhood"/area of Rome, a short walk from the Vatican.  Then, it was time to hit the books!  I had a paper due today that still needed a good amount of work yesterday, so I packed up and headed to cafe around the corner from our villa.  I'm a regular there by now.  Since it was the feast of St. Joseph, I treated myself to a St. Joseph cake, a special cream filled pastry Italians make to celebrate St. Joseph's feast day.  Yum!!

My St. Joseph cake

It was such beautiful day, in every way.  Deo Gratias!!

Olive grove at the villa

Buongiorno, Papa Francesco!

+JMJ+
Happy Sunday from Roma!

Today, I went to Mass at St. Peter's, participated in the angelus with Pope Francis, shopped at the market, did homework at a cafe, wandered around the St. Peter's area, and went out to dinner with all of my classmates.

It was so wonderful to see Pope Francis today!  When he addressed the crowd, it seemed so personal.  He was very adamant and passionate about the message of God's forgiveness and mercy he gave to the enormous crowd gathered in St. Peter's square.  I was very close, right by the fountain closest to Pope Francis' window!  It was so crowded that I felt like I was constantly being hugged by the entire Church!

While wandering around this evening, I happened upon adoration going on in Santo Spirito, a church near St. Peter's devoted to the Divine Mercy and Blessed John Paul II.  The church was full!  Everyone was praying the rosary and divine mercy chaplet in Italian.  It was fun!

Yesterday, I stayed at the villa or the coffee bar near the villa studying all day, except for one quick trip to St. Peter's for Mass.  There's still so much to do after spending a week away from everything in Poland and then the election of Pope Francis!  So now I must get back to work (or to bed!)

Ciao!

Work station set up at the coffee bar.  They gave me a little pastry:)

First letter sent from Roma!  (Sorry everyone else, yours may eventually be sent too...

Lovely day at the villa

My Practically Perfect Day

+JMJ+
Today was practically perfect in every way!!!  It was the most beautiful spring day, definitely the nicest since I've been here in Rome.  It also happened to be my 20th birthday.

Sunrise on the way to Mass at St. Peter's

I was out of the villa all day today, from 6:30am to 10:30pm!  Livin' it up!  I went to Mass at St. Peter's this morning.  God even provided a priest who was celebrating the Mass in English!

After Mass, I went to the 30-cent pastry shop and got a croissant and caffe macchiato for less than one euro.  And it was delicious.  Now that's the way to do it.

The thirty-cent pastry shop is conveniently located right next to the metro, which I then took to the Villa Borghese.  The Villa Borghese is the art collection of the (super wealthy) Borghese family that has been turned into a museum.  The Villa Borghese has extensive grounds which have been turned into a public park.  I love this place.  Conveniently, it was on the way to my destination...but before we get to that, check out some pictures of the park from this morning:

My intended destination was...(drum roll please)...the tomb of St. Josemaria Escriva in the church Santa Maria della Pace!!!!  I got there all by myself and only got disoriented twice throughout the whole adventure.  If you know me, you know that's impressive.  Also, the map on my phone, which requires internet connection to work, randomly started working exactly at the time I got disoriented!  Thank You, Jesus, for that little miracle!  Thank God for miraculous internet hotspots...He can be so practical.

Santa Maria della Pace does not look like a church from the outside; the only way I could tell I was at the right place was by the address on the side of what appeared to be just another residential building.  Thankfully, looks can be deceiving.  Once inside (it was locked and no one there spoke English, but by the grace of God I was able to communicate enough to get me inside), I was led downstairs to a beautiful underground chapel made almost entirely out of marble.  It was so cool!!!  St. Josemaria's body was there, entombed under the altar.  It was so special and such grace for me to be there to pray and give thanks for the gift of St. Josemaria's life.

Tomb of St. Josemaria Escriva (silver coffin under altar)

After my visit to St. Josemaria's tomb, I headed out to meet my classmates for lunch in Trastevere...and I got lost, and ended up missing a little (big!) surprise they had put together for me.  I felt really bad when I found that out later, I still do.  Mea culpa!

After getting lost, I eventually found my way back to Villa Borghese and decided since I had already missed the meeting time for lunch and the day was so lovely that I would just take a stroll through the park, which I did.  Such a good decision.  I passed a playground and decided that swinging was very important, even for 20 year olds, so I swung for a good five minutes.

Me, swinging

Aleteia had a group saying the the rosary again in St. Peter's Square on Italian TV.  I decided to jump in on that, I mean why not, right?  Well, let me just say I never ever thought I would be singing kumbaya on the steps of St. Peter's on Italian TV.  Moving on...

Group gathering to pray the rosary

From St. Peter's, I met up with my RD and two of my classmates.  We headed over to the Missionaries of Charity's homeless shelter for men to help prepare, serve, and clean up dinner.  Two of the men there are Polish, so we sang them a Polish song we learned on our Poland pilgrimage.  They LOVED it.

After volunteering with the sisters, we went to stations of the Cross at the NAC.  From there, I came back to the villa, where I found my bed covered in flowers and cookies.  So went the practically perfect day.  Deo gratias!!!

Sunset skyline seen from the bus in Piazza Garibaldi

My birthday surprise from my classmates!