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