Life's a Happy Song

+JMJ+
Once again, I am way overdue for a blog post.  I just can't seem to keep up these days!

On Friday, after I walked around the villa taking pictures, I went with a group of my classmates to the apparition site of Our Lady of Divine Revelation and Tre Fontane.  It so happened that Friday was the 66th anniversary of when Mary appeared to Bruno, a strongly anti-Catholic fascist.  Bruno hated the Catholic Church so much that he dreamed of killing the pope.  On April 12, 1947, Bruno brought his three young children to the park across from Tre Fontane to play while he wrote a speech that denounced many of the truths held by the Catholic Church, including Mary's perpetual virginity and her assumption into heaven.  While he was working, he heard his children saying, "beautiful lady."  He thought it was a game, went to check on them, and found them praying.  Our Lady of Divine Revelation had revealed herself to them; they could see her.  Then, she revealed herself to Bruno, told him he was persecuting her, and said "Enough!"  Bruno conversed with Mary for about and hour and converted to the Catholic faith after this encounter.  The apparition is in the midst of the official approval process as far as where it stands in view of the Church.  I don't know a lot about it, this is just a recapitulation of what I was told.  I would encourage you to look into it more, I know I plan to!  Anyway, we went to the apparition site, having found out just the day before that it was the anniversary of the apparition, not knowing what time Mass was.  Right when we showed up, they were starting a rosary (there were TONS of people there), and we found out that Mass was going to start in an hour.  As if that weren't enough wonderfulness, we found an English-speaking sister we knew that is part of the religious community attached to the apparition.  Perfect!  A cardinal came to say Mass.  Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins is the man who was the head of the congregation for the causes of canonization of saints.  He was head of this important committee during the time when major saints, such as St. Edith Stein, St. Faustina, St. Padre Pio, St. Josemaria Escriva (YES!), and Blessed Mother Teresa, were canonized/beatified.  I believe that the site has been visited by a couple popes and that Bl. Pope John Paul II blessed a few statues of the Virgin of Divine Revelation.  But anyway, Cardinal said Mass.  We visited the grotto where Mary appeared after Mass.  All around the grotto there was a wall covered in plaques giving thanks to Mary for her intercession.  It was so beautiful.   Being there was such a blessing!

Afterwards, we visited Tre Fontane, the church across the street built over the place of St. Paul's beheading.  It was especially great to go there after studying the epistles of St. Paul all semester.  It's called Tre Fontane because when St. Paul was beheaded, his head bounced three times.  In each spot that his head bounced, a fountain sprung up.  The church that stands there today was built over these three fountains.  The pillar at which Paul was beheaded is in the Church too.

Saturday was a great day.  I don't have time to go into too much detail.  Our professor took us to the Etruscan tombs, one of the oldest things in Italy at about 3,000 years old.  It was the most beautiful day we could have asked for.  The tombs were peaceful and lovely.  They were fun to explore!

After the tombs, we headed to the beach!  It was definitely one of the most fun beach trips I've ever been on.  We started out just walking on the edge of the water and ended up going swimming.  We sat on the rocks in the sun to dry off a bit afterwards while we ate chocolate and chatted.  It was beautiful.  I'm so thankful for my friendships I've made this semester!

I have to get up in five and a half hours to walk all over Rome for the Seven Pilgrimage-Churches walk.  There are seven pilgrimage churches in Rome, and tomorrow a group of my classmates and I are walking to all of them.  More on this later.

Lastly, I am not sure when the next time I'll have internet will be.  After tomorrow, I'll be up in the mountains in Turin for a few days, and I'm not exactly sure what my situation will be when I come back to Rome. So, who knows when the next blog update will be?  It may be when I'm back in the States!  I'm all packed and ready to go (I had to check out of my room today).  Let the final adventures begin!

All packed up...not ready to go