The Day After

+JMJ+
Things I did the day after Pope Francis was elected:

• Visit Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where there are relics of the Passion of Christ.  Also, the church is built on dirt from Jerusalem.
• Visit St. John Lateran, where the popes lived for 1,000 years before they moved to St. Peter's
• Visit the Holy Stairs--the stairs from the palace of Pontius Pilate, which Jesus would have climbed at least twice during His passion
• Was taken to lunch with my classmates by our program director, who bought us delicious kebabs (the Roman equivalent of a gyro)
• Was interviewed by EWTN on the roof of a building (you might see me if you watch EWTN at 10pm tonight)
• Went to Mass at St. Peter's and heard Pope Francis' name in the Eucharistic prayer for the first time ever!  IN ST. PETER'S!
• Bought a papal paper from the vatican press

I will now go to bed.

(my picture-uploader is still not functional, will be fixed by tomorrow!  It's only my lack of effort to fix it, not a real problem, no worries)

HABEMUS PAPAM!!!

+JMJ+
HELLO!!!  I AM SO EXCITED THAT I WANT TO TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS BUT I REALIZE THAT IS ANNOYING SO I WILL STOP now.  But seriously, I am so excited!!!  We have a new pope!  And I was there!!!

The timing was divinely worked out; I couldn't have planned it better myself.   I mean, really, I was in Poland this morning and in Rome in St. Peter's square for the white smoke tonight!  Let me tell you how it all happened.

I left Poland this morning at 9:00am.  I landed in Rome around 11:00am, just about the time of the cardinals' second morning vote.  The plan was to have our driver change his course from the villa to St. Peter's if we heard there was white smoke while we were in the car.  So, we all waited.  The cab was practically silent, only an occasional anxious comment here and there, as our RD listened to the radio on her phone and relayed the information to us.  Suspense was in the air!  Finally, black smoke.  So, we went back to the villa to unpack from Poland and have some lunch before heading out to St. Peter's for the afternoon round of votes.

After lunch, my RD and one of my classmates and I went out early, planning to use the time before the voting to get some homework done in a library right by St. Peter's.  Well, it was a nice thought.  We were all so excited that we couldn't concentrate on homework; instead, we spent some time praying for the cardinals and the future pope among them in St. Peter's and drinking hot chocolate in the cafe of the library we had intended to study in.  A little after 5pm, we went out into St. Peter's square to begin the smoke watch.  It was cold and rainy.  The square was already crowded, filled with people waiting to see the smoke.  We prayed a rosary for the cardinals and the future pope.  Then, we waited, and waited, and waited some more.  6:10pm came around.  A church nearby St. Peter's had Mass at 6:30pm.  It was risky; we were nervous about missing the smoke and the new pope if we went, but we decided to go anyway.  Thank You, Jesus, for inspiring us to do so!  It could not have worked out more perfectly.

So, we went to Mass at 6:30pm.  Mass ended around 7:18pm.  As soon as we walked out of the church around 7:20pm, what did we hear?  Bells.  St. Peter's bells.  Now, the area we were in was not very crowded.  Corinne and Mary and I all look at each other, all of us asking the same question: Is that it?  Are those the bells?  Is there white smoke?  Do we have a Pope?!?  There was a lady next to us outside of the church talking on her phone.  Right as we were asking these questions, she was saying, "Habemus papam!!  Habemus papam!!!!!" which means, "We have a pope!  We have a pope!!!!!"

What did we do when we heard that?  We ran.  We RAN from where we were to St. Peter's square.  It didn't even take us five minutes, at least, it didn't feel like it did.  It was so dramatic.  We were running through the streets with cries of "Habemus papam!!!" and shouts of joy.  I had anticipated this moment so much!  I was so ready for it!  (The running was probably a good outlet for all of my anticipation; otherwise, I may have just exploded or who knows what...)  Anyway, when we were running, it was like everything was in slow motion.  We got to a point where there were barriers up.  The police were guarding them.  There was one barrier left unguarded; it was a now or never moment.  My RD jumped it first, I followed; my classmate behind me was the last one to get through before the guards stopped people from jumping over.  Her sleeves barely escaped his grasp!  Like I said, so dramatic!  So intense!!

I had a great spot in the square, right in the middle, right before the colonnades start.  I could see the window where the pope would appear for the first time as pope and I could see him when he did!  Since it was rainy, most people had umbrellas up, which greatly obstructed the view.  Once again, Divine Providence provided; the rain stopped right before the pope came out, so there were no umbrellas to obstruct anyone's view.  Thank you Jesus and Mary!  When the rain stopped, the sky cleared, the air was still, and we could see one star in the sky.  Perfect.  The whole world was ready to meet the new pope, and I could feel it!

I was right in the middle, in front of the window the pope came out at, about the same distance back as the screen you see here on the left

The cardinal came out and said the long awaited, much anticipated phrase, "Habemus papam."  I had only dreamed of hearing that in real life before this moment.  After the cardinal announced the name, nationality, and new name of the cardinal who had been elected, a giant game of Catholic telephone took place.  No one around me heard clearly what the cardinal had said due to the excitement in the square; all around me, people were trying to figure out which cardinal it was exactly, where he was from, and what name he chose.  Finally, after less than a minute, we had deduced that an Argentinian cardinal had been elected and that he had taken the name Papa Francesco, Pope Francis.

While we were waiting, we were able to pray for him more.  The time between being elected and making the first public appearance is usually a very difficult time for the new pope.  The weight of the responsibility is unimaginable.  The moment he came out, I could not contain my excitement and love.  I really couldn't (see pictures of facial expressions).  I cheered, laughed, prayed, sang, screamed, anything I could do to show my love for the new Pope Francis.  Oh my goodness, I get chills just thinking about it now!

This is how I remember him most from being there tonight; a simple wave, a slight smile.

His greeting was so simple, so humble, so beautiful.  He showed a lot of love to the city of Rome (as he is now also Bishop of Rome) and a great humility to the world when he asked everyone to pray a simple "Our Father," "Hail Mary," and "Glory Be," for him.  It was so exciting to be in the square when he gave his first blessing as pope, and a plenary indulgence!  Here is a translation of the message he gave to the world from St. Peter's square tonight.

After Pope Francis' address, my classmates and I sang, cheered, and moved out, practically carried by the huge mob.  We all celebrated with gelato, then came back to the villa, had a late dinner, then each went off to his or her way of sharing tonight's experience.  I called my family right away, then wrote this blog post.  I hope you enjoyed it!  I'm sorry it's so inadequate; these things simply cannot be conveyed through words alone!

P.S. I can't get my pictures to load right now, so the ones I have are borrowed.   I will put mine up ASAP!

And in case you were wondering, Polish pilgrimage posts will be coming soon!
I am legitimately falling asleep at my computer now; time for bed.

Pray for Pope Francis!!!  Our Father...Hail Mary...Glory Be....+JMJ+

Back to Normal...

+JMJ+
For the first time in a while, I had a pretty normal day...well, if you consider touring catacombs and an afternoon at St. Peter's normal, that is.

By the grace of God, I got up at 5:20am this morning to make it to the station Mass!  Yay!  The station church this morning was San Pudentiana.  Yes, I did have to look up the name of it just now.  I don't really know anything about him/her, nor have I taken time to read about the church, but you can check it out here!  Maybe I will too...ok I just watched this 2 minute and 51 second video on the church of San Pudentia.  It's not the best video, pretty cheesy, questionable video quality, but it's alright.  From it, I learned that tradition holds the church to be built on the site of a Roman nobleman's house where Peter stayed.

Main altar in the church of Saint Pudentiana

After coffee with one of my classmate's, we met up with the rest of our class for a tour of the San Callisto catacombs!!   The tour was fairly short, but very good.  We saw the spot where Pope Sixtus II was celebrating Mass when he was martyred and the place where St. Cecilia was buried!  In these catacombs, which span 30 miles, were buried an estimated half a million Christians.  Some of them were martyrs, but not all.  Sixteen of them were popes!!  We weren't allowed to take pictures, so here's a couple from Google:

Area called the "little Vatican," where 9 popes were buried

Tomb of St. Cecilia (where the statue of her body is)

After our tour of the catacombs, we headed over to the basilica of St. Sebastian.  The catacombs of St. Sebastian are right next to the San Callisto catacombs, and the San Sebastian Basilica is right next to those.  It's one of the seven pilgrimage churches in Rome!

After that, a few of us decided, hey, why not hit up a couple more of the pilgrimage churches while we're at it?  So we walked to Santa Croce, where they have a collected a number of relics associated with the passion of Christ, and to Santa Maria Maggiore.  Both churches had adoration going on, which was such a special gift!

I pretty much went and chilled at St. Peter's, inside and outside, for the rest of the afternoon.  I like it there very much.

Tomorrow, the priest who is on EWTN's "Life on the Rock" is coming to our Villa to sit in on our classes, have lunch with us, do some interviews, and film some footage.  I'm not sure why, but it's exciting!  More about that tomorrow.  Ciao!!

A Venetian Vacation

+JMJ+
Ok, now on to Venice!!

What my plan was for the 45 minute train ride in the morning:

Reading, journaling, rosary

In reality, I french braided my friends' hair and just stared out the window the whole time with an expression on my face comparable to this:

The constant expression on my face all day

When we arrived in Venice, we stepped of the train to this:

Water taxi station right outside of the train station

No cars, no bikes even.  Just boats and gondolas on waterways where you would imagine streets would  be.  It looked like this:

After wondering around for a bit, we ran into a market.  A fish market.  A fresh fish market.  It was so cool!  Busy and bustling with customers of all ages!  You could even watch the fishermen pulling out what they had just caught and cleaning the fish.  Take a look:

These little things were still alive and this little girl was fascinated!  She kept poking them and eventually picked one up!  Too cute.

After the market, we wandered some more!  We wandered a lot, the city was very difficult to navigate. We headed in the general direction of St. Mark's church.  Along the way, we enjoyed sights and stopped in lots of little shops.  There were hat shops, mask shops, and glass shops everywhere!  Everything was very expensive, so we mostly just window shopped.

An authentic fountain pen shop window display

Artist in action!  

Street musician

We finally made it to St. Mark's!  St. Mark the Evangelist (author of the Gospel of Mark) is buried there.  However, you have to pay to go up close to his tomb (NOT OK), so we just prayed while looking on from afar.  Praise God that the adoration chapel was free to get into though.  Inside the basilica, the walls were covered from floor to ceiling in gold mosaics!! Photography wasn't allowed inside, so here's a picture from Google.  I did take the picture from outside though, complete with scaffolding.

St. Mark's Basilica

Inside

Next, we did one of my favorite things of the whole trip...I FED PIGEONS ON MY ARMS!!!  And yes, I did sing "Tuppence a bag..." like the bird lady in Mary Poppins.  It was great.  Hopefully pictures will be coming soon....

This was practically me.

From there, we wondered for a long time in search of an affordable place for lunch.  Let me tell you, in Venice, that is easier said than done!  We wondered for a LONG time.  Just when we were about to give up, we came across a place that would seat us at a nice table and give us a three course meal AND bread for only 10.50 euro!  For Venice, that's amazing.  It's not even that bad in general.  We had a lovely lunch there.  Our waiter spoke English and joked around with us, which was nice.  He said he had lived in Venice for 15 years and couldn't stand it.  I guess it would be a hard city to live in long term.  You can't walk two steps without running into a vendor or some sort or touristy thing, and the whole city shuts down by 9:00pm.  I hope we made his day a little better.

We walked through every part of Venice that you can possibly walk through (which is most of Venice)!  We stopped in churches (that were free to enter) throughout the day.  Other than that, we pretty much just enjoyed the atmosphere.  Here's a few glances:

I sure you're wandering, "What about those gondolas that are so famous with a man in a striped shirt who sings to you while he rows the beautiful boat through Venice?"  Well, those are quite pricey.  We opted for the cheaper option, even cheaper than the day pass for the water taxi.  We paid 2 euro each for a two minute ride stuffed in a gondola with a bunch of strangers.  It. was. AWESOME.  It may not have been much, but we enjoyed all 120 seconds of it!

The fancy gondola and gondola man we couldn't afford

The cheapo 2 minute gondola ride we could afford 

Our gondola man

Our day ended the perfect way: with Mass at St. Mark's Basilica.  So perfect.

After another great night's sleep, we arrived safe and sound back in Rome sweet Rome Sunday morning, leaving ample time for homework and studying for our theology midterm.  I am amazed and thankful that everything went so smoothly!  Two more days, then, if all goes as planned, I'll be off to Poland!  Stay tuned!  

A Lovely Day in Padua

+JMJ+
It's Sunday night here in Roma.  I returned to the eternal city this morning from a lovely weekend spent in Padua and Venice.

Piazza in front of St. Anthony's Basilica in Padua

A canal in Venice

I spent Friday in Padua and Saturday in Venice.  I'll take you through both of my days and try to add fun little details that you might not come across if you just Google "day in Venice".  Get excited!

I got up at 4:15am on Friday to catch my flight into Venice.  I don't even know what time my flight actually left, I just know I had to be in a cab by 5am.  It really is a miracle that I made it.  Thanks, guardian angel! 

The flight went smoothly, so far so good.  In 45 minutes we were landing in Venice!  (here "we" refers to myself and the four other girls I went with)  From the airport we hopped on a bus to Padua, about an hour's drive from Venice.  We stayed at a place run by missionaries to Africa.  I have no idea why they are where they are or what they do, but the brothers were very nice and gave us rooms (they even had showers!) for only 15 euro a night!  Score!

We bought our food at a cheapo grocery store to save money.  We packed a picnic and had a lovely lunch of cheese, pesto, bread, and fruit in a beautiful park.  I had never had pesto before I came to Italy.  It's pretty common over here and super delicious.  It was the best lunch ever!  We had so much fun!

By the time we had dropped our backpacks off, gone grocery shopping, and had our picnic, it was siesta time.  In other words, everything was closed, most importantly all the churches we wanted to go into.  This gave us the opportunity to wander around all of Padua for a couple hours.  It was great!  We were hoping to rent bikes for the day since it turns out that pretty much everyone in Padua and their brother bikes to get around, but that didn't end up working out.  We stopped by a market set up in the middle of a piazza and did some shopping, then meandered our way towards St. Anthony's Basilica.  On the way, we enjoyed the quaint little town.  Padua is by no means a little village, but it is definitely stepping away from the crowded business of Rome.  I discovered apple gelato that was "all natural."  It tasted like applesauce gelato-ized!!  My mouth is watering just recalling it...mmmmm.  We came to the main piazza in Padua in front of St. Anthony's Basilica and took a stroll through it.  It was big and open and beautiful!  Padua was a day of some great quality time with my classmates.  Such a gift!

We had time before Mass to stop in a church that was next to the basilica.  The church was pretty empty.  We were looking around at the side chapels when we realized that ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST (the man who wrote the Gospel according to Luke) WAS BURIED IN THAT CHURCH!  Kind of a BIG DEAL!!  That was exciting.

Humble tomb of St. Luke the Evangelist

Mass at St. Anthony's Basilica was very good.  I was very thankful that we had the opportunity to go to Mass!  

Basilica of St. Anthony

After Mass, all the churches were open again!  Yay!  We were able to go in and see and pray in five or six on our walk back towards the missionaries of Africa place.  During this time were were also on the hunt for some vegetable fried rice, as it was a Friday during lent (no meat for Catholics!).  Tired and exhausted on our way to the last Church of the night, we found a Japanese restaurant!  It wasn't Chinese, but we all decided it would do.  Also on our adventures we found a Chinese restaurant (that was closed) that had fish in the floor and a laundromat that was dimly lit with blue lights and blasting music.  Basically, it looked like a laundromat club, haha.  So random!

Fish in the floor!!!

When we finally got back to our rooms for the night, we had the best dinner ever.  The best dinner ever consisted of bread, pesto, fruit, cheese, Japanese take-out, and Nutella, all of us crowded around a desk, no plates, plastic knives, and borrowed forks and cups.  We had such a good time together!  To make things even better, that night I think I slept the best I ever have in my entire life.

Well, it is getting late here and I have a midterm tomorrow, so I'm afraid that I will have to leave you with these random tidbits about Padua, in suspense about Venice and fill you in tomorrow evening!  I know, I've got a lot of catching up to do already on here, but bear with me just a little more!  It will get done!  Buona notte!

FunFact: In Italy, Padua is actually "Padova," and Venice is actually "Venezia"

 

It's Happening NOW! And I'm HERE!

+JMJ+
Despite the fact that I have to get up in 4 hours in order to get to the airport to catch my flight to Venice tomorrow morning, I just had to post something today!  After all, today was a pretty important day.

Why?  Pope Benedict XVI officially resigned from the papacy at 8pm.  I had such a beautiful day today, culminating with the pope's resignation.  In the morning, I went to the station Mass at Santa Maria in Trastevere.  A cardinal said Mass (I can't remember which one).  After Mass he had to run to, you know, his meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.  Wow.  After Mass, one of our American seminarian friends took my classmates and I on the famous Scavi Tour.  This tour takes you under St. Peter's basilica where you see parts of the original basilica (yes, there was a different basilica originally; it was rebuilt/built over and now we have the "new" 400yr-old St. Peter's Basilica) and the necropolis that St. Peter's was originally built on top of by Constantine.  This was just discovered/excavated in the early-mid 1900s!!  Now, what is so important about this necropolis other than the obvious historical value of a more than 2,000 year old Roman city of the dead?  I'll give you a hint: why is St. Peter's Basilica St. Peter's basilica?  Guess who's buried directly under the dome and the main altar in the ancient necropolis?  St. Peter, the first pope, the one who walked on water, to whom Jesus said, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18).  Tradition has held that place as Peter's tomb since his death; recent archaeological and scientific investigations have shown this to be true.  Today I saw the tomb of St. Peter, and his bones within.  Need more time for reflection...

We weren't allowed to take pictures, so here's a picture of our seminarian friend, Robert.  He's great!

After the Scavi tour, we spend part of the afternoon with Robert.  For a while we just walked around and he showed us some of his favorite spots to eat and shop around the Vatican.  We all went to lunch together at the Abbey Theater, which was Robert's suggestion.  Good suggestion.  It was reasonably priced and delicious!  It was my first meal that I splurged a little and got something that wasn't the cheapest pizza on the menu: salmon fettuccine.  SO yummy!

After lunch, one of my classmates and I headed back to the St. Peter's area.  We went into the basilica and prayed for Pope Benedict, the Church, and whoever the new pope will be.  Then, we came out to the square to watch for the helicopter Pope Benedict was to leave in from the Vatican at 5pm.  There were other people there, more than usual, but it certainly wasn't crowded.  They had the camera on Papa as he was saying his goodbyes and walking out to the helicopter.  It got a little bit emotional, but it was so beautiful.  When the helicopter flew over the square, everyone there said goodbye to Pope Benedict, by waving, shouting a message to him, clapping.  The atmosphere wasn't wild; it was peaceful, sad that we had to say goodbye, but full of humble admiration for this holy man of God.

Waiting for Pope Benedict to fly out of the Vatican in his helicopter

Ok, I have to go to bed now.  My sleep time has been reduced to three and a half hours.  Please pray that I wake up if you are reading this!  I'll have to tell you all about Venice and Padua on Sunday or Monday.  Until then, ciao!!


Well...looks like this didn't actually post when I clicked "publish"....*anticlimactic*
Post about my Padua/Venice adventure coming soon!  Have to get some homework done first...

The Day I Wished I Were a Baby

+JMJ+
Ok, I owe y'all some posts, so let's get started.

Today I went to Pope Benedict XVI's last papal audience.  Oh wow.  What a blessing!!!  He had his audience in St. Peter's square instead of inside.  The entire square was PACKED and overflowing!!  It made the busses I've been squeezed on feel spacious.

My view from the line this morning...we got in line at 6:30, 2 hours before the gates were supposed to open, 4 hours before the audience.  So worth it.

Once we got in, the seating set up all through the square was already full!  We (one of my classmates and I) got a great spot though, right up against one of the barriers blocking the path the pope mobile would take.  We could even see Papa during the audience while he was speaking!

My view from where I was standing

When the pope came out, he came out in his pope mobile and drove through all of the aisles to greet the people.  And kiss all the babies.  Babies were literally being crowd-surfed to the pope mobile to be held and kissed by Pope Benedict XVI.  I wanted to be one of those babies!  We were SO CLOSE.  I could see his his gestures, facial expressions, even the expression in his eyes.  It was so good to see this man up close, who I've seen six times from afar, who I've been praying for ardently and following religiously (ha...get it?).  Truly indescribable.  He is so close to God and filled, no, overflowing with, exuding love for the Church.  I could see his unconditional desire for the salvation of and love for all people just in the gift he gave of himself there at the audience today, a small extension of the gift of himself he gave as a priest, as pope, and finally now, in his resignation.  In all of these acts of selfless gift, the Holy Father has always ultimately been giving himself to the will of God, which in turn, is a gift of himself to the Church, to the world.  Whenever we give ourselves to the will of God, we also give a gift to the world.  Pope Benedict has given us a great model to follow in giving that gift of self to the will of God and to the world courageously, totally, and unconditionally.  

Pope Benedict greeting the crowd (heading toward me!) in the pope mobile

I picked out a couple highlights from Pope Benedict's address to share with you.  This first one is part of the long, general address he gave at the beginning in Italian:

"I feel I [ought to] carry everyone in prayer, in a present that is God’s, where I recall every meeting, every voyage, every pastoral visit. I gather everyone and every thing in prayerful recollection, in order to entrust them to the Lord: in order that we might have full knowledge of His will, with every wisdom and spiritual understanding, and in order that we might comport ourselves in a manner that is worthy of Him, of His, bearing fruit in every good work (cf. Col 1:9-10)."

This second highlight is from his message to the English-speaking pilgrims:  

"The decision I have made, after much prayer, is the fruit of a serene trust in God’s will and a deep love of Christ’s Church. I will continue to accompany the Church with my prayers, and I ask each of you to pray for me and for the new Pope. In union with Mary and all the saints, let us entrust ourselves in faith and hope to God, who continues to watch over our lives and to guide the journey of the Church and our world along the paths of history.

I commend all of you, with great affection, to his loving care, asking him to strengthen you in the hope which opens our hearts to the fullness of life that he alone can give. To you and your families, I impart my blessing. Thank you!"

Here's the full text of his general address, and the full text of his address to the English-speaking pilgrims.  Read what the Holy Father wants to tell you!!

On a slightly different note, the best dressed award of today goes to....*drum roll please*...

Hot pink ankle boots with American flag elastic!!  Haha...and it was obvious that the person wearing these was not American...

Well, I have yet another early day tomorrow (it's been a week full of those!) and I learned the hard way that if I don't let myself get some sleep, then I will sleep right through my alarm.  Hence, I must leave my blog at this for tonight and tell you about my grand adventures of Tuesday tomorrow.  I bit out of order, but bear with me.   

Coming soon on Erin's blog:

• The Villa Borghese: The Art of Art
• A Walk through the Park
• The Spanish Steps: Just Call Me Aubrey Hepburn
• Erin and Gracie's Guide on How to Use the Metro
• The Scavi Tour: Erin Goes Underground!
• February 28: Goodbye, Papa Benedict!!

Warning: this list may be idealistic