Notes from Rome

The Efficiency of Disorganization

2008-04-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Zachary Durst

The first time a Roman bus stops in front of you, the doors open, and you’re faced with a wall of people, shoulder-to-shoulder, you’re inclined to wait for the next one. Then you see people forcing themselves into spaces that didn’t seem to be there. Soon you realize that there’s nothing rude about jamming yourself between a couple of strangers, at least in this situation. If you want to get around in Rome you have to accept a moderate amount of discomfort, but it’s mutual.

Most people, I take it, don’t mind being in crowds. I haven’t read any scientific studies or conducted any surveys, but the evidence is fairly clear. A crowd is just a bunch of people in one place, and those people don’t mind, and that’s a lot of people, that’s why it’s a crowd. A crowd is very natural. It’s just a lot of people doing the same thing at the same time. People might complain when there’s a long line for the bathroom, but they don’t shake their fists at the heavens and ask “Why?”

In Rome one of the most crowded crowds I’ve been mixed-up in is at the Sunday market at Porte Portese. Before the arches of the entrance the street is wide and open, which is unusual for this part of Rome, but once you walk through you’re confronted by a sea of white, tarp canopies and a current of people moving-still like the waves in a lake. Its vastness can’t be appreciated from this vantage point though.

One of Rome's open-air markets... before the crowds arrive.

Its winding labyrinth of tables piled high with folded clothes, on those selling new clothes, or piled even higher with on those selling used clothes. Scarves brush the crown of your head, towers of leather jackets shoot up here and there and scattered about are sparkling tables filled with row after row of jewelry. The vendors aren’t as pushy here as they are at the daily market by St. John Lateran, where every seller has a “special price” for everyone—or maybe I really am special. There are too many people at Porte Portese for singling out possible buyers (or suckers). They just shout into the ever-flowing mass of people, waving their merchandise in the air, and if you catch their eye they get very excited. Even the slightest gesture of interest is an opportunity in their mind, but it’s just a matter of looking away aimlessly as if you being there is a complete accident and you don’t intend on buying anything.

When you’re on more or less flat ground and there are hundreds of people around you, you’re range of vision decreases significantly. A problem arises when after you come to several intersections and your curiosity is torn because you have that driving desire, as all those like myself who frequent thrift stores, yard sales, and flea markets, to find that “treasure” you are sure is out there, and you realize you can’t possibly just retrace your steps in reverse so as not to miss a single booth. The best thing to do is just follow your feet and hope there is no wrong way.

It’s surprising how few people run into you. This is true throughout Rome. Especially in Trastevere and other cramped districts, the narrow roads seem more like wide sidewalks that people drive down. It’s like we are all weak magnets with the same polarization, only repealing from each other when we come within an inch or two (or three to five centimeters if you’re Roman). This takes no practice; it comes naturally. The multitudes of tourists from anywhere and everywhere in the world are just as deft at not bumping into others as the native city dwellers.

There isn’t much of a strict, formal structure to moving about in Rome. There doesn’t seem to be much of an officially legislated ordering in Rome at all. But it works. It functions through an organic development of expected behavior. It’s disorganized, definitely not the well oiled machine idolized in American, but Rome’s understood and easily mimicked ways of acting make her a very habitable city, and even efficient in her own way.

Holy Week in Rome

2008-03-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

Thomas More sophomores were privileged to spend Holy Week in Rome, and attend several key liturgical celebrations with Pope Benedict XVI. On Palm Sunday, students clutched their little yellow Vatican tickets and showed up several hours early to St. Peter's Square, in order to claim decent seats that would put them up close to the Holy Father during the extended liturgy that marks the beginning of Holy Week.

On Holy Thursday, some students got Vatican tickets from the good sisters who run Villa Maria, while others fanned out to attend the Liturgy of the Lord's Supper at various ancient, Renaissance, or Baroque churches in Rome—such as Santa Maria in Trastevere. Good Friday featured the Holy Father leading a Way of the Cross in the Colosseum—the site where uncounted numbers of Christian martyrs, over centuries of persecution, shed their blood. TMC students joined thousands of Romans and pilgrims at this service, despite the driving rain. Pope Benedict had originally intended to lead the Way of the Cross himself, but was forced by the weather to preside over the ceremony from a covered place on the constructed stage.

Luke Chichester and Kateri Cooper on a sunnier day for St. Peter's Square. Rainy Easter Morning was no day for photography.

Easter Sunday, TMC students again took their Vatican tickets to St. Peter's Square. Those who made it to the liturgy were “treated” to a natural reminder of the Church's tradition of baptizing catechumens at Easter: the crowd of tens of thousands were first sprinkled, then drenched in a rain storm that lasted two and a half hours—and featured claps of thunder that began just before the Offertory. Readings and prayers were given in Portuguese, French, German, and Chinese, and the pope offered the Easter blessing in 57 languages.

In his “Urbi et Orbi” message for the day, Pope Benedict made an impassioned plea for reconciliation among the combatants in trouble spots around the world, hinging his call for peace on a profound theological reflection:

“Dear Christian brothers and sisters in every part of the world, dear men and women whose spirit is sincerely open to the truth, let no heart be closed to the omnipotence of this redeeming love! Jesus Christ died and rose for all; he is our hope – true hope for every human being. Today, just as he did with his disciples in Galilee before returning to the Father, the risen Jesus now sends us everywhere as witnesses of his hope, and he reassures us: I am with you always, all days, until the end of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). Fixing the gaze of our spirit on the glorious wounds of his transfigured body, we can understand the meaning and value of suffering, we can tend the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day. In his glorious wounds we recognize the indestructible signs of the infinite mercy of the God of whom the prophet says: it is he who heals the wounds of broken hearts, who defends the weak and proclaims the freedom of slaves, who consoles all the afflicted and bestows upon them the oil of gladness instead of a mourning robe, a song of praise instead of a sorrowful heart (cf. Is 61:1,2,3). If with humble trust we draw near to him, we encounter in his gaze the response to the deepest longings of our heart: to know God and to establish with him a living relationship in an authentic communion of love, which can fill our lives, our interpersonal and social relations with that same love. For this reason, humanity needs Christ: in him, our hope, “we have been saved” (cf. Rom 8:24).”

TMC students and faculty made their way home, drenched, amidst the press of a peaceful and amazingly genial crowd, to face a peaceful, sleepy, rainy Easter Day.

The Music... and the Silence of Rome

2008-03-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

The impact of the sounds of Rome is evident to any pilgrim. But almost more stunning is the absence of sound. The soft steps of visitors rings out, pounding against the beautiful baroque walls of Saint John Lateran. The light pours through the windows high above as the slightest whisper from a mother to here child is audible across the Church. Reverence can be heard-heard in not hearing a single thing. The contrast of the reverence, as silence pervades the ears, with the bustling and hurrying sounds of the street outside is beautiful. Vendors hoping to snag tourists gaping at the sights prod and prod you to look at their array of sunglasses.

The undeniable closeness that can be felt to the eternal is all the more striking as one enters from a street full of cars, buses, tourists and vendors. The sudden absence of sound lets even the uninformed tourist know this place (church) is no sight-seeing or photo-taking bonanza. It is a place of worship, of beauty, of faith, and of adoration. Catholics across the globe feel connected through prayer and silence in these historical churches.

The echo of footsteps is drowned out by the beginning of a Mass. The entrance hymn rings out from a small side chapel flooded with the faithful as our tour is concluding. It is impossible not to be moved by the reverence of the little nuns who kneel on the stone with their hands folded like figures in religious art of the Middle Ages. I walk past the side chapel where the sacrifice of the Mass has begun and the silence is marked only by the words of the little priest. His whisper is like a call within these walls. I dropped to my knees as I passed, not out of habit, but out of awe...not even aware of the difference until I rise.

In the silence of Saint John Lateran, I can hear something within myself. I can feel something there I have not felt. In Wilbur's poem "Ceremony" we are shown the importance of rites. Rituals can become habitual, but in the spirit of the people and the place, reverence can silence the world. Ceremony and grandeur can shock the senses of the physical side of man, shock it into silence. A silence through which we can hear....

The culture and tradition of Rome are audible. From the moment I open my eyes in this morning I hear the beautiful blend of sounds that let me know that I am in Italy. The fascinating mixture of tradition, modern life, and the enduring Christian presence is heard at all times of the day. The visible beauty of Rome is preached by all those pilgrims, tourists and the like, but before my own experience I had never been told of the music present everywhere-from the bustling modern streets of the Coliseum to the quiet, even sleepy side streets of Trastevere. It is almost impossible not to be stunned with the beauty of the grand churches and ancient ruins or obelisk surrounding one as he arrives in Rome. But for those who are merely attracted by "the sights," hurrying from location to location, the sounds may be missed or even lost in the hurried pace of a traveler. Maybe it is only by living, as I am now, here in Rome that one can slow the eyes and mind and listen-listen to the sounds of Rome.

Traditional culture can be heard everywhere in Rome. But, to my ears, the street markets, little gypsy musicians, and small cafes with old men conversing over the newspaper enjoying a small glass of red wine. The Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is filled with the sounds of Italian culture. Gypsies play guitar or accordion on the steps of the beautiful fountain in the center of the piazza. The coins that they earn jingle and clink as they are dropped in by passersby or tourists awed by the quaintness. Old men sip their "vino," chattering amongst themselves, perhaps discussing politics or the weather...even the quality of the drinks. Their characteristic little dogs who sit obediently at the heels of their masters occasionally yip or beg for a scrap from the table. Sitting and listening to these sounds, one can hear Italy, hear Rome, hear Trastevere. The sounds of "progress" and modern convenience add to the complexity and beauty of this music. Cars (whose horns seem to honk out of habit) come in and out of the sound scape. Mopeds weave through the crowds and cars with their higher- pitched tone complimenting the deeper rumblings of the cars. Women in fashionable stiletto heels clink over the cobblestone streets-tapping their own beat into the music of the Piazza. The presence of the Church is heard, marking the time in the piazza from the bell tower of Santa Maria. The power of the sounds of the bells can be felt as well as heard, much like a deep cello in a string quartet. The Church keeps time and tempo to the music of Rome. It regulates and marks out the pace and influence of all other sounds. The undeniable influence of Christianity may be heard by those who are listening. It has woven tradition, culture, and the modern into a symphony-one conducted by the metronome of the Catholic Church.

Sitting in the Piazza, cutting off the distraction of the eyes, I am able to listen. All of the sense can be fed by the Roman experience. Though we think of seeing, and perhaps tasting, all that is beautiful and Roman, it has come as a surprise to me to hear Rome. I recommend that you listen....

--By a Thomas More College sophomore in Rome

Trip to Ostia Antica

2008-02-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

Lauren W Lauren Witter sits on the wall of the Janiculum hill.

Luke Chichester scales the steps of the amphitheater in the ancient Roman port of Ostia.

Dr. Connell points out details of murals at Ostia Antica. (This one was the painted sign for a fruit stand.)

A Student's View of St. Peter's Square

2008-02-19T21:08:00.000-08:00

A Beggar and a Lemon Tree

2008-02-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm sitting in a courtyard. Next to a lemon tree. Near a convent.

It is very windy, and we are near a hospital the nuns run. White sails billow through the trees, down and up from the building. Startling white. A young novice about fifteen paces from me is standing underneath a large wooden cross with a plaster corpus on it. Her presence is gentle. The sun is sitting warm on her face. Hands in her pockets, she stands still, looking up, looking up. I'm spying on her through my hair. I wonder what she is thinking. Suddenly sensing the Other, I glance over at the squat lemon tree near me and am startled to see a pair of fierce eyes in a dark, dark face, framed by a veil, staring at me suspiciously through the leaves. A nun is walking by. Staring as only an Italian can stare...

Yesterday, the girls and I went jewelry shopping at a street vender's. At Standa's, I bought a coconut, and then a gelato the size of a softball. Next we walked into a bread shop that smelled like fish. We - (OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS! A cat just screamed and I jumped clear out of my seat and half-way across the courtyard. I've never heart a cat scream before. That was the most soul-scraping noise ever.

It is silent now. The wind is tousling the leaves of the palm—black strokes against a blue sky—and the chill breeze is getting down my neck. A girl's laughter, muted from the height, is raining down gently from a hotel room above. It stopped. How can it be so quiet? I hear church bells.)

So we were in the little shop, and an unshaven and easy-going old man was weighing half a loaf of bread on a scale. “No, too small,” one of the girls was saying. “That one,” pointing through the glass. He drew out a loaf the length of her arm.

“You're eating all that?” I ejaculated.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It's not for me. It's for the old woman with the cup.” It seemed that, to her, the Old Woman with the Cup needed no other explanation. She just was.

Shivers ran through me. “May I come?”

“Sure, but I have to find her. I think I last saw her at the piazza. See, I met her before, gave money to her, then saw her the other day. But I didn't have any change on me, so I felt bad. She recognized me! I hope we can find her.”

But lo and behold, she was sitting right outside the bakery shop, crouched against the dingy wall. My friend put the bread into the woman's brown hands.

“Grazie,” she said. Who knows how old she was.... I want to describe her face, but I can't right now. It's not that I don't have the words, it is that, with my American inhibitions (“politeness”) and my instinctive feeling of awkwardness for her position, I didn't stare like an Italian. I can't remember her face. I can't even recall her eyes.

It's funny; they are not afraid to bore their eyes into you, even from across an almost-empty pizzeria; you feel their eyeballs slide tangibly down your nose and the curve of your cheek. It is rude in America to stare. There are definite personal spaces and we are aware of ours and other people's. We apologize even if we brush arms on the bus.

But now I wish I had been rude. I wish I had been beastly rude. I wish her face was burned into my mind. All that I can remember, oddly, was her tooth. It was large and rectangular and stuck out really far – yellowed, and with brown stains.

Moved by the woman's apparent plight and my friend's generosity, I dished out a two-Euro piece from my pocket and clinked it into her paper cup. Tears filled her eyes! This unhinged me; I was disconcerted. Could she cry on command? Whip up a batch of dramatic tears at the perfect moment? I don't care; I didn't care.

The weeping woman was trying to tell me something. “Cinque bambini, cinque bambini,” she wept.

“Aw,” I said, not understanding. She kept pointing to her tooth. I thought she was saying she would feed her five babies with my money. “Aw,” I repeated.

“Non, segnora,” she said persistently, pawing at my hand. “Cinque.”

I couldn't understand why she was delaying me. She smiled a little at my stupidity and held up five fingers. “Signora...” Then it dawned on me. She wanted more money!

Now I remember her eyes. They were absolutely nondescript. Maybe red-rimmed, perhaps darkish, dingy-gray – smallish? Her clothing? I can't remember the color. Maybe there was no color. Maybe you couldn't bore through her eyes to her soul. I wanted to say, “Show me your children. I want to wash them, feed them...” Maybe she was faker. Maybe her cup was empty because she sat on the coins already given to her. She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her shawl. Maybe she wasn't real. Maybe she would hide the loaf on her lap, under that shawl, so people would still have pity on her. There was such a mix of cynicism and pity in me, it was confusing and bothering.

I remember perfectly the nun's eyes in the lemon tree, even though I only saw them for 1.6 seconds. Fierce dark eyes set in white. Bushy thick brows wisped with gray. Flitting through green leaves, wide-eyed, angry near the pale lemons.

There was a five-Euro note in conveniently (or providentially?) in my pocket. Maybe she did have five children; maybe she didn't. But it was the “maybe she did” that made all the difference, that drowned the second, nixed my suspicions.

She took it and started sobbing. Her shoulders shook.

I didn't know if it was play-acting. Maybe she was pretending to shake her shoulders. I didn't care. I looked at her, and our hearts touched.

You know those instances, disturbing, exhilarating, when hearts touch? It stays with you forever, like the stubborn prickles I got today on my palm, from picking the purple fruit of a prickly pear.

Be it farce, I saw love in her. I was jolted by the knowledge that she loved me. And this was only by standing awkwardly in front of her. I wanted to physically touch her, but with my English inhibitions I didn't know how to make the move.

“Ciao! Deus – benedictus?” I said awkwardly, and turned to go, but she caught my hand.

“Gratzie, bella,” she said, reaching up her other hand and touching my cheek – cupping my cheek. The hand holding mine was dirty, warm, human. She was like Queequeg throwing his arm over Ishmael in bed.

She brought me down closer, as if she wanted to tell me something intimate.

“Me, Olga,” she confided, speaking slowly to the dumb American. She had not let go of my hand.

“Me, (my name).” She came close to pronouncing it.

“Si.”

Then I was brave and squeezed her hand before letting go. In fact, she held so tightly, so stickily, to my fingers, I almost had to pull a little away, like tweezing out the prickles from my palm.

She was not a plaster corpus, even if she didn't have the honest fierce stare of the lemon tree nun. She was human, even if I doubted her plight. And I think I remember her blank gray eyes, and love her.

--By a Thomas More College sophomore

Coming Home

2008-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday in Rome I approached the throne of St. Peter and for the first time entered the Basilica built on his bones. I was blessed to make this visit not as a tourist or art student but as a penitent; I'd been procrastinating about going to see St. Peter's baroque enormity, wanting to visit the smaller churches first on the advice of a native--who warned that after St. Peter's the city's smaller temples might seem "anticlimactic." Since I'm to be here for three full months, I thought to wait at least until Holy Week. But the simple fact is I wanted to go to Confession, and the easiest places to find it in English are St. Peter's, or Santa Susanna--a parish run by the liberal Paulist Fathers. Santa Susanna certainly is beautiful, but there are some things that remind me uncomfortably... of home. The tabernacle is shunted off to a side chapel out of sight, while in its place stands a large, ugly modern throne to enshrine the celebrant. Despite all the rococo fixtures, the feel is distinctly suburban. At the exact spot where the Eucharist would normally reside in marble and gold, here stands a potted plant. In Orwell's honor, I can only hope it's an aspidistra.

Passionist nuns, just a little ahead of
Dr. Zmirak and Deirdre Roberts in line at St. Peter's.

The day started out at a much more humble spot, in the ancient Church of Santa Pudenziana, which holds the oldest Christian mosaic in Rome. Built on the house of the Roman senator whose daughter (Pudenzia) spent her youth collecting the butchered bodies of Christian martyrs to give them decent burial (her own head is reverently encased here in painted wax), the church is said to have once housed St. Peter himself. And tucked away in a side chapel one finds, beneath a modest sign announcing it, a marble altar on which St. Peter said his daily Mass. Elsewhere in the church lie the remains of a man whose relative once held St. Peter's heir a hostage: Lucien Louis Joseph Napoleon Cardinal Bonaparte. The great-grand-nephew of the little Emperor, the good Lucien served as a cardinal in Rome and took part in the First Vatican Council--which was forced to disperse when anti-clerical Piedmontese invaded. Ironically, it was only the defeat of Lucien's cousin, Louis Napoleon, in the Franco-Prussian War, that removed Rome's French defenders--and delivered her to the anti-clericals who promised to "unify Italy." (Natives tell me "We're still waiting....") The tangled skeins of history fray and lose their gold threads over time... until you stand before the grave of a forgotten Bonaparte in a dusty, half-forgotten church which is mainly used by Filipino migrants. All this, in a Roman senator's house.

St. Peter's square really does what all the art books promise: its colonnaded arms reach out to embrace the world. Once you pass through the brisk security lines, it's a jump from light into darkness. The eyes take time to adjust. It's impossible to take in one-tenth of the splendid artworks which reside here--the towering sculptures, the walls which hold not a single drop of paint, but are entirely made of colored mosaics, the baroque marbles depicting proud Counter-Reformation popes... and humble servants of the poor like Vincent de Paul. St. Helena, an Empress... and Juliana Falconieri, a blessedly neurasthenic nun who used to faint at the mention of sin. It makes perfect sense that this vast marble pile, heaped up with loving artistry in an age when papal authority was under challenge, and on the site where the first pope died, would expend much of its multicolored marble reasserting Peter's primacy. There are churches throughout the city which focus on other mysteries of the Faith that catechized Europe, on the Passion, the Resurrection, the suffering of the martyrs, or any of dozens of attributes or apparitions of Mary. That is not the point here, though. This building stands for many things, but first of all for this: The fact that Christ has not abandoned us. That the Truth we seek is not to be found in tiny shards between the lines of a biblical critics' crib of a butchered text, or even in the "inspired" heart poring over the Scriptures in his closet. We are not obliged to dig through the bone piles and fragmentary inscriptions of the Catacombs to find the "true" form of Christian life in an archaic reconstruction.

No, the Church is not a palimpsest, a puzzle, or even a proof. It's a battleship, scarred and marked with patchwork here and there, with rivets fallen from its sides and the bleak records of a number of criminal captains whose best efforts could not sink her. As Noah's ark must have, she sometimes reeks. (She's stuffed to the rafters with sinful beasts like me.) But there's nowhere else to spend our fleeting struggle with the sea. Far better to be a barnacle above the Ark's water line, than the tallest tower to sink beneath the waves.

As I wandered from the Blessed Sacrament chapel in search of the anglophone confessionals, I thought: "When was the last time I saw nearly this much marble?" And then I recalled: It was on my first visit to the U.S. Supreme Court, on January 22, 1979. Those steps, too, I'm glad to reflect, were crowded with Catholics.

After a brief, businesslike confession with an English speaking priest from China--I wonder how many martyrs he counts in his family--I made my way to the great Cambio statue of St. Peter. Tourists were reaching up to touch his foot for luck. I paused, and kissed his toe.

On the wrong side of the Tiber

2008-01-29T15:05:00.000-08:00

The sophomore class of Thomas More College has just begun its Rome semester, as students still recovering from jet lag convened for early breakfast at the Villa Maria—a clean, modern facility for pilgrims run by the Salvatorian sisters—and then for their morning Humanities class, today on Moby Dick.

Their next steps took them from 19th century America to Renaissance Italy, as they followed their doughty, deeply informed guide Dr. Paul Connell on a walking tour of the churches and streets of Trastevere, an historic neighborhood south of the Vatican. It stands, like the papal district, on the “wrong” side of the Tiber—the side where “criminals” such as St. Peter were crucified. Dr. Connell described in loving detail the cultural peculiarities which long marked the neighborhood (before gentrification drove out its natives), including its own distinctive dialect, and a tradition of poets who wrote in that tongue.

Students on tour in Trastevere

Dr. Connell then led the students through several historic churches. The most famous is perhaps San Pietro Montorio (St. Peter on the Hill), which has historically been associated with the city's Spanish community. Indeed, this connection may explain why this church was spared destruction in the 1527 sack of Rome by troops of Charles V (also King of Spain). Whatever the reason, it is one of the few Renaissance-style churches to have survived in Rome. Its interior includes magnificent reliefs and sculptures by Bernini—the artist who, Dr. Connell explained to students, is responsible for the design of St. Peter's Square, and much of the greatest art within. But that's jumping ahead, since the students haven't visited St. Peter's yet. Monday's tour included a learned description of Bernini's relief depicting the ecstasy of St. Francis. Dr. Connell explained how Bernini designed this relief to take advantage of the natural light and contrasting shadows to maximize the dramatic impact of the work—a technique called chiarascuro.

As the TMC contingent left the church, Dr. Connell paused to point out the coats of arms on the church's facade—those of the pope, and of the titular cardinal in whose care the historic building stands. Dr. Connell unpacked the symbolism of Pope Benedict's coat of arms. The shell, he noted, is the emblem of pilgrims to Compostella, a fit symbol for the leader of the pilgrim “People of God.” The head of the crowned, noble Ethiopian or Moor signifies the universality of the Church, and its destiny as the cult of the whole human race. Finally, Dr. Connell explored the puzzling image of the bear wearing a knapsack (like many of Thomas More College's students that day). This emblem, he said, belongs to St. Corbin of Munich—who traveled as a pilgrim through the Alps, and lost his pack mule to a hungry bear. Legend tells that the saint ordered the bear to “bear” his burden, and the beast complied. According to the ever-reliable Dr. Connell, the pope saw in the figure of a burdened bear an emblem of of those who hold authority in the Church: they bear others' burdens.