Daily Rome Shot 73

Photo by Bree Dail.

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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2 Comments

  1. JonPatrick says:

    Googling (actually DuckDuckGo-ing as I don’t care to have my searches recorded by Big Brother) of the inscription above the door led me to Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III and through whose generosity the Church of the Gesu was built, which became the mother church of the Jesuit order, which appears to be the church pictured in the photo. I won’t ask how a Pope came to have a grandson, I guess things were different in the 16th Century.

  2. ThePapalCount says:

    JonPatrick is correct. This is the Gesu, the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus. It is the Mother-Church of the Society of Jesus. Inside is the tomb of St Ignatius and a relic of the forearm of St Francis Xavier. The the right of the sanctuary is a small chapel with a famous, and most copies, portrait of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The interior of the church is spectacular – floor to ceiling.
    Its one of the city’s most visited churches. In my view, its novs ordo altar is of hideous design.
    At 530pm each day there are prayers and devotions during which the beautiful silver plated statue of St Ignatius is unveiled for veneration. The statue is enormous. The original silver statue – also more than life size by far – was stolen and destroyed by Napoleon’s forces in the late 1700s.
    Next to the church you can visit the rooms occupied by St Ignatius and visit the bedroom in which he died. (check for opening times) The famous Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val, Pope Pius X’s Secretary of State, said his first Mass in these apartments. The Gesu is easily accessed and easy to locate. Its on a major street and busline and not far the Pantehon area. The neighborhood has many clergy and church supply shops.

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