ROME 6/22 – DAY 2: Flying time

In Rome today the sunrise was at 5:34 and the sunset will be at 20:43.

In better times and under better men the Ave Maria would ring at 21:00.

We are 154 days into this year of salvation and 212 remain.

Today is a 1st Friday and it is the feast of St. Charles Lwanga, killed because he wouldn’t submit to sodomy.

Because yesterday, 2 June was national holiday, Festa della Reppublica – anniversary of the 1946 Referendum to establish a form of government (Pius XII let the nuns out of cloisters to vote) –  I didn’t do all that much except get my digs in order, take care of barrels of email, say my prayers, and have a stroll in the evening.   Today I’ll get out more, since everything will be opened up again.

Meanwhile, I stopped in at my home parish in Rome, Ss. Trinità dei Pellegrini.  After a couple years of being away I found it to be splendidly tidy and upgraded.

Here is a view down the Via dei Pettinari to the Ponte Sisto and across the Tiber.  It is one of the sights I saw when I first came to Rome in the early 80s, as our lodging was in this street, now a many starred hotel.  Here also is the little church with the body of St. Vincent Palloti.  On the left is the outer wall of the St. Trinità.

There are new paintings of saints, including Rome’s beggar saint, Benedict Joseph Labre and St. Giovanni Battista de’ Rossi, whose body was at first in this church under a side altar, but was, alas, translated to a church named after him.

There were lots of flowers by the sacred images.

A couple of years back I asked you readers to contribute to buy an old baptismal font and get it established in the church.  Since St. Trinità was not, before, a parish, it did not have one.  However, it is now the personal, traditional parish and, therefore, needed a font.  You came through.    Links to my old posts about that HERE and videos of the installation HERE.

Here is the final arrangement, with a nice balustrade, veil, and Trinity carving at the top.  Beautifully done.

St. Filippo Neri’s altar is very spiffy, since his feast was recently observed, though bumped around due to Ascension Thursday.

I am sad to report that a great restaurant nearby is gone.  Directly across from the church San Paolo alla Regola it was a terrific place.  About 7 months ago, I learned from the new proprietor, they cashed in and left.  Now it is a sort of upscale Chinese fusion place.  Lot’s of Chinese stuff going on here in Rome.  More on that another time.

Meanwhile, here is a lovely campanile, which I attempted to sketch during my last trip, attached to the little church of S. Maria in Monticelli.

The “mount” part of the name comes from the fact that it is built on a higher bit of land and it didn’t get flooded with the rises of the Tiber.  It is built on an old temple of Neptune (who, in Florence, did not approve of the consistory list)

The church has had a spotty history and has been handed around and rebuilt a few times, pretty much completely so that just about the only ancient thing left is the campanile, which I understand was at some point lowered for the sake of stability.  Too bad.

The apse has a fragment of a 12th c. mosaic.

I was pleased to see that the priests and seminarians who have the church, Padri Dottrinari or Doctrinaries, Priests of Christian Doctrine, were having an evening holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament exposed.   I stayed for a while and prayed especially for my Roman donors as well as for a young man, oppressed by the Enemy, whom I was informed shot himself and is in bad shape.

One of the things I really like about this church.  As you probably know, the coat of arms of the present Pope and, if there is one assigned, the titular cardinal are over or besides the main doors.   Over the years I always check on on S.M. in Monticelli because of this….

Nihil innovetur.

Speaking of time flying, here are some spiffy bells which will help me stay on schedule.  They ring on the quarter hour. Some readers will instantly recognize these bells, perhaps will mixed memories, bright and dark. You can also hear the Noon cannon from the Gianicolo. When We have become The Pontiff with the return of the Papal States, that cannon will be a M777 155mm Howitzer trained exactly at coordinates 41°53?56?N 12°29?5?E. To start.

And, the Italian version of the Blue Angels, the Frecce Tricolori, zoomed over the City yesterday. I was too late to catch the first pass and I barely caught the second.