ROME 22/10 – Day 3: Of a hairy bear, a column, and a case of littering.

Sunrise in Rome today was at 7:07 and sundown is projected to be at 18:51. The Ave Maria is at 19:00. It is the feast of a Roman martyr, St. Candidus who was killed in the time of the Emperor Decius at a place called, delightfully, Ursus Pileatus.

Today is the Feast of St. Thérèse de Lisieux.

I call upon her intercession today in a special way, for myself and for my benefactors.

One of my two 1st class relics of St. Thérèse, to whom I am grateful.

The windows in my place were replaced today with new ones that reduce noise by some 60 db.

Therefore, guess where I spent a lot of the day….

I visited one of the “talking statues”.

You can tell that he saw the consistory list.

On the consistory list, he had nothing to say.

I’ll have a lot more to say about columns, in these electronic columns.  This is the one Marcus Aurelius’ son Commodus raised in honor of the victories on the Danube.  Sixtus V put St. Paul on this column and St. Peter on the Column of Trajan at the Forum.  That was a pretty bold thing to do, since from the time of pagan ancient world, columns with statues were considered pagan idols.

More on columns –  fascinating – as the days go by.  Stay tuned.

I had not visited San Silvestro for a long time.

In the entrance is the famous inscription by Pope Damasus in that unmistakable script.

I believe this was one of the cars James Bond used during his first mission in Italy.

I thought this a lovely funeral monument.  It teaches in stone and word.

Who wants to try the Latin?   Right click and open in a new tab for larger.

I stopped at Gammarelli and saw the vestment I had made for a priest of my acquaintance who learned well and implemented in his parish the Vetus Ordo before the pogrom began.    A “Filipo Neri” cut.  Griffons.  It should be spectacular.

On the way home, I noticed that someone had thrown their cigarette butts on the street in complete dereliction against Laudato si!  The things you see.  The nerve!

Even the rat saw the consistory list.