Fr. Z's Blog

0613 for sunrise today and 2004 for sunset.  The Ave Maria is still in the 2015 cycle on this 115th day of the year.

It is the Feast of St. Mark, Evangelist, liturgically rich.  Today is a Rogation Day.  Latin rogare means “to ask, beg”.  Even before the time of Pope St. Gregory I, “the Great” (+604) this day, 25 April – thought to be the day that Peter began to “oversee” the Church of Rome, was a time for a procession and the singing of solemn litanies, the “Greater Litanies”.

Processions and litanies are ways in which the Church responds to our needs in time of natural disasters or famine or plagues or invasion.  Today in the Church there are some unnatural disasters in key positions, sacramental famine from the closing of churches during Covidian Theatre and restrictions placed on the Vetus Ordo, plagues in the form of sickening parishes and Catholic identity resulting in demographic decline, and invasions from non-Catholics even at the altars in our loftiest places of worship in Rome itself.

Perhaps those sound priests out there should take matters into their own hands and organize processions and the signing of litanies.

In the Rome of old, we would be gathering at San Lorenzo in Lucina, where there is a lovely Crucifixion by Guido Reni.  Then, by way of the Via Flaminia, we would process to St. Peter’s taking the Milvian Bridge.   Later, in the Medieval period, there were two processions to St. Peter’s, one from the Lateran Palace with the ecclesiastical figures and another from San Marco near the Capitoline Hill wherein civil figures participated.   Every aspect of society bringing petitions to God.

Meanwhile, there was concelebration this morning in church.

A bride’s bouquet is still at the Marian altar.  (One might see a list of intentions for the living and for the dead during the Roman Canon.)

The Campo was mighty quiet this morning, though the shops are set up.  It is a national holiday.  You should be able to right-click for a larger version of this “pano”.

Breakfast was had.

I stopped to greet the folks at my regular flower stand, the only one open today.  The owner, Pippo asked if I was going to church and gave me a lovely long-stemmed rose: per la Madonna.

Back to church went I and gave it to Mary Help of the Suffering, a beautiful image at Ss. Trinità.  I gave her that flower – adding it to some tulips – and also lit a candle for the mother of one of my closest and longest friends whose mother is seriously ailing from major kidney problems and quite a few other maladies as well.

Back in the street again and heading home.  Once again I asked St. Philip for help with a place in Rome in this neighborhood.

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Here’s a puzzle.  White to move.   Be sneaky and win material.

Igor has helped my game.

01615 was the sun’s rising and at 2003 will it set.  The Ave Maria is at 2015.

Today is the Feast of, among others, foundress of the Brigidines, S. Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad (+1957 whose tomb is just up the way.  I see their bell tower from my window.

Welcome registrant:

LSL

Today I had a chat with the manager of the place where I am staying in Rome about a couple of things.  First, the washing machine was not draining and needed maintenance and, next, my return next October.

I’ll have to start raising funds for October one of these days.   In the meantime, I also would remind the readership to pray for a more stable Roman solution which I and a couple of priests could use.  St. Joseph!  St. Philip!  Help us!

Meanwhile, my alstroemeria finally went the way of all flesh.  When I went out to the vegetable stand at the Campo de’ Fiori this morning, I got some fresh flowers, some of the same and also …

… freesia.  Is that how it is spelled?

They are so cheery and bright.

My somewhat cramped workspace.  I’ve turned the apartment TV into a monitor.

And as long as we are in still life mode.  I have a plan for the big peppers, beasts of things, heavy, that will probably but not necessarily involve sausages, in honor of friends in Chicago.  They are amazing… both, the friends and the peppers.

The flowers and the veg came at a discount because I’ve been frequenting those stands for decades now, which is nice.  I like supporting these family businesses.  It involves more stops, but that’s okay.  It’s worth every footstep and wave to old acquaintances along the way.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.  As I walk around, I catch myself smiling.  For that… I cannot thank you enough.

Together with my regular list of the “Roman Sojourn” Donors (yesterday’s Mass was for your intention), the “24thers” are remembered in prayers at the the altar but also as I take care of daily things.  For example, today I note for the 24th (down since 2o22):

KC
DD (one of the faithful “200” when I was in serious, immediate need)
MH
PG
MM
MF
TB
DM (thanks muchly)
MT
DG
ML
PK

25thers.  Please don’t be irked if I don’t write about you tomorrow?

When I go through my mail and send out daily thank you notes (provided I have an address) I think, “Okay, that donation bought the vegetables today, that one bought the flowers, that one bought the morning coffee and rolls after Mass with the two newly ordained priests visiting Rome (I really like doing that), this one goes toward the electric bill back home, this one toward car insurance, etc. …”.  I try to think in concrete terms.   Also, there are those who will send a donation and a note, like the other day after I posted the photo of veg stand in the Campo, “For some of those beautiful little tomatoes.” Thanks WH. Or, for example, SAS sent: “With continued prayers for your strength restored… and a good bottle -or two- of wine”, which permitted a good bottle of Nebbiolo for the aforementioned sausages and peppers and a not great but not bad bourbon for the visit to the digs by The Great Roman™ (to whom the “Shave The Great Roman™” items were duly hand delivered, by the way).

Hence, when I go to the shops or pay bills or simply live life, you donors are with me every day.  A glimpse into how I am grateful for every one of you and have your backs in prayers, almsgiving and even, though it is hard to believe it, regular fasting.  Regarding almsgiving: I almost never give money in the street, but I will offer to buy something to eat.  Many of the beggars reject that out of hand.  Fewer immediately accept with urgency.  So, there are times when your donation may have fed someone truly in need of a meal.  I had some hard days in Rome waaaay back in the day and I have an eye for the hungry.

Meanwhile, in Astana, today Nepo and Ding played to a draw.  It was not a very flashy game.  Nepo leads by a full point and games are running out.

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Here’s a puzzle.

White to move.  White’s bishop is hanging.  There are connected pawns which are a threat, but that rook is really agile and your king is on the 1st rank.  What to do?  You have to keep time on your side and avoid getting forked or skewered.  Don’t let that rook get behind your pawns!  This was hard for me.  Many ways to go wrong.

Aren’t end games fascinating?  There must be a lesson for life and our own ends here.  Go to confession.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

I’m an affiliate now of chess.com shop which is handled by House of Staunton.  Do me a favor and click over there and have a look around.

Meanwhile, the church of St. Bridget on the P.za Farnese.

After Mass I stopped at the grocery for a couple of things, like Aceto di Alcool which is great for cleaning stuff.  The water here is incredibly hard.  I can give the electric kettle or other implements a soak and they clear right up.  Drains, washing machine rinse, fridge shelves.  A little newsprint on glass windows… kiss your fancy sprays g’bye.

I also really appreciate being able in a pinch to get some fresh tentacle, don’t you?   Somewhere Cthulhu is missing a nephew.

Sun rise over Rome was at 6:16 and Sunset will be at 20:02.  The Ave Maria should be rung at 20:15 right now.

It is the Feast of St. George, whose relics are at San Giorgio in Velabro.

Welcome registrants:

dazcuy
de la Valette

Last night we were invited to a reception in the Galleries and once private apartments at the Palazzo Doria Pamphilji.

Dress: “Smoking” aka black tie. For priests that means house cassock, fascia and feraiuolo.

A few shots.

Some favorite paintings are in the gallery.  As always the illumination is frustratingly horrible.

I always think of my late friend Maurizio Marini when I see this painting. He was a great expert on Velasquez and had the studies for the final work.

There are Caravaggios, of course. Here’s one.

A tiny video clip or two… should have done more of these.

And with The Great Roman™.

Those weird little dots are not stains from the canapés.  I have found that, with this phone camera, if there are multiple light sources the three lens do this.  It’s annoying but… meh.

Meanwhile, today, Nepo and Ding played to a draw. Ding has his back to the wall.

Here’s a puzzle.

Black to move.   The first move is critical.  After that, things get easier.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

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Today: Sunrise 0619 – Sunset 1959 – Ave Maria 2015

Today is the 2776the Birthday of Rome

Alme Sol, curru nitido diem qui
promis et celas aliusque et idem
nasceris, possis nihil urbe Roma
     visere maius.

Q. Horatius Flaccus
Carmen Saeculare

Photo from The Great Roman™

Welcome new registrant:

Firefly

The other day I was in Sant’Agostino.  One of you readers asked if I would on 19 April go to San Pietro to pray for a young family man who has Parkinson’s.  I don’t go to San Pietro these days if I can help it.  So, I went to the tomb of a great favorite of mine, St. Monica, or in another spelling with 2-Ns, Monnica, the mother of St. Augustine and there prayed for the petitioner’s afflicted husband.  A great saint who understands the need for diligent and confident prayer of petition.

During my visit to the church I also stopped for a moment to admire the funerary monument of the scholar who figured out the dating of the founding of Rome, the dates we often see with the abbreviation A.U.C. (Ab Urbe Condita).  As you know that condita comes from condo, condere, cOnditum and not condio, condire, condI­tum.  If not, we would be saying “From the (year) the City was pickled” rather than “From the (year) the City was founded”.  We get “condiments” from the later. In Latin it is good to get the accents right, as in the Vespers hymn Conditor alme siderum, just to throw another “alme” in today for spice.

The tomb of Onofrio Panvinio (1529 Verona – 1568 Palermo). Admire his stony countenance captured in cold marble, and say a prayer for the repose of his soul.

Onofrio was an Augustinian and great scholar.    He is the author of such page turners as the 1557 work Fasti et triumphi Rom. a Romulo rege vsque ad Carolum V. Caes. Aug.:Sive epitome regum, consulum, dictatorum, magistror. equitum, tribunorum militum consulari potestate, censorum, impp. & aliorum magistratuum Roman. cum orientalium tum occidentalium, ex antiquitatum monumentis maxima cum fide ac diligentia desumpta.  A ripping yarn!

Here is his monument inscription.  Go ahead and take a crack at it!

D.O.M.
F. ONVPHRIO PANVINIO VERONENSI
EREMITÆ AVGVSTINIANO
VIRO AD OMNES ET ROMANAS
ET ECCLESIASTICAS ANTIQVITATES
E TENEBRIS ERVENDAS NATO
QVI ALEXANDR FARN. CARD. VICECAN.
IN SICILIAM PROSEQVVTUS ALIENISSIMO
ET SIBI ET HISTORIÆ TEMPORE
PANORMI OBIIT XVIII KAL. APR. MDLXVIII
PRÆCLARIS MVLTIS ET PERFECTIS
ET INCHOATIS INDVSTRIÆ SVÆ
MONVMENTIS RELICTIS VIX. ANN. XXXIX.
AMICI HONORIS CAVSSA POSVERUNT.

I like that 2-S caussa.

Right click for a larger image.

Another gift to humanity is found in this church.  Caravaggio’s magnificent painting of La Madonna di Loreto.

This in the Chapel of the Cavalletti Family, just inside the left door of the church. Ermete Cavalletti was a member of the Archconfraternity founded by St. Philp Neri at Ss. Trinità dei Pellegrini!  Ermete died before Caravaggio painted this. It is probable that his widow and a couple of patrons of Caravaggio, who also belonged to Archconfraternity, commissioned it.

A masterpiece of “tenebrism” with unidealized confrontational figures right up against the viewed plane of the canvass.

It was a controversial painting in its day.  When it was revealed the “popolani”, your basic Joe Bagodonuts, were pretty excited about it.  Descriptions of the time say, “ne fu fatto un estremo schiamazzo… there was a real fracas”. It could partly be explain because some thought the model for the Blessed Mother was an not-unknown “call girl”.  Whether … that, or an honest girl or Cavaraggio’s main “date” at the time, her name seems to have been “Lena” and she was also the model for Mary in the Madonna dei Palafrenieri in the Borghese collection in which Christ uses her foot to crush the head of a snake.  Mighty powerful stuff.  Some of the art experts and commentators of the time were outraged that there should be unidealized, strongly naturalistic figure, replete with wrinkles and dirt and tattered clothes. In fact, as one scholar of the painting I’ve read reveals, the model was an ancient sculpture known as the Tusnelda, which also helps to explain Mary’s ivory complexion… she who the Litany of Loreto names as “Tower of Ivory.”   Her hands, holding the Child, are based on the hands of the ancient Venus pudica statues which calls to mind the overlapping concepts of both fertility and virginity.  She is in a doorway, because if Christ is the primary door, she is the doorway to the doorway to heaven.  Another Litany title for Mary is Ianua caeli… Gate of Heaven.

In fact, the man who paid for the chapel, the aforementioned Ermeto Cavalletti, in 1602 organized a walking pilgrimage for members of the Archconfraternity to Loreto, such was their devotion. IIt is not a coincidence that the two pilgrims are male and female, since the Archconfraternity had both male and female members as they do even today.   The pilgrims are not incidental in any way, since it was the work of the Archconfraternity to take care of pilgrims: Thus… Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims.

That said, the painting is a visual rhapsody on humility.  There is the upper level, of divine humility, incarnate, wrapped in the white cloth that foretells His funeral shroud, and the lower level of human humility with those all important dirty pilgrim feet that draw the eye and heart.

From what I have read, there was in Rome at the time a great deal of concern for and about “the poor”, since there was widespread, serious poverty exacerbated by floods of pilgrims.  The Augustinians and many confraternities were heavily involved.  This painting reflects a major concern of the time.  Even spiritual greats like St. Robert Bellarmine explored the contrast of the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor and their places in society.  Caravaggio’s painting of common people reflect those categories, in a sense.  Compare his treatment of the “cardsharps” with the Loreto pilgrims.

But I digress.

Yesterday, in Game 8 Ding Liren was dealing Ian Nepomniachtchi a herculean beat-down but, collapsing under the psychological pressure of the moment, snatched a draw from the jaws of victory. It was hard to watch. Once again Ding got into serious time trouble and, again, seemed to freeze up as the clock ticked to FOUR seconds before he moved and made the time increment.  Ian was cool and slowly crawled out of the grave as Ding made one inaccuracy after another. The video is bookmarked to the tense time moment.

Chess, my friends. Give this gift to yourselves and your children. Wherever chess boards break out, people stop looking at their phones and gather around to talk (or not, depending on the milieu) and watch. You don’t need electricity!

I ask prayers for my Roman Pied-à-terre. St. Joseph! St. Filipo!