ROME 25/4– Day 18: Easter Saturday

A little bit each day. The sun appeared to be raised up at 06:11 and to be pushed down at 20:06

The Ave Maria was to ring at 20:15.

It is Saturday “in albis” in the Octave of Easter.

It is the Feast of St. Cletus, Pope and Martyr (+ c. 88)

Today was the funeral Mass for Francis.  Elsewhere I posted a video of his body be driven to Santa Maria Maggiore.  I think the slot he has take next to the entrance to the Borghese Chapel was where a confessional was.  Not sure.

Meanwhile, before the Mass…

I hope it was productive… in such a place at such a time….

I’m tired.  Can I just stop now?

Just a couple.

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Sonnet about the papal funeral procession

In Rome there is a saying: “A pope dies, ya’ make another.”   For Romans, popes come and go.  A Roman might get a little bored or cynical about the whole thing, especially back when.

This morning was Francis funeral at St. Peter’s.  When it was over, and I saw via live stream that the procession with his coffin had left Vatican City, I walked out of my apartment, around the corner, and up to the street where Francis’ body was to pass on its way from St. Peter’s to St. Mary Major.

The cars behind were full of cardinals.

It was a funeral procession of a pope.   They come and they go.  One might get a little bored or cynical.

One Roman who who was definitely not bored, but was more than a little cynical, as only Romans manage, was the 19th c. poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli… Er Belli. He wrote seriously funny sonnets in the Roman dialect about life in Rome and aimed some deadly satire at Rome’s clerics, religious, prelates and popes.  He had a conversion when he saw Masonic thugs burning the confessionals in front of San Carlo ai Catinari.  At first his sonnets, more than 2200, were for private readings only and he asked that, at his death, they be burned.  That didn’t happen, Deo gratias. I’ve written about Belli before and read some of his poems.

I read them, but not as well as The Great Roman™ reads them!

Here is Belli’s sonnet about the death and funeral procession of Pope Leo XII.  If you are agile you’ll catch some of the frankly obscene puns (far less shocking than the prose of Tucho’s pornotheology) along the way which are not reflected in the English translation (not mine).   Read by, of course, The Great Roman™.

Er mortorio de Leone Duodescimosiconno The Funeral of Pope Leo XII
Jerzera er Papa morto c’è ppassato
propi’avanti, ar cantone de Pasquino.
Tritticanno la testa sur cuscino
pareva un angeletto appennicato.
Vienivano le tromme cor zordino,
poi li tammurri a tammurro scordato:
poi le mule cor letto a bbardacchino
e le chiave e ’r trerregno der papato.
Preti, frati, cannoni de strapazzo,
palafreggneri co le torce accese,
eppoi ste guardie nobbile der cazzo.
Cominciorno a intoccà ttutte le cchiese
appena uscito er morto da palazzo.
Che gran belle funzione a sto paese!
Last night the late great Pope went cruising by
Pasquino’s corner, right in front of us,
head nodding on a bed of fluffiness
just like an angel kipping on the sly;
and then the muted buglers came on down,
and drummers drumming with a muffled din,
and mules to haul the mighty baldaquin,
and then the papal keys and papal crown;
friars and priests, and next a clapped-out gun,
and grooms who held aloft their flaming tapers,
and then those bloody guardsmen on display.
The bells of all the churches tolled as one
the moment that the corpse went on its way…
This country has such entertaining capers!
26th November 1831

Belli might have purposely conflated the funeral of Leo XII (10 Feb 1829) and Pius VIII (30 Nov 1830).  It doesn’t really matter.

BTW… what’s that Pasquino bit all about in the second line?

Some of you who have been in Rome quite a lot, or had a really good guide, or who have followed this blog, may know about the “statue parlanti… talking statues”.

In days past, these statues scattered about the Centro were used by various groups to post written opinions on public matters.  The statues “talked” to each other.  The most famous is Pasquino, near the Piazza Navona.  The remarks Pasquino made were called “pasquinate”.   (There’s also a great restaurant just across from it called Cul du Sac.)

Pasquino – maybe named after a local witty tailor way back in the day in that neighborhood – is a rather battered Hellenistic-style statue maybe 3rd c. BC found in the 15th c. century. The subject of the statue might be Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus, or some such Roman copy. In the early 16th c Cardinal Oliviero Carafa draped  it in a toga and decorated it with Latin epigrams on the occasion of the Feast of Saint Mark. That opened the box, as it were, and people started doing this with other statues. They formed a public salon, the “Congress of the Wits … Congresso degli Arguti”, with Pasquino along with Marphurius (Marforio), Abbot Luigi, Il Facchino, Madama Lucrezia, and Il Babbuino. These poems posted were collected and published annually as early as 1509 as the Carmina apposita Pasquino.

Here’s Pasquino.

Up that street on the left and you reach Piazza Navona.

 

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PASCHALCAzT 2025 – 53: Easter Saturday – More real than now’s real

Today’s Station is St. John Lateran. We hear about the white garments of the recently baptized.

Scott Hahn reflects on the fact that Heaven is more real than the reality we experience with our senses.

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Opportunity to get a striking Sacred Heart Flag before June, month of the Sacred Heart

Over at One Peter Five (where I also post a weekly column for Sundays) there is an entry about how to get a Sacred Heart flag and while providing support for the site.

Check it out HERE.

If you get one, tell them in the memo that Fr Z sent you!

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Closing Francis’ coffin – What did they put in there with him?

If you care about this things… here is the rite of the closing of the coffin of a pope.  It might have some variations from JPII.  They seemed not to want to treat Benedict XVI with the respect due to him so I am not sure what they did.

That said, news stories were going on about how humble Francis was in choosing  a simple wood coffin.  So did John Paul and so did Benedict.   Wood coffin, as is that was that.  However, in the video you can see that there was indeed a metal, lead- zinc-lined interior that was soldered and sealed shut.  That’s the way it’s done.  Also, you see someone put a bag into the coffin.  It contains the annual medals struck during his time.  That’s an ancient way of dating.  Also, there is a sealed tube with a document, the Rogito, which probably relates the life and accomplishments of the one in the coffin.   I would very much like to have a look at that if it is anywhere online.  Did they include Pachamama, I wonder.

So… the video… HERE

UPDATE:

The Rogito does not mention Pachamama.

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ROME 25/4– Day 17: Easter Friday

In Friday, a major holiday for Italy, the sun came up at 06:12 and it sank back down at 20:05. It’s nice that the days are getting longer.

The Roman Station was at the Pantheon, aka, Santa Maria ad martyres.

25 April is the Festa della Liberazione… the Holiday of the Liberation from Nazism and Fascism as WWII came to an end.

Here is little tune which became an unofficial anthem for the anti-fascism movement in Italy and then a song for freedom from tyranny in other places.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

I wonder if we will have freedom from tyranny in other spheres.   It seems like the season for it.

We might start with Bruno Forte… what a guy.

What Forte says here – and it is so condescending – is that people who want to receive on the tongue are disobedient and they think they know better than the Pope and bishops.

Well… maybe they do!

He says that for centuries they received in the hand, for which he has zero evidence.  Then in “darker times” people started receiving on the tongue out of fear of, get this, lack of hygiene.

He grounds his argument on Jesus’ saying (in the Greek) “labete … take” which he say take with the hand. However, lambano can mean a lot of things. Anyone who has ever studied any Greek has had to learn the verb, because it is used as a common paradigm. lambano can also mean a range of things, such as … and put yourself into the context now of the LAST SUPPER and Christ speaking to his new priests who will be the source of Apostolic Tradition.  I’ll emphasize some interesting possibilities:

    1. to take
      1. to take with the hand, lay hold of, any person or thing in order to use it
        1. to take up a thing to be carried
        2. to take upon one’s self
      2. to take in order to carry away
        1. without the notion of violence, i,e to remove, take away [in classical Greek also to take by violence]
      3. to take what is one’s own, to take to one’s self, to make one’s own
        1. to claim, procure, for one’s self 1c
      4. to associate with one’s self as companion, attendant
        1. of that which when taken is not let go, to seize, to lay hold of, apprehend
        2. to take by craft (our catch, used of hunters, fisherman, etc.), to circumvent one by fraud [which sounds what some politicians do and what communion in the hand looks like]
        3. to take to one’s self, lay hold upon, take possession of, i.e. to appropriate to one’s self
        4. catch at, reach after, strive to obtain
        5. to take a thing due, to collect, gather (tribute)
      5. to take [“to take” is another way of saying “to eat”]
        1. to admit, receive
        2. to receive what is offered
        3. not to refuse or reject
        4. to receive a person, give him access to one’s self, 1d
    2. to regard any one’s power, rank, external circumstances, and on that account to do some injustice or neglect something [more abuse than positive]
      1. to take, to choose, select
      2. to take beginning, to prove anything, to make a trial of, to experience
    3. to receive (what is given), to gain, get, obtain, to get back

And … on the way to supper with a friend last night.

We were being seated but were also standing and chatting with people at the table next to us, priests I happened to know who came to Rome for the canonization of Carlo Acutis, and a Cardinal rolled in and wanted our table.  The proprietor, being a friend and a really good friend of my dining companion, took them inside.  Sorry Your Eminence.

These nifty bruschette have a dressing of brain and artichoke.

Boiled and fried balls of pork “quinto quarto”, liver, intestine, brain, etc., with a marvelous herb sauce.

Bistecca alla fiorentina.   We couldn’t eat it all so I brought the rest home.

A little salt and lemon and olive oil.  It doesn’t get better.   It was extremely tender.   This was a 60 day (I think… maybe more?) aged porterhouse.

I saw a story elsewhere that the chain for the tolling of the great bell at San Pietro for the death of a pope was found to be broken and the bell had to be rung manually. Not only that, it took five men to do it.

In this video I see one man ringing the bell manually and it sounds at the right pace. Maybe there were four other guys to take over after this one got tired?

Anti-drone rifles… it had to happen.

Interim, motus ad lusorem cum militibus albis pertinent. Scaccus mattus, scilicet mors regis, duobus in motis veniat.

NB: Detineam explicationes in crastinum, ne vestrae interrumpantur commentationes.

UPDATE:

Those of you who answered that it is mate in 1, you were right.  That’s because I, stupidly, posted the image of the board after white’s first move and blacks response.  THIS should be the starting position…

A little anticlimactic now.

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ASK FATHER: Can we eat meat on Friday in the Octave of Easter? (Hint: YES!)

First, allow me to post a shot of  “Florentine” steak which two of the priests I dined with enjoyed on Holy Thursday.

They could also enjoy it today, Friday in the Octave of Easter.

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

My wife and I recently returned to the traditional Friday abstinence from meat year round.

Traditionally, would the Friday abstinence from meat also apply during Fridays of the whole Easter season?

What about just the octave?

Congratulations for wanting to adhere to the traditional practices.  Kudos.

You’ve asked a good question.

Here is canon 1251:

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

From the General Norms for Liturgical Year and Calendar, 24

24. The first eight days of Easter Time constitute the Octave of Easter and are celebrated as Solemnities of the Lord.

The days of the Octave of Easter are celebrated as Solemnities (in the Novus Ordo calendar).    Therefore, there is no obligation for Catholics for the Friday abstinence on this coming Friday.

Note well that the other Fridays of Eastertide are not Solemnities.  The relief from abstinence applies only to the Friday in the Octave of Easter.

BTW… this does not apply to the Octave of Christmas, for those days of that Octave are not counted as “Solemnities” as are those of the Easter Octave.

This is how the 1983 Code of Canon Law handles Friday in the Octave of Easter, and this applies also to those who prefer the Extraordinary Form (which did not have “Solemnities”).

As far as other Fridays are concerned, outside the Octave of Easter or some other Solemnity, you can ask your parish priest to dispense you or commute your act of penance.

Can. 1245 Without prejudice to the right of diocesan bishops mentioned in can. 87, for a just cause and according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop, a pastor [parish priest] can grant in individual cases a dispensation from the obligation of observing a feast day or a day of penance or can grant a commutation of the obligation into other pious works. A superior of a religious institute or society of apostolic life, if they are clerical and of pontifical right, can also do this in regard to his own subjects and others living in the house day and night.

Abstinence from meat has good reasoning behind it. For some, however, abstinence from other things can be of great spiritual effect.

Certainly you would never abstain from reading this blog… or from ordering…

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PASCHALCAzT 2025 – 52: Easter Friday – Marital imagery

Today the Roman Station is Santa Maria ad Martyres… the Pantheon.

We hear about the consecration of the Pantheon as a church by Boniface IV in 609 and the screaming of the demons that came out of it because of the idols that were in it. Then Scott Hahn addresses the problem of the idol our society has made of sex along with the corrective of what true fulfilment and intimacy is.

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ROME 25/4– Day 16: Easter Thursday

When did the Sun rise at Rome? 6:15

When will it set? 20:03.

What cycle is the Ave Maria Bell in for the Curia? 20:15

It is the feast, among others, of Sts. Maria of Clopas and Salome, disciples of the Lord.

There are reasons to pay attention to them because they help also to untangle the issue of the “brothers” of the Lord.

It’s Thursday in the Easter Octave and the Roman Station, because it is a Thursday, is the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles.  That’s where the tomb of Clement XIV is.  Also, the Apostles Philip and James.

A CONCLAVE THOUGHT:

Am I missing something or is this a little strange.

These surely worthy fellows can vote in the conclave

Apostolic Nuncio to Syria
Prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Bishop of Tonga
Bishop of Ajaccio
Bishop of Como

… but not the (under 80) Archbishops of

Los Angeles
Milan
Paris
Madrid

Welcome Registrants:

Breakspear
p27jmcguire

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

JASMINE REPORT (And I don’t mean the Jesuit)

It’s starting to bloom where the sun is strong. Soon there will be walls of it!

A reader issued a strong approbation of the peonies yesterday.   Another view.  They are spectacular.

Heading to the Campo down the Via dei Cappellari.

Here is a noteworthy tweet…

And… his English is good.

Lunatic stuff from one of the guys who rigged the family synod with a queer agenda… called out by Card. Erdo.

In chessy news…

White to move and mate in 4.

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

 

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PASCHALCAzT 2025 – 51: Easter Thursday – The Bride

Today’s Roman Station is the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles.

Scott Hahn talks about the bond of Christ and His Body, His Church, His Bride, which is our bond.

How about music for Easter? US HERE – UK HERE the wonderful Benedictines of Gower Abbey gave us the Sicut Cervus by Palestrina at the beginning.

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