Roma Eterna
There’s so much I can say about my trip to Rome that I hardly know where to start. One thing I can say is that it was over much too soon! I arrived at Fiumicino airport at 6:30 Monday morning after an all-night flight. A nice young man named Enrico who belonged to a Roman fraternity of Secular Franciscans came to pick me up at the airport and took me to the headquarters of the International Council of the Secular Franciscan Order (CIOFS). It is actually a rather modest apartment in a residential building in a suburb of Rome, with sleeping quarters as well as offices.
I rested in my room until the afternoon. It poured down rain all day (the worst rainstorm Rome had experienced for a decade). Benedetto Lino, a Councilor to CIOFS, soon called and said he would take me to dinner. It was still raining, but the restaurant was only a couple of blocks away, and parking on the street would be impossible, so we left wih umbrellas and rain hoods - and had to fight our way uphill against a terrible flood! But we had a lovely dinner. Benedetto speaks perfect English, since he went to high school in the States.
Most of the next two days was taken up with meetings of our commission, during which we discussed the letter we would send to the Order announcing the centenary, the program of formation, the material we would put on our website, etc. A perfect jumble of languages was spoken around the table - English, German and Italian — as we did our best to understand each other, and if not, hoped someone else at the table could translate. We shopped at neighborhood stores and ate again at the same charming local restaurant. On Wednesday, a friend of Alda, the CIOFS secretary, came and cooked a lovely Italian pranzo (midday dinner) for us in the apartment. This was a very different view of Rome from the one I had some 20 years ago, whe I stayed at a pensione close to St. Peter’s in the old historic part of the city.
On Thursday, our meetings over, I was ready for a trip to that historic part of Rome. I went first to St. Peter’s basilica for a visit to the tomb of Pope John Paul I on the anniversary of his death. Things had changed greatly in 20 years. Now, in an era of terrorism, visitors to the basilica have to stand in a long line (it stretched back to the end of the colonades) in order to go through a security check and have their backpacks, purses, etc., put through a scanner at the entrance. It was boiling hot, more like the middle of August than the end of September. We were channeled into the crypt first, where I visited the tomb of John Paul I and said a prayer. I think it’s the loveliest tomb there.
“Papa Luciani” as the Italians call him, was Pope for only 33 days. One of the reasons he struck me so much was that he was the first Pope whose election I was old enough to understand and follow. When he was elected, I was immediately moved by his serenity and joy. That led to me learning Italian in order to be able to read his writings, to my first visit to Italy, and to my translating his writings into English. I wanted to stay longer. But the officials kept saying “Avanti, avanti” to keep the line moving. I spent a little time inside the basilica for the first time in 20 years; a Mass was going on at the altar under the Bernini baldachino, but I couldn’t stay until the end, since I was due for lunch with the friars at Cosmas and Damian at 1:00.
The basilica and convent of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, located next to the Roman Forum, is one of the treasures of early Christian Rome. Built in the sixth century, and much rebuilt since, it is now the head church and mother house of the friars of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. I was met outside by Father Fernando Scocca, who is in charge of planning the centenary celebrations for St. Elizabeth. I had dinner there with the friars in the refectory, including Father Ilija Zivkovic, the Minister General of the Order. We talked about our St. Elizabeth projects. The friars invited me to rest in one of the upstairs rooms of the convent, as like all Romans, they observe the afternoon siesta. Later, I continued my talk with Fr. Fernando in his little study next to his room, then he took me on a tour of the basilica. The first thing I saw on the way downstairs was this statue of St. Francis on the staircase landing.
Fr. Fernando told me that the old stone walls of the staircase were a part of the first-century Forum; it seems that when the Emperor Titus destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and razed the city to the ground, tne menorahs and other precious objects from the temple were brought back to Rome and placed in the temple in a newly built forum, named with what I hope was unconscious irony, the Forum of Peace. The convent incorporated these walls. I didn’t ask why they put the statue of St. Francis there, with his hands upraised in prayer; I felt I knew. The prayer of this gentle man of peace brings a sense of blessing to this spot.
The original basilica has been altered many times; it was originally one tall church; but it was later divided horizontally into an upper church and a crypt. In the apse of the upper church is one of the few parts of the orignal building that still remains; the breathtaking sixth-century mosaic showing the martyred Sts. Cosmas and Damian being led by the apostles Peter and Paul to Christ, the King of Heaven. The mosaic (which was restored in 1989) looks as fresh as if it was completed yesterday.
This is Father Fernando, standing in front of the altar under the apse. I love the twelve lambs marching in procession at the bottom of the mosaic. I believe they stand for the disciples of Jesus, the sheep that Jesus told St. Peter to feed.
Fr. Fernando then took me to one of the side altars in the back of the church where I could see a 9th-century Byzantine crucifixion scene where Christ is not suffering, but clothed in majesty. In the crypt, we saw the original marble altar of the basilica, built at the time of Pope Gregory the Great.
It was hard to leave Rome, as I did the next day, but I know I’ll be returning in a few months. I can’t think of anything better to look forward to!
