I'm about to disappear for a couple weeks. By that I mean that our final studio project is due in just under two weeks, and I won't really have any free time til then (and not much sleeping time either). Oh, and I'm also going to London for 3 days in there for Thanksgiving...we bought our tickets when we thought the project was due tomorrow, and so we'd be able to relax and enjoy the trip. The deadline got extended to December 7th, which is good, but means the trip timing is not as good. But it'll be fun anyway.
Before I drop off the face of the earth though, I want to write quickly about a few things I've been meaning to. First, last week I visited the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls for the first time. It was the feast of the dedications of St. Peter's and St. Paul's. I had to take a bus to get there--it really is "outside the walls":-). It was awesome. St. Paul's tomb is there, along with one of the chains that bound him in jail. Being at the tomb reminded me of something that happened over the summer--the Pope announced that DNA evidence has confirmed that the remains in the tomb belong to a male about the age St. Paul is believed to have been when he died, and from that time period. So it's pretty much for sure that it's him. Anyway, I found out about this during Totus Tuus, and my teammate Craig was SO excited about it. When the boys picked us up that morning, it was all he could talk about. And I remember him saying "I LOVE being Catholic!". So it was way cool to actually be there. I also had some really good prayer time--I reflected on what the relationship of Peter and Paul was like. I imagine that they were pretty good buddies, maybe joked around with each other, both very energetic and dynamic. But then I wondered about the quieter times when they were alone together--did St. Paul ever ask St. Peter to tell him about the time he spent with Jesus? And I thought about how amazingly smart St. Paul must have been, to be able to write all those letters. And they were just letters, things he sent in the mail (whatever sort of mail they had back then. Pigeons? Probably not. Donkeys? Maybe just people?) Anyway, it was sort of a challenge to me to not shy away from deep or intellectual conversations throughout a normal day.
On a lighter note, I experienced another important part of Italian culture a few days ago. I went to a movie theater! I saw New Moon, one of the Twilight movies. It was in English:-) But, actually, part of it at the end is set in Italy, in a town we drove by between Florence and Siena. They spoke a few Italian phrases, and I understood those! It was fun. And not much different than an American theater. Maybe a place where they just showed Italian movies would be different, I don't know.
Well, I have to go to class now. Pray for me these next couple of weeks!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Living Stones
The large majority of my blog posts lately have been about all the traveling I've done. That's probably because most of the time, that's the exciting stuff. It wouldn't be quite as exciting to read about what I did today here in Rome, for instance. It'd go something like--woke up, went for a run, showered, went to mass, came to studio, took a break for lunch, studio, dinner, studio...but sometimes the ordinariness and routine is nice. And I certainly don't mean that Rome is boring. The pattern of days makes a fabric that interesting experiences can be woven in and out of (is that metaphor too much of a stretch?:-) ), and each day does bring something unique. I guess none of that is exclusive to life in Rome...that's what life is all the time, anywhere.
But anyway, I wanted to recount a few of the noteworthy experiences I've had this week...first of all, Monday was the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. I never paid much attention to this feast in the past. Last year was probably the first year I had even heard of it (because I had my breviary). But this year, it caught my attention more because St. John Lateran happens to be here in Rome.
Here's the facade! This picture is cool because the shadows are fantastic; almost a perfect "45-45". That's the convention for constructing shadows in architectural renderings--it means the sun is at a 45 degree angle to the church along the ground, aka if the church were sitting on a giant clock with 6 at the door shown here and the 12 in the back, then the sun would be between the 7 and 8. Then, flip that up vertically--it's also at a 45 degree between the earth and the top of the sky. If that sounds confusing, that's because IT IS. Shadows are one of the hardest things to figure out how to do perfectly right.
Anyway, besides having sweet shadows, this was THE first Christian church, built right after Constantine legalized Christianity. So according to my breve, it's the "mother church of Christendom". Liturgy of the Hours for the day is taken from the common of a dedication of a church. It's really cool, with a lot of references to Christ as the cornerstone, us being living stones, the different places where God dwells...things like that. And what was even cooler was I prayed Morning Prayer IN St. John Lateran, after I had gone to mass there too. It was pretty awesome. This feast makes a clear connection between faith and architecture. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this at least a few other times in my blog, but it's an idea that keeps coming up this year--churches (the physical buildings) are important--but only because they're places where more important things happen. The Church (the people) can gather there, and Jesus dwells there. And I also spent awhile reflecting on the idea of "living stones". I thought about all the different ways that stone is used in architecture, from huge, heavy foundations, to intricate, finely carved details. Scripture doesn't really specify what kind we're supposed to be. So I was thinking that our job is just to be the material--to have substance, to have a strong faith...and then let Him form us into whatever shape He wills. And then, of course, to be content with whatever that is...St. Josemaria Escriva, one of my faves, actually says just that--that we should be content to just be foundations.
Then, on Tuesday, my Urbanism class was really cool. We're on a unit of studying churches, and we visited St. Peters. We talked about the route to get there, the piazza, and a little bit about the actual church itself (but mostly about the exterior; we didn't go in). I learned a lot of sweet stuff that I hadn't noticed just by visiting it on my own. Bernini, the architect who designed the piazza, did a fantastic job of working with existing conditions and creating something harmonious out of disparate parts. ("Harmonious" and "disparate" are a few of my professor's favorite words). It's so clever, and so beautiful, and so elegant. Even without all the faith connections, it'd probably be one of my favorite spaces. But since it has both connections, being super important faith-wise, AND super cool architecturally...well...what more can I ask for? :-)
Tomorrow promises to be a good day too--the topic for History is "early Christianity", so we're visiting S. Maria Maggiore and a few other churches near there. I'm looking forward to it!
But anyway, I wanted to recount a few of the noteworthy experiences I've had this week...first of all, Monday was the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. I never paid much attention to this feast in the past. Last year was probably the first year I had even heard of it (because I had my breviary). But this year, it caught my attention more because St. John Lateran happens to be here in Rome.
Here's the facade! This picture is cool because the shadows are fantastic; almost a perfect "45-45". That's the convention for constructing shadows in architectural renderings--it means the sun is at a 45 degree angle to the church along the ground, aka if the church were sitting on a giant clock with 6 at the door shown here and the 12 in the back, then the sun would be between the 7 and 8. Then, flip that up vertically--it's also at a 45 degree between the earth and the top of the sky. If that sounds confusing, that's because IT IS. Shadows are one of the hardest things to figure out how to do perfectly right.
Anyway, besides having sweet shadows, this was THE first Christian church, built right after Constantine legalized Christianity. So according to my breve, it's the "mother church of Christendom". Liturgy of the Hours for the day is taken from the common of a dedication of a church. It's really cool, with a lot of references to Christ as the cornerstone, us being living stones, the different places where God dwells...things like that. And what was even cooler was I prayed Morning Prayer IN St. John Lateran, after I had gone to mass there too. It was pretty awesome. This feast makes a clear connection between faith and architecture. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this at least a few other times in my blog, but it's an idea that keeps coming up this year--churches (the physical buildings) are important--but only because they're places where more important things happen. The Church (the people) can gather there, and Jesus dwells there. And I also spent awhile reflecting on the idea of "living stones". I thought about all the different ways that stone is used in architecture, from huge, heavy foundations, to intricate, finely carved details. Scripture doesn't really specify what kind we're supposed to be. So I was thinking that our job is just to be the material--to have substance, to have a strong faith...and then let Him form us into whatever shape He wills. And then, of course, to be content with whatever that is...St. Josemaria Escriva, one of my faves, actually says just that--that we should be content to just be foundations.
Then, on Tuesday, my Urbanism class was really cool. We're on a unit of studying churches, and we visited St. Peters. We talked about the route to get there, the piazza, and a little bit about the actual church itself (but mostly about the exterior; we didn't go in). I learned a lot of sweet stuff that I hadn't noticed just by visiting it on my own. Bernini, the architect who designed the piazza, did a fantastic job of working with existing conditions and creating something harmonious out of disparate parts. ("Harmonious" and "disparate" are a few of my professor's favorite words). It's so clever, and so beautiful, and so elegant. Even without all the faith connections, it'd probably be one of my favorite spaces. But since it has both connections, being super important faith-wise, AND super cool architecturally...well...what more can I ask for? :-)
Tomorrow promises to be a good day too--the topic for History is "early Christianity", so we're visiting S. Maria Maggiore and a few other churches near there. I'm looking forward to it!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Florence and Siena
Last week, I went on ANOTHER class field trip, this time to Florence and Siena (I know, life is rough...). We left Thursday morning, and spent Thursday and Friday in Florence. On Saturday morning we left for Siena and stayed there til Sunday afternoon, and then came back to Rome.
Florence (aka Firenze, in Italian) was beautiful. The first thing we did when we got there was walk to a church up on a big hill called S. Miniato al Monte. The somewhat steep trek up was definitely worth it when we got to the top and had a beautiful view of the city.
Here's the church
And here's the view!
After that, we had free time for lunch and then our usual walking tour around the city, aka class. We went to a church called S. Croce, where a lot of famous Florentines are buried, the most notable being Michelangelo and Galileo. In the evening, we had free time again. I walked around with my friend Katie for awhile, window shopping. (Well, she bought a few things...I window shopped). The big thing to buy in Florence is leather--boots, belts, bags, jackets, and for us arkies, sketchbooks. Unfortunately, everything's kind of expensive--but Mom and Dad, when we come back at Christmas? :-) Haha. Anyway, it was fun just looking at stuff. We also went down to the Ponte Vecchio, (Old Bridge), which, as the name suggests, was the first bridge built across the river. Now it's pretty touristy, with shops lining both sides, but there's still a nice view in the middle.
Unfortunately, the lighting's not too great...
The next day, we spent the morning visiting San Lorenzo church, which includes a lot of things we learned about last year: the church itself, the "new sacristy" by Michelangelo with the tombs of the Medici brothers, and the Laurentian library. All very cool. In the afternoon, I chose to go on an optional visit to the Boboli Gardens, a formal (planned) garden behind one of the palazzos. I sort of blew off my watercolor sketching assignment to do so, but I ended up having time to do it later and I'm really glad I did, because the garden was awesome. One of the professors told us a little bit about it, and then we just had time to wander.
This is near the entrance--most of the garden is up the hill and behind those trees.
The view was great from up there, and I really like this picture--thanks Evan for your good photography skills!
Sweet fountain thing running down the hill--I threw a stick in at the top to see if it would go all the way, but unfortunately it got stuck in one of those heads.
After the gardens, a few of us climbed the dome of the Duomo! It was so cool. It's a pretty impressive dome architecturally, and you can kind of see the structure as you're going up--actually, you're inside it, so that made it even cooler. The sun had just set when we got up there, so my pictures didn't turn out great...but you can kind of get the idea.
Looking down the dome
The city!
Friday night we had time to relax and just chill in the city again, and then we left right after breakfast on Saturday for Siena! There are two main architectural attractions in Siena--Piazza del Campo, and the Duomo. They were both alright, but I liked Florence better as a city. But here they are:
Looking into the piazza--apparently I struggle with holding my camera straight when I take pictures, sorry
The Duomo is the domed building behind me (Also, when I looked at this picture I thought, "Wow! My hair is getting REALLY long!" And it is).
Siena also had some pretty awesome religious items--the incorrupt head of St. Catherine of Siena, and a Eucharistic miracle: 233 consecrated hosts that have been incorrupt since the late 1700s. They were stolen, then found and brought back to the church in a huge procession. Now they're kept in a tabernacle and only brought out on special occassions, so I didn't actually see them, but I did get to pray in front of them. It was pretty powerful.
We left Siena early Sunday afternoon and after a beautiful bus ride, got back to Rome in time for dinner. It was another great trip!
Florence (aka Firenze, in Italian) was beautiful. The first thing we did when we got there was walk to a church up on a big hill called S. Miniato al Monte. The somewhat steep trek up was definitely worth it when we got to the top and had a beautiful view of the city.
Here's the church
And here's the view!
After that, we had free time for lunch and then our usual walking tour around the city, aka class. We went to a church called S. Croce, where a lot of famous Florentines are buried, the most notable being Michelangelo and Galileo. In the evening, we had free time again. I walked around with my friend Katie for awhile, window shopping. (Well, she bought a few things...I window shopped). The big thing to buy in Florence is leather--boots, belts, bags, jackets, and for us arkies, sketchbooks. Unfortunately, everything's kind of expensive--but Mom and Dad, when we come back at Christmas? :-) Haha. Anyway, it was fun just looking at stuff. We also went down to the Ponte Vecchio, (Old Bridge), which, as the name suggests, was the first bridge built across the river. Now it's pretty touristy, with shops lining both sides, but there's still a nice view in the middle.
Unfortunately, the lighting's not too great...
The next day, we spent the morning visiting San Lorenzo church, which includes a lot of things we learned about last year: the church itself, the "new sacristy" by Michelangelo with the tombs of the Medici brothers, and the Laurentian library. All very cool. In the afternoon, I chose to go on an optional visit to the Boboli Gardens, a formal (planned) garden behind one of the palazzos. I sort of blew off my watercolor sketching assignment to do so, but I ended up having time to do it later and I'm really glad I did, because the garden was awesome. One of the professors told us a little bit about it, and then we just had time to wander.
This is near the entrance--most of the garden is up the hill and behind those trees.
The view was great from up there, and I really like this picture--thanks Evan for your good photography skills!
Sweet fountain thing running down the hill--I threw a stick in at the top to see if it would go all the way, but unfortunately it got stuck in one of those heads.
After the gardens, a few of us climbed the dome of the Duomo! It was so cool. It's a pretty impressive dome architecturally, and you can kind of see the structure as you're going up--actually, you're inside it, so that made it even cooler. The sun had just set when we got up there, so my pictures didn't turn out great...but you can kind of get the idea.
Looking down the dome
The city!
Friday night we had time to relax and just chill in the city again, and then we left right after breakfast on Saturday for Siena! There are two main architectural attractions in Siena--Piazza del Campo, and the Duomo. They were both alright, but I liked Florence better as a city. But here they are:
Looking into the piazza--apparently I struggle with holding my camera straight when I take pictures, sorry
The Duomo is the domed building behind me (Also, when I looked at this picture I thought, "Wow! My hair is getting REALLY long!" And it is).
Siena also had some pretty awesome religious items--the incorrupt head of St. Catherine of Siena, and a Eucharistic miracle: 233 consecrated hosts that have been incorrupt since the late 1700s. They were stolen, then found and brought back to the church in a huge procession. Now they're kept in a tabernacle and only brought out on special occassions, so I didn't actually see them, but I did get to pray in front of them. It was pretty powerful.
We left Siena early Sunday afternoon and after a beautiful bus ride, got back to Rome in time for dinner. It was another great trip!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
La Corsa Dei Santi
"La Corsa Dei Santi" is the name of a 10.5K race held annually in Rome on the Feast of All Saint's Day (which was last Sunday). With a weird distance like that, it must be Italian:-) It starts and ends at St. Peter's, and the route includes running by St. John Lateran AND S. Maria Maggiore, two of the other biggest churches in Rome. Now, if you had asked me what this race was last week, I couldn't have told you--I had never heard of it. On Saturday afternoon, though, I was flipping through a free magazine about Rome that had been left for us in studio, and noticed that in the back there was a list of sporting events, including races. This one was on the list. I told my friend Evan about it, and we decided to try to do it (obviously. How could we pass up an opportunity like that?) We looked up online how to register, and ended up walking to an office a little ways away, only to find out that we needed medical forms saying we were healthy in order to run. Neither of us had them, however, which led to frantic scrambling to try and get our parents to scan and email copies of things we had at home (thanks again Mom and Dad and Matt!). Both of us managed to get them, and we showed up early the next morning and registered without a problem. We went to a special mass in St. Peter's beforehand for the participants, too, which was pretty cool. The weather was beautiful--a little chilly at first, but it warmed up just enough to be comfortable. And, like a typical American race, we got a free T-shirt and breakfast afterwards!
I brought my camera so I could take pictures before and after, and then realized I didn't have a good place to put it DURING the race, so I ended up carrying it with me. It wasn't that bad; it's pretty compact, and 2 years of taking my ID card with me every time I ran at ND has gotten me used to holding things while I run. It also meant I could take some pictures during the race of the things we ran by. They're not great quality, because I was running as I took them...but I'll put them up anyway. (To my running friends--I included this whole long explanation of how I have pictures of the route to justify the fact that I brought my camera on a run--I HAD to, please don't disqualify me from the "real runners" club forever!)
Here's Evan and I before the race.
The starting line!
Coming up to the Arch of Constantine
The back of the Colosseum
The side of St. John Lateran--just after the halfway point
S. Maria Maggiore
The side of the Roman Forum
Trajan's Forum--I managed to get a shot with one of the trees exactly covering Trajan's column, so you can just barely see it back there...
The dome of S. Andrea Della Valle, the church we live right by and where I usually go to daily mass
Coming up to the bridge across to the Vatican--you can tell I'm getting more tired and having more trouble holding the camera straight:-)
The home stretch--sprinting towards St. Peters...I got to do it literally, but shouldn't we do it figuratively every day?
Tired and happy after the race
Ambitious readers at home: look up a map of Rome, and using these pictures, can you figure out the route for the race?
This was one of my favorite experiences in Rome so far. I love doing sponaneous things like this. It was a little weird to run a race spontaneously, though--I hadn't done any specific training for it, and so didn't feel quite the same sense of accomplishment when I finished as, say, I did after the half marathons I've run. But for the circumstances, my time was still pretty good (for me at least): 59:35. And it's good to know that there ARE runners in Rome, lots of them, in fact. So hopefully we'll be able to find more races like this in the future!
Tomorrow we're leaving for another short class trip, just 4 days this time, and just to Florence and Siena. So look for more posts next week about our travels!
I brought my camera so I could take pictures before and after, and then realized I didn't have a good place to put it DURING the race, so I ended up carrying it with me. It wasn't that bad; it's pretty compact, and 2 years of taking my ID card with me every time I ran at ND has gotten me used to holding things while I run. It also meant I could take some pictures during the race of the things we ran by. They're not great quality, because I was running as I took them...but I'll put them up anyway. (To my running friends--I included this whole long explanation of how I have pictures of the route to justify the fact that I brought my camera on a run--I HAD to, please don't disqualify me from the "real runners" club forever!)
Here's Evan and I before the race.
The starting line!
Coming up to the Arch of Constantine
The back of the Colosseum
The side of St. John Lateran--just after the halfway point
S. Maria Maggiore
The side of the Roman Forum
Trajan's Forum--I managed to get a shot with one of the trees exactly covering Trajan's column, so you can just barely see it back there...
The dome of S. Andrea Della Valle, the church we live right by and where I usually go to daily mass
Coming up to the bridge across to the Vatican--you can tell I'm getting more tired and having more trouble holding the camera straight:-)
The home stretch--sprinting towards St. Peters...I got to do it literally, but shouldn't we do it figuratively every day?
Tired and happy after the race
Ambitious readers at home: look up a map of Rome, and using these pictures, can you figure out the route for the race?
This was one of my favorite experiences in Rome so far. I love doing sponaneous things like this. It was a little weird to run a race spontaneously, though--I hadn't done any specific training for it, and so didn't feel quite the same sense of accomplishment when I finished as, say, I did after the half marathons I've run. But for the circumstances, my time was still pretty good (for me at least): 59:35. And it's good to know that there ARE runners in Rome, lots of them, in fact. So hopefully we'll be able to find more races like this in the future!
Tomorrow we're leaving for another short class trip, just 4 days this time, and just to Florence and Siena. So look for more posts next week about our travels!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Lourdes!
To remind you of where I left off in recounting my travels in France, I had just boarded an overnight train from Paris to Lourdes. It was surprisingly comfortable, especially after the other people in my little 4 seat pod left and I could sort of sprawl out over a couple seats. I arrived in Lourdes at about 7 in the morning, and after a brief map reading failure I made it to the hotel where my friend Sandra was staying. It worked out best for her to come Thursday night, so she had already been in Lourdes for a whole day by the time I got there, and sort of knew her way around the town. The first thing she asked me, though, was "what time do you want to go to mass today?" And I knew it was going to be a good day:-)
The main attraction in Lourdes, of course, is the grotto. Right next to the grotto are a series of three churches stacked on top of each other. (Actually, it's more like the grotto is built into the side of them). The one in the middle is the smallest and I think the one that was built in response to the request of Mary to St. Bernadette. The one of top of it came next, and the one beneath it is the most recent. We started at the grotto, and walked up right as mass was starting. It was in French, but luckily Sandra could translate the homily for me. After mass, we visited each of those three churches, and then went into town. We saw the house where St. Bernadette was born and lived her early life, the one room building where her family was living at the time of the apparitions, and her parish church, including the baptismal font where she was baptized. It was pretty cool to think about how St. Bernadette had actually lived there. I kind of felt the same sort of excitement that I do when I do things like meet my friend's parents or see pictures of their houses--it's cool because it's important to someone that I care about, if that makes any sense.
After that, we got lunch and went back to the big piazza in front of the churches to eat. I suppose now would be a good time for a picture so you actually know what I'm talking about...
Ok, you can't really see the piazza here. This is more of a larger scale view (so you can see the beautiful mountains in the background!) But imagine us eating lunch closer to the church, and then the grotto is on the right side of the church. I didn't take many pictures in Lourdes because my camera battery was getting very low, and I brought my charger but failed to remember that French outlets are different than Italian outlets...
Anyway, after lunch we walked a path with stations of the cross to the left and up a hill from the church. Each station was a statue scene, and they were really well done. We had a little booklet with reflections that were less well done, but mostly because the English translations weren't so great. Some of the ideas were pretty cool, though. I got to go to reconciliation after that, which was cool because I had actually been thinking a few days before that I really needed to go; it had been a while. So what better place than Lourdes, where Mary asked St. Bernadette to pray, pray, pray, for the conversion of souls? There's a short Eucharistic procession everyday at 5 pm, where everyone just gathers across the river from the grotto and the priest says a few prayers, and then everyone processes around the to front of the church and there are a few more prayers. We went to that, and then went back to the grotto to pray properly there for the first time (besideds mass), and then to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner, we went to another procession, this time a Marian one, and it was incredible. It was dark by this time, so everyone had a candle and we walked and prayed the rosary. Between each decade, we sang Aves and held up our candles...it was very beautiful.
When the procession was over, Sandra and I headed back to our hotel and went to sleep. On Sunday, we went to an international mass in an underground basilica. It was kind of cool, but i didn't really care for the architecture--it looked like we were in a basement, because we were, I guess. The best part of the church was that there were huge pictures hung all around of saints. It was a pretty good variety, too, including some popes, classics like St. Terese, and also some more recent saints, like a few of my favorites, St. Josemaria Escriva and St. Maximilian Kolbe. After mass, we went back to the grotto and lit some candles and prayed, then got lunch and it was time for Sandra to get on her train back to Angers. I had the afternoon to keep wandering around. I found a series of reflections on water they had by the grotto (actually, Sandra had told me about it but we didn't have a chance to go on Saturday). It was really cool. I guess I had sort of forgotten the importance that water has in the story of the apparitions at Lourdes (I have a tendency to sometimes forget important facts like that, it's kind of unfortunate--like I won't remember what happens at the climax of a book I've read a few times, but then I get to discover it all over again, so it's not all bad...). Anyway, those reflections and a few of the homilies I heard over the weekend led me to really reflect on how Jesus is the source of life. At Lourdes, Mary revealed the source of a spring to St. Bernadette, and she continues to reveal Jesus, the True Source, to us.
When I got to the train station later that evening, I had a kind of funny revelation (and kind of embarrassing)...when I looked at the clock, I realized that it was an hour off from what my watch said, and then remember that Daylight Savings Time had ended overnight. Sandra and I both completely forgot about it. Luckily, it was "fall back" so I just had to wait an extra hour...I didn't miss my train or anything. The ride was smooth again, as was my transfer on the metro from the train station to the airport in Paris, and then my flight and train back from the airport in Rome (again with the mulitple legs thing). I finally got back just in time for class on Monday!
And now, a series of pictures I've been looking forward to putting up for awhile--Lourdes-inspired grottos that I've been to!
Notre Dame--I promise I've been here, even though I'm not in the picture.
Benedictine--it was just dedicated this year!
Lourdes--the real one:-) I'm wearing the same T-shirt as when I was at the BC one, but I didn't plan that; I just noticed it now, in fact.
Well, that completes my fall break adventures. It was a great week, and I'm looking forward to traveling more!
The main attraction in Lourdes, of course, is the grotto. Right next to the grotto are a series of three churches stacked on top of each other. (Actually, it's more like the grotto is built into the side of them). The one in the middle is the smallest and I think the one that was built in response to the request of Mary to St. Bernadette. The one of top of it came next, and the one beneath it is the most recent. We started at the grotto, and walked up right as mass was starting. It was in French, but luckily Sandra could translate the homily for me. After mass, we visited each of those three churches, and then went into town. We saw the house where St. Bernadette was born and lived her early life, the one room building where her family was living at the time of the apparitions, and her parish church, including the baptismal font where she was baptized. It was pretty cool to think about how St. Bernadette had actually lived there. I kind of felt the same sort of excitement that I do when I do things like meet my friend's parents or see pictures of their houses--it's cool because it's important to someone that I care about, if that makes any sense.
After that, we got lunch and went back to the big piazza in front of the churches to eat. I suppose now would be a good time for a picture so you actually know what I'm talking about...
Ok, you can't really see the piazza here. This is more of a larger scale view (so you can see the beautiful mountains in the background!) But imagine us eating lunch closer to the church, and then the grotto is on the right side of the church. I didn't take many pictures in Lourdes because my camera battery was getting very low, and I brought my charger but failed to remember that French outlets are different than Italian outlets...
Anyway, after lunch we walked a path with stations of the cross to the left and up a hill from the church. Each station was a statue scene, and they were really well done. We had a little booklet with reflections that were less well done, but mostly because the English translations weren't so great. Some of the ideas were pretty cool, though. I got to go to reconciliation after that, which was cool because I had actually been thinking a few days before that I really needed to go; it had been a while. So what better place than Lourdes, where Mary asked St. Bernadette to pray, pray, pray, for the conversion of souls? There's a short Eucharistic procession everyday at 5 pm, where everyone just gathers across the river from the grotto and the priest says a few prayers, and then everyone processes around the to front of the church and there are a few more prayers. We went to that, and then went back to the grotto to pray properly there for the first time (besideds mass), and then to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner, we went to another procession, this time a Marian one, and it was incredible. It was dark by this time, so everyone had a candle and we walked and prayed the rosary. Between each decade, we sang Aves and held up our candles...it was very beautiful.
When the procession was over, Sandra and I headed back to our hotel and went to sleep. On Sunday, we went to an international mass in an underground basilica. It was kind of cool, but i didn't really care for the architecture--it looked like we were in a basement, because we were, I guess. The best part of the church was that there were huge pictures hung all around of saints. It was a pretty good variety, too, including some popes, classics like St. Terese, and also some more recent saints, like a few of my favorites, St. Josemaria Escriva and St. Maximilian Kolbe. After mass, we went back to the grotto and lit some candles and prayed, then got lunch and it was time for Sandra to get on her train back to Angers. I had the afternoon to keep wandering around. I found a series of reflections on water they had by the grotto (actually, Sandra had told me about it but we didn't have a chance to go on Saturday). It was really cool. I guess I had sort of forgotten the importance that water has in the story of the apparitions at Lourdes (I have a tendency to sometimes forget important facts like that, it's kind of unfortunate--like I won't remember what happens at the climax of a book I've read a few times, but then I get to discover it all over again, so it's not all bad...). Anyway, those reflections and a few of the homilies I heard over the weekend led me to really reflect on how Jesus is the source of life. At Lourdes, Mary revealed the source of a spring to St. Bernadette, and she continues to reveal Jesus, the True Source, to us.
When I got to the train station later that evening, I had a kind of funny revelation (and kind of embarrassing)...when I looked at the clock, I realized that it was an hour off from what my watch said, and then remember that Daylight Savings Time had ended overnight. Sandra and I both completely forgot about it. Luckily, it was "fall back" so I just had to wait an extra hour...I didn't miss my train or anything. The ride was smooth again, as was my transfer on the metro from the train station to the airport in Paris, and then my flight and train back from the airport in Rome (again with the mulitple legs thing). I finally got back just in time for class on Monday!
And now, a series of pictures I've been looking forward to putting up for awhile--Lourdes-inspired grottos that I've been to!
Notre Dame--I promise I've been here, even though I'm not in the picture.
Benedictine--it was just dedicated this year!
Lourdes--the real one:-) I'm wearing the same T-shirt as when I was at the BC one, but I didn't plan that; I just noticed it now, in fact.
Well, that completes my fall break adventures. It was a great week, and I'm looking forward to traveling more!
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