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!