Day 1 in Rome : Falling in Love, Getting Lost, St. Paul Basilica, Catholic Mass in a Hotel Room

Part 2 - Italy
Day 1 - Rome

I am in love with Italy. Didn't take long, I am still in the Rome airport, smelling the yucky cigarette smoke, getting pushed around by the crowds, and listening to people shout in Italian. The customs agent had a look on his face that clearly communicated boredom mixed with “f#!*ing American tourists” and I was having a hard time keeping a straight face as he stamped my passport. I have a big fat smile on my face as I walk in sleep-deprived wonder towards our tour bus.

Our overnight flight has landed us in Rome early in the morning, so we start sight-seeing immediately, with just a few minutes in the crowded airport bathrooms to freshen up. Our guide has not yet arrived (he’s stuck in an airport in the US somewhere) so our guide-in-training (I’ll call her Laura) takes us to our first two Catholic holy sites.

I like Laura.  Poor thing was supposed to be observing this trip, not guiding us at all, and she gets us lost on the way to the Abbey.  She has such a wonderful sense of humor that I can’t possibly be upset.  Plus, I enjoy the walk around the neighborhood!  We do finally find our first stop.

Tre Fontane Abbey  There are three churches here, all beautiful.  I don’t yet understand just how “simple” these churches are (it’s all about perspective).  In one, they have monuments marking the place where St. Paul was beheaded.  His head reportedly bounced down the stairs three times and from those three spots springs emerged.  Judging from the distance between the three springs, his head must have had some serious bounce capacity.  You can't really see the fountains, just the marble monuments around them. I am simply so excited to be in Rome that I eat up everything I can in the architecture and art.  This is a photo of the Church of St. Paul of the Three Fountains:

I am particularly enchanted with an icon on the side of the school of iconography building.

Just outside the walls of the Abbey there’s a little café and gift store where we have our first lunch. It’s my first experience ordering food in my butchered Italian, but I manage to get us a variety of panini and bottled fizzy water. We sit outside on the patio with some other pilgrims and we begin to get to know them. I’m happy that we have a nice, mellow conversation about beer and wine with a man from Michigan.

On the bus on our way to the next stop, Laura apologizes because she doesn’t know much of the historical background of our sites, and the official tour guide had not left her with any information. Honestly, I hadn’t really noticed. I’m pretty independent, and enjoy exploring and reading on my own for the most part. In retrospect, I can see this was preparing me for the contrast of our real tour guide, who will arrive on Day 2.

St. Paul Basilica Outside the Walls  This is my first taste of the grandiose quality of Roman Catholic basilicas.  I am awed by the door – I could just stop there and stare for a while - let alone the sculptures, painting, ceilings, altar, etc.  Portraits of all the popes that ever existed ring the main sanctuary, gazing down at the Catholic faithful – and the tourists.

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Exhausted but exhilarated, late in the afternoon we make the long drive to our hotel on the outskirts of Rome.  It’s a nice enough hotel, and dinner is good by US hotel standards (though I am disappointed I don’t get to eat in a trattoria in town!).  My favorite part is the arugula salad, mortadella, and cheese. But then – I decide to indulge in dessert.  They have five different tarts laid out, all different flavors – we don’t know what they all are except for the lemon and apple.  I grab one that looks like chocolate only to discover that the rich creamy filling inside is chocolate laced with orange, one of my favorite combinations. (I am getting goosebumps just thinking about it.)

Little did I know that we would have mass every day. Laura announces that we’ll have our first mass after dinner, improvised in a conference room in the hotel. I kind of like the improvised digs; a tablecloth over a folding table in a conference room is quite a contrast to St. Paul’s Basilica.

Every pilgrim tour group has a priest who serves throughout the trip. Our priest, I’ll call him Father David, is from Uganda. He strikes me as a young priest (I find out later he was only ordained a few years ago), but very sincere. Mass isn’t too bad.  There’s something about our simple surroundings that evokes a kind of authenticity in our intention for the mass. I think it also helps that all of the 30 or so pilgrims want - and were probably called - to be on this trip.

I am surprised when Father David invites us at one point of the mass to offer our prayers out loud. I hear some predictable things, like “world peace.”  Then one woman says, "let us pray for the unborn babies and the end of abortion." I am not against anyone who is pro-life, I am simply not used to speaking out about it and assuming that everyone in the room feels the same way.  In my community, we let each person feel how they want to feel about it, we don’t preach about it. It crashes me into reality - holy crap I am on vacation with conservative Catholics. 

Coming Thursday: Day 2 in  Rome :  The Grand St. Peter’s Basilica, Hitting My First Wall of Catholic Dogma, Mad Dash to the Sistine Chapel.

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