Easter in Christian Martyrdom Central
If Christmas in Rome didn’t feel the same, Easter definitely didn’t. But unlike Christmas, where I mostly missed the entire holiday spirit (it came without ribbons! it came without tags!), I think that for the first time in my life, I really understood Easter. I don’t know if it’s walking above the ruins of a civilization that existed in the time of Jesus, or if was the people I spent the week with and the churches I visited, but Easter, I found, means a little bit more…
I’ll start with Holy Week- since I had basically indulged myself all over Europe for the entirety of Lent, I decided to really buckle down for the week and NOT indulge in much at all. (For Lent, I made a big effort not to complain about people- something that’s difficult when you’re living with 50 flawed people…but I’m happy with how I did, and that’s not the sort of thing you fall back into right away). On Wednesday of Holy Week, I went to a soup kitchen, and to confession for the second time in two months (amazing considering I hadn’t gone in 7 years…) Afterwards, I watched “The Passion” with a few of my friends from architecture, and the American Seminarians here that we have befriended. This was really intense, as I expected it to be. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even the blood and gore, it was the humanity of Jesus and how they portrayed His relationship with His mother, and His divinity- how they portrayed His relationship with the Father. Anyways, I’ll avoid going off on a major tangent and just say that I had a great conversation after the movie with Brian, Ben, Tim, and Heidi about it. Thursday, I cut out of class early to go to mass with the Pope and the Steinhardts at St. John Lateran. On Friday, I went to a very wet Stations of the Cross at the Coliseum with Pope Benedict (Pope Groupie alert) and a crowd of Notre Dame students who had come in from all over Europe, including Jackie (Pangborn roommate extraordinaire)! It was so great to spend time with her. Saturday I hung out with Jackie, and picked up Julie (Grosse Pointe Track Star turned Montana Wrangler) from the airport. (Side note- upon nearly missing the train, I ended up talking with an architecture student from Pratt for over an hour while waiting for Jul). We spent Saturday evening following the Path of Illumination (From Angels and Demons) all around Rome. Saturday was also a big day in Grosse Pointe, with a cross country reunion for Mary’s wedding- I’m sad that we missed it, but Julie and I had our own Easter CC reunion. In Rome. No complaints here.
On Sunday, Jackie, Julie, and I woke up bright and early to get to St. Peter’s by 8:00 a.m. for a 10:30 mass with my homeboy. Too bad it started raining at about 10:15 and didn’t stop until 12:30. Tim reckons it was our renewed baptism with the resurrection of Christ. All I can say is that I was soaked, and it definitely made for the most entertaining and memorable mass I’ve ever been to. I don’t usually describe mass as ‘fun’, but when you have no idea what’s going on because you don’t speak the language, and you can’t see in front of you because of the sea of umbrellas, and dripping wet next to you are some of your best friends, that qualifies as fun. After Ben-dizzle’s blessing, we made our way back, dried off, and went to studio for a delicious huge Easter brunch, made by Brian, chef extraordinaire. That was after the first breakfast of chocolate and rainwater, of course. For the rest of the daylight, I took Jackie, Julie, and visitors Mike and Kyle on a tour of Christian Rome. We hit up Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Prassede (and the column that Jesus was scourged on), a hail storm, St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusaleme, and the Holy of Holies Chapel and Scala Santa. I tried to show them that I actually manage to stay awake in class this year… We made it back to studio for a huge dinner with the Notre Dame visitors, then shared some wine and cookies for Mike’s birthday.
Monday morning, I saw Jackie off (although I didn’t want to). But Julie spent the whole week here, so on Monday I took her to Ancient Rome. With Nate and his friend Sam, we sweet talked our way into the Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and Coliseum for free. After climbing around on the 2000 year ruins for a few hours, Julie and I grabbed a sandwich and went to St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, which unfortunately was busy with busloads of annoying kids…despite that, it was nice to be back there, because I think that it’s my favorite church in Rome. After saying goodbye to St. Paul, we went back to dinner with Brian and Danny. Tuesday was spent seeing all of the obvious things around my studio that we hadn’t gotten to yet. After my morning class, I took Julie to my favorite sandwich shop, Marcella’s, and inside the Pantheon, to Sant’Ivo, the Trevi Fountain, the famous San Crispino’s gelato, the Quirinal hill, the Vittorio Emmanuele II Monument, Mouth of Truth, Circus Maximus, and up the Aventine Hill to the secret keyhole. As if we hadn’t walked enough, after all of that, we ran up the Gianiculum Hill to Bramante’s Tempietto and Villa Doria Pamphilij. We saw a beautiful sunset overlooking Rome, then went back to studio and ate dinner and some more gelato. (Notice I went right back to indulging after Easter…) On Wednesday, we took a regional train to the small city of Tivoli outside of Rome, where we visited the Villa d’Este and its beautiful gardens. Unfortunately, the famous fountains weren’t running, but we still had fun, and it was nice to be out of Rome. We cooked dinner and went to Della Palma for gelato. Thursday was Julie’s last day here, and unfortunately I had to be in class for most of the day. We did manage to fit in Marcella’s and some shopping on Corso. We had our weekly girl’s night dinner at Mickey’s and Julie even got to meet my favorite Italian waiter, Oliver…then, of course, we had more gelato.
Today, Friday, Julie and I woke up way too early for comfort and went to the airport. It was a sad goodbye, especially because I have no idea when I’ll see Julie next. I really appreciated that she and Jackie came to visit me on Easter. If you can’t sacrifice some time and money for good friends, what’s the point of having time or money? In a weird way in my head, this goes back to my idea of what Easter is… moral of the story: it was a great couple of weeks. And for once, I’m even excited about the project looming on my horizon. My motivation? Home in 30 days. Whoa.
See and believe: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2142570&l=eba9d&id=5612188
I’ll start with Holy Week- since I had basically indulged myself all over Europe for the entirety of Lent, I decided to really buckle down for the week and NOT indulge in much at all. (For Lent, I made a big effort not to complain about people- something that’s difficult when you’re living with 50 flawed people…but I’m happy with how I did, and that’s not the sort of thing you fall back into right away). On Wednesday of Holy Week, I went to a soup kitchen, and to confession for the second time in two months (amazing considering I hadn’t gone in 7 years…) Afterwards, I watched “The Passion” with a few of my friends from architecture, and the American Seminarians here that we have befriended. This was really intense, as I expected it to be. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even the blood and gore, it was the humanity of Jesus and how they portrayed His relationship with His mother, and His divinity- how they portrayed His relationship with the Father. Anyways, I’ll avoid going off on a major tangent and just say that I had a great conversation after the movie with Brian, Ben, Tim, and Heidi about it. Thursday, I cut out of class early to go to mass with the Pope and the Steinhardts at St. John Lateran. On Friday, I went to a very wet Stations of the Cross at the Coliseum with Pope Benedict (Pope Groupie alert) and a crowd of Notre Dame students who had come in from all over Europe, including Jackie (Pangborn roommate extraordinaire)! It was so great to spend time with her. Saturday I hung out with Jackie, and picked up Julie (Grosse Pointe Track Star turned Montana Wrangler) from the airport. (Side note- upon nearly missing the train, I ended up talking with an architecture student from Pratt for over an hour while waiting for Jul). We spent Saturday evening following the Path of Illumination (From Angels and Demons) all around Rome. Saturday was also a big day in Grosse Pointe, with a cross country reunion for Mary’s wedding- I’m sad that we missed it, but Julie and I had our own Easter CC reunion. In Rome. No complaints here.
On Sunday, Jackie, Julie, and I woke up bright and early to get to St. Peter’s by 8:00 a.m. for a 10:30 mass with my homeboy. Too bad it started raining at about 10:15 and didn’t stop until 12:30. Tim reckons it was our renewed baptism with the resurrection of Christ. All I can say is that I was soaked, and it definitely made for the most entertaining and memorable mass I’ve ever been to. I don’t usually describe mass as ‘fun’, but when you have no idea what’s going on because you don’t speak the language, and you can’t see in front of you because of the sea of umbrellas, and dripping wet next to you are some of your best friends, that qualifies as fun. After Ben-dizzle’s blessing, we made our way back, dried off, and went to studio for a delicious huge Easter brunch, made by Brian, chef extraordinaire. That was after the first breakfast of chocolate and rainwater, of course. For the rest of the daylight, I took Jackie, Julie, and visitors Mike and Kyle on a tour of Christian Rome. We hit up Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Prassede (and the column that Jesus was scourged on), a hail storm, St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusaleme, and the Holy of Holies Chapel and Scala Santa. I tried to show them that I actually manage to stay awake in class this year… We made it back to studio for a huge dinner with the Notre Dame visitors, then shared some wine and cookies for Mike’s birthday.
Monday morning, I saw Jackie off (although I didn’t want to). But Julie spent the whole week here, so on Monday I took her to Ancient Rome. With Nate and his friend Sam, we sweet talked our way into the Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and Coliseum for free. After climbing around on the 2000 year ruins for a few hours, Julie and I grabbed a sandwich and went to St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, which unfortunately was busy with busloads of annoying kids…despite that, it was nice to be back there, because I think that it’s my favorite church in Rome. After saying goodbye to St. Paul, we went back to dinner with Brian and Danny. Tuesday was spent seeing all of the obvious things around my studio that we hadn’t gotten to yet. After my morning class, I took Julie to my favorite sandwich shop, Marcella’s, and inside the Pantheon, to Sant’Ivo, the Trevi Fountain, the famous San Crispino’s gelato, the Quirinal hill, the Vittorio Emmanuele II Monument, Mouth of Truth, Circus Maximus, and up the Aventine Hill to the secret keyhole. As if we hadn’t walked enough, after all of that, we ran up the Gianiculum Hill to Bramante’s Tempietto and Villa Doria Pamphilij. We saw a beautiful sunset overlooking Rome, then went back to studio and ate dinner and some more gelato. (Notice I went right back to indulging after Easter…) On Wednesday, we took a regional train to the small city of Tivoli outside of Rome, where we visited the Villa d’Este and its beautiful gardens. Unfortunately, the famous fountains weren’t running, but we still had fun, and it was nice to be out of Rome. We cooked dinner and went to Della Palma for gelato. Thursday was Julie’s last day here, and unfortunately I had to be in class for most of the day. We did manage to fit in Marcella’s and some shopping on Corso. We had our weekly girl’s night dinner at Mickey’s and Julie even got to meet my favorite Italian waiter, Oliver…then, of course, we had more gelato.
Today, Friday, Julie and I woke up way too early for comfort and went to the airport. It was a sad goodbye, especially because I have no idea when I’ll see Julie next. I really appreciated that she and Jackie came to visit me on Easter. If you can’t sacrifice some time and money for good friends, what’s the point of having time or money? In a weird way in my head, this goes back to my idea of what Easter is… moral of the story: it was a great couple of weeks. And for once, I’m even excited about the project looming on my horizon. My motivation? Home in 30 days. Whoa.
See and believe: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2142570&l=eba9d&id=5612188