Another busy week

Today I made my final payment for the Camino experience that will bring my time in Europe to a close.  Although we have only three weeks left in the formal sabbatical program I will have a little more time in Europe before I come home.  I discovered on my last sabbatical that I did not give myself sufficient time for re-entry.  I spent just a couple days at my parents' home and then headed to Owatonna to take up my new assignment.  That was just too quick and I felt like I was playing catch-up for quite some time.  The two and a half weeks I spend in Europe will give me a little time to decompress and come home ready to go.

This week has been a pretty typical one for us.  Each day we had one or two presentations.  Sometimes it gets to be a bit tiring but the presentations have generally been very good.  This week we had ones on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Apologetics, Preaching, the Old Testament, Islam and one of the officials from the Congregation for Saints.  So, we get a wide variety.  This week our presentations are on priestly identity, a second session on the Old Testament and the Carmelite Mystical Tradition.  We also have two field trips - one to St. John Lateran with a tour by Liz Lev who has been outstanding and one to Subiaco where St. Benedict lived.  We will have Mass in both places.  Next week we go to Assisi on Retreat and then come back for a final week and the conclusion of the program on Palm Sunday.

The highlight of this week was going to the Wednesday General Audience with some parishioners and former parishioners.  We had great seats and a beautiful day.  After the audience I gave them a brief tour of the North American College and then we had a long, leisurely lunch.  Quite a day.  ANd yes, I made it back for the afternoon class.

Getting ready to enter St. Peter's Square before the audience (7:30 a.m.!)

The Redmans. the Ruiters and I before the audience.

On Saturday I headed to Milan.  My only other time in the city was on a forced stop over on the way to Switzerland when I was in seminary.  One of our number (not me) forgot his passport so we could not cross the border.  In fact, it was hard to get a hotel room without it although in the end we did convince them to let us stay overnight so he could retrieve his passport.  Luckily, one of the other seminarians was passing through on the train and agreed to bring it up and hand it off in the middle of the night.  All of that went well but the poor guy slept through his change and ended up in an entirely different place than he wanted to be.  Anyway, it was Easter Monday and nothing was open.  As I remember we did have a little time to walk around and saw the outside of the Cathedral and the great Galleria which is a 19th century covered shopping area.  Pretty cool.

One of my main missions on this trip was to go to La Scala for an opera.  I love opera and this has been on my bucket list for years.  I stayed at a lovely hotel in walking distance from the opera house (although, fortunately it was also near a subway stop).  I spent the afternoon exploring the Cathedral and just enjoying the beautiful weather.  Headed back to the hotel for a quick change of clothes and a short nap and then off to the opera.  I saw La Cenerentola (Cinderella) by Rossini.  One of my favorite operas.  The woman playing Cinderella was someone I discovered on YouTube and really like so it was great to hear her live.  La Scala is quite opulent.  I was in a box (back of the box sitting on a tall stool) which had only a partial view.  It was fine and I enjoyed it immensely.

The hallway on the fourth floor

Door to Box 16

Views from the box.

The other thing I have been doing are the station churches.  As I mentioned in an earlier post this is an ancient tradition in which a different church is assigned to each day during Lent and visited with the celebration of Mass.  I did not make the Monday church (due to sleeping in) and the Wednesday church due to the audience but made the rest.  A group of us have been walking most mornings (although I did take a bus one way on one of the days).  I did it as a student and it has been wonderful visiting these churches again.  Walking through Rome early in the morning has its own pleasures.  On the way home we generally stop for coffee and a pastry which is a lovely thing to do.

Tuesday the church was to have been S. Balbina but since it is under renovation we went to Chiesa Nuova where St. Philip Neri is buried.  (Only in Rome would a 500+ year old church be called the "New Church."

Thursday church is one of my favorites.  Santa Maria in Trastevere.  The front has both an ancient fresco and a beautiful mosaic.

The interior

The inlaid floors

Friday was San Vitale.  They maintain the old tradition of hanging red drapes and sprinkling laurel leaves on the floor.

The laurel leaves are symbolic of the laurel crown of victory won by the martyrs (and S. Vitale was a martyr) and give off a lovely scent when you walk on them.

And that was week 9.