This morning, we had our Mass as scheduled with Fr. Dennis McManus. Dennis is a classmate of mine from the Juniorate, Novitiate, Scholasticate and some 20 years in the Brothers. He was in Rome for meetings at the Holy See related to various commissions on which he serves. He's currently at Conception Abbey in Missouri and will be moving back to Georgetown University to teach there and work in the Bishops Conference. He was ordained about a year and a half ago here in Rome, an occasion on which both Brs. Stanislaus Campbell, Roch Dufresne, and myself were able to attend. During the Mass, there were reflections on the readings from three of the Brothers and so he didn't give a homily, but we had a great visit during the breakfast that followed and he met with some of the other Brothers from the SF District who knew him, along with Br. Alvaro and others. It was good to have him with us and I hope that there will be more occasions in the future to have him involved with us in some capacity or other.
While the theme group meetings were happening I worked on upcoming liturgical events. I had a visit from a couple of members of the Central Commission during that time. They would like to have another evening of prayer (Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament) on Sunday. The following day will be the election of the Superior General and it would be good to have such a vigil on the night before. And so Freddy and I will plan to do so. The other thing that I'm pursuing is a notion of what is expected once the Superior General is elected. There's a procession to the chapel, apparently, along with the singing of the Te Deum. For details, I was told to speak with Br. Alain Houry, which I did. He will provide some details and resources, I hope, tomorrow so that I can begin the preparations.
This afternoon I joined Brs. Lawrence, Paulo, Marcos, and Bob in a walk into town. We took the 46 bus to the Vatican and did some busines at the post office. In exploring the area around the Vatican, we found several very impressive churches (mostly from the inside) and ran into some sort of hotel run by the Knight Order of the Holy Sepulcher (remember them from Siena?). They seem to be everywhere. It was impressive to see the Jerusalem Cross displayed so prominently on the gates and on the flag in the courtyard. In the various churches, I'm beginning to pay special attention to any frescoes or painting of St. Joseph. Some of the ones that I've seen are pretty good and evocative. Since St. Joseph is a special saint to the Brothers, being an example of how we should treat our students (the earliest seal of the Institute shows St. Joseph and the child Jesus), I'm collecting whatever images have been made of that relationship.Then we walked to the river and proceeded towards the piazza with some nice cafes where we stopped for refreshments. There is a statue there of a Giacomo Bruno, a heretic of some sort from centuries back, looking quite dour and forbidding in the middle of
the piazza. We saw several Italian young people taking pictures in front of the statue, holding up their arms toward the camera. When we asked them they said that there was a Roman tradition that if you looked into the face of Bruno, as students, you would not finish your university studies. And so they were taking pictures in front of the statue as they blocked out their views of him. All quite humerous.We walked to the Piazza Nuvone, stopping by at the magnificent St. Andrew's church on Via Corso. The place is very plain-looking on the outside, with the normal graffitti one expects by now. But
inside it was magnificent. They had generously placed a long mirror near the front of the church so that you could admire the ceiling's artwork without falling over from a head rush or getting a crick in your neck, and we spent some time seeing all of the detail in that artwork. We read that the church was consecrated in 1650, a year before the birth of John Baptist de La Salle. This no doubt meant that Gabriel Drolin would have visited it and that De La Salle would have seen it if he had ever made it to Rome. It makes you think about the turn of the centuries.After our visit to the Piazza Nuvone, where we watched some very talent drawing artists make professional sketches of people, we stopped to have some gelato and then made to walk to Trastevere for some dinner. But I knew that I needed to get back by 8:15 PM Central Commission meeting that had been called (no break for us) and so I hopped on a 46 bus that happened by and made my way back.
The traffic on Via Aurelia became so congested, however, that I got off and walked back, beating the bust by a couple of minutes to our regular bus stop by the Motherhouse. On the way back, I marveled at how all of these motor scooters and motor bikes would pass all of the backed-up cars, using the "wrong" side of the road with abandon. After all, there are no cars there, so why not use it? I'm still amazed that there aren't more accidents.The gelato was enough dinner for me (probably not healthy, but oh well) and so I rested for about 20 minutes before going to the meeting. The issues tonight had to do with the process for considering the revised reports and the process for the election of the Superior General. The first "sondage" or sounding will be tomorrow. Emphasis will be placed on the confidentiality of the process, candidates, and so on, out of respect for those nominated and for the process. Lots of small details emerged, and so it was good that we'd had this meeting.
Then a short time at the US/Toronto Region evening social and on to the blog and to bed. More action happening tomorrow.
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More pictures may be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/gvangrie/ItalyMay24
