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(Return to Father John's Log!)
OLM
Parish Reporter RETURNS to Rome!
(click on tiny picture to view original)
The return to Rome after the Pope's celebration
of his 20th Anniversary saw many events for him. As on the previous page,
he met with the new Prime Minister and government of Italy. Then, later
in the week he had his usual Wednesday General Audience. On Thursday, the
Pope celebrated Mass for the Seminarians in Pontifical Universities. On
Saturday, as we were heading to the Vatican Museum, he had another audience
for the school children of Rome - probably to mark the beginning of a new
school year. There were thousands of children, teachers and parents in
St. Peter Square which was a sight to behold and a traffic and travel nightmare
after the event. We had a crushing visit to the Vatican Museums and
Sistine Chapel - incredible numbers of people moving through these vast
buildings and if you were faint in the Chapel you would not have hit the
floor for the people present. Below are some familiar pictures that were
seen both on the way and in the Chapel itself.
Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel
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The perennial favorite in St. Peter's is the Pieta. Of course, it
is now only visible from a distance and that is a shame since it is a gorgeous
depiction of both the human form and this moment in Salvation History. |
| The imposing scene above the altar in the Chapel
is of the Last Judgment. It is brilliant in color after the refurbishing.
Interesting that the redoing of the whole chapel involved removing varnishes,
not adding paint. |
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The center ceiling panels shown to the right and the Garden of Eden
detail on the left are two of the many excellent scenes of salvation history
famous in the chapel. They are awesome to see and ponder even with crowds
of people! |
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| An art object found in the main courtyard of the Museum is not reproduced
on a postcard ANYWHERE! It was a huge brass sphere in the center of the
courtyard. Done by Pomodoro, It reminded me of an earlier sculpture in
the Pepsi Gardens in New York. That sculpture shown here is a taste of
the one in the Courtyard and one of the contemporary works there. |
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Beatification of Mother Guerin et al.
The beatification cermony for Mother Guerin and three others
was an impressive celebration in St. Peter's Square. The ceremony itself
was simple and conducted at the beginning of the Liturgy. They were presented
to the Holy Father after which he read of prayer of beatification. Then
their images were uncovered in front of St. Peters. This is depicted below
in the following photos. Then representatives for the newly beatified presented
gifts which were placed on the dias next to the altar. Mass continued as
usual for the thousands in the square.
Even with scaffolding in front of the basilica, the usage
of the covered and then uncovered images of the beatified was a grand site.
They were ceremonially uncovered after the prayer of beatification. Unfortunately,
the photos are small since there was a need to get quite some distance
to photograph the whole scene adequately.
\
The ticket above shows the admission, event and names
of the other three people beatified on this date. The back of the ticket
gives some indication of the place that these tickets were for in the square.
Beautiful weather was not the call of the day - dark clouds but no rain
all during this celebration.
WHAT MORE COULD THERE BE???? MAYBE ANOTHER TREK OUTSIDE ROME
MAYBE ANOTHER PAPAL AUDIENCE = WOW! Neverending reporting!!!!!
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