Holy tourism?

I had no plans to go visiting all the churches in Rome!  In fact, had booked my return ticket on the same day the meeting concludes.  However, did the mistake of not really noticing that the meeting ends on Wednesday and not on Thursday.  Even then I was not keen on running around in Rome. Was only keen on meeting Fr Joshtrom.  Most of the confreres were quite surprised that I was not going to visit the Vatican... as if Pope Francis had cancelled all his appointments to meet me!

Anyway, Fr Joshtrom and Anthaiah and Prakash said that since I had practically a whole day, I should go and see at least St Peter's basilica.  And so Anthaiah and Prakash 'took' me to the place.  We stood in the queue for a little more than an hour just to get in the basilica.

First impression:  Too beautiful!  Magnificent!
Second impression: So beautiful that it serves better as a tourist spot than a place of worship!

Anyway, spent some time in prayer and some in seeing the grandeur of the church.

That's Anthaiah and Prakash

Don't know what that is but found it amusing while waiting for a traffic signal to cross the road

From there visited a few other churches, the Pantheon (great architecture of the early AD dedicated to the 'gods', later converted into a church!), went hunting for the skull of St Agnes and Augustine!  Found the former but only in time to be told that the Church was closing!  Except the basilicas most churches are closed for 'lunch break' in Rome.  The latter we never found.  That meant quite some walking along the Roman cobblestone pavements! Had lunch at an Indian restaurant run by Bangladeshis!  Took a quick walk through Termini, the central bus and train station of Rome before boarding the bus to return to UPS.

Anyway, am really grateful to Anthaiah and Prakash for spending the whole day for and with me!

Pisana Chapels

Some pics of the Pisana Chapel.  Though we never had any service or Mass in his Chapel, I did spend some time by myself after the meeting in this Chapel.

During our meeting we were using the chapel above this one, the Chapel of St Francis of Sales, the 'African chapel' (as Ivo said).  The pictures, icons and props adoring the chapel were all from Africa.  Except for the big crucified Christ behind the altar, every other statue and picture represented Africa.  Was told that there is another chapel right below the main chapel...three chapels one above the other. However did not visit that one in the basement!

Language blues

While at UPS (our Salesian Pontifical University), I met several Indian Salesian confreres whom I knew or met over the past years... some of them almost 14 years ago.  There were others too who had heard my name but never met me (that was a great feeling!).

Am told that among the various departments operational at UPS, the psychology and communications departments are the most popular with the most number of students.  The other departments being mostly of a religious nature had many priests and religious as students.  However one common thing most of those whom I met (atleast the Indians) felt uncomfortable with was the Italian language.  That they had to learn and then almost instantly (within 3 months) start taking lessons of their specific courses in Italian was something they did not appreciate.  Some even jokingly expressed their jealously of me having "escaped" this by going to London!

From my side, I envied their 'ambiance' - the study environment with almost 2000 students in the university and about 150 priests and deacons living on the campus in 6 different communities.  Seeing others study - at least someone - is a motivation that challenges me to study too.  Apart from that, I truly feel blessed and grateful for every other "luxury" while in Chertsey!  I only prayed that I make the most of this mega-opportunity and blessing. 

Rome by night

On Tuesday, after the second day of the meeting, Fr Silvio invited me to join him as he was going to drive home a priest to another Salesian community, the San Tarscisio community which is the post-novitiate and the one that takes care of the catacombs!  He knew that I wasn't going to see much or anything of Rome, even though it was my first visit to Rome, the eternal city.  So he wanted to at least drive me round for a while.  However, he really went out of his way and showed me practically half of Rome!! We left Pisana by car at 8.30 after supper and returned at midnight!! Very very kind and generous of him.

He showed me the bascilicas of John Latern and Mary Major, Sacra Coure (the church which Don Bosco struggled to build towards the end of his life), Termini (the central bus and train station), the coloseum, monument of the reunification of Italy and the famous Trevi fountain.  We walked through some of the ruins of Rome from the coloseum upto the Trevi.

He topped it off with gelato (ice cream)!  God bless him for his generosity, patience and hospitality (in spite of all the work of coordinating and organising the meeting!).  

Manual labour

Most confreres whom I met after and before the meeting were not very optimistic about the whole endeavour of revising the Rector's manual.  That it would be 'another' document and book, and only add to the existing number of unread and unused documents for most Salesians was a common opinion.

Added to that when some realized that I (being a Brother) was invited for this meeting were a bit confused and some even openly remarked: how come someone who has never been a rector himself be part of the team drafting a Rector's manual?

Well, I never offered a justification or took offense at their expressed or unexpressed remarks.  In fact, it was something a lady seated beside me in the flight to Rome had already asked me.  Truly I hadn't thought of that earlier, but in my reply to her I found nothing odd about my involvement.  After all, I am part of the family and am contributing towards one policies governing service of the roles in my own family. Moreover, I cannot afford to be be careless or indifferent in this endeavour because the policies we arrive at for the Rector, in someway or other, directly or indirectly, sooner than later affect me as a confrere.  The decisions, working style, guiding principles and quality of my rector affects me.

Fr Joshtrom, meeting whom at the UPS was a great pleasure, was kind and supportive, whenever I was placed in such a delicate situation. At one point, to avoid certain embarrassment when one particular confrere joined our discussion and asked for the reason of my presence in Rome, Fr Joshtrom said, "Manual labour!"  A while later the confrere asked again, this time being specific, "Are you here for that meeting on the Salesian Rector's manual?"  Fr Joshtrom again offered, "He is here for manual labour!"  We all laughed.  

At Pisana, Rome

Reached our Generalate (international headquarters) in Rome last night for a workshop/seminar on the revision of the Manual of the Salesian Rector.  My first impressions of the house itself:

• The first thing that struck me was the simplicity of the house.  The building is old but in the name of modernising it they have not made it posh!  It certainly has a very rustic feel about it.  No frills, no extravagance!  
• The Chapel is very beautiful.  Perhaps the only place that looks 'rich'.  Rooms are frugal and functional.  Reminded me very much of our guest rooms back in India. 
• The dining hall is just tables and chairs, a TV set.  That's it!  The community room has some drinks and snacks, with expresso machines for coffee and tea.  Again, nothing extravagant or posh. 
• The room tags on the keys are hand written and simple ordinary plastic tags. 
• The building itself is old and has several patches and sections broken and needed repair, but nothing needing desperate reconstruction... and therefore a typical house, in use.  

I know not to whom should the credit of it all go to:  of keeping the standard of the house functional and neat rather than posh and elegant... personally, I found it a very good balance of the poor and rich parts of the congregation!

A decent km drive around the building

Found several peacocks... am told there are white ones too.
This particular one walked straight into the foyer. 

Chapel (from the adjoining terrace)