Our Roman sunrise was at 5:33 and our Roman sunset will be at 20:45 and the poor, mostly neglected Ave Maria bell ought to ring at 21:00.
Yesterday, Pentecost Sunday, I longed to get out the camera phone and record some things from my vantage point in choro for the Solemn Mass. However, I really needed just to drink it all, replenish, sort of like Kal-El does in the sunlight. It wasn’t just the beautiful church setting or the marvelous appointments of the sacristy, or the nearly flawless ceremonial, or the very good choir. It was also the sight of a packed church, the booming of the responses, the number of people stacked up for confession, the baby carriages in the side aisles and the not rare toddling escape artist, the members of the Confraternity established by St. Philip Neri and now revived in the pews, tourists coming in the back for a glimpse and then staying for the rest. To be contrasted with the rather sad goings on, or non-goings on in dozens of other churches in the centro, where there is a tired priest in a polyester chasuble at an ironing board set up in front of a masterpiece of marble, in the same old excruciating set of awful tunes, a few old ladies in the plastic chairs in the nave and the proverbial four cats wandering around.
Anyway, after Mass the “big six” had to be extinguished.
In another church associated with St. Philip Neri, nearby, there is this sign. Perhaps one of you can give a perfect rendering for the edification of the readership.
Lunch on Sunday.
It is blazing hot and humid here. I welcome the sight and sound of the Roman “nasoni” fountains with their cold, sweetish, very hard water.
S. M. della Pace. Alexander VII widened the streets here so that carriages could pass each other as they made their way from church to church so that their occupants could have the “sacred glimpse” of the Host at the elevation. Footman of opposing coaches were getting into fights over right of way.
What’s wrong with this picture.
Oh, but for those days again.
The styles in the clerical shops have, in my experience, followed the trends set by the Roman Pontiff. I am happy to say that the “B16” style prevails still. Market forces are surely at work. Otherwise, at the perennially weird Ghezzi a cleric unburdened by good taste could relieve his pockets of parish money and get this affliction for the people.
More light fare.
