Day 2, Sunday, March 15, 2009 The Vatican

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Today was Mass, Angelus with Pope Benedict (I do not know proper terminology for this), and a guided tour of St. Peter's Basilica and Square with Sister Mary Hannah. We met Sister Yvonne Mary (she abbreviates "SYM" from our itinerary) at 10:00 for 10:30 Mass. She remembered me also from our childhood retreats in Alma. She was one of the young ones (her words - cute). I was a bit worried because the seating was full. However, we followed her toward the front. We sat in the second row. As she says, "They know us." It was quite a spectacular experience. The program had English to follow along. I love listening to the Italian. I wish I'd learned some before the trip. I spent a good deal of time admiring the Altar, as you can see from my pictures. When we left Mass, we were able to have a very good position for Pope Benedict's Angelus. Although he left for Africa the following day so we could not have an audience, this was a wonderful surprise.
We had lunch, then met Sister Mary Hannah for a tour of St. Peter's. She is full of information, and I caught many people hanging around listening to our private tour guide. A few bits of info...I was impressed by the planning of the church, designed to be inviting to us. Whereas Roman architecture includes huge statues and carvings, those in the Basilica are designed to increase in size as they go up just enough to appear to be the same, so as not to make us feel small when we look up! THis holds true to the writing as well. There is only one painting in the whole Basilica, in the adoration chapel, because pictures are not allowed in there. The rest are mosaics, because they resist light. We learned loads of fascinating facts, many of which I cannot remember. Next time I'm going to have a small voice recorder!
We weren't done! We decided to go to a concert at St. Ignatius, and we walked into the city. (I guess that's what you call it.) We found a neat area called Piazza Navona, a square and surrounding area with shops, restaurants, and a few Irish pubs! (We didn't go to any.) We ate dinner at one of the restaurants. It was good, but not our favorite. We continued looking for the church, but Rome is a curved maze and we never found it. By 9:30 we had it and caught a cab back to Casa John Ambrose, home sweet home.