Round Up...

Cnytr has twisted my arm, and made me remind you all that she's blogging again. Pester her and persuade her to post more about her trip to Rome, her forthcoming wedding and her new puppy.

Incidentally, she and Deirdre seemed to have had a most excellent time when they met up in Rome. I'm thrilled that Deirdre has promoted me to the rank of 'Interesting Person'. I love Rome 'blogs, so I'm also adding her friend Elizabeth to my Blogroll. I presume they both have examinations at the moment, so I'm expecting both of them to do a lot of blogging as I always did when I had examinations. ;)

Matthew of the Holy Whapping posts the funniest thing I've read so far this year. He shows that quite apart from being a fine rubricist, Fortesque offers tips on semantics, airlibe travel and anger management.

Finally, I have been following the Blessed Columba Marmion Novena over at Vultus Christi. Marmion is the Summa of St Thomas, converted into spiritual theology, along with a dash of St Paul. I'm a huge fan of his Christ: The Ideal of the Priest and have just started his Christ in His Mysteries.

Long time, no blog...

I'm afraid it's been much too long since I've blogged regularly. I sometimes feel like posting a rant in the key of St Bernard or St Gregory the Great about how the cares of the world and the pastoral life are keeping me from 'blogging. Of course, they complained that their activity was keeping them from contemplation, which is much more worthy and noble, so I guess I'll just keep quiet.
Anyway, Fr Z has dug some interesting stuff out of my archives in order to mark today's feast of St Agnes. The Vatican's Youtube channel has some great footage of the traditional blessing of the lambs.


Since I last blogged, Jane & Lizzy have updated their template, so we look forward to hearing more from them. *Hint-hint*

I should also give a 'shout-out' to Seraphic whose book is being launched shortly.

What else? Deirdre has an excellent post for those who might be considering studying in Rome. The Irish Catholic has a new website. And Cardinal Newman is going to be beatified! (I've long been a fan.)

As I often do when stuck for original content, I'll conclude with an except from one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons. This was written when he was an Anglican, but it certainly has something to say to us as we celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

[L]et me remind you, my brethren, how nearly the whole doctrine of ecclesiastical order is connected with personal obedience to God's will. Obedience to the rule of order is every where enjoined in Scripture; obedience to it is an act of faith. Were there ten thousand objections to it, yet, supposing unity were clearly and expressly enjoined by Christ, faith would obey in spite of them. But in matter of fact there are no such objections, nor any difficulty of any moment in the way of observing it. What, then, is to be said to the very serious circumstance, that, in spite of the absence of such impediments, vast numbers of men conceive that they may dispense with it at their good pleasure. In all the controversies of fifteen hundred years, the duty of continuing in order and in quietness was professed on all sides, as one of the first principles of the Gospel of Christ. But now multitudes, both in and without the Church, have set it up on high as a great discovery, and glory in it as a great principle, that forms are worth nothing. They allow themselves to wander about from one communion to another, or from church to meeting-house, and make it a boast that they belong to no party and are above all parties; and argue, that provided men agree in some principal doctrines of the Gospel, it matters little whether they agree in any thing besides.

But those who boast of belonging to no party, and think themselves enlightened in this same confident boasting, I would, in all charity, remind that our Saviour Himself constituted what they must, on their principles, admit to be a party; that the Christian Church is simply and literally a party or society instituted by Christ. He bade us keep together. Fellowship with each other, mutual sympathy, and what spectators from without call party-spirit, all this is a prescribed duty; and the sin and the mischief arise, not from having a party, but in having many parties, in separating from that one body or party which He has appointed; for when men split the one Church of Christ into fragments, they are doing their part to destroy it altogether.

But while the Church of Christ is literally what the world calls a party, it is something far higher also. It is not an institution of man, not a mere political establishment, not a creature of the state, depending on the state's breath, made and unmade at its will, but it is a Divine society, a great work of God, a true relic of Christ and His Apostles, as Elijah's mantle upon Elisha, a bequest which He has left us, and which we must keep for His sake; a holy treasure which, like the ark of Israel, looks like a thing of earth, and is exposed to the ill-usage and contempt of the world, but which in its own time, and according to the decree of Him who gave it, displays today, and tomorrow, and the third day, its miracles, as of mercy so of judgment, "lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake and great hail."

Marcus Aurelius Statue in Asia Minor

Via the Telegraph:

The 15-foot statue was originally located in the frigidarium, the coldest and largest room in the Roman baths at Sagalassos, where two other statues have already been found.
Archaeologists now believe the frigidarium contained a gallery of large imperial statues running around its long walls, offering a treasure trove of antique images.
Marcus Aurelius, who was portrayed by Richard Harris in the 2000 film Gladiator, ruled from 161AD to 180AD and won fame for his standing as a Stoic philosopher, as well as for his wise governance of the empire.
Sagalassos, high in the western Toros mountains in the south of the country, was destroyed by an earthquake between 540AD and 620AD, bringing down the baths and filling the cross-shaped frigidarium with rubble.
The large fragments of the statue began to be uncovered on 20 August, when a pair of giant marble legs, broken above the knee and clad in army boots of lion skin, tendrils and Amazon shields, emerged from the debris.
A delicately carved three-foot head, with bulging eyes and ruffled beard, was uncovered next, followed by a five-foot-long right arm bearing a globe.

Meanwhile, in Rome, Fr Philip is settling in and waiting for his medication (!) to arrive from the States:

I noted my disappointment to the current vicar of the house, and he said in a bored tone, "Oh, well, the postman said we had too much mail stacked up, so he will deliver it a little each day." I was just a little stunned at this. . .yes, I'm slowly learning that efficiency and customer service in Italy are not high priorities. I said, "I wonder if the post office could give our postman a larger truck." The vicar, a veteran of Italian living, replied, "No need. He will bring a piece or two at a time." I wondered aloud if I could go to the post office and claim my mail. This caused some gnarled faces at the table. I could almost see their brains trying to wrap themselves around the idea of direct action. The conclusion: "No. Where would you go? They would not give it to you."

A farewell!

It's often a pity when a blog closes down, but I think that in this case we also have cause to rejoice. Mary Gibson, aka The Roaming Roman, entered Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles in Kansas City MO.
I invite my readers to say a prayer for Mary as she seeks the Lord's will by trying her vocation in the cloister. Whilst her entering is the work of the Holy Spirit, I think that it's also fair to applaud the courage of a young woman who discerns a call to the contemplative life. Wherever the Lord leads her, I pray that Mary's warm personality and her enthusiasm for faith, truth and holiness will bear witness to His love, and that she will never lack for His presence.

Pray too on this memoria of St Barnabas that young people everywhere will listen attentively to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Italianate

Shelly of At Home in Rome is back with a post about some very Italian concerns:

1. Air conditioning “fa male.” It’s just generally “bad for you.”

How did I live nearly three years in Phoenix, Arizona, without dying? (Italians are so attached to this one, I’ve no doubt I’ll get at least a few angry comments telling me that it does “FA MALE” and explaining all the reasons why. I give up.)

2. Sweating.

There’s a whole encyclopedia of italianate on sweating. If you sweat, you have to change clothes before it evaporates or you can get pneumonia. Don’t stand in front of a fan if you’ve been sweating. God forbid the air conditioner.

3. Wet hair.

Not using a hair dryer can cause any number of ailments, not the least of which is a migraine in the exact spot where you neglected to dry your hair. However, for example, when my husband didn’t dry his hair thoroughly the other day and I pointed out this grave error, he merely laughed and said, “But it’s summer, that’s different.” Doh!

There's more... and her readers remind her about the Italian obsession with the fegato (liver).

What is Mannerism?

The ever-erudite Cranky Professor explains with the help of a Vasari fresco in Rome's Palazzo della Cancelleria... the Sala dei Cento Giorni to be precise:

The name of the room comes from the funniest anecdote in Renaissance art history (a field of striking solemnity and self-importance, I usually find). Vasari, now better known as a biographer than a painter, showed the room to his old master MIchelangelo and bragged that he had completed the work in 100 days. Michelangelo said, "It shows." I rather liked it, but then I have decadent tendencies. Paul III surveying New St Peter's dressed as the Jewish High Priest really made me happy! There was a scene of the distribution of cardinals hats to semi-nude men in advanced states of ascetical skinniness that made no sense at all - that's Mannerism for you!

Not finding any pictures of that on the web, I managed to snap one myself. Apologies for the quality... the lighting in the room is really unusual and my primitive digital camera did the best it could. Click on the picture to enlarge.
Note the little stack of mitres and galleros in the bottom right hand corner, the cornucopia pouring forth gold coins and the unusual snake-eating nude. Anyone willing to explain this picture of Paul III creating Cardinals is welcome to do so in the comments.

St Agnes

On Monday we celebrate the Feast of St Agnes. Every year, lambs are taken from the Church of St Agnes Outside the Walls to the Vatican for a special Papal blessing. The wool from these lambs is used to make the pallia worn by Metropolitan Archbishops. Orbis Catholicus was there a couple of years ago to see the lambs in the Church of St Agnes. I'm hoping to do the same, but have been unable to track down what time the lambs are at the church. Any of my Roman or non-Roman readers know this?

Now a Rome 'blog...

I forgot to mention sooner that the Cranky Professor may now be numbered among the Rome 'blogs as he's spending a semester here with some of his students. His post of today has a fascinating assignment which will help them get to grips with the ever-present historical character of the Eternal City.
The professor himself gave a presentation concerning one of my own favourite relics of pre-Christian Rome:

I did a demonstration by taking them around the corner from the Campo dei fiori to look at what modern Rome has made of the foundations of the Theater of Pompey. Click and enlarge at point A on the map - look at the semicircles of streets and blocks . . . those rise up on the form of the theater, a semicircle of concentric and radial lines of masonry. There is almost nothing left of the building (unless you go in a few restaurants and certainly some cellars), but the ghost of the building still shows. The straight streets to the right (east) of the semicircle represents the side walls of the very large courtyard attached to the theater - which allowed patrons to stroll in gardens between acts or between plays. Pompey built the first permanent theater in Rome in 60 BCE - something which always surprises me. Plautus (died 185 BCE) and Terence (died 158) would have played only in temporary theaters, or on one of the flat spaces at the Forum Romanum! Pompey's innovation was to introduce a permanent building on the Greek model (sort of) to the City, which at least shows Roman assimilation of Greek institutions and almost certainly should be understood as Roman triumphalism, especially when combined with the decorative statuary Pompey certainly imported as well. Oh, and Julius Caesar was assassinated here, which allowed me a second link to the Forum tour last week.

One of my favourite theories about Roman history is that Pompey managed to circumvent the prohibition on building permanent theatres within the city walls by designating the structure as a temple rather than a theatre. Officially speaking, the fact that this temple just happened to serve very well as a theatre was a happy coincidence. ;)

Life in Italy (for Italians)

I'm frequently asked by visitors about the Italian economy and the standard of living of Italians. Shelly has written a really insightful post about this.

Pasta Advice...

From the At Home in Rome 'blog, Shelly tells us what she's learnt about pasta from the Italians.

Who knew that so many varieties of pasta existed, and not only that, but that each type had its own special role in the cucina italiana? Quadrucci? Well, those go in brodo (broth), of course. Penne? We like our arrabbiata sauce on those. Spaghetti? Great with clams. But don’t use it for amatriciana, because there you want bucatini… a form of spaghetti that’s like a straw (hollow in the middle). And the list goes on, and on, and on. Building your pasta vocabulary takes years! Strozzapreti—the “priest strangler” pasta. Alla chitarra—like guitar strings. Maltagliati—literally “cut bad.” You basically need a mini-degree to decipher it all, but that’s part of the fun.

Strozzapreti is one of my favourites.

Argent is in Rome

Check out her photos.

Rome Photos

Check out the Closed Cafeteria 'blog - the author is in Rome at the moment and is taking some marvellous pictures.

Rome 'blogs...

Added a couple of 'Rome 'blogs' to the Blogroll...
Winds of Westernesse - Student doing the 'semester in Rome' thing.
At Home in Rome - American who has made a home for herself in Rome.

Rome Blog...

Meredith of Basia Me is in Rome and blogging at Hesperia.