Day 5- "St. Francis was like the Beatles"

Today, we went to Assisi. Talk about a lovely little Italian country village... it's everything I expected when I thought of Italy. Although Assisi is in Umbria, I felt like I was on vacation in Tuscanny.

So we woke up at the crack of dawn (again) and made way for Roma Termini, the main train station of Rome. We had to take the bus to get there. After running through the sketchiness of Termini to make sure we didn't miss our train, we had a wonderfully uncomfortable 2-hour ride out to Assisi, which is to the northeast of Rome. All I can say is that I really appreciate our American transit systems, despite all their shortcomings... at least we make things comfortable for rides longer than 30 minutes. This train was hot, it was muggy, and it wasn't airtight enough. Every time we passed another train, particularly in a tunnel, the cabin pressure would suddenly increase. That, and the trains just suddenly come up on you and scare the crap out of you. At least I had good company! While we weren't sleeping, Fr. Frank, Nick, and I were busy solving the world's problems (mostly Nick and Fr, chatting about development and class issues in Baltimore city; looks like we've got some big ideas coming!).

But that was a minor discomfort compared to the awesomeness of Assisi. We got into town at the base of Mt. Subasio (don't ask me how tall it is; I have no idea!). Down in that part of town is the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli (St. Mary of the Angels), which houses the Porziuncola. That is the original church where St. Francis started his religious movement.

The Porziuncola os a beautiful little church (chapel, really), given to St. Francis by the abbot of St. Benedict of Mt. Subasio (according to Wikipedia... lol). at any rate, it was in bad condition and St. Francis fixed it up for his own use. Inside (and out) are some beautiful paintings of the Holy Family, Jesus, saints, etc. On the altar inside is currently a relic of St. Clare; a strand of hair kept inside a glass reliquary. Sadly for you, the Franciscans won't allow pictures to be taken inside the Basilica (reasonablly so; it's a measure to preserve the holy site). But it's certainly a gorgeous chapel. No wonder it was St. Francis's favorite place in the world. You could certainly feel a strong divine presence while praying in there, as though Francis himself were sitting in one of the pews with us. And this was just the beginning of the day!

Also, there's a plenary indulgence for praying in the Porziuncola. Whoop whoop! And just to clarify, the Porziuncola is a very small chapel INSIDE the basilica. There is also a place inside the basilica called the Transito (transition). This is where St. Francis died; where he made the "transito" from this life to the next. It houses a relic of the saint: his belt, which is little more than a piece of rope. He was a very humble man and basically cast off all material possessions and lived a life of poverty.

 The Porziuncola

Not a great picture of the inside, but the best I could find at 1am...

We went through the back of the Basilica and monastery, through the rose garden, and into the gift shop (which was very nice, even compared to the shop next to St. Peter's). Two things to say here: First, the rose garden is significant because St. Francis, in his prayer, would often strip down and roll around in the rosebushes as penance (or something along those lines). It was all about more closely aligning himself with the suffering and humanity of Christ (see a recurring theme among the Italian saints?). Second thing: you walk through the garden in an enclosed hallway. Inside the hallway is a statue of St. Francis. Doves nest near the statue, as well as ON it. I was lucky enough to get a picture of a dove sitting in his hands. Even in death, Francis continues to instruct the animals about the Gospel ;-)

 Just a view of the street from the outside of the basilica.

 The front of the basilica

 The Blessed Mother above the main entrance.

 St. Francis continues to teach the animals :-)

 The rose garden

 The outside of the basilica

Next stop was up the hill to the entrance to Assisi proper. (A side note, Matt and I stopped for gelato; I had "Melone" (melon)... yum!) Since we were all pretty much starving, we walked to the central piazza of the town and sat down in a little bar for some lunch. I just had a Caprese flatbread sandwich and a beer (Tuborg), but it was somehow enough to get me through 'till dinner. We got cannolis for dessert, which weren't all that good... but Umbria (the region we were isn't known for them. So what do you expect?

 The good shepherd tends to one of his flock.

 Just waiting for the bus.

 Beginning the hike up the hill from the bus stop.

 This was the view from the BATHROOM. I'll have a window like this in my Tuscan vineyard home one day...

 What a lovely little town.

 On the left is the gate into town. You can see how hilly it is!

 View over the Umbrian countryside

 The central piazza of Assisi

By the way, the ride up the hill was beautiful. From the road, there's an incredible view of the town, which is dominated by the Basilica of St. Francis. It's just massive.. and we were all really excited to go there.

 The basilica, from down the hill.

 Just a view of the hillside. Glorioso!

 A random church we stopped in.... don't remember the name, but it was nice.

 So... many... hills!

So, I'm going to have to disappoint you this time... the churches in Assisi won't allow pictures inside ("NO PHOTO!!!") because the frescoes are all very fragile. Also, it's apparently somewhere in Italian law that you can't take pictures in churches (as if that stops folks from snapping pictures of things in St. Peter's...). At any rate, they were all beautiful places.

The first one we popped into was an old temple to the goddess Minerva. It was converted into a Christian church back in the day (for the win!). Not a whole lot to say about this one, although its interior is very nice. And it's a converted pagan temple ;-D

 Outside of the temple

The beautiful altarpiece inside

Next, we stopped at the Basilica of St. Clare. It was closed for lunch (why don't we shut down for lunch in the US??), so we turned around to head to the Basilica of St. Francis for our tour. We met the Padres outside the main entrance and met up with our tour guide, a Franciscan brother who just happened to have studied at Catholic University. As is common with Fr. Frank, we had connections yet again!

 Walking up to the basilica

 Long walkway...

 There was a gorgeous view from the talk of the piazza.

 The main entrance of the basilica

 "Tau PAX!"

 View from the piazza

 The entrance to the lower basilica

First, we saw the lower basilica, which was very dark (in an attempt to set the mood, honestly) because it's the resting place of St. Francis. He was buried beneath the main altar way back when. After a while, some people started to doubt whether he was actually there, since you can't see him from there (he was completely buried under the stone in a sarcophagus), so the Pope at the time gave the Franciscans permission to dig underneath to find Francis's tomb and verify his physical presence. They were only allowed to dig at night, so as to not distract pilgrims to the site, so they covered the excavations with a big screen and platform that the Papal chair sat on. Nice job!

After only 50some days of digging, they found and verified Francis's remains. Eventually, the Franciscans built another chapel beneath the lower basilica where pilgrims can pray before the now visible sarcophagus. It's a beautiful chapel and, again, you could clearly feel Francis's presence there, keeping an eye on all his loyal fans and followers.

 It was a moving opportunity to pray before the tomb of such a holy man.

Next, we went to the upper basilica, which is a completely different looking place. The lower basilica looks like a traditional Roman-style church, whereas the upper is an Italian Gothic style. Very different, but similar in their themes: both make parallels between the lives of Francis and Christ. He tried to make his life mimic Christ's as much as possible, and the artists certainly did a good job of portraying that. A few things of note:

- There's a very famous fresco in the lower church that is considered to be the most accurate depiction of Francis's face and such.

- There's another famous fresco referred to as the "Hitchhiking Madonna", where Mary is telling Jesus to bestow His first blessing on Francis, rather than St. John, the "Beloved Apostle".

- In the upper church, the ambo has a column directly above it, with a sculpted hand "holding" it up. This is a joke, in true Franciscan style, to remind any priest standing there to keep his homily short, lest the hand get tired and drop the column on his head!

- The basilica is just beautiful; I wish I had pictures to share with you. Every wall is covered with amazing frescoes. depicting parallels between the lives of Francis and Christ.

 The "Hitchhiking Madonna"

"Madonna Enthroned" with St. Francis on the right

So, some cool stuff about San Francesco...

 - He was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. He stole some cloth and a horse from his father to pay for renovations to a church. This caused a huge rift between them that climaxed in a very public argument. Francis stripped off his clothes in the main piazza and told his father that he renounced everything he'd given Francis, and that he would only call God his father.

- He was the first person known to have received the stigmata. Apparently he tried to hide his wounds, but they just bled through his socks and gloves. There’s a neat fresco in the basilica showing the vision he had when he received the wounds of Christ. He saw Christ surrounded by seraphic wings, floating in the sky, as beams of light emanated from Christ to Francis in the places where the wounds appeared (hands, feet, side).

 Francis returning his clothes to his father

 Francis receiving the stigmata

After the Basilica San Francesco tour, we had just enough time to go up to Basilica Santa Chiara to see her body and the San Damiano Cross. As you walk inside the basilica, you are directed to a side chapel off to the right, where the original San Damiano Cross is hanging in the sanctuary. The story goes that Francis was praying in San Damiano Church and the crucifix actually spoke to him. It said, "Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins". This he took literally, which is why he stole some of his father’s cloth to sell, as mentioned before.

 The San Damiano Cross, as seen inside the Basilica of St. Clare.

After seeing the cross, we went down into the crypt to see St. Clare. She’s in a glass coffin (incorrupt) behind a window in the basement. Couldn’t get close enough to make anything a 3^rd class relic, but she was right there! Down the hall were some other relics of St. Clare, as well as St. Francis (including his bloodstained socks, which he used to attempt to hide the stigmata).

 St. Clare of Assisi

The train ride back to Roma was uneventful. I sat with Fr. Kyle, and we both slept for a good half of the trip. Unfortunately, the chairs force you to sit up fairly straight, so my head kept falling forward. But at least this one had working air conditioning. PTL!

We took the bus back to the house and made preparations to go to dinner. We ended up bussing to dinner, also, because the restaurant was up near the Vatican. This was, hands down, the best meal we’ve had here so far. The house specialty (the name of which I don’t remember) was basically carbonara, but with rigatoni. Also, it tasted better than carbonara. The entire table, except Dan and the Fathers, ordered it. Molto bene! Bellissimo!

 Delicioso! I LOVE Italy; this meal made the trip perfect :-D

We walked along the Tiber to get back to the house. Chris and I stopped at Castel Sant’Angelo to take a few pictures of the castle and the Bernini sculptures along the bridge. What ensued next was, in short, an epic Eagle Scout fail.

Chris and I began walking along the river since we’d fallen behind and lost the group while being photography nerds. We thought the Tiber would guide us right back to the house. In theory, this was a correct assumption. In reality, things began to look unfamiliar. The sidewalks along the Tiber got smaller, until giving way to just busy roads. We snaked along one block down from the river, but all the roads were diagonal, so we zig-zagged back and forth. Eventually, we started getting concerned because the neighborhood looked a little sketchy for the Ponte Sisto area. Also, we just didn’t recognize anything.

Finally, after walking for a little over a half hour and starting to get worried, we found a map. It showed the Tiber running East-West, which is wrong, along with labeled bridges and a big square showing where we were. After looking for the Ponte Sisto in relation to the big square and Castel Sant’Angelo, and with a groan of frustration, we discovered our fears were worse than expected. We thought we’d just passed the house… oh no. We went in the OTHER DIRECTION! In other words, we had a 30-minute hike back to Sant’Angelo, PLUS another 30 minutes to the house. YAY!!

So we made the trek back rather briskly, because try as we might, we still stick out as Americans (especially with my lax bro hair and touristy backpack). We ended up getting back right around midnight and, thankfully, we weren’t the last ones back. If that had happened, since we didn’t sign out individually, the inside deadbolt to the door would’ve been thrown by someone else coming in and we would’ve had to spend the night on the curb. Whoo!

What a day! After hiking the hills of Assisi and running around Rome all night, I got in a good shakedown for Philmont ;-) And even though the Eagle Scouts failed miserably (we’re not city folk… we work best in the woods!), we did get a good story out of it! And some great photos, as well:

Basilica San Pietro at night

 Castel Sand'Angelo

 One of Bernini's sculptures on Ponte Sant'Angelo

Another shot of the basilica

So, tomorrow: early morning Mass in the Clementine Chapel (the place in St. Peter’s closest to Peter’s tomb), some of the patriarchal basilicas, and lunch with the Pallottine Missionary Sisters.