SABINA -- Tuesday, October 14
We arrived at Santa Sabina right in time for pranza, the midday meal. John Paul and I were prepared to abstain from our usual abstinence from pasta, which is always the first course at this main meal of the day. And always superb. Today's main course was a beautifully flavored bisteca, a thin piece of beef. You have to take what you want up front, though. The brothers, who take turns serving the family-style meal, come around between courses to remove the serving dishes. Or someone from the next table over might "borrow" yours. After pranza, everyone gathers for a drink in the other room then disappears for a siesta -- life is good here.
The 33 friars that live at our priory at Santa Sabina, the beautiful 5th-century basilica that hosts our worldwide Dominican headquarters, come from 17 countries. And a meeting of our Intellectual Life Commission at Santa Sabina and the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican rounded out the international flavor at the priory even more. All these important people who are so relaxed and hospitable. And they're all genuinely enthused about John Paul's and my concert. Most of the brothers speak at least some English, many quite a lot. It's with a mixture of shame and gratitude that I report that we're able to communicate in English most of the time.
Our main hosts here at Santa Sabina are Prakash from India and Chrys from the United States. Prakash will soon be taking Chrys' place as the Socius for the Apostolic Life. After 40 years in Pakistan and 6 years in Rome (actually, mostly traveling), Chrys is returning to the United States to do campus ministry at NYU.
We ended the day upstairs on the belvedere overlooking the city, with St. Peter's Basilica prominent in the distance. This was the first of several of Chrys' famous impromptu belvedere soirees. Yes, life is good in Italy.
LUKE -- Wednesday, October 15
Martin from South Africa told us that watching a sunset and sunrise would help with jet lag, so John Paul and I dutifully rose at 6:00. No obvious sunrise, but at least we were up for the slow brightening of the skies. Then a breakfast of healthy bran flakes that contained an even healthier dose of chocolate shavings, topped off with hot milk from the cappuccino machine. The cheese tray and local fruit (apples and persimmons) were out for breakfast as well.
Luke, from our Dominican province in California, took time away from the busy beginning of the school year at the Angelicum, the international Dominican university where he teaches, to take us on a walking tour of the city. Luke kept running into Dominicans and other people that he knows. (He apparently manages to get away from the Angelicum on occasion.) We saw the tombs of our beloved Dominican brothers of old, theologian Thomas Aquinas and artist Fra Angelico, as well as our sister Catherine of Siena. She and Fra Angelico are at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (that is, St. Mary's built on top of an old temple to Diana). And we were introduced to some of the many great drinking fountains of Rome.
After pranza back at Santa Sabina (and a siesta, of course), we were on our way back into the city when we ran into a large group of lay Dominicans from Nigeria. Prakash graciously gave them a tour of the church. They were all dressed alike and looked like a choir, so I couldn't resist asking them to sing for us. They couldn't resist singing, and singing some more. When their leader was finally able to stop them, we said goodbye and made our way to St. Peter's Basilica for the first time.
PETER and BENEDICT -- Thursday, October 16
But we got a better look at St. Peter's this morning. Prakash, John Paul, and I made the very brisk 30-minute walk to the basilica, where we met Luke for mass at one of the many side chapels. Prakash and Luke had to go about their day, but John Paul and I stayed to meander. We got hugely lucky and replaced two no-shows for the exclusive tour of the scavi, the tomb of St. Peter deep down under the archeological layers of the basilica.
After pranza (and the obligatory siesta) back at Santa Sabina, we returned to St. Peter's to see a movie with the current successor to St. Peter (and 9,000 others) at the Pope Paul VI hall. It was the premiere of a new documentary about another one of Peter's successsors, Pope John Paul II. We recognized the great British actor Michael York sitting ten feet away from us and soon discovered that he was the narrator. Unfortunately, after his first two words, a dubbed Italian narrator drowned out our English link to the film. I hope Michael York realized that he hadn't come all that way to hear himself. Pope Benedict sat about thirty feet away from us in a really big chair and shook hands with York and others afterwards.
We got home in time for a late cena (supper), where we were joined by the gracious Raymond from Slovakia. (Before we left Rome, he'd bought 15 of our "Black &White" CDs and 10 of my "Inside Darkness" DVDs to sprinkle all over Europe during his frequent travels.)
I watched a little Fox news and, for a slightly different perspective, Al Jazeera, before retiring.
PRAKASH -- Friday, October 17
It's not everyday I sit in on an international diplomacy meeting, at least not before breakfast. After morning mass, Prakash wanted to introduce me to Raphael, who works a block away at the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican. So I was invited to join them in Prakash's office and listen in on their meeting. Prakash is the General Promoter for Justice and Peace, so he wanted to ask Raphael to do whatever he could about the recent upsurge of persecution of Christians in India and Iraq. Raphael was sympathetic. In fact, he had managed the refugee program in Iraq and wants to return to refugee work. But his compassion had to find its way through the cracks of his "embassy-speak." Raphael joined us for breakfast, where he was challenged by our American brother Paul Philibert's perceptive questions about the United States' apparent lack of commitment to the United Nations. By the way, the Dominicans are an official NGO at the United Nations.
I spent the day helping Prakash prepare for the meeting. Oh yeah, I came to Rome for a reason: a few of us Dominican friars involved in mass media were asked to join members of our curia to design a new tool to educate Dominican women and men about the Dominican commitment to social justice…
ST. GELATO -- Saturday, October 18
…and John Paul had come with me to Rome so that we could sing our "Black & White" concert at Santa Sabina. But once we got here, Prakash was impressed with John Paul and asked if he wouldn't mind joining the meetings. John Paul graciously gave up his planned resting and touring to contribute. Scott, our old friend and brother from the United States, was at the meeting as well.
The meetings were challenging (though not so challenging as to prevent the sacrosanct siesta). Also, without any discussion about language, the meeting fell into English. I think it was obvious that we uncultured Americans would have been lost otherwise. One question we addressed was how we could speak to Dominicans who were suspicious of our social justice ministry as leftist ideology. But we made a breakthrough late in the afternoon. For a few months, we'd been assuming the meeting would be about designing one or more videos, but at some point late this afternoon, the idea emerged to also invite all Dominicans to contribute their own short video. This would be more than a few of us telling everyone else what they should think and do. After all, dialogue is the Dominican way. Prakash, who organized the meeting, has a terrific way of sitting back and letting the rest of us talk. He graciously trusted us to take his initial idea wherever the Spirit lead.
John Paul and I were rewarded late tonight when Prakash escorted us to a local gelato shop. Finally: gelato!
ERIC -- Sunday, October 19
We worked out the details of our project today. It will be called "The Gospel in Action: to bring good news to the poor." Eric from the French province was particularly enthusiastic, articulate, and talkative. He works for the well-respected weekly Dominican television show "Le Jour de Seigneur." We got a lot of mileage over the week from an incident during a meeting when one of the brothers told his own ringing cell phone to shut up, and Eric, talking as usual, dead-panned "Who, me?"
We were invited to celebrate the successful completion of our meeting with a rosary on the belvedere. I'll have to say, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of ending the long day with a long rosary. But it turned out that "rosary" was code for "drinks."
DOMINIC and CARLOS -- Monday, October 20
We began the day with mass in St. Dominic's cell. This is where he slept and prayed and studied 800 years ago.
We complemented our media and justice meeting with a field trip. Max showed us around Vatican Radio, a huge operation founded in the 1930's and divided into many language groups. Max is in charge of German production. Then we went to H2O, a new Catholic news agency with an impressive internet presence.
Then, finally, our concert. Francesco, the rector at Santa Sabina, designed a beautiful, large poster and distributed copies all over the city, at least at our four parishes. A special invitation was made to the Dominican Family -- friars, sisters, and lay Dominicans. Carlos, the Master General of the Order, was there to introduce us (and thank us afterwards). Robert, an Italian/English brother, translated, and John Paul and I sang our hearts out. Our program tracing the history of black and white music in the United States took on new meaning when performing for a non-American audience. Several of the brothers encouraged us to come to their home provinces to sing.
A handful of us celebrated at a local spot with beer, supper, and profiterole, a superb confection of pastry, chocolate, and cream. Eric's fellow French Dominican was there and received quite a lot of attention for his resemblance, personality-wise, to the bumbling Pink Panther, Detective Clousseau. Among other stories, there was the time he chased down on his bicycle a Santa Sabina art thief.
CHRYSOSTUM -- Tuesday, October 21
Chrys guided us down through Santa Sabina's own scavi this morning. Minerva and perhaps Isis were worshiped here at one time. Not anymore, I dare say.
We had pranza with Luke at the Angelicum today. Actually, at the adjacent "Convito," where he is rector for 50 diocesan priests who have come from all over the world to study at the Angelicum. Luke asked us to sing a song for them (the first of several mini-concerts he talked us into today), and one Nigerian was especially effusive with his gratitude.
Luke had somehow arranged for us to sit up on the platform with the pope (and 500 others) at tomorrow's weekly audience, so we went off to the North American College (where many diocesan seminarians from the United States come to study) to pick up our tickets.
We searched for John Paul's favorite gelateria from a previous trip to Rome. We never found it, but we found some gelato that sufficed, to say the least. Why is gelato so much better than American ice cream? What is gelato? Wikipedia says that gelato, like high-end ice cream, has less air and is therefore more dense than a lot of ice cream. Also, it's typically made with whole milk rather than cream, is often made fresh daily, and is served only semi-frozen. In other words, gelato is so good because it's Italian.
We completed our touring for the day at San Clemente, another Dominican church (this one run by the Irish friars), also with an impressive scavi. We introduced ourselves to the friar at the front desk, and he invited us to take the tour free of charge.
Tonight, we had a "rosary" on the belvedere for Chrys, who finally moves back to the United States tomorrow.
CLOUSSEAU -- Wednesday, October 22
The papal audience this morning. Perched in the popemobile, Benedetto slowly weaved through the 25,000 people present so that everyone had a chance to see him from fairly close. Then he gave a 20-minute homily in Italian. He gave 5-minute versions in several other languages, after each of which pilgrim groups of that language were introduced.
After pranza, we bid farewell to the community at Santa Sabina and a couple of the brothers playfully imitated our dramatic call and response opening number from the concert. More singing was asked of us as well.
And, later that afternoon, Brother Clousseau had us singing in the garden at his priory. He ministers as one of the ten fulltime Dominican confessors at the great Santa Maria Maggiore. He's in the middle of designing a Clousseauian contraption that will blow fresh air into his confessional. John Paul, Eric, and I had a farewell gelato before returning to Santa Sabina for our last night.
After supper, John Paul and I chatted with Ed, just back from a trip that included his home province of Chicago. Ed is the Vicar for the Master General and the one who made our concert happen. His gracious presence and foundational organizing has been felt throughout our trip despite his absence.
Prakash and Cont, the editor of our international newsletter, sat down with John Paul and me to interview us, continuing to treat us as if we were important. Prakash has to be one of the kindest, gentlest friars among so many kind and gentle souls in our wonderful Dominican family. He, more than anyone, has made our time at our international headquarters feel like time at home.
To continue Chrys' tradition, we drank a last rosary on the belvedere before retiring.
Labels: Black and White Concert, Dominicans, Rome, Santa Sabina
