Touching the Divine

We three had signed up for a “skip the line” tour of St. Peter’s Wednesday morning, and our scheduled meeting point was at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary Major, so named as it is the largest church devoted to the Blessed Virgin in Rome), which seemed odd as it is so far from St. Peter’s. I walked about 15 minutes from the hotel and Carol and Barbara arrived by taxi. Our tour guide, Catherine, a lovely young American, was late to arrive due to the school strike demonstrations which had relocated to Piazza della Repubblica, around the corner from my hotel. Catherine explained our meeting point by saying we were to tour 4 basilicas that day, the first being Santa Maria Maggiore. We were all surprised as the website where we booked the tour had not provided that information. In fact, the website provided very little information of any kind, and we were disappointed to learn that the Sistine Chapel was not a part of our tour, but rather is a part of the Vatican Museum for which we had not purchased tickets. Barbara, Carol, and I were the only guests on this tour so we had Catherine as our own private tour guide.

Catherine began our tour with the history of Santa Maria Maggiore, telling us that the Virgin Mary appeared to two men in a dream on the night of August 16 informing them that she would leave a sign where she wanted a church to be built in her honor. The next morning, August 17th, the two emerged to find that snow had fallen on one of the hills in Rome, and it was there the church was built. The basilica was once known as Saint Mary of the Snows or Our Lady of the Snows (I have heard two different versions so will provide both). Each year the event is celebrated by a special mass during which a ceiling panel is removed and white rose petals are released to float down gently upon the altar. A thought so moving it brings tears to my eyes even though I have not witnessed it. The basilica contained an enormous canopied altar the likes of which I have never seen before. After taking lots of illicit photos, we caught our private car for the trip to St. Peter’s, across the river.

Because St. Peter’s was scheduled to close at noon for a special service, we arranged to visit it second rather than last to ensure we didn’t miss it. We had to wait for a special guide to approve our entrance to the basilica so we did have to wait in a short line, which gave us ample photo opportunities. On either side of the magnificent basilica are two arching wings of columns encompassing an enormous piazza like a hug. The piazza can accommodate 150,000 people! As we approached the entrance to St. Peter’s we could see that it was guarded by young men in brightly striped costumes with ballooned, knee-length pants. We were told that these are the Swiss guards and each serves at least three years at the Vatican. They are all young men of Swiss nationality from good families and cannot have so much as a parking ticket on their record. They also speak 5 languages and are very friendly, answering questions and posing for photographs with visitors. Catherine told us that Vatican City is a separate country with its own postal system and any postcards mailed from within its boundaries will have a special postmark. Unfortunately, none of the three of us had brought addresses with us so that we could mail postcards!

Entering St. Peter’s was like walking into a huge treasure chest filled to the brim with jewels, carvings, and all things gold, and size became relative. Catherine provided us some reference points so we could better judge the scale of the structure. The gold writing partway up the walls was twelve feet tall and an alabaster dove in the wall behind the altar had a wing span of 6 feet. To us it was a tiny little shape almost unrecognizable as a bird. In a chapel to the right was Michelangelo’s statue of the Pieta”, which is Italian for pity. He completed the statue when he was only twenty-four years of age. The Pieta’ was the most beautiful statue, and one of the most beautiful things, I have ever seen. The Blessed Virgin is serene and breathtakingly beautiful as she gently cradles her dead child. We were not able to approach the canopied altar, much like the one at Santa Maria Maggiore, due to a huge bank of chairs set up for the special service in the afternoon, so we contented ourselves with viewing the bodies of three canonized popes, the resting places of various dignitaries, and the gilt opulence that surrounded us. We peeked into the wedding chapel, which Catherine told us has a 7 year waiting list! My head was spinning as I snapped photo after photo of at least 5 painted domes. I have an obsession with domes it seems.

Upon leaving the grandeur of St. Peter’s we found that we were way over schedule. It was already twelve o’clock, the scheduled end of our tour and we had only seen two of the four churches. Our Roman driver was very put out and complained non-stop until we finally proposed a compromise. We agreed to forgo the last two churches if we were given a discount for the Vatican Museum tour which would afford us the chance to see the Sistine Chapel, something that was very important to me. The tour company agreed to this plan offering us a 20% discount which we all accepted. We were dropped off near the Vatican Museum for our afternoon tour which would begin at 2:00 giving us a couple of hours to eat and rest our weary feet.