24 October, 2021 • Antonello and Maria Chiara

We are so privileged to live by and work with so many beautiful Italian couples here in the Rome Foresteria and Temple.  One of these couples is Antonello and Maria Chiara Murgia from Sardegna. He is so humble and sweet while she is quick witted and fun loving. They compliment each other perfectly.  Neither Antonello nor Maria Chiara speak any English, and our Italian, although getting better, is still quite basic.  But in spite of the language limitation we are able to communicate perfectly.  For Sunday after-church "pranzo" they invited us and two other couples to experience Sardegnian food.  The primo piatto of home-made lasagna and gnocchi would have sufficed, especially with the generous portions Maria Chiara dished.  But she was just getting warmed up.  Plate after plate followed: salmon "crudo" with avocado, an octopus dish, a plate of Sardegnian prosciutto with cheese and a green salad.  And the main event was still to come.  Maria Chiara had slow roasted "Porcetto di Sardegnia", a whole young piglet actually brought from Sardegnia: Succulent falling-off-the-bone meat under a crackling skin.  Herbed potatoes kept the little piglet company in the oven and on the plate.  At the five-hour point, when the fruit and dessert plates started arriving our brains stopped functioning.  But as abundant and delicious as the meal was, it was overshadowed by the outpouring of love and and acceptance of these sweet people.  What an honor it is for us to be here at this time and place with lovely Italians like Antonello and Maria Chiara Murgia.

Chris and Maria Chiara at the Val Melaina Open Air Market

Antonello and Maria Chiara Murgia

PARKS AND PARROTS

The major sites of Rome are almost always packed with throngs of rather hot, tired and grumpy looking tourists numbly trailing along behind their guide.  So as to not lose any of the herd, the leader often carries something highly visible high on a stick such as plastic flowers, bright ribbons or my personal favorite, a rubber chicken.  I'm certain that after returning home the weary travelers impress their friends with stories and selfies in front of things that they have long ago forgotten the names of.  Places like the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon do merit a visit.  But also worthy of being experienced and usually not too far from these epicenters of activity is a quiet park or garden politely waiting.

This morning after enjoying almost an hour as the only person in the Basilica of Saints Giovanni e Paolo, I wandered through the nearby gate of the Villa Celimontana Garden on the slopes of Rome's Caelian Hill.  There were a few parents walking a child to school.  Others were giving their dogs an opportunity to sniff other dogs.  Remnants of a Roman aquaduct added an impressive backdrop and an Egyptian obelisk from Heliopolis provided a focal point. Sounds of distant fountains echoed through iconic umbrella pines and palm trees.  The only thing disrupting the peacefulness of the morning was the squawking of birds.  On closer inspection I realized that the park was full of parrots!  What a surprise that was to me.  I knew that Rome was flooded with tourists.  But I had no idea that it is also flocked with parrots! 

Basilica of Saints Giovanni and Paolo in the Morning Light

Going to School through Arches of SS. Giovanni e Paolo

Villa Celimontana Gardens on Rome's Caelian Hill

Umbrella Pines, Junipers and Palms in the Villa Celimontana

One of the Many Permanent Residents of Villa Celimontana Park

23 October 2021 •  The Monastic Life

Even though I admire it, I have never really been able to fully comprehend how a person could choose the cloistered life of a monastery.   Especially difficult would be vows of celibacy, poverty or silence.  Just obedience is enough of a struggle!  But now that we are at about the midway point of our time here in Rome, I realize that we have taken a definite shift toward the monastic lifestyle.  We have no car.  We don't watch TV or listen to the news.  Our "cloister" is the beautiful piazza surrounded on all four sides by the Temple where we work five days per week, the Visitors' Center where we visit missionaries and play music, our Stake Center where we go to church, and the Foresteria where we live.  And all of our earthly possessions will fit in a suitcase.  We do miss family and friends, but Face Time phone calls help greatly with that.  And with a bus pass that frequently puts us in the heart of the Eternal City in about 45 minutes plus ample access to the best Italian food in the world, we're not exactly Cistercians!  But when we return home at the end of this pilgrimage, I hope we won't let ourselves just slide back into our status quo. Rather, I hope we can retain some of this simplified life. . .with pasta of course!

SILENZIO

The Window of a Monk's Cell overlooking the Cloister of San Marco Monastery

San Marco Monastery

Spaghetti alla Carbornara • A Speciality in Roma

October 14, 2021

It has been said that one of great differences between the U.S. and Europe is that for Americans, 100 miles is a short distance and 100 years is a long time.  Nowhere is this time contrast better seen than in the architecture. Take for example, the little Basilica of San Nicola in Carcere that sits in the Forum Olitorium along side of the ancient Roman Theatre of Marcellus.  Small scale models inside the church show that three temples from the 2nd & 3rd centuries B.C. stood in this forum.  In 1128, the middle temple was converted into the Church of Saint Nicolas, revered by the Greek community living in this area at that time.  Doric and Ionic columns from the 2,200 year old temples are still visible imbedded the church walls.  A neoclassical facade designed by Giacomo della Porta was added in 1599.  And the "Parte Superiore", the restorations and decorations added in 1865, the year the the U.S. Civil war ended, are relatively brand new!

San Nicola in Carcere

Doric columns from Roman Temple of Hope visible

Taller Ionic columns from Temple of Janus on opposite side

Model of San Nicola juxtaposed with original Roman Temples

Exterior plaque showing various dates.

Nave of San Nicola in Carcere

Mismatched columns taken from other Roman Ruins

Frescos and Statues in the Nave

Madonna & Child fresco by Antoniazzo Romano, 1470

The nearby Theatre of Marcellus

October 12, 2021 •  A Morning in the Vatican Gardens

The walls the Vatican encompass Saint Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museums, Papal apartments, the Sistine Chapel and the beautiful gardens covering most of Vatican Hill. The gardens include areas forested in trees from all over the world and smaller areas landscaped in the Italian, English and French styles.  Scattered throughout are fountains, sculptures and even a replica of the grotto at Lourdes, a favorite place of prayer for the Pope.  Sitting at the highest point of the hill is the Vatican radio station, appropriately named after Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the radio. Even though the Vatican is the smallest sovereign country in the world, it has one of the largest world wide radio audiences. This little country even has a helicopter port, railway station, post office and a gas station.  We even spotted a stop light at one intersection. I guess they have it all.

Saint Peters Basilica

One of the Many Garden Vistas

Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Marconi Radio Station

Michelangelo's Dome from the Gardens

A Sculpture of Michael the Archangel

Swiss Guards in the Renaissance Uniform designed by Michelangelo (except the masks!)

This must be the entrance.

October 8, 2021 • Tivoli Gardens

Some kind friends offered to let us borrow their car.  So before our temple shift later today, we took a morning drive out to Tivioli to visit the Villa d'Este with its spectacular gardens.  The palace and gardens were built by Ippolito d'Este, a Catholic Cardinal and son of Lucrezia Borgia (the femme-fatale who probably inspired the Blood, Sweat & Tears song "Lucretia McEvil")!  Ippolito fell out of favor with the church when he demolished a Benedictine monastery to build his palace.  But history remembers him kindly for his beautiful gardens with hundreds of gravity-powered fountains.  

The Oval Fountain

The Fountain of Neptune

Avenue of the Hundred Fountains

Terraced Gardens

Pomegranates

 

The Dragon Fountain

The Water Organ 

(It actually plays)

Deluxe Panini's (panini di lusso) in Tivoli Old City

08 October 2021 • Sprouting Seeds

We are loving this wonderful opportunity of being here at this unique time.  The temple currently has only one evening shift per day from 4:00 pm until 9:00 except on Saturdays that also have morning shifts.  We have not yet been able to return to a normal schedule of two shifts every day due to the limited number of trained workers and with covid related closure of patron housing.  But we are being trained and getting ready in anticipation of adding more morning shifts hopefully soon. Consequently, we are assigned on almost every shift, even sometimes two on the same day. And we are being used in virtually every possible assignment, including as coordinators in the various ordinance areas.

Last night I was assigned to be the coordinator over the baptistry.  A small group came from Caserta, near Naples.  This group included a senior missionary couple as chaperones, one experienced Melchizedek priesthood bearer, two men who were recent converts and the two sister missionaries who had taught these two men.  President Pacini has made it possible to provide train tickets for young missionaries to come to the temple with new converts if they have first taught them how to do family history work and have prepared them do baptisms for their own family members. The experienced brother first performed the baptisms for the new converts, doing this work for their own ancestors.  The new convert having just had that new experience would then in turn perform other baptisms. What a profound and rich experience for these new members and what a joy for us to watch the seeds they recently planted begin to blossom.

Rome Temple Baptismal Font

(stock photo)