Mass at St Peter's Basilica & Campus Martius

 

Well today we started off the day by walking to the Vatican so that we could attend the nine o'clock mass. It was a very interesting experience to say the least. There are a couple of pretty devote Catholics in our group, but our group is more of a mixed bag when it comes to religion. Which always makes conversation around the dinner table never dull. Anyways back to the Vatican. Upon entering Vatican City you can see all these towering lamps that look like they light the way back to the Holy City. It is almost like the architecture is having a conversation with the rest of Rome letting it know that it has a safe place, a refuge in the Roman Catholic church.

  

After we waited in line for about ten minutes we saw these huge projection screen televisions, they were Panasonic no less. We then wondered if it was due to the huge overflow of people that try to see the Pope JP2 back in the day or the current Pope Benedict XVI. So we the proceeded to go through security and finally get to the doors of the Vatican for Mass. 

So after we got our snack we trekked on determining to find our group, yet we only found the annual Roman Marathon running right along the Vatican and the Tiber River.  This caused us to wait inordinately and made us even more impatient about finding our group and way back to the Campo di Fiori for our daily “Marching on Rome.” So we then make our way back to the Campus Martius and along the way Ramses and I have a nice conversation about religion, since it was the topic of the day. We agree on some stuff, disagree on others but at the end of the day it was a meaningful conversation. Which is rare to find in young people today. In my mind our conversation was reminiscent of a philosophical conversation with Socrates or Plato asking a priori type questions like “How can we know?” or “How can we know this with certainty?”

 

All I can say he is a very intelligent, caring young man who seeks out and desires knowledge, yet he tries to temper his passion for knowledge with a respect for all of humanity. It is very refreshing to see this in such a young researcher. It is nice to know that he just won’t try to create knowledge or data without sincerity for humanity.

 

 

 

I can truly say that being here in Rome has transformed all of us. This experience has changed some, some more so than others, some a little less. However people are always resistant to change, but that is only natural. Change is hard and 

So we are then walking along the road and all of a sudden we are in the Piazza di San Pietro come up to what is the It would have really nice to see His Papalness, but alas he was in Africa.