J2A Pilgrimage to Rome - Part 1 of 6

Our journey to Rome began at 2:00 PM on Friday from National Airport.  After several delays caused by thunderstorms on the East Coast, especially in Montreal, we made it to Rome at 12:30 PM on Saturday (which would have been 6:30 AM back in Annandale).  Alyson enjoyed her first two trips on an airplane, despite the turbulence, but Kinsey was the only one who managed to get more than two hours of sleep on the overnight trip.  We took the Leonardo Express from the Fiumicino Airport to the Termini station, and then took the Metro Line A over to Valle Aurelia.  And that led to our first big surprise.

Google Maps told us the best way to get to our monastery hotel was through Clivo delle Mura Vaticane.  What is pictured is the last part of the street.  Lots and lots and lots of stairs.  Just imagine the five of us dragging our suitcases up all those stairs.  Then we took a wrong turn on Via di Porta Pertusa and roughly doubled the distance it took to get the hotel.  We finally arrived to the hotel about 5:00 PM very tired and very sleepy.  All we had the energy left to do was find dinner.

The Pizzeria Rosticceria was the first pleasant surprise for the trip.  It is a local neighborhood pizzeria that serves a lot of good pizza (many of them vegetarian-friendly), as well as lasagna, calzones, and a number of cold pasta dishes.  It also had an air-conditioned basement that felt really good after a hot day of walking.  We came back on Sunday night since it was one of the few restaurants still open.

Sunday started with a guided tour of catacombs and the churches during the time of Early Christianity.  The day began with the Catacombs of San Callisto, which started as a series of caves formed from volcanic rock and turned into a four-level tier of catacombs stretching over 30 kilometers wide.  Nine of the popes were buried here until St. Peter’s Basilica was built and the bodies were moved there.  There is a monument to Saint Cecilia in the tomb, as well as a number of the original frescos from the first tier of the tomb.  Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the catacombs (or in the churches we later visited on the tour).

We moved on to the Basilica di San Clemente, which is an 11th century Catholic basilica (which still holds masses at 11:00 AM on Sunday mornings), built atop a 4th century home of a Roman nobleman that was converted into a church, which itself was built atop the ruins of a 1st century house that was burned down as part of Nero’s Great Fire.  Archaeologists excavated down into both layers underneath the church so you can walk down and explore Rome’s past.

We toured the Church of the Santi Quattro Coronati, which more resembles a fortress than it does a church.  We watched part of a Roman Catholic Mass at the church, heard the Lord’s Prayer in Italian, and heard the order of the nuns that serve and live at the church sing hymns.

Our first stop after the tour was the Trevi Fountain and the huge marketplace that has sprung around the fountain.  The fountain is beautiful, and no one single photograph that I took can show its beauty.

Kinsey and Alyson gleefully toss their coins into the Trevi Fountain. 

We wandered west through the Italian marketplace and wound up at the Pantheon.  The Pantheon started its life as a temple to the Roman Gods, but in the 7th century, was converted into a Roman Catholic church called Santa Maria della Rotunda  (St. Mary and the Martyrs).

A painting of the Virgin Mary inside the Pantheon. Our final destination for the afternoon was the Piazza Navona, which is home to the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, or the Fountain of the Four Rivers.  The fountain was built in 1651 to immortalize the four “River Gods”: Ganges, Nile, Danube, and the Rio de la Plata.  The photograph shows the base of the fountain, which is topped by an Egyptian obelisk (one of four such obelisks in Rome; we spied the second obelisk fountain outside the Pantheon). Kinsey poses on the side of the Fountain of the Four Rivers.  For you Dan Brown fans out there, in his novel, “Angels and Demons,” the fountain was the Water-based Altar of Science.

We are now exhausted from a full day of sight-seeing, so we are going to get some sleep.  Stay tuned for more posts from Rome.

Happy Fathers’ Day!

There are times when we as parents must do things we feel are in the best interest of our children but run counter to our kids' desires. For example, Madison (my toddler) wanted her Chapstick, but when we gave it to her without the cap, we were greeted with a thermonuclear meltdown. She didn't understand why she couldn't have the cap. She just knew she wanted the cap, but we weren't letting her have it.

"Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him." 

Matthew 7:9-11

My children are ages 12, 9, and 2. The range in their ages affords me with a couple of benefits. I'm able to capitalize on the lessons I've learned so far while parenting Trey and Alli, my older kids. 

Instead of automatically telling Madison, "No," I articulate what it is that I want her to do. When she plays too rough with the cats, I say, "Rub Amelia gently, like this," and then I show her what I mean. I'm also able to apply the new techniques I'm learning with Madison to interact more effectively with Trey and Alli. As they grow older and are more influenced by their own social networks, it behooved me to be more creative in how I communicate with them. Instead of relying on dinner conversations, I complement our communication by sending them my thoughts in emails and text messages.

Regardless of the particular methods you use to parent your own children, rely on our heavenly Father to be a leader in your household. Although I was born with original sin, I was also blessed to be born with a brilliant example of fatherhood in my own father. I have modeled my outlook to parenting on his resilient demeanor. Even still, I know that I parent imperfectly, yet I understand how to love my children. As their father, I relish in my role as their protector, their guardian. I know that my influence in their lives will continue to place me at the crossroads between bliss and tantrum. In the case of Madison, she melted down for the cap, but she also melts my heart when she says, "Dank you, Daddee!"

To all of my fellow fathers in the world, Happy Fathers’ Day! I tip my hat to you for stepping up to the challenge as well as to the rewards of parenthood. Take advantage of this day. Rejoice in the memories of when your children refused your help with putting on their shoes (at least initially), and celebrate when they aggressively reached for your hand to walk up and down the stairs. The best gift we can give our family is love, and today is one day in the year dedicated to their love for you.

Amen.

By Allen Gradnigo

A Community of Faith and Love

When you go to a house of worship as an adult, it is intentional. It is a conscious choice. If you attend services, why do you go?

I attend church at St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church for several reasons. Today I will share one. There is a sense of community and common purpose in the midst of a congregation like this one that is hard to find elsewhere. I have developed friendships at church, and my family members have friends here too. We do volunteer work together, we share meals, we laugh and have fun, and we care for each other during the hard times. In fact, it is during hard times that I most appreciate and cherish my kinship with friends and loved ones, and my relationship with God.

Community is not limited to your friendly, local house of worship. Being in communion with people around the world is another way we demonstrate our faith. One of the five “Marks of Mission” of the Episcopal Church is “to respond to human need by loving service.”

Every Episcopal church I have attended has performed service projects and fundraising for their local communities and people in need across the globe. At St. Barnabas, service and mission work is varied and plentiful. It includes hosting an afterschool program for at-risk youth, helping staff and supply a local food bank in partnership with other churches, and organizing mission trips to Cuba and Honduras. Serving the common good strengthens our sense of community.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori noted in a webcast with Archbishop Desmond Tutu on May 19, 2012 that mission is about receiving love and then responding by going out and sharing.

“It is a matter of calling the near and the far off together into the fold. It is about healing and reconciling. It is about making that love incarnate in the lives of people around us and in the lives of people on the other end of the earth.”

Being part of this faith community is life affirming. Whenever we come together, for communal worship, to listen and learn, for healing prayer, to take care of each other, and to help neighbors

and strangers, we lift each other up.

We make love incarnate.

by Lyn Harris