Franciscans in Rome

  Today we started our day at THE mother house for the Franciscan Third Order Regular friars. For those of you who don't know, they are the wonderful men who run my university. The Church is located basically in the Roman Forum and it is OLD. They just celebrated their 500 year anniversary, but the church has been there way before that! It is called Cosmas and Damien (and of course, the bones of both saints are buried beneath the main altar).

  We then broke out into groups on another tour around Rome. We saw the Pantheon, a couple piazzas (not pizzas) and a few more churches. I can't explain everything on this blog because it's hard to remember everythign we learn on these tours. But the Pantheon was really cool. It's the largest free standing dome. It's HUGE. And it has a hole at the top, so it rains and snows inside!

  After seeing the Pantheon we went to get gelato at a place called Gelateria Della Palma.... It. is. AMAZING. SO MANY FLAVORS! Like a million. Okay maybe 100. But still. So many different unique flavors. I got cinnamon and chocolate and grapefruit. It was delicious.

       We then got a quick lunch at some little Italian cafe. I ordered on whim 'crispy potatoes'. It came to my table and I was like, what in the world did I just order.  It was potatoes, gorgonzola cheese, walnuts, and butter covered with a kind of lettuce. It was so delicious! After lunch we asked for the check and instead they brought us out shots of limoncello. We told the waitress we didn't order them, but she said 'For free!!'. Only in Italy would they bring out free alcohol after a meal. Then it was off to the Scavii tour of the grotto and underground ancient burial grounds of Rome which are under St. Peters. Though muggy and hot and led by a tour guide who's enlish was not adequate enough to explain what was down there, the tour was so cool. We actually were walking underground on roads that ancient Romans walked on. Oh, and St. Peter's bones are down there too!

    That night, instead of going to the adoration back at our hotel, a group of us were picked up by seminarians and brought to the PNAC (Pontifical North American College) for adoration and praise and worship. It was beautiful. Not only was singing among such holy men in front of Christ an absolute honor, but to see this huge college with 250 seminarians dedicated their lives to Christ was truly inspiring and full of hope. The Catholic Church is so alive!!