We spent four hours of day seven in a hot, sweaty, crush of humanity to see the Pope’s place. In those four hours, the greatest impression left on me was that Pope John XXIII, known as the Good Pope, looked not just good but great in his glass coffin after being dead for over 50 years. I had several well thought-out explanations for this, which I will get to later.
We booked the Red Bus Tour for the Vatican with the help of the hotel. I would not recommend this tour. It was lovely that we were picked up at our hotel with a small air-conditioned bus, but that was the extent of the lovely part of the experience.
The walk from where the bus dropped us off was about a mile. This was difficult on Mom because not only was it a long walk, but we were surrounded by many people walking the same path, and the street was alive with Monday morning traffic. Unfortunately, the guide to take us to the tour guide walked very quickly, and Mom had a hard time keeping up.
Red-faced and sweating, she got to the square where we met our tour leader for our English speaking tour. Our guide didn’t actually speak English, though. She spoke German and knew some English words. She carried a flag for our group of 22 to follow, and barked commands at the parents of the young girls in our group to make sure they bought scarves from the pushy vendors, so they could cover themselves up.
The parents didn’t buy the scarves, and they spent most of the tour telling our tour leader off. I think they were from Ohio, and it appeared that they had enough turmoil during their stay in Rome to start stomping their feet.
After standing in the square for 30 minutes, we were marched around the perimeter of the Vatican. Our tour guide, it is not that I don’t recall her name, she never said it clearly enough for me to catch on to it, so I’ll call her Helga, walked very quickly. Mom was at the end of the group, with a mass of people pushing her from behind to get through.
Bronwyn walked up to Helga and told her off for not waiting for her grandma. A few minutes later, Helga found me and said, “I am aware of your mother. I just want you to know that I am aware.”
Helga spent the next four hours marching us at a fast pace through the Vatican. When she would get to a stopping point she would say, “Da lady wit da sch-tick, vhere ist da lady wit da schhh-tick?” Mom carried a cane to help her walk, so Helga called her the lady with the stick.
We walked through many long hallways shoulder to shoulder with people who left their manners, if they had any to begin with, several miles from there.
It was hot.
People smelled of body odor.
We had earphones and a monitor that helped us listen to Helga mutter words, which now and then sounded like one or two might be English. When she left one room and entered another, the wireless receiver lost its signal, and we couldn’t hear anything. So, on we shuffled, like cows going to the slaughterhouse.
The tapestries lining the walls were beautiful. The paintings, as we shuffled from room to room, were amazing. It was very difficult to enjoy the masterpieces, very difficult. Maybe the Vatican could limit the number of people it lets in?
We walked outside the building and along a breezeway for a short while. It was wonderful to see the sky and breathe fresh air, even if our view was of the parking lot below. The breezeway took us to the much-acclaimed Raphael room. Again, the paintings, which adorned the walls, were intense, but we could scarcely enjoy it.
Helga ordered Mom away when we faced many steps. Mom went willingly down a corridor, escorted by security. Just her and a security guard walking through a corridor.
Lucky!
After 3 hours, we ended up in the Sistine Chapel. MK, a woman from yesterday’s bike tour, told of how she felt tears stream down her face as she gazed upon Michelangelo’s ceiling. I didn’t have that experience.
The Vatican guards kept yelling, “Silencio.”
The room would become quiet, and then the murmur of the crowd would grow and grow until the guards yelled again.
People pushed and shoved. I titled my head to the ceiling to look at Michelangelo’s masterpiece.
I preferred the art in The Uffizi.
I preferred the beauty of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
I preferred the tranquility of San Miniato al Monte.
Bronwyn and I got a few minutes of staring before we had to weave in and out of the crowd to find my Mom, who was peacefully sitting on the outer rim of the chapel.
We left the Sistine Chapel and headed over the St. Peter’s Basilica.
St. Peter’s was large and airy. The use of light in the building was inspirational.
The statues and marble worked together to create a fortress of religious strength.
I kept hearing Bach’s cantata “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” in my mind.
There was a beautiful sculpture of Mary holding the crucified Jesus. I walked up to it as Helga told the group that Mary is encased in glass now because the day after 9/11/2001, a man took a hammer to her face. Pieces from the work fell on the ground and people scrambled to pick up the fallen pieces. The Italian government and the Vatican pleaded with people to return the pieces. Only three small pieces were returned.
Heartbreaking, isn’t it!
Mary’s face was reconstructed, but now she holds Jesus behind a strong piece of glass.
Helga rudely commented, “And believe it or not, the man with the hammer was not American.”
Why would she think people would assume an American would do that?
There are many Popes entombed in St. Peter’s. We saw a few that were mummified, and they looked mummified.
Then we got to Pope John XXIII, who just this year became a Saint.
It was startling to see him because he died in 1963, and he looked like he was alive a few hours ago. He looked good, really good.
I stared at him in awe.
No way!
This can’t be?
How can he be so well-preserved?
I didn’t think that embalming could preserve someone so well for such a long time.
Helga said he wasn’t embalmed and that it was a miracle that he remained “untouched.”
They never removed his blood, Helga informed us.
“He is a miracle,” she repeated.
There were armed guards everywhere. It was fair enough to have them there considering what happened to Mary.
I leaned in closer to have a look. His hands were still flesh. His face looked like he was sleeping.
I wanted to put my nose up against the glass and tap on the glass coffin to see if his eyes would pop open.
But, I didn’t.
I wanted to bite my finger, making it bleed, and hold it near the glass coffin and see if that would make his head turn because at that point I was thinking, VAMPIRE.
How else could he look so good?
I looked up at the ceiling, and there were many light-filled open windows, which he could fly out of each night.
I slowly walked by pondering what I was seeing.
Peaches in my fruit bowl on my kitchen counter don’t look that good after 3 days.
Maybe I should find out what kind of moisturizer he used while he was alive?
Bronwyn took a picture of St. John XXIII. I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture.
I kept thinking about his condition.
We walked on and a short pace later, there was a bronzed Pope. People rubbed his foot for good luck. I walked by, and the armed guard fiercely told the stream of people to keep moving. I stopped and asked him if I could rub the Pope’s foot. He suddenly softened, raised his shoulders, and gestured to the statue and using a tone as if he was asking me out on a romantic date, he said, “Yes, but of course, please, rub his foot.”
He was serious.
So, I rubbed the statue of the Pope and walked on, smiling at the strange encounter.
We walked around the basilica for about twenty more minutes.
I kept pondering Pope John XXIII’s state and looking up at the open windows.
He could fly out at night.
Maybe he was a Vampire.
My mind wandered in need of a break from the crowd.
Maybe he looked so good because of love. You know, he was asleep like sleeping beauty waiting for true love’s kiss (on the cheek, he was a Pope after all).
I came up with another scenario that went like this: He promised someone he loved (not in a physical inappropriate-for-a-Pope sense, but in a purer spiritual sense), maybe a child, a cousin, a work associate that he would always be with him or her. Possibly, he is preserved to this day because of the power of his love and his honor to his commitment.
Or, maybe he is a vampire.
We left The Vatican after four long hours of being pushed and jostled by a hostile crowd. We walked what seemed to be a mile and a half to a bus that brought us to a square where we could catch a taxi back to our hotel.
I saw a café near the square, and we stopped for a glass of wine and lunch. It felt great to be out of the crowd. After lunch, we walked over to a fountain, and then I noticed the Basilica of Saint Mary. I remembered reading that Michelangelo designed it, and that it was beautiful inside.
Mom couldn’t stand one more church, so she said she would wait by the fountain. We encouraged her to join us, after all, it was just a walk across the street, but she was fed up with sightseeing at that point. So, with Mom sitting by the fountain, Bronwyn and I walked over to St. Mary’s.
It was beautiful. The use of light in the church was magnificent.
There might have been 30 people total in the building, so we had plenty of room to breathe and think.
There was an astrological chart on the floor, which I thought was unusual.
Overall, the peaceful basilica calmed our Vatican-frayed nerves.
Back at the hotel, we left Mom to relax with her iPad in the Wi-Fi hall of the hotel and Bronwyn and I headed out to the Coliseum.
The Coliseum was vast and crumbling.
Memories from the hundreds of years of the savage murder of approximately 500,000 people and 1,000,000 animals echoed through the decaying building.
As we walked around the structure, it was difficult to imagine the Roman citizens sitting gleefully watching tortured lives being extinguished.
There really was no way the coliseum could retain its former beauty.
There was just not enough goodness placed within it for it to remained “untouched” after it ceased to function.
It is now just a crumbling reminder of how awful humankind can treat others. After Christianity became fashionable in Rome with Constantine, the morality of religion made the savagery of the Coliseum unpopular. Yet, for nearly 100 years after, exotic animals were hunted at the excitement of the citizens. After the bloodshed stopped, the Coliseum was used for various things, including a quarry, and a religious shrine. However, it still crumbled with time.
That said, Bronwyn thought it was really cool to walk around the Coliseum.
After about an hour or so of walking around the Coliseum, we walked back to the hotel, stopping for gelato, of course. We found Mom in the hotel room and went out for dinner. It was an exhausting day. Our plans for Tuesday were to walk around The Forum and shop. Tuesday was our last day in Rome, and I still had to come up with my miracle request for Antonietta.
I had a lot to think about before I feel asleep.
Of course, I did a little research on Pope John XXIII, and found I would have loved him had I known him when he was alive. He was heroic, humble, and witty. He concentrated on elements of life that keep us together as humans instead of that which rips us apart.
He did a lot of work in his short tenure as Pope to unify the Church and make it more accessible to everyone.
I love that he would drop in on people from time to time just for a visit.
I would have liked to meet him.
Wait a minute.
I did meet him, or I was as close as I could be to meeting someone who died over 50 years earlier.
Maybe that is what it’s about?
He is continually accessible to people even after his death.
He is directing people to learn more about his work and spread his message.
Maybe he looked good because he was a vampire, maybe it was out of his mystic ability to carry on for love, maybe it was because he resonated goodness his whole life, and that goodness stuck around, shielding him from decay.
I’ll let you decide.
Ciao!