A Return to the Eternal City, for the Mass of the Ages!

The second week-long break had arrived and I was off for an extensive tour of catholic Italy on a solo nine-day pilgrimage.

My first stop was naturally Rome. Though I have been before, I found a few weeks before departing for this trip that the annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage would be making its way to the Eternal City the first weekend of my break. The pilgrimage celebrates the 2007 document, in which Pope Benedict XVI allowed for priests to freely say Mass according the 1962 Missal, more easily referred to as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Tridinite Mass. Needless to say, these are my kind of people, so I decided to hop on the pilgrimage for a few days.

I arrived in Rome on Friday around 1pm and met my cousin, who lives in the city, for lunch. Afterwards I checked into my hostel and figured out my plans for the evening. Summorum Pontificum was praying the Stations of the Cross on the Palatine Hill that afternoon which I planned to attend. I never made it. There was a huge demonstration in front of the main bus station, so none of the buses were running though it. So I did not make it in time, instead once I finally arrived very late I wandered around the Palatine Hill, saw the forum, and enjoyed some free time.

Later that evening I attended a Solemn High Mass for the 10^th anniversary of the Juventutem Movement, a movement of young people attached to the older form of the liturgy. After the Mass while waiting for the church to empty I started talking to some young men from the States, and after talking for a while learned that they are cousins with one of my good friends from back home. We talked for a long time, but the pilgrimage had an early morning planned for the next day so we went our ways planning to see each other the next day. I grabbed some pizza for dinner and then headed back to the hostel for the night. I was staying in a 6-person room and I got talking to the other guys. I talked to them for probably two hours about my travels and theirs before finally getting to bed.

The next morning I made my way to a holy hour and rosary hosted of course by Summorum Pontificum. From there we all processed all the way to the Vatican as glorious witness of the Church of Christ ever attached to the glories of Catholic Tradition. We processed through the main doors of St. Peter’s and all the way to the Altar of the Chair. After we had all made our way to respective seats Mass begun, offered by his eminence Cardinal Burke. I am not sure what more a person could want; the Mass of the ages in all of its glorious and heavenly decorum and devotion, celebrated by one of the most faithful Bishops alive today, in the Church that is the very center of Christendom.  I don’t know what could be truer manifestation of the glory of God and his Holy Church.

After Mass I was invited by my new friends to hop on their bus, as they were heading out to Norcia at nearly the same time I was planning on taking the train. So I joined them and enjoyed some prayer and wonderful conversation on the two-hour bus ride.