I wrote about Holy Week and Easter in Rome a year ago and here I am doing so again. Tempus fugit, as the ancient Romans said, and the point is still valid: time flies, like it or not. In English we sometimes add to “time flies,” the little phrase, “when you’re having fun.” I like to quip: “even when you’re not having fun.” In other words, time simply flies. At least that is my experience.
Last year my report centered around participation during Holy Week at the nearby Benedictine oblates of Saint Frances of Rome, at Tor de’ Spechhi, right next to the sprawling Piazza Venetia and very close to where I live, at Curia Sant’Ambrogio in the Piazza Mattei. Unlike the busy Piazza Venetia, Piazza Mattei is one of Rome’s most picturesque squares in the historic center of the city. The Piazza’s “Fountain of the Tortoises” in the middle of the piazza is very famous and attracts tourists every day of the year.
The streets that intersect Piazza Mattei are regular walking routes to some of Rome’s Pontifical Universities, including the Gregorian and the Angelicum. A classmate of mine from my previous stay in Rome from 1985 to 1988, Michael Mulhall, is now bishop of Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. Bishop Michael likes to remind me that he used to walk through the Piazza Mattei nearly every day as a student in Rome. He would come from the North American College, the place of residence and formation for North American diocesan seminarians, which he was then, to classes at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas, run by the Dominican Order and where we studied. That was all thirty-plus years ago, also hard to believe. As already said, time flies, no matter what.
But back to Holy Week 2018! This year fewer of our curia staff attended Holy Week liturgies at Tor de’ Specchi, and were able to participate in other liturgies in the city for the days of Holy Week. That began with Palm Sunday Mass on March 25th and concluded with Vespers of Easter Sunday on April 1st. Let me back up and say that, we at Sant’Ambrogio, like most of the many curias or generalates (headquarters) of religious Orders in Rome, that have ten or fewer in residence, tend not to celebrate the more complex liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday in the generalate, but have their staff attend liturgies in parish churches or monasteries where more people reside. This is also an opportunity to see more of the “Church in action” in the city of Rome.
One of our monk priests of Sant’Ambrogio celebrates Holy Mass each day for the five remaining sisters at Tor de’ Specchi. Some or all of our curia members join the chaplain for Holy Week. Since the option this year was to do that or to go elsewhere, I chose the latter and attended Mass and other Holy Week liturgies in several churches in Rome, though all of them very close to where I live, so it was an easy walk to the various churches.
For Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, I and another monk of our curia attended the 10:00 am Mass at our beautiful parish church of Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli, just a few of blocks away. The priests of the Order of Mater Dei that run the parish are very liturgically conscious and celebrate the liturgy prayerfully and with dignity. It was an honor to be part of the Palm Sunday celebration there this Holy Week 2018. The Mass and procession with olive branches began a couple of blocks away from the church in a quiet little square. The slow walk and singing along the way to the church takes ten minutes or so and added to the festive spirit that is supposed to accompany those who re-enact the triumphal entry into Jerusalem of the Lord and the people at the Holy Week of the Lord’s suffering and death.
In Rome, olive branches, rather than palms, are distributed and carried on Palm Sunday. I am told this is because olive trees are more common here than palms. Throughout the day of Palm Sunday, while on exercise walks, I saw many people carrying olive branches. These are usually kept in baskets inside churches here from Palm Sunday and for the first days of Holy Week, and people freely pick them up to carry home.
I also attended morning Mass at our parish of Santa Maria on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, at 7:30 am. On Wednesday of Holy Week, I celebrated Mass at the tiny church of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, at 6:00 pm. This church is part of the Archconfraternity of Saints Benedict and Scholastica of Nursia. Confraternities and archconfraternities (I confess I don’t yet know the difference between the two) are lay Catholic groups of people who since the Renaissance have played an important role in the spiritual and social life of the Catholic Church. I hope to write more about these groups in a future essay. The present chaplain of the archconfraternity at Saints Benedict and Scholastica church in Rome is a diocesan priest student from Tamil Nadu, India, whom I know, who invited me to be celebrant at Mass on Holy Wednesday.
On Holy Thursday and Good Friday I attended the liturgies and Office of Tenebrae at the parish church of Santissima Trinita (Most Holy Trinity) dei Pellegrini (of the Pilgrims) near our curia. This parish is under the care of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, who celebrate Holy Mass and other ceremonies of the Church in Latin and according to the Extraordinary Form, or the Church’s rites prior to Vatican II. As I grew up with these rites, am comfortable with Latin, and love Gregorian chant, I was in my element at these carefully celebrated liturgies. The Tenebrae (Night Vigils) of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday lasted two or three hours, beginning at 8:30 pm, so I got to bed rather late on those nights. The church was packed with hundreds of people in attendance, many of them young, college age or a bit older. There were many families with young children as well.
I attended Lauds on Holy Saturday with the Dominican friars at Santa Maria Sopra Manerva church, also near our curia and Easter Sunday Vigil and day Mass at our parish with the Order of Mater Dei priests. They had quite a bit of singing, incense and at the end of Mass blessing with scented Holy Water which everyone seemed to enjoy.
I should also mention that Good Friday and Holy Saturday were not pretty days, weather-wise. That is, the clouds, wind, rain and generally unpleasant weather we had those days did seem to fit well the themes of the suffering and death of the Lord that the Church was commemorating. Lo and behold, Easter day was clear, sunny and warm, a perfect conclusion, though really a beginning, to all that Holy Week recounts each year, the great gift of God of our salvation in Jesus Christ.
Sharing the days of Holy Week with other Benedictines and laity, the Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Dominicans, the Order of Mater Dei, religious sisters of various and sundry Orders, was a rare privilege and not to be soon forgotten.
