The Eternal City

The best things can never really be spoken, the second best things are almost always misunderstood, so we find ourselves talking about the third best things.

I will never be able to express in words what our experience in Rome has meant. On Tuesday morning we lined up early for the Vatican museums. On the advise of others before us we ran, literally ran, to the sistine chapel. It was the right thing. We had uninterupted time to view the master work. It has been retored to its original magnificence. The creation of the universe, man and woman, the fall, the flood, heroes and heroines of the faith, painted on the ceiling at the height of the Renesaince. 24 years later, the last judgement. Like the Duomo in Florence, inspiring and terrifying.

Next we entered St. Peters and were, of course, inspired. We got to see the body of Pope John XXIII. We decended the steps to the burial place of the popes, beginning with St. Peter himself. Finally we got to pay our respects at the burial site of our beloved John Paul the Great. I would have been satisfied had our trip ended there. But it didn't.

St. John Lateran is like no other place on earth. Described by Dante as "More than mortal." And so it is. We felt ourselves standing on the shoulders of giants.

Finally, almost as a surprise, we were able to attend the Wednesday audience with Pope Benedict XVI, truly indescribable.

Tomorrow, on to Assisi.

Caio!