ROAMIN' ROMAN ON THE SPOT
Check her out -
roamingroman.blogspot.com/
She was at the Palm Sunday events on the Piazza yesterday, and she spent Saturday visiting
some standard Rome sights and photographing from her always-fresh viewpoint. Great skyline
shots from the top of Castel Sant'Angelo, for instance. And she has more pictures of the
Palm Sunday events, of course. I picked these two 'for the record'(captions are hers):
Left: His Holiness, Pope Benedict. As he passed, I noticed one of many surprising things
at this liturgy - that the crowds this time were mostly quiet, not screaming at him,
clawing towards him, or flashing cameras (well, there was some of that, obviously).
Really, the crowd was quite reverent and solemn in keeping with the mood of the day.
Right: A great view of His Holiness' cool cope (yes, they had to do the fast switcharoo
cope to chasuble, once he made it up to the altar).
Quick impressions:
For us here in Rome, who were able to go to St. Peter's for Mass, it was an amazing experience.
I can honestly say that
I have never experienced a liturgy that had so many elements too it,
everything from the sheer composition of the crowd to the actual way the Mass was
liturgically celebrated. It had something for everyone, yet it all fit together (unlike
some of those other "composite" Masses that we have all experienced...).
For starters, it was not only Palm Sunday, but also the concluding celebration for
this year's World Youth Day, and a Mass which included the transferring of the WYD cross
and icon to the Australians by the Germans (speaking from WYD Cologne experience...
I presume they were a bit glad to hand it off to somebody else!). So the whole square
was utterly packed with not only "normal" Italians and pilgrims, but gadzillions
of youth groups. It really did feel like WYD here!
OK - and then of course the primary reason for the day was Palm Sunday. I will never go into
my home parish and just pick up a meager single palm frond the same way again - just wait
until you see these photos! We're not talking fronds, and we're not even talking palms,
we're talking olive branches here, people!
When we first made the mad rush to get good seats, we missed out on getting our branches,
so Jason and I had to make the trek back out of the area and out to the main square entrance
to find some for our area. Later on, there suddenly appeared guys with massive bundles of
fresh-cut olive branches going up and down the center aisle - we suddenly found ourselves
with sweet-smelling olive branches under our feet and bristling all over the Square....
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/04/2006 22.12]