Not Three Coins in a Fountain but Five Churches in Rome.

Pillar in front of St. Mary Major

The first full day in Rome. What a lovely, bright day this is. The temperature is forecast to be in the 80s. There is not a single cloud in the sky.


 The hotel in which we are staying is, I would say, superb. The staff is great and multilingual. It is billed as a four-star hotel for the current generation. The rooms are comfortable, modern and efficient with plenty of “room,” unusual for an European hotel. 

Breakfast in the hotel dining room was a pleasure. The three of us pilgrims agreed to meet at about 8. One made it on time, the others within the hour. We plotted our day which would include a fair amount of walking. It turned out to be 8.5 miles of it! Good for our bodies, our waistlines and whatever else we worried about!

Reliquary containing portion of the Crib of Bethlehem

Our first stop was at St. Mary Major, one of the major basilicas of Rome. It is known for its location at which snow fell in August to indicate the place where this should be built. It is known as a shrine of Our Lady of the Snows because of this event. There is also a relic of the crib of Bethlehem which is in the crypt, the place underneath the high altar, often found in historic churches. There is one underneath the high altar at St. Peters (where Peter’s tomb is located) and at several other churches. Often times these churches were built over burial sites which were then incorporated into the church building itself.

One of the domes in St. Mary Major

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Following this we walked a brief way to St. Alphonsus which is the home of the original icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the western version of the Eastern icon of Our Lady of the Passion. A kindly 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

The three pilgrims before the icon.

sister who was present in the gift shop asked if we would like to get closer to the icon, so she escorted us into the sanctuary and offered to take our picture. What a kind gesture!

This is a proper baptismal font!

A stop for lunch was necessary on a shady street as we traveled on.

Peter and Paul above the Papal altar.

We arrived at the Lateran Basilica which is, in actuality, the cathedral church of Rome and the official seat of the pope, the bishop of Rome. It is an ancient building going back to the early years of “legal” Christianity. It has been destroyed many times and rebuilt each time as “newer and better.” The pope and his entourage used to live in the Lateran Palace. Following the papal exile to France and the return to Rome, the pope moved to the Vatican which has been the home of the Roman Church ever since. 

Above the altar are reliquaries said to contain relics of the heads of Peter and Paul. To the left of the later is another shrine said to contain a part

Ceiling of the Lateran Basilica

 of the table used at the Last Supper. At the center of the apse is the pope’s throne or cathedra as bishop of Rome. 

The Lateran Basilica has a gorgeous ceiling. There are five long seating areas separated by columns. Along the nave are enormous statues of the twelve Apostles. St. Matthew stands on a sack of coins to indicate that he had given up his former occupation as a Roman tax collector. St. Thomas extends a finger to point toward the high altar. It was he who demanded that he be able to put his finger in the Lord’s wounds following the Resurrection.

The Pope's Cathedra

Icon of our Lady written by St. Luke

After a gelato break, we went to the holy steps which lead to a chapel containing several relics. The steps were supposedly brought by St. Helena from Jerusalem to Rome, and were the steps up to Pontius Pilates residence which Jesus had to climb to his trial. It is a pious custom to climb the steps on one’s knees. None of us opted to do that, most likely having to do with advanced age and our knowledge that our knees would most likely not last forever. 

We were off, following this, to the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem which is not actually in Jerusalem but in Rome, but is the church which particularly proclaims the Lord’s passion and death. There are supposed relics of the true cross, the nails, the thorns from the crown, St. Thomas’s finger, one of the nails from the cross, etc. 

Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem

The church is relatively quiet and is a respite from the crush of the tour groups in the Lateran. It is much smaller than many of the popular “tourist churches,” although there were tour buses parked in from when we arrived. Most had departed by the time we exited the church and headed back towards “home.” 

A stop at a recommended cafe provided a delicious dinner and we returned to the hotel to the good news that my checked bag had arrived and I now had a variety of clothes to wear! The bag had taken the flight I had not. By some miracle it and its owner were reunited.