What's in the Cupboard?

What do you think is inside?...

Dear Friends and Family,

First, thank you for your wonderful letters!!! They arrived in a package from my mother yesterday and I was so happy to read them! Please tell your children how happy I was to have news from them--to hear how they were doing and also to have the things that they drew for me. It was a nice taste of "home" from Texas.  I am praying for you all here.

Since this weekend might be extra-busy for me I'll go ahead and write this weekend's entry a bit early.  The above cabinet is in a priest's house that I'm staying at in Rome. It apparently used to be common in some places in Italy to have this for visiting priests, because when you open it up you have...

An Altar! It's a nice way to allow a room to be something else most of the time but then to turn it into a chapel. So if any of you are enterprising carpenters looking for a way to have a chapel in your house but without sacrificing a room, this might be something to look into.

Here are a few pictures from the balcony outside of this room (it's in an appartment building):

Though you can barely see it, off in the distance is a little tower peaking up over the rooftops. That is the tower of "Santa Croce in Jerusaleme" Church in Rome. And just 5 minutes from it is St. John Lateran. It's only a 10 minute walk to each. In fact in a few minutes I'll be heading out the door to pray vespers and make a Holy Hour in St. John Lateran.

Yesterday I made my Holy Hour at Santa Croce in Jerusaleme. It has first class relics of the Cross, one of the nails, etc. and was a nice quiet place to pray. I'm always amazed at how much good silence and prayer do for the soul! This morning I celebrated my Mass at 6:30AM in on the "cupboard altar" I showed you, and then stayed to pray during the quiet Mass of the next priest who celebrated at 7:30AM. Was a nice way to begin the morning.

Had an interesting dinner conversation with an Italian priest last night. He was speaking about the region of Italy that his family comes from and told some very colorful stories of the Mafia (most of which I won't repeat here). But I'll share one story. At one point a man was kidnapped for ransom. During his captivity some of the women members of the mafia family would always stay by his side praying their rosaries. At one point the ransom was not coming as it should so the Mafia decided to... cut off one of the man's ears and send it to his family with a promise that more would follow if the ransom wasn't paid. Apparently this took place, the women went back to praying their rosaries, and the ransom was then paid promptly. Interesting combination of faith and business...

These past few days were largely spent in my room for canon law studies. One paper and one test down, two tests and one more paper to go! Then of course more papers and tests, but it should all be doable.

In case you would like to see some photos of me, take a look here: http://seminairesaintvincent.fr/home.php?area=photos&evt=126&lang=fr   you will see me off and on in the photos (of 12 seminarians receiving "first tonsure").

Will be leaving early tomorrow morning for the conference in Florence. As always, you all will be in my heart and prayers.

In Corde Mariae,
Fr. Moses of Jesus Pillari