Roma: preparing for next year's classes

Looking out over the Roman Forum from the monastery I stayed in the past few days.

Dear Friends and Family,

I pray this note finds you well as we prepare for the hope-filled season of Lent. There is so very, very much that God wants to give during Lent, much more than the sacrifices that we make. May you be filled with the joy that only He can give. And may you be freed from all the things that chain you down, that is to say, sins, to the earth in ways that prevent His grace from acting in your soul.

The past few days I was in Rome to meet with a number of people in order to prepare some of next year's studies. It was a very fruitful time. Among other events, I attended much of a conference on the Angelicum on Balthasar's and Aquinas' thought on Kenosis. No doubt for most of you that sounds like Greek, because it is Greek! It's a Greek word for the self-emptying or humiliation of Christ in His Passion. I won't try to go into the details of the conference but will say that I had a very good impression of the level of teaching at the Angelicum and had a chance to speak personally with a number of the professors.

Each morning I looked out the other window of the main corridor of the monastery and saw this:

It is always good to be reminded of the heroic witness of the martyrs who died in the Colosseum. The few days in Rome included time kneeling in prayer before the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena and Santa Francesca Romana.

I had the blessing of celebrating Mass each morning in Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, pictured here:

Today began with prayer in the minor basilica of Santa Francesca Romana and continued with a train ride to Florence, where I had lunch with and taught Catechism to a family. Then the train journey back to the countryside, where I offered the Holy Mass and where I am now just about to head to dinner, so I had best sign off...

May Jesus and Mary watch over you and obtain for you a holy beginning of Lent.

Saint Germaine de Pibrac

A model showing how St. Germaine of Pibrac would have slept.

Sanctuary of the Church dedicated to St. Germaine.

Dear Friends in Family,

Yesterday, on my way to the airport in Toulouse, I was able to visit the home where St. Germaine of Pibrac lived, as well as the church dedicated to her. She was a simple peasant who died in 1601, at the age of just 22, but by whom many miracles were worked after her death.

In her lifetime, she was thought of as nothing special, indeed as less than that. She was made to do hard manual labour on her cousin's farm, and had to sleep under the staircase in the barn where the animals were kept. The first photo above shows a model of her body, laid in the position she would have slept in, just under the staircase. She had no room, just this little corner to sleep in. Though God permitted her to have poor health and to be ill-treated, He graced her with a joyful and courageous heart, and she was ever a friend of the poor, and especially God's own friend. As she tended the animals in the countryside she no doubt conversed often with Him, and she would hike through the fields in order to kneel in the church as the Holy Sacrifice was offered.

A simple life about which very little is known, other than her obvious sanctity as witnessed by the miracles God worked after her death. It was a blessing to have 30 minutes to ask for her intercession, especially after an intense week of study. This past week was particularly intense because--in addition to courses on the natural law and on redemptive suffering--I was doing a good deal of research in view of an end-of-the-week meeting with my director about my licentiate paper. I am pleased to report that I now have the green light to write and hope to have the paper finished by May. We shall see...

As we prepare for Lent, I will be praying for each of you, asking God to grant you a good preparation and a blessed time of spiritual training.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Pillari

Research in Rome

Dear Friends and Family,

I am writing this afternoon from Munich airport, where I am waiting for a flight to Toulouse, where I will be spending the week with the Dominicans studying the natural law and the role of suffering in a Christian's life. Both topics should make for quite interesting studies and will focus heavily, likely entirely, on the writings of Aquinas.

Among the many blessings of this past week was assisting with the preparation of several children for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Though much of the preparation will involve studying the lives of saints, studying the catechism, a regular regime of prayer, etc. it also involved the viewing of the movie Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. On Friday evening we had our class and then I led them in a "mini-holy hour," with the parents in attendance. I have always been struck by how helpful the regular practice of silent Eucharistic Adoration is, particularly by candlelight. God-willing, a weekly Holy Hour will help them to deepen their prayers lives in these coming months.

Then, last night, I watched Narnia with them and their family (in Italian, of course). Given the children's particular interests, this made for good discussion afterwards, including an analysis of Edmund's sins and ways in which the children commit some of the same sins, Peter's role and the role of the Holy Father, Bishops, and priests in the Church, Aslan's (Christ's) great sacrifice and the role of the Cross in the spiritual battle, etc.

On Tuesday I headed to Rome in order to spend the day in the Angelicum's library scanning in hard-to-find books. It was a very helpful trip as I was able to scan in texts from St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, Philip the Chancellor, William of Auxerre, and others. Now the challenge will be to digest them all and include them in the first chapter of my licentiate thesis... My director requested this specific research and, while time-consuming, it has been quite interesting to see how they envisaged the moral law, and in particular the role of the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life.

I should go now to prepare for boarding. Before leaving Rome I was able to make a Holy Hour in the Minor Basilica of Santa Francesca Romana, located right in between the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. You all were in my prayers there.

May Jesus grant you some share of His strength, peace, and joy, and may Our Lady be your guide and sure refuge.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Pillari

Italiano a Firenze

The Piazza in front of the Basilica della Sanctissima Annunziata (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation)

Dear Friends and Family,

A blessed Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary! It is a real joy to have this feast fall on a Sunday. As hopefully all of you experienced at Mass this morning, the feast begins with a solemn blessing of candles: in fact, five different blessings are given to the candles at that moment. Then each member of the congregation is invited to come forward and kneel at the altar rail, where they receive their blessed candle, which is then lit. We then process and sing songs in honour of what occurred on this day, and then re-enter the chapel. The procession with each of us carrying the lighted candle is meant to symbolize the Virgin Mary carrying the Light of the World as She came into the temple.

In my case, I chanted the liturgical antiphons as we processed around a courtyard just outside of the chapel and then re-entered for Mass. People remain with their candles lit until after the Gospel is read. They are then extinguished, to be relit at the Sanctus and held throughout the canon, up until the chanting of the Our Father. Even with the very simple means at our disposal here it was a beautiful moment and striking for me to see how much the lighted candles helped the children to focus. The beautiful wisdom of the Church's traditions...

This week was above all an intense week of study for me, leading up to an exam Friday. I did well on the exam and can now move onto the next level, but it was an intense week of memorizing verb conjugations and how different verb tenses fit together depending on the sentence. It is a real joy to see certain things beginning to make more sense. Now, when I hear an Italian speaking using the subjective or other verb tenses I am beginning to pick up on why this particular verb is used in such a context, etc.

The above photo is taken from where I had a coffee on Wednesday. After classes finished, I stopped into the cafe next door, which is run by this good couple.

Maurizio and Graziella of the "Fiore del Café"

It turns out that Maurizio is from Calabria, and from a village very close to where my ancestors grew up. It was neat talking with him, and their cappuccinos are quite good, which comes in handy when the nights are shorter! On this occasion, I had one cappuccino in the morning before classs and then another to begin the afternoon in order to be awake for that afternoon's pastoral visit to a home. I wasn't due for lunch at the house until 2PM, so I walked to this piazza:

And at the steps drinking my cappuccino. After then spending some time praying the divine office I walked to the part of the city where the home was located and spent a few hours getting to know the teenage children. I was quite pleased that I was able to do almost everything in Italian, except that I butchered the word for "midfielder" ("centrocampista" for those who are interested), and it took a little bit for the teenager who played that position to help me understand.

After the week of study I worked on yesterday's sermon for the First Saturday Mass, then today's sermon for the Presentation. This week's studies will shift in order to focus primarily on research and writing for my licentiate paper for Toulouse. You all are in my daily prayers here. I will post a few more photos below, but above all will send you prayers. Please do keep me in yours.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Pillari

The entrance to the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci, where I am studying.

My professor from the past two weeks (will be someone different next time), in our classroom. The man on the left is a real estate agent in Austria who works with a lot of Italians and who spent a week with us working on his Italian.