Italy Day 2 The Vatican
The infamous sneak a Sistine Chapel picture. It’s not allowed or appropriate to take a picture in the Sistine Chapel, so you have to sneak one without a flash.
To begin the day, we went straight to the Vatican, knowing this could be a full day. Thankfully we had some good advice to pre order tickets, and avoid the long lines, totally worth it! We started at the Museum which was a nice 2+ hour tour, from there it ended in the Sistine Chapel, where I had to sneak one low key picture, to keep the reverence of the art and worship space it demands. After the Sistine Chapel we were able to go straight into St Peter's Basilica, which again pre ordered tickets were a super premium, and great investment. It allowed us to avoid hours of waiting in all capacity.
Upon entering St Peters I was reminded of how much I missed when I visited here in 1997. Hardly a care to the Catholic Christian faith, I was more interested in drinking at the age of 18, than I was enjoying the awe, wonder and beauty of the Universal Church. Today I was able to say thank you again, for my epiphany, as I was able to absorb the beauty, of what Jesus Christ and His Holy Church had accomplished, in over coming a society, which harshly persecuted and killed Christians, and replacing it with his message of faith, hope and love. Sadly we also heard however, of the many people, and poor Popes who did not do such a good job succeeding Peter as our leader.
From St. Peter's we made our way down stairs to the crypt of the Popes. Above you will see St. Peter's tomb, which the Vatican was built on, which literally fulfills the words of Jesus in Matt 16:18 saying, I will build my church on you. Peter's name Cephas (which means rock), is the foundation Jesus uses to build his church metaphorically and physically. Jesus is the cornerstone which holds it all together. Next to the image of Peter's tomb, are the Holy Doors of Mercy which are opened from time to time, above are the names of the Pope's who have called for a year of mercy.
From here after a long tour, we finished up around 4 pm, and grabbed a late lunch. I kind of forgot to take a picture, but we had a pasta with the whole shrimp in it, which was a little weird, but the homemade pasta and fresh Morretti was amazing. I rarely drink anything now days, but I saw a man with a nicely poor Morretti and realized, it's going to be at it's best here along with the wine. To the right of those pictures, was some of our dinner. It was an Orata Caprese (Italian Seabass), with a salad and a focaccia pizza.
The highlight of the day was squeezing in a last second visit to St. Phillip Neri, and visiting his relics. I'm not sure if it was a priest or seminarian, but he was kind enough to help me obtain some holy cards of St Phillip, which he allowed me to place on the body of St. Phillip Neri, patron saint of joy (giving me some 3rd class relics for my Oratory friends back home). In the mix we discovered mass was about to begin and we decided to attend. I personally love St. Phillip Neri, thanks to his great Oratory in Rock Hill, S.C. which was the first in the U.S.A. and a big contributor to the spread of Catholicism in the south.
These final pictures were fascinating to me, as I enjoyed seeing small shrines dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary everywhere we went in Rome. These were two that I captured today.