Tuesday 17 September Part 2

tuesday pm

This afternoon we went to St John Lateran, it was very hot but, amazingly, when we started out we seemed to be in a small gap between rush hours and there was nothing like the usual traffic. Sow e arrived in record time, went through security as you have to these days and into the vast portico and looked at the Holy Door, all cemented shut now until the next holy year. It has a complex and beautiful sculpture on the front of the Trinity and Our Lady and the bronze feet of the Son are all shiny with touching and kissing. Then we went inside and the marble flooring is as wonderful as ever. I took yet more photos of it because it just intrigues me every time! There is not so much here of Franciscan history as you might imagine but it is the place where Francis came to meet Innocent III in1208, though obviously not the actual actual building, since that is long burnt down and replaced. Innocent III is buried here. He died in Perugia and was, I think, buried there, but Archbishop Pecci who became Leo XIII had his body brought down and a posh tomb made. Leo XIII is also buried here, important in the history of the friars because he united the many splinter groups into what we now have, friars minor, friars minor capuchin and friars minor conventual, this is the so-called Leonine union, though it took over a hundred years for all the groups to toe the line.

The other notable thing in the Lateran, well two really, one is the apse designed and executed by a Franciscanfriar called Torriti, very beautiful and for once the machine that turned the light on worked instead of gobbling my 2 Euro piece and doing nothing. It is a lovely apse with rivers of life flowing off, two deer drinking and a bunch of saints including Francis and, very small, Nicholas V the Franciscan pope who commissioned it. The other lovely thing is the mediaeval statue of Our Lady which Paul VI bought and pope Francis put - as the label says - here in his church. There are always fresh and healthy looking plants around it and candles burning and people praying there, turning the vast place back into a church. 

After some time to look around, we went into one of the small chapels and had a ritual recalling the visit of Francis to the Pope and the dreams which seem to have guided the whole incident. Innocent had a dream of a tree which grew to tremendous height and which he was told was the beggar he had turned away the day before. So he sent servants to look for hi and they found him with the Antonine Brothers working with the poor. They wore a large Tau on their habits and are thought to be where Francis first saw it and took the idea, though there are also other theories - of course!

After some look-around time, we got back in the coach and returned via the Gianicolo with its spectacular view of Rome, over looking the whole city and then the driver pulled off the coup of taking us back along what must be the only road in Rome that Andre did not know! There is an early start in the morning, the coach arriving at 7.00 as we are leaving Rome and so people had to pack. They had strict instructions to put all suitcases in the coach before 7.30 breakfast so we could get away as soon as possible since we are off to the hills and Tagliacozzo where Francis' biographer Thomas of Celano is buried. And so to bed.