This morning we had a relatively leisurely start with breakfast at 8.00 and at 84.5 we were all on a coach, il Pullman as the Italians call it, heading into the rush hour and Trastevere and San Francesco a Ripa, St Francis on the river bank. Thanks to Mussolini there are now high embankments and Trastevere no longer floods every year, one result of which is that it is no longer the district for the poor only, though it does still seem very much the old Roman district. To buy sn apartment here is probably prohibitive and they say hardly anyone buys houses any more since the price is so high.
We had a nice bus driver, Luigi, and we arrived in good time for Mass at 9.30, Murray was the celebrant and ft the homilist, or should it be homiliste? After that Andre gave a guided tour though it is a very small place after St Peter's 6 acres. The history included St Charles of Sezze, an ofm brother who was told not to write but who left, on his death, six volumes of mystical works. So much for obedience but John XXIII canonised him anyway, thrilled that his very first canonisation was a franciscan as he himself was a secular franciscan. In the next bay to him was Bl Luisa Albertoni, a widow, with a spectacular Bernini monument of her in a somewhat voluptuous extasy! The frescoes in her chapel were being restored and those in St Charles' have been done, lovely glowing colours and sharp focus.
The treat of this place is the little room upstairs behind the sacristy where Francis is reputed to have slept and which has never, by the look of it, been painted since! Charles of Sezze's embalmed heart used to be there in a niche but somebody stole it! The whole church and its still poor setting is one of the places which seem most full of Francis, and of course it was here that he met Lady Giacoba since this land was all owned by her family,,the Settesoli gang. In those days the building was the hospice of St Blaise, whose blessing we still have in February. They must have been glad of him even more in the days when the district was an overcrowded swamp full of malaria mosquitoes - as indeed it still is even though the swamp has gone!
The painter de Chirico is also buried here which is another surprise, and outside the church are three posters saying de Chirico, St Francesco, Beata Luisa. Clearly heaven is egalitarian and you might end up with anyone for a neighbour. Off to pranzo now. St John Lateran this afternoon so watch this space.
Love and prayers to all
ft
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