Bon giorno! Well, I am now in Assisi, in the midst of 4 weeks of intense Italian studies, and I finally have an opportunity to write about my first week at the NAC. I spent the entire 2-3 hour bus trip from Rome to Assisi writing a post about everything that we had done that week, but - for some unknown reason - my tablet (which I am typing this on, with a bluetooth keyboard) lost that (really awesome) draft, so I am forced to rewrite it. Of course, since it took 2+ hours to write the first time, and I wasn't quite done at that point, it'll probably take a couple of days to get hammered back out considering how busy I'm kept with Italian classes, as well as checking out the city of Assisi... (Yeah, it took more like 3 weeks - I'm pretty busy here)
After saying good-by to my family (difficult! - gosh, I miss you guys) I flew out of St. Louis on Sunday morning (almot a month ago now - wow!) and landed in Newark around noon. I made my way over to the gate for my flight over to Rome, but it wasn't set to take off for another several hours, so I just wandered around a little bit. Surprisingly, I ran into another seminarian (a bunch of us were going to take the same flight over to Rome), actually the only guy from the my class at the NAC who I already had met. We had a bite to eat, talked about the last bit of each of our semesters and our summer up to that point, and about that time the rest of the guys started trickling in. We had a couple of hours to wait before our flight took off, most of which was spent introducing ourselves, and trying to remember the names, dioceses, and background of each guy. (After about 15 guys I started to get overwhelmed with new information and while I know all the names now, I still don't have all the dioceses and what-not figured out). Actually, in an awesome discovery, the "meditation chapel" - which I passed up on my way over to my terminal - at the Newark airport has a tabernacle with Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament! So, myself, and probably most of the other guys took the opportunity over the next couple hours to spend a few minutes (or more) talking with Jesus, and - for myself at least - surrendering to Him, as completely as I could, the next several years of my life, and the entire opportunity/adventure of going to the NAC.
Our plane took off shortly after it was supposed to but otherwise the flight was uneventful - food was palatable, sleep was not to be found, there were lots of movies provided (I watched Thor and Noah - both pretty good entertainment), and unfortunately none of the other guys were next to me (so no conversing during the flight). We landed in Rome the next day - 7 hours in the future from when we started - so around noon Rome-time, and were given a wonderful welcome by the early-orientation team from the NAC. They ushered us through the airport, made sure we were all present, and then we boarded a bus for the NAC. Half an hour later we were driving past St. Peter's basilica and up the hill to the NAC (St. Peter's, literally, is a 10 minute walk from the college - so awesome!). First things first: we had our first meal in Italy (fruit and pastries/croissants). actually our second breakfast for the day because we already had one on the plane (Bilbo would be proud), then we were introduced to the faculty who would be aiding in the early-orientation process, spending maybe an hour filling out paperwork for our soggiorno (basically a green card). We were then shown to our rooms (mine is on the 4th floor - some six flights of stairs up from the groud level!) and given some time to move into them (I pretty much just changed my clothes and brushed my teeth). We then had Mass - during which father exhorted us to use the experience of Rome, the opportunity to live, study, and pray in the Eternal City, to truly discern our vocation and really open ourselves to God's grace. It was probably this moment when I just barely began to understand the importance of why I was in Rome, and that - my recognition that being in Rome is so much more than just being in Rome - is the topic of this post.
I guess, having been to Rome on a family vacation a few years back, I came to Rome as a tourist. I came, camera in hand, ready to see the sights and enjoy gelato. But what I (thankfully!) came to understand during my first week was that my being a seminarian at the NAC, in Rome, is not just for the coolness factor, or the awesome art, churches, history, and food. Certainly, I will be enjoying all those things, but they aren't - they cannot be - the focus of my being here! Perhaps I should have already figured that out, but coming off that plane, I hadn't quite realized that yet.
After Mass, we had our first pranzo (lunch) at the NAC, and - from what I can tell - basically, the model for almost all our pranzi in the future. The meal begins in the main dining room (of which the 50 or so of us filled less than a quarter) with one of the priests leading grace, at which point everybody sits down and one of the guys dresses the salad (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and parmezan are provided on the tables, though sometimes guys will bring their own ingredients to make the salad extra special), which is then divided between the six guys sitting there. A few minutes later, having finished off the ensalata (gotta work on that Italian!), the seminarian who is serving the table gets up and fetches the first course (primo) from the kitchen, usually a pasta dish (of almost infinite varities). After that course, the process is repeated with secundo, usually a cooked vegetable of some kind and a meat of one variety or another, and then dessert, which is often fruit, and sometimes gelato, tiramisu, etc. The first meal was excellent (as were all the meals that week) and afterwards we were all split into groups and given tours of the NAC (which is tremendously huge). At 4 PM the entire group walked over to St. Peter's square - led by a couple of the second-year men - where one of the priests on faculty gave a short talk on the importance of St. Peter's. Here, again, I was forced out of my tourist "mode", and instead of a talking on the history, or grandure, or awesomeness of St. Peter's, Father expounded on how we should always be reminded to pray for the Church - Christ's body - and the pope - Christ's vicar - whenever we saw the dome. St. Peter's Basilica, surely an amazing building should remind us of the Church that it represents, the invisible, supernatural, perfect, Church which Christ founded. He concluded by relating the amazing fact that the obilisk at the center of the square was almost certainly seen by Joseph, when he was sold as a slave into Egypt, Moses, during the Exodus, the Holy Family, on their flight into Egypt, St. Peter, when he was evangelizing Rome (the obilisk was moved to Rome during the time of Our Lord), and pretty much every person who has walked through Rome since then. This wasn't your typical touristy-tour! Yeah, the obilisk was old, but instead of thinking about how many centuries it has stood there, Father used it to remind us of where our focus must always be: on Our Lord!
After St. Peter's, some of us went to Santa Maria in Vallicella. It is only a couple minute walk from St. Peter's and the NAC (imagine a triangle between those three points) and it is located directly on the Corso, which I learned is a main road linking the basilicas of St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major, as well as part of the route that I will walk every day to classes at the Gregorian (one of the 3 colleges that the guys at the NAC can take their theological classes at). It was a magnificent church - huge, with every surface decorated with frescoes, and every nook and cranny housing a chapel dedicated to a certain saint or time during Our Lord's life. But, and again I was beginning to see the true value to all this splendor, absolutely everything pointed to God. The beauty, absolutely surrounding me, was all addressed to Him, all of it was leading me to pray, to worship, to adore. The primary saint who is entombed in this church, St. Philip Neri, was born almost exactly 500 years ago (July 22, 1515) and this guy was amazing. He was prayerful from an early age, but had some sort of conversion experience as a young man, and becomes a hermit in Rome, praying at night in the different churches and catecombs, and then devotes himself completely to caring for the ill, poor, and sinful of Rome. I mean, here he is, opening up shelters, convincing people to contribute (and aid themselves) to this cause, then starting oratories to draw people away from the sinful carnivals and what-not of Rome, especially young men, who he held a special love for, and who he spent much of his nights teaching and helping on the way to Christ... This guy was an amazing man, an incredible priest, a wonderful saint to emulate and ask for his intercession! And here I am, kneeling in this stupendously beautiful church, only a few feet from his casket, praying for his intercession and asking Christ to fill me with the grace necessary to follow in his footsteps - this is the reason to be in Rome!
The next day, Tuesday, continued this experience with our trip to the catacombs of St. Callixtus. Here, not only was it inspiring to see the suffering that the early Christians perservered through to keep and practice the faith (often knowing that Roman soldiers would be waiting outside the catacombs to catch them in the act of gathering for a Mass or funeral), but I also was reminded of the intense focus that Christianity places on life, not death. The catecombs aren't creepy caverns with the ancient bones of people from a past time, rather they are places of hope, places where countless Christians - at that time and then - who have come to pray that their loved ones may be accepted into eternal happiness with God. They are decorated with murals and carvings indicating hope in the resurrection, belief in Christ, love of Our Lady, the virtues, the Eucharist! This is a place of life eternal and hope everlasting, not death and mourning. I was already exhausted from the intense schedule that we were enduring (the jet lag was not helping either), but it was still amazing to celebrate Mass down there! The presence of the saints and angels was so easy to visualize in such a holy and historically sanctified place, and their emphasis on hope, in the face of persecution, eternal life, in the face of death, and love, in their striving to truly emulate Our Lord was inspiring and extraordinary!
On Wednesday the process continued! After breakfast we left for St. John Lateran, and, after a good bit of walking and metro-riding, we arrived at the Basilica and started our tour. Our guide was a wonderful Irish sister, I want to say her name was Sr. Rebeccah, and she is part of an order of sisters whose ministry is to evangelize people by giving tours of the many churches and holy sites around Rome. Again, unlike any tour I'd ever been on, she focussed on the spiritual, not temporal. She pointed out the huge statues of the Apostles - all depicted with the instrument by which they gave their life for Christ (saws, crosses, knives, etc.) - as well as images from the Old Testament - all of which she explained in their relation to Christ, and how He completed and fulfilled the plan that God had been writing down through history. It was a magnificent edifice, a beautiful, enormous, fantastic church - truly fit to be the basilica of the pope and the mother church of Catholicism - but even more than that, if you actually spend time there in prayer, if you actually realize that the entire Church is pointing towards Christ, explaining what He did for us, and leading us to adore Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament, then the otherwise merely stone structure becomes something much, much more. It reminds me of the Sacraments themselves, earthly matter that Christ uses to bring us to Him, to open us up to His grace (don't take that comparison too seriously - the Sacraments were specifically instituted by Christ for that purpose whereas church buildings are of human origin - but I was still awed by just how far all that art and architecture and beauty could bring you toward heaven). After the tour we had Mass in the Baptistery of the Basilica (not one of the main altars, but still a phenomenal experience of God's grace) and then went out into the brutally hot Roman summer day to eat a packed lunch. I spent another hour or so after lunch at St. John's praying in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, and then we all trooped over to the Holy Stairs. This staircase, now housed inside of a building, was relocated from Pontius Pilate's praetorium (in Jerusalem) to Rome by St. Helena (back in the 300s) and was the actual set of stairs that Our Lord walked up to be judged before Pilate and then sentenced to die. It is now covered (for the most part) with wood, but, trust me, it didn't make it any softer. Somehow, I've found, the kneelers in Italy manage to be some of the most unconfortable and painful in my experience, and these stairs were by far the worst. Of course, that is entirely the point, as you work your way up the stairs on your knees, with the crucifix directly above you, the tiny (in comparison) amount of pain that you experience keeps your mind focussed on the pain that Jesus endured for our salvation. As I ascended the 30 or so stairs - slowly, I said both a rosary and the divine mercy chaplet on the way up - my mind was locked on the Passion of Jesus. I don't know when I've had such a deep meditation on His crucifixion, but it was an intense, but wonderful, moment of prayer. As I lifted one knee, gritted my teeth, and waverd my way upwards onto the next step, I was in a pretty intense amount of pain, but it was a tiny little reminder of just how much Our Lord loves me, just how far He is willing to go to show me that love (Think about it! He didn't have to die like that! But He did, just to show YOU that He loves you more than you could ever imagine.) My meditation on the Passion continued onto our next stop, Santa Croce, where the implements with which Christ died are enshrined. Here is not only a piece from the cross, but also the nails, the plackard, and one of the thorns from the crown Jesus wore. It was another incredible moment of prayer, another incredible reminder of God's love, another grace-filled experience, and another call for me to further convert and abandon myself to Christ. The day was grueling, it was hot, it was long, but it was SO worth it! I learned so much and was graced with such intense prayer - it was amazing!
On Thursday we went to Orvieto, near the location where in 1263, a Eucharistic Miracle occurred. A certain priest, having experienced doubts about Our Lord's true presence in the Eucharist, was making a pilgramage to Rome and stopped in this little town (near Orvieto). During Mass, at the Consecration, the Host, having become the Body of Christ, began to bleed. The priest, of course, is amazed (his faith strengthened by this miracle), and soon the Bishop of the area, and then the pope, Urban IV, also comes to see the - now blood-bespattered - corporal, and, apparently as a result of this miracle, began the yearly feast of Corpus Christi, specifically meant to honor and adore Jesus, present in the incredible sacrifice of the Mass. Our bus ride out to Orvieto took about an hour and a half (if I remember correctly), and then it was maybe another 20 minute walk across the city to get to the Duomo (Cathedral). It was a very interesting church - huge and imposing amidst the quaint little town perched on one of the hills of the area - and the facade, the front wall, of the church was complete adorned with frescoes and carved figures. Fr. Fowler, who was in charge of admissions at the NAC, gave a wonderful talk on this piece of art, showing how all the scenes were connected together - the Old Testament figures point to the New Testament ones, and everything pointing to Our Lord - but especially how the entire ediface was meant to remind, and reflect, and connect the observer to the mystery of Christ present in the Eucharist. The entire thing presented God's presence among man from the dawn of creation and how it was most wonderously and supernaturally (yet naturally!) fulfilled in Christ, but then, how Christ, in His promise to remain with us always, and in the eternal sacrifice of Himself on the cross, deigned to remain with us most intimately in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The church, father explained, was itself decorated like, and meant to remind us, of the tabernacle. It was built - as an entire building - to point to the incredible presence of God Himself housed within. It was meant to bring to our minds the mystery of the Incarnation, and how God became present within Mary, and how He continues, through this most Blessed Sacrament, to become just as intimately present within each one of us, desiring us to, like Mary, say "yes" to this gift (despite our uncertainties, doubts, and concerns), and allow Him to truly enter and transform our lives. Sounds awesome - it was! The inside of the church was mostly pretty bare (compated to the epic basilicas of Rome), except for two chapels, one adorned with frescoes showing the lives of the saints going all the way back to the Old Testament prophets, and the other, where we had the amazing privilidge to participate in Mass, containing - above the altar - the corporal where the Eucharistic Miracle had taken place so many centures before. It was an incredible moment, having just heard that talk, and just meditated on the saints who had accepted Christ into their lives so transformingly, to be present at Mass. It was a surreal, sublime, supernatural moment (as it always is, but that day it was so much more present to me) as father said "this is my body" and raised the host, now transubstantiated into Christ Himself, as He promised, for us to all adore with that corporal, bloodstained to show that Christ meant what He said, just inches above! I, and I think a lot of other guys, found ourselves in awe of Christ being truly present before us (of course, we always should be, but all-too-often the cares and distractions surrounding us make such meditation difficult, here it was just us gazing at Our Savior, willing to give Himself completely, absolutely, and humbly, to show us His love and unite us with Himself.)
I've been trying to write down - in the form of a prayer - some of the things that I have been blessed with each day, and after Mass in Orvieto (while in the Chiesa de San Domenico (yeah!), where the crucifix spoke to St. Thomas, I wrote: My Lord, today you reaffirmed my faith in Your True Presenece in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Thank You! hese days it is so hard to believe things that can't be physically proven, yet if You can be present as a battered and beaten man on the cross, why not in the simple host? Jesus, You have given me so many earthly blessings, let me now ignore the many more heavenly ones that You pour out upon me at every Mass. Lord, even though I can't sense them, I submit my intellect to Your truth, my will to Your plan, my body to Your work. Even St. Thomas, whom You spok to through this crucifix understood that he couldn't fully comprehend the mystery of Your presence in the Eucharist. Let me not fall into te folly of trying to understand, but let me instead simply accept Your love and then return it to You.
The afternoon spent there wasn't quite as amazing (it's hard to top all of that!), but I did manage to wander around the city, seeing the beautiful countryside that stretched out in all directions, visiting several churches (all wonderful, cool, and peaceful places to pray, especially for the grace of a greater faith in the Eucharist, a greater willingness to give myself to God, as well as a good number of prayers for all of you), and seeing the crucifix through which Jesus miraculously spoke to St. Thomas Aquinas saying "you have spoken well of me, Thomas" (about St. Thomas's writings, prayers, and hymns about the Eucharist, made for the feast of Corpus Christi, and which we had used at Mass just a couple of hours prior - making it all the more beautiful and heavenly). Finally, later that afternoon we bussed back to Rome, again tired from a full day, and again inspired to greater reverence, sanctity, and love for Our Lord - man, it was fantastic! The evening continued as normal, prayer, dinner, Holy Hour, time to hang out, maybe a bit of gelato - you know, wonderful stuff!
Friday's schedule was a bit lighter than the previous days, which, outside the long excursions to whatever place we were seeing that day, were also filled with trips around Rome to buy (fans, phones, gelato, hair-cuts, etc.) and see things (I typically woke up pretty early - as in 5 AM - and spent an hour or two before everything got started to go for a jog or otherwise just walk off to check out the vicinity around the NAC, one day I found myself in St. Peter's right as it was opening - 7 AM - and able to get a good bit of peaceful prayer in before everybody arrived, including at the altar where St. Pope John Paul II is buried!), as well as sports, hanging-out, and organizing our rooms (I hadn't gotten very far into that process). So, for Friday we spent the morning (after breakfast) bussing over, and then getting a brief tour of San Clamente. This was a much smaller church than the ones we had been seeing during the previous several days, and not quite as famous, but again, the time we spent there was an amazing spiritual time. I was exhausted from the week of constant going, and not too much sleeping, so it was a struggle to concentrate on the tour beneath San Clemente (where there are many ancient ruins) as well as during Mass (at the main altar!), but it was still an interesting church, filled with art, as always, and bringing, even my tired mind, towards God. We got to explore the crypt beneath the church, which was really cool because it basically meant going back in time. Because the entire city of Rome is a few meters higher than it was a couple millenia ago, if you go beneath many of the buildings you find yourself in the ruined (or sometimes relatively intact) remains of buildings, churches, temples, baths, or whatever thing used to stand there. Beneath San Clemente, for instance, there was the remains of an ancient Roman temple/house of some-sort (with some of the altars that they used there), on top of which was a Christian church from a bit later, and only on top of that was the current minor basilica, which was built more recently, you know, in the 1100s! Needless to say, the historicalness of the basilica was remarkable! I'm sorry, I don't remember the spritual growth I made there - surely, as in all the other places - it did happen. I know that above the altar is this beautiful depiction of Christ as the vine with all the branches springing from Him, as the source of life, depicted as a lamb at the base, but I don't remember the particular comments that the brother/priest (sorry, I just don't remember) made about it during his tour. Buried in the church, are (at least) St. Clement - who was the 3rd pope, a great preacher/teacher of the Gospel, and a martyr (after being banished to quarry stone) and St. Cyril - who, along with his brother Methodius, evangelized the Slavs, developing an entire alphabet and written language in order to communicate with them and allow them to read/learn the truths of the faith (no big deal: create a new language so that you can translate the bible into it!) Both saints, of course, are incredible models of living a heroically Christian life, and wonderful intercessors for us still "slogging it out" down here trying to do the same. Some of us then walked back to the NAC, winding our way through the ancient ruins of Rome (Colleseum, Trajon's column, the Roman Forum) and also seeing one of the most incredible Gothic churches in Rome - the Jesuit Church, Il Jesu. It's a stunning church, absolutely encrusted with frescoes, statues, and other adornments. I mean, literally, it looks like they ran out of room on the walls and ceiling; the frescoes spill outside of their frames, with angels and saints portrayed in every corner and every nook dedicated to showing some scene from the life of Our Lord or a saint. It just about takes your breath away as you walk down the aisles, craning your neck to look at the ceiling, or gazing in awe at one of the side chapels, or just absorbing the scene that the main altar presents to your vision. It's a church meant to sweep you off your feet and straight up to heaven. It's meant to surround you with the saints, inspiring you and reminding you - whichever way you look - with their heroic deeds, their amazing faith, their complete love of God. St. Ignatius and St. Isaac Jogues are both buried there - at least partly (only St. Isaac's hand was there) - and the stories of their lives are displayed on the main side altars of the basilica, stretching through their lives until the stories meet, in Heaven, with God, who is painted directly above in the main dome. It was a tremendous church (as it was the last time I had been there), and thankfully we had a good amount of time to take it all in and say some prayers to all the saints before charging back into the bustling, hot, city and working up a good sweat climbing the hill back to the NAC. I said the day was a bit less busy than the other ones, and I emphasize a "bit" because we really only had a bit of time that afternoon to relax before we had a Holy Hour, Evening Prayer, Dinner, and then a trip over to Castel Sant'Angelo. It was a really cool tour - we got to explore the castle (at one point the fortress for the pope whenever Rome was attacked), walk along with wall that is a walkway from the vatican to the castle, and see some spectacular views of the city of Rome at night - and then, finally, we returned, again working our way up the hill, and each went off to relax and pray a bit before bed.
On Saturday, again getting up earlier than everything go started, I was blessed to be able to go to St. Peter's with two other guys, where we went to confession, and spent about an hour in prayer before riding our bikes back to the NAC for breakfast (I had just got my bike unpacked and reassembled the day before, so it was still a bit rough around the edges). Our church-of-the-day was St. Paul's outside the walls, the 3rd of the Papal Basilicas that we would see that week (the only one we didn't see was St. Mary Maggiore, though we also didn't have an official tour inside of St. Peter's), and, as usual, we all collected together and then set off around 9:30. We rode the bus there, again walking part of the way in the already-warm day, but were blessed to again have for our tour guide Sr. Rebeccah. Again, she joyfully and excitingly explained the intricacies of the church. It was built at the same time as the original St. Peter's (around 324), but whereas St. Peter's was demolished and rebuilt in a completely different form, St. Paul's, when it burned down in the 1800s, was reconstructed in the same shape (an earlier style of basilica). She of course, throughout her tour, continued to give historical and architectural details - about the mosaic they recreated on the outside of the basilica, swapping Peter to the right and Paul to the left because the doctrine of infalibility had just been defined, how all the main basilics in Rome have 5 doors, including a holy door which is opened only during Jubilee years, how the floor of the original basilica was composed of the gravestones of early Christians, now covered over by a marble floor (but they're still down there), how St. John's is the second largest basilica in Rome (after St. Peter's), etc. But, as before, in everything she related it back to the faith, back to the Church, and back to Christ. The floor should bring to mind all those saints and martyrs who were buried beside St. Paul, the arch in the ceiling should make us think of the triumphal arches built by emperors of Rome and how Christ is the true triumphal king, we should take a closer look at the massive doors, reading the inscriptions on them ("I am the vine..."), Peter and Paul, are always shown together to replace the pagan myth of Romulus and Remus with these great saints who founded the Christian Rome, the portraits of all the popes should not only recall history, but also recall how Christ's authority has passed down through the ages - another facet of his promise to be with us always, the massive mosaic above the altar - showing Christ, Peter, Andrew, Paul, Luke, and other Apostles (holding the "Te Deum" - praising God) - reminds us of heaven, and how it is made present here on earth during the Mass. I know, I know, that was a terrible run-on sentance, but that was the sort of information Sister was telling us - it was amazing! During the homily, Father reminded us that St. Paul constantly reminds us that God, and His grace, our present whether we feel them or not. Despite every suffering, we must keep our focus on Him - sometimes life is fun, and easy, and peaceful, and sometimes it isn't - sometimes God doesn't give us these gifts, these feelings, these consolations so that He can lead us to further rely on Him, and bring us closer to Himself (the vine), where He knows we will be perfectly happy (unlike the happiness those temporal things provide). Yeah, so it was another amazing building, but primarily I walked back to the metro (we couldn't find a bus) thinking about the spiritual encounter I had been priviledged with - churches are so much more than just buildings, they are truly a place to encounter God; don't ever miss out on that! That afternoon, after pranzo, we had a couple hours to pack our stuff for the language programs (which we would leave for the next day). I hadn't unpacked most of my stuff yet, so most of the time was spent throwing those things in drawers and scheming as to the best location for each item. That evening, exhausted from the long week, I was strugling to get through our Holy Hour and was working my way through the rosary, often drifting off to sleep and then snapping awake, and I found myself in the 5th Joyful mystery - the finding of the child Jesus in the temple. Usually, it seems, this is a more difficult mystery for me to meditate on anyway - there just didn't seem to be much to the story (in my tired, often uninspired, mind), but midway through the mystery it hit me that I had found Jesus, my Lord and my God, in the many temples, the dozens of churches I had seen that week. As I said, I've been working on this post for a while. I'm sure that is indicated by my longwindedness, but it is also because I've had a good bit of time to meditate on that encounter I had with God in my first week in Rome. Looking back, just about every church I entered was a graced place and a blessed moment. Every time, I found an inspiring saint, a taste of the beauty of heaven, a historical connection that carried my mind to God, an emphasis on the Sacraments through which God continues to work in my life. I was suprised! To be honest, I thought Rome would be cool - and it is - but it's an aweful lot more than cool, amazing, delicious, beautiful, spectacular, historical, interesting, hot, busy, gorgeous, and every other adjective that I used before coming over. It's called the "Eternal City" for a reason - not because it's been there forever, or it will remain there forever - but because (at least for me) what is in that city (and outside it) has the capacity - if I let it - to carry me up towards eternity, up towards God, closer to the Savior that I am trying to dedicate my life to. I am more thankful than ever for the chance to study over here - something that I constantly thank God for - and I feel more confidently than ever that - despite the difficulties (language, distance, whatever) - it will be an incredible several years, full of not only learning about, but also immersing myself in, the faith and Christ Himself. It's awesome (in the best sense of that word)!
Sorry there aren't any pictures in here - it would certainly be an optimal post to put pictures into - but I am technologically limited at the moment and every time I try to put pictures in, it seems to crash, so I'm not going to even attempt it. Most everything is uploaded to Flickr (link at the top) as well as Facebook (also linked up there). I have also been trying to record with the picture a brief description of where or when it was taken, so it shouldn't be too hard to match things up to stuff I said in this post. In the future, when I get back to Rome next week (crazy!), hopefully my computer will be fixed and present, and I'll be able to write more posts (and shorter ones), as well as including pictures and that sort of thing.
Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic day! Happy feast of St. Clare (it's pretty cool to be in Assisi for her feast)! Keep me in your prayer - I certainly keep all of you in mine! God bless!
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So, what do all these points have in common? All these "things" - the presence of evil, God, and the Eucharist - are mysteries, they are beyond our limited understanding, but, in all of them, God wants to enter that mystery and drive away all that lacks His presence. 
What about the unknowns that we have about God? He becomes man to bring us to that Truth, to Himself. Why? Because we are made in the image of God, we are meant to become more like Him. Our categories, our rational ways of explaining the Trinity, our analogies, aren't so much us getting closer to the truth regarding God - every analogy, falls hopefully short of the true grandure and awesomeness of God - but these thoughts aren't pointless. Our drawing closer to God leads to our own fulfillment, our intellectual working towards the Trinity does get us to a closer idea of what we are supposed to be. God shows Himself, as Father, Son, and Spirit, as perfect love in mutual, completely generous, relationships. We are supposed to be that way too! Augustine in his De Trinitate ("On the Trinity") looks inside of ourselves to catch of the glimpse of the Trinity, as it is in Itself. He moves from (but retains) the "economic" idea of the Trinity that we find evident in the Scriptures (of the Father as creator, the Son as redeemer, and the Spirit as sanctifier), to a more metaphysical [read: essential] understanding of God. He shows that just as our mind has memory, intellect, and will, and goes in that order: we remember something, think about it, and then decide to act in some way regarding it, so the Trinity has Father, Son, and Spirit. Both sets of 3 work in an order (the Father eternally begets the Son, and from both of them the Holy Spirit proceeds), but the first "part" doesn't exist without the other; as soon as we remember something we think about it and act on it, as "soon" (eternally) as the Father exists, so does the Son and the Spirit. So, this exercise does reveal something about God because He has revealed that we are images of Him, but our mental capacity is still limited, so we'll never understand the Trinity completely. (We are always stuck, so to speak, looking at God from one "direction", either we see Him as one, perfect unity, or three, in the three persons, we can't quite wrap our head around the mystery completely). End of story? No! Where God sees a lack of goodness (in this case, knowledge of Him), He wants to fill that lack with Himself, with His truth, with His love. We are imperfect images of God, so, Christ comes as our savior and redeemer, to save and redeem us. To reform us back into more perfect images of Him (and the entire Trinity). Jesus not only directly reveals to us the truths of God, He also tells us to "love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34). This isn't just a moral commandment, this is a map to our true end, God Himself. In Jesus' loving death for us, He redeems us, and in His calling us to the same sacrificial-love, He pulls us closer to God. Recap: In our weakness itself, in our lack of imaging God, God wants to forgive us and make us again in His image. In our lack of knowledge, Jesus comes to reveal more about God!
