Mr. Romano's Day 3 Recap

Once again we were up early…no oversleeping today, although my phone did try to screw things up.  Sometime during the night, it switched itself back to Houston time.  I awoke feeling like I had slept all night and my phone indicated it was 12:20am.  As I rolled over, all too willing to go back to sleep, a little voice in my head reminded me that I went to bed at 12:45am.  Alternate reality?  Nope.  It didn't take me long to figure out what happened.  Hopefully there won't be any surprises tomorrow morning.

The first leg of our today's pilgrimage was to San Paolo Fuori le Mura, better known as St. Paul Outside the Walls.  For many of the pilgrims it was their first experience with the Rome metro and public transportation. St.  Paul Outside the Walls is, perhaps my favorite church in Rome besides St. Peter's.  The courtyard is a wonder with the imposing statue of St. Paul dominating the center while St. Luke stands like a quiet sentinel in the back; the only identifiers being the book that he's holding and the bull lying at his feet.  The church is known most for the medallions that line the roof which depict the canon of popes and and a wooden model of the church which was used as a guide in rebuild after a devistating fire in the 19th century.  We got there early enough that we had the place all to ourselves for quite a while.  It was a treat, but I think it may have spoiled they guys a bit in light of what they experienced later in the day.

After spending about two hours experiencing the Church we grabbed an early lunch of paninis and headed back to our side of town to prepare what we needed for our visit to the Scavi (the excavations underneath St. Peter's).  This is my fifth time taking the tour in the last twenty years and we got the absolute best guide, Matteo.  He is an archeologist and passionate about what he does.  Not only did he guide us with great enthusiasm, he also answered every question we asked him.  Many of the boys mentioned that seeing the resting place of the bones of St. Peter was the highlight of their day.  The Scavi visit ends in the crypt of the basilica, so we took the opportunity to go straight inside and avoid the need to go through the security checkpoint once again.

We allowed the boys 2.5 hours to explore St. Peter's and would have taken more if we had the time.  Our original plan was to go to the roof of the basilica, but we learned of a Mass being celebrated at 5pm and wanted to attend.  As it turns out, the visiting student orchestra playing the music for the Mass was one of our Jesuit schools in St. Louis.  After taking some obligatory pictures to commemorate the event, it was off to the Piazza Novona to get dinner.

Our waiter was a real champ.  As a former waiter I can verify that seeing a group of fifteen (12 of them adolescent boys) walk in, can be intimidating.  He handled everything with aplomb and it didn't take long before he was joking around with the guys and genuinely having a great time.  The evening ended with gelato (at yet another place which has become very fond of the boys) and evening prayer back at the apartment. 

I'm fighting off sleep as I make this entry, so I hope that it makes sense and isn't filled with too many grammatical mistakes.  Thank you for your continued support and prayers.  Know that we are carrying you with us on the way.

          /        Tommy Romano
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          \        A.M.D.G.