Roaming Rome

I'm very tired and spending some time in the heat of the day (when the churches are closed) catching up on my blogging-cum-diary of this my holiday-cum-pilgrimage.

A little earlier, I felt tired and in need of some comfort, so I had a very pleasant lunch at ristorante Don Chisciotte (Italian spelling of Quixote), sitting out under cover on the Piazza Navona, with Bernini's fountain playing and some nearby musicians too. Entree of salmon and swordfish, then spaghetti carbonara, and then cotoletta milanese with grilled vegetables. Add to that some excellent natural sparkling mineral water, the usual bread on the side, a caffe freddo, and il conto totalled €50!!!

Previous to that, I visited S. Augustino - and venerated: (a) the Crucifix before which St Philip prayed, and which moved him to devote himself entirely to the Lord; (b) the relics of St Benedict Martyr; (c) the relics of St Monica. I asked her to intercede for me and mine, that as her tears and prayers won her son for Christ as a great saint, so we all might be converted and be saved.

(I also popped in to S. Luigi dei Franceschi.)

Earlier still, I paid a last visit to St Philip at the Chiesa Nuova. I hadn't got around to booking a tour of his rooms, so that I forego for this visit; ditto for my hopes of making it out all the way to the catacombs of St Sebastian, where he received the Holy Ghost. (Fr Rowe told me of it - he said Mass there at the very spot.) However, I did stop at San Tommaso in Parione: the church was closed, and there was no answer at the office of the Procurator General of the Oratorians, but I did see the commemorative plaque in honour of the ordination there of St Philip to the minor orders and subdiaconate; he was ordained priest on the 23rd of May 1551, unusually late in those days (he was already 36 years old).