We visited an amazing church this afternoon: San Clemente. I have only two pictures; one outside which was legal and one inside. The guide told us we could take flash-less pictures only in the main church, and no pictures in the excavations below were allowed at all. So I walked in, took a picture of the nave and was promptly reprimanded by the staff. New rules which our tour guide did not know about. Anyway. Here are the two pictures.
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| The facade of San Clemente with a portion of the cloister around the front door. |
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| The main nave of the church of San Clemente. The mosaic is very important as it comes from the 11th century. The painting on the reredos of our chapel at the Casa O'Toole is taken from this mosaic. |
San Clemente church is an extraordinary place. In the 18th century when renovations were taking place, they discovered another church in the lower level below the 13th century church. They excavated below the church to find the remains of a 5th century curch. When they thought they had completed the excavations, surprise, another set of ruins below the 5th century church. There are two buildings below which date from the 1st century BC. A Roman public building which had been used to mint coins, and a private house, which also had a worship place for the cult of Mithra, a religious cult that dates back to the 3rd century BC. It was thought to have been totally exterminated. There are coincidental similarities with Christianity including, sacrifice of bread and wine, offered by a priest for the participants. The similarities with Christian worship made the early Christians destroy much of the evidence of the cult of Mithra. But in the cellar, two levels down below this church, on the streets about 30 meters below the modern streets, there remains a room devoted to the worship of Mithra, the house believed to be the residence of Clement, and a Roman foundry for minting coins of the empire. Now, the excavations are open to the public and one descends almost 90 feet to the original levels of the streets of Rome in the 1st Century BC. Here is a link to the Basilica of San Clemente website. Check it out and enjoy the pictures I was not able to provide for you.
http://www.basilicasanclemente.com/
We had another great session this morning with Fr. Mark Attard, O Carm. He completed the history of the development of Moral Theology. We next will move into discussions of sontemporary issues facing Catholics today. These include sexual ethics, medical ethics, and end of life issues.
Today he offered a synthesis of the development of Moral Theology in the Vatican Council II and the subsequent letters and statements by Post Conciliar Popes inclucing "Humanae Vitae" by Paul VI.
I am going to spend time developing my own reflections on the topics he will present. A barebones repetition of my class notes without the opportuinty to reflect fully on the topics is not only unfair but also dangerous. So please be patient. There will some of my sharing on these things when we get into the specific topics.
Tomorrow's stational Church is San Lorenzo in Panisperma. The address is via Panisperma, 90 Rome if you care to google map it. He is the deacon Lawrence who was martyred. His story in short is that he was appointed to care for the temporal goods of the church when the reigning pope, Sixtus II was being arrested and taken to his own martyrdom on 6 August, 258. Lawrence went and gave away the treasures of the church to the poor. When he himself was arrested and the Roman authorities demanded that he turn over the wealth of the church, he brought in the poor and is reputed to have said, "Here are the treasures of the church." For this percieved impudence, he was ordered to be roasted alive. The tradition is that as he was suffering death, he told his executioners, "Turn me over, I'm done on this side." Tomorrow morning's stational church was built over the place where he gave his life for the faith. More tomorrow with pictures.
Buona notte a tutti.
