Pisa

We arrived in Pisa today for a three day stay from which we will visit Florence and Assisi.  Here is the famous leaning tower which quite dramatically leans at a 60 degree angle. A net has been erected around the base to catch the tourists that occasionally fall from the top.  It is really hard to keep your balance!

Burano

Burano is the lace-making center of Venice.  The lace we saw in some shops was beyond elegant.  I also went into one of the churches on this island (see pictures below).  It contained the crypt of a martyr and a confessional used by Pope St. Pius X.  I also ran into two young SSPX priests in this church, ordained in Germany in 2003.

Murano

The glass-making center in the Venetian islands is Murano.  We took a water taxi and observed some intricate glass being made. 

Venice

We started off Venice with morning Mass at St. Mark's Basilica on the Venetian island of San Marco.  The basilica had an ancient feeling to it and appeared to have Masses being said consistently during the day even as tourists were ushered through in small tour groups.

Fr. Voigt said Mass in the St. Theodore chapel which included a large painting of St. Theodore and also a statue of Pope St. Pius X.

The outside of St. Mark's was very ornate. This picture displays one of the four bronze horseman. You will have to talk to Dr. D'Amico about the story of the four horsemen, but be sure you have plenty of time when you ask him about it.

Here is a potpourri of Venetian pictures.

Turin

We started off the day in Turin with Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians Basilica.  This is the basilica designed and built by St. John Bosco.  It wasn't possible to take pictures of this beautiful church since there were Masses being said continuously.  Father Voigt offered Mass in the original chapel built by Dom Bosco as he opened the school for boys and then, based on his famous dreams of Our Lady and the heavenly mission imposed on him, he eventually built the Basilica.  Here is the original chapel prior to the beginning of our Mass.

City of Turin outside the Basilica hosting the Shroud.

I expected that we would probably wait for hours in line to see the Shroud.  It was a bright sunny day and around 73 degrees when we arrived after having a quick espresso and pastry at an outdoor cafe.  We reserved a viewing time a few months in advance and thus avoided a long queue of 'walk up' visitors.  Security for a couple of miles around was extremely tight. There were perhaps hundreds of officers and Italian Carabinieri in the immediate area.  Our wait in line was amazingly a little less than an hour.  It included at least one 'traffic light' (see picture below) and a well done short movie on closeups and details of each part of the shroud - no dialogue, just zoom-in and captions of the crown of thorns, chest wound, nail marks, and finally, "the face".

When we finally reached the shroud, it was displayed in the middle of the darkened Basilica in an upright display case and softly back-lit. Small groups were allowed in, a few people at a time, to stand before the shroud and meditate for perhaps 3 minutes.  A prayer was offered in Italian.

It is difficult to describe what it was like standing before the Shroud of Turin, called "La Sancta Sindone" in Italian.  In every artist's depiction of Our Risen Savior, He is gloriously clothed in white and rising from the sepulcher.  The gospel accounts tell us that the burial sheets were neatly folded and laid aside in the tomb. We hear these accounts every year at the variuos Masses of Easter Sunday.  And somehow, miraculously, here we are standing a few feet from the sheet spoken of in the gospel. And clinging to this sheet are traces of the very human precious blood and even muscle fragments of Our Lord.  And two thousand years later, He once again uses His Precious Blood to give us a faint glimpse of his very countenance in a temporal way on a woven sheet perhaps purchased by St. Mary and held and lovingly wrapped around the body of Our Lord by His Blessed Mother and St. John of the Cross.  It is hard not to get carried away in the sublimity of the moment and forget that at the very Mass we assisted at this morning, we felt, for the shortest time, the weight of His Precious Body against our tongue in the Blessed Sacrament.  Although still under the physical appearance of bread, it had in fact relinquished all of its properties of wheat and water and was truly His Body against our tongue.

All too soon, the guards were ushering us out of the viewing area so that the next group of pilgrims could have their time in front of the First Class Relic of our Savior.  I kept looking back until the Sindone was no longer visible. 


E sara gioia senza fine quando potremo contemplare il tuo volto glorioso. Amen.










The last treasure I was able to snap a picture of when leaving the Basilica was the side altar with the painting of the nursing Madonna.

Going South ....

Drove south today from Germany, through Austria and into Switzerland.  Here is a panoramic view of the Alps where we stopped for a bowl of barley soup.

Here Doc consumes a bowl of pumpkin soup ... hopefully the Fabula twins will not read this blog entry...

Wies Church in Bavaria

Out of the miracle of June 14, 1738, when tears were seen on the face of the Scourged Savior in the famous statue above the main altar, there rapidly developed a pilgrimage of unexpected proportions to this jewel of church in the outskirts of Bavaria.

In his 1779 booklet "Wahrer Ursprung und Fortgang der Wallfahrt des Gegeißelten Heilands auf der Wies" ("The True Origin and Continuation of the Pilgrimage to the Scourged Saviour in the Wies"), the Pilgrimage Priest of the Wies Church, Father Benno Schröfl, wrote: "What more can I say about this flow of grace, when all of Europe is streaming through: pilgrims from Petersburg in Russia, Göteborg in Sweden, Amsterdam in Holland, from Copenhagen in Denmark, from Christiansburg (i.e. Oslo) in Norway, from Nimes in France, from Cadiz in Spain, not to mention all the German provinces and neighboring kingdoms?". (Finkenstaedt, Th.u.H.: Die Wieswallfahrt, Regensburg 1981, p. 150).

To see this beautiful Bavarian church inspires one immediately to prayer.  Today, the main altar (which holds the famous statue) is no longer used.  Instead, the New Mass (in the Ordinary Rite) is said on a plain table in front of the space between the original sanctuary altar rail and schola seats.  It has been perhaps years since the Traditional Latin Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary has been offered on the main altar at the foot of the weeping icon.

What a humbling experience it was to serve that Mass again, as pilgrims had seen it for the past 300 years.

Here, Fr. Voigt offers the Mass served by Dr. D'Amico and myself.

The Ceiling over the cupola...

.. the pipe organ

One of the the Side altars.

Saltzburg

First stop today were the salt mines of Salzburg.  Very interesting journey into the salt mines and a couple of neat rides on the slides used by the miners to drop to lower levels of the mines.  The hike through the mines actually crosses the border from Austria to Germany and back again to Austria. We didn't get to keep the white protective gear. Good thing .. they added at least 20 lbs to our sleek physiques.  Definitely not the place for folks with claustrophobia.

Next we toured Salzburg - quaint, beautiful, friendly.  This is Shari in front of the home where Mozart was born.

The churches were beautiful - not overly large - but elegant.

Mass at Edelweiss

Morning Mass was at the small chapel at Edelweiss.  Fr. Voigt said the Mass of St. George.

Edelweiss and Garmisch

One of the truly beautiful towns in the Southern Part of Germany is Garmisch.  Preserved on the walls of most of the buildings in this small town, are ornate paintings that hearken back to an era where the Roman Catholic Church held sway in the minds and hearts of Germany, unaffected by the heresies that affected the North.  With the standstill in air traffic over the past week, we had this tiny gem, as well as Adelweiss all to ourselves.

Marienplatz

Named after the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.  This popular gathering place in Munich is ruled by a gold statue of Our Lady.