Stuff and the Venerable English College

     Yes, I know I have been really, REALLY bad, and it's dinnertime, and..... But I will say a few words. Firstly, it looks like I'll have to finish my chronicling of this semester even after I get back home, since there's so much I've not mentioned and it's my last two weeks.

     Now for a brief update: Today was my Italian final, yesterday we went to the Vatican Museums, Monday we went to Santa Sabina, Sunday we went to the Venerable English College (British Seminary in Rome; that's it's name), which I loved.

 

The Venerable English College

 

     It was really nice to be in Catholic Little Britain, with British accents. I didn't feel like a foreigner, though, I felt really welcomed and at home. I'm wondering if maybe the Brits feel towards us Americans the same way that I feel towards them here in Rome: "A Native speaker of my language! A person I can understand effortlessly, and who understands me! I don't know you at all, but I love you!!!" They were just so.... They seemed really happy to have us there. It was the warmest welcome we've received this semester.

     The chapel was a little strange, though very beautiful. We walk in, and we sit down. That's not so strange, except that our rows of pews were facing other pews filled with British high school boys. And our group consisted mostly of girls, since about half of the guys were on a retreat at a monastery in Norcia. I'm just glad that they were five years younger than me; it would have been very awkward and distracting otherwise. Instead it was mostly just funny. Why were the pews arranged like this? It's a choral thing, for praying back and forth. You see this when a group of people pray the Divine Office: about half the people pray one stanza of a psalm, the other half do the next, and then it just keeps going.

 

The tabernacle, viewed from the cleristory. Yes, I know, it's not in the middle. The chapel was
slightly redesigned in the 80's, and not everyone is happy with the current layout. Still, it's a chapel.

 

The ceiling! I couldn't stare enough at it.
 

Being upstairs was really cool.

 

     Although I enjoyed myself overall, I was never so conscious of my American accent as I was that day. British priests, British lector, British choir, British people in front of me. It was a terribly weird feeling, like I was offending everyone's ears (though I probably wasn't).

     The choir was the most beautiful I've heard in a long time, maybe the best I've ever heard. I wanted to cry.

     They had an awesome little garden which had benches that were partly made of columns from a temple to Saturn. (And it was even a rainy, grey day when we went. How British! :) ) The only thing I didn't like about the garden is that it facilitated a frightening moment: I managed to get a bee stuck in my hair. Not joking. I'm just glad Theresa managed to get it out quickly and without angering it.

 

Bench resting on capitals from columns of a temple to Saturn

 

Goldfish!

 

     So much history in that building. It's been a seminary for 500 years, some 40 martyrs studied there. The chapel where we had Mass is the same one that those martyrs prayed in, they have of their bones under the altar. And it was such a cute, cozy building!

 

Nothing warms your heart and makes you laugh quite the same way as does seeing a
 marble plaque with a Latin inscription containing a distinctively British name.

 

     The hurrican was apparently global news: during the Prayer of the Faithful, the US was specifically prayed for. That was another nice touch, hearing us mentioned in Mass.

 

I think this was the original entrance to the chapel.

 

     After the tour of the College, we went and got coffee at Sant' Eustachio's, which has been mentioned in the New York Times. It was very good coffee.