Luminous Darkness

I have had several people comment that I have not been blogging recently, so I figured I should probably explain why. May and June were taken up with finishing off my dissertation and the rest of my M.Phil. projects. July was spent traveling, mainly to a retreat in North Wales and nine days in Rome. This latter trip in particular was very important to me as I had never been to Rome before, and had been wanting to visit for years. The city is spectacular on many levels, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has not been there before. In particular, the sense of history from the pre-Roman period right up to the modern Roman Catholic church is very profound.

One of the strange things about Rome in the summer is the fact that by mid-July, when I was there, much of the native population has left the city to escape the heat, and tourists from around the world have piled in to take their place. Although Rome is known in many places as the “Holy City”, I found it quite challenging to actually have any spiritual focus. It is difficult, for example, to appreciate a statue by Michelangelo when an hundred people are trying to photograph it at once. There were just too many people, too many flashes, too many tour guides, and too much of a sense that not many people were really there to have any kind of religious experience.

However, there was one place that overcame that general feeling. This was the church of Santa Sabina, at the top of the Aventine Hill. It is a restored fifth-century basilica, and in the words of the person who recommended it to me, is “sublimely simple.” It is also the headquarters of the Dominican Order, and I encountered a real sense of peace and tranquility there. I went into the side chapel and sat down to rest from the walk up the hill and discovered that I could actually pray. It was a wonderful oasis of tranquility in the midst of a city that had become, in part, a commercial tourist mecca of the worst sort. I would highly recommend this church to anyone visiting Rome, and should also say that the gardens outside are very nice as well, with beautiful views across the Tiber to the Basilica di San Pietro.

Otherwise, I am back now and am slowly catching up on the news, so I hope to start posting more regularly in the near future.

I have had several people comment that I have not been blogging recently, so I figured I should probably explain why. May and June were taken up with finishing off my dissertation and the rest of my M.Phil. projects. July was spent traveling, mainly to a retreat in North Wales and nine days in Rome. This latter trip in particular was very important to me as I had never been to Rome before, and had been wanting to visit for years. The city is spectacular on many levels, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has not been there before. In particular, the sense of history from the pre-Roman period right up to the modern Roman Catholic church is very profound.

One of the strange things about Rome in the summer is the fact that by mid-July, when I was there, much of the native population has left the city to escape the heat, and tourists from around the world have piled in to take their place. Although Rome is known in many places as the “Holy City”, I found it quite challenging to actually have any spiritual focus. It is difficult, for example, to appreciate a statue by Michelangelo when an hundred people are trying to photograph it at once. There were just too many people, too many flashes, too many tour guides, and too much of a sense that not many people were really there to have any kind of religious experience.

However, there was one place that overcame that general feeling. This was the church of Santa Sabina, at the top of the Aventine Hill. It is a restored fifth-century basilica, and in the words of the person who recommended it to me, is “sublimely simple.” It is also the headquarters of the Dominican Order, and I encountered a real sense of peace and tranquility there. I went into the side chapel and sat down to rest from the walk up the hill and discovered that I could actually pray. It was a wonderful oasis of tranquility in the midst of a city that had become, in part, a commercial tourist mecca of the worst sort. I would highly recommend this church to anyone visiting Rome, and should also say that the gardens outside are very nice as well, with beautiful views across the Tiber to the Basilica di San Pietro.

Otherwise, I am back now and am slowly catching up on the news, so I hope to start posting more regularly in the near future.