No Photo!

I drank three cups of water cappuccino from the continental breakfast at the hotel for the think I was most excited for on the trip, the tour of the largest museum in the world, the Vatican museums. My parents and I were the fifth people there, fifteen minutes early. Leave it to ND kids to show up in the nick of time. We waited in line for about 90 minutes waiting to get into the packed museums. It was cool hanging out with all of the abroad people in one place and catching up with kids I hadn’t seen in a while. A truly unique Notre Dame experience to shoot the breeze with your colleagues in the shadows of the Vatican walls. In hindsight it would have been easier to go in to the museums by ourselves, but the guided tour with the rest of ND was worth the wait. Our tour guide was an adamant believer in the pure beauty of all ancient and renaissance works. He opened his talk with a discussion of phi, the golden ratio, present in all of Michelangelo’s statues of the gods.

Without our tour guide, I would have been baffled and overwhelmed by the enormity of the museum and the intricate details and history behind each piece. His description of the individual panels of the Sistine Chapel was so thorough and well done it brought out impressed applause from our group of thirty. Having his personal description and stories behind the painting of the chapel made the experience so much more real. I could see Michelangelo having to fight tooth and nail with his bosses to paint the chapel the way he wanted to express the story of Christ and Christianity with every inch he had. The rest of the museum was sort of a teasing preamble to what we all wanted to see, the Sistine Chapel. The House of the Holy Spirit. The Pope-Maker. The experience in the chapel was well worth it. It was packed with tourists and guards yelling “No Photo” at the top of their lungs as hundreds of tourists whipped out their cameras to take pictures. Seeing the famous God touching Adam panel at the top of the ceiling was a highlight of the weekend. So many popes have been chosen in this room with the guidance of the holy spirit. So much good has come from the cardinals, bishops, and popes that think and pray in this chapel for guidance. It was an amazing experience. Say what you want about the Catholic Church, but the immense good that these old white celibate men do for this earth is simply undeniable.

After the tour my Mom and I went through St. Peter’s Basilica together, as Dad went missing. It was cool going through this religious experience with family instead of friends. It made it much more personal as all of my Catholic upbringing at good ole St. Clement of Rome came rolling back to me as we toured through St. Peters. The Pieta was smaller than I thought, but in a good way. Our tour guide was right, if you look to long at this statue, you will begin to cry. Mary holding her dead son in her arms, saddened look on her face, knowing that her job is complete and her son’s has just begun. Quite a moving pice of stone. The rest of St. Peter’s exhibits the same gigantic intimacy as the square. You feel comfortably safe in every nook even though the top of the dome reaches taller than the Statue of Liberty. This place makes St. Paul’s look like Knott Chapel, not that that’s a bad thing.

I met my parents by the obelisk in the square talking with Kristin, Emily, and Hillary about God knows what. We decided to go to lunch and meet up later at the Coliseum. To keep the holy-sacred vibe I have going in this blog, I will cut it short here.