By Dominic Redcliffe

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Hello from Rome to you all at home.

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After a cool and changeable Spring here in Rome, in weather terms, the Mediterranean warmth and sunshine have settled and summer has definitely arrived. The warmth means having a gelato is a given, and there are quite a few little independent ice-cream parlours (or gelatoria) within walking distance of college. At the moment, my favourite ice-cream is a cherry and coconut mix. I think that a visit to the gelatoria is justified in that it helps me learn the Italian names of different fruits and flavours! 
Not only does it really feel like summer now, but June brings many special days in the Church’s liturgical calendar too. This month brings the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. and then at the end of June, the Solemnity of Saints Peter & Paul. 

I am in a privileged position of being half an hour from St Peter’s Basilica and having the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls opposite college. I just have to walk across the road, Viale di San Paolo, and I’m there. The basilica is ‘outside the walls’ because the first church on the site was beyond the old walls around Rome. Constantine the Great ordered a church to be built over the burial place of St Paul, who was martyred nearby around AD 65 – 67. 

Being in Rome for most of the year gives me the opportunity to experience places much more than a visitor who is here for a few days, and St Paul’s is a good example. I can visit the basilica without any effort, even it’s just for a few minutes, to spend some time in prayer or to light a candle to remember people at home, by the place where St Paul is buried. 

In January each year, the Holy Father visits the Basilica for Evening Prayers to remember the Conversion of St Paul and Week of Christian Unity. However, it’s the proximity of being by a holy place with the direct connection with St Paul that I find inspiring. 

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 22) really makes me think. Paul is being questioned on his preaching about Jesus, by the authorities. Paul is confined in the barracks, and he is given a clear message and mission.

The following night the Lord stood by him and said, 
‘Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.’ 

For our parishes and schools of the archdiocese who are dedicated to Saints Peter & Paul, prayers for you (and everyone else) from Rome. 

Until next time, 

Dominic