D 4th Day Pilgrimage to Rome

4.5.02.
At 8 am Father McKenna said Mass at St. Isidore's Church, a nearby
English church, which we
attended.
After breakfast we visited Cook's in the Via Vittorio Veneto to change
our traveller's cheques into lire.
We had some difficulty in finding our way to Cook's, but found Father
McKenna there, who directed
us to Upim's which was a large shop like our English Woolworth's, where
we bought postcards and
nylon stockings. On our way back to our hotel, Fr. McKenna, who spoke
excellent Italian, obtained
stamps for us in a nearby shop. In this shop, I was badgered by one
beggar. This was the only
occasion on which this happened to me during our stay in Rome, in spite
of the contrary reports from
books and some people, that there was constant stream of beggars.
in the afternoon we went by tram to St. Peter's Basilica for our first
Jubilee visit to obtain the great
indulgence. This was our first experience of a Roman tram which one
enters at the rear entrance and
leaves by the exit at the front. Often, to get by the crush of people,
one has to start working one's way
to the front as soon as one has entered. "Permisso" was the second
useful Italian word we learnt, used
by everyone in the trams.

On reaching the Piazza di San Pietro, we assembled there in a long
procession, five hundred of us in
all, led by Bishop Halsall of the Archdiocese of Liverpool. We ascended
the steps of St. Peter's singing
the litany of the Saints. Entering the Basilica by the Holy Door, we
gathered above the tomb of St.
Peter to make our first jubilee visit. Our first impression of St.
Peter's was its vastness and its height.
During this, our first brief visit, we could not take in all its beauty
of detail.

Afterwards we had a photograph of our whole group taken upon the steps
of St. Peter's.
We were then told that we had all been invited to the English College
for Pontifical Benediction, it being
the Feast of the English Martyrs. With a choir of students it was very
impressing and beautiful. Above
the altar is a picture representing the Blessed Trinity with St. Thomas
of Canterbury and St. Edmund,
English King and a Martyr.(841-870).
After Benediction a student showed us round the college, explaining
many things to us. He told us that
the picture above the Altar had been there in the time of the English
Martyrs and that they had all prayed
before it.

In the days when priests in England if discovered, were executed, often
being hung, drawn and
quartered, St. Philip Neri lived opposite the college, and each young
priest on completion of his studies,
received his blessing, before he left for England and certain
martyrdom. Upon news of a martyrdom
being received at the college, all would sing the "Te Deum" before the
picture which remains unto this
day above the altar.

The young student who was conducting us told us many other interesting
things about the history of the
college, stating that at one time it had been a hospice.
The frescoes on the walls of the main chapel were scenes from the live
of the saints and martyrs. There
were three immense libraries containing many ancient manuscripts, and a
collection of the relics of the
English Martyrs. In the grounds was a small pond, the water which it
contained appearing to be a
curious blue-green colour. Cardinal Wiseman had carved his name upon
one of the walls in the grounds.
Finally the young student gave us a small reproduction of the Martyr's
picture and we departed.