The rain falls on the just and the unjust. And today it fell on us. Hard. The girls headed back to the slums (it’s safe enough with plenty of people passing by!) and John Isaac and I left the Colosseum for the Forum and Palatine Hill, the oldest sections of Rome. We got drenched.
From the Forum we headed to the traditional site of imprisonment for Peter and Paul. (Paul was under house arrest for at least part of his Roman incarceration.) Then we went for pizza and the Pantheon. We finished off the good fight with a stop by Trevi Fountain to practice some superstition. John Isaac might one day make the return journey. I gave him a coin for me too but I’m not sure proxy works. Tiffany and Vella are out of luck.
As with so many biblical sites, it’s usually impossible to say for sure whether or not the locations of events we commemorate are where they actually took place. Maybe Washington slept here. Maybe he didn’t. Nonetheless, they are worth visiting. Even venturing into the dungeon of the prison I was struck by the reality of how many saints were, metaphorically speaking, willing to walk this way for their faith, for their Lord, for their Good Shepherd. It is a humbling reminder of how radical the call really is. It is a humbling reminder of how quickly my own faith can turn into an opiate of self-serving comfort. I pray your faith is more than that.
Peter rules in Rome, of course, but if you plan a trip here, prioritize the Paul sites (we didn’t on this round). St. Paul Outside the Walls (one of those seven pilgrimage churches and where the Apostle to the Gentiles is purportedly buried), Tre Fontane (traditional site of Paul’s beheading), and the prison are all worth the time.
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