Impressions of Rome

I feel as if I'm in Africa...

Garbage paves the way as the bus drives us to and from campus. Often times, the scenery appears so desolate, so barren. It's looks almost poverty-stricken and, in most cases, it is. So many other times, it just amazes me. It's nothing what I expected, rather, so much more.

The cultural change is such a shock. Suddenly, I cannot smile at every man I pass for fear of implying otherwise. Suddenly, I cannot drink from a bottle. Instead, I must pour into a glass, water, wine, beer, or liquor, otherwise it's considered rude. Suddenly, I cannot, though I rather would not, walk into a Catholic church with very little clothing like most American women would. Suddenly, I have the freedom to buy liquor.

I'm sure a few of those things would of course be different in Africa. But there's one thing on that short list that I know for certain would be different anywhere: here I have access to the Infallible. Here I can come and sit before the incorrupt John the 23rd. I can pray before John Paul the Great. I can stand in awe before the grave of St. Peter himself.

No where else can a Catholic find such affirmation in the faith they are living than in a church so large and so beautiful and so full of admiration and respect for the glory of God, a church with so many altars that a Mass is being said almost every hour of every day, a church where peace is easier to find than pigeons and cats in the streets outside of it, a church that contains those men, the Fathers of our Church...the church. St. Peter's is THE church. And what makes St. Peter's stand out the most is just that, not it's size or beauty, but the sacred remains of those men.

I don't have that in America. I did not find that in Kologne, Germany in 2005 while there for the World Youth Day events and I'm certain Africa lacks the very same thing...

And suddenly I feel as if I'm in Rome.