I was shocked by the scale of things in Rome…I could not believe that I was standing next to the Coliseum or that I was looking up at the Pantheon. Everything about Rome was just so huge and overpowering! I felt as though I was stepping into a book…the storyline, unbelievable in every sense.
A high point for me was to attend Mass in St. Peter’s….another was to be standing by my daughter’s side while gazing up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Things were changing as we moved north. The poverty of Italy is easily noted in the south…the will of the people is just as evident. People are ‘faithful’ and ‘devout’ in some NATURAL way in the south…they set up small altars outside of their homes and prayers are lifted up as a natural course of life. I found Rome GRAND…almost too powerful for a full grasp. I found the love of a family met on a Portici church step somehow more overwhelming in a spiritual sense…sharing what you don’t have is like the story of the widow…giving pennies…because you know somehow in that case, it’s a stretch!