Rome by Night

It’s 1534. On this Friday night, the bustling eternal city calms as the moon slowly rises with the new life of the night. One by one or in small groups of friends and couples, flocks of Romans leave their residences destined for the 16^th century equivalent of modern-day bars and night clubs. Motivated by the instinctive carnal desires known to man from the time of his first sin, they are not in the least aware of the true desires being masked and burning deep within. Happiness is what they seek, and happiness is what they will find; a happiness immediately satisfying and yet…fleeting by its very nature leaving an emptiness even more desolate than before.

One solitary soul, ripe in his young age softly closes his front door and steps onto the darkened Roman streets. He too is pressed on by a longing – an infinite desire he can’t seem to ever fully satisfy. His heart simultaneously seeks silence from the world and the noise of Heaven. Oh to hear His voice, to enter into His intimacy.

The road is long, 25 kilometers (around 15 miles) and the night is cool, but the mood is peaceful and the desire strong. His objective is simple: remain. In the next several hours from sunset to sunrise he will make his journey passed both the noise of Roman night life and the dead silence beyond the walls. He will make seven brief stops, all hallmarks of the Faith that leads him on. Invisible to the human eye he will have Divine Company each step of the way.

Prayer and offering; giving glory to God the Most High; interceding for the souls yet journeying in this life and those enduring purification for the next; communion with the saints gone before us; and penance for his own shortcomings, a young Philip Neri not yet priest and not yet saint takes up the ancient tradition of the Pilgrimage of the Seven Churches – a tradition again reinstalled around 10 years ago and currently lead by those who now follow his rule of life.

On the night leading to the 100^th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady in Fatima, I too took part in this all night pilgrimage with 3 of my sisters and around 600 others. Setting out on foot a little passed 8 pm after celebrating the Holy Mass together in the church founded by St. Philip Neri, we walked in his footsteps and those of many others saints. The seven churches unevenly spaced along this route include: St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, St. Sebastian, St. John Lateran, Santa Croce, St. Lawrence, and St. Mary Major.

It was a night to forever remember. Gathered together for the shared desire of those of St. Philip Neri listed above, the spirit of the pilgrimage was richly felt and lived. Focusing on our identity as children of the Father, we journeyed with Christ in his trip from the Garden of Gethsemane to Calvary. We prayed for strength against the vices all around us in our daily lives and for the raining down of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with which to combat them. And we gave testimony to the One always eager to claim us as His own walking in an unmistakable mass of voices lifting to the Heavens in vocal prayer or song cultivating also moments of absolute silence and personal prayer.

With each step our identity as sons and daughters deepened in as much as we became more and more brothers and sisters. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and Mother Mary united as Church we endured all aspects of a true pilgrimage symbolizing the course of the human life. From moments of light-hearted joy to heavy fatigue, we were given the opportunity to remember what, or rather Who, is at the center of our lives. Walking in the dead of night past active bars or the contrastingly calm countryside, we find ourselves yet again reoriented towards the real goal of our lives: that of Holiness.

Our guide, Fr. Maurizio Botta, never tired of reminding us that to grow in holiness means to grow in our being children of God, and we become children of God following His Son who is the only one who reveals to us the Father. Contemplating the seven effusions of blood Christ suffered for us in His Passion, we reflected heavily on His doing of the Father’s will. On the cross, in the gravest of human suffering, Jesus calls God “Father” and accepts His will. This is what it means to call God “Father”: to accept all in trust from the loving hands of the One who loves us infinitely and unconditionally.

After the days of physical effects of this pilgrimage are long gone (and of those I expect not just a few), I hope those of the spiritual kind long remain. It was such a simple act in reality, what we did last night. There was no glamour or limelight. The only cause of the attention we attracted was our sheer number of participants. I was humbled by the realization that I too often live my “daily life” disoriented from my true goal. That which we live (worries, struggles, joys…) is only worth it in as much as it brings us into a greater intimacy with the Son who reveals to us the Father and breaths upon us the Holy Spirit. We must live every moment WITH Him praying unceasingly as He implores us to do. No moment is too small or difficulty too great to invoke His presence.

The graces I perceive to have immediately received from this pilgrimage are: a greater sense peace; joy of being in communion with the saints, both present and in the making; and a reorientation towards to true goal of my life and center of it all, that is holiness and my relationship with the Holy Trinity.

It was a sincere blessing for me to live this night of simplicity, poverty, and fatigue in intercession for those I hold in my heart and to give glory to Him to whom all honor and glory are due.

“He who wants anything other than Christ, does not know what he wants.”

 – St. Philip Neri