We decided to take ol'chubby thighs on another jaunt outside of Roma (clarification: that is the baby, not me). To reach Cassino is only an hour and a half by train so we decided it was an opportunity we couldn't let slip away. The abbey of Monte Cassino is another inhabitant of that hazy gray area between history, myth, and poetry for me. Gregory the Great relates how St. Benedict swept away the local shrine to Apollo and established his abbey there, developing the rule of life which, though specifically Benedictine, would provide the ur-text for all Western monasticism. Josef Pieper notes that the founding of this abbey coincides with Emperor Justinian's closure of the Platonic Academy. If it's at all possible to date such variegated things as cultural epochs, we might say that the ancient world passed into the medieval one on this very mountain, around 529 a.d.
I'm also fairly certain that we were entirely flim-flammed by a local "taxi" driver. Allow me to explain. We had heard from multiple sources that a small bus ran from the train station in Cassino up the prodigious height of the mountain to the abbey. I still think this bus exists. We had been waiting for an hour or so at the station when a small bus-like object zoomed through and past where we were sitting. Eye contact was made, but alas, to no avail. Almost immediately afterward, we were approached by a semi-helpful "taxi" driver who told us that we had missed the bus and he could take us up the mountain. I say "taxi" because that is all the credibility I will give to a man driving a white car with the word "taxi" on a laminated sheet of paper underneath the windshield. We were suspicious but also impatient. We took the offer and successfully made it up where he, either providentially or maliciously, told us that if the bus didn't show up to take us back down when we were finished we could call his number, which he promptly gave us. Fast-forward to after our visit of the abbey is complete. Surprise! No bus. After some fruitless conversations with local officials about transportation, we bit the bullet. Do we spy the tell-tale evidences of a lucrative business deal between the aforementioned "bus" and the infamous "taxi." It is impossible to say, but it is very possible to guess. (Totally in cahoots).
The first word that I saw was PAX above the gateway of the abbey. Everything else from that point on was simply a confirmation and an elaboration of that reality. The natural peace of the quiet mountain solitude provides a place of impossible beauty for those whose only desire is to spend their lives in agricultural labor, meditation on the Sacred Scriptures, and constant prayer. The earthly peace of this place reaches up to meet the blessing of eternal peace promised by angels to shepherds long ago.
I know it sounds like a bit much, but I kid you not, the courtyard of the abbey was brimming with pure white doves...a bird I have yet to see in Rome, Milan, or Como. I'm sure they are there, but it is fitting that little living symbols of the Holy Spirit should be most prominent here.
Almost everything we saw was the fruit of work done after the abbey's destruction during WW2. But from the courtyard to the church to the sepulcher, every inch of the abbey had been reconstructed with an eye to its ancient and medieval heritage. After all, this abbey has survived multiple destructions in the past without being erased. Struck down but not destroyed, sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
The relics of Saint Benedict and his sister, Saint Scholastic were recovered from the bombing wreckage in the fifties and the sepulcher, though new, evokes the best of paleo-Christian art and motifs reminiscent of ancient Egypt and Babylon. Even the empires that oppressed the people of God and became symbols of spiritual evil are taken captive for the ornamentation of Christian worship. Moses and Daniel did not neglect to glean the wisdom literature of these kingdoms and neither does the Church fear to judiciously arrange what is true and noble of pagan learning for her own purposes. Two passageways lead down from the church within the abbey to the sepulcher. Both are inlaid above with mosaics of stars gleaming in the night sky and monks and nuns both hold lamps as a reference to the parable of the wise handmaidens waiting for the Bridegroom. Christ is portrayed magnificently as well as his Cross as the Tree of Life. Moses can be seen receiving the law and liturgy of God attended by Aaron and King David. Inscriptions from Scripture or from the memories of holy men and women are almost inseparable from the images which function identically. And underneath Christ, resting in the peace that comes after a race well run, lie Benedict and Scholastic.
I wish I could write more about it, but the vision of the whole is hard to find and everything else seems like too little. The beauty of holiness, man.
Three regrets: (1) that I didn't get one of the abbey-made liquors (2) that I didn't steal either a sheet of ancient Gregorian chant or the illuminated copy of Cicero from the tenth century, (3) that I ever had to leave.
Kuiper you dog.
ReplyDeleteHappy feast of Ss. P & P. I remember a year ago tomorrow I was in Rome. Fr. Basil, another monk, and we novices went out to Santa Maria in Cosmedin to chant the Mass for the Protomartyrs of Rome (that’s what it is in the N.O. instead of Comm. of St. Paul). Card. Burke offered the Mass - it was the 50th anniversary of his first Mass. We got to meet him afterwards, and he was so cheerful and effortlessly condescending in the best of senses. You would have loved it, Kuiper, so many bishops (and F.I.’s) squished in this old Church built during the “Byzantine Papacy,” where there is still a strong byzantine presence in one of the side chapels. “Cosmedin” is a corruption of Kosmidion, Gk. for “ornate”.
You would also have been amused by a feature of the Church’s portico. There you’ll find La Bocca di Verita. It’s probably an old drain cover with an open mouth face on it. You put your hand through it and if you tell a lie, it gets bitten off. I hope no one in the giant line of Japanese tourists got hurt.
Also that day we went to Tre Fontane. Trappist monastery, site of St. Paul’s beheading. Three Fountains are said to have sprung up where his head bounced, and now they are under separate altars in a church decorated with a picture of some defeat Garibaldi suffered at the hands of papal forces. We met a bunch of very sweet Korean presbyterians. I wonder if they knew they had peregrinated to the site of St. Paul’s martyrdom on the commemoration of St. Paul [Traddy Style]?
ReplyDeleteThere was also a Marian apparition right around there: Our Lady of Revelation. There was an apostate who was planning on killing Pius XII, who had a knife inscribed Death to the Pope or something like that. He writing a speech against the Blessed Virgin while his kids played soccer nearby. They kicked the ball into this cave, and saw the Virgin. Apostate would-be assassin looks to see what’s up, and the Virgin gives him a talking to for an hour. He converts and gives the knife to Pius XII as a present.
My brother and I have been reading your Rome log. And today I read the very first posts you put on this blog, back when Phoenix was new. Thanks for writing all this, Kuiper.