Santa Agnese and Subiaco

Santa Agnese

Yesterday we were given a tour of Santa Angese where St. Agnes and her "milk sister" (so called because her mother was Agnes's wet-nurse) are buried. The upper church is beautiful and old,
with a giant mosaic of Agnes in full Byzantine regalia above the apse. In the side chapels are other works of art, including a small chapel dedicated to St. Emerentiana, the aforementioned milk sister. She was close friends with Agnes, and was a catechumen at the time of Agnes's martyrdom.
Because of her closeness to Agnes, she greatly mourned her loss. One day she ventured outside the walls to Agnes's tomb to pray, and there she was stoned to death by an angry mob, giving her
a baptism of blood along with her baptism of desire. Both of their remains are kept in a small tomb which is behind a small grate, enabling pilgrims to touch their rosaries and other religious items to it. I thought it was beautiful that, since St. Agnes is the patroness of engaged couples, the two engaged couples in our group were able to transform their engagement rings into relics of St. Agnes.

Subiaco

Today a good portion of our group braved the forecasted chance of rain and the early hour to travel to Subiaco, where St. Benedict's cave and first monastery are located. St. Benedict lived
in the cave for three years as a hermit, in an attempt to escape the worldliness of Rome in his pursuit of sanctity. I think we all agreed with his excellent choice of location as an escape from Rome.

The monastery itself is built directly into a hill around the original cave, and is surrounded by rolling tree covered slopes and narrow river valley. St. Scholastic answered our prayers for fine weather in spades; it was absolutely magnificent. Although I am not generally attracted to the medieval style fresco, I thought that the 12-13th century frescoes in the church of St. Benedict were different. The evidenced so much careful thought at attention to detail; I especially loved the scene of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, with children climbing palm trees and handing branches to their friends, while scribes and pharisees looked on
with furrowed brows. Best of all, the donkey was have a grand time eating up all the palms. On the left side of the church there is a small grate, emulating a prison cell window. Inside one can see a fresco of a red devil, sitting on his haunches, obviously frustrated. This is supposed
to represent the devil which Benedict exorcised from one of his brothers and "locked up" in a prison cell.
Another amusing work was the statue of St. Benedict with his arm upstretched, palm facing upwards, in some kind of supplication. Apparently, giant boulder was once perched
precariously at the top of the cliff into which the monastery was built. Since there was no
technology at the time with which to move it, the monks had the statue of St. Benedict made to
represent his protection of them and their monastery. As soon as cranes and other such
implements were invented, the rock was safely removed, but the statue still stands with the
inscription under it, translated from Latin: "Stop O Rock, do not harm my sons."

After Mass and
a short tour of the church, we walked down to a picnic area and enjoyed a leisurely lunch on the
grass in the sun. Although my attempt to study Italian on the bus and the crazy switchback roads on the way up made me wonder if I could possibly appreciate the trip, my insides eventually
calmed down, and, thanks to St. Benedict I enjoyed a welcome spiritual respite from the
craziness of Roman life.