June 21, 2024
Before leaving for Spain, there was just one more place I had to visit in Rome. The Pantheon.
Here’s another little known secret. While most people buy timed tickets in advance and then stand in the main line for awhile during their time slot, on each side of the pantheon there are other lines. One is for paying for a ticket in cash. The other is to buy a ticket with a credit card. I got there a half hour before the pantheon opened, stood in the cash ticket line, and was in the pantheon about 10 minutes after it opened, long before those with tickets. I was able to walk through the doors with relatively few people inside.
The Pantheon is an engineering marvel. It is perfectly proportioned so that if the dome was a ball, it would fit exactly inside the church.
Pan means “all.” Theo means “god.” So the Pantheon was a church dedicated to all the gods, just to cover all the basis. The dome is actually concrete and yes, there is a hole at the top called the Oculus. So how do they keep this temple from flooding? Why an interior drainage system, of course. The entire floor is slanted ever so slightly with the highest point in the middle of the room. Tiny drain holes are actually in the tiles. They thought of everything!
Many people are buried in the Pantheon, the most well-known being Raphael. This extraordinary artist died at the age of 37 and his tomb and bust are part of this place of worship.
It is still an active place of worship and mass is held here weekly.
OK, so then I retrieved my luggage from the hotel and hopped on the bus to get to the train station to catch my flight. I had my bus ticket and struggled through the bus’s middle doors with my suitcase and hiking backpack. Being crowded, it was impossible for me to get to the back with my luggage to get my ticket stamped and I didn’t want to leave my luggage alone. Well, wouldn’t you know, just as we were arriving at the train station, the ticket police came by. The ONLY time the past three days I even saw anyone. And they entered right through the middle doors. They asked for my ticket which I showed them but it wasn’t stamped. BUSTED! Even with my train leaving in about 15 minutes, I had to stay there while they asked for my passport, wrote me a ticket, and then processed the payment. $50. It could have been worse. Oh wait, it almost was.
I just barely got to the train on time when I noticed it wasn’t boarding yet. 30 minutes later it never boarded. The next train didn’t leave either. At this point I’m thinking of getting a taxi to the airport. I saw everyone headed toward a different train so I followed. Fortunately it eventually did leave. Of course, now I’m cutting it close. I do the self-service baggage check because by now my roller bag is too fat to fit in the overhead. Then there’s a problem with the immigration process and it takes forever. The system was down, line was getting longer, and time was ticking. After what seemed like hours, I finally got through and fortunately my gate was fairly close. I ran and got there about 5 minutes before the gates closed. Too close for comfort!
OK, back to pictures. I fly to Barcelona, Spain and head for a very special monastery: Montserrat. The monastery was built into the cliffs of the mountains.
The easiest way to get there is to take a funicular up.
Up, up and away we go! Hope you are not afraid of heights.
Yep, that’s how far it is.
I first visited Montserrat on my last sabbatical 18 years ago. I was with my dad and we had just finished walking the 500 mile trail of the Camino de Santiago. I had special memories of my last time there and wanted to see it again. It didn’t disappoint.
Mountains surround this monastery on all sides. Pretty amazing how they built this over a thousand years ago.
This is the monastery itself.
What was really neat is that I emailed the monastery and they actually do accommodate guests. So instead of staying at the hotel next door for hundreds of dollars, I stayed with, ate, and worshipped with the Benedictine monks for just $50 including three meals. Here is a view from outside my window.
We only caught a glimpse of the inside of the monastery itself.
This is a pilgrimage site that folks walk or travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see and touch. She is the Black Madonna.
She rests high above the altar of the church.
What’s cool is that there is a staircase behind that leads to her and you can actually go up and touch the ball that she holds representing the earth.
I went in the morning before most of the tourists arrive and had some private time with Mary and Jesus, touching the smooth worn down globe.
This is the church from her vantage point.
And of course, it’s filled with gorgeous mosaics
So why is this a place of pilgrimage and what’s so important about this statue? The legend says that in the year 880, shepherds took their flocks to graze upon the mountain. Suddenly, as night began to fall, the shepherds saw a great light and heard celestial singing, strange signs that led to a cave on the mountain of Montserrat. This is that cave.
Astonished, they share their vision with the priest and townspeople who went with fear and emotion to the site of the miracle. The beam of light came from within a cave where the sacred image appeared, protected under a rock ledge.
Because the site was so steep and hard to reach, they decided to move the image to a nearby town. But as they crossed the water and reached a high flat area, the Virgin would not be moved. Everyone understood that this was the place she had chosen to remain.
As beautiful as it was from there, it was time to leave Montserrat for a place that is even more special to me. A place that takes my breath away every time I go. But you’ll have to wait until the next post to find out more. In the meantime, it’s time to take the funicular back down again. Here we go!
The PCUSA Pilgrim Pastor 
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