Visit to the Excavations under St. Peter's Basilica, the Venerable English College, Mass at the Rooms of St. Ignatius

Adventures from Wednesday, July 11th:

As our second to last day of pilgrimage in Rome, yesterday was filled to the brim with visits to special places of grace. 

We started the day with a visit to the Venerable English College.  In Rome, the word "college" denotes a residence in which seminarians live, pray, and receive formation.  However, it is not a place of studies.  The seminarians from the various national colleges study at one of the many Pontifical Universities throughout the city, for example, the Gregorian (run by the Jesuits) or the Angelicum (run by the Dominicans).

Sign posted on the door upon entrance
to the Venerable English College

The College for seminarians from England has the very unique title of "Venerable."  This is because, during the time of persecution of English Catholics in the 1500's, the seminarians who studied in Rome to become Catholic priests were almost certainly going to be martyred when they returned to their home land to minister to their people after ordination.

Below is a very famous painting of the Holy Trinity is in the chapel of the English College.  Below the image of the Holy Trinity at the top and above the portrayal of famous English saints on bottom, is a picture of an arched gateway.  This is a representation of the North Gate of the city of Rome which the English priests would walk through on their way home to England from Rome. Crossing through this gate forebode almost certain death for the newly ordained priests. 

In front of the Painting of the Holy Trinity
in the chapel of the College

The words in Latin, held by the angel, read "I have come to cast fire upon the earth..."
A quotation of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (12: 49)

During the time of persecution, it was a tradition that when the seminarians and priests of the College received news of another martyrdom of one of their brothers, they would all gather around this picture and sing the Te Deum (an ancient hymn in honor of the Holy Trinity).

One of the Sisters in our group, Sister Faustina Joseph, CFR, is from England and is also missioned with a group of her sisters in England.  Her personal background made the visit especially meaningful.

Sister Mary Angela giving a brief history of the Church in England in 16th Century.
(Sister Faustina Joseph, CFR, on the right)
Below the altar is a reliquary containing relics of the English Martyrs.

Next, we went to the room where St. Ignatius of Loyola died and were honored to have Mass celebrated for us there by Father Maher, S.J.

The room where St. Ignatius died.
It has now been converted into a chapel.

With Father Maher, S.J.

In the afternoon, we went on a scavi tour, that is, a tour of the excavations under the Basilica of St. Peter.  It was known throughout Christian history that the Emperor Constantine built the Basilica in honor of St. Peter over the site where the Apostle Peter had been buried after he was martyred.  However, there was not much archaeological evidence for this until the middle of the last century. 

Waiting for the Scavi Tour

A plaque on the pavement marking the place where the obelisk originally stood in the Circus of Caligula.
It was in the circus that St. Peter and other Christians were martyred around the year 64 A.D.

When Pope Pius XI died in 1939, he expressed a wish to be buried as close as possible to the tomb of Peter.  As there was not a space easily available, workers started to expand a place in the crypt of the present Basilica to put his tomb.  As they were digging, one worker started to fall in to a surprising hole in the floor!  It turns out that this "hole" was actually the inside of a pagan mausoleum that was part of the pagan necropolis (city of the dead) which Constantine had to cover in order to build the first Basilica.

In this drawing, the current Basilica of St. Peter's is in black (built in the 16th and 17th centuries), the current crypt of the Basilica (on the level of the original Constantinian Basilica built in the 4th century) is in pink, and the pagan necropolis is in blue.

In 1939, Pope Pius XII gave permission for excavations to be carried out. These excavations took place over a period of 16 years.  It was an arduous and delicate task to carry out the excavations since the digging had to be done from the bottom up due to the present basilica being supported in large part by the mausoleum walls in the necropolis. In the third year of the excavations, the bones of the Apostle Peter were found.

The scavi tour is a very privileged opportunity to walk down through part of the ancient street of the necropolis, look into pagan and Christian mausolea, see parts of the the various monuments to honor St. Peter that were successively built over his tomb throughout the centuries, and, most importantly, to venerate his relics and pray at the Tomb of the first pope.

While pictures were not allowed in the tour, these images have been found online and correspond to what we saw yesterday:

Before the Basilica of Constantine was built, this street would have been open to the sky above!
The right shows a row of mausolea façades facing a street in the necropolis.
We walked down this street in the tour.

The inside of a pagan mausoleum.
The colors on the wall and mosaic on the floor, as well as the bodies of those buried here,
were very well preserved by the dirt Constantine used to fill in the inner space.
You can also see at the top of the picture that the roof of the mausoleum was cut off.

This is the Confessio of St. Peter, below the high altar in the current Basilica.
The bones of the apostle are conserved where they were found,
behind the red marble wall to the right of the mosaic of Christ.
On our tour, we were on the other side of this Confessio, under ground.

Clementine chapel
This chapel, build by Pope Clement VII, is at the level of the crypt of the Basilica
and on the opposite side of St. Peter's relics as the Confessio in the picture above.
The bones of St. Peter are behind the altar, on the left.

It was a deeply moving experience for all.  Our tour guide, Karen, was clearly a woman of great faith who takes her position seriously as a way to help others to grow in faith too.  She was very generous in taking extra time with our group to answer questions and give us more time to pray at the tomb.

St. Peter, pray for us!