More Day 2

 As we mentioned earlier, our first stop of the day was Santa Maria Maggiore, one of our major papal basilicas early in the morning.

One striking feature of the church is found underneath the main altar - a reliquary holding what is believed to be wood of the manger from the nativity of Jesus.  It is a beautiful sight to behold and many of our pilgrims took the opportunity to pray before it.

We also learned that St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, celebrated his first Mass as a priest here on Christmas Day in 1538.

From here we went to St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, the only one of our pilgrimage destinations significantly damaged during World War II, which was due to its proximity to the rail lines and therefore to allied bombing.  

One of the striking things when one is upon the dais where the altar is how the people involved in the rebuilding of the church used so much of the stonework from the historic church, piecing it together not as it was but as it would work now, with what they had.  An entire "layer" of the decorative work looked like this:

You can see that all of these pieces, damaged but not destroyed, were able to be re-used together to rejuvenate something broken into something new.

Also, as we entered and exited the church there was a devotional to Padre Pio.  Because so many of our community's parishoners are devoted to learning more about our faith through the works of Padre Pio, a prayer was said for all of them and their further spiritual growth at this devotional.

This only gets us to about 10:45 AM!  We will tell you about the rest of our day soon.