Roman Christmas

Here are just a few pictures from Rome.  There are some from St. Peter's square showing the Christmas tree.  There are also some from Piazza Navona.  Piazza Navona is famous at Christmastime for all of its gift stall.  It's usually a busy piazza, but doubly so at Christmas.

Vatican Christmas Creche 2012

I was in St. Peter's square this past weekend, when the crowds were much reduced.  As such, I was able to get some good pictures of the elaborate Christmas Creche in the Piazza.  (I wrote a little about it here.)  You don't get a good sense of dimension here, but the figures are rather small, perhaps about 6 or 7 inches tall, although the whole display is quite large. 

Homily of Pope Benedict XVI - Midnight Mass - Christmas 2012

Below is the homily of Pope Benedict XVI from Christmas 'Midnight' Mass (which he actually celebrates at 10pm).  You can also see the Mass on video.

Midnight Mass - Christmas 2012:

Dear Brothers and Sisters!
Again and again the beauty of this Gospel touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendour of truth. Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.

Christmas at St. Peter's

One of the priests and I went to St. Peter's for Solemn Vespers (Evening Prayer) for Christmas.  They had a very good choir, including a small orchestra with brass and tympani.  It was very beautiful.  Well, I didn't get any pictures of Vespers.  But I did get pictures of the creche scenes at St. Peter's.  There are always 2:  one in the Piazza and and one inside the Basilica.

The outdoor one was given from the Basilicata region of Italy.  It incorporates architecture and styles of the  Lucani, an Italian tribal people who pre-date the Romans.  Zenit has an article on the outdoor creche here:  Artistic Nativity Creche in Saint Peter's Square.

The inside one is a bit simpler than last year.  Apparently last year, they rigged it up so that fake snow would drop down on the creche scene.  This year they just had changing lights to give the impression of day and night.  There were a few animatronic figures, a fisherman with his pole and string and a shepherd raising and lowering his hat.

San Clemente Christmas

Below are some pictures of San Clemente decorated for Christmas.  As I was concelebrating Midnight Mass, I couldn't take too many pictures of the Mass itself, but it was very nice.  Many of the pictures below are from the praesepio (creche) from the parish.  This is a story in itself.  The creche is made by Patrizio, who mostly serves as our cook.  He's the third generation of his family to have worked for the Irish fathers.  His father was also a cook, and his father's uncle before him.

For many years now Patrizio has been putting together the creche.  Now, this is not simply a matter of getting pieces up from storage and assembling them.  No, Patrizio creates a new scene every year.  He covers up the St. Dominic altar, and we are not allowed to see it until it is finished.  The brothers tell me that it is different every year.  In 2001, for example, he included a small tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack in New York.

Knowing all this, I was still not prepared for how amazingly good his creche scene would be.  He truly is an artist.  Unfortunately, the camera does not do it justice.  He has it lit for midnight, with a red light on much of the scene, and a blue light highlighting the angel.  The flash of the camera makes everything a bit too bright.

Oh, and then there are the sound effects.  He has added some sound recordings of animals.  He says it's in response to the press reports (which were, unfortunately, the typical errors of an anti-Catholic press) of Pope Benedict saying that there shouldn't be (or weren't) animals at the crib.  So, you can hear chickens, cows, and even a rooster.

There's also running water in the background of the scene.

Of course, the neatest touches are the parts you really can't see unless you get very close up (or take pictures with a zoom lens).  Patrizio has added some signs to the streets, like an ancient Italian village.  In fact, he has even named one of the streets:  "Largo Patrizio", translated somewhat loosely as Patrizio Street.  A wonderful touch on an amazing work of art:

Roman Christmas Trees

While walking, I took pictures of two of the larger Christmas trees in Rome.  Christmas trees are not really much of an Italian custom, much more German.  Nevertheless, like most things in our globalized culture, these customs spread, mostly because of American movies and television.

One of the friars here tells the story of a church here in Rome belonging to a group of non-Italian religious.  The religious superior wanted to put an Advent wreath in the church for the first time.  Advent wreaths are also not really an Italian tradition.  Anyway, it was put in the nave of the Church.  One of the local parishioners was seen standing in front of it, making the sign of the cross, and shaking her head slowly.  She thought it was a funeral wreath!  (Wreaths in Italian are pretty much only used at funerals.)  They stopped using the advent wreath.

These two trees are down the street from each other, one right next to the Colosseum and one in the Piazza Venezia.