another pleasant valley Sunday.....in Rome

       Yesterday, we hopped on our old friend, the #85 bus, and traveled to Caravita for Mass. I arrived early to rehearse with the choir (2 women besides myself and a guy!) and was asked to cantor the psalm. It was Psallite psalm and I quickly learned it with enough confidence to agree to do it - the hubris of me!!!  :-) The presider was Fr. Keith Pecklers, a published and respected liturgist!
     Anyway, the liturgy was lovely and I made no glaring errors in the proclamation of the psalm, so I could breathe again! After Mass, several people greeted me with compliments, including 3 men from Australia, who wanted to know more about the source of the psalm setting, so I told them, happy to spread the word about the Psallite program!
     After Mass, we took another bus to the Colloseo, where we met Rob and set off in a taxi for Tre Fontana, (because it was pouring rain.....all day long....) the place of the martyrdom of St. Paul. It is a lovely rustic collection of 3 churches, one "Scala Ceoli", one, a Cistercian Abbey and one built over the spot of Paul's beheading. There is a bizarre legend attached to the story (from which the place gets it's name) of Paul's martyrdom. It is said that when his head was cut off, it bounced 3 times and from each place where it hit the ground, a fountain sprang up! There are 3 stations that look like this:

and beyond the grate, you can see and hear the water flowing!
      Then, we had a wonderful lunch at a quaint little trattoria between the churches, where they served food native to the regions of Puglia!! Another major yum!!!
      Then we attended one of the hours (Nones) at the Cistercian Abbey. The Abbey itself was amazing

but the liturgy was chanted in 2 different keys, one which the organist was playing and another about a 1/2  step lower -lol!!

We bid Rob good-bye and had a nice quiet evening at home, where we finally dried out!

Pat is at the Center teaching his class this morning, and I am here blogging and running (well.....maybe not running...... DOING) miscellaneous errands and chores!!