THE diocese of Macerata holds its annual ecumenical vigil during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, on whichever is the Friday night, starting at 9.30 p.m. in the city’s cathedral of St Julian (San Giuliano).
A challenge even for the most devoted local ecumenists, you might properly think, but my being there to represent our small but enthusiastic congregation of Nigerian Anglicans depends on either a car journey of nearly four hours, or a train trip of more than five.
Since Unity Week is in January, and Macerata is in Le Marche, a region separated from Rome by the highest range of mountains in peninsular Italy, my journey thither has almost invariably been accompanied by considerable snowfall. Forgive, then, the translation of “challenge” into “act of heroism”.
Happily, I am the possessor of a cashmere overcoat, inherited from my dad, which is perfectly suited to the customary sub-zero temperatures of Fabriano, where you can wait up to half an hour for a connection and the former seminary where I am regularly put up for the event is but a slippery downhill step from Macerata Station.
Thus you may imagine my relief to find this year’s Unity Week temperatures soaring into the low-teens centigrade. In fact, such was my holiday mood at the unwonted tepidness that I abandoned the expected script at the service to comment on my pleasure at seeing invernal Macerata without any snow.
It was one of the region’s Evangelical pastors who took me aside in the sacristy to warn that when there is no snow so far into winter it means worse than usual is yet to come. Never a truer word.
Snow place like Rome
ANYONE who watched the England v. Italy Six Nations Rugby match last Saturday will have witnessed the miracle — a Roman bufera, or snow-storm. Residents of the Eternal City were already becoming blasé, however, as it was the second time it had happened in a week. Considering that there has been no substantial snowfall here since 1985, it perfectly demonstrates this city’s ability to tire of even the most impressive novelties in the shortest of periods.
The awestruck tales of what an inconvenience it had been, how many cars had been stuck on the ring road, how long passengers had been stranded on trains, how little grit had been provided for the city’s streets, and the fact that people had been skiing on any one of the seven hills had degenerated from one Friday to the next into a shrug of the shoulders and a twist of the lip: “It’s snowing. So what?”
Headaches continued at All Saints’, though, as the mayor’s ruling that we clear the snow from our roofs or be responsible for damage that any possible unplanned slippage might cause bit deep. G. E. Street’s ingenious and economical design for a perfect neo-Gothic church on a tiny street-corner plot involved the multiplication of steep pitched roofs. I don’t suppose secure clearing of snow to avoid damage to parked cars or passing pedestrians was among the most obvious of his or anyone else’s specifications.
We have got away pretty lightly with a bill of (so far) €400 for the professional clearing, and just one contested car-insurance claim, but it is the sort of novelty which I hope will not become a feature of Roman winters to come.
Unfeigned thanks
NEITHER difficulties with public and private transport nor the fear of falling killer-icicles dissuaded a goodly number of the Queen’s subjects from gathering at All Saints’ on 6 February to commemorate the 60th anniversary of her accession.
A simple said requiem for the repose of the soul of the late King’s Majesty at noon attracted a dozen communicants (a more than 500-per-cent increase on that celebrated ten years before — the Oscar effect?) while we (including a Canadian bishop, the British Ambassador to the Holy See, and an Italian senator) numbered more than 40 for choral evensong with festal Te Deum.
I was especially grateful to the dutiful service given by the musicians, who provided us with Vaughan William’s coronation communion anthem “O Taste and See”, and a hearty (what else?) rendition of Stanford in B flat, written for the famously postponed sacre of King Edward VII.
In a week in which so many of her subjects rejoiced at a virtual lifetime’s commitment to public service, and the reaffirmation by our sovereign of what she clearly considers a sacred bond, the public debate about prayer before council meetings seemed especially inept.
Why don’t we try to stop the Queen from talking about her faith during the Christmas broadcast? It really ought to be “game over” for the secularists on this particular playing field.
White as the lily
IT WAS, in fact, about the size of a rugby pitch. I am talking about the area covered by a miraculous fall of snow in Rome on the morning of 5 August 358. Corresponding precisely to what was promised by the Blessed Virgin Mary, who appeared in a dream shared by the Patrician John and Pope Liberius the night before (two witnesses therefore providing the proof), the snow-covered area defined the extent of the church to be raised in honour of the recently proclaimed Mother of God.
The Liberian basilica would, some 80 years later, be replaced by the still surviving Santa Maria Maggiore, but the Feast of the Snow is kept at the hottest part of summer to this day. Being extra-territorial, technically within the Vatican, this church was not subject to the mayor’s ruling on rooftop snow. No news has yet reached me of damaged cars or serious injury. Our Lady seems to look after her own.
The Ven. Jonathan Boardman is the Archdeacon of Italy and Malta, and Chaplain of All Saints’, Rome.