From Rome, Thanos Writes...

Despite the rain on and off today, I was able to round up my students and get on with some cultural visits I had planned and organized for them this morning. In an effort to get the students familiar right away with the city and get them to move comfortably around I divided them in four small groups with six-seven people in each group, gave them a map and told them to meet me at the Colosseo where we would meet our guide and then walk to the three sites that I scheduled for us to visit that are off the beaten path. Our first stop was at the Chiesa di S. Stefano Rotondo, the largest circular church in Rome. Under the church there is a 2nd century mithraeum (Mitreo) related to the presence of the barracks of Roman soldiers in the neighborhood. The cult of Mithras was especially popular among soldiers. It was a great opportunity for us to visit the Mitreo as it is closed to the public due to currently being excavated. In addition, we found out from our guide that there is mass at the church of S. Stefano Rotondo only once a year on December 26, which is the Feast of S. Stefano. Our next stop was the Church of the 'Santi Quattro Coronati', which means the Four Holy Crowned Ones (i.e.martyrs), and refers to the fact that the saints' names are not known, and therefore referred to with their number and that they were martyrs, since the crown, together to the branches of palm, is an ancient symbol of martyrdom. According to the Passion of St. Sebastian, the four saints were soldiers who refused to sacrifice to Aesculapius, and therefor were killed by order of Emperor Diocletian (284-305). As our guide explained, the bodies of the martyrs are kept in four ancient sarcophagi in the crypt. Our last stop was the Temple of Claudius, which as it was explained to us when the emperor Claudius dies in 54 A.D. his wife Agrippina promoted the erection of a temple dedicated to him on the northern part of the Celio Hill.

Posted by Thanos Zyngas at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The beginning of a new semester is always exciting and vigorating and it gets even better when you get a group of students who are so anxious and excited to begin their adventures and spend four months in the Eternal City. It has been busy in the last couple of days as the new batch of Bernardians arrived and moved in to Bernardi. All 25 students this semester have arrived on time and as scheduled with no major delays, which allowed me and my staff to proceed as planned with Student Life Orientation. For the most part, all students have been attentive and participated during the Student Life Orientation asking several good questions as well as sharing their purpose and the reason why they chose to study in Rome. The first days or the honeymoon period as I like to call it is always the introduction of what the group will be like as the semester unfolds. And as I already began getting to know one by one our students, I have been very impressed and happy by what they shared and by what they want to learn while studying and living abroad. For this reason, I have asked each and everyone to think individually about what they want to accomplish during this semester and write it down on an idex card that I gave out to them on the first day, which I will be collecting on Sunday. Then, I'll be following up with what each student wrote on it so I help them to accomplish their goals or meet their needs, if not all, at least the majority of them. We talked a lot today about respect, responsibility, faith, growing as an individual and as a community, and the role and the significance of each one of the students being a part of the Catholic Studies program in the Eternal City. It is my hope that the rays of light i have seen today in our students soul and mind and the commitment they made when several of them shared what their purpose is while in Rome, continues shining and enlightening them throughout the whole semester and when time comes to go back home they take back an experience that they will cherish for many more years to come.
(Currently listening to "When You're Gone" by Avril Lavigne)

Posted by Thanos Zyngas at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since August 20, we have begun major construction works to renovate our bathrooms on one of the two student floors in Bernardi. Since over the last few years we have had several bathroom maintenance problems due to the old plumbing system of the building and due to the many student complaints of bad smells coming out of the pipes or various water leaks coming from all different corners of the walls in the bathroom areas, it was eminent at some point to replace everything, particularly the old plumbing system with a new, up-to-date one and give the shower areas on the first floor of the two student floors, an extreme makeover. Plans are also underway for also renovating all the bathrooms on the second floor, which will be another major project to be carried out next summer at the end of our summer program season (around August 20). As you can imagine these types of projects can be quite expensive especially dealing in another currency so any funds we receive from friends and alumni of the programs hosted at the Bernardi Campus as well as from the hundreds of guests we have had over the years, you know that everything will go into making Bernardi an even greater and more comfortable place for many more generations of students and guests to enjoy it while studying and living in the Eternal City.
(Currently listening to "1973" by James Blunt)

Posted by Thanos Zyngas at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)