Feast of the Chair of St Peter

This is one of my favourite pictures inside St Peter's, taken by a friend on this feast a few years back. By clicking on the photo to enlarge it, you will notice the many candles surrounding the "chair" in the background.

Basilian Monks in Grottaferata

After a couple of weeks of exams, a group of the seminarians went up to Palazzola for a few days break before the new semester (which began today). On Sunday, we travelled the short distance to Grottaferata, where Basilian Monks have lived since 1004 when their Abbey of St Mary was founded by St Nilus. They are of the Byzantine-Greek rite, and their website at which you can hear something of their musical patrimony is found here.

Here's a video, and AMEN to the video's commentary (or AMENI as the monks would sing in Greek!)

General Audience

New students at the English College usually attend the Wednesday General Audience in St Peter's Square with the Holy Father towards the end of September. This year is no exception; yesterday the new seminarians were there to be in the presence of Pope Benedict. The new students have been in Italy for some weeks now, learning Italian (even missing the Papal Visit.)

By way of welcome to his diocese, the Pope simply said:

"I am pleased to greet the seminarians and staff from the Venerable English College."

Google translate in Latin

Enjoying a couple of free days before returning to Seminary to start the sixth year of formation on Sunday.

I noticed in today's Daily Telegraph that Google translate now works in Latin!

I tried it out - I think the engine may have standard translations of some things...

You can also translate websites; e.g. this blog in Latin. Some amusement to be had! Could be a useful tool for Theology students.

Westminster Music

I discovered Papal Music's channel on Youtube. This is a collection of videos with the very best of the music heard by Pope Benedict during his visit (as sung by the choirs of Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey on the 17th and 18th September). I can't imagine that the Holy Father has heard so much beautiful music in such a short space of time during his Papacy.

One gem that passed me by at the time was Bruckner's Ecce sacerdos magnus!

Two of my favourites were James Macmillan's specially commissioned Tu es Petrus...

...and Duruffle's Ubi caritas,

Ad multos annos Holy Father!

In the last hour of the Holy Father's wonderful visit to the UK, nearly all the seminarians of England and Wales had the privilege of having Pope Benedict XVI among us for a few minutes. A photograph was taken of us all with the Holy Father.

In the morning we had gathered at Cofton Park in Birmingham for the Beatification Mass, our job was to distribute Holy Communion to the faithful. Then, we boarded coaches which had a police escort to Oscott College. A generous lunch was provided, after negotiating the highest level of security imaginable. We rehearsed the photograph so that it could be done in very little time. Here is the scene we witnessed as the Holy Father appeared from Oscott:

Snow in Rome

Not been doing blogging for quite a while - it has been a busy semester, the recent exam session has now finished and I'll be starting my tenth semester at the college on Monday.

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This morning, for the first time since I've been here in Rome, there was heavy snow which settled [although it has already melted now] - here is a picture of the college garden at around 11am.