Angels in Rome

When in Rome, you might like to look out for the angels that, here and there, open their flauncy, white wings on the City of the Pontifs to envelop and enbrace us all and bring us up towards God and our salvation, back to the gardens of a Paradise now lost in this topsy turvy world we are living in. Yes, angels are everywhere in Rome. The one on top of the Castel Sant’Angelo is, I migh say, the highest one of all, ready to fly away, back to where he belongs... There he is, little in the distance, yet powerful as he is towering the Holy City of Rome. He is Saint Michel, one of the three Archangels,  in the action of putting his flaming sward back in its scabbard. Why, you might ask? The reason is a terrible pestilence which had broken and devasted Rome and its inhabitants in the late VII Century (Pope Gregory the Great sitting on the Holy See…), disappeared as the Archangel appeared, in all its mystical glory, to Pope and Romans right on top of Adrian’s Tomb. The pestilence gone, the sward back home…

But you will not find Saint Michel in the beautiful church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, where a very special chapel sings the eternal mystery of the angelical creatures. One masterpiece, forgotten who know why, is Pomarancio’s picture telling the story of God giving Saint Gabriel, Archangel, the command to fly down to earth and tell Mary that she will bear his son. We are used to seing Gabriel in the act of performing his duty, with the sacred lilium, pure as pure can be and Mary in the act of accepting her divine fate. But, the before painted by Pomarancio is so sweet and glorious that one – me for instance - can sit in front of the picture for hours on end and still want to look again and again the everlasting mystery of God made true…

When in Rome, join me for a three hours spiritual walk, contact me: bennidv@alice.it I'll be happy to give you all the details needed.