I have now been back home in Sydney for just over two weeks and until now I still have not written about the event which really was at the centre of my reason for going to Italy in the first place - the canonisation of St MMcKotC. I really want to apologise for that. This is not the way that blogs operate, I know. My limited understand of how/why this medium works is because of its immediacy (and intimacy) - a sort of 'see it, think it, feel it, write it' kind of thing. That is what I always intended to do but unfortunately, it didn't quite work that way in the end. The last few days were a frenzy, and I didn't manage to quarantine writing time. I regret that. I know the moment is over in a way, but I am back at my computer and writing again. It won't be the same but it will be what it is, and I guess that will have to be enough.
I loved Rome but I don't understand it. Although I had spent no more than one or two days in each of the places I had visited prior to now, I felt each allowed me close enough to be able feel its heartbeat and know something of who it was. Maybe Rome knows itself too but it certainly didn't give much of itself away to me. If a city can have a personality, then Rome had multiple ones.
Traffic, loud and thick, welcomed our arrival in the Eternal City. We stayed in a huge hotel with lots of other tour groups. It was comfortable, clean, had four lifts, free internet access once you had purchased a USB cable from the hotel gift shop (that was odd..) and completely without character or charm. Staff were efficient, gave answers to my questions with polite indifference as well as the distinct impression they had one eye on the bundy clock that would tell them when they could go home. The most charming staff were the cleaning girls - every single one I spoke to was charming, smiled, wished me a nice day and seemed to mean it.
Almost as soon as I arrived at Hotel Indifference, and after purchasing my E5 internet cable from the Hotel Indifference Gift Shop (it was on display right next to a colorful handbag that cost E250 (on special that week), I jumped into a cab and headed down to St Peter's Square. It was early evening. I had been contacted back in Sydney by Tony Vemeer a journalist from the Sunday Telegraph who had heard that I may have had an interesting Mary MacKillop story to tell. I had met Tony before and thought highly of him so agreed to be interviewed and photographed for the story. There would be four of us in the piece and we were all to meet in St Peter's Square around 7ish. Anne, one of my fellow travellers, was also one of the four involved in the story so we taxied together.
I would strongly recommend that if you have not seen St Peter's Square, and one day get the chance to do so, see it first by night.It is breathtaking beautiful. Tony told me to meet him at the Obelisk in St Peter's. I had no idea if that would be hard to find (or, if I had to be honest, exactly what an obelisk was...) but I agreed. When the taxi pulled up at the top Via Conzilione (sorry Romaphiles, don't think I spelled that correctly), I looked up in wonder and awe at this achingly beautiful space. It was enormous in size but somehow didn't seem so. It was bathed in a soft light that allowed you see just about everything but only just. There were people wandering around talking and looking and taking photographs. The closer you walked inside the square, the more you realised how big it all was. There was the Obelisk right in the centre of the Square and there were two magnificent fountains positioned on either side about equal distance from it. There were already thousands of chairs out in the Square in preparation for the big event in a few days time and there were barricades everywhere, although not placed in any particularly strategic or purposeful order. I soon learned that was the Roman way.
Anne and I met up with Tony, the Herald Sun photographer Dave and the other two people who were part of the story, Fr David Catterall who had survived a rare form of breast cancer and the charming Amy Green who was now free of a once-debilitating epileptic condition. Both attributed their recovery to the intersession of Mary MacKillop. My friend Anne had also survived two encounters with cancer and while she doesn't claim miraculous intervention (actually, none of us do), she is in no doubt that she was given the strength she needed to cope with what she had to deal with through the support of MMcK - who she is in fact related to! With Australia warming to the notion of celebrating the proclamation of its first Catholic saint, there was now great media interest in the event.
We did the story and photo shoot (Herald Sun Dave took hundreds of photos before he was convinced he had enough - do you realise just how hard it is to smile non-stop for almost an hour?) and as I expected he would, Tony did a lovely piece which appeared in the Daily Telegraph the next day. It all felt a bit weird really. The nature of my work means that I get quoted in the media quite a lot but I have never had a story done 'about' me. People contacted me and were very kind with their comments. The one which moved me the most was from my mum. I guess like most mums, she has unfailing faith in her son (I would contend that in my case, this is misguided) and I could hear the emotion in her voice when I rang her. I can't explain to you in the here-and-now why this all meant so much to her but I will try to in subsequent entries. She's been through such a lot herself - I was reminded in all of this just how extraordinary a person she was, and moved (to tears, as it turned out) by the joy she was feeling.
Shoot over, and now back at Hotel Indifference, I set up things for the days ahead. The internet worked a treat, camera batteries and mobile phone were charging, I did a couple of quick radio interviews, made calls to two people I love a lot and then wrote a little bit. I then went downstairs to the hotel, waited 10 minutes to order a drink, realised that it would be some time soon before that order would be taken (there were glasses to be cleaned, after all) so went back up to my room to a shower and a sleep. I managed the first but not the second.
I shall stop now because as usual, I am writing too much. I had this notion when I opened the blog again that I would do one big entry that would cover Rome in a single sweep. I realise, not for the first time, that I have over-estimated and underachieved. Things just keep finding their way into my head and I keep saying to myself 'I should write about that...', and I now remember I have made promises to write about stuff that I have not honoured yet. Honour's not really my strongest suit but for I will try to stay focused!
In the intro to the blog, I wrote that, in the end, it might become important for reasons other than reporting on the events surrounding the canonisation. I now know that is true. Sorry, that's for another time too..
Chaotically yours
Mark
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