Tag Archives: Italy

Michelangelo’s mistake

I always thought there was something wrong with Michelangelo’s Pieta. 

You can see the statue in your mind’s eye: After watching her son tortured to death on a cross, a mother cradles his broken body.

I first saw it as a six-year-old in 1965 at the Vatican Pavilion of the New York World’s Fair. During the fair, millions patiently waited on long lines to view the Pieta, but all I can remember is looking down at the cool mobile walkway as it moved me along.

It wasn’t until I was a twenty-year-old student in the University of Dallas’s Rome program that I noticed the flaw: The expression on the woman’s face is all wrong. 

She’d just been forced to helplessly stand by and watch as her son endured the most horrific death imaginable. And yet, look at her face. Any Hollywood actress playing the role would throw her head back and scream in anguish. But Michelangelo chose to give her an almost peaceful expression of sorrowful acceptance. Why? The question haunted me for years.

I came across the phenomenon again decades later while watching a documentary about the Kennedys. Shortly after Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president, he called President Kennedy’s mother, Rose, from Air Force One as it flew from Dallas to Washington D.C. with her son’s body aboard. An audio recording of the conversation plays during the documentary, and Rose Kennedy’s composure is stunning. She essentially consoled LBJ and had the presence of mind to call him “Mr. President” mere hours after the murder of her son.

Later in the documentary, the Kennedys are shown gathered together for a group interview shortly after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. Rose spoke for her stricken family, and once again exhibited otherworldly, Pieta-like composure.  

I had kids of my own by then, so I had some idea of the hellish grief she must have suffered. How did she maintain such composure? I couldn’t for the life of me understand the source of that kind of strength.

I did a little research and found that her son, Senator Ted Kennedy, stated at Rose’s eulogy, “She sustained us in the saddest times – by her faith in God, which was the greatest gift she gave us – and by the strength of her character, which was a combination of the sweetest gentleness and the most tempered steel.”

She wrote in her autobiography, “The most important element in human life is faith. If God were to take away all His blessings, health, physical fitness, wealth, intelligence and leave me with but one gift, I would ask for faith – for with faith in Him and His goodness, mercy and love for me, and belief in everlasting life, I believe I could suffer the loss of my other gifts and still be happy.” 

My mother also had the gift of faith. It sustained her through a difficult life including the almost unbearable sudden death of my infant brother, Johnny. 

When mom was in her eighties, her neighbor, a retired psychiatrist and vocal atheist, would visit and try to talk her out of her faith. For the sake of friendship, mom put up with it for a while. But one day, she’d had enough and threw the woman out of her apartment shouting, “I’m happy, and you’re miserable. Leave me alone!”

I’ve experienced moments of faith twice. The first – while I was just looking out my office window – lasted about fifteen minutes. The second came during a work crisis and lasted about two days. Both times, all my anxieties vanished, and I was suffused with faith-filled, peaceful feelings I’d never experienced before and wanted desperately to continue. I pray daily for a return to that beautiful place.  

I saw the Pieta for the third time last summer while participating in another UD Rome program. I stared at it for a long while and wept because this time I believed I understood the expression on Mary’s face, and I knew it was no mistake. Michelangelo was simply portraying the transcendent peace that comes from dwelling in the kingdom of the faithful.  

Here’s wishing you and yours a peaceful New Year. 

How I Made Saint John Paul II Laugh, Twice

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In 1979, I spent a semester at the University of Dallas, Rome campus. A few days after we arrived, five or six of us decided to wander around the city to get our bearings. We wound up in St. Peter’s Square where we saw two parallel lines of barricades running down its center about twenty feet apart. When we asked why, we were told that when John Paul II returned that night from Mexico, he would be driven through the square in an open car. We hustled over to a spot right next to a barricade and began the long vigil.

As we waited, I thumbed  through  a little book of helpful foreign phrases for English speaking travelers. I sat up straight when I realized that some of them were in Polish. What better way to  stand out to a Pole in a crowd of screaming Italians than to yell something in Polish? We carefully studied the  book to choose just the right phrase and practiced it together all afternoon.

The huge crowd became electric when the Pope finally arrived. As his car drove slowly by, our little group shouted out in Polish, in unison, “Where are you going with our luggage?”  His head snapped around, and for a second his eyes flared with the burning indignation that would eventually smelt the Iron Curtain. But, when he saw it was a group of smiling, dumb – probably American – students  desperately trying to attract his attention, he laughed and gave us a blessing .

A couple of months later, we were working our way back to campus from the train station after a 5 day trip through several countries.  We were too broke even for youth hostels, but we did have Eurail passes, so we had slept on the trains.  We were tired, hungry, and didn’t smell great.

As we walked behind the Vatican, we saw several people obviously waiting for something. They told us the Pope was coming back from a dinner in town, and that this road led to his private drive. Just then, a large car drove up and stopped right in front of us. John Paul II popped out of the sunroof and everyone began taking pictures and wishing him a good night.
I threw my suitcase down, knelt beside it, and began frantically searching for my camera. I couldn’t find it. In desperation, I dumped its contents onto the street, but it was no use; it wasn’t in there. Then I noticed that all the cameras had stopped flashing, and that our little group had fallen into an awkward silence.

I looked up and saw that the Pope was patiently waiting for me to find my camera. As I knelt in the gutter, surrounded  by my dirty socks and underwear, I threw my arms out wide and shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “That’s life.” And then the Pope, the Occupant of the Throne of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ threw out his arms wide and shrugged his shoulders as if to agree, “Yeah, that’s life.” He laughed, threw me a quick blessing, got back in the car and was driven away.

I miss him.