ROME: St. Peter's Basilica

Here are some tidbits from our tour of St. Peter’s Basilica.

One of Victor’s friends who has been ordained a Priest for a year gave us a tour (he is on the left, Victor is on the right.) It was about 2 hours long, and we were there with about 2,000 of our closest friends...haha.

Here's the famous door that is the original from the first Basilica built by Constantine.

Here's our first glimpse into the Basilica.

The dome at the very top.

Just to give you an idea about the size of the Basilica, look at this.

We learned that the architects and artists created the statues and art in the Basilica to look smaller than they really are. Our guide called this the "deception of the senses."

All of the pictures in the Basilica are mosaics. I still can't comprehend this. Think about how many millions of tiny tiles there are! They did this because they knew they wouldn't be able to restrict people from taking photographs and mosaics will last forever compared to paintings.

There are too many side chapels to count, and throughout the Basilica there are mosaics that tell a story, and often a saint buried below the mosaic.

Here's the main altar where the Pope celebrates Mass. If you remember a few posts ago about the Scavi tour, St. Peter's Tomb is directly under this altar.



Around the main altar there are four huge pillars. This was one of my favorite parts about the Basilica. Each pillar has a statue of a saint and then above the statue in a little loft there is a relic from that saint.

St. Andrew was the brother of St. Peter and was the first disciple called by Jesus. It is said that he went to Greece to preach the gospel and was martyred there and crucified on a cross that was the shape of an "x." The head of St. Andrew used to be in the reliquary above the statue, but was given to the Greek Orthodox Church as a sign of friendship by Paul VI.

St. Helena was the mother of Constantine and is credited with using her wealth and power to save and bring to Rome hundreds of the relics from the Holy Land. One of these relics is said to be a piece of the true cross on which Jesus was crucified. Above her statue is a piece of the true cross.

St. Longinus was the solider who pierced the side of Jesus after he was crucified. He later became a Christian. Above his statue is a piece of the spear that pierced the side of Jesus.

And my favorite...St. Veronica. One of my favorite prayers is the Stations of the Cross, and I always love to mediate on St. Veronica wiping the face of Jesus as he goes to be crucified. Above her statue is a piece of her veil that touched Jesus' face and every Good Friday there is a special time when the veil is taken out and people can receive a blessing.

At the very back of St. Peter's is the Chair of St. Peter where four Saints of the Church are holding onto a piece of the chair, which inside of the statue of the chair are relics from the chair that St. Peter sat in.

This is where the Ordination took place a few days later.

The last two things we saw on our tour was the tomb of Blessed Pope John Paul II and the Pieta.