Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Lenten Station at Saint Marcellus's

Non-Italic Text taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal for Wednesday in Passion Week
Pictures and Italic text taken from Wikipedia (the free encyclopaedia) (unless otherwise accredited)
Station at Saint Marcellus's
Indulgence of 10 years and 10 Quarantines
Violet Vestments

 


The High Altar at San Marcello al Corso

The Church of Saint Marcellus, where today’s Station is held, was one of the twenty-five Parish Churches of Rome in the 5th-Century. Originally the house of the holy matron, Lucina, where she received Saint Marcellus, it was transformed by her into a Sanctuary and dedicated to this holy Pope, whose body rests under the High Altar.

The Mass of today shows us the obstinacy of the Jews in rejecting Jesus, as they had already rejected His Father. The Divine Law given by Him whom the Epistle calls six times “the Lord”, “whose word is stable” declared formally “that one may not shed his neighbour’s blood, nor hate his father in his heart”. The members of the Sanhedrin, on the contrary, hated Christ and sought to stone Him (Gospel). Unfaithful to God “who orders His laws to be kept” (Epistle), they blamed Jesus “whom the Father has sent” and who is the Son of God. “The Father and I are one. The miracles that I have worked come from my Father.” “Rejecting the legitimate pastor of their Souls, they are no longer His sheep,” and will be replaced by the Gentiles, who, baptised or reconciled to God at the Easter Festival, are “the sheep who hear His voice and to whom He gives eternal life” (Gospel).


The Apse in San Marcello al Corso 

Let us be faithful to Jesus and pray God “to sanctify our Fast and illumine our hearts” (Collect), in order that, delivered from the abyss into which our sins had made us fall (Gradual), we “may wash our hands among the innocent and proclaim the wondrous works of God” (Communion).

[Three Feasts called the Jews to Jerusalem: In the Spring, it was the Feast of the Passover, instituted to commemorate the departure from Egypt; In the Autumn, it was the Feast of Tabernacles, in commemoration of the sojourn of the Jews in tents in the desert; In the Winter (middle of December), it was the Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Temple, which the Machabees had purified after their victory. It was on the occasion of this last Feast that Jesus, in the third year of His ministry, spoke the words in today’s Gospel. He was then under Solomon’s Porch, which faces the ravine of Cedron.]

San Marcello al Corso is a Church in Rome, dedicated to Pope Marcellus I. It is located in via del Corso, the ancient via Lata, connecting Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo.

While the tradition holds that the Church was built over the prison of Pope Marcellus I (who died in  309 A.D.), it is known that the Titulus Marcelli was already present in 418 A.D., when Pope Boniface I was elected here. 



Facade of San Marcello al Corso 

Pope Adrian I, in the 8th-Century, built a church in the same place, which is currently under the modern Church.

The corpse of Cola di Rienzo, was held in the church for three days after his execution in 1354. In 1519, a fire destroyed the Church. The money collected for its rebuilding was used to bribe the landsknechts, who were pillaging the city during the Sack of Rome (1527). The original plan to rebuild the Church was designed by Jacopo Sansovino, who fled the city during the Sack and never returned to finish it. The work was continued by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who rebuilt the Church, but a Tiber flood damaged it again in 1530. It was only in 1592 that the Church was completed, and later Carlo Fontana built the facade.


The Sacristy Ceiling of San Marcello al Corso

Under the High Altar, decorated with 12th-Century opus sectile, are the relics of several Saints, which include those of Pope Marcellus as well as Digna and Emerita. The last chapel on the left is dedicated to Saint Philip Benizi. The Late-Baroque decoration contains sculptures by Francesco Cavallini and reliefs by Ercole Ferrata and Antonio Raggi. The first chapel on the left has the double tomb of Cardinal Giovanni Michiel and his grandson, Antonio Orso, sculpted by Jacopo Sansovino.

Behind the facade is a Crucifixion (1613) by Giovanni Battista Ricci. Along the first chapel is an Annunciation by Lazzaro Baldi; in the second chapel, a Martyrdom of Saints Digna and Emerita (1727) by Pietro Barbieri; in the third chapel, a Madonna with Child, a fresco of the late-14th-Century, episodes of the Life of the Virgin by Francesco Salviati, fresco and paintings by Giovan Battista Ricci; in the fourth chapel, a Creation of Eve and the evangelists, Mark and John, frescoes by Perin del Vaga, Matthew and Luke, begun by Perin del Vaga and finished by Daniele da Volterra. Inside, is a cyborium (1691) designed by Carlo Bizzaccheri; in the fifth chapel is a monument to Cardinal Fabrizio Paolucci (1726) by Pietro Bracci and a monument to Cardinal Camillo Paolucci by Tommaso Righi (1776) and wall paintings by Aureliano Milani. On the left nave, in the fifth chapel, is a San Filippo Benizi (1725) by Pier Leone Ghezzi; in the fourth chapel, the Conversion of Saint Paul (1560) by Federico Zuccari and his brother Taddeo and, on the sides, a History of Saint Paul. The inside of the chapel has busts of Muzio, Roberto, Lelio Frangipane by Alessandro Algardi (1630-40). In the third chapel, on the left, is a Doloroso by Pietro Paolo Naldini, Sacrifice of Isaac and discovery of Moses by Domenico Corvi; in the first chapel, a Madonna and seven Saints by Agostino Masucci.

The Church is administered and owned by the Servite Order since 1369.

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