Roman Text is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.
Italic Text, Illustrations and Captions, are taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.
Indulgence of 10 years and 10 Quarantines.
Violet Vestments.
The Station is at the Church of Saint Clement, built above the very house of the third successor of Saint Peter, whose name is found in the Canon of the Mass. This Sanctuary, a Parish of Rome in the 5th-Century, is a most faithful example of an old Roman Basilica, although it was rebuilt in the 11th-Century. There are found, under the Altar, the remains of the Holy Martyr and of Saint Ignatius of Antioch.
English: Basilica of Saint Clement, Rome.
Italian: Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano
Photo: May 2007.
Source: Own work.
Author: Berthold Werner
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Station is at the Church of Saint Clement, built above the very house of the third successor of Saint Peter, whose name is found in the Canon of the Mass. This Sanctuary, a Parish of Rome in the 5th-Century, is a most faithful example of an old Roman Basilica, although it was rebuilt in the 11th-Century. There are found, under the Altar, the remains of the Holy Martyr and of Saint Ignatius of Antioch.
Our Lord foretells in the Gospel that the Jews will lift Him up on the Cross, and thrice He asserts that they will die in their sin, because they have not believed in Him and done His works.
The wrath of God, which fell a first time on Jerusalem at the time of the Captivity of Babylon (Epistle), was renewed against Israel at the burning of the Temple. Like guilty Christians, they would only be able to return to the Lord by Penance, while the heathen are called, instead, to believe in Jesus, to become part of His people by Baptism.
“Let us mortify our flesh by abstinence from food and let us fast from sin by following justice” (Collect).
Interior of the Basilica di San Clemente,
Rome, Italy.
Rome, Italy.
Photo: March 2006.
Source: Own work.
Author: Sixtus
Permission: GFDL
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Basilica of Saint Clement (Italian: Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano) is a Roman Catholic Minor Basilica, dedicated to Pope Clement I, located in Rome, Italy. Archaeologically-speaking, the structure is a three-tiered complex of buildings:
(1) The present Basilica, built just before the year 1100, during the height of the Middle Ages;
(2) Beneath the present Basilica, is a 4th-Century Basilica that had been converted out of the home of a Roman nobleman, part of which had, in the 1st-Century, briefly served as an early Church, and the basement of which had, in the 2nd-Century, briefly served as a mithraeum;
(3) The home of the Roman nobleman had been built on the foundations of a Republican-era building that had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 64 A.D.
Ceiling of the Basilica of Saint Clement, Rome.
Photo: May 2007.
Source: Own work.
Author: Berthold Werner
(Wikimedia Commons)
The archaeological traces of the Basilica's history were discovered in the 1860s by Joseph Mullooly, Lector in Sacred Theology, beginning in 1849 at the College of Saint Thomas in Rome, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.
The lowest levels of the present Basilica are remnants of the foundation of a Republican-era building that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 64 A.D. An industrial building, possibly the Imperial Mint of Rome, was built on the site during the "Flavian" period and, shortly thereafter, a "domus", or multi-level house, alongside it, separated form the industrial building by a narrow alleyway.
About a hundred years later (circa 200 A.D.), the central room of the domus was re-modelled for use as part of a mithraeum, that is, as part of a sanctuary of the cult of Mithras. The main cult room (the speleum, "cave", which is about 9.6 m long and 6 m wide, was discovered in 1867, but could not be investigated until 1914, due to lack of drainage. The "exedra", the shallow Apse at the far end of the low vaulted space, was trimmed with pumice to render it more cave-like.
English: Mithraeum, under the Basilica of Saint Clement, in Rome.
Italiano: Mitreo sottostante la basilica di San Clemente a Roma.
Русский: Митреум под базиликой святого Климента.
Date: 2006-12-17 12-22 Rom.
Source: Uploaded on Flickr as 2006-12-17 12-22
Author: Allie Caulfield
(Wikimedia Commons)
Central to the main room of the sanctuary, was found an altar, in the shape of a sarcophagus, and with the main cult relief of the tauroctony, Mithras slaying a bull, on its front face. The torch-bearers, Cautes and Cautopates, appear on, respectively, the left and right faces of the same monument.
A dedicatory inscription identifies the donor as one pater Cnaeus Arrius Claudianus, perhaps of the same clan as Titus Arrius Antoninus' mother. Other monuments discovered in the sanctuary include a bust of Sol, kept in the sanctuary in a niche near the entrance, and a figure of "Mithras petra generix, i.e. "Mithras born of the rock".
11th-Century fresco in the Basilica di San Clemente, Rome.
Source/Photographer: Unknown.
(Wikimedia Commons)
All three monuments, mentioned above, are still on display in the mithraeum. A fourth monument, – a statue of Saint Peter found in the speleum's vestibule and still on display there – is not of the mysteries.
I visited this Basilica in 2001. It's a wonderful look into the History of the Church. It's not only beautiful in appearance, but in the richness of it's story.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Fr. Pastor (RCC), for your Comment.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you as to the beauty of the Basilica and, indeed, its richness in the story.