All you need for an explanation is this photo:

Yes, that is how Joseph made his way around the Eternal City. Eternally Goofy. While the baby vainly tries to indicate his presence…

Photo courtesy of Blogger Gashwin.

The photo was snapped in the courtyard of the not-to-be-missed Church of S. Clemente also described here. It’s one of the more (deservedly) well-known excavations in Rome: an 12th-century church (restored in the 18th), built on top of a 4th-century church, built on top of a complex of houses, some probably used as house churches by Christians, and one, at least, in Mithraean cultic practices.

The underground structures were discovered in the 1850’s by a Dominican priest – one can still see the original hole through which he broke into the lower levels. Here’s an excellent detailed article on the structures, which I wish I’d read before I went.

(A lot of you are writing me to tell you that this travelogue is whetting your appetite to go to Rome. Writing is whetting my appetite to go back, this time with time in Assisi and Siena added to the mix. Crazy when we’re still lurching around only half-recovered. Ah, but like the pains of childbirth, the agony of that 13-hour plane time on Monday will soon fade, I’m confident…)

Every bit of the experience is worth savoring, and for longer than we were able to give it. The upper church, even with some rather excessive late additions, is lovely and still evocative of medieval sensibilities – always a relief in Rome after over-exposure to the Baroque and Roccoco – and the excavations are totally absorbing, cool and quiet, even with the tourists exploring, the sound of water coursing by at one point, the faded frescoes carefully preserved. As you stand and study them, you can’t help but cast yourself back in time, as you do regularly in Rome, and imagine the Christians of 1400 years ago worshipping in this space, where you are standing now. It is not just historical curiosity that is satisfied; it is the hope for an anchor and community that is fulfilled in places like this.

Oh, and the Mithraen shrine? Yes, there was that, and it was intriguing to imagine the scenes there, as well. The rocky paths and corners were just too tempting though, and seemed an invitation of some sort to goofiness and giddiness…perhaps the spirit of ancient worshippers, bathed in the blood of bulls? Who knows. Oh, it wasn’t a serious fall, but a totall predictable tumble on aged, hardened floors that were once roads and paths. I’m sure children had fallen there before, perhaps even millenia ago. More ties that bind – Christians to Christians; children trying to make their own amusements in a world of grown-up interests then – and now.