I figure that some of these sidebar pictures may need some explaining. I am delighted that RC did such a wonderful job of cropping the pics and setting them up to change everyday. They all have some connection to The history and charism of St. Gaspar and the Devotion to the Precious Blood.
The picture today is from the "Burro." In front of the facade of the Church of St. Ignatius opens out this seventeenth century scenario of the Palazzi of the Burro, a complex of five fifths of a building, a flowing and almost circular arrangment, forming one of the most unique piazzas in late baroque Rome.
The name "Burro" comes from the french office (bureau) installed here during the Napoleonic occupation near the customs offices. In one of these offices St. Gaspar refused to swear the oath of loyalty to Napoleon.
It was on the morning of June 13, 1810, St. Gaspar was summoned here and the famous words were uttered: "I cannot, I must not, I will not."
For this he endured four years of exile and prison.
This picure, looking toward the sky, was taken during a trip to Rome in 2003 when I spent the summer at the Formation Directors School.
