Glooo-ri-a! Gloria!

The lights in the street outside the church. The St. Rita's

Triduum at my parish definitely could learn from this event!

Not Gloria in excelsis Deo! but a cover of Laura Branigan's "Gloria!" was ringing through the square in front of the 11th century church of Santa Maria della Rotunda as I walked home through it last night.  It's part of a three day celebration in Albano Laziale to mark the deliverance of the city from a cholera epidemic in 1867. The people came to this church to pray in front of what is traditionally considered to be a very early Syrian Christian icon of the Theotokos: Mary in her role as Christ-bearer, mother of God, Dei Genetrix as it is inlaid in the wall of the church. 

The celebration includes Masses and prayer times, but also nightly concerts of secular music and pop-up restaurants in the blocked off streets nearby. There are flashing lights arching overhead. 

As I threaded my way through the crowd in the square, I thought how strange it was to be walking the streets of this ancient Italian town and seeing the streets of Pittsburgh in my mind's eye. (This morning, I still have the tune stuck in my ear).  But it turns out that the version made famous by Flashdance isn't the original, it's a late 70s pop song by Italian pop star Umberto Tozzi! (Listen here.) So definitely Italian.

This morning I went to one of the closing Masses (there are three today), enjoying the way the small congregation's responses were amplified by the round church (which is in an old Roman temple or bath).  There might have been fewer than a hundred people in there, but I have rarely felt so engulfed by the liturgy, so firmly grounded in the faith proclaimed.