How Latin can help your devotion.

I got a pleasant surprise yesterday while looking through my Rome photos. I was trying to find something for next week's feast of Pope Saint Clement I, and was looking at some of the pictures I took from the basilica of San Clemente in Rome where his relics are. As I was studying this picture:


of the main altar in the upper church of San Clemente, I suddenly noticed the inscription:
"HIC REQUIESCUNT CORPORA SS. CLEMENTIS PAPÆ ET IGN-"

click picture for better detail
I noticed that "requiescunt" and "corpora" were plural. Someone else is apparently buried there with Pope Saint Clement, and there is that "et Ign-" but the rest of the name was cut off by the wall when I took the picture from that angle. So the line says "Here lie the bodies of Saints Clement, Pope, and Ign?????" I didn't have a picture from another angle that would have helped, so I ended up looking at the information about San Clemente on The Churches of Rome Wiki (which is linked on the sidebar of this blog. It's a pretty good site, although it is very rough and I have found a few errors in the details of some churches).

Lo and behold, the relics of Saint Ignatius of Antioch are there too! This was especially providential because a friend of mine who is studying for the permenant Diaconate is doing a presentation on Saint Ignatius of Antioch, and we were trying to find out where he was buried but were having problems getting any information.

So, I'll have to add Saint Ignatius of Antioch to my list of friends I visited while in Rome. (As I said on that list, I knew there were other Saints whom I had probably been near but didn't even realize.)

See, knowing Latin does help the laity become more devoted.

RS