On Saturday we traveled from Florence to Rome. On our way to St. Paul Outside the Walls we stopped at the Tre Fontaine Abbey. It was here that the death of St. Paul took place. Currently Trappist monks of the Cistercian order (Trappists) reside at the Abbey. Here lambs are raised whose wool is used to weave the pallia (the woolen ecclesiastical vestment) given to metropolitan bishopss. Each year on January 21st the Pope blesses these lambs.
St. Paul was beheaded here by the order of Nero. Tradition tells us that when St. Paul’s head was severed from his body his head bounced and struck the earth in three different places, from which the fountains sprang up.
We arrived at St. Paul outside the walls and entered through the Holy Door there. The remarkable church contains the mosaic cameos of every Pope since St. Peter. It is an amazing place and we celebrated Mass in a side chapel.
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