Paul Juma Makhandia

Year after year, millions of visitors from all over the world descend on Rome to find epic masterpieces through the lens of their compulsion. Squatted against the Colosseum, monument of grandeur they are side lopped by the Pantheon. The cash will drain into Travi Foutain and as they pit themselves in the city’s depths farther, one finds something more attractive; even if it is Holy See, St. Peter’s Basilica or the bleak Sistine Chapel of course they are really Cathedral. The shift inaugurates a whole new order in the work.

There are timeless cobblestones. The artistic ancient churches and monuments. The ancient bells tolling the Angelus and the magnificent harmonized Gregorian chants from monasteries and vibrations of pipe organs in Cathedrals and chapels rising and curling of incense. They are history, all of them part and parcel with an even more sacred journey. A lot of Eternal City only visitors are at the tourist trap, seduced by the architectural and artistic splendor that makes Rome. Of course, something pops up. Pilgrimages sink a few casual viewers and turn them into seekers. The city makes religious objects out of everything.

Others notice the change gradually. The busy trains, trams and buses offering awesome transportation services to its visitors accompanied by blended tourists in the beautiful streets. Sweet smelling pizza and coffee covers the environment. “I expected beautiful art and history, but I didn’t expect to feel something so profoundly spiritual,” Said one of the pilgrims. The beauty of St. Peter’s Basilica as well as a presence that defied explanation completely captivates.

Any visit to Rome is not really finished without witnessing such holy sites like St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls and St Mary Major, the tomb St Catherine of Siena in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, or say a prayer at the shrine of St Philip Neri. Each has its own distinctive spiritual significance.

Something more; St. Peter’s Basilica and the outside sacral voyage of the Vatican with actually transform their outlooks too. The road is all different upfront on their knees to promote some introspection. History is now historical not just a story. Early Christian worshipped secretly in catacombs that murmur in the back-ground longing manifested faith. Somehow it raises the heart to relics of saints, candles burning (dim) in secret chapels and Gregorian composers calling from old churches. With tourist-path being transformed into spiritual pilgrimage, its old-look becomes trendy.

The city is haptically to Jubilee 2025, an inspirational leap in the year Rome welcoming its peregrinations. One of the pilgrims said, “I have never been really religious but when I went to Catacombs something clicked in my brain. All of the inscriptions, religious symbolism chiseled into stone, the suffering and self-sacrifices this people had to go through really got me.”

This is the year all roads lead to Rome besides 2025 Jubilee, a sublime event that happens every 25 years (once again!) and this year this one is more sacred. In this city of all nationalities that come flocking behind the Pope Francis order, Jubilee is a renewal and new hope. Only in Jubilee years are these Holy Doors to be found exclusively at the Four Greatest Basilicas, and they are the access through which profess must slip up into a new spiritual nativity.

With Rome saying goodbye to its pilgrims, it sure doesn’t leave them high and dry. Rather, it bestows on them something intangible but in the core — a refreshed soul, a heart filled with light and a stronger belief they found on their journey. Be that as it may, the Eternal City endures not only as a city marked on a map but as a guiding spirit on the path of life. A vacation takes root and blossoms like a homecoming. Rome is a place where for those who have trod its hallowed ground, well beyond destination. The road to transformation the still small voice of something more an offer to be more than just a tourist but pilgrim.