St. Eustace and His Companions

Eustace was commander-in-chief in the army of the Emperor Trajan. Having refused to thank the gods for a triumph, he was burned to death with his wife and two children, after undergoing many cruel tortures in 120.

It was quite a full day, to say the least. We awoke at 4:15 am, packed our bags, ate breakfast, and headed out to Prague with Br. Basil, a Benedictine monk who is studying at the ITI. The car ride was about 4 and 1/2 hours. The first thing we did was pay a visit to the Infant of Prague, who is in the Church of Our Lady Victorious:

In the 17th century a Spanish princess brought a statue of the Infant Jesus to Prague. It was given to the Carmelites and set up in a chapel. When the Chapel was destroyed by the Protestant armies during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the statue was thrown like trash into a heap behind the altar. In 1637 a priest found the statue, with its arms broken off, and replaced it in the Chapel. One day as he was praying before it, he heard a voice say:

"HAVE PITY ON ME, AND I WILL HAVE PITY ON YOU. GIVE ME MY HANDS, AND I WILL GIVE YOU PEACE. THE MORE YOU HONOR ME, THE MORE I WILL BLESS YOU."

Next we trekked up a hill to the Castle Quarter; we went into the Loretta Church, in the Courtyard of which is a chapel that contains a piece of the house of the Holy Family from Nazareth. The outside of the chapel is pictured below, but no photos were allowed inside the Santa Casa.

We continued up the hill to a monastery complex. Inside, while Lisa played outside with Maria, who would have no patience for such things, myself, Br. Basil and Katie explored the monastery's beautiful Library.

From the monastery's gardens there was a great view of the city, in particular of the Cathedral of St. Vitus in the courtyard of Prague Castle.

Lunch was up next. As fantastic as traditional Czech cuisine is, the highlight was certainly the beer. Although pilsner beers are not usually our favorite (we find they have less flavor than, say, wheat beers), there was nothing to complain about in these. Pilsners were invented, and perfected, in the Czech Republic.

Then, it was onto the Cathedral of St. Vitus, a magnificent Gothic church. Inside we saw the tombs of the two principal patrons of Bohemia: King St. Wenceslaus (martyred 935), and St. John Nepomuk (martyred 1393). St. John Nepomuk's tomb is pictured below, with the picture of St. Wenceslaus' tomb underneath.

As we were walking up the hill to the Castle Quarter in the morning, we saw a shop containing what appeared to be very fine and authentic Italian ice cream. As we walked down the hill, we decided it was time for gelato. This may have been Maria's highlight!

Finally, it was on to Charles Bridge (from which St. John Nepomuk was cast to his death for not breaking the seal of Confession). This bridge was commissioned by King Charles IV in 1357. On the bridge are 30 statues of Saints which were built mostly in the 17th century. The most famous statue, that of St. John Nepomuk, unfortunately was covered with scaffolding as workers tore apart the very bridge we were walking on. The gates to the bridge (pictures below) are among the finest examples in Europe of civil Gothic architecture.

The rest of our pictures from the day are online here: Prague.