San Pedro has three portals on the façade, only allowed for a cathedral. The story goes that when it was building, permission was asked from Rome for a portal, which was given of course without delay. When the church with its three bronze-knobbed doors was finished, the Vatican was outraged.
“What,” word was sent, “you ask for one door and make three?”
“For two doors one has not to have permission,” came the reply, “only for three. We would have had two, anyway; it was for the extra one we needed to ask.”
The church was finished and consecrated. What could be done?
Monastery bells waken the monks at five o’clock, masses follow every half-hour throughout the morning. Burials are tolled very early by two large, discordant bells, struck simultaneously, “a roaring, sinister, mournful peal.” At noon a great caroling honors the Holy One to whom the next day is dedicated. After sunset three slow peals boom from all churches. Old people stand, men take off their hats. At eight sounds the prayer to the dead, at nine, nine peals from every bell in the city are an invitation to pray for those who die to-night. This is the time when the bell in the left tower of San Pedro rings. The left tower of the cathedral is the home of many owls, which come out at night to cry above the houses where the sick are lying to warn them of approaching death.
Because innocent voices are intercessors most pleasing to God, Indian mothers in the mountains prod the poor little savage babies, flopping
A FRANCISCAN FRIAR AT HOME, LIMA.
on their backs, with long, pointed, rat-tail silver spoons, so that they wail intermittently.