Glorious and Triumphant, Humble and Enduring

To the casual tourist or even pilgrim at first glance Rome seems to be a giant museum of the baroque period. It almost seems as if there were a huge building spree in the 16th and 17th century and then somehow all the artists and architects collapsed from exhaustion and went elsewhere. It looks like there is a church on every corner in Rome, or even two to a corner, all filled chockablock with dense baroque art and architecture. In every church every inch of space is filled, literally from floor to ceiling with the intense, romantic art that reflects the values, taste and concerns of the Catholic Church in the Counter-Reformation era. In the midst of this abundance of riches I began to feel as if I had entered into some parallel universe, a living history museum from the mid-17th century. Rome can easily seem like a singular monument to the phenomenon of the Church glorious and triumphant.

But gradually I noticed something else, evidence of the Church humble and enduring. In the nooks and crannies of numerous baroque monuments were testimonies to a deep, powerful contemporary faith that speaks to the needs of our hurting world. I saw this in little glimpses of the Catholic faith living and active in the midst of so much history.

* In a church with mosaics dating to the 6th century a couple was celebrating their marriage while tourists and pilgrims wandered in and out taking pictures as they quietly entered into the sacramental commitment of a lifetime.

* One Saturday evening several of us went to an English liturgy in the Duomo (Cathedral) in Florence. We were a rather motley crew of hot, sweaty, English speaking travelers celebrating the sacred mysteries at the site known to Michelangelo, Giotto, Donatello and others, as we celebrated the same sacrament that they did.

* In the Church of San Ambrogio in Rome, next to the relics of St. Polycarp, martyr of the 2nd century, was a small shrine to a contemporary, African, Trappist monk who has been beatified. There are still saints being made and honored in our midst.

* In a church that dates to one of the earliest “house churches” of Rome, which displayed a relic of pillar against which Jesus was scourged, the immigrant Filipino community in Rome has a vibrant, faith-filled parish.

* One evening we went to a church which also boasts a lineage from the earliest centuries and whose outside walls were lined with bits of marble inscriptions dating to the 4th century. Inside we went to a packed Vespers service of the San Egidio community, a contemporary faith community dedicated to helping the urban poor.

The monuments and history of Rome are amazing to see and a great way to appreciate the breadth and depth of our faith. But it is also challenging to see that our faith is not just the stuff of history and monuments, it is living, active, challenging and humbling to all of us who continue to strive to live the way Jesus called us to live.

Unexpected Encounters

Perhaps as Christians one of the most important questions we need to keep asking ourselves every day is where is Christ in our daily life? It is especially important because I’m not sure the answer is always obvious.

To be in Rome is to see how so many people have put so much incredible work and resources into building, decorating and maintaining many, many magnificent churches. Huge basilicas and even smaller neighborhood churches are intense displays of florid baroque art and architecture, the fruit of many people’s attempt to demonstrate their love of God and the Church.

It was a great gift to be part of many liturgies in these churches, to celebrate the presence of God in these places of beauty and history.

But in the midst of such beauty and expressions of worship another experience kept coming back to me and hasn’t left me alone.

We were staying with the Missionary Benedictine sisters in Rome a little way away from the more touristy areas. We would occasionally have afternoons off and I would walk along the bus route to a commercial area a few miles away. At one particular rather deserted intersection I was surprised to see a couple of women who appeared to be African. They were standing in this little used spot on the road, near some bushes, one with a parasol and both wearing clothes that would get them turned away from most churches. I admit I’ve been in Cottonwood a little too long because it took me a while to figure out that they were prostitutes.

I never spoke to them, I suspect we had neither a common language nor a common reality, so I simply smiled every time I walked by.

But the experience hasn’t left me. Is Christ present in the glorious, baroque churches and liturgies of Rome? Absolutely. But is he also present in the midst of women who are far from their homes with no options to support themselves except on street corners? Absolutely. Christ is present in the least of people as well as in the greatest buildings and liturgies.

I don’t know what the moral of this story is. Perhaps just that the real presence of Christ is not only in the sacrifice of the Mass but also in the most rejected and despised of society. Jesus didn’t just invite the nice people to his table, he invited all of us, and none of us is worthy. An unexpected encounter on a street corner in Rome was a good reminder for me to ask myself where I am seeing Christ and who I am inviting to my table.

On These Bones

I had always wondered about Catholics and their obsession with relics, little bits of saints bones in elaborate containers which they seemed to worship. It was rather startling then, or perhaps simply the comeuppance of a former Baptist, that one of the most powerful experiences in Rome was visiting the “Scavi,” the excavations under St. Peter’s Basilica that recently unearthed the original burial place of Peter.

Catholics have long claimed that Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,” meant that the person of Peter was the foundation of the Church. Protestants of course have hastened to differ, asserting that it is Peter’s faith that Jesus was referring to. After seeing the excavations and hearing the story of how Peter was killed and where he was buried, it is clear that the distinction isn’t all that important.

As part of our pilgrimage in Rome we received a special tour of the excavations that are quite literally underneath the massive St. Peter’s Basilica. We descended several stories underneath the ground and heard how, beginning in the late 1930’s and continuing through the 1950’s Pope Pius XII started a program to excavate the earliest site of the tomb of St. Peter. According to tradition Peter was brought to Rome, imprisoned and finally crucified upside down at the Circus of Nero, the present site of St. Peter’s Square.

We walked through an ancient necropolis, a city of the dead, with marble sacrophogi that contained the remains of people from the first centuries of the Church, both pagan and Christian. We heard the stories of how the first Christians hurriedly buried the remains of Peter and carefully, unobtrusively marked the spot where he lay so that his remains could be venerated by believers and not destroyed by the officials of the Empire. By the time of Constantine and the legalization of Christianity the first of several churches were built over the place where Peter was buried. Over the centuries and the building of ever more ornate churches the site of the original tomb was lost. After the 20th century excavations, layers and layers beneath the current main altar of the Basilica, remnants of the bones of Peter were discovered and reinterred in a clear container so that a glimpse of Peter’s relics can be seen.

This man and his faith is the foundation of our Church. A man of deep contradictions Peter left everything to follow Christ and then denied him not once but three times. This is the man who impulsively began following Jesus walking across the water and then began to sink in his doubt. Peter seems to be absent from the cross and then doesn’t understand the meaning of the empty tomb And yet this same Peter is the one who preaches the Gospel to the world and finally so threatens the power of the Roman Empire that he is brought to Rome in shackles to be crucified in the heart of the Empire.

The story of Peter is a story of transformation and redemption. It is the story of an ordinary, impulsive and sometimes cowardly man who kept picking himself up and going forward in faith. His is the story of a very unlikely person chosen by God to do extraordinary things. The story of Peter is of a man who gave up his very life for God. Peter’s story is our story. On Peter, this rickety, unstable and unexpected foundation, the power of the greatest empire known to history stumbled and fell. On this foundation we stand, just as limited and human, cowardly and clueless as Peter, and like Peter we are building a new reality, a new form of power which is the Reign of God.

Pilgrimage: When Roaming About is Good for the Soul

"Something to bring back to show
you have been there: a lock of God's
hair, stolen from him while he was
asleep; a photograph of the garden
of the spirit. As has been said,
the point of traveling is not
to arrive but to return home
laden with pollen you shall work up
into honey the mind feeds on.
R. J. Thomas

What kind of honey will this pilgrimage produce? I have been home from Rome for a week and a half, a very intense, busy time of volunteers and meetings. But I also have the sense of still having a foot in an alternative time and reality, carrying the gifts of a sacred time and space.

Benedict frowns on travel for his monks, at least travel without permission. He designs the monastery to be self-contained. “Then there will be no need for the monks to roam outside, because this is not at all good for their souls.” (RB 66:7) I suppose for all of us an aimless “roaming,” born of an inner antsiness, a desire to stave off boredom or simply be titillated by some new and unique thing, is indeed bad for our souls. Pilgrimage though is an inner stretching to see God in new ways and to be open to God doing the work of transformation in us. I think Benedict would appreciate this kind of travel.

To be in Rome and visit the sites of Benedict and Scholastica was an experience of standing on the shoulders of giants. We owe our faith to the men and women before us who lived, suffered, rejoiced and died with the integrity of their beliefs and search for God. It is humbling to visit sites of people who gave up everything for their faith, who paved the way for us who now walk easily on the road of faith.

In the company of about thirty other Benedictine women from North America, Australia and India I had a chance to appreciate the great heritage we have as Christians, as sons and daughters of Benedict. I came back with a sense of both gratitude and caution. Seeing multiple, rich, elaborate churches is a caution that Jesus’ radical option for the poor and marginalized cannot and should not be buried in baroque grandiosity. I also experienced deep gratitude that the church, this often limping and clueless collection of pilgrims on the way, is still struggling mightily to live out Jesus’ call to bring about the Reign of God in the world.

In the days ahead I will share more specific stories of the roaming (Rome-in) about that was good for my soul.