Getting to the Point

Well, I'm still in transit, planning to get back to Combermere this evening, and meanwhile enjoying the peace and quiet of my cousin's house in Ottawa. Since I'm not quite back in the saddle yet at MH, I thought today I would reflect one last time on some of my Roman experience. Tomorrow, God willing, on to other things.

Specifically, I wanted to talk a bit about this:

l-r: Dina Lingard, myself, Deacon Mike Weitl, Joanne Dionne, Fr. Murray Kuemper

Namely, the reason I went to Rome in the first place, which was the diaconate ordination of the guy in the middle, Mike Weitl. Now, I have a firm policy on this blog of not writing about my MH brothers and sisters, and I don't plan to break that policy on this post. Just because I have chosen to blog and thus surrender something of my privacy and personal space in doing so, they haven't, and so I pretty much leave my MH community out of the blog. So of course I won't talk about Michael here, or the members of MH who came from various directions to be present at the ordination.

But I do want to talk about this reality of 'diaconate', specifically of the so-called transitional diaconate that men preparing for the ordained priesthood receive. Strictly speaking, there is nothing 'transitional' about it, as every sacrament of Holy Orders leaves a permanent character on the soul of the recipient. Every priest is also a deacon, and every bishop remains both priest and deacon.

I think there is great theological meaning in the Church's bestowing the sacrament of Orders in the way it does. 'Deacon', of course, means 'servant' in Greek--diakonos. The sacrament of Holy Orders is all about the man, who is just an ordinary guy with the same mixture of virtue and sin, strength and weakness as any other guy, receiving a certain configuration to Christ for the sake of His Body the Church.

The fullness of this ordained configuration is the bishop, deputed to govern, sanctify and teach the Christian people in truth and in love, a mission impossible for man unless Christ permanently configures him to do this by a special unique grace. The priest is ordained to assist the bishop in this mission, particularly in the day to day administration of the sacraments to God's people and the preaching of the word.

But all this ministry rests upon the call to diakonia, to service, to being a servant as Christ was a servant. And I think this is where there is great wisdom and theological meaning in the 'transitional' diaconate. Before the 'sacred powers' are given to the man, the power-in-Christ to confect the Eucharist or forgive sins, he is configured to Christ the servant. Before he is given a measure of authority or governance in the Church, he is given the mandate to serve, to wash the feet of his brothers and sisters, to use whatever power or position he has been given as a ministry, a service and not abuse it for his own dominance and advantage.

The tri-partite structure of the sacrament of Holy Orders calls the ordained bishop and priest to a constant reflection on the nature of the 'gift and mystery' we have been given. We are called to be servants of all and to exercise our ministry as a constant act of love and humility for the good of others.

Oh, I know, we all know, that this does not always work out so well in practice. Just like every person who is baptized and confirmed does not go on to become a great saint, just like every married couple does not go on to manifest the faithful fruitful love of Christ for His Church to the world, just like we can receive Eucharist and Reconciliation and still struggle on in mediocrity and compromise, so the ordained man is not guaranteed by his ordination to pour out his life in service to the Church. The sacraments are not magic tricks that rob us of free will, but are the assured presence and action of God in His Church to make possible what is humanly impossible.

As I sat in St. Peter's Basilica during the magnificent rite of ordination, my eyes continually went to a statue in my line of vision, this one, in fact:


Yes, back to St. Francis of Assisi, the poor man of Christ, the deacon who chose to remain a deacon. I found myself simply lifting up Michael and his 40 classmates to the prayers and care of St. Francis, asking him to help them and help us all to take hold of the heart of the Gospel, which is a heart of service, of humility, and of love. It is this and this alone which will allow us to find God's path through this difficult and complex time in our world, this and this alone which will open us to the grace we need to love one another as Christ loved us and show forth that love to a world that so badly needs it.

OK, whew! After almost 24 hours of continuous travel yesterday, counting from when we left the hotel at 8 a.m. Rome time (2 a.m. EST) to when I landed at my cousin's house in Ottawa at 11 p.m., I'm back in business. I have a day or so in Ottawa to have a bit of a visit with my family--the only one I'm going to have this year--and then back to MH and regular life Tuesday evening.

Final thoughts on Rome - no photos, though, as at a certain point I just gave up on the camera. If there was a way to make that thing take non-blurry photographs (and I'm sure there was) it exceeded my non-existent skill level. I am just not a photographer, which I suppose to anyone who knows me well is no great surprise - I have the visual sensitivity and observational abilities of a man in a coma as a matter of general life.

Now, when last I wrote you all we had just gotten back from Assisi, I believe. To sum up the remaining trip and its itinerary, Wednesday morning was the general audience with the Holy Father in St. Peter's Square, the text of which I will be blogging about shortly, as it was quite magnificent. I was amazed, actually, at how much of the Italian I could understand - Pope Francis enunciates very clearly, and of course I knew what he was likely to say on the subject, which is 'the holiness of the Church'. Wednesday afternoon was free (zzzzz.....), and the evening included a prayer vigil for the deacons-to-be and a festive supper.

Thursday was the diaconate ordination itself, in St. Peter's basilica, at the Altar of the Chair, followed by a reception at the college and magnificent celebratory supper in the evening. Friday we went to the catacombs of St. Priscilla, the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Saturday we had the Lateran Basilica, the Sacred Stairs (traditionally, if not quite historically, the stairs Jesus climbed to stand before Pontius Pilate), and the Church of Sancta Croce de Jerusalem, where the relics of the True Cross are housed. A final Mass at the North American College and one more blowout Italian meal wrapped up the week.

So that was what we did. Now, what to make of all this? I'm still thinking about it quite intensely. Rome is overpowering on every level - the degree of beauty, history, theological depth, traditional piety, human and divine expression of church life that is present on every level, at every turn of the road and vista of landscape is beyond the capacity of the normal human being to take in. It is breathtakingly immense in scale, and very, very beautiful indeed.

And... I want to express this carefully here. I am not an iconoclast, or a Philistine, nor do I have any desire to see Rome be anything but what it is. But I have to be honest - what I keep coming back to in my mind and my heart is the bones of the fisherman under the high altar at St. Peter's. The bones of the martyrs and the crude but evocatively beautiful frescoes in the catacombs of St. Prisicilla. And the poor man of Assisi, this man who was no martyr, but who poured his life's blood out in love and praise and imitation of Christ.

This is the heart of the Church. The Church is built not on a foundation of marble and stone, but on the blood of the saints and their love, which itself is a direct sharing in the blood of Christ and the love of the Father. The beauty of the Church, at its heart, is not in mosaic and fresco, stained glass and arches, domes and baldacchinos and apses, as truly and genuinely beautiful as all that is.

The beauty of the Church is the beauty of holiness, of all the poor little people (some of whom are cardinals and popes!) who have somehow, against all human possibility and in every possible manner of human circumstance, picked up their cross and followed Christ to the end. This is the splendor and majesty of Christian life--not exactly the splendor and majesty of sculpture and architecture, but God's sculpting, God's building, God's great work of art which is the redeemed and divinized flesh of man, and beside which all the outpouring of beauty of Bernini and Michelangelo pale into insignificance.

I guess all this is another way of saying that (in case any of them are reading this) I was just as impressed and moved by being with the family and friends of Deacon Michael Weitl, Michael himself, and my MH brothers and sisters who joined us for the celebration, as I was with Rome. A single human being who is even in the process of being built into this temple of God which we call a 'saint' is more magnificent and glorious to me than the whole city of Rome and its splendour.

So what is Rome, then? To me, Rome is an icon of the Church. It is good that so much work and genius and (yes) money has been poured into making this place happen over the millennia. It is good that we have city like Rome that reflects the true beauty of the Church, that shows that our faith is glorious, is magnificent, is the most precious and breathtaking reality that exists, and is worth all the marble and glass and stone and artistry we can give it.

Rome is an icon, ultimately it is an icon of you and me and what we are called to become. We are meant to make our own lives, by the grace of God and through, with, and in Our Lord Jesus Christ, something like that, something beautiful, something that takes our breath away. And that is ultimately and really and only about love, service, surrender, passion, joy, peace, prayer--the whole life of the Christian. Rome calls us, if we look at it rightly and understand what we are looking at, to live up to its beauty and in fact to outshine its beauty with the beauty of a life poured out for God and for neighbour, to manifest God's beauty in our towns and cities, our parishes and families. To be saints, in short. And that's what I think about Rome!

As you all may have noticed, the blog has gone a bit silent the last couple days. The reason is simple and short-term - I am just totally overwhelmed with the last days of my Roman pilgrimage experience. My heart is full, my mind is full, my days are full and, yes, my stomach is full of mighty good Italian food.

Anyhow, just too much to be able to write about it just now. Hopefully I will be able to share something as I travel back over the weekend, and resume normal blogging as I return to Combermere early next week. Until then, ciao, bambinos.

OK, so yesterday we went there:

Assisi

And that's about it for my own photography of this place (great heaving sighs of relief are heard among my readership. Tales of the Blurred has been cancelled. Sorry my blogging has been so unfocussed lately.)

Besides my lack of skills with a camera, it is also the case that virtually all the interesting bits of Assisi are within the churches, where no photography is allowed. I did get to con-celebrate Mass in the basilica with a number of other priests in Italy for the diaconate ordination, and offered my Mass for a beloved directee of mine who succumbed to cancer just after my arrival here - that was a great blessing, joy, and consolation for me.

The real treasure of Assisi is, of course, the man himself, Francis, and Clare and the mighty band of poor men and women who followed after them. It is hard for me to know what to say about it all - I was intensely happy and peaceful my whole time in Assisi (sadly, just a few hours), and felt utterly at home there. There is so much of Franciscan spirituality in the Madonna House life and spirit that it felt very much like being in another expression of my own vocation.

Meanwhile, I arrived back to hear that Pope Francis (who I saw again today at the General Audience - stay tuned!) gave another media interview that is causing some distress and anxiety among at least some  Catholics. I am not going to address all that right now (I'm on holidays here, folks! Mind you, from my little reading, it sounds like another case of 'Pope says more Catholic stuff, and people are shocked'), but wish to give the following gentle reminders from Giotto, found on the walls of the Basilica there,  as to what it is that upholds the Church, what the constant stream of life and love is that runs through the life of the Church that is the perpetual renewal and restoration of it from century to century.

Dream of Pope Innocent, showing St. Francis holding up the Lateran cathedral in Rome

So, there's that. I am reminded forcibly of the words of Pius XII to Catherine Doherty: "Persevere, Madam, for on groups such as yours rests the fate of the Church and of my own person."In other words, it is holiness, personal and communal, which comes down to the daily choices we make to do God's will or not, love and serve or not, pray and fast, or not. The Pope, the bishops, the clergy all have their proper job to do, and it is an important one. But the lifeblood of the Church is the holiness of God coursing through the souls of its members. Remember that.

Pope Innocent approves the Franciscan rule of life

This fresco shows us the Pope doing his proper job! That is, to respond to the movement of the Holy Spirit in the members of the Church when he sees it, and to give institutional solidity and continuity to it by 'housing' it within the great house of God which is the Catholic Church. The Pope's job is not to be that movement of the Spirit (although he too is one member of the Church, and is called to respond personally to the Holy Spirit), but to bless, to support, to encourage, and to guide the baptized in their personal following of Christ as his disciples. To correct them when they go off course, which means going against the deposit of faith handed on through the living memory of the Church, and to protect and strengthen them as they strive to become the saints of God they are called to be. That striving is your proper job and mine.
Which looks something like this, perhaps:

Francis preaching to the birds

Francis receiving the stigmata

Francis is such a fantastic figure in the life of the Church. We see here two, perhaps of the greatest dimensions of Franciscan holiness: his tender love and concern for all God's creation, and his passionate flaming love of Jesus Christ and identification with Him.

This is holiness - love of God and love of neighbour. Identification with Christ, and the profundity of gentleness and tender mercy that flows from those wounds, those stigmata. It is this--which of course is nothing else than the living presence of Christ flowing through his redeemed flock--that upholds the Church, gives it life and joy and constant renewal. It is this which should be our primary focus, as we strive to serve God in whatever way He has asked us to do.

Which reminds me: tomorrow is the big event that I'm actually here for, the diaconate ordination of Michael Weitl. I will not blog tomorrow, then, but will talk to you all again (God willing!) on Friday.

Well, today was loaded - a trip to Assisi which left Rome at 7.30 a.m. and got back at 7.30 p.m., followed by the (now) typical lovely Roman restaurant supper. Sometimes it's just so darn tough being me!
However, that means I didn't have time to tell you about yesterday, when I got to have a nice day-long visit with this guy:

Not as blurry in real life

Yes, St. Peter. Did I mention what a lousy photographer I am? Yes, yesterday morning was spent in the largest church in the world, the mother church, in a certain sense, of all Western Christianity. The afternoon was spent underneath it.

I am not a good enough writer (frankly) to do anything resembling justice to St. Peter's. It is overwhelming on every level -- size, aesthetics, history, art. Bernini's altar and baldacchino, Michaelangelo's Pieta and dome... oh my. The mosaics are on a level that I have never seen before; the most moving one for me personally, is the mosaic depicting the slaying of Ananias and Sapphira from Acts 4, who lied about money promised to God and were struck down. It greets the priests--the Altar of the Lie--as they come out from the sacristy to celebrate Mass. Sobering, challenging, serious--perfect. Priest of God, do not do one thing and live something else, or you will indeed, one way or another, be struck down.

(not my photo...)

But I am not an art historian, nor am I gifted with any great writing ability of description. I am a theologian (if I am anything much as a writer), and so it is this afternoon, which I have no photographs of at all because they are not permitted, that I wish to reflect on.

The dome of St. Peter's has, at the very top, a depiction of God the Father. A plumb line drawn down from the center of that dome would hit the dove which is at the top of Bernini's baldacchino, symbolizing the descent of the Holy Spirit. A plumb line from that dove would hit the center of the high altar--God the Son made incarnate in Jesus Christ, made a physical living presence at each Mass.

A plumb line descending from the altar through the floor down to the earth would hit the bones of a man, age 65-70, a strong man who worked hard most of his life, whose bones were found at the level of the soil consistent with AD 60s, and whose bones at some later date were wrapped in imperial purple and gold.

Technically, we do not know whose bones these are. But we have a 2000 year tradition that St. Peter was crucified and buried on Vatican Hill, that a small monument was erected there by the early Crhsitians of Rome, and that the emperor Constantine, after the Battle of Milvian Bridge in the early 4th century, built the original basilica over the site, taking care to place the high altar on the actual site of Peter's grave, marked with that monument.

It was only in the 1970s, after a 30 year project of excavations under St. Peter's, that these bones came to light and were identified with almost certain probability as those of the fisherman from Galilee, this rough man, impulsive with an odd mixture of weakness and strength, cowardice and courage--a man, in other words--upon whose life and death the Church's mission, from God the Father through the Spirit in Christ, was established and passed on to the world. That means that this:

Chair of Peter (blurriness added)

rests on this:

Sampling of the bones of St. Peter

There is deep theological matter here. History matters. God entered history. A man was born, who was God. He lived and died, and before He died He chose men to be his apostles, to be the 'sent ones' of the 'Sent One', the One sent by the Father by the overshadowing of the Spirit of the Virgin. And this one man, chief among the apostles, Simon who is called Peter, lived and died, really, and the place of his dying has become this vast monument to the life and death and life again of God in the world, and the living embodiment of the Church's commission by Christ to teach the Gospel to the nations.

It is overwhelming, on every level. I said that to our seminarian Michael who is to be ordained day after tomorrow. His response: 'It's supposed to be!' Amen to that. Tomorrow (God willing) I'll tell you about my day in Assisi!

Day Two in Rome was a full one. If the first day, spent gazing at the ruins of the Colosseum and Forum through bleary jet-lagged eyes, was about encountering the 'usual run' of humanity, as I wrote yesterday, shot through with occasional flashes of divine glory, then yesterday was divinity all the way--God pouring out his divine life in the life of humanity and of the Church. Where to start... well, how about starting where it all started?

Where it all started

This is the relics of the crib of Christ, in the basilica of St. Mary Major. Now, as I said to a member of our party later, to me it is of little importance if this is actually the wood of the manger or not. After 2000 years, who knows? The key thing is not that a historical artifact was or was not preserved; the key thing is that it could have been.

The key thing is that God had a crib. The Incarnation: Baby Jesus. The usual run of divinity, which is to pour itself out in self-gift and love, and this happened, this was, this is real, and it is Jesus. And the one who bears witness to it in a unique way that no one else can is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The one who was there when it started

I was not able to take a picture of the most famous and characteristic image of Our Lady in the basilica, as the Pauline Chapel where the Salus Populi Romanum resides is off limits to cameras, and is a place dedicated to prayer and silence. It is there that Pope Francis went the day after his election to put himself in Mary's hands for his pontificate.

I have to admit, though, that I was delighted to see this statue, which dates from after World War I. The house in which I live in Combermere is named Regina Pacis--Queen of Peace--and it was nice to see an image of her. Her hand is held up in a gesture of arrest, imploring us to stop the insanity of violence and killing; Jesus is holding an olive branch, hesitating before dropping it into the mouth of the waiting dove, waiting to see which nation of the world truly desires peace. The statue has lost none of its poignancy and relevance in the ensuing century since it was erected. Alas.

Besides St. Mary Major we also went here:


Just in case it's not intuitively obvious, this is the tomb of St. Paul, in the basilica of St. Paul outside the walls. My previous reading suggests that this is, in fact, the place - not a legend, but a historically well-attested site.

Personally, I found it incredibly moving to be in the presence of the relics of this saint who is virtually at the beginning of our Christian religion. The oldest Christian writings are Pauline; he is the first theologian and first missionary. If it is the usual run of divinity to pour itself out in love and self-gift, then St. Paul in his preaching, his writing, and his martyrdom shows that the divine life truly has been given to men redeemed in Christ.

Finally, although it was actually the first event of the day, we saw this guy:

Pictured: Oh, you know who.

Alas, this was the best picture I got, as Pope Francis rode past our hotel (which is right by St. Peter's square) after the Angelus blessing. As you can see, there was a bit of a sea of humanity sharing the experience, but we actually were pretty close. The man radiates joy, kindness, enthusiasm, and love - it is quite something to see him, and to see the impact his presence had on all of us.

I suppose my dominant sense in all this is precisely that the life of God has been shared with humanity, that it extends back to the remote past of Bethlehem and Palestine and forward into the squares and streets of Rome and every city and country place of the world--wherever there is love, gift, faith, joy, peace.

And that this is the true Eternal City, the place that cannot be dimmed or destroyed by death or time's ravages: the rough wood of the crib and the cross is more enduring than marble and stone buildings, and the 'marble and stone' of the Church rests on those rough bits of wood, on this woman who said yes to God, and on the countless men and women who like Paul have carried the word of God in their flesh into the world, or it does not stand at all.

Today, we go to some little church called St. Peter's... we'll see what that's about later.

So, here I am in Rome, in a hotel that is literally a stone's throw from St. Peter's. Yesterday was arrival day--red eye flight from Ottawa by way of Philadelphia, check in, meet and have lunch with the large and extraordinarily warm and friendly extended family of Michael Weitl, the MH seminarian whose diaconate ordination I am here for, and then our first 'tourist' event: the Roman Colosseum and Forum.

Pictured: Ruins