Reaching for gold

No, not Olympic gold, but something far greater: caelestis auro, heavenly gold, that is, martyrdom. It hardly seems necessary to say it because of so much common knowledge concerning the history of Rome, but perhaps it is because of the knowledge being so common as to be taken for granted that it must be repeated--the very stones of the city streets of Rome cry out of the Christian blood that was spilled there, blood that would water in the seed of the One True Faith.

The stories are too many and the scope is too large to treat adequately here, but one saint stood out in our short time in Rome, St Cecilia. We caught little glimpses of St Cecilia in several churches, but tucked into the Trastevere section of Rome, behind large classical gates, stood the Church of St Cecilia. The first church was built upon the ruins of Cecilia's home, and the excavations can be viewed in the church crypt area. The church has been renovated and added on to many times through the centuries, and in 822, St Cecilia's incorrupt remains were translated from the catacombs to the church. During excavations in 1599, her remains were again exhumed, and the saint was once more found to be incorrupt. The sculptor Stephano Maderno witnessed the exhumation and attested to the veracity on a marble plaque set in the floor of the church. More importantly, he sculpted St Cecilia as he saw her, axe marks on her neck, her face turned toward the ground.

And so, upon entering this church, the first thing to greet the eye is the great high altar, with the depiction of this virgin and martyr installed beneath it.





Another depiction of St Cecilia is found in a series of frescoes on her life in the Church of St Louis of France. These frescoes illustrate different events in her life, and the scene of her martyrdom struck me especially. There were people surrounding the saint, mainly looking to be sympathetic, some with clasped hands, some with hands outstretched as through distraught. But what was the demeanor of Cecilia in her last moments? She gazes heavenward, for she sees an angel bearing the palm of martyrdom and the crown of everlasting life descending to her. If there were loved ones in the small crowd around her, she did not see them. She only saw eternity, her eternity, coming to greet her. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

It puts in mind the great Caravaggio's painting of the martyrdom of St Matthew, also found in the Church of St Louis of France. There are much better photos than mine; there was scaffolding blocking much of our view and the angle is bad. However, there is Matthew, and his murderer stands above him, gripping the saint's hand in his. Did he think that St Matthew's outstretched hand would try to deflect the blows forthcoming? Did he think the saint would fight him?

No, poor benighted fool. St Matthew isn't fighting you. He isn't struggling against you. Let his hand go, release it! Let him reach, as he so longs to do, for the palm that the angel shows him. There is the prize! And there is where the apostle's eyes are fixed. His murderer matters not to him now, not when he has the privilege of dying for his Lord, Who died for him. The end is near, it is here! Oh, let me embrace it, he seems to say.

The strange thing, to our thoroughly secularized modern sensibilities, is that retracing the paths of the great martyrs is not a sad venture. No one rejoices in the torture, but the martyrs stood firm in their faith, refusing to renounce Christ or sacrifice to the pagan gods. And their great sacrifice inspires us today, even amidst the ever-growing cacophony of this dissipated world. They inspire us to learn what they knew; they inspire us to love as they loved, and they inspire us to stand as they did. It isn't easy to inspire us; we are jaded, and super-saturated with love of the world and its trappings. We are very nearly blind and deaf to the spiritual. Perhaps the great art of the Church is more for us than we could have imagined, if we can only stop, listen and see.

Of all the churches in the city and of the world

"Most Holy Lateran Church, of all the churches in the City and the world, the mother and head": so reads the relief plaque on the front wall of the Archbasilica of St John Lateran. The Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran is the full name of this seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, the Pope's cathedral.


This was our first church to see in Rome, and one could almost pity the rest of them for having then such a hard act to follow, so to speak. She stands seemingly alone, majestic and imposing, among the bustle of cars and people surrounding her, bidding the pilgrim to enter.

A statue of Emperor Constantine I greets us as we enter; it was he who gifted the Lateran Palace to the pope as the Basilica of the Savior. Between several fires, an earthquake, and a visit by the avaricious Vandals, the church/archbasilica has been rebuilt more than once during the centuries. What stands now is a mainly baroque and richly beautiful edifice.

There is a great deal to be seen within these enormous walls--chapels, frescoes, statuary, paintings--but the Hall of the Apostles composing the nave will not take second place. The faithful eleven, plus St Paul, line the nave, each in its own niche. The statues are massive, the works of several Roman sculptors of the early 1700s. Gazing up at these much beloved first followers of Christ reminds one of the cost of following. Here is St Simon with the saw that killed him; there is St Andrew tenderly embracing the cross he would be nailed upon; there is St Bartholomew with the knife that flayed him, holding out his own skin as if to ask us, "What will you do, if you are ordered to be silent? Will you dare deny Him?"

The last two statues face each other across the nave just before the transept opens out: Sts Peter and Paul. How fitting it is for them to be placed here before the high altar; St Peter the first pope, who witnessed the institution of the Holy Eucharist and received from his Savior's hand, and St Paul, who wrote so eloquently about the manner in which it transpired. Both apostles have their right arms raised as if preaching. St Peter's brow is furrowed, he looks gaunt. The keys he clutches beside him are no doubt a heavy burden, but he will "feed My sheep" to the end. St Paul lightly balances the sword that will decapitate him between his two fingers; for him "to die is gain".

The high altar is now before us, as if the apostles had been ushering us here all along, and with good reason. Enclosed in stone and marble is the wooden altar upon which it is believed that St Peter celebrated Holy Mass while he was in Rome. And look up, up, above the Gothic baldacchino; there in golden reliquaries are the relics of Sts Peter and Paul. This basilica is truly a school of martyrdom. Listen, my soul, and learn.

The apse, shimmering in gold, is a wealth of Catholic patrimony. Pope Leo XIII's expansion of the apse was crowned with the tender handling and reapplication of precious mosaics, some dating from at least the fifth century. Above it all the Savior looks down from heaven, surrounded by representatives of the nine choirs of angels. Below Our Lord's gaze stands the papal throne, the symbolism of which could not be clearer.

 Out the huge doors and into the street, the Scala Sancta beckon, also part of the Lateran. These are the marble stairs, encased in wooden ones, upon which our Lord ascended when He was brought before Pontius Pilate. St Helena, mother of Constantine I and a devout Christian, located the stairs and brought them to Rome. To think that after His cruel scourging, our bleeding, suffering Lord climbed these stairs, perhaps even staining them with His Precious Blood! What a holy place indeed this is! And how beneficent is our holy Mother the Church, to provide an indulgence connected to the prayerful ascent of these steps, under the usual conditions. One can only climb them on his knees; who could wish to do otherwise? Looming in front of the pilgrim is a representation of our crucified Lord. We see it before our eyes as we climb; He saw it clearer still in His divine foreknowledge, and did not falter as He climbed. Thanks be to God!

One does not go lightly back out into the Roman sunshine. We know we must leave, but the Faith is so palpable here, the "evidence of things that appear not". Please God, we will bring it with us today, and always.

For a virtual tour of St John Lateran, see http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html

Seat of St Ambrose

The following day was the last alone with our two young people before the flurry of wedding crunch time began, so they bustled Mom and Dad onto a train to Milan--Milan, city of trend and fashion, city of the third largest church in the world, the famous Duomo cathedral.

It is hard to overemphasize how large this massive church looms. Even from the air this cathedral is huge. Built over the ruins of two basilicas, one built in 355, one built in 836, the current cathedral was begun in 1386. It is not purely Gothic, as through the six centuries of construction other styles are represented, but its bones, its "innards", its heart is Gothic.

This was my first real exposure to the Gothic. I'd seen pictures, of course, and knew a smattering about the style, but there is simply no adequate preparation as one walks across the square fronting the church, takes a place in line, and slowly moves toward the entrance with the rest of the queue. What did I expect? I don't know. I expected beauty; I expected to be moved; I expected, to put it colloquially, to make a memory, a singular imprint upon my mind. I knew that this church was special, and I also knew that only one Gothic church remained in Rome, and we weren't likely to visit it with only one week to devote to that city. So, closer and closer the white facade crept and soon we were inside.

There is a saying, "Seeing is believing", and it is often used in a negative way in contrast to faith without having seen. That is all well and good, and instructive, as St Thomas the Apostle would, no doubt, agree. But let me wrest that saying from its normal usage for a moment and apply it, as the pilgrim first enters what is at once a house, a home, and a palace of and for God. The eyes of the pilgrim, seeing, adjust briefly to the lower light, and then without effort or will, they fly upward, following the immense columns to the spines of the arches to the very top. The soul itself inflates with a sharp intake of air as the eyes wander across the vast expanse of ceiling. It’s hard to keep one’s mouth shut with the head flung all the way back. The neck begins to object, but the eyes can’t stop looking. They strain, they gaze, opened wide, innately reaching to make their own as much of the vaulted grandeur as possible.

Did I say “grandeur”? Oh, yes. Grandeur it is that announces the Glorious. The eyes know it without being told. The lungs know it. The feet know it, stumbling forward unconsciously toward the nave. There is Something here. There is Someone. This fitting dwelling place was fashioned for this Someone; a dwelling place that reflected, in only a small way, the awe that smallness feels for the Great, and the finite for the Infinite. And yet, this reflection, paling in any comparison to the Real, is utterly breathtaking. These are the first minutes after entering. This is the Gothic: a visual polyphonic catechism in praise of the Eternal God, fraught with profundity upon profundity, and made for us, the ignorant, the ordinary and the average, and nothing is required of us except to look. Seeing is indeed believing.

I didn't take many pictures; I was barely able to speak, let alone compose frames. Even though people around me were chatting, to me there was a decided hush inside that made contemplation easy, and there was much to contemplate. Every column, lamp, piece of furniture; every tapestry, window, statue and painting had a story to tell or point to teach, all of them ultimately bearing witness to the glory of God.

A large stone plaque bearing the names of all the bishops of Milan pays tribute to the fact of the foundation, by St. Barnabas, of the Church and archdiocese of Milan. But the cathedral and indeed the city owe the greatest debt of gratitude to the two bishops who are now regarded as patrons of the city, St Ambrose, protector of Milan against the Arians, and St Charles Borromeo, who among his many great works and achievements, refused to flee Milan in the face of the plague, and spent all of his personal fortune to feed the people decimated by plague and famine. St Charles lies in the crypt below the cathedral.


Below the cathedral also are excavations of the earlier basilicas. History here is palpable and intensely dramatic. How can one stand before the baptismal font where St Ambrose baptized St Augustine and not feel chills? A lion of our Faith was born here! How wondrously profound to be granted the grace to see such a spot with my own eyes. Deo gratias!

 The statue St Bartholomew Flayed will wait for another post. We gaped and gawked at all side altars and works of art, and climbed to the roof to take in the vistas in every direction. Flying buttresses accompanied every turn, and each spire was capped with the likeness of a saint, Our Lady soaring the highest. Down again to the square, where I had the chance to examine and marvel at the towering, intricately-carved bronze doors. Even the way outside fills the heart; it is no wonder that the carved figure of Our Lord that is of reachable height has been rubbed shiny and clean through the years by the loving hands of the faithful. Love compels one to touch--one last look and touch before we leave. There is too much. I drank as deeply as time permitted; to spend a whole day here wouldn't be long enough to exhaust its beauties and treasures.

Como's jewel

We knew, of course, that our Italian holiday would center around two things: our daughter's wedding on our first Saturday, and churches. Many, many churches; the more the merrier. Being Catholic now meant a whole new area of interest for me that I completely lacked back in 1978. So, we wanted to see as many churches as we could fit into our itinerary, and the first on the list was the Duomo, Como's cathedral, which we took in our first day.

Photographs don't prepare one properly for opening the door to a church whose foundations were laid in the 14th century, and combined the Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque under one domed roof. The first observation the soul understands immediately is, "I am little, God is big." It's easy, it's ridiculously simple, and it hits right between the eyes. It is also comforting, for it follows that if our God is big, then He necessarily knows of our great need of Him. The theology of architecture is open to the meanest set of eyes, even mine!

There was much to see, like the high altar, carved in 1317...seven hundred years ago, and still here, still beautiful. The Altar of Our Lady of Graces, flanked on all sides by little silver hearts, signifying the grateful hearts who had received favors through her intercession. There is a marvelous baptistry, and numerous paintings, tapestries, and statues grace the nave and side altars. Chief among the these altars is the Altar of the Crucifix, featuring a lifelike crucifix adorned with many centuries old human hair.

 

The cathedral's hush shut out the activity of the piazza without, as the soul should shut out the din of the world, and indeed, must, if it is to hear the call of God. This first visit, this first retracing of the footsteps of the faithful through seven centuries left me humbled and wishing to take the silence with me back into the world, to contemplate many things, especially life, and what it means to confess Jesus Christ. I wonder what those faithful Catholics, long dead and forgotten, make of us as we think it such a small thing to tread the same marble tiles as they did, many of us never even thinking of genuflecting, or peering through the dimness to find the glowing red lamp. What would they make of our casualness, not only in dress and manner, but in our faith? I pray God, make me mindful of my folly, that I may fight it.

As we found our way back to the piazza, the sky was overcast, but our hearts were full.

Raison d'etre

It was true love that scooted us out the door and onto a jet to Italy. My daughter fell in love with a young man from San Fermo della Battaglia, a small town in the province of Como, and a June wedding was set. The happy couple planned to spend their first week of married bliss with both sets of parents in Rome, to give us all a holiday we would never forget. Who could say "no" to such a proposition?

So, with rental car and portable wifi we sped down unfamiliar highways until we made Como, to do battle with its multiple roundabouts. The roundabouts won; even, or should I say, especially with gps!

But...the lake; perfectly blue, broken only by the lush, green hills growing out of its boundaries. The water was high due to the amount of rainfall in the last couple of weeks, and it gently lapped the shoreline, nearly flush with the docks. It was an eye magnet. Everywhere we drove required a jaunt by the lake, and we drank in its picture postcard beauty.

A beginning

 

Many years ago, in the Year of Our Lord 1978, a silly teenaged girl sat on the edge of the Trevi fountain in Rome and tossed a penny over her shoulder. The penny splashed into the fountain's waters to join the other coins there, all promising their former owners that they would return someday to Rome. The years passed, as they inexorably do, and the girl became woman, wife and mother. When, in 1995, she converted to the Roman Catholic Church, she considered her wish from that youthful visit to Rome as wondrously fulfilled; twenty-one years later, however, she stood again under the hot Roman sun before a gleaming, newly restored Trevi fountain. This blog begins as a recording of this second trip, with observations, mullings, and, no doubt, a rambling or two. If it should amount to more than this, so be it.