In Pictures

I am in the fourth week of teaching a class at Aquinas, so I don’t have much time to post.  Okay, so I’m in the first week.  But with a Maymester class, every day equals a week of class in a normal semester.   At the end of the second class, one of the students stood up, stretched, and said, “Second week down!”  So tomorrow is our fourth class.

But I at least have time to post pictures.  You wouldn’t want to read an entire post about any of these things, anyway.  So here we go…

A few weeks ago, I made a killer lasagna for dinner when a priest friend came to visit.  He blessed my new condo and I made him dinner.  Win, win.  The recipe came from a composer-chef friend of mine.  He and his wife had me over for dinner a few months ago, and I fell in love with this Sicilian lasagna and had to have the recipe.  Lasagna with meatballs inside of it?  Score. And the ricotta cheese wasn’t overpowering.  (Trena, remember shuddering while eating the shells at Christendom?) It was deeelish.  While it was pretty labor intensive, it was a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon and the work produced awesome results.

I forgot to take a picture of the actual finished product.  So all I have are pictures of the prep.

Mmm, meatballs.

I was in the mood to make ice cream, so I did that, too.  I was originally going to make ice cream inspired by “Spouse Like a House” at Handel’s (how I miss you) — namely, ice cream with peanut butter-filled, chocolate-covered pretzels —  but I didn’t dip my pretzels in chocolate, and the ones I bought didn’t have enough peanut butter in them.  So  I ended up throwing in peanut butter cups, too.

It was good, but only because you can’t really go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate in ice cream.  I’d buy different peanut butter pretzels next time.  And dip them in chocolate.  Father ate it without complaint.

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My “house” at school (sort of like a sorority, but not) had a bake sale to raise money for veterans who have had trouble getting back on their feet after coming home.  Since Joan of Arc is the patroness of our house, we thought helping veterans was fitting.  My friend Paul did the posters, and they just crack me up:

One of the history professors emailed me and noted, “Joan of Arc must really hate the English.”

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Part of my job regularly takes me to Knoxville, TN, where Cardinal Rigali is living in retirement.  Many of his things from the conclave are on display in the chancery, including the prayerbook and Rite book for the conclave, the little briefcase he was given (it had the little sede vacante umbrella embossed on it with “2013″ – it’s no wonder it took awhile to get this conclave going, they had to make all these things!), his little red lap desk with his name card that was waiting for him at his place in the Sistine Chapel, a sample ballot, and the pen he used to vote.  I couldn’t get over the humorous fact that the pen is a simple blue Pilot pen.  After seeing all the special books and the embossed small briefcase, I expected some cool pen.  Or maybe a quill.  Nope, just a blue Pilot.

There were also pictures of him taking the oath and processing — right behind Cardinal Bergoglio. Very cool.

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A few weekends ago I re-vistited a wine bar my cousin Michael had  introduced me to last year.  It’s in an old house, and in addition to a regular bar area, the different parlors in the house have machines with various kinds of wine.  When you arrive you get a card (similar to a hotel key) that you put in the machines prior to making a wine selection.  Then you choose whether you want a taste, a half glass, or a whole glass.  It’s pretty fun- and can get very expensive if you aren’t careful!  I went down with some friends for happy hour and wondered why I don’t go down more often.  But perhaps it’s a good thing it’s not closer.

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May 1st is the Feast of St Joseph the Worker.  I happen to work in a building trailer structure named after St. Joseph, and so we decided to celebrate his feast day.  Yes, we celebrated on March 19, too.  But if the Church celebrates him twice, we can too.  In true southern fashion we had barbecue and slaw and chips and invited everyone to come hang out in our building trailer structure for awhile.

Providentially, on that same day, we received the sign for our building place of work that we requested several months ago.  We have formed a nice little community in our portable building (which just means that we’ll probably be split up before too long. Isn’t that the way it works?) and I we decided we deserved a sign on the outside of our building so people would know who we were.  A minor request, really.

Especially since this is the sign on the outside now, just to the right of the front door:

What does that mean, you might ask?  Well I did too-  eventually.  It’s apparently leftover from when the, er, structure was on the property of an explosives testing site in Bucksnort, TN.

You can’t make this stuff up.

So this sign has been on our building for 10+ years.  So leave it to me to be difficult and ask if we can have a sign that indicates we’re the St. Joseph…

But what?  What are we?  Since the philosophy faculty is at home in our structure, they said we can’t be the St. Joseph Building, because by their nature, buildings don’t have wheels.

We couldn’t very well put “St Joseph Structure” on our sign, could we?

So we decided on “St. Joseph’s.”  That’s what everyone says on campus, anyway.  ”Where is Dr So-and-So’s office?”  ”In St Joseph’s.”

But apparently that message didn’t get to the actual order-er of the plaque. So now we’re St. Joseph Hall.

We’ll take it!  Although as our sarcastic selves, we put the sign in the hallway for the first day.  ”Where are you putting the sign?”  ”In the hall.”

Our shrine to our sign.

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You know what is dangerous?

Homemade Nutella ice cream with Trader Joe’s Ultimate Vanilla Wafers.  I was in charge of bringing dessert to book club last week, and instead of making some elaborate something or other, I made Nutella ice cream and bought those awfully-addicting vanilla wafers from TJ’s.

Too good.  You know what else is dangerous?  Trader Joe’s Oatmeal Cranberry Dunkers. My sister Jill introduced me to them, and they’re deadly.  I bought them without thinking, and quickly took them to work before I ate them all in one sitting.  Everyone loved them. And hated me.

Buy at your own risk.

My week (or two, or three) in pictures.  Food, alcohol, and Catholic stuff.  Sounds about right.

Goal for Day: to be a saint

When I stumbled upon this homily from Pope Benedict this morning, I wondered why I hadn’t read it before – or even heard of it before.  I guess I knew he spoke to the youth when he was in England, but I thought I had read most of his homilies and speeches from that trip.  I somehow had missed this one.

His audience may be students, but the message here is one that we all need to take to heart and remember.  We are called to be saints — not cold figures memorialized in plaster statues or stained glass windows, but citizens of heaven.  Being a saint doesn’t mean having your own feast day or holy card… it means going to heaven.  Everyone in heaven is a saint, whether we know their name and they’ve been officially recognized by the Church or not.

So today’s goal — begin working on sainthood.

From Pope Benedict’s address to students of the UK, September 17, 2010 (emphasis mine)

It is not often that a Pope, or indeed anyone else, has the opportunity to speak to the students of all the Catholic schools of England, Wales and Scotland at the same time. And since I have the chance now, there is something I very much want to say to you. I hope that among those of you listening to me today there are some of the future saints of the twenty-first century. What God wants most of all for each one of you is that you should become holy. He loves you much more than you could ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for you. And by far the best thing for you is to grow in holiness.

“Perhaps some of you have never thought about this before. Perhaps some of you think being a saint is not for you. Let me explain what I mean. When we are young, we can usually think of people that we look up to, people we admire, people we want to be like. It could be someone we meet in our daily lives that we hold in great esteem. Or it could be someone famous. We live in a celebrity culture, and young people are often encouraged to model themselves on figures from the world of sport or entertainment. My question for you is this: what are the qualities you see in others that you would most like to have yourselves? What kind of person would you really like to be?

When I invite you to become saints, I am asking you not to be content with second best. I am asking you not to pursue one limited goal and ignore all the others. Having money makes it possible to be generous and to do good in the world, but on its own, it is not enough to make us happy. Being highly skilled in some activity or profession is good, but it will not satisfy us unless we aim for something greater still. It might make us famous, but it will not make us happy. Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple – true happiness is to be found in God. We need to have the courage to place our deepest hopes in God alone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success, or in our relationships with others, but in God. Only he can satisfy the deepest needs of our hearts.

Not only does God love us with a depth and an intensity that we can scarcely begin to comprehend, but he invites us to respond to that love. You all know what it is like when you meet someone interesting and attractive, and you want to be that person’s friend. You always hope they will find you interesting and attractive, and want to be your friend. God wants your friendship. And once you enter into friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change. As you come to know him better, you find you want to reflect something of his infinite goodness in your own life. You are attracted to the practice of virtue. You begin to see greed and selfishness and all the other sins for what they really are, destructive and dangerous tendencies that cause deep suffering and do great damage, and you want to avoid falling into that trap yourselves. You begin to feel compassion for people in difficulties and you are eager to do something to help them. You want to come to the aid of the poor and the hungry, you want to comfort the sorrowful, you want to be kind and generous. And once these things begin to matter to you, you are well on the way to becoming saints.

In your Catholic schools, there is always a bigger picture over and above the individual subjects you study, the different skills you learn. All the work you do is placed in the context of growing in friendship with God, and all that flows from that friendship. So you learn not just to be good students, but good citizens, good people. As you move higher up the school, you have to make choices regarding the subjects you study, you begin to specialize with a view to what you are going to do later on in life. That is right and proper. But always remember that every subject you study is part of a bigger picture. Never allow yourselves to become narrow. The world needs good scientists, but a scientific outlook becomes dangerously narrow if it ignores the religious or ethical dimension of life, just as religion becomes narrow if it rejects the legitimate contribution of science to our understanding of the world. We need good historians and philosophers and economists, but if the account they give of human life within their particular field is too narrowly focused, they can lead us seriously astray.

A good school provides a rounded education for the whole person. And a good Catholic school, over and above this, should help all its students to become saints.

70 years ago today-

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, died in the death camp of Auschwitz.

Wow, could the readings of the day (the Thursday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time) be more perfect?

The days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers:
the day I took them by the hand
to lead them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they broke my covenant,
and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD,
for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31-34)

Edith Stein was a Jewish girl, one of God’s Chosen People.  But she recognized that Yhwh sent His Son to expand that kingdom (see today’s Gospel!), to renew that covenant to be a universal, transformed covenant for all races and nations and people.

And just as God forgives His people their evildoing, so did she — even when that evildoing was the murder of the Chosen People.

One More thing

Thanks for sticking with the reflections during the Fortnight.  They were penned for Aquinas College and I thought you all would enjoy them too.

Today is the day that Thomas More was executed– his feast is June 22 because he shares it with John Fisher, who was executed on the 22nd.  When John Fisher’s head was taken down from the pike at London Bridge, it was replaced by Thomas More’s.

On a strange side note, the Church of England celebrates the feast of John Fisher today.  Can someone explain that to me?  How bizarre.

I’ve never seen the Showtime drama The Tudors, and I suspect it’s probably mostly trash, but someone recommended this scene to me and I thought I’d share it on today.  St. Thomas More, pray for us.

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

Two hundred and thirty-six years ago, on July 2, about 50 men gathered in Philadelphia and voted to declare independence from the British Crown.  Two days later, the men approved a document called The Declaration of Independence.

This is the anniversary we remember today, the great event we celebrate with “pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other,” just as John Adams predicted we would in a letter to his wife on July 3, 1776.  He also said “it ought to be commemorated … by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”

Fittingly, many of us will go to Mass, thank our Father in heaven for this beautiful land of freedom, and beg that it remain that land of freedom.

Because his feast day lands on this great anniversary, most will not even remember young Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati.  But he shares this day of celebration with America.

On July 4, 1925, Pier Giorgio died in his bed from polio at the age of 24.  He had twenty four short years to make an impact on his country and Church.  And that’s exactly what he did.

Most people think of Pier Giorgio as an active, joyful, handsome young man, who is pictured on holy cards climbing mountains and laughing with his friends.  He loved mountain climbing, art, the opera, reading Dante, and playing practical jokes.

He is remembered for his charity to the poor, sick, and less fortunate.  Despite his wealthy family, he rode third class on the train and then spent the money he saved on medicine and food for the poor.  When asked why he rode third class, he merely joked, “Because there is no fourth class.”   He went to the poorest, dirties parts of Turin to minister to the sick.  He served them to the end, eventually contracting polio while working amongst them.  He suffered for six days in silence, not wanting to take his family’s attention away from helping his dying grandmother.  When he died, his parents knew they had lost a son.  They had no idea that thousands had lost a friend.

His sister later wrote, “The boy whom we thought was unknown to all but his family, suddenly was revealed to us to be the friend of thousands…those whom he had assisted or those he had merely passed near, leaving the unforgettable memory of his spirituality.”  “The street—it was nine in the morning—could hardly contain the thousands of persons who had come from every part of the city.”  “A blind man wanted to touch the coffin, another struggled to approach his benefactor. The crowd pressed around his mortal remains. Some wept, some prayed, while that coffin, without a single flower, seemed to rock above a tide of heads.”

What many don’t realize about Pier Giorgio is that he lived in Italy during a sensitive time for Church-state relations.  Italy had only be unified for thirty years, and Fascism was on the rise.  He became heavily involved in political and social reform, belonging to groups such as Catholic Action and the Federation of Italian Catholic University students.  He organized his fellow students and workers. He was arrested during peaceful demonstrations.  He physically protected priests who were attacked during protests.  He dialogued with workers during strikes and uprisings.

At age 21, during the rise of Mussolini, he wrote to his friends, “I glanced at Mussolini’s speech and my blood boiled. I am disappointed by the really shameful behavior of the Popular Party. Where is the fine program, where is the faith which motivates our people?  But when it is a matter of turning out for worldly honor, people trample on their own consciences.”

When John Paul II beatified Pier Giorgio in 1990, he called him the “Man of the Beatitudes.”   Just like the young John Paul II, Pier Giorgio enjoyed mountain climbing and picnics and spread the Gospel through joy.  But also like the young John Paul II, Pier Giorgio did not sit and watch his country and his Church suffer.  He became politically involved.  He not only fed the poor, he fought for them.  He not only lived justice, he worked for it.

Our country needs us to be men and women of the Beatitudes today.  We need to thirst for justice.  Our Church needs defending.  Our freedom needs rescuing.

Our poor need serving.  And yet it is precisely the freedom to do this that is being taken away from us.

In his homily to open the Fortnight for Freedom, Bishop Lori pointed out:

“[E]mbedded in the HHS mandate is a very narrow governmental definition of what constitutes a church; and if it is not removed, it is likely to spread throughout federal law.

In the HHS mandate, the federal government now defines a church as a body which hires mostly its own members and serves mostly its own members, and which exists primarily to advance its own teachings. In a word, so long as a church confines itself to the sacristy, then it is exempt from having to fund and facilitate in its health insurance plans government mandated services which are contrary to its own teachings.  But if a church steps beyond the narrow confines of this definition by hiring those of other faiths and by serving the common good – then the government is telling us that such institutions aren’t religious enough, that they don’t deserve an exemption from funding and facilitating those things which violate the very teachings which inspired churches to establish their institutions in the first place.

Friends, we must never allow the government, –any government, at any time, of any party–to impose such a constrictive definition on our beloved Church or any church! Our Church was sent forth by the Lord teach and baptize all the nations.  It was commissioned by our Savior to announce that the Kingdom of God is at hand.  It was sent into the world to do the corporal works of love and mercy.  Don’t we see this all around us – in inner-city Catholic schools, in Catholic hospitals, in the work of Catholic Charities so critical for the well being of local communities?  ‘The Word of God cannot be chained,’ St. Paul wrote to Timothy, and now it is up to us to defend the Church’s freedom to fulfill her mission to freely manifest the love of God by organized works of education and charity” (emphasis mine).

May Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, Man of the Beatitudes, intercede for us as we suffer persecution for justice’s sake.  On this anniversary of our country’s founding, may we work for justice — so that this country may always be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

(The Star-Spangled Banner, 4th verse)

St.Thomas the Apostle

The Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle is a great celebration in India.  It is tradition that St. Thomas was the only Apostle to leave the Roman Empire to preach the Gospel, traveling to Syria and Persia and then to India, as far south as the southwest region of Kerala.   He was eventually martyred, fulfilling his declaration during Jesus’ public ministry, “Let us also go [with Jesus], that we may die with him.”

Despite Thomas’ courage and missionary spirit, he is perhaps best known as being “Doubting Thomas.”  Perhaps it’s a bit unfortunate that he is best remembered for his lack of belief in the Resurrection of Christ, since the other Apostles were also unbelieving until they saw Jesus in the flesh.  On Easter Sunday, Thomas was not with the Apostles in the Upper Room when Christ appeared to them. When he heard their testimony, he declared, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

The following Sunday, Christ appeared to them again, and this time Thomas was with them.  Jesus did not reprimand Thomas, but told him, ”Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.”  Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”  (John 20:24-28)

Thomas must have had a close relationship with Christ to be allowed such intimate contact with him.   Such a personal experience, a prying into one’s hand and side, must not be taken lightly.  Clearly, Thomas was Christ’s friend.  The Apostles had spent three years with Christ — spending time day in and day out, walking with him, confiding in him, working with him.  They had accompanied Him in his ministry.  They had learned from him.  They had left everything for him.

They were his friends.

We too are called to that intimacy with Christ.  He desires each of us to enter into that close relationship with him — and we call that relationship “prayer.” (CCC 2558)  We spend time with him.  We confide in him.  We work with him.  At times we use formal prayers.  Other times we just sit in his presence.  He reaches out to us in the sacraments and allows us to touch him —  ”Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.”  And as unworthy as we are, we marvel at his goodness to us and exclaim, “My Lord and My God!”

As we reflect on our struggle to preserve religious liberty, we must never forget the power of prayer.  It’s often difficult for us to remember that nothing is more effective or powerful than prayer.  We feel like we should be doing something — and often we should be!  But sitting in the silence of our room in conversation with God or waking up early to go to daily Mass before work — these are the most effective things we can do for anyone or for any petition.

Praying with others is an especially powerful experience.  Not only did Christ promise us he would be with the community in prayer – ”For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Mt 18:2o) — it can also increase our own faith to hear voices united in common prayer.

America’s hope is the recommitment of families to prayer.  When our families begin praying together again, the effects will be seen throughout this country.

Our families are busy, and we may think there is no time to speak with each other- much less to pray together.  But if we sacrifice and specifically set aside time to pray as a family, we will give our children a valuable lesson they will not quickly forget.

On a recent family vacation, we decided to pray the Bishops’ prayer for religious liberty together at the end of the day.  My sister’s family already gathers for prayers at bedtime, so the prayer was added to the end of their nightly prayer routine.  Every night we would gather in the boys’ room (ages 7, 5, 3, and 1.5) and I would pass out the holy cards with the prayer on the back.  It was moving to pray “for our children and grandchildren”  in the presence of my seven nieces and nephews- to hear my father’s voice praying for the boy playing at his feet, to vocalize that petition while seeing their innocence and wondering what America would look like in their future.

On the last night, some circumstances arose and we decided my sister’s family would go ahead and pray their night prayers without the rest of us.  Unbeknownst to anyone else, before they started, my five-year old nephew left the room in search of me.  He finally found me and reported, “We need your cards!  Come hand out your cards!”

Did he know what we were praying for in that prayer, as he clutched the card in his hand and tried to follow the words?  Of course not. Did he know it was important?  Yes — because we had made an effort every night to gather together.

We prayed together that night.  And I think God heard Andrew’s prayers extra clearly.

Some days we may feel overwhelmed by the threats against religious liberty.  Other days we may feel complacent about them.  And other days we may feel like demanding proof that God is even alive.  But every day he is calling us to himself, asking us to come to him in prayer, and waiting for us to fall to our knees and declare, “My Lord and My God!”

The First Martyrs of the Church of Rome

Today we celebrate the feast of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome, which officially commemorates the martyrs killed under the Emperor Nero (54-68).  Fittingly, their feast is celebrated the day after the two most famous martyrs killed during that time, Peter and Paul.

While no one knows for sure why or how the famous burning of Rome took place, we know that Nero need a scapegoat.  And he found that scapegoat in the new mysterious sect that had been growing steadily in Rome.

The historian Tacitus gives an account of the persecutions under Nero:

“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.  Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”

It is believed that Christians were also killed before the time of Nero, during the reign of emperor Claudius (41-54).  Claudius probably expelled the Jews from Rome for a time because of disturbances caused by a certain “Chrestus,” and he was famously opposed to the proselytizing of any religion.

Saint Prisca was a thirteen year-old girl killed during reign of Claudius.  She was of a noble family and was baptized by Saint Peter.  When the emperor tried to kill her in the amphitheater with a fierce lion, the lion licked her feet and did not hurt her.  Later she was beheaded.  She’s remembered as the “protomartyr of the West,” killed more than ten years before Peter and Paul.

Whether or not there was a girl named Prisca – modern historians doubt her existence – we know her story was repeated again and again, as the persecutions against Christians raged throughout the Roman Empire for almost three hundred years.  Lions, arrows, beheadings, fires — the martyrdoms were varied, but the witness the same: these people, regardless of age or sex or wealth, were willing to die at the hands of their emperor before denying their Lord.

The stories of the early Church martyrs also remind us that their witness did not begin with their deaths.  There must have been something that set them apart.  How did the emperors know about a thirteen-year old girl’s religion?  Why were there disturbances because of “Chrestus,” why was their “superstition” known by Tacitus, and why were they punished for “hatred against mankind”?

Their faith did not remain in the catacombs, hidden from view.  Their faith spurred them onward — to preach to their neighbors, to bring the good news to others, to live their lives differently.   Secular sociologists note that Christians were more likely to survive the diseases that plagued the city of Rome precisely because they were cared for by other Christians.  The Christians were known for their generosity to the poor and their service to the widows and orphans.  They didn’t just worship on Sundays — they served Christ every day of the week.  And it was obvious to those around them.

Someone once rhetorically asked me a thought-provoking question.  If I was arrested for being a Christian, would a jury find me guilty?  Or would I be acquitted for lack of evidence?

We know why the Christians went to their deaths singing songs of joy, their deaths prompting even more conversions.  ”Martyr” is from the Greek word for “witness.”  But in order for them to be rounded up and thrown in jail, their witness must have been visible in the world before their deaths.  And so must ours.

What the HHS Mandate means for Christians throughout this country is that we cannot live our faith outside the catacombs.  It is fine to go to Mass and worship, but our beliefs cannot influence our daily lives.   We cannot live as Catholic Christians in our workplace, in our hospitals, or in our schools.

May the martyrs of the early Church be witnesses and reminders to us, in 2012, that our faith sends us out into the world.  And may their intercession give us the strength to be witnesses ourselves.

Sts. Peter and Paul

One of the most remarkable places to experience while visiting Rome is a small dark room under Vatican hill.  Very few tourists even know its existence, and access is limited to 250 people a day.   In a city filled with art, this room is bare.  A tour guide shepherds you into the room, and then points through a large glass window.  There, with a light shining on it, tucked in the ancient ruins of shrines and altars dating back to second century, is a plexiglass box, through which you can see their precious contents.

The bones of St. Peter.

The bones lie directly under the main of altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, far below the soaring dome of Michelangelo.   While most people believed the bones were there, their existence was not confirmed until the middle of the twentieth century, when archaeologists began excavating the pagan cemetery that lies under the vast basilica.

It is hard to not be moved when standing in the silence, seeing the bones of the first century fisherman.  The sinful man who denied Our Lord (Lk 22:59-62).  The repentant man who was commissioned to feed the Lord’s sheep (Jn 21:17).  The man named Rock (Mt 16:18).  Here are his mortal remains, far from the land of Palestine.

Could a fisherman from Bethsaida ever imagine he would find himself in Rome?  From the shores of the Sea of Galilee to being killed in Nero’s circus and buried on Vatican Hill.  From completely unknown to having one of the most glorious churches in the world built over his grave.  From a sinful, rash, passionate man to a saint in heaven, who is celebrated two thousand years later.

Even after meeting Jesus, when his life was drastically changed, Peter could never have predicted his own fate.  Christ reminds him that his life is no longer his own:  ”‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.’” (Jn 21:18)

Likewise Saul, an observant Jew, a promising scholar of the Law, never would have dreamed while studying at the feet of the famous Gamaliel that he would be accused of betraying Judaism and be killed for preaching a new Way (Acts 24:14).  Zealous against this new religion, Saul was an unlikely candidate to be the greatest preacher the Church has ever known.  But thus was the call of Christ (Gal 1:13-15).

St. Peter and St. Paul did not seek their fame.  They weren’t seeking to be remembered in 2012 in a far away land called America.  And yet they are remembered to this day.

Peter did not run for office.  If anything, he ran from office.  The Romans have a beloved story where St. Peter, fleeing the city of Rome and the wrath of Nero, meets Christ on the Via Appia.  Christ is headed in the opposite direction, towards the city.  ”Quo Vadis, Domine?”  Peter asks.  Lord, where are you going?  Christ responds that he is going to Rome to be crucified a second time.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

Peter returned to Rome.

These two men could not have known the future – but they knew the present.  And they knew that Christ would give them strength for the future, even if it was a future they had not chosen for themselves.

Like Peter and Paul, we stand for a Way that is contrary to the ways of the world.  We stand for a Truth that is contrary to public opinion, the secular culture, and even some policies of our government.   We didn’t choose this battle.  But the battle is here.

The future is unknown.  What will be asked of us?  We don’t know where this battle will lead, but we know where it stands right now.

It is still possible to walk through the Roman Forum and walk the path that Peter the fisherman walked.   One can stand on the hill where the Temple of Jupiter once stood- the most important Temple in Rome.  Overlooking the Forum, it stood watch over the center of the known world.

Now when one stands on that spot, your vision is directed elsewhere.  Instead of east, you face west.  And looking out over the modern city of Rome, your eyes rest on the glorious dome of St. Peter’s.

The Colosseum and the Roman Forum stand as stark reminders that worldly victory is fleeting.  Nero thought he had won, when Peter was crucified upside down and Paul was beheaded.  Instead he had crowned them with the glorious crown of martyrdom.

May we have the courage to accept the unknown future and the trust to accept the call of Christ.

St. Irenaeus

As we have seen thus far, difficult situations in the Church and the world have been occasions for God to raise up great saints.  When we are in need of certain gifts, whether it is the logic of Thomas More, the fortitude of John Fisher, or the simplicity of Josemaria Escriva, God gives us the heroes we need.  Saint Irenaeus (125-202) was one of those heroes.

Like St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Irenaeus spent a lot of time preaching and writing to refute misunderstandings and false teachings in the early days of the Church.  His greatest work, Against Heresies, was focused mainly on correcting the false teachings of a group called the Gnostics.

The Gnostics often used Scripture to back up their teaching and claimed to teach in the name of Jesus Christ.  Whoever responded to them would need to be articulate, intelligent, and precise.  He would have to know the truth and be able to preach the truth in a sophisticated, accurate, and attractive way.  He would need to be a deep thinker who would know the message of Jesus Christ through prayer, study, and lived experience, and be someone who could share the fruits of that prayer, study, and experience.

St. Irenaeus  was the man for the job.  He was a disciple of St. Polycarp, who had received the Gospel message from St. John, the beloved Apostle and evangelist.  Irenaeus wrote extensively, clearly, and with wit, while also ministering as bishop to the people of Lyons in modern-day France.

He not only knew the truth — he knew how to preach it.  The same thing is being asked of us today.

St. Peter gives us an important reminder in his first letter: Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you.  (1 Pt 3:15)

We must know what we believe, but we must also have the words to defend it.

Have you ever had someone ask a question about something you believe in, only to have you at a loss for words to answer them?  Hopefully such an experience would call us to investigate deeper, to ask questions ourselves, to read and pray and search for answers.

The religious liberty issue is much broader than the picture painted by most of the media.  Are we investigating the issues ourselves?  Are we ready to answer the questions that our neighbors, coworkers, or friends inevitably have?  The United States bishops have ample resources and articles on their website.

Have we tried to educate ourselves so that we can make a defense for the hope that is in us?

When Pope Benedict met with the American bishops earlier this year, he spoke of a need in the American church: “the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity.”  He emphasized that the “preparation of committed lay leaders and the presentation of a convincing articulation of the Christian vision of man and society remain a primary task of the Church in [the United States].” “The Church’s witness … is of its nature public: she seeks to convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.”

He said these things the day before the HHS mandate was announced.  Are we ready to answer that call?  We can’t afford to wait another moment.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Today’s saint lived a generation after the Roman persecution of the Church had ceased.  (Stay tuned for Saturday to hear more about that persecution.)  He lived at a time when the Church was growing at a rapid pace- by the year 300, Christians in the empire numbered over 6 million.  While the threat of persecution was over, peace was not reigning.  Disputes over doctrine were heated and false teaching was spreading, and heroes like St. Cyril of Alexandria were busy teaching and preaching the truth.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 – 444) is perhaps best known for fighting the Nestorian heresy, a teaching which held that Mary was not the Mother of God.  The heresy taught that she only gave birth to the human nature of Christ.  St. Cyril and other orthodox bishops recognized that this belief ultimately separated Christ into two persons, human and divine, violating the unity of Christ, Who was one Person.  Every mother knows that she doesn’t look at her newborn and think, “What a lovely human nature I gave birth to!”  Women give birth to people, not simply natures.  The Church in the Council of Ephesus in 431 declared Mary Theotokos, or “God-bearer” and clarified that while Mary is not the source of God, nor did she pre-exist God, she did bear the Word Incarnate in her womb.

God chose a woman to bear His Son, to bear His flesh, to cooperate in salvation in an intimate way.  What dignity this gives women!

Christianity elevated women at a time when their situation was rather bleak.   In the Greco-Roman world, women were usually married by the age of 11 or 12 to much older men.  Afterwards, they suffered marriages where contraception, abortion, adultery, and unnatural sexual acts were the norm.

If their child wasn’t killed by abortion (and the abortions often killed the mother as well), it may not live much after birth, either.

Dr. Rodney Stark, a noted sociologist, observed: “Men greatly outnumber women in the Greco-Roman world. Dio Cassius, writing in about 200 AD, attributed the declining population of the empire to the extreme shortage of females. In his classic work on ancient and medieval populations, J C Russell estimated that there were 131 males for 100 females in the city of Rome and 140 males per 100 females in Italy, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Russell noted in passing that sex ratios this extreme can only occur when there is ‘some tampering with human life.’”

And tampering there was. Exposure of unwanted female infants and deformed male infants was legal, morally accepted, and widely practiced by all social classes in the Greco-Roman world.  Another historian noted that even in large families “more than one daughter was practically never reared.”  Historians were able to construct 600 families in the city of Delphi, using inscriptions from the time.  Of these 600 families, only six had raised more than one daughter.

On the subject of female infanticide, Stark asks us to consider “a letter written by one Hilarion to his pregnant wife Ails, which has been reported by many authors because of this quite extraordinary contrast between his deep concern for his wife and his hoped-for son, and his utter callousness toward a possible daughter: Know that I am still in Alexandria and do not worry if they all come back and I remain in Alexandria. I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son. And as soon as I receive payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered of a child before I come home, if it is a boy, keep it, if it is a girl, discard it. You have sent me word ‘Don’t forget me.’ How can I forget you? I beg you not to worry.”

As you might imagine, this imbalance of men and women inevitably led to rape and sexual aggression.  All of which was considered quite normal.

Church historian Mike Aquilina comments, “That is the world in which the first Christians were born, in which they grew up and married, and in which they raised their families. You might call it a culture of death.”

In the midst of this culture of death, the son of God had come into the world… as the son of Mary.  And before leaving this world, He left us a Church- a Church that believes in the inherent dignity of the human person, one which sets a woman — the Blessed Mother — as the role model for Christian life — one that elevates marriage to a sacrament, that commands husbands to love their wives, that values the woman’s fertility.

During this current “culture of death,” may we turn to the Mother of Christ, asking her to intercede for us to Her Son.  It is no coincidence that at Aquinas College we are praying the rosary each day for religious liberty.  May her prayers for all of us, especially the women of our country, bear great fruit for the Church and for our beloved homeland.

“Give me an army saying the Rosary, and I will conquer the world.” -Blessed Pope Pius IX