Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Sigrid Undset on St. Catherine of Siena

The opening pages of Catherine of Siena | by Sigrid Undset, the Nobel Prize winning author of Kristin Lavransdatter | Ignatius Insight 

In the city-states of Tuscany the citizens—Popolani—businessmen, master craftsmen and the professional class had already in the Middle Ages demanded and won the right to take part in the government of the republic side by side with the nobles—the Gentiluomini. In Siena they had obtained a third of the seats in the High Council as early as the twelfth century. In spite of the fact that the different parties and rival groups within the parties were in constant and often violent disagreement, and in spite of the frequent wars with Florence, Siena's neighbour and most powerful competitor, prosperity reigned within the city walls. The Sienese were rich and proud of their city, so they filled it with beautiful churches and public buildings. Masons, sculptors, painters and smiths who made the exquisite lattices and lamps, were seldom out of work. Life was like a brightly coloured tissue, where violence and vanity, greed and uninhibited desire for sensual pleasure, the longing for power, and ambition, were woven together in a multitude of patterns. But through the tissue ran silver threads of Christian charity, deep and genuine piety in the monasteries and among the good priests, among the brethren and sisters who had dedicated themselves to a life of helping their neighbours. The well-to-do and the common people had to the best of their ability provided for the sick, the poor and the lonely with unstinted generosity. In every class of the community there were good people who lived a quiet, modest and beautiful family life of purity and faith.

The family of Jacopo Benincasa was one of these. By trade he was a wool-dyer, and he worked with his elder sons and apprentices while his wife, Lapa di Puccio di Piagente, firmly and surely ruled the large household, although her life was an almost unbroken cycle of pregnancy and childbirth—and almost half her children died while they were still quite small. It is uncertain how many of them grew up, but the names of thirteen children who lived are to be found on an old family tree of the Benincasas. Considering how terribly high the rate of infant mortality was at that time, Jacopo and Lapa were lucky in being able to bring up more than half the children they had brought into the world.

Jacopo Benincasa was a man of solid means when in 1346 he was able to rent a house in the Via dei Tintori, close to the Fonte Branda, one of the beautiful covered fountains which assured the town of a plentiful supply of fresh water. The old home of the Benincasas, which is still much as it was at that time, is, according to our ideas, a small house for such a big family. But in the Middle Ages people were not fussy about the question of housing, least of all the citizens of the fortified towns where people huddled together as best they could within the protection of the walls. Building space was expensive, and the city must have its open markets, churches and public buildings, which at any rate theoretically belonged to the entire population. The houses were crowded together in narrow, crooked streets. According to the ideas of that time the new home of the Benincasas was large and impressive.

New: "Bakhita: From Slave to Saint"

Now available from Ignatius Press

Bakhita: From Slave to Saint

By Roberto Italo Zanini

When she was about nine years old, Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped near Darfur, Sudan, by Arab slave traders. For several years she was subjected to brutal and humiliating treatment until she was ransomed and taken to Venice, Italy, where she became a Catholic and a nun.

Joyfully and serenely Bakhita served in a convent, school and infirmary run by Canossian sisters in a small, obscure town in northern Italy until her death in 1947. Then something even more remarkable than her redemption happened.

Hundreds of ordinary people came to see Bakhita lying in state, and along with these visits came stories about how the simple nun had given comfort, advice and encouragement as she went about her tasks as cook, doorkeeper, nurse, etc. Almost immediately graces and miracles attributed to Bakhita's intercession began to be reported.

Ever since, the place where Bakhita died and the wonders began has been a shrine visited by people from all over the world. They come to seek the intercession of one who was no stranger to loss and suffering and yet had given herself with complete confidence to the Lord. It is here, in this sparsely furnished room, where Italian journalist Roberto Italo Zanini begins his story of Bakhita and her journey from slavery to sainthood.

Based on Bakhita's autobiography, which she dictated to a Canossian sister in obedience to her superior, the canonization files and many other sources, Zanini records the life, virtues and miracles of this daughter of Africa who has become a sister to the whole world.

Roberto Italo Zanini is an editor and writer for Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian bishops. His articles have appeared in many Italian publications, both Catholic and nonreligious. 

Apocalypse How?

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, April 21st, the Fourth Sunday of Easter | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Acts 13:14, 43-52
• Ps 100:1-2, 3, 5
• Rev 7:9, 14b-17
• Jn 10:27-30

Pop quiz: which book of the Bible describes black helicopters, high-tech warfare involving Russia and China, and computer chips embedded in human flesh?

Hopefully you answered, “None.” But you may know that some Christians believe the Book of Revelation, or The Apocalypse, describes soon-to-transpire, end of the world events in harrowing detail. And most people—even many Catholics—believe that the final book of the Bible is an unremitting work of doom, gloom, and bloodshed.

John the Revelator’s book undoubtedly contains images of doom and gloom, but not for those who stand for and with Christ. And while there is plenty of bloodshed in the Book of Revelation, the good news is that the blood of the Lamb, shed for the sins of the world, cleanses those who faithfully follow the Shepherd.

In other words, today’s reading from The Apocalypse is filled with joy. It proclaims that God will not only overcome evil, He will—at the end of time as we know it—bring together all of those who love Him. The great multitude witnessed by John consists of those who have been saved through suffering, just as Savior, the slain Lamb (Rev. 5:6), brought salvation through suffering and death. “The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom,” explains the Catechism, “only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection” (CCC 677).

Those in the great multitude, from every nation, race, people, and tongue, are the Church. They make up the New Israel, which has gone through a New Exodus. While the first Exodus involved the people of Israel being saved from the tyranny of Egyptian slavery, this final Exodus consists of the people of the new covenant being saved eternally from the domination of sin and death. As Jesus states, in the reading from today’s Gospel, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (Jn. 10:28). The salvation of a multitude too large to be counted is a fulfillment of the great covenant made with Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation … All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (Gen. 12:2, 3; cf. Gal. 3:7, 29).

Overcoming death and establishing eternal life is a constant theme in The Apocalypse. This can be seen in the imagery throughout the book, which is bursting with allusions to the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch and the Prophets. The idea of being made “white” through perseverance in faith is drawn from Daniel, a book used often by John: “Many shall purify themselves, and makes themselves white, and be refined” (Dan. 12:10). White robes symbolize holiness and endurance. Priests in the time of Christ were examined for purity; if they passed, they were dressed in white robes, as was the High Priest. In the new covenant, those who have been baptized into Christ, the High Priest, and who endure to the end will be saved through the sacrifice of the Lamb on the Cross.

The palm branches allude to the feast of Tabernacles (cf., Lev. 24:39-40), which celebrated the harvest of crops and commemorated God’s divine protection during the Exodus. Palm branches were also used as symbols of victory (1 Macc. 13:51; 2 Macc. 10:7). In The Apocalypse they stand for God’s victory over evil, His protection of the Church throughout the time of tribulation, and the restoration of right relationship with God, as evidenced by the songs of praise before the heavenly throne.

John’s vision is also filled with a liturgical and sacramental perspective. The great multitude worship God in His temple, which ultimately is the Person of Christ (cf., Jn 2:19-22). Being washed and made white suggests the bath of Baptism, and the lack of hunger or thirst is Eucharistic in its promise of complete joy in the presence of the Lamb.

Thus, in the end—The End!—the apocalyptic truths of the Book of Revelation don’t involve helicopters and top secret technology, but the salvation of God’s flock, His people, through the death and Resurrection of the Lamb.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the March 30, 2007, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

When President Obama Honored Father Kapaun

When President Obama Honored Father Kapaun | Roy Wenzl | Catholic World Report

A moment of grace in a town marked by division and backbiting

The Miracle of Father Kapaun, my second book, was off the presses and in our hands on March 26, only 15 days before President Barack Obama handed the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun’s family at the White House.

That’s crazy good luck, publishing a story just as the president elevates your story subject as a national hero. But it was no surprise to my co-author, Travis Heying, or to me. 

We started the story by seemingly sheer coincidence, shortly after the Army revived Father Kapaun’s Medal of Honor investigation after 55 years. We overcame problems with almost no effort. We talked to former prisoners of war and researched Father Kapaun off and on for five years, and every time we ran into one of those problems that kills a complex project, the problem would go away in some weird and wonderful way. This was a story that seemed to be kissed by the angels.

In 2009, as just one example, we bought tickets to fly from our homes in Wichita, Kansas, to Cumberland, Maryland, talk to North Korean prisoner of war camp survivor Bob McGreevy, who had seen some of Father’s prison heroics.  We flew even though McGreevy, at the last moment, canceled our interview, saying that talking about the Korean War gave him nightmares.

I didn’t even bother to tell Travis that McGreevy had canceled until shortly before we rolled up outside McGreevy’s house. I knew that our Kapaun Luck, as it might be called, would intervene, as it always did. Sure enough, big, blunt Bob McGreevy stepped out of his house and changed his heart. “Get in here,” he said, uttering a venial-sin swear word. “I’ll talk.”

“I knew you would,” I said.

Good things always happened around Father Kapaun, on battlefields, in the North Korean prison camp, in the worst conditions imaginable.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Hysterical Hatred and the Halls of History

Hysterical Hatred and the Halls of History | Michael Coren | Catholic World Report

Both are plain to see and ever with us, but only one has lessons worth learning.

I write this column while looking out onto Westminster Bridge, Britain’s Houses of Parliament, and a London still pulsating with news of the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Pulsating indeed, because she changed the beat, the rhythm, and the pace of this country, and fundamentally and irreversibly transformed the nature and style of the United Kingdom. As such, she is revered as well as reviled, and that polarization extends to the Catholic reaction to her passing. There are Catholics here in Britain who believe she was one of the last political leaders to properly appreciate the link between Europe, democracy, and Christianity. Others, especially in Ulster and northern England, can barely contain their anger at a woman they believe destroyed their way of life.

The truth about Margaret Thatcher reflects a greater truth about how the world approaches history, facts, and downright hysteria and propaganda, and reflects directly to the Church and how it is treated in the popular imagination

Much, if not most, of what Mrs. Thatcher has been accused of is pure fantasy, and the reaction to that campaign of disinformation has been downright obscene: street parties celebrating her death; the singing of “Ding dong the witch is dead” (with “b” replacing “w”); the public announcement that people will urinate on her grave. Many of these malicious idiots weren’t even born when she was in office, and those who were have little to complain about, if truth be told. But it is the extent and excess that is so repugnant. There are numerous politicians whom I loathe, but not one whose death would lead me to rejoice.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

The risen Christ to the restored Peter: "Feed my sheep!"

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, April 14, 2013, Third Sunday of Easter | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41
• Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13
• Rev 5:11-14
• Jn 21:1-19

Years ago, not long after entering the Church, I called into a local radio program hosted by two Fundamentalist Protestants. They had been discussing Catholicism and making some claims that were more than a bit dubious in nature. In the course of our conversation (which was fairly civil, thankfully), the topic arose of a great apostasy in the early Church. Long story made short, they insisted the Church had “apostatized” within years—perhaps just months!—of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension.

One reason for this belief (which I knew well from my Fundamentalist upbringing) was the assumption that the first Christians soon began embracing structures and doctrines that were “Romanish” in nature. Rather than deal with the historical record, these two sincere, intelligent men deemed it better to skip ahead to the present-day, seeking to restore the Church they thought Jesus really meant to establish. They made it clear they would not follow a pope.

That incident came to mind as I considered today’s readings. The readings during Easter—which include passages from Acts of the Apostles in place of the Old Testament readings—make numerous connections between the authority, mission, and power of the Risen Lord and the position and actions of the Apostles. There is a clear and consistent connection between the person of Jesus Christ and the people who took up “the Way” (Acts 9:22) and who were eventually called “Christians” (Acts 11:26). And this connection included structure and authority.

“Well, of course,” you might say, “everyone knows that.” But this basic and fundamental fact is routinely denied, especially by those who try to uproot Jesus from his historical moorings and detach him from the establishment of Church structure and use of ecclesial authority. A common line of attack is to pit Jesus against “organized religion,” which is almost always code for the Catholic Church and her Magisterium.

Today’s readings depict something different, however, from this rather anarchic interpretation. The Gospel reading is especially instructive. It describes a key encounter between the risen Christ and the apostles, focusing on the head apostle, Peter. Days earlier, the rash fisherman had denied Jesus three times while huddled in the cold near a charcoal fire (Jn. 18:18-27). Now he came from his boat to a charcoal fire started by his Master, who invited he and his companions to eat.

The Good Shepherd then asked Peter a single question three times: “Do you love me?”

In responding to Peter’s affirmative replies, Jesus did not say, “Be good” or “Hang in there!” Rather, he directed him to feed and tend his sheep. This is a reiteration and affirmation of the authority Jesus gave to Peter in granting him the keys of the Kingdom (Matt. 16:16-20). It builds upon an important and lengthy discourse by Jesus about his identity as the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10). We are familiar with the image of the humble, loving shepherd, but we sometimes overlook how this image is as much about royal authority and messianic identity as it is about pastoral care.

Jesus’ discourse was based in part on a prophecy given through Ezekiel: “And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezek. 34:23). Jesus is the Davidic King, and he established a Kingdom that exceeds the wildest dreams of any earthly king. “My servant David shall be king over them,” God told Ezekiel, “and they shall all have one shepherd” (Ezek. 37:24).

But if Jesus is the one shepherd, why appoint Peter to also be a shepherd? Because the Vicar of Christ, the apostles, and the bishops are “partakers of His consecration and His mission” (Lumen Gentium, 28). They have a specific place in the Body of Christ, a vocation to pastor and feed the one flock of the one true God. And so Jesus, after asking his three questions of Peter, simply said: “Follow me.” Why? So we can find, receive, and follow him.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the April 18, 2010, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Glorious Wounds—Christ’s and Ours

Glorious Wounds—Christ’s and Ours | Fr. Andrew Hofer | Homiletic &  Pastoral Review

You could say that Christ’s glorious wounds are our wounds. He took our humanity to himself in the Incarnation … Christ’s humanity is completely ours.

Central to the mystery of the Christian faith is Jesus Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, known collectively in modern times as the “paschal mystery.” This unity can be most vividly seen in the glorious wounds of the risen Lord. Christ, now raised from the dead, is the same Christ who suffered and died upon the cross. Rather than effacing the marks of the crucifixion, the resurrection glorifies them. These wounds have special mention in some of the scripturally-recorded appearances of the risen Lord. In Luke 24:39 (NAB), we hear Jesus say, “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.” Jesus then showed the disciples his hands and his feet (cf. Luke 24:40). Even more prominently, the account in John 20:24-29 of the Apostle Thomas’s doubt and coming to faith, through the invitation to probe Jesus’s hands and side, allows us to probe the meaning of those glorious wounds. As we ponder them, we can find out something not only about the risen Jesus, but also about ourselves.

In his treatment of Christ’s resurrection, St. Thomas Aquinas asks in his Summa Theologiae III (q. 54. a. 4) whether Christ’s body should have risen with its scars. As always in the Summa, Aquinas begins with objections, the best objections that can be mustered against his own position. The first objection deals with how wounds signify corruption and defect. In more modern language, perhaps one could say that the wounds are gross. Isn’t the idea of someone coming to life after death while bearing the wounds of his death something from a horror film? Wouldn’t Jesus be more likely to say “Someone is going to pay for this” than “Peace be with you”?  The second objection also is a matter of the gross factor: wounds destroy bodily integrity. The body just isn’t whole if there are gaping slashes. There’s something wrong, and it’s disgusting. The third objection runs likes this. It might be permissible to retain some sign of the crucifixion to confirm the faith of the disciples that he ,who was once put to death on a cross, now lives. But, why in the world would he continue to look like that? Since Christ’s body immediately after the resurrection is how that body is forever afterwards, it’s not fitting for him to rise with the scars from the crucifixion. The resurrection is forever, so let’s think about the long-term appearance of the body, particularly in what is to be the most glorified body of all. It wouldn’t be right to look that way.

Now, Aquinas knows that Christ did rise with wounds, and so the fact of Christ’s resurrected body having glorious wounds is the immediate answer on whether or not that should have occurred. It, in fact, did happen in God’s providence, and so we can then see how there was fittingness by God’s design. Aquinas’ arguments of fittingness (ex convenentia) are arguments of beauty, and, perhaps, there’s nothing quite like the beauty of his answers for the glory of the risen Lord.

In the body of the article, Aquinas gives his first answer as the first of five reasons coming from the Venerable Bede. Christ rose with his wounds for his own glory. It’s not that Christ couldn’t heal his own wounds, but that he wanted “to wear them as an everlasting trophy of his victory.” I was once explaining this to a class of young African men studying for the priesthood. I said that this idea of a trophy of victory is like someone who has survived a fight, but who bears a scar from a fight that he won. Rather than being some sort of embarrassment, the scar is something that he shows off to his friends. One of the African students quickly understood, and said that that was certainly true in his own case. He survived a terrible fight, and he is proud to show others what the fight did to his body. In the words of urban lingo, he gets “street cred.” Jesus, you could say, has this “street cred.” The Lord is able to show off—to have glory—for his victory over the fight against death itself.

Continue reading at HPRweb.com.

The Mystery of the Annunciation is the Mystery of Grace

The Mystery of the Annunciation is the Mystery of Grace | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | Ignatius Insight

The mystery of the annunciation to Mary is not just a mystery of silence.It is above and beyond all that a mystery of grace.

We feel compelled to ask ourselves: Why did Christ really want to be born of a virgin? It was certainly possible for him to have been born of a normal marriage. That would not have affected his divine Sonship, which was not dependent on his virgin birth and could equally well have been combined with another kind of birth. There is no question here of a downgrading of marriage or of the marriage relationship; nor is it a question of better safeguarding the divine Sonship. Why then?

We find the answer when we open the Old Testament and see that the mystery of Mary is prepared for at every important stage in salvation history. It begins with Sarah, the mother of Isaac, who had been barren, but when she was well on in years and had lost the power of giving life, became, by the power of God, the mother of Isaac and so of the chosen people.

The process continues with Anna, the mother of Samuel, who was likewise barren, but eventually gave birth; with the mother of Samson, or again with Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptizer. The meaning of all these events is the same: that salvation comes, not from human beings and their powers, but solely from God—from an act of his grace.

(From Dogma und Verkundigung, pp. 375ff; quoted in Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year [Ignatius Press, 1992], pp. 99-100.)









The annunciation to Mary happens to a woman, in an insignificant town in half-pagan Galilee, known neither to Josephus nor the Talmud. The entire scene was "unusual for Jewish sensibilities. God reveals himself, where and to whom he wishes." Thus begins a new way, at whose center stands no longer the temple, but the simplicity of Jesus Christ. He is now the true temple, the tent of meeting.

The salutation to Mary (Lk 1:28-32) is modeled closely on Zephaniah 3: 14-17: Mary is the daughter Zion addressed there, summoned to " rejoice", in formed that the Lord is coming to her. Her fear is removed, since the Lord is in her midst to save her. Laurentin makes the very beautiful remark on this text: "... As so often, the word of God proves to be a mustard seed.... One understands why Mary was so frightened by this message (Lk 1:29). Her fear comes not from lack of understanding nor from that small-hearted anxiety to which some would like to reduce it. It comes from the trepidation of that encounter with God, that immeasurable joy which can make the most hardened natures quake."

In the address of the angel, the underlying motif the Lucan portrait of Mary surfaces: she is in person the true Zion, toward whom hopes have yearned throughout all the devastations of history. She is the true Israel in whom Old and New Covenant, Israel and Church, are indivisibly one. She is the "people of God" bearing fruit through God's gracious power. ...

Transcending all problems, Marian devotion is the rapture of joy over the true, indestructible Israel; it is a blissful entering into the joy of the Magnificat and thereby it is the praise of him to whom the daughter Zion owes her whole self and whom she bears, the true, incorruptible, indestructible Ark of the Covenant.

(From Daughter Zion: Meditations on the Church's Marian Belief [Ignatius Press, 1983], pp. 42-43, 82.)

---

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Excerpts:

• Mary in Byzantine Doctrine and Devotion | Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.
• Fairest Daughter of the Father: On the Solemnity of the Assumption | Rev. Charles M. Mangan
• The Blessed Virgin in the History of Christianity | John A. Hardon, S.J.
• "Hail, Full of Grace": Mary, the Mother of Believers | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Mary in Feminist Theology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess? | Fr. Manfred Hauke
• Excerpts from The Rosary: Chain of Hope | Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
• The Past Her Prelude: Marian Imagery in the Old Testament | Sandra Miesel
• Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward
• The Medieval Mary | The Introduction to Mary in the Middle Ages | by Luigi Gambero
• Misgivings About Mary | Dr. James Hitchcock
• Born of the Virgin Mary | Paul Claudel
• Assumed Into Mother's Arms | Carl E. Olson
• The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

Preparation, Proclamation, Perseverance, and Purpose

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for April 7, 2013 (Sunday of Divine Mercy) | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Acts 5:12-16
• Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
• Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
• Jn 20:19-31

It is fitting that on this second Sunday of Easter, decreed in 2000 by Pope John Paul II to be Divine Mercy Sunday, that the readings provide a biblical blueprint of how divine mercy and grace would spread in the months and years immediately following the Resurrection.

During the Easter season, leading up to the great Feast of Pentecost, readings from the Acts of the Apostles take the place of Old Testament readings. In this way the connection between “all that Jesus did and taught” (Acts 1:1) and all that the apostles did and taught can be clearly seen and reflected upon. The Evangelist Luke portrayed Jesus as The Prophet who would do great signs and wonders (the greatest being His death and resurrection) and in the Acts of the Apostles he depicted the early Christians—especially the apostles Peter and Paul—as doing “many signs and wonders among the people” (Acts 5:12).

The blueprint of mercy can be summed up in four words: preparation, proclamation, perseverance, and purpose.

The preparation began during the ministry of Jesus, as He spent countless hours, days, and months with His disciples, teaching them by both word and example. Christ’s Passion and the Resurrection took that preparation to a place the disciples could barely begin to fathom prior to those dramatic events. Today’s Gospel reading highlights, in the well-known story of doubting Thomas, that the process of preparation was not a quick or easy one. As the disciples hid behind closed doors, they were often filled with fear and confusion. But the appearance of the Risen Christ in their midst was a source of peace and joy. And so they received their instructions: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then, later, in response to Thomas’s famous cry—“My Lord and my God!”—Jesus further prepared the disciples for their divine mission by pointing them toward the many souls in need of the Gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

The proclamation of that Gospel is seen all through Acts, including in today’s reading. The signs and wonders performed by Christ were soon being performed by the leaders of His Body, the Church, and that Body grew quickly. Luke emphasized the “signs and wonders” throughout his Gospel to present Jesus as the New Moses. Those marks of prophetic activity are mentioned many times in Acts, notably in Peter’s sermon on Pentecost and his recitation of the prophet Joel (2:17-22), and in today’s reading, which describes the proclamation of God’s word by the apostles (cf., 4:29-30), especially the head apostle, Peter.

In addition to Acts, the readings during Easter include selections from the final book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. One reason is to show the perseverance of the early Christians—including the author, John—in the face of persecution. John the Revelator referred to both when he wrote of the “endurance we have in Jesus”; he explained that he had been exiled to the island of Patmos (about 37 miles southwest of modern Turkey) “because I proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus.” While celebrating the Lord’s Day—likely in the course of the Liturgy—John saw the risen and victorious Christ standing among the lamp stands, representing the Church. The Son of Man, “the first and the last,” assures John that the perseverance of the saints is not in vain, but will be rewarded by eternal life: “Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever.”

We return to today’s Gospel to find a perfect summation of the purpose of these many actions of preparation, proclamation, and perseverance. John explained that much more could have been written about Jesus in his Gospel, but that “these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.” By God’s mercy and grace, may we believe more deeply and experience more fully the life of the Risen Lord!

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the April 15, 2007, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

20% off select books and films in celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday

20% off select books and films in celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday!
Offer ends April 9th, 2013 at 12:00 midnight EST. These prices are available online only through Ignatius.com

"Mercy is the central nucleus of the Gospel message; it is the very name of God, the Face with which he revealed himself in the Old Covenant and fully in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of creative and redemptive Love” (Pope emeritus Benedict XVI).

As we prepare to celebrate the beautiful feast of Divine Mercy let us draw closer to the fountain of God’s mercy through prayer and meditation. Reflect on the inconceivable gift of His mercy while reading our Lord’s words to Saint Faustina in her Diary or while listening to our Chaplet of Divine Mercy CD. Renew your trust in Jesus and his Divine Mercy with our do-it-yourself retreat, Consoling the Heart of Jesus. Introduce your children to the story of Saint Faustina and the “refuge of the Feast of Mercy” (Diary 699) by watching Saint Faustina: My Catholic Family together or by teaching them how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet with the help of The Divine Mercy Chaplet for Kids. Finally, after immersing yourself in vast depths of the ocean of Divine Mercy, “go forth and be witnesses of God's mercy, a source of hope for every person and for the whole world" (Pope emeritus Benedict XVI).

The Easter Triduum: Entering into the Paschal Mystery

The Easter Triduum: Entering into the Paschal Mystery | Carl E. Olson 

The liturgical year is a great and ongoing proclamation by the Church of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a celebration of the Mystery of the Word. Through this yearly cycle, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, "the various aspects of the one Paschal mystery unfold"(CCC 1171). The Easter Triduum holds a special place in the liturgical year because it marks the culmination of the yearly celebration in proclaiming the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

The Latin word triduum refers to a period of three days and has long been used to describe various three-day observances that prepared for a feast day through liturgy, prayer, and fasting. But it is most often used to describe the three days prior to the great feast of Easter: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil. The General Norms for the Liturgical Year state that the Easter Triduum begins with the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, "reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with evening prayer on Easter Sunday" (par 19).

"The Importance of Knowing St. Joseph" by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.

The Importance of Knowing St. Joseph | Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. | The Introduction to The Mystery of Joseph by Marie-Dominique Philippe, O.P. | Ignatius Insight

The publication of this serious, even profound study of a person intimately joined to the life of the Messiah and written by one of the most respected figures in our contemporary Catholic scene should cause serious attention to be paid to the often neglected figure of Saint Joseph.

Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, O.P., an important French theologian who died only in 2006, was a man whose thought was of great influence and depth. He was also a man greatly devoted to the Church who founded the Community of Saint John. This new community is now recognized in several countries as a very successful attempt to restore a vibrant spirituality to the religious life, which in many places has seemed moribund for years.

The Brothers and Sisters of Saint John are a cause of hope to those who look ahead to the restoration of the authentic and powerful traditions of the religious life that have gotten lost in recent times. The Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Renewal have welcomed them with joy.

Father Philippe's book on Saint Joseph is very consistent with the new biblical theology called for by Pope Benedict XVI. The author very impressively examines the sparse facts that we have concerning the life of Saint Joseph, teasing from them material that connects easily and well with a very impressive structure of theological teaching. This then becomes a means of providing a firm foundation for devotion to the Foster Father and Guardian of the Son of God.

Except for Christ and Saint Paul, New Testament figures attract little attention from the secular world and especially the secular media – even when they are in a kindly mood. Occasionally a small amount of attention is shown to the figure of the Blessed Mother but rarely is Saint Joseph or any of the Apostles mentioned. Even in cities named Saint Joseph or San José are the inhabitants really conscious of the fact that their hometown is actually named for a person – a person who played a role of immense importance in God's plan of redemption for humankind. This apparent obscurity finds at its root a kind of Protestantism that is focused intensely on the figure Christ and on the writings of Saint Paul, but which seems barely acquainted with Saint Joseph and even the Mother of God, herself.

Catholic theology, which takes a less constricted view of such things, opened up a world of devotion to Saint Joseph the humble carpenter of Nazareth as well as to the Mother of God. How could it be otherwise? These are the figures who stood at the manger on the first Christmas; they are the ones to whom the care of the Word Incarnate was entrusted by God.

A Week of Firsts

A Week of Firsts | Michael Severance | Catholic World Report

The “Bergoglio comeback” and insights from Vatican-watchers into what we can expect from Pope Francis

Some of the less-experienced journalists covering the papal conclave were right on the money one week ago. As wrote in my report last Monday, many of these young vaticanisti covering their first conclave believed that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had a strong chance of surging from behind to beat leading papabili such as Cardinals Scola and Ouellet. 

They were convinced the Argentine would have his rivincita—his comeback—in the 2013 conclave. Their rookie rhyme was not without reason.

Their plain and simple reasoning, not appreciated by the most experienced Vatican scholars and journalists, was essentially this: here is a man who was the apparent runner-up in 2005, and 50 of the cardinal electors from 2005 would be present again in the Sistine Chapel. Surely a good portion of them, say 30 to 40, would team up to recast a Bergoglio ballot for pope. Certainly many cardinal electors still felt wronged for having lost and desired retribution. Thus, they came to battle for their chosen leader.

Even if this wasn’t exactly what played out behind the closed doors of the conclave, a man known as “the quiet thunder” would indeed come roaring from behind to be chosen in the 2013 papal election.

To their credit, expert papal scholars and veteran vaticanisti, such as John Allen, Jr., did have a hunch: namely, the next pope would come from a developing country, most likely from the New World, and with little or no Curia experience, thus being positioned as an objective reformer without the local friends or nepotistic considerations that can fuel corruption.

Like other experts, Allen thought the most likely scenario involved a New World candidate who is Euro-compatible, that is, a polyglot with plenty of first-world experience and Continental heritage. Thus there was strong support for the Brazilian of German extraction, Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer. Bergoglio was seen as too old, especially considering Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had apparently indicated the need for a younger, more energetic successor.

All said and done, it is a fairly safe bet that Cardinal Bergolgio had very strong support on the first vote and that he enjoyed a wave of momentum until the white smoke blew after the fifth round on day two.  It is also a safe bet to say the Holy Spirit gently nudged cardinal electors to reconsider Bergoglio when, during the last of the pre-conclave general congregations, he urged his colleagues to revitalize the Church’s sensitivity to poverty, renew her virtue of austerity in a consumerist-materialistic society, and rid herself of sinful corruption.

The rest is now history.

A week of firsts

Certainly, last Wednesday was not the first time many faithful had personally witnessed the exciting Habemus Papam! pronounced from St. Peter’s loggia.

Many folks, just like me, were right there in St. Peter’s Square only eight years ago when a shy Benedict appeared before a spill-over crowd. Still others, now graying and with grandchildren, were there on John Paul I’s or John Paul II’s first day nearly 35 years ago.

Notwithstanding, this past week proved a historic week of “firsts” for many other noteworthy reasons.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Pope Francis and the Humility of Orthodoxy

Pope Francis and the Humility of Orthodoxy | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report | Editorial

The newly elected pontiff demonstrates how Catholicism is both consistently compelling and often very unpredictable.

For many people, including many Catholics, the Catholic Church is too old-fashioned, staid, and boring, supposedly failing to be "relevant" and "with the times." And yet, the ancient traditions and venerable institutions of the Church—especially the papacy—continue to fascinate and even transfix the world at large. And today's events in Rome demonstrate this fact, showing that Catholicism, far from being dull and predictable, is both consistently compelling and often very unpredictable.

Pope Francis is Exhibit A through Z. First, the unpredictable. Although the Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was reportedly a runner-up in the 2005 papal election, he wasn't on most short lists for this conclave, largely because he is 76 years old, just two years younger than was Cardinal Ratzinger eight years ago. While the possibility of a pope from the Americas seemed more likely than ever before, the names mentioned were mostly from North America, especially Cardinals Dolan and O'Malley.

And yet, just 24 hours and a few votes into the conclave, the first pope from the Americas was introduced to the world. He also is the first pope who belongs to the Society of Jesus, which is something to ponder considering the Jesuits were founded nearly 500 years ago, but also because his taken name, Francis, seems more Franciscan than Jesuit.

Yet even the name comes with a twist or, better, with layers of possible meaning. Most people, understandably, think of St. Francis of Assisi, known for his poverty and humility. That is certainly in keeping with Bergoglio's modest, working-class roots and his widely acknowledged humble and low-key approach, evidenced by his regular use of the bus in Buenos Aires.

But St. Francis of Assisi, viewing the dilapidated church of St. Damian, was told by Jesus Christ, "Francis, go and repair my house, which you see is falling down." There has been much talk of "reform", and most of it has centered not on changing Church doctrine—which needs to be communicated, not reformed—but on cleaning up corruption and rooting out spiritual sloth. Such repair is ever necessary in the household of God, the Church.

However, two other Francis's—both of them Jesuits—must be mentioned, both very likely on the mind of Pope Francis.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

New: "A School of Prayer: The Saints Show us How to Pray" by Pope Benedict XVI

Now available from Ignatius Press:

A School of Prayer: The Saints Show us How to Pray

by Pope Benedict XVI

The Complete Edition | Hardcover | 282 pages

Prayer is essential to the life of faith. In this superb book, based on Pope Benedict's weekly teaching, he examines the foundational principles of the life of prayer. Believers of various backgrounds and experience in prayer-from beginners to spiritually advanced-will be enriched by this spiritual masterpiece.

Benedict begins considering what we can learn from the examples of prayer found in a wide range of cultures and eras. Next, he turns to the Bible's teaching about prayer, beginning with Abraham and moving though Moses, the prophets, the Psalms to the example of Jesus. With Jesus Christ, Pope Benedict considers not only the Lord's teaching about prayer, but also his example of how to pray, including the Our Father, his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, and prayers on the Cross. The prayers of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the early Church are also explored. Benedict also draws on insights from spiritual masters, the saints, and the Church's liturgy. He challenges readers to live their relationships with God "even more intensely, as it were, at a ‘school of prayer'."

Although Benedict provides a sweeping survey of great figures of prayer, his discussion centers on Jesus Christ and even invokes him in the study of prayer. "It is in fact in Jesus," writes Benedict, "that man becomes able to approach God in the depth and intimacy of the relationship of fatherhood and sonship. Together with the first disciples, let us now turn with humble trust to the Teacher and ask him: ‘Lord, teach us to pray' (Lk 11:1)."

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:

Light Of The World  - Hardcover

Newman  - Paperback

Holy Men and Women Of the Middle Ages and Beyond  - Hardcover

Treasury of Wisdom  - Hardcover

Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week  - Hardcover

Reading the Catechism, Rebuilding Catholic Culture

Reading the Catechism, Rebuilding Catholic Culture | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report

An Interview with the author of Rebuilding Catholic Culture: How The Catechism Can Shape Our Common Life 

Dr. Ryan N. S. Topping earned a doctorate in theology at Oxford, is a Fellow at Thomas More College in New Hampshire, and has written two books about St. Augustine. His recently published book, Rebuilding Catholic Culture: How The Catechism Can Shape Our Common Life (Sophia Institute Press, 2012), has been praised by Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP (“This book deserves to take its place among the Catholic classics.”), Joseph Pearce (“Ryan Topping wields the Catechism as a weapon of wisdom…”), and Fr. John Saward (“This profound work of scholarship is a delight to read.”), among others.

Dr. Topping corresponded recently with Catholic World Report about his book, and discussed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, resisting the modern and secular “masters”, the challenges posed by modernity, the various assaults on Catholicism and the family, and why Kant rules our days and Nietzsche our night life.

Catholic World Report: It has now been nearly twenty years since the Catechism of the Catholic Church was published in English. How well or how poorly do you think it has been received and used in that time? How do you hope Rebuilding Catholic Culture will inspire a deeper reading and appreciation of the Catechism?

Dr. Topping: The work of the restoration of culture is the work of saints. How are saints born? They are born through grace, to be sure. But grace is aided by precept and example. The task of reclaiming our culture for the Church is a battle with many fronts. Far more important than good books is the renewal of liturgy within our churches and the restoration of order within our families and schools. Books rarely excite without lively teachers to place them in our hands.

To explain a doctrine is to teach, but to illustrate how its meaning can transform action is to excite. I tried to keep both of these aims in view while writing. My hope is that Rebuilding Catholic Culture will in some small way strengthen the nerve and excite the imagination of its readers.

CWR: You write, in the Introduction, that, “Intellectual humility is a great good, but self-imposed humiliation before our medical, moral, and political masters is unbecoming.” What are some examples of that “self-imposed humiliation” and why do so many Catholics embrace it? What are some examples of these modern masters? 

Dr. Topping: We improperly censure ourselves each time we talk about “faith communities” or “Christian values” or “gender”. None of these things exist in the Catholic lexicon. We belong to the Church, believe in good and evil, and are created male and female. Language shapes our perceptions. We need to recapture once more, through catechesis and in our schools and colleges, a grounding in the basics of Catholic philosophy. Not that everyone needs to become a scholar. But good philosophy is needed if only to counter bad philosophy. And our public discourse has been dominated for a very long time by those versed in sub-human philosophy.

How to reverse this trend? Every profession and trade affords its own opportunities for heroism. If you are a college president, refuse to remove crucifixes from your classrooms. If you are a principal of a Catholic high school, hire Catholic teachers. If you are a Catholic doctor, stick your neck out and refuse to prescribe contraception. If you are a mother, know what your children are being taught at school, and assert your role as the primary educator.
 
CWR: A central theme of your book is the uneasy and often contentious relationship between modernity and Catholicism. Why are you so hard on modernity? Hasn't it produced all sorts of wonderful technological, medical, and cultural advances and accomplishments? Are you simply pining for a golden age of Catholicism when the Church dominated culture and every other aspect of life? Aren’t you a bit young to be nostalgic for the Middle Ages?

Continue reading on the CWR site.

"Primacy in Love": The Chair Altar of Saint Peter's in Rome | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

"Primacy in Love": The Chair Altar of Saint Peter's in Rome | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | From Images of Hope

Anyone who, after wandering through the massive nave of Saint Peter's Basilica, at last arrives at the final altar in the apse would probably expect here a triumphal depiction of Saint Peter, around whose tomb the church is built. But nothing of the kind is the case. The figure of the Apostle does not appear among the sculptures of this altar. Instead, we stand before an empty throne that almost seems to float but is supported by the four figures of the great Church teachers of the West and the East. The muted light over the throne emanates from the window surrounded by floating angels, who conduct the rays of light downward.

What is this whole composition trying to express? What does it tell us? It seems to me that a deep analysis of the essence of the Church lies hidden here, is contained here, an analysis of the office of Peter. Let us begin with the window, with its muted colors, which both gathers in to the center and opens outward and upward. It unites the Church with creation as a whole. It signifies through the dove of the Holy Spirit that God is the actual source of all light. But it tells us also something else) the Church herself is in essence, so to speak, a window, a place of contact between the other-worldly mystery of God and our world, the place where the world is permeable to the radiance of his light. The Church is not there for herself, she is not an end, but rather a point of departure beyond herself and us. The more transparent she becomes for the other, from whom she comes and to whom she leads, the more she fulfills her true essence. Through the window of her faith God enters this world and awakens in us the longing for what is greater. The Church is the place of encounter where God meets us and we find God. It is her task to open up a world closing in on itself, to give it the light without which it would be unlivable.

Let us look now at the next level of the altar: the empty cathedra made of gilded bronze, in which a wooden chair from the ninth century is embedded, held for a long time to be the cathedra of the Apostle Peter and for this reason placed in this location. The meaning of this part of the altar is thereby made clear. The teaching chair of Peter says more than a picture could say. It expresses the abiding presence of the Apostle, who as teacher remains present in his successors. The chair of the Apostle is a sign of nobility--it is the throne of truth, which in that hour at Caesarea became his and his successors' charge. The seat of the one who teaches reechoes, so to speak, for our memory the word of the Lord from the room of the Last Supper: "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Lk 22:32). But there is also another remembrance connected to the chair of the Apostle: the saying of Ignatius of Antioch, who in the year 110 in his Letter to the Romans called the Church of Rome "the primacy of love". Primacy in faith must be primacy in love. The two are not to be separated from each other. A faith without love would no longer be the faith of Jesus Christ. The idea of Saint Ignatius was however still more concrete: the word "love" is in the language of the early Church also an expression for the Eucharist. Eucharist originates in the love of Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us. In the Eucharist, he evermore shares himself with us; he places himself in our hands. Through the Eucharist he fulfills evermore his promise that from the Cross he will draw us into his open arms (see Jn 12:32). In Christ's embrace we are led to one another. We are taken into the one Christ, and thereby we now also belong reciprocally together. I can no longer consider anyone a stranger who stands in the same contact with Christ.

The Temptation reveals three important things

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, February 17, 2013, the First Sunday of Lent | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Dt 26:4-10
• Ps 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
• Rom 10:8-13
• Lk 4:1-13

“The whole story of the Temptation is misconceived,” wrote Monsignor Ronald Knox, “if we do not recognize that it was an attempt made by Satan to find out whether our Lord was the Son of God or not.” In so writing, he echoed many of the Church Fathers, who pondered the question of what Satan knew and what he wished to accomplish in tempting Jesus in the desert. St. Ephrem the Syrian wrote, “He tempted Jesus because a definite sign of Christ’s divinity had not yet been given from heaven.” Yes, Ephrem noted, Satan was aware of Jesus’ baptism, but thought the true identity of Jesus couldn’t be known until he was tested in spiritual combat, through temptation.

It is a point worth contemplating on this first Sunday of Lent for three reasons: temptation reveals the nature of our enemy, it reveals the reality of our situation, and it reveals the identity of the sons and daughters of God.

The enemy has many names, including Beelzebul, the evil one, the ruler of the demons and of this world, the serpent, and the tempter. He is not a metaphor or a myth, but a real creature, a fallen angel. Pope Paul VI, in an audience titled, “Confronting the Devil’s power” (Nov. 15, 1972), said that refusing to acknowledge the devil’s existence or to explain him away as “a pseudo-reality, a conceptual, fanciful personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes” is a complete rejection of Scripture and Church teaching. Ironically, the refusal of so many—including not a few Catholics—to admit the true identity of the devil is itself a dark triumph for the great deceiver.

The name “the devil,” comes from the Greek word diabolos (Latin, diabolus), which means “slanderer” or “accuser.” He seeks to accuse and slander each of us before God in his relentless desire to destroy souls. In doing so he has a certain advantage, namely, that on our own merits we have no real defense against his accusations. The reality of our situation is stark: we are sinners who often give into temptation and, in doing so, make ourselves subjects of the ruler of this world.

This fact is part and parcel of Jesus’ forty days in the desert. His time there was a purposeful re-enactment of the forty years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. But whereas the Israelites failed, repeatedly, to obey, trust, and worship God, Jesus overcame the devil’s attempts to have him disobey, distrust, and deny God. “At the heart of the temptations,” notes Pope Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth, “as we see here, is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives.”

We are rarely tempted to flatly deny the existence of God or to publicly curse him. Rather, we are tempted to gradually replace God, the highest good, with lesser goods: food, comfort, safety, possessions, and position. People rarely go from Christian to atheist in a matter of days or weeks. As Benedict points out, the devil is just as pleased when we demand that God caters to our wishes as he is when we reject God altogether. They are, in the end, not so different, especially when it comes to destroying the life of grace. 

“But,” some protest, “Jesus had an advantage: he is God!” Yet all who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ (cf. Rom 6). We are children of God because, by the work of Jesus, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Today’s epistle states what is required in the face of temptation and trials: confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

In facing the enemy and rejecting temptation, Jesus revealed himself. Lent is our opportunity to do the same, in the name and power of the Lord.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the February 21, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The Relevance of Holiness: St. Bernadette and Lourdes

The Relevance of Holiness | Patricia A. McEachern, Ph.D. | The Introduction to A Holy Life: St. Bernadette of Lourdes | Ignatius Insight

On a cold winter day in 1858 in Lourdes, France, Bernadette Soubirous, a tiny, asthmatic shepherdess went in search of wood along the Gave River. The visions this humble young girl experienced that day has since deepened the faith of millions. 

Bernadette could scarcely believe her eyes when a beautiful Lady appearedbefore her. Eventually, she would come to understand that it was the Holy Virgin Mary herself who had appeared to her that day and on seventeen subsequent occasions. Church authorities could not have been expected to believe immediately that the Virgin Mary had appeared in a grotto where pigs took shelter from the thunderstorms that sometimes raged through the countryside surrounding the small village in the Pyrenees. Even more unlikely was that she would have enlisted the aid of a poverty-stricken, uneducated girl whose family had been reduced to living in a former jail cell condemned as too unhealthy even to house prisoners. 

It was highly improbable that the Immaculate Conception herself would choose this fourteen-year-old girl whose own living conditions were so very far from immaculate. Bernadette understood that the Blessed Mother had demonstrated great humility in appearing to her, conversing with her and asking for her aid, and asking so kindly and respectfully. Bernadette would spend the rest of her brief life trying to follow the example of humility that the Queen of Heaven herself had shown to her.

The story of Saint Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes has exerted a powerful influence on the spiritual lives of millions of people for a century and a half. Scores of writers, be it scholarly, religious or secular, have written about Saint Bernadette and her visions of the Holy Virgin Mary at the Grotto of Massabielle. Bernadette is typically portrayed as an honest, but illiterate and uncatechised young girl, as she was at the time of the apparitions. The catechist who prepared her for her First Communion went so far as to claim that she was incapable of learning, and Father Pomian, her confessor, accurately referred to her as a tabula rasa, that is, a blank slate. Indeed, she was thoroughly uneducated when the Holy Virgin Mary first appeared to her. 

Decline and Fall. And Hope.

Decline and Fall. And Hope. | Edmund J. Mazza, PhD | Catholic World Report

Americans would do well to ask the question posed by Ponticianus’ sixteen centuries ago: “What is our aim in life?”

Perhaps Rome is not perishing; perhaps she is only scourged, not utterly destroyed; perhaps she is chastened, not brought to nought. It may be so; Rome will not perish, if the Romans do not perish. And perish they will not if they praise God; perish they will if they blaspheme Him.[1]
                                                    — St. Augustine

I was so stupefied and dismayed that day and night I could think of nothing but the welfare of the [Christian] community; it seemed as though I was sharing the captivity of the saints, and I could not open my lips until I knew something more definite; and all the while, full of anxiety, I was wavering between hope and despair, and was torturing myself with the misfortunes of other people. But when the bright light of all the world was put out, or, rather, when the Roman Empire was decapitated, and, to speak more correctly, the whole world perished in one city. ‘I became dumb and humbled myself, and kept silence from good words, but my grief broke out afresh, my heart glowed within me, and while I meditated the fire was kindled;’[2]
                                                        — St. Jerome

From his monastic cell in Bethlehem, the great Western Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Jerome bewailed Late Antiquity’s “9/11,” the Fall of Rome. Rome’s fall has been an object of fascination for western writers, not least because ever since the Founding Fathers, patriotic Americans have seen parallels between that shining city on seven hills and our own noble republic. Indeed, events of the last few years have called into question whether America herself is now likewise doomed to irreversible “decline and fall.”

On August 24, 410, Rome was sacked by the warlord Alaric and his army of rampaging Goths. When a starving populace admitted the barbarian horde on that fateful August day, it was the first time in an astounding 800 years that enemy soldiers had ever breached the imperial capital’s defenses. Although their attackers were actually Arian Christians (deniers of Christ’s divinity) who spared churches and practiced some measure of clemency, the psychological impact of such a blow for the greater Roman world (some thirty million souls or more) is hard to underestimate. Rome was, after all “the light,” according to Jerome, and that is also how general Maximus characterizes it to an elderly Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the Academy award winning “Gladiator.” The battle-tested legionary has seen much of the rest of the world, and it is “brutish and dark.”

Not just modern film-makers, however, but modern historians, as well, beginning with Edward Gibbon in 1776, have tended to agree with both Jerome and the general. They have seen, starting with the reign of Marcus’ megalomaniacal son Commodus, in AD 180, a steady and almost inevitable decline of the greatest civilization man had yet produced, with the disasters of the fifth century fully emblematic of its final, fitful death throes. For Gibbon, “Christianity and barbarism,” were ultimately to blame for bringing down the Empire, and ushering in the “Dark Ages.”

Now it must be said there is much evidence for a genuine “Decline” and “Fall” in the historical record (whether Christianity is to blame is another matter). As Bryan Ward-Perkins recently recorded of material existence in Roman Britain at the fortress of Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.