Roma Aeterna

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

Rome is of course a world capital, and that of Italy wherein one finds 80 percent of the world’s art treasures. As with any city, this former center of empire is many different things to different people. Locals, visitors for business or pleasure, tourists and pilgrims all crowd its ancient streets. There is one reason why Rome is a place of prayer as much, or perhaps more than, anything else.
Rome tics off highlights on every cultural list, from masterpieces of architecture and art to singular culinary delights. The Italian capital, however, has one thing which no other city in the world has: the Vatican. Because this city is the global center of the Church, one finds here representatives of nearly every religious order or work — apostolic or charitable — that springs from this ecclesial and evangelical heart of the universal Body of Christ.
Not to be missed are the many stunning churches filled with sculptures, paintings, mosaics, relics, and other expressions of the reality of the faith that is lived out in every parish around the world. These all flow from Christ as He offers Himself in the Holy Sacrifice offered on our altars.
These temples, the work of men inspired by more than 2,000 years of faith, tell the story of the Church through the saints and faithful who came before us. They serve both to inspire us by their witness and to impel us to beg their intercession for us, that we may follow in their steps.
Churches here are home to masterpieces of various kinds. These best serve to remind pilgrims of the one masterpiece which God desires of each of us, above every other kind of personal accomplishment for which we may be able to claim credit. This greatest work for every human person is that of cooperation with grace; of the Lord at work in our heart, mind, soul, and strength. The Divine Artist seeks, through our faith and growth in virtue, to recreate in us His image and likeness by means of grace.
Only through repentance, penance, sacramental life, worship and prayer are the virtues nurtured daily which make of the soul a fruitful field for the Divine Sower who looks to the harvest which will surely one day come and where there will be both wheat and tares. Just judge that He is, the Lord will reward each soul as we deserve.
The many churches of Rome tell the story of grace through the lives of the saints. Holy men and women who heroically followed Christ are rightly celebrated with both magnificent as well as humble temples.
Santa Prassede, among the earliest martyrs, is thus recalled and commended. The church which bears her name is a treasure house of early Catholic art in mosaics, marble, and other enduring means. The exemplary lives and deaths of the apostles and martyrs draw us with them more deeply into the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
The Protestant revolution called forth a new effort of evangelization to both correct those Catholics who were not exemplary moral witnesses as well as to refute heresies and save the souls of those at risk while held bound in their grip.
One of these post Reformation heroes is St. Ignatius. He is celebrated with a grand church in his honor on a busy Roman thoroughfare. The Via del Corso, as its name implies, served in earlier times as a racing venue during carnival season. Today pilgrims mingle along its sidewalks with Romans and visitors from all over the world racing instead to see and experience the many treasures Rome has to offer.
St. Ignatius offers an experience unique in Rome with its nightly spettacolo at the side altar dedicated to this founder of the Society of Jesus. To see it one must arrive before 5:30 in the evening. If entering in December as I did, one finds the interior darkened by the early winter sunset. The faithful wander in the gloom with both devotion and curiosity to ponder the great ceiling painting, the side chapels, statues, the bodies of Jesuit saints and the funerary monuments.
Some read, some pray or contemplate beauty while others begin to take seats near the high altar under a painting of the Baptism of the Lord. The moment in which His Holy Name was conferred is celebrated in the church’s principal place of honor. The greater glory of God and the exaltation of the Holy Name were two primary elements of the charism conferred by the founder of the now worldwide Society which bears His Name.
In this, and the many churches of Rome, painting, sculpture, stone, and various works of art lift our hearts and minds to God. Things created to speak of truth, goodness and beauty draw us to all that is uncreated. To contemplate and commune with eternity by means of earthly realities stills the mind’s preoccupation with mundane details and prepares the heart to receive the fruit of peace and spiritual joy received in communion with God.
Sant’ Ignazio di Loyola is depicted at his side altar in a monumental painting of his apotheosis. The holy founder ascends heavenward upon the clouds, where our risen Lord displaying the wounds of His Passion meets him and confers upon him the red banner of victory emblazoned with “IHS,” the monogram of the Holy Name.
In the prayer of quiet and the exterior gloom which diminishes distraction one experiences more fully the undivided heart. Like the apostles, we too must hear the Lord’s invitation to “Come away for a while.” The price of union and its many joys is that of leaving the world and its many troubles behind for however long.
At half past five a voice begins to narrate in Italian the heroic history of faith in the life of Ignatius; his service of the Trinity through priestly work to save souls and his religious order which sent so many missionaries all over the globe. Beautiful music, narration and spotlights highlight aspects of his life and work, Ad majorem Dei gloriam.
Finally, as a powerful denouement, the painting is mechanically lowered, revealing the immense silver and gold statue of the saint with angels concealed behind it. His priestly chasuble is studded with jewels glinting in the light glancing brilliantly off his form which now shares in the glory of God through the beatific vision.
The experience sums up well in one compact drama both the sometimes daunting challenge of holiness and the unequaled victory of Heaven, our only happiness eternally. The viewer is impelled by powerful desire to also seek great holiness.
If we would enjoy communion with the Lord, both in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood as well as beyond the doors of our churches before and after Holy Mass, we must learn more and more to live above the political fray and social gossip which will always mark the daily course of this world.
In the life of the Church and the family we can and we must step away from and live beyond the deafening clamor of “He said, she said” and the endless rounds of “Who shot John?” Though we may walk the streets of this Earth with their gutters of mud and grime we need not also be mired in it.
Through the history of the apostles, the Popes and martyrs, the faithful priests, virgins, and Christian families, in so many ways as in no other place, the rich panoply which is Rome on the Tiber powerfully tells the story of our faith.
Rome is the “eternal city” because there, unlike any other place in the world, one is urged onward and aided by so many reminders to run the race ever more ardently, through faith and love, toward hope’s goal of life unending in God.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. See photos and stories of my Italy pilgrimage at apriestlife.blogspot.com