Wow. So maybe three weeks ago one of my friends sent me a note saying ‘judging from your blog, Brian, I’m not convinced that you’re still breathing.’ I wrote her back saying that I haven’t been updating because there have been so many incredible things, one after another, that I don’t know where to begin.
But as Chesterton said, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly. So I will try to give a summary of what has been going on, dividing up the time into the rest of Lent, then Holy Week, then Easter Week. (These will get posted separately, but hopefully all in the next few days.)
LENT (part I of II)
Back in February, our group had a private Mass in the baptistery of the Basilica of St. John in Lateran – which, along with St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Peter’s is one of the four ‘major basilicas’ of the Church in Rome. About ten minutes before Mass was to start, a tall, thin, elegantly dressed young woman walked in. Which was not too remarkable: But she was succeeded by a friend just like her – and then another – and another – and another, until our group was outnumbered by the forty or so perfectly silent apparitions who had each entered, genuflected, and then glided over to one corner of the chapel. When all the girls had entered, they were followed by two nuns wearing strict black habits with the old-fashioned white and black veils. One of the nuns pointed to the painting under which they were gathered and whispered for a minute in French. And then they all headed over to the pews, again moving with grace and precision. As it happened, I was seated closer to their corner, so I wound up literally surrounded, with an old nun on one side and a young woman on the other. They knelt, and then, at a whisper from one of the nuns, all began singing. Part of it was surely because of how unexpected it was – but this was the most beautiful song I have ever heard in my life; it was earthshattering, utterly transcendent beauty. I do not speak French, and thus had no idea what they were saying; all I know is that their voices were pure, sincere, and stunning. When they finished, I turned and thanked the young woman next to me, who was standing to leave. With natural intonation and exactly the accent you would expect, she replied ‘it was a pleasure.’ And then they left, as silently and as quickly as they had come.
I tell this story because it hopefully is a good introduction to one of the most important things that sunk into me this Lent – that the Church is so much broader and deeper than we see at home, when ‘Mass is boring’ and we don’t see why we should bother. Broader, because it truly is ‘catholic’ in the sense of universal. Deeper, because there are so many levels of meaning which we so often just fail to engage.
There is centuries-old tradition here called the ‘station churches’ which I took part in. For those who could not go on a pilgrimage outside the city, a different station church was appointed for each day of Lent, to which the faithful would go on foot. (No worry about running out of churches: there are over 600 of them in Rome. The difficult part must have been choosing which were the 40 best ones!) The Mass in English was at 7am, so going was a bit of a sacrifice, when often you had to leave at 5:30 to make it on time. By no means did I make it to all 40, I admit. But I was at roughly half, and that in itself was enough to stir me. Church architecture has been divorced from liturgy for a long time now, long enough that the majority of American churches are insipid. But here, going to one church after another, week after week, each more splendid than the previous, was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I will limit myself to talking about the one that struck me most deeply, the Basilica of San Clemente. Like St. Peter’s, there have been excavations underneath exposing an impressive span of centuries – the major difference being that instead of being built on top of the tomb of Peter, San Clemente is actually built on a second-century pagan temple which was dedicated to the cult of Mithras. Above this is a fourth-century Catholic church, which became structurally unsound and hence was filled in during the twelfth century and used as a foundation for the current church.
More striking than its history, though, is the richness of symbolism it contains. My Art & Architecture class took a two-hour tour through the Basilica with our professor explaining the meaning behind elements that we had not even noticed. Just two of the dozens of things that were pointed out to us:
during the Easter Vigil, the procession with the Easter candle would go up the main nave to the schola cantorum, where the Liturgy of the Word took place. Around the area where the procession would happen, there are very intricate marble designs on the floor. These are intended to look like carpets. Why? Because they had heard that in the Middle East, it is a good idea to put a carpet in front of your tent to keep snakes from entering it (apparently they are not comfortable with the feel and turn away). So to symbolize the Light of Christ repelling Satan, they put marble carpets on the floor.
But as important as a meaningful church building is, the Church is comprised of its people. And similarly to how we have been exposed to all the different styles of church architecture, each with its own strengths and beauty, we have been introduced to a vast number of religious communities here in Rome. It got to the point where I joked to Fr. Joseph Carola, a professor at the Greg and our rector, that they were taking us on a vocations tour, trying to find an order for each person in the group to fall in love with. (He himself is a Jesuit, proud of his order but honest about its shortcomings.) I already mentioned meeting the Missionaries of Charity. But in the past two months, I have also chanted lauds in a monastery-hidden-in-a-valley with Norbertine clerics; attended Mass with and been fed a fantastic meal by cloistered Poor Clare nuns, who showed us love but did not speak a single word to us; discussed natural law and virtue ethics with Sisters of Mercy, one of whom (Sister Katrina) is in Rome to earn her Ph.D. in moral philosophy; partook in Eucharistic Adoration with Benedictine monks in the major church of Norcia, which is built on the very spot where St. Benedict’s family home stood; been given the history of and shown the Eucharistic Miracle of Siena by Franciscan friars; and gone on a silent retreat with diocesan seminarians at the NAC from English-speaking countries across the world. (That retreat was held on the same lake that the Papal summer home, Castel Gandolfo, overlooks. From what I could tell from the outside, Benedict XVI has a pretty cool pad. But it’s not just a villa: It also contains the Vatican Observatory from which a Jesuit astronomer became the first to formulate the ‘big bang’ theory of the origin of the universe.)
My favorite group of religious, though, was definitely the Little Sisters and Brothers of the Lamb, which is dedicated to radical poverty and the renewal of the liturgy. These are some of the humblest, simplest people I have ever met – but their singing outshines many professional choirs that I have heard.
So again, the net result of all of this is that when I go back to church in America, the next time I am tempted to think that the church is ugly or the Mass is boring, I will remind myself of how small a part of reality I am currently paying attention to. (And I am just speaking on the human level here. For a glimpse of the divine reality present at **every** Mass, regardless of the quality of the artwork and the sermon, I suggest reading “The Lamb’s Supper” by Scott Hahn.)
This is the sort of thing that has mattered to me and makes me most glad to be here. But in case anyone reading this is worried that I have been all prayer and no play, don’t be. During Lent I took a number of weekend trips in Italy to places like Siena and Ravenna, learning but also just enjoying it. And my family came out to visit for a week, so I skipped a week of class (something inconceivable for those who know my work habits) to go to Cinque Terre with them. To all the other Rick Steves fans out there: The man is right, Cinque Terre is inexpressibly gorgeous. I recommend not going during the summer, though, because the place was already a little bit too touristy for my taste in March.
Finally, one of those random things I saw that just makes me smile and be happy to be here:
The apse of the Basilica of St. Francis in Ravenna is raised about ten feet above the floor of the rest of the church. There are stairs up to it, but also stairs downwards, with a window where you can see the old apse beneath it. It is flooded; the original building is now below sea level. And someone, some centuries ago, had the brilliant idea to put goldfish in the little pond. So the Mass is offered with the fishes of the sea as well of the people of the earth taking part. Saint Francis would surely be proud.
LENT (part II of II)
So I was a bit reluctant to talk about what follows, as it’s rather personal. But it would be a rather large omission if I failed to mention that for all of the time I have been here, I have either had casts on my legs or simply been on forearm crutches (the sort that polio victims use, not the sort that you are given when you sprain an ankle).
What happened? Given how many times I have had to answer that question, you would expect me to have a good answer. My one-liner is “it’s like shin splints in your feet.” I say ‘it’s like’ because I have visited literally nine different doctors, eight of whom were specialists (podiatrists, orthopedics, sports medicine), and have received a number of varying and conflicting diagnoses (plantar fasciitis or plantar fascosis, and/or Achilles tendonitis or Achilles entheosophy). Regardless of what you call it, it is a repetitive sports injury in both feet due to poor body mechanics. I went from lifting every other day and running twenty miles a week last August, to not being able to run in September, to needing to buy a bike because I could no longer walk around campus in October, to needing ridiculous ‘Z-coil’ orthopedic shoes in November, to having a cast on my left leg and an immobilization boot on my right foot in January, finally to being on crutches from March till now. At which point, thank God, I am beginning to get better, because a wheelchair was basically the only further I could sink, and Rome is not handicapped-accessible. It’s been a hoot, let me tell ya.
But while it has not been fun, I can genuinely say that this is among the three or four single best things that has ever happened to me in my life. It has been a long, long Lent – about eight months that I have been on this decline. Understanding it in religious terms (or even merely psychological, although that does not grant quite as much meaning) has enabled me not only to learn from what has been happening, but to be grateful for it.
Like most Notre Dame students, I am a capable and confident young adult, with an impressive résumé and hopeful future. The problem with being able to do many things by yourself, though, is that it tempts you to think that you can do everything by yourself. For me, this self-confidence found particular manifestation in athleticism: Last summer, while at the peak of these activities that led to my physical breakdown, a friend of mine – a Marine and Iraqi War veteran – told me that my exercise routine was “too motivated.” More than too motivated, though, I was too proud. And pride cometh before the fall.
This sunk in to me in a life-changing way on February 27. I was up at 5:30 to go to the Station Church of Saint Anastasia. My friends walked, but because I could not go long distances I took the metro. According to my trusty Moleskine Roma, the closest stop was ‘Circo Massimo,’ and I would only have to walk the length of the ruins to get to the church. Many of those reading this online have been to Rome, I would expect – but I doubt that many have been to the Circus Maximus. It isn’t on any of the guided tour routes, and for very good reason. The ruins of the Coliseum and the Forum still retain echoes of their former glory, but other than a few bricks in one corner, the Circus has been utterly lost: All that remains is a sunken dirt oval (roughly a soccer field’s length) in a field of scraggly grass.
So I began clunking along the sidewalk, paralleling the track, my cast one one leg and my boot on the other. I smiled to myself, thinking of my favorite running loop this past summer in DC, which took me around the Lincoln Memorial past the WWII Memorial to the Washington Monument. But now here in Rome, after walking almost exactly half the length of the Circus, I found that the pain in my feet had inexplicably shot up from its usual annoying-but-easily-tolerable-dull-jabs to searing-tearing-intensity, far worse than my feet had ever hurt. I tried to grit my teeth and just keep going, the way that I have always conquered adversity in life. But after less than a dozen steps, I was forced to give up. I sat down on the sidewalk, physically incapable of taking another step.
And then I looked at what I was facing, and was floored by a realization:
The Circus Maximus is the greatest monument to physical human accomplishment which Western Civilization ever built. In the ‘glory days of Rome,’ it was here that chariots raced and gladiators roared; here that wreaths of glory were awarded to the victors, to the adulation of tens of thousands of cheering fans.
And what remains?
A dirt track in a depressing hollow, where homeless people pitch their tents. No statues, no monuments, no memorials. Just dirt, and more weeds than grass.
If we have not immortal souls, if we do not hope for the resurrection of the body, then truly we are no more than dust, and unto dust we shall return.
The Circus Maximus was also the site where most of the early Christian martyrs were killed. I have already talked quite a bit about the living tradition which is the fruit that has come from the blood of the martyrs. There is a stark, stark contrast between the earthly splendor which leads to emptiness and the transcendent sacrifice which leads to true glory.
Yet it took me being reduced to the point where I **literally could no longer walk** for me to admit that I cannot go it on my own. Aristotle’s ideal of human flourishing is something that I have bought into very, very deeply; and though St. Thomas warns us that we can only do so much on our own power and need God to fully reach our end, I still have been living the past few years like many good God-fearing Americans: We go to church on Sunday and reassure ourselves that God is on our side, and then go out and live the rest of the week on our own steam. American independence and individualism are so deeply ingrained in our culture that we easily do not even realize that we are taking them for granted. What I desperately needed and finally learned, though, comes straight from St. Paul: ‘for when I am weak, then I am strong; I can do nothing, but He can do all things through me.’
It has been truly liberating to accept this; the truth indeed sets one free. And the truth is that no matter how big and strong, or smart and witty, or rich and powerful we are, we are all dependent rational animals. As human persons, we each have great dignity endowed by God; but as individual human beings, we begin in helpless infancy and end in helpless old age, and are much more dependent on others in between than we would like to admit. Once we do admit it, though, life becomes much less forced and much more peaceful.
They say that you can only experience a city by walking around it. I think that life has become so fast-paced, though, that it might now be true that the only way to really know a place is to explore it on crutches. Some of the other American students I am here with fly through their daily routine; but it’s tough to speedwalk when you are a gimp. I see and experience a lot more of the little things because of it, I think, and I am grateful for that. With my broken Italian and broken feet, I have gotten to know cabdrivers, been mortified to have little old ladies offer me their seats on the metro, noticed and wandered into delightful little shops in side-alleys while taking shortcuts, and even been given rides by local Italians. No matter what evil comes to pass, there is always good to be accepted.
One last anecdote to wrap this up:
There is an old beggar woman who sits in front of the main gate of the Angelicum almost every day. We are trained to shun homeless people completely, to avert our gaze and pretend that there is no person there. However, last fall I attended a lecture by a man who was homeless in DC for three years, and he had mentioned that simply acknowledging that they are human beings, by granting a smile or a nod, can often be more meaningful than mechanically dropping a coin. So I tried to be minimally friendly to her, only giving money once but usually nodding or smiling and occasionally exchanging a few words. Although we communicate very poorly (my Italian is bad, and I believe she speaks a dialect), sometime early on she asked me what was wrong with my feet and I said ‘not broken but badly hurt.’ She genuinely seemed sympathetic – surely someone who knows something of suffering – and gestured her clasped hands to the sky, as though to say that she would pray for me. Since then, she usually gave me a sad smile when I passed, as if to say ‘you and me both, kid.’
Yesterday (April 18) was the third day that I have gone without crutches – as long as I walk less than a quarter-mile at a time, I now can walk normally, so by taking the metro and the bus I can have a normal day. I arrived at school, and it was the first time the woman has ever seen me without boot/cast, crutches, or both. As soon as she did, she did a double-take – ‘is that really him?’ – and then her face lit up with joy. A cynic would say that she was doing it to get money, but I am convinced that it was fully genuine. She asked what happened, I said I indeed was better; and she clasped then raised both of her hands to the sky, with a tremendous smile on her weathered face.
