Category Archives: Sancti

Highlights on the saints.

A patron I never knew I had

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St. John-Baptist de la Salle

St. John-Baptist de la Salle.

I’m frankly ashamed of myself for how little I knew about St. John-Baptiste de la Salle, whose feast day is today, a patron saint of teachers and founder of the Christian Brothers — especially given that his is one of the relics in the altar of St. John the Evangelist in Oxford, Mississippi, where I entered the Church, where I worshipped for two years — and that I knew and posted about that fact two years ago. Today, hearing that he was a patron of teachers, he grabbed my attention; and reading about him, he grabbed my heart; and I thought he seemed a little familiar!

And it also so happens that today is the two-year anniversary of my entrance into the Church. I entered the Church on the very feast day of the saint whose relic I’d been praying before; the very saint who is patron of my chosen profession. And I never knew! This blessed man, I have no doubt, has been thinking of me and praying for me all this time; and only now do I learn about him — only now, in the very time when I’m seeking employment as a teacher. St. John-Baptiste de la Salle, pray for me!

A Scriptural Defense of the Saints in Heaven

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All Saints

A little something I whipped up last week for somebody — in rejection of the idea that the saints are “dead,” that praying to the saints is “communication with the dead,” and that this is an “occult” practice (one of the more bizarre anti-Catholic claims I have heard). My interlocutor was not receptive, but I thought this might be helpful to someone else.

Man is Appointed Once to Die, Then Comes Judgment

You seem to be advocating a form of the doctrine of “soul sleep” or mortalism, the belief that the soul becomes dormant between earthly death and the Final Judgment, an error the Christian Church has condemned consistently since the earliest times. Scripture reveals to us that the dead in Christ receive a particular judgment at the moment of their deaths, rather than “dying” until the Final Judgment. Hebrews 10:27–28 tells us that “it is appointed once for men to die, and then comes judgment” and that at the end of the age, “Christ will appear a second time … to save those who are eagerly awaiting Him”; that will be the Final Judgment, for which both the just and the unjust will be resurrected in body and judged (Acts 24:15, John 5:28–29, Matthew 25:31, 32, 46). Scripture shows us in more than a few places that the dead have immediate destinations, rather than entering a “holding place.” Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:22) presents the living and conscious souls of both men in their respective dispositions, not dead or dormant or asleep. Jesus promised the good thief on the cross that he would be with Him in Paradise that very day (Luke 23:43).

The Four Doctors of the Western Church

The Four Doctors of the Western Church: Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome.

The Spirits of Just Men Made Perfect

We have every reason from Scripture to believe that there awaits a heavenly reward for righteous men and women who die in Christ. St. Paul presents that apart from his body, he might be at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6–8) — not dormant or dead until a later judgment. Given the choice between life and death, his desire was to depart and be with Christ — for to live is Christ and to die is gain — but chose to remain and serve the people of God (Philippians 1:21–24). Hebrews 12:23 presents “the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and … the spirits of just men made perfect” — a very clear indication of the eternal life already received by worthy Christians who have passed on.

All Saints

Fra Angelico. The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs (about 1423-24).

The Communion of Saints

And when these souls have passed from their earthly walk, what is their relation to the living Church? We know that in Baptism we all are joined to the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12–13, Galatians 3:27), and that in the Body of Christ we share an organic unity with all other believers (Romans 12:4–5, 1 Corinthians 10:17, 12:12–20, Ephesians 4:4). We know that in Christ we have eternal life, and we know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again (Romans 6:9). Therefore we have no reason to believe that bodily death has cut those who have passed from this life off from Christ or off from us. Rather than dead or dormant, our dear departed are more alive now than they’ve ever been. As we have communion with Christ, we have communion with each other, with all other believers — all who are in Christ from all ages. Since the earliest times, the Church of Christ has affirmed this communion of saints, as declared in the ancient creeds.

The Day of the Dead (1859), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

The Day of the Dead (1859), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

Communicating with the Dead?

So, the idea than in praying to and with the saints — as they pray with and for us — we are “communicating with the dead,” is erroneous. The practice condemned by Isaiah (Isaiah 8:19) and the Torah (Leviticus 19:31, 20:6, 27, Deuteronomy 18:11) is explicitly the communication with the dead through “mediums and wizards” — “consulting the dead on behalf of the living” for the sake of personal gain or advantage or divine or supernatural knowledge, expecting a supernatural dialogue from beyond the grave, as Saul sought to do with the spirit of the prophet Samuel through the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28). The “occult” — the etymology of which refers to “closed” or “hidden” or “dark” knowledge — includes specifically sorcery, witchcraft, wizardry, astrology, spiritism, and necromancy — which is not simply “communicating with the dead,” but communicating with the dead through these dark arts, by contacting spirits through rituals or spells or séances. Prayer — in and with and through the Holy Spirit — in no way resembles any of this. We pray in the light, in the open, with voices lifted to God, not through hidden or dark or arcane wisdom.

To “pray,” in the most literal sense, means to ask, to petition, to plead, to beseech — and this is all it means to “pray” to the saints: to ask for the intercession of our Christian brothers and sisters who are in and with Christ in heaven, as we also intercede for all our brothers and sisters in Christ, as St. Paul urges us to “make intercession for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1–5). Paul himself continued to intercede for his departed friend (2 Timothy 1:16–18) — showing that he did not consider those who had fallen asleep in Christ to be beyond his reach or help.

El Greco, Virgin Mary

Virgin Mary (c. 1600), by El Greco. (WikiPaintings.org)

The Prayers of the Saints

And Scripture again reveals to us the reality of this heavenly intercession. The Revelation of John presents the twenty-four elders — widely interpreted as the Patriarchs and Apostles — offering up golden bowls of incense to God, “which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8) — “saints” in this context referring to both the living and the dead in Christ (cf. Revelation 11:18, 16:6, 24) — demonstrating plainly that the prayers of Christians living on earth are heard by the holy souls in heaven, and that heavenly intercessors are involved in presenting these prayers to God. We likewise see the angels in heaven similarly offering up our prayers (Revelation 8:3). Thus, we see that though Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between man and God (1 Timothy 2:5) — that it is only by Jesus that we can reach the Father (John 14:6) — this by no means abrogates our call to intercede for one another, or of others to intercede for us — least of all those who have passed to their glorious reward.

What is a Saint? An Introduction for Protestants

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All Saints

Fra Angelico. The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs (about 1423-24).

(This is a post I made earlier this year which seems appropriate for the solemnity of All Saints, updated and revised for the occasion and expanded with some better explanations, since I’ve learned and grown a lot since the original post.)

It occurred to me the other morning in the shower (that’s where thoughts usually occur to me) that many Protestants might be troubled by the concept of saints and sainthood. I have heard Protestants say, “We don’t believe in saints.” I assure you that you do. Do you believe that there are people in Heaven? Then you believe in saints.

Martyrdom of Ignatius

The Martyrdom of St. Ignatius of Antioch.

A saint, very simply — in the sense that the Roman Catholic Church (and the Eastern Orthodox Church) declares one a saint, and grants “Saint” as a title — is someone whom we believe, with certainty, is in Heaven with God. That’s all. From Latin sanctus (Greek ἁγιος or hagios), the word means “holy, sacred, set apart.” In biblical usage, as Protestants should be aware, “saints” refers to all the “holy ones,” the believers of the Church. When we state in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in the “communion of saints,” we are saying that we believe all believers, both those who are living and those who have died, are a part of our Body and share in our communion with Christ. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews envisions in the Old Testament saints and prophets a “great cloud of witnesses” surrounding us (playing on μαρτυρέω, testify, bear witness, in Hebrews 11:39, and μάρτυρες, witnesses [also the same word as martyrs], in Hebrews 12:1), evoking the image of spectators in an arena as we “run . . . the race that is set before us.” How much more would those who die in Christ join this “cloud”!

Virgin and Child with Rosary, 1655 (Murillo)

Virgin and Child with Rosary (1655), by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Veneration, not Worship

Catholics venerate saints — we respect, honor, and revere them; we celebrate their memory — because of their great witness and example for us in faith, virtue, and godliness. They are the heroes of the faith whose godly lives we want to remember and whom we want to emulate. They are our spiritual ancestors, our predecessors, our loved ones, the members of our family who have gone to their reward, and yet are still with us in communion with Christ. We do not worship the saints; only God is worthy of worship. We venerate them in much the same way Americans venerate the memory of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

Along the same lines: as much as Catholics are accused of “worshipping” the Virgin Mary, let me set the record straight: we don’t. We venerate Mary in the same way we venerate the saints, for she is one, too. For all that we speak of her being mother to the Church and to all Christians, she is one of us: a human person, a Christian — the first Christian — the firstfruits of salvation, who shows forth to us all that we are promised in Christ. Loving and honoring Mary is just a way to love and worship Jesus all the more.

Friends and Family

We have an unlimited calling plan.

The Intercession of Saints

So why do Catholics pray to saints? Well, if we believe that they too are part of our communion in Christ, a “great cloud of witnesses,” then why should we be separated from them? They are our friends and family, our brothers and sisters in the Lord who have crossed the river before us. They are already by Christ’s side. Why shouldn’t they pray for us? And aren’t they in a better position for that, to bring our needs and requests before God? Catholics believe that the saints can intercede for us. Praying to saints is nothing more than asking our loved ones to pray for us.

St. Luke the Evangelist

St. Luke the Evangelist, patron saint of physicians. (Simone Martini)

Patron Saints

So what is the deal with patron saints? Well, just as the saints had particular interests and causes and affinities when they were here on earth, they do in Heaven too. A saint is held to be the patron (Latin patronus, protector, defender, advocate, patron — yes, like in Harry Potter) of the profession, activity, nation, cause, or place with which they were associated in earthly life. He or she is held to be a patron against specific diseases, afflictions, and dangers when, through suffering or death, they have gained victory over those things in Christ. And, through tradition, through practice, through trial and error, saints are held to be the patrons of these things because their intercession proves efficacious: because prayers for their aid in those causes work. Saints don’t have magical powers. Saints don’t, in themselves, produce effects on this earth. But by where they are and whom they’re with, they have immense spiritual power to intercede on our behalf.

St. Isidore of Seville

St. Isidore of Seville, patron saint of the Internet. (Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1655).

Relics: What they leave behind

So what about relics? Why the macabre obsession with dead body parts? You may or may not be aware that in most Catholic altars there is a relic of some saint (Latin relictum, that which is left behind or remaining) — usually a small piece of bone or some other body part, but sometimes the whole body, or possibly an object the saint owned or touched. We hold that the person, his or her spirit, is in Heaven with Christ — but that the things which the saint left behind, his physical body most of all, offers a connection, an anchor, a bridge to their presence in that spiritual realm. The idea of placing relics under our altars — or building our churches and altars over their remains, as in the cases of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and many other ancient saints — is that by proximity to these connections, by association with these saints, we can draw as near to Heaven and to God as possible.

The Cleansing Fire of Purgatory

Another thing: Aren’t all Christians who die saints? We do believe that all Christians who die in the grace of God will go to Heaven, yes; but we Catholics also believe in Purgatory — which is not what you might think it is. It is not a place like Heaven or Hell (an idea Dante made popular) but a process. It does not detract from Christ’s victory over sin on the Cross, from His salvation or from His forgiveness of our sins. Everyone who experiences Purgatory has already had his or her sins forgiven, paid in full; he or she will be saved and is promised eternity in Heaven.

Candle

But it is the calling of every Christian to take part in the life of Christ’s grace, to live within His Church and Sacraments, to pursue holiness and grace and daily be sanctified and converted (Latin converto, turn towards, change, transform) to Christ’s image. To put it in the terms of Protestant theology: According to Luther and Calvin, justification, the forensic declaration that one is holy and righteous before God, by which Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the believer, is different than sanctification, the process by which the believer is actually made holy and righteous, by living and working in God’s grace. (Catholics believe these are part of the same process.)

Nothing unholy or impure can enter Heaven — so for those of us believers who are not able to finish this process of sanctification, of being transformed, in our lifetimes on earth — and this will be most of us — there is Purgatory, a fire in which we will be purified of our faults and shortcomings and made holy and pure, ready to stand before God (1 Corinthians 3:15, 1 Peter 1:7). If anything, the fire of Purgatory is not a detraction from Christ’s sacrifice, but its fulfillment: He has paid the penalty for our sins, the death we deserve. Purgatory is a tool of His mercy by which even those of us believers who struggle with sin, who are less than perfect, can be saved.

St. Thérèse

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus.

Canonization

Saints, on the other hand, are very special people who, through life in God’s grace, did achieve holiness and become wholly molded to Christ’s image in this life, to the extent that they could as fallen creatures. (Cf. the Wesleyan idea of entire sanctification.) They are people whose godliness is not in doubt, people like the Apostles and St. Francis and St. Thérèse. These days, there are so many very godly people dying that there is a formal process of canonizaton in the Church, through which a person’s sainthood is confirmed and verified, as best as we on Earth can: by asking them for intercession and seeing if those prayers are answered. Two or three miracles associated with a saint’s intercession is the usual standard. A martyr’s death is the saint’s golden ticket to immediate canonization: they pay the price in blood.

Protestant Saints

Are there Protestant saints? You can bet there are. Just because someone hasn’t been formally declared a saint by the Church doesn’t mean they’re not one. Walk through any cemetery, and there are likely to be unknown saints lying all around, people who led truly godly lives and who merited Christ’s reward as soon as they crossed over from this life. Catholics are never in the business of declaring who isn’t or who can’t be saved, or who isn’t or can’t be saints: we believe God, in his infinite mercy, grants His grace and His favor according to His own will.

All Saints

All Saints and All Souls

So what are the holidays that the Roman Catholic Church celebrates on November 1 — All Saints’ Day (or All Hallows’, the origin of Halloween, or Hallows’ Eve) — and November 2 — All Souls’ Day? Well, in the 2,000 years of Church history, there have been a lot of saints, a lot more than the few who get their own universal feast days on the liturgical calendar that are celebrated by the whole Church. There are even more saints who are unknown: everyday holy people who have been sanctified but never attract the attention or veneration of the Church. All Saints’ Day — the Solemnity of All Saints — is the day the Church celebrates all the saints — the many who don’t get celebrated any other day.

The Day of the Dead (1859), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

The Day of the Dead (1859), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.

All Souls is the other side of the picture: our beloved dead in Christ who may not have been wholly sanctified at the time of their passing. Officially called the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, it is the day dedicated to remembering them and praying for them, for mercy and grace in their purification and passing to Heaven. We believe that just as we on earth are in communion with the saints in Heaven, we are also in communion with our faithful departed who may not be there yet. We have no idea how long Purgatory takes — it may, as Pope Benedict has reasoned, not be measured in our time at all, but be an “existential” passage that happens in an instant by our reckoning — but we believe, as the Church has always believed, that our prayers for our departed brothers and sisters help them and ease their journey (2 Maccabees 12:46).

May all the saints pray for us, the Church on earth, and may all the souls of our beloved dead pass into the everlasting light!

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Witness of the Early Church, and Three Important Lessons He Can Teach Us

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Ignatius of Antioch

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Today is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr. St. Ignatius was born in Syria ca. 50, and is believed to have been a disciple of the Apostle St. John. He became the third Bishop of Antioch, following St. Peter and St. Evodius, in ca. 69. In about 108, on the authority of the emperor Trajan, St. Ignatius was arrested and condemned to die for his faith before a Roman audience.

It is at this point that he becomes for us one of the greatest μάρτυρες (martyrs) of the Early Church. A martyr in Greek literally is a witness, one who gives testimony — and in his death, St. Ignatius not only bore great testimony for his faith in Christ, but he bears great testimony to us in this day of the faith, beliefs, and practices of the Early Church. For on his way to Rome, he wrote seven letters to the Churches of Asia Minor, exhorting them to remain firm in their faith, and to the Church at Rome, admonishing the believers there not to intervene and prevent him from giving his ultimate witness.

Martyrdom of Ignatius

The Martyrdom of St. Ignatius of Antioch

A.D. 108 — this is scarcely two generations from the time of Christ’s earthly ministry, at the very closing of the Apostolic Age: the Apostle John is believed to have died as late as ca. 100. Ignatius of Antioch lived early enough to have known several of the Apostles and heard their teachings. He was held in high esteem by the entire Church, a well-known, respected, and authoritative bishop and teacher. He was notorious enough even outside the Church for Trajan to have made an example of him. So we have every reason to trust Ignatius’s testimony regarding the faith of the Christian Church of his day — the faith received from the Apostles.

What Ignatius can teach us

The Authority of the Bishop

Bishops' Croziers

The crozier, one of the symbols of the episcopate.

There has been considerable debate among historians about the development of the episcopacy and at what point in the growth of the Church the office of bishop came to mean what it means to the Church today. Bishops (or overseers — the Greek is ἐπίσκοποι* [episkopoi]) are described in the New Testament (Philippians 1:1, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:7), but it appears that in the earliest days of the Church, the offices of bishop and presbyter (πρεσβύτερος [presbyteros], or elder — the presbyters of the Church became what we call priests) may have been to some extent synonymous. (For example, in 1 Peter 5:1, St. Peter refers to himself as a fellow presbyter†; in the above passage in 1 Timothy 3, St. Paul describes the offices of bishop and deacon but not presbyter.) The governance of the local church by only one monarchical bishop, as came to be the model and continues to be the model, is known to historians as the monoepiscopacy — with some liberal scholars, such as Bart Ehrman, suggesting that it was not established until well into the second century. This has particular bearing on the claims of the Church of Rome — for its bishop is also known as the pope, and as the successor of St. Peter, claims primacy over the whole Church.

* See “Bishops and Priests” for a lengthier discussion of the Greek for this terms.

† In the Church to this day, however, all bishops are presbyters (priests), but not all priests are bishops.

St. Clement of Rome’s Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Clement), dated ca. 95, does not give explicit evidence of the monoepiscopacy (neither does it contradict it). But St. Ignatius’s letters, dated ca. 107, give absolute and undeniable evidence of the monoepiscopacy, and he asserts it as a known and established fact, not as a recent institution:

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery [i.e. the priests] as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid. (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8)

Not only does the bishop have absolute authority in the local church, but neither baptisms nor the Eucharist are valid without the ministry or approval of the bishop. This establishes definitely the monoepiscopacy, the subordinate roles of presbyters and deacons, and the authority of the bishop over the Sacraments of the Church. Ignatius compares the office of the bishop in every community of believers to the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist — Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. (This is also the earliest known description of the Church as Catholic, or universal.)

The Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

Eucharistic adoration

The Catholic Church believes that in the Eucharist, the elements of bread and wine become in reality the Body and Blood of Christ. Many Protestant detractors argue that this doctrine is a later development and not a true apostolic teaching (despite clear statements in Scripture, e.g. 1 Corinthians 11:27-29). St. Ignatius, however, attests firmly to the Church’s belief in the Real Presence in the first decade of the second century — a much earlier time than Protestants would like to admit, and too soon after the Apostles for such a doctrine to have been “invented”:

But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh (σάρξ) of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6–7)

The Compilation of the New Testament

Codex Vaticanus

A leaf from Codex Vaticanus, one of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

Third and finally, Ignatius’s writings demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the New Testament Scriptures, and he quotes from them as if from memory — it is unlikely that he would have been traveling to his death with a full church library. Working from the citations labeled by the editors of the texts at New Advent, I find:

  • Matthew
  • John
  • Romans
  • 1 Corinthians
  • Galatians
  • Ephesians
  • Philippians
  • Colossians
  • 1 Thessalonians
  • 1 Timothy
  • 2 Timothy
  • James
  • 1 Peter
  • 1 John

Considering the contemporaneous Martyrdom of Ignatius, believed to have been written by eyewitnesses to Ignatius’s death — probably the believers who accompanied him to Rome — adds Acts and 2 Corinthians to the list above.

NOTE (2013/10/30): I may have to review this argument. It seems the editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers may have been a little overzealous in their citations, and marked as Scripture references passages and phrases that were not explicitly Scripture references. I withhold a verdict at this time, until I can study the problem more deeply.

That makes for a fairly comprehensive collection of New Testament documents. Ignatius was familiar with the writings of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, and St. James, as well as the Gospel of Matthew — the citations ascribed to which, I suppose, might include references to the other Synoptic Gospels also. For a date mere decades after these documents were written — and these documents having been written in diverse parts of the Christian world — the Church seems to have very quickly assembled the collection known as the New Testament nearly in its entirety. And what’s more, Ignatius quotes from the New Testament with the same authority as he quotes from Old Testament Scripture — certainly the Church in Ignatius’s day considered the Gospels and apostolic letters holy, inspired writings. By the first decade of the second century, the Church had nearly (if not fully) assembled intact the body of Scripture that has been handed down to the Church today.

Pope St. Gregory the Great

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St. Gregory the Great, by Francisco Goya (1797)

St. Gregory the Great, by Francisco Goya (1797). (WikiPaintings.org)

I’ve been having a rough time. I meant to post yesterday about Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604, r. 590-604)*, one of my most cherished popes and Church Fathers, but alas, my day was waylaid. Yesterday was his feast day — but I shouldn’t be such a perfectionist. It is worthwhile to write about him today or any day, and I am sure he appreciates being honored just as well.

* The Wikipedia article is pretty bad; you might be better off reading the Catholic Encyclopedia article.

There is so much I admire about this man, and so much I could say, but to do him a worthy tribute would require a lot more research and effort than I have time right now. He is called the father of the medieval papacy, for he did more to establish the role of the pope than anybody since Leo the Great. He stands at the juncture between the ancient world and the Middle Ages more clearly than anybody else, as old Rome decayed and passed away and the Church stepped forward to fill the void in the West. Historians know so much about him, and have written so much about him, because he left so much for us to read: over 800 letters documenting his correspondence with bishops and missionaries and kings and emperors all across the known world. He powerfully reasserted the missionary calling of the Church, and dispatched St. Augustine of Canterbury to return the Gospel to the English people, of whom he famously wrote (as recounted by Bede) that the fair-haired Angli (Angles) resembled angeli (angels), when he encountered a group of English boys in a Roman slave market.

Gregory the Great, by Francisco de Zurbarán (1627).

Gregory the Great, by Francisco de Zurbarán (1627). (Wikipedia)

Gregory’s writings reveal him to be a man of passionate faith and a great care for souls, deeply learned but also deeply humble. Born to a wealthy and prominent Roman family, he sold all his family’s goods to benefit the poor and establish monasteries. He himself spent a third of his life in monastic service, and even as pope he maintained an austere mode of life. He is the first pope to stress his position as servus servorum Dei, the “servant of the servants of God,” a title he exemplified, and one so favored by his successor Pope John Paul II of blessed memory. He is the patron of both students and teachers, and very close to my heart.

Below is an excerpt of one of Gregory’s most famous letters, in which he gently rebuffed the Byzantine empress Constantina, who had written to him demanding a relic of St. Paul for a church she had constructed. This letter is important for documenting the veneration of the relics of Saints Peter and Paul in Gregory’s time, and is of particular interest to my research on the tomb of St. Peter. I translated this letter once for my Medieval Latin course; but the below is not my translation.

St. Gregory the Great

St. Gregory the Great (c. 1610), from the workshop of Carlo Saraceni. (Wikipedia)

The Serenity of your Piety, conspicuous for religious zeal and love of holiness, has charged me with your commands to send to you the head of Saint Paul, or some other part of his body, for the church which is being built in honour of the same Saint Paul in the palace. And, being desirous of receiving commands from you, by exhibiting the most ready obedience to which I might the more provoke your favour towards me, I am all the more distressed that I neither can nor dare do what you enjoin. For the bodies of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul glitter with so great miracles and terrors in their churches that one cannot even go to pray there without great fear. In short, when my predecessor, of blessed memory, was desirous of changing the silver which was over the most sacred body of the blessed apostle Peter, though at a distance of almost fifteen feet from the same body, a sign of no small dreadfulness appeared to him. Nay, I too wished in like manner to amend something not far from the most sacred body of Saint Paul the apostle; and, it being necessary to dig to some depth near his sepulchre, the superintendent of that place found some bones, which were not indeed connected with the same sepulchre; but, inasmuch as he presumed to lift them and transfer them to another place, certain awful signs appeared, and he died suddenly.

Besides all this, when my predecessor, of holy memory, was desiring in like manner to make some improvements not far from the body of Saint Laurence the martyr, it not being known where the venerable body was laid, diggings were made in the course of search, and suddenly his sepulchre was unawares disclosed; and those who were present and working, monks and mansionarii , who saw the body of the same martyr, which they did not indeed presume to touch, all died within ten days, so that none might survive who had seen the holy body of that righteous man. . . .

Who then, most serene lady, can there be so venturesome as, knowing these things, to presume, I do not say to touch their bodies, but even at all to look at them? Such orders therefore having been given me by you, which I could by no means have obeyed, it has not, so far as I find, been of your own motion; but certain men have wished to stir up your Piety against me, so as to withdraw from me (which God forbid) the favour of your good will, and have therefore sought out a point in which I might be found as if disobedient to you. But I trust in Almighty God that your most kind good will is in no way being stolen away from me, and that you will always have with you the power of the holy apostles, whom with all your heart and mind you love, not from their bodily presence, but from their protection.

Moreover, the napkin, which you have likewise ordered to be sent you, is with his body, and so cannot be touched, as his body cannot be approached. But since so religious a desire of my most serene lady ought not to be wholly unsatisfied, I will make haste to transmit to you some portion of the chains which Saint Peter the apostle himself bore on his neck and his hands, from which many miracles are displayed among the people; if at least I should succeed in removing it by filing. For, while many come frequently to seek a blessing from these same chains, in the hope of receiving a little part of the filings, a priest attends with a file, and in the case of some seekers a portion comes off so quickly from these chains that there is no delay: but in the case of other seekers the file is drawn for long over the chains, and yet nothing can be got from them. In the month of June, Indiction 12. (Register of Letters, Book IV, Letter 30)

St. Monica, a praying mother

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St. Monica (1465), by Gozzoli

St. Monica (1465), by Benozzo Gozzoli. (WikiPaintings.org)

I’ve slowly been trying to read through St. Augustine's Confessions in the original Latin for a while now. I’ve had to lay it down recently, but I hope to pick it up again soon. I am pushed for time today, but it being the memorial of St. Monica, Augustine’s pious mother, I wanted to share briefly. This is a passage from the Confessions that was especially poignant to me, having been a wayward son myself, and having a loving mother who prays for me without ceasing.

Woe is me! And dare I say that you were silent, my God, while I wandered further from you? Were you not then silent to me? And whose, but yours, were those words, which through my mother, your faithful one, you sang in my ears? These to me seemed only womanly advice, which would be embarrassing to obey. But they were yours, and I did not know. I thought you were silent and only she had spoken, but you were speaking to me; and in her, it was you who were being disdained by me, by me, her son, the son of your handmaid, your servant.

—St. Augustine, Confessions, II.3

[I am pretty sure this is my own translation, but I honestly don’t remember for sure (I posted it on my Facebook wall a couple of years ago). Tomorrow is St. Augustine’s memorial, and I hope to be able to share a little more.]

Too Many Jameses: Untangling Jesus’s Family and Friends

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Apostle St. James the Greater, by El Greco (1606).

Apostle St. James the Greater, by El Greco (1606).

This is a little reflection I meant to make a few months ago on May 3, the Feast of Saints Philip and James, regarding the confusion about who that particular Saint James, the son of Alphaeus, actually is. But I got busy that day and didn’t post. Today is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, the son of Zebedee, and while there’s no confusion about who he is, this post is still nibbling at me, and I don’t want to wait until next May 3. It’s still kind of relevant.

Because there are at least two or three men in the New Testament named James. And that’s really no surprise — because there were no doubt thousands of men with that name in Judea in the first century. The name translated James in English comes from the name Ιάκωβος (Iakōbos) in the Greek New Testament. Yes, you guessed it; that’s the name יעקב (ya‛ăqôb) in Hebrew — the Old Testament Jacob in English. James is named for Jacob, Israel himself, the patriarch of the Jewish people.

James II, by Peter Lely

James II of England, by Peter Lely.

Francis II, Jacobite King

All hail His Majesty King Francis II, our rightful king.

(The name becomes Iacobus or Jacobus in Latin, giving rise, in English history, to the terms Jacobean, pertaining to the period of King James I's reign, and Jacobite, the name for the restorationist followers of the deposed King James II and his line of Stuart pretenders to the throne. James was removed for being Catholic, and for his tolerance toward English Catholics, in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which I now see to have been not so glorious. Some of my ancestors, apparently, were Scottish Jacobites, and were exiled to America for taking part in the failed Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, in support of James’s grandson Charles Edward Stuart, “Bonnie Prince Charlie.” Maybe I have some Catholic ancestors after all? Bonnie Prince Charlie and his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, styled James III by the Jacobites, are buried (1) in high Catholic honor (2) in the Grottoes of St. Peter’s Basilica. I’m no longer sure how I feel about the “Glorious” Revolution or the Jacobites. James II was pretty well lawfully usurped, at least in as much as usurpation is ever lawful. I now see, though, that this is a history of which I know very little. The intolerance and persecution toward Catholics that spurred it was certainly not a good thing. I hope you have enjoyed this rabbit trail as much as I have.)

Anyway — to the matter at hand. There were a lot of Jameses in Judea at the time of Christ. James the Greater, the Apostle celebrated today, was so called to distinguish him from the other Apostle named James, the son of Alphaeus (Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15). James the Greater, we know, was the son of Zebedee (Mark 1:19, 3.17, etc.) and the brother of John. He and John were called by the Lord Boanerges, “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). In Jesus’s Aramaic, scholars reckon, this was probably בנירגיש (bnê•rğaš), lit. “sons of tumult,” or בנירגז (bnê•rğaz), lit. “sons of anger” — or as Aramaic scholar Maurice Casey supposes, בנירעם (bnê•r`am), the most literal Aramaic translation of “sons of thunder,” the result of a poor transliteration from Aramaic into Greek. So apparently, James and John were rather hot-headed, as we see in Scripture (Luke 9:51–56).

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were fellow fishermen with their father, and the associates of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew — or possibly their competitors (Mark 1:16–20). They were among the first disciples to follow Jesus, and with Simon Peter, formed His most intimate circle, who were chosen to witness His Transfiguration (Luke 9:28–36, etc.). We know that Saint James was the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom (Acts 12:1–3), about A.D. 44, perhaps having provoked Herod’s wrath on account of his temper.

Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor-slayer)

Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor-slayer), according to Spanish legend, appeared at the Battle of Clavijo to fight the Moors alongside the Spanish Christian army.

Saint James is the patron saint of Spain. According to Spanish legend, James ministered there, then sailed back to Jerusalem to meet his martyrdom. His relics were then transported back to Spain, either by his disciples or miraculously by angels, where they are said to be venerated in Santiago de Compostela (the Spanish name Santiago is actually Sant’Iago, or Saint James). Saint James’s patronage is a pious legend of the utmost importance to the Spanish, as fanciful as it seems. It is not out of the question that James went to Spain, a province of the Roman Empire; travel there in the first century was certainly possible. Paul desired to minister there, according to his Epistle to the Romans, written ca. A.D. 57 (Romans 15:22–24). According to the tradition of the Early Church, he did before his death.

So what of the other Jameses? There are three others mentioned in the New Testament: James, the son of Alphaeus, one of the Twelve (Mark 3:18, etc.); James, the brother of the Lord (Mark 6:3, Galatians 1:19); and James, the son of “the other” Mary (Matthew 27:56, etc.). Depending on what scholar you ask, two of these — or even all three — may refer to the same person.

Saint James the Just

Saint James the Just.

In history we say that there are lumpers and splitters. Catholic biblical scholars, especially the early ones, tended to be lumpers, desiring to make connections in Scripture, identify people and places with each other, and generally to lump ideas together. Protestants, on the other hand, perhaps by their very nature, are splitters, inclined to tear apart and question what is traditional and speculative and what Catholics have put together, especially where there lacks explicit evidence. The study of the biblical Jameses is a prime example of these tendencies.

There is very little known about the three other Jameses, aside from the few times they are mentioned in Scripture. Both Catholics and Protestants tend to agree that James, the brother of the Lord, was known in the Early Church as James the Just, and was the first bishop of Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1–13) and the author of the Epistle of James.

Catholic tradition records little about the Apostle James the Less, the son of Alphaeus. Orthodox tradition tradition holds that he first ministered in southwestern Palestine, then in Lower Egypt, where he met his martyrdom at Ostracine. Beyond this point, there is much Catholic conjecture.

Madonna and Child, by Carlo Maratta (c. 1660).

Madonna and Child, by Carlo Maratta (c. 1660).

First, Catholics and Orthodox do not believe that James the Just, the “brother” (ἀδελφός) of the Lord, was actually the brother of the Lord, or the son of Mary, who never bore another child. There is scriptural evidence to support this. When Joseph and Mary journeyed with the boy Jesus to Jerusalem (Luke 2:41–51), there is no mention of any other children. When Jesus, from the Cross, entrusted his mother Mary to John (John 19:25–27), it would make little sense for John to take Mary into his home if she had other children living. There are at least two views, then, of who the “brethren of the Lord” are: Either they are children of Joseph by a prior marriage (tradition holds Joseph to have been an older man and widower), or they are other close kinsmen of Jesus, perhaps cousins. The Aramaic language has no word for “cousin,” and used the word for “brother” instead, which could connote any relative. According to this view, when the Gospel was recorded in Greek, it followed this linguistic convention (the word ἀδελφός in Greek likewise can connote any relative).

St. James the Less, by El Greco.

St. James the Less, by El Greco (c. 1595).

And with this, the plot thickens considerably. If the “brethren of the Lord,” and our James the Just, are in fact Jesus’s cousins, who are their parents? Catholic scholars, beginning with the earliest of the Church Fathers, have made inferences based on these three verses of Scripture:

  • “. . . but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (John 19:25)
  • “. . . among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” (Matthew 27:56)
  • “There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger (ὁ μικρός, young, small, less) and of Joses, and Salome.” (Mark 15:40).

If we suppose, as appears to be the case, that all three verses refer to the same group of women who witnessed the Crucifixion, then it appears:

  1. Mary the mother of James and Joses (or Joseph) in Matthew and Mark, is the same woman as Mary the wife of Clopas in John.

  2. Salome in Mark is the same woman as the mother of the sons of Zebedee in Matthew.

  3. Depending on how one punctuates the Greek of John, either Mary the wife of Clopas (#1) or Salome the wife of Zebedee (#2) is the sister of our Lord’s mother in John. (The former would require that Mary had a sister named Mary, but this would not be unheard of, since Mary, or Miriam, was also a very common Jewish name, and one or both of the women may have had other names.)

  4. That would mean that either James and John, the sons of Zebedee and Salome, are the cousins of Jesus; or that James and Joses (or Joseph), the sons of Clopas and Mary, are the cousins of Jesus. The former would make some sense, since Jesus clearly had a close relationship with James and John, and entrusted his mother to John, who would have been her nephew.

  5. But the latter makes possibly more sense, since we are told that two of Jesus’s “brethren” were named James and Joses (Mark 6:3) or Joseph (Matthew 13:55). Mark refers, at the Crucifixion, to the “mother of James and Joses,” and Matthew refers to the “mother of James and Joseph.” It seems remarkable that Mark would spell the latter name Joses (Ἰωσῆ) both in reference to the Lord’s “brother” and to the second of the latter pair, when he was perfectly capable of also using the name Joseph (Ἰωσήφ) (Mark 15:43). It would appear, then, that this James and Joses, the Lord’s “brethren,” were in fact the children of Clopas and Mary.

  6. We can presume from the fact that the Evangelists identified “the mother of James and Joses” that James and Joses were people with whom the Early Church was familiar. Certainly the Early Church was familiar with James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem. If this James the Less (ὁ μικρός) is in fact implied to be James the brother of the Lord, then it seems James the Just and James the Less are the same person.

But is this James the Less (ὁ μικρός) the same man as the Apostle often referred to as James the Less? What of this last James, the son of Alphaeus? Some Catholic scholars, in their endless lumping, have suggested that Clopas (Κλωπᾶς), the father of James and Joses above, and Alphaeus (Ἀλφαῖος) are in fact the same man — meaning that all three of the obscure Jameses, James the Just the brother of our Lord, James the son of Clopas and Mary, and the Apostle James the Less, are one and the same man. The supposition that undergirds this is that Clopas had two names. Some have suggested that Clopas and Alphaeus were different transliterations of the same Aramaic name; but this doesn’t seem likely (the difficulty of this issue is discussed in Clopas’s article in the Catholic Encyclopedia). A secondary name, though, isn’t out of the question.

Apostle Judas Thaddeus, by Van Dyck

Apostle Judas Thaddeus, by Anthonis van Dyck (c. 1620).

Further, we know that Jude, author of the Epistle of Jude, is the brother of James (Jude 1), certainly James the Just, making him also the “brother” of the Lord, the Judas mentioned by Mark and Matthew. Catholic scholars have also identified this Jude with the Apostle Judas Thaddeus (Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:16). Most recent English translations of the Bible (including Catholic ones) translate Jude in Luke’s lists (here and in Acts 1:13) as “Judas son of James” — but the Greek actually reads Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου, literally Judas of James, with no relation made explicit. Jude may have been so identified by relation to his brother, the better-known James the Just, since James had already been listed; and traditional Catholic translations (the Douay-Rheims) read Judas brother of James. Jude likewise identifies himself by relation to his brother James in his epistle.

St. Simon the Zealot, by Rubens

St. Simon the Zealot, by Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1611).

But we Catholics aren’t quite done lumping. The last of Jesus’s “brethren” (Mark 6:3) was named Simon. Wasn’t there another Apostle named Simon, Simon the Zealot? James son of Alphaeus, Judas Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot (or the Cananaean) are always listed together in the lists of the Apostles. Some Catholic scholars have taken that as a hint, together with the coincidence that Jesus also had “brethren” named James, Judas, and Simon, and supposed that the two sets might be connected. They have identified Simon the Zealot as another “brother” of the Lord. Further, some have also identified him with Simeon (or Simon), who succeeded James the Just (his brother?) as bishop of Jerusalem.

Paul lends some credence to the notion that at least two of the Lord’s brothers were members of the apostolic party: “Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” (1 Corinthians 9:5). In increasing order of importance, Paul lists: (1) the other apostles, (2) the brothers of the Lord, and (3) Cephas, or Peter, the chief Apostle. Together, this statement seems to refer to the Twelve, and includes “the brothers of the Lord” among them.

All in all, it seems as if Jesus’s evangelic enterprise may have been something of a family affair. Two sets of brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John; and possibly three of His own “brethren.” Of course, none of this is verified or can ever be verified. But it is traditions like these, enriching to the story and harmless if untrue, that make our Catholic faith full, rich, and beautiful.

Doubting Thomas and the Ends of the Earth

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St. Thomas the Apostle

St. Thomas the Apostle.

Today is the feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle. For most anyone who was raised on Bible stories, including myself, the most memorable thing about St. Thomas is his skepticism at Jesus’s Resurrection. Indeed, the figure of “Doubting Thomas” has entered our cultural parlance.

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (John 20:24-29)

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

In one sense, Thomas represents the burden of the intellectual: the doubt that comes from thinking and questioning; the demand of the rational mind for concrete, tangible proof. My middle name is Thomas. Growing up, questioning my faith, struggling with doubts, I always felt a lot of affinity for St. Thomas. There were so many times when I longed for a sign, to touch the wounds of Jesus; to see and know.

It’s very easy to imagine Thomas as the snotty, intellectual skeptic, demanding a sign. But I get a different sense of Thomas. Except for the “Doubting Thomas” episode, he is a marginal figure in the Gospels; he is only mentioned in the rosters of the Twelve by the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But John’s is a Gospel that seeks to capture the deep sentiments of the spirit and heart. For John, Thomas’s doubt and confession is a moving, emotional moment; a time for Jesus Himself to speak to the doubts of all of us “who have not seen and yet have believed.” At two other times, John gave Thomas the spotlight:

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” . . .

Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:6-16)

This might appear, at first glance, to be a cynical, pessimistic comment: “Lazarus is dead; we’re all going to die, too, if we go back there.” But if we take Thomas’s “him” to refer to Jesus, not Lazarus, this is a statement of bold courage: “We will follow you even unto death.” This is the way the Fathers interpreted it. In this case, rather, Thomas appears to be passionate, emotional, even brash.

The other time John mentioned Thomas, at the Last Supper, he is Jesus’s interlocutor for one of His most important statements:

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:1-7)

None of the Twelve really understood what Jesus was talking about. Despite his confusion, Thomas seems prepared to go anywhere Jesus asks.

The sense I get of Thomas, overall, is not the hard-nosed skeptic, but the passionate, devoted follower, deeply feeling, but like Peter, of so “little faith.” He was ready to follow Jesus to the ends of the earth, to give his all — but at Jesus’s death, he was shattered: all the hopes and dreams he had for the coming kingdom crushed. Dejected and depressed, he wandered away; he was not even hanging out with the other disciples when the resurrected Jesus first appeared. When he heard the news, he no doubt thought the companions delusional. His doubt was deeply rooted in disappointment and loss. How could he bring himself to believe again?

But he touched Jesus’s wounds: and he was transformed. “My Lord and my God!” All his doubt, not just about Jesus’s reality, but about His lordship and His divinity, melted away in an instant. Thomas’s redemption is as dramatic as the reinstatement of Peter.

Palayur Church

Interior of St. Thomas Chuch, Palayur.

And from that moment on, Thomas’s faith was unshakable. As someone who has doubted in my life, I find Thomas’s example particularly inspiring: because he went from doubting, from not even believing Jesus could rise again, to being so thoroughly convinced that he really did go to the ends of the earth. Tradition holds that Thomas covered more distance than any other Apostle, going as far as India, some 3,000 miles from Jerusalem, where he won a martyr’s crown. He is perhaps the only Apostle to have ministered beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire. The Saint Thomas Christians, or Nasrani, are believed to be the fruits of his apostolic labor.

Additional links:

The First Roman Martyrs

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Why is it that it’s only when I have a dozen other things I’m supposed to be doing (cleaning my disgusting apartment, doing laundry, revising a history paper for school) that my mind is bursting with blog ideas?

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer

The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer (1883), by Jean-Léon Gérôme, my favorite Orientalist painter. It truly captures the drama and the agony of the first Christian persecutions, and yet the peace before God.

Today is the Feast of the First Holy Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, celebrated the day after the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. This celebration encompasses the many nameless Christian martyrs who suffered under the persecution of the emperor Nero beginning in A.D. 64 (Peter and Paul both also died under this persecution), as well as many other lesser-known Roman martyrs.

Tacitus

Tacitus.

These persecutions are vividly described in the Annales (Annals) of the Roman historian Tacitus (A.D. 56–117), one of the first mentions of Christianity in secular literature, written ca. A.D. 116. The context is the aftermath of the Great Fire of Rome in July 64 (Annales XV. 44, ed. G. P. Goold, trans. John Jackson, for Loeb Classical Library, 1937):

But neither human help, nor imperial munificence, nor all the modes of placating Heaven, could stifle scandal or dispel the belief that the fire had taken place by [Nero’s] order. Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts’ skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his Gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his Circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment or pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man.

Saints Peter and Paul: Apostles to the Protestants?

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Saints Peter and Paul, by El Greco

Saints Peter and Paul (between 1605 and 1608), by El Greco.

Today is the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, two saints who almost need no introduction: they are the most prominent men, besides Jesus, in the New Testament — Peter, the foremost of the Apostles, on whom Christ said he would found His Church; and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, radically converted on the road to Damascus, and from then on a tireless preacher and writer for Christ. Together, the two became pillars of the Church of Rome, and watered it with the blood of their martyrdoms. Peter especially, hailed by the Roman Catholic Church as the first bishop of Rome, has come to be, for Catholics, a symbol of the authority of the Church. Paul, on the other hand, became a central figure of the Protestant Reformation: his writings on grace and faith and works, against the Judaizers, formed the basis of Martin Luther‘s theological interpretations. A number of Catholics I’ve talked to have seemed to distance themselves from Paul because of this, strangely. To me, though, Peter and Paul are the essential apostles who can bridge both the Catholic and Protestant traditions, and even offer hope of the reunion of all Christians.

There was a reflection in Magnificat last night, for the Vigil of Peter and Paul, that gave me a start and inspired this entry for today.

By celebrating the memory of these two great saints together, we remember how valiantly — and humanly — they struggled to bring together into one Church under one Gospel those who were divided by the differing heritage and belief of Jew and Gentile.

Up until the last two words, my mind was somewhere else — on our division today. I was nearly expecting to read of the “differing heritage and belief of Catholic and Protestant.”

St. Paul is my patron saint. As I journeyed to the Church, I pondered who I should choose; but when I prayed about it, I realized that there could be no other choice but Paul. For Paul was choosing me. There is no doubt in my mind at all that Paul has been looking out for me all these years since my youth. Most Protestants turn to Paul for his theology and intellect, but through all my troubles growing up, I turned to Paul for encouragement and comfort.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7).

When I reached Rome the first time and stood at Paul’s tomb, it was his words of encouragement that came flooding back to me, that brought me to knees and urged me to come face to face with God. And as I approached Rome again, toward the Church, I believe that Paul was praying for me, and welcoming me home.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:10-13 ESV)

And I truly believe that just as the Protestant Reformers’ interpretations of Paul remain at the heart of our division, a deeper reflection on both Peter and Paul — what they believed, what they wrote, what they stood for, and what they died for — can help heal our breach. “I appeal to you, brothers,” Paul wrote, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” “Is Christ divided?,” he asks us (1 Corinthians 1). Tragically, we ourselves have divided the Body of Christ on earth, and have perpetuated that division for 500 years in the case of the Protestants; for 1,000 in the case of the Orthodox. And we ourselves are to blame for every day that we allow it to continue. Christ wants to return for a whole and spotless Bride. I believe we owe it our Lord, to His Church, and to His Apostles to urgently seek understanding and reconciliation as we near the end of this age.