Rome Bone Church Painting + Adventure in the Western Schism

The patron of the Catholic parish in Rocky Mount, Va: we mark the 795th anniversary of his death today.

This Caravaggio painting hangs in the museum attached to the Capuchin Church of St. Mary of the Conception, in Rome.

I had the chance to gaze upon the painting, shortly before I flew home from Italy. It falls in my favorite category of paintings: St. Francis memento mori.

To be honest, I didn’t make a special trip to the “Bone Church” this time. I just stopped-in to kill an hour. The nondescript-looking building sits around the corner from the pharmacy where I had managed to get an appointment to have a coronavirus test. (I needed a negative, in order to board the plane the following day.)

I had prayed in the Bone Church before, twenty years ago. It enraptured me then. It is an artistic masterpiece.

Capuchin Crypt in Rome

This time, though, I came away with a different thought.

The graves that the anonymous 18th-century Franciscan artist disturbed, in order to decorate his unique chapels–those graves should have been left in peace. Yes, we need to remember how short life is, every day. But not by disturbing other peoples’ bones.

…Before I got to Rome, I visited a number of ancient cities in Tuscany. I encountered monuments from the 14th and 15th centuries, monuments that turned my little Italy trip into An Adventure in the Western Schism.

The Barque of Dante by Delacroix

Back in 2013, we remembered Pope Celestine V, the last Roman pontiff to abdicate, prior to Benedict XVI.

(Do not confuse Celestine V with Celestine III, who reigned during St. Francis’ lifetime. The earlier Celestine wanted to abdicate, but the Cardinals talked him out of it.)

We have this in common with the great Florentine poet Dante: living through a period with two living popes. One reigning, one retired. Dante was 29 when Celestine renounced the throne of Peter, in 1294.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante puts Celestine V in the antechamber of hell. There dwell…

the souls unsure, whose lives earned neither honor nor bad fame…

neither rebellious to God nor faithful to Him.

[They] chose neither side, but kept themselves apart.

Now heaven expels them, not to mar its spendor,

and hell rejects them, lest the wicked of heart take glory over them.

Mercy and justice disdain them.

Benedict lays his pallium on the coffin of Pope Celestine V, in 2009. (L’Osservatore Romano photo)

About Celestine himself, Dante writes:

I beheld the shade of him who make the Great Refusal,

impelled by cowardice, so at once I understood beyond all doubt that

[in this upper circle of hell we find]

the dreary guild repellent both to God and His enemies,

hapless ones never alive.

Anyway, Pope Boniface VIII succeeded Celestine V in late 1294. And thus began a dramatic century+ of history–history that unfolded, in part, in the cities I got to visit last month.

Ecumenical Councils were attempted in Pisa and successfully accomplished in Florence; the pope resided for a decisive week in Lucca; Rome had the first-ever jubilee year, with hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city–and shorlty thereafter the papacy moved to France, for three-quarters of a century.

More to come on all this…

39th Day of Easter:

Not a moment too soon to begin to plan your Corpus-Christi pilgrimage to Rocky Mount, Virginia.

—

Sunday, June 2

8:00am Holy Mass

9:00am – 3:00pm
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

3:00pm
Solemn Procession with Benediction

4:00pm Picnic!

All living, breathing human beings are invited!

—

Francis of Assisi
15 Glennwood Drive
Rocky Mount VA 24151

Sacred Aedificia + More Invitations

Most Holy Lateran Church, of all the churches in the city and the world, the mother and head

1,687 years ago today: The Pope dedicated his cathedral church building in Roma.

Click HERE for a thorough digest of this event (from the archives), including wolverines.

…Re: the sacred Catholic structures of Franklin and Henry counties, Virginny:

1. His Excellency Bishop Sullivan originally dedicated Francis of Assisi parish church in 1987. The 25th anniversary of this august occasion will fall on Ash Wednesday, which makes for a bit of a buzzkill. In May of 2013, we will festively celebrate the 15th anniversary of the dedication of the expanded church building. Mark your calendars now.

2. The same Bishop Sullivan consecrated the new church of St. Joseph in Martinsville on November 25, 2001! We will celebrate the tenth anniversary of this blessed day on Thanksgiving morning, with a Mass at 9:00 a.m. Then we will dine together to celebrate the anniversary (and the holidays) on Friday, December 9!

All readers are most cordially invited.

Please Pray for Priests, Holy Father, and Me

On June 29, 1951, Joseph Ratzinger was ordained a priest.

George and Joseph Ratzinger ordination day

I had a chance to meet then-Cardinal Ratzinger in February of 2005, about ten weeks before he had to change his plans for retirement.

I was visiting Rome with a friend from Raleigh, N.C. In our brief conversation with him, Card. Ratzinger expressed interest in the region between North Carolina and Washington, D.C. He admitted to knowing little about the “upper South,” and wanted to learn.

Anyway…On June 29, we solemnize the memory of the twin patrons of the church of Rome, Saints Peter and Paul. This year, the Holy Father will celebrate the 60th anniversary of his ordination. He has asked the entire Catholic world to pray for vocations to the priesthood as a way of wishing him a happy anniversary.

It also happens that June 29 will be the day when your unworthy servant will begin my ministry as the pastor of both Franklin and Henry counties, Virginia.

My predecessor in Martinsville will be on the way to sunny Florida. My adventures up and down US 220 will begin.

Perhaps, then, dear ones, while you are praying for our Holy Father’s health, and for vocations to the priesthood throughout the world, you could also say a little prayer for this gangly numbskull.

…By the by, we have come around the three-year cycle to another “summer of Romans” (St. Paul’s letter, that is). This summer I intend to preach on Matthew 13 instead, but if you have any interest in the prattlings I made three summers ago, you can click HERE.

Federal Government and Eternal Life

[This sermon will mainly interest the Catholic residents of Henry and Franklin counties, Virginia. I offer it here for anyone interested in “the spirituality of parish clustering.”]

Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

We all know what they say about death and taxes. Sure things. But Christ has revealed that the death of our bodies will not last forever. When He comes again in glory, all the dead will rise from the grave. And we won’t have to pay taxes then, either. The federal government will be shut down forever.

In other words, everything about life as we now know it will pass away, and eternity awaits. This of course changes our whole perspective. The things we deal with now are not the ultimate reality. We have no lasting city here, just a way-station.