I almost forgot that today is the feast of my original blog patron, St. Justin Martyr, Christian philosopher and lay apologist (the first one), who died for the faith around 165 A.D., along with a number of his pupils (one, Charito, was a woman).
In the time of the lawless partisans of idolatry, wicked decrees were passed against the godly Christians in town and country, to force them to offer libations to vain idols; and accordingly the holy men, having been apprehended, were brought before the prefect of Rome, Rusticus by name. And when they had been brought before his judgment-seat, said to Justin, “Obey the gods at once, and submit to the kings.” Justin said, “To obey the commandments of our Saviour Jesus Christ is worthy neither of blame nor of condemnation.” Rusticus the prefect said, “What kind of doctrines do you profess?” Justin said, “I have endeavoured to learn all doctrines; but I have acquiesced at last in the true doctrines, those namely of the Christians, even though they do not please those who hold false opinions.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Are those the doctrines that please you, you utterly wretched man?” Justin said, “Yes, since I adhere to them with right dogma. Rusticus the prefect said, “What is the dogma?” Justin said, “That according to which we worship the God of the Christians, whom we reckon to be one from the beginning, the maker and fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invisible; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who had also been preached beforehand by the prophets as about to be present with the race of men, the herald of salvation and teacher of good disciples. And I, being a man, think that what I can say is insignificant in comparison with His boundless divinity, acknowledging a certain prophetic power, since it was prophesied concerning Him of whom now I say that He is the Son of God. For I know that of old the prophets foretold His appearance among men.”
Chapter II.—Examination of Justin continued.
Rusticus the prefect said, “Where do you assemble?” Justin said, “Where each one chooses and can: for do you fancy that we all meet in the very same place? Not so; because the God of the Christians is not circumscribed by place; but being invisible, fills heaven and earth, and everywhere is worshipped and glorified by the faithful.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Tell me where you assemble, or into what place do you collect your followers?” Justin said, “I live above one Martinus, at the Timiotinian Bath; and during the whole time (and I am now living in Rome for the second time) I am unaware of any other meeting than his. And if any one wished to come to me, I communicated to him the doctrines of truth.” Rusticus said, “Are you not, then, a Christian?” Justin said, “Yes, I am a Christian.”
Chapter III.—Examination of Chariton and others.
Then said the prefect Rusticus to Chariton, “Tell me further, Chariton, are you also a Christian?” Chariton said, “I am a Christian by the command of God.” Rusticus the prefect asked the woman Charito, “What say you, Charito?” Charito said, “I am a Christian by the grace of God.” Rusticus said to Euelpistus, “And what are you?” Euelpistus, a servant of Cæsar, answered, “I too am a Christian, having been freed by Christ; and by the grace of Christ I partake of the same hope.” Rusticus the prefect said to Hierax, “And you, are you a Christian?” Hierax said, “Yes, I am a Christian, for I revere and worship the same God.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Did Justin make you Christians?” Hierax said, “I was a Christian, and will be a Christian.” And Pæon stood up and said, “I too am a Christian.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Who taught you?” Pæon said, “From our parents we received this good confession.” Euelpistus said, “I willingly heard the words of Justin. But from my parents also I learned to be a Christian.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Where are your parents?” Euelpistus said, “In Cappadocia.” Rusticus says to Hierax, “Where are your parents?” And he answered, and said, “Christ is our true father, and faith in Him is our mother; and my earthly parents died; and I, when I was driven from Iconium in Phrygia, came here.” Rusticus the prefect said to Liberianus, “And what say you? Are you a Christian, and unwilling to worship [the gods]?” Liberianus said, “I too am a Christian, for I worship and reverence the only true God.”
Chapter IV.—Rusticus threatens the Christians with death.
The prefect says to Justin, “Hearken, you who are called learned, and think that you know true doctrines; if you are scourged and beheaded, do you believe you will ascend into heaven?” Justin said, “I hope that, if I endure these things, I shall have His gifts. For I know that, to all who have thus lived, there abides the divine favour until the completion of the whole world.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Do you suppose, then, that you will ascend into heaven to receive some recompense?” Justin said, “I do not suppose it, but I know and am fully persuaded of it.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Let us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and which presses. Having come together, offer sacrifice with one accord to the gods.” Justin said, “No right-thinking person falls away from piety to impiety.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Unless ye obey, ye shall be mercilessly punished.” Justin said, “Through prayer we can be saved on account of our Lord Jesus Christ, even when we have been punished. because this shall become to us salvation and confidence at the more fearful and universal judgment-seat of our Lord and Saviour.” Thus also said the other martyrs: “Do what you will, for we are Christians, and do not sacrifice to idols.”
Chapter V.—Sentence pronounced and executed.
Rusticus the prefect pronounced sentence, saying, “Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the command of the emperor be scourged, and led away to suffer the punishment of decapitation, according to the laws.” The holy martyrs having glorified God, and having gone forth to the accustomed place, were beheaded, and perfected their testimony in the confession of the Saviour. And some of the faithful having secretly removed their bodies, laid them in a suitable place, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ having wrought along with them, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Manalive is the upcoming movie based on the delightful and suspenseful comic novel by G. K. Chesterton. it tells the story of a jolly and exuberant man named Innocent Smith, whose passion for life rejuvenates the inhabitants of a sleepy, small-town boarding house — until a police inspector shws up with the claim that Smith is actually a criminal — that he is a thief, an adulterer and possibly a murderer! Naturally he is put on trial — with completely unexpected results.
The sneak preview scene does give away a major linchpin of the plot, but it’s a great scene in itself. The stars are Catholic stage actor Kevin O’Brien and Catholic blogger-extraordinaire-with-a-stage-background, Mark Shea, who is the perfect Innocent Smith.
I’ll put in updates as the film gets closer to release.
“Today I have the joy of being able to meet the people of this lagoon. I come among you to solidify that deep bond of communion that historically unites you to the bishop of Rome, witnesses to which are above all the venerated Pastors of this patriarchal See who have gone on to the see of St. Peter; many of you still have a vivid memory of Patriarch Albino Luciani, son of these lands of the Veneto who became Pope with the name of John Paul I. . .” (Benedict XVI, to the people of Venice, May 7, 2011).
During all the excitement surrounding John Paul II’s beatification, I also had someone else very much on my mind — the little figure who has always stood in the shadow beside John Paul II during his pontificate. — his predecessor, John Paul I. Yet for those of us who actually remember him, he has a light of his own. I am offering here what may burn out to be an ongoing post as Benedict XVI visists Venice.
Deacon Bob Yerhot, who was in Rome for both the election of John Paul I and John Paul II — and in fact carried the cross as acolyte at Papa Luciani’s inaugural Mass — offers some very thoughtul and interesting commentary.
I think most of us . . . expected John Paul II to be an image of John Paul I…. perhaps a completion of what would have been should Luciani have had a longer life. It was only natural, I suppose, given he took Luciani’s name, came out of obscurity (at least to the common person at that time), our ongoing grief and shock over Luciani’s untimely death, and the desire we all had that the Church enter a new era of renewal.
Frankly, it was the perception of many that Wojtyla would be a “liberal” pope. What we got confused was the terms. Wojtyla was a pastoral pope (as no doubt Luciani was) but he was very orthodox (which Luciani was also, despite what may be some ill founded mythology about him). Wojtyla’s pastoralism extended even into his persistence in canonizing saints…. more than any other pope in history. He found sainthood in the common person, in many lay men and women, and he raised them to be honored by the universal Church. I don’t think we can call John Paul II a “liberal” in terms of his philosophy or theology — at least not in the contemporary meaning of the word “liberal” — but he was a man liberal in his use of the papacy for the common good of so many.
Some might protest that Luciani could never have been able to have written so masterfully the encyclicals Wojtyla wrote. I am not convinced of that. Luciani probably would not have written as many, given the age difference, but I suspect a Luciani encyclical would been every bit as rich as Wojtyla’s. Perhaps Luciani would have focused on other themes, but one of the biggest myths surrounding Luciani was he was a intellectual lightweight.
It is my hunch that in fact, we saw lived out in John Paul II the pontificate of John Paul I. I suspect that if Luciani would have been pope for twenty years, the crowds would have as forcefully, if not more so, shouted out at his funeral, Santo Subito!!
I certainly agree with this. In fact, John Paul I and John Paul II have more than one strong connection. Both of them not only unexpected choices for Pope, they few completely under the media radar. They seemed to come out of nowhere. Neither — in contrast to their predecessors and successors — had ever held a post in the Curia or the Church’s diplomatic corps. They spent their whole priestly careers as pastors and teachers. They were both consecrated bishops in the same year - 1958 — just months before Pope John announced in January 1959 that he was calling the Second Vatican Council. Their espiscopates were both strongly marked by the Council, as were their papacies. In spite of the clear differences in appearane and manner, they were alike in many other ways, especially in their common touch, their simplicity and directness in their approach to people, and their almost irreverent attitude to Vatican protocol. Paul VI was a modern man inside (I mean this in the best possible way) who because of his background and many years in the Curia was very reluctant to touch some external papal traditions, even though they caused great misunderstanding to those outside the Church. And he was always very conscious of the solemn dignity of his office, as it was then understood. His successors were both modern men even exteriorly, who understood the media and wanted to modernize those outward traditions to go directly to the people. That is why, among other reasons, John Paul I refused to be crowned the papal tiara and John Paul II refused to ever get on the sedia gestatoria. And they both had the same mischievous look in their eyes. . .
There are many other areas they had in common, for instance, their desire to elevate women through the Church’s teaching. Even in Venice, Luciani anticipated many things in Mulieris Dignitatem. There is strong evidence that he was as committed to the Church’s social teaching and to promoting the dignity of work as his predecessors and successors. I certainly agree he was fully intellectually capable of writing great encyclicals - undoubtedly with a very unusual literary bent. It’s also worth pointing out that given his frienship for and great admiration for Karol Wojtyla that Luciani would have relied a great deal on him as his pursued his action as Pope, just as John Paul II relied on Cardinal Ratzinger. (There is evidence for all this which will be in my book). I think if Papa Luciani had lived, we might well have had much of Wojtyla’s teaching with Luciani’s incomparable communication skills.
Deacon Bob is certainly right about this continuity between them and that John Paul II saw himself a working out the papacy of his immediate predecessor. In fact, in 1985, when he paid a visit to Luciani’s first diocese of Vittorio Veneto, he told the people there that he had not forgotten the example of their former bishop, saying: “His gentle figure is still alive in my heart. And it accompanies me constantly in the steps of the itinerary of universal pastor, that I undertook at the very point at which he had begun it.” (Address of June 15, 1985).
A Related Story: Among the stories I have read so far about Pope Benedict’s visit to Venice, this one stood out for a couple of reasons. It seems that the glass-blowers of Venice are offering Pope Benedict and the other priests officiating at Mass there in Mestre on May 8 some 60 beautiful hand-made chalices patens and cruets for liturgical use. They are made of glass with decorations of 24-karat gold leaf.
Some people have decided that this story is all about whether liturgical rules have been broken by having glass liturgical vessels instead of the traditional gold. But this kind of narrow-minded view really misses the bigger picture. The glasworkers of Venice do wonderful artistic work which is worthy of the dignity of the liturgy. I hope Pope Benedict thinks so too. And I think he may be remembering that the promotion of work and the dignity of workers is also part of Catholic teaching. The Italian web site which announces this reminds us that the glass-blowers of Venice are trying to maintain their thousand-year-old tradition of artistic work in the middle of a world-wide economic crisis.Their gift can be a real contribution not only to the beauty of the liturgy but to the success of their industry as well.
Perhaps I feel this way because the mere mention of the glassbowers of Venice evokes a kind of nostaglia in me — though I’ve never even seen one of their workshops, even on my memorable visit to Venice in 1985. No, this tender memory relates to Pope John Paul I. Hiis father, Giovanni Luciani, worked in a glass-blowing factory in Venice around 1910. He didn’t work so much in glass as in repairing the strong furnaces used to heat it, because he was an expert bricklayer. These were the days when lead poisoning from the red lead used for the glass was frequent and workers often had to be replaced. Giovanni wanted to fight for the rights of himself and his fellow workes for better wages and working conditions. While there in Venice, he met and married Bortola Tancon, and they raised a family, among them, Albino, the future Pope. In 1969, when Pope Paul VI named him Patriarch of Venice, Albino showed his dedication to the rights of the workers, and not surprisingly, the glassworkers of Murano were among his special friends. There is a picture of him (how I wish I could find it!) trying out a technique for blowing glass as the workers look on. So there is a much richer historical tradition behind this story than the nit-pickers could ever guess. I wonder if Pope Benedict will recall it tomorrow?
This type of historical tradition intrigues me. I’ll be looking for more of the same in the next few days.
Update: May 9, 2011
Here is Pope Benedct’s second mention of Papa Luciani during his visist to Venice (my translation from the Italian on the Vatican web site).
“Gratitude and joy therefore are the feelings that characterize our encounter. It is taking place in the sacred space, overflowing with art and memory, of the Basilica of St. Mark, where faith and human creativity have given rise to an eloquent catechesis through images. The Servant of God, Albino Luciani, who was your unforgettable Patriarch, described his first visit to this basilica as a young priest in this way: ‘I found myself immersed in a river of light . . . finally I was able to see and enjoy with my own eyes all the splendor of a unique and unrepeatable world of art and beauty, the fascination of which penetrates deep inside you’ ([Camillo Bassotto], Io sono il ragazzo del mio Signore, Venezia-Quarto d’Altino, 1998).”
Pope Benedict XVI, Assembly for the closing of the Diocesan Pastoral Visit at the Basilica of Saint Mark (Venice, 8 May 2011)
I have been somewhat absent in the last weeks while the final push is on for the St. Elizabeth documentary. Just yesterday I was able to send an DVD that was almost complete (except for the final sound editing and music) to a Franciscan sister in Italy who is going to show it to a large formation group on May 21. It will be great publicity, I hope.
This means that I neglected to write anything about an events of great interest in the Catholic world — the first ever confab between the Vatican and bloggers! It was held in the afternoon of Monday May 2 (my birthday!), after the thanksgiving Mass for the beaitifcation of John Paul II. In all, 150 bloggers from all over the world attended. May of those I like reading most including The American Papist (Thomas Peters), The Anchoress (Elizabeth Scalia) and Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia were in attendence.
This was a get-together in which the bloggers spoke first and the Vatican responded. Thomas Peters urged the Vatican to give accredidation to bloggers and to offer them advance information about developments in the Church so they can comment before the mainstream media has a chance to mangle the story. The Vatican put forward some plans for its new website and imporovements to its media communication. Then there is the question of the need for Christian charity among bloggers (a sore point), well handled by Scalia, who quoted Pope Benedict. There is more, much more.
The Ancoress has put up a lot of links. Reading them is an inspiration! A really good example of taking Christ to the marketplace of modern culture, one of the reasons I started my blog to begin with.
Of coure, I feel left out, but maybe i’ll be invited to the next one. . .
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament, Sept 22, 2011.
