Congregation for the Clergy on Parishes July 2020

The Congregation of the Clergy has issued a set of 'instructions' about parish life.  We know this is for world-wide consumption.  We also can readily see that there is little if anything new for the American parish.  I wrote the following in 2008:  

How far can and should the Church go in implementing new models?  Bishops are using canons not needed in the past, installing one pastor in multiple parishes, sometimes stretching the condition that these be neighboring parishes, or installing leadership under Canon 517.2.  Lay ecclesial ministers and deacons are taking on pastoral work in unprecedented numbers.  Pastoral roles are evolving with new ministries and leaders emerging. There is, perhaps, a sense that not only are these models different now, but they can – and probably do – have unanticipated possibilities for changing the parish structure as we know them.  Are the decisions being made just?  Are leaders, lay and ordained, being properly formed for this future.

Today these models are not new, here.  The unintended consequences are upon us.  We need to be creative and imaginative in developing our parishes.  The post-Covid church will require it. 

Will we be able to take the next steps, no longer caught in familiar but out-dated ways of doing things?  Will we see the role of the laity in the life of the parish?  Will we see the absolute necessity of bringing women to the table?  Or will we wait too long?  The decision is ours to make.

A Crisis of Imagination

The church, indeed the world, is experiencing a crisis of imagination.  I define this as the inability or unwillingness to see or imagine a world different from the one we have always know and thought would never end. 

As a country, we are being forced to look at our lack of imagination.  The current administration closed down agencies designed to prepare us for pandemics; it continues to try the old ways of stimulating the economy regardless of the current Covid-crisis. We all see it isn't working.  Racism, sexism, classism - it is all demanding a new vision.

The church fathers from the Amazon begged Rome to use its imagination to see new ways of bringing the Church to the peoples in their part of the world.  Again, a lack of imagination.  Rome just couldn't see how it could be different.  Not daunted, the Amazon church is trying something new.

One answer to these times is found in the hue and cry for more of what was!  Everyone in their place.  There is a certain gnosticism at work. They have the answers and the rest of us need to learn from them.  True for politics or religion.  

Many are paralyzed.  What can we do, poor individuals that we are, in the face of such massive dysfunction?  We care but have no answers.  We never had to be creative.

And then there is a third way. What if we listen to one another?  Take in the reality right in front of our eyes.  What if we truly listened - to on another, to our context, to those not like us - and then listen deeply for the invitation of the Spirit.  What if we were able to imagine a better world, a vaster way to be church?  T care for one another?  What if?

Germany Last Summer

It has been four years since I last posted here.  And four years later I find myself returning from yet another visit to Germany, meeting some of the same wonderful people; a few new ones; traveling with different companions.  This trip was with Villanova's Center for Church Management.

But not only was I in the same location. I found myself talking about the same things.  I opened my sharing with the same remark quoted below about new life.  I don't know whether I am disturbed that seemingly so little has changed in four years, or whether I am realizing we are deeper into the shift.

In these times - these changing, shifting times - the gathering began with people sharing what was on their minds.  There was talk of a shift.  I have been naming it an axial shift for a while now.  Another person called it an epochal shift.  What does that even mean?  The ending of an era? A whole epoch?  Another used the word "iconoclast" - the breaking up the old idols.  Another talked of how the legal system is collapsing.

An economist called us to look at leadership as sacramental -- making manifest what is. Is this what we are called to do? I shared a quote from Yves Congar who, after Vatican II called us to remember our God is a God of surprises. Congar went on to say that we dare not think that God has run out of surprises. Can we be open to the possibility that this shift is exactly that?

So maybe things are not as they were four years ago.  For these ten people from such different backgrounds to name what they are seeing is perhaps evidence that the shift is, in fact, well under way.  Perhaps indeed the dying pains are birth pangs.  And maybe instead of being hospice workers we can become midwives.

We were asked to think about where we are going. Is there a compelling vision for the future? Perhaps it is too soon to know what that is going to be like. Perhaps it is enough to trust in the birthing process.  A new epoch is coming.

In preparing to do some writing I came across a statement I made about parishes in 2005. It is as true today as it was then:

We are in the midst of much change in this country in how we understand and provide parish life and Eucharistic communities.  People are longing for smaller gatherings of faith-filled people of prayer.  They are longing for Eucharistic communities that are vital and alive.   They are frustrated with what has been happening and longing for something new.  Holding onto the past, trying to do the same thing we have always done, but with fewer resources, is only intensifying the pain.  People are experiencing a sense of being lost even as they persevere in deep fidelity.  

How are we, today, addressing these challenges?  The Catholic population is gorwing and so, too, are parishes. Large demands are being made on priest pastors as they serve mega or multiple parishes.   The numbers of permanent deacons and laity serving in both pastoral and professional positions is growing.  The face of the parish is indeed changing. 

Final Thoughts: A Recurring Theme

My Reflections

As I review my notes and recall other events of this year, I discover a recurring theme has made its way into my thoughts... endings and beginnings. Change and new life.  The paschal mystery.  At the German RUB conference the statement was clear: 'Perhaps the symptoms of dying are really signs of new life!"  

This idea was stated or called to mind repeatedly. It reminded me of the conversation I attended this spring at Emory University, Chandler School of Divinity, sponsored by the Lilly Endowment. It was one of several being held ato look at the declining numbers of students in seminaries, divinity schools, and graduate programs in ministry. The gathering I attended was an ecumenical gathering of graduate ministry professors.  As our conversation moved forward, the language I heard us using was the paschal mystery.  

Participants in both places spoke of changing times, and reading the signs of the times:  for example, young adults who are more tolerant of differences and less open to divisions. Germany is experiencing change just as we are in the US, and in other places as well, closing or merging large numbers of parishes. The number of clergy there are declining as they are in the U.S., and some mentioned this as a world-wide phenomenon.  The percentage of Catholics who regularly attend Mass in Germany is far smaller than the all-too-low percentage in the US. 

One of the hoped for results of Vatican II has been the recognition and involvement of the laity in the life of the church.  This was the theme of the RUB conference.  Perhaps the symptoms of dying really are signs of new life... the paschal mystery. However, as I shared in the Lilly conversation, resurrection is not resuscitation.  Whatever the Spirit is calling the Church too will not look the same. The apostles did not recognize the risen Christ at first.  The didn’t see the signs of new life in the symptoms of dying.  

However the future unfolds, I believe it is in the passion of the living - those on the road to Eammaus discovering Jesus in the breaking of the bread, - that we will find our way forward.  We must let go of the past - as Jesus asked Mary when she discovered him in the garden following the resurrection - knowing that we are assured of a future full of hope. 

RUB Conference: Pope Francis' Ecclesiology of Leadership

The conversation about the leadership of the laity within the church continued with Dr, Michael Bohnke, Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Wuppertal. Focusing on the baptismal call to the common priesthood, especially as evident in the Vatican II documents, addressed the right of the faithful as named in Sacrosanctum Concilium.  He suggests that the right of the faithful to full, active, and conscious participation is demanded by the very nature of liturgy.

He goes on to say that we need to rethink current forms of leadership, in light of Vatican II which saw leadership as a multi-faceted task: not control and command, but traveling together. His model for this is the ecclesiology Pope Francis has given us from his first appearance on the balcony of St. Peter's.

Pope Francis Ecclesiology of Leadership

When the new Pope first introduced himself as the bishop of Rome he asked people to pray for him so that he could bless them.  This, according to Bohnke, was much more than a thoughtful moment. It contained a deep ecclesiology of leadership which sees the the essential connection between the People of God and the bishop.

• A bishop can only bless people because the people have first asked God to bless the bishop. The source of the bishop's authority rests in the People of God making this request.  In other words, the prayer of the church is the theological pre-condition of the bishop's authority who can only act as a blessed one.
• People need the bishop's blessing. No one can bless themselves.  Only God can bless them and so they request that the bishop be authorized or blessed by God to make this blessing.
• Together bishops and the People of God depend on the fidelity of God which finds its expression in the blessing of the bishop.

Pope Francis  is telling us that authority is mediated through the prayer of the church, both missionary and prophetic authority.  This, according to Bohnke, is a radical theology of the laity. In other words, he has gone back to the early church's understanding of the need for epiclesis (the prayer of the church) recognizing the essential inter-connection of the baptized with the ordained. 

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My Reflection

This post is only a brief glimpse at what was a well developed argument.  However, it contains a truth that I have long believed and which we seldom discuss.  There is an intrinsic connection between the priesthood of the laity and the priesthood of the ordained; not one that confuses the differences, but rather one that is essential for the life of the church.  Bishops do not have authority because they have somehow "magically" been placed over the community, nor does the community have authority only because it has somehow "magically" been given such by the bishop.  Both ideas leave out our dependence on God!  We, the baptized - all of us, are one in receiving the love and fidelity of God who first became human in Jesus and then authorized the disciples.  And so we need each other as we set out on our common mission to bring about the kingdom of God. 

RUB Conference: Addressing Leadership Responsibility

Baptismal Consciousness and Leadership Responsibility

Dr. Richard Hartmann, Professor of Theology and Homiletics at the University of Fulda, studied German diocesan documents on leadership. Rooting his presentation in a theology of baptism, and the Vatican II documents on the church and lay apostolate, he addressed different aproaches to lay leadership in the church, discovering  tensions that will be familiar to many:

• Does baptism include or exclude?
• What are the pastoral and institutional consequences to recognizing the dignity and equality of baptism?
• Is commissioning required or can disicpleship be appreciated without institutionalizing it?
• If Vatican II called us to be polycentric then leadership as authority (monocentric) is obselete.
• How do we balance technical competence and charism?
• What theology supports or blocks our organizational models of church?
• What supports or blocks vocation?

In the end, so much revolves around power: Who has it? Can it be shared? What is it?

There were two tresponses to Dr. Hartmann:

• Brazilian lecturer and Lutheran theologian Martin Weingaertner called to mind the communal nature of church as well as the personal, suggesting that baptism in ongoing and not a single event. 
• Bishop Michael Westenberg from South Africa spoke about Pope Benedict's call to co-responsibility noting that it deals with challenges to old models of leadership. In response to Dr., Hartmann's concern about the pastor having the "ultimate responsibility" who delegated rather than invited participation, he pointed to the tension some pastors feel regarding the responsibility of decision making.

RUB Conference: A Political Perspective

Politics Advancing Participation

The Essential Power of Development in Society

The morning concluded with a  presentation by political professor Dr.  Klaus Topfer, director of Advanced Sustainability Studies, Postsdam. Here are some of his remarks:

Do you want to always be known as standing against something?  Revolution has to be rethought.  it is about wanting to change: modern people must change or die!  If people are required to accept what they don't want, they leave. The goal, instead of forcing people to do what they don't want, is to get them involved in the solution. In a participatory church, participation must be honest engagement and not about a pre-determined consequences.

This do this:

• Requires time
• Recognizes the need for alternatives
• Knows the challenge of changing large structures
• Demands transperancy

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My Reflection

This reminded me of a recent experience of reflecting on the Gospel account of the healing at the pool in Bethesda. In this familiar story, Jesus comes to the place where people are waiting for the water to be stirred. When this happens the first one in is healed.  Jesus speaks with a man who has been there a long time.  

In my reflection the man says to Jesus: This method just isn't working for me.  And Jesus replies: If you want to be healed then let's find another way ... and does.

This is our call.  How can we, as invoolved and responsible adult Catholics, find a way to be church today?

RUB Conference: Baptismal call to adulthood

A European Perspective in Baptismal Consciousness

Our next speaker was Swiss theologian Dr. Arnd Bunker who began his talk by suggesting that integral to baptismal consciousness is resistence to being blindly led. Baptism by its very nature is inherently resistent to blind leadership and faith.  It calls us to become adults!

Is it possible that people's distance form the church is a reaction to being interferred with? If baptismal consciousness is the liberty for self-direction, then how much power does baptismal consciousness have?  Perhaps the decline in active Catholics and numbers of priests should be seen in this context.  These are symptoms of, not challenges to, what is going on in the church. 

People are not willing to accept a structure which does not take them seriously. Ecclesial leadership needs to give space for freedom.  If leadership is the process of both influencing and receiving the support of others, missionary disicpleship must then be leadership for the inclusion of others. Leadership cannot be focused on power but on giving witness to the kingdom.

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My Reflection

This talk deeply touched me.  How often do we hear the call to be adults in our faith?  Those who challenge a blind following of the status quo are, perhaps, living out their baptiimal call in a very real way,. Are we not to be doing what we have been challenged to do in the Vatican II document on religious liberty: forming our consciousnesses as adults?  As several speakers mentioned, our baptism is not a one time only shot.  We are in the process of "being baptized" every day of our lives, entering more deeply into our call to be a kingdom people. 

RUB Conference: Pope Francis and leadership

Pope Francis: A New Understanding of Baptism and Leadership

Our opening speaker was our own Dr. Robert Schreiter from Catholic Theological Union.  I first met Dr.Schreiter at our Ministry Summit in 2008 where he was our closing speaker. I have heard him a number of times since and have been deeply influenced by his vision for ministry. If you have not read his The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies you might want to check it out!

Dr. Schreiter focused on baptism and leadership in the understanding of Pope Francis. Here is some of what he said:

We are experiencing a kairos moment, like the shifting of tectonic plates.  Three events in our time are shifting the landscape:

1. Fifty years after the council we are still experiencing pre and post Vatican II. We have the actual teachings of the council; the interpretation of the council as communio (1985); and the concern for continuity and rupture (2000) in a world church. 
2. Pope Francis the first post-Vatican II pope and the first pope from the world church.
3. When we look at leadership in the church we see the impact of secularization, the declining numbers of clergy, and an increase in migration.

In this newly global church Francis' themes are mercy (a treasure of mercy is entrusted to the church), care for the poor, and missionary evangelization.  

This missionary impluse  requires daily encounter with Christ.  It is best expressed when it is open and inclusive to all. It must always be "by and of" the poor. For Francis, missionary = mystical. To be mystical means that our actions must be sacramental.  We must both love God and heal wounds.  Therefore we are called to be both mystical and political, going out into the public square offering the 'sign value' of our faith to a world in search of the dignity of all people.

Our call to be missionaries is rooted in Lumen Gentium baptismal call to be priest, prophet, and king:

• "priest" in building bridges to God
• "prophet" making visible the existential reality of suffering
• "kingly" in the right ordering of creation.

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My Reflection

The political is the mystical!  This insight into Pope Francis' understanding of mystical as having to do with the mystery or aura of something was very helpful.  And the connection to the political as being in the public square were fascinating to me. If we connect the mystical to the political this implies that we must recognize both the inner and outer dimensions of our lives and bring them together.  

Rurh University Bochum [RUB] Conference

Baptismal Consciousness and Ecclesial Leadership

Impulses From the Global Church

The conference we had been invited to attend focused on baptismal call and lay participation.  The presentations were in a variety of languages but primarily German and English.  We all wore headphones to hear simultaneous translations.  We were a learning communit of the global church. 

Four speakers set the stage for the conference:

Professor Wilhelm Dahmburg, Dean of the Catholic theology faculty at the university opened the conference reminding us that Vatican II was geared towards the future. The event began with a panel. Here are some of the things we heard:

Professor Klaus Kramer, president of Missio, Auchen: The essence of church is not institution but communio. We have a missionary mandate. In the Congo where he was from laity are taking on the work of the parishes. 

Dr. Herbert. Schonemann, Dierctor of KAMP Ehrfurt: Conventional formats of church are no longer serving us.  We need to rediscover the kingdom of God outside of the institutional. God has given us all we need to be redesigned!  We need to look at baptism and our understanding of the People of God. Are they too narrowly defined?  Can baptismal consciousness be seen as participation in ministerial offcies and if so how empoowered are the laity?

Dr. Matthias Sellmann, chair of pastoral theology: Are we looking at structural change in order to realize a participatory church?

And we were off on a wonderful adventure!

Journey to Germany

We arrived in Essen Germany on Sunday, settled into a lovely Golfhotel and then joined our hosts for a liturgy at the ZAP Center.  ZAP is the Germany acronym for the center for laity.  The liturgy set the tone for our week. As I looked around the circle of those gathered, our presider was a German who is now bishop of a diocese in South Africa.  Traveling with him was a South African monsignor.  There was a priest professor from Brazil, a professor from France, our American group, and of course our German hosts.  We had come together to look at lay participation in the global church.  What wonderful surprises awaited us!

Join me as I share the information from the wonderful and varied speakers at the conference.

Serving the Poor: Creating a Better World

This week I was invited to offer the luncheon speech at the Catholic Charities of  Dallas Spring Luncehon.  It was an amazing gathering of over 300 women who offer their time to the many services Charities provides.  The theme of my talk which focused on faith in action was "Do What You Have the Power to Do.'

The talk was inspired by a book by Helen Brusch with that title. It looks at the role models provided by three women in Scripture and how, sometimes at personal risk, did what they had the power to do.  One was the bent-over woman who Jesus healed of a crippling infirmity simply because it was not right that she be bent over.  A second was the Syr-phoenician woman who challenged Jesus to heal outsider.  The third was the woman in Mark's Gospel who anointed Jesus preparing him for what was to come.   They are true models of discpleship.  Here are my closing remarks:

"So I invite you choose to be a true disciple. It will take courage. Stand in your truth, your authenticity. Stand in your faith.  Decide whether or not you are willing to spend your life loving Jesus; whether or not you are willing to believe Jesus loves you; and whether or not you are willing to walk his walk by loving those in your life. This is faith in action.

I want to add my gratitude and thanks for the witness you give with your commitment to Catholic Charities and its work here in Dallas. You are doing what you have the power to do. This, I believe, is the hope to which we have been called: To break ourselves open, speak up and speak out, and pour our love and gifts out on those around us."

Papal Elections

The world is holding its collective breath awaiting the outcome of the papal elections to begin next week.  American Cardinals Whuerl and Dolan have said that the greatest need will be for the new pope to deal with secularism.  This, as I understand them to mean, is a culture that does not see the need for church.

On Tuesday, Whuerl and Dolan are joining 113 other cardinals as they decide the next phase of the life of the church. They will enter the Sistine Chapel surrounded by some of the world's most priceless paintings, sculptures, and ancient manuscripts, perhaps chanting sacred music, while wearing clothing of long tradition. The task before them is intense. May Spirit lead them to see what is really most needed in the world we live in today.
 

Change - It Just Keeps Happening!

Like so many others I am enchanted by the PBS series Downton Abbey.  For those of you not yet hooked, it is the ongoing saga of an aristocratic household in England during the early 1900s.  You meet and care for both the aristocratic family and their servants, all of whom are treated with much dignity and respect.  Of coure, like any other family, both upstairs and downstairs have their fair share of drama.

What has caught my attention is that over the period of a couple of decades we have seen this family move through a great deal of change, watching their world as they knew it fade away.  Some, like the head of the household, don't kow how to be in this world and would rather just not think about it or be open to change.  Others are embracing it, even as they try to hold onto old customs.  The metaphor for change can be seen in the matriarch of the family, played by Dame Maggie Smith.  She portrays an elderly dowager, both fierce and loving, who wears black and moves through life clutching the top of her cane. 

It is the 'clutching' that has caught my attention and it has made me wonder how we are moving through the change that faces us. Are we holding on for dear life?  In deep denial?  Or embracing it with all the grace we can muster? 

How we embrace it will make all the difference. While most people do not have that bird's eye view of the changing times provided by the Emerging Models Project, we all are facing the changes in our own parishes and dioceses. We do the best that we can in our own place. We keep our focus on following the mission of Christ in Eucharistic-centered parishes that are figuring out how to best serve our own people and neighborhood. 

We are being asked to think outside of the box.  How we used to do things probably won't work as it did in the past. This is an amazing time to be creative and open to change.  The big question for us is this. Are we going to 'clutch our canes,' holding on for dear life?  Remain in denial, trying to go back to the past? Or are we going to embrace it with all the grace we can muster?

The decision is ours. Change is inevitable.  It just keeps happening.

Emerging Models and Deep Transition

This past week was the final gathering to be hosted by the Emerging Models Project, with reports presented on all of the projects completed in Phase II.  It was a gift to be able to be there and join those who care so much about the future of our parishes and to stand once again in the 'crow's nest,' as it were, and see the view across the country.  What we saw was breath-taking. The period of transition in which we find ourselves is extensive and inclusive of all aspects of parish life.   Whether we are looking at who is pastoring, what pastoring means, what a parish is, what new structures we are called to engage, who is a member of this community, or who is feeling called to serve, we are finding movement, change, challenge, and gift.

Those who have heard me speak know that I talk about a paradigm-shift in how we experience parish life. Another way to talk about this is using the concept of transitions, such as that developed by William Bridges, who talks about change as endings (acknowledging that what was is going away), middle times (in which the change has not yet been established), and beginnings (in which the new arrives). The middle phase is significant in that it can last for a long time and offers those going through the opportunity to assess what has been and where they are going.  Most importantly, to move well through this time we must be willing to experiment, to 'tinker,' trying new ideas, seeing what might work in our particular situation.

We are in this middle phase. For the local parish or region, this means having the freedom to exploe and innovate, to try new things, to be open to what the community needs and how best to meet that need. It means formation and engagement of parishioners in the process of innovation and creativity.

All of this, of course, can be a challenge, hopefully an exciting one, for those in ministry. Pastors, deacons, lay ecclesial ministers, parish administrators will need to be open, accepting, adaptive, and collaborative... words used by Mark Mogilka in the multiple parish report.  Yes, we will grieve the past but we are learning to welcome and celebrate the new, while rethinking our theologies of pastoring and parish.  Each day we continue to do what we do, hopefully with an open mind and heart, for we are in transition one way or the other.  We walk with the prophet Isaiah who tells us the Spirit is saying:

"See! I am doing something new. Can you not perceive it?"

20 Women in the U.S. Senate

“It was the first time in 2001 when we had enough women to actually be on every committee, to have a woman’s voice, a woman’s experience [and] a woman’s values on every committee. You fast forward to now, the new year. There will be six of us chairing committees and other women in the ranking member spot,” Ms. Stabenow said. “And I think the public understands to get things done, we’re the ones that want to work across the aisle to do that.”

Senator Debbie Stabenow in an interview with Diane Sawyer

Advice to Young Women Interested in Leadership

In a 1999 interivew Harvard asks Mary McAleese, the second woman to be President of Ireland, to give her adivce for young women interested inleadership.

"It would be to not be frightened and to take things one small increment at a time. If all you see is a big, terrifying picture and the enormity of the work to be done, it can be off-putting and scary, but my grandmother always said that one life lived well can make a difference, and I think it is up to all women to have faith in the value and integrity of their own contribution to the world they live in. If they live it with integrity and decency, their lives will make a difference."

McAleese's goal as president was to be a living bridge for all groups in her country and her Presidency was deeply informed by her faith. In 2011 she received the Tipperary International Peace Prize for her reconciliation work during her presidency.  I guess Grandma does know best!

Last Day in Rome

Our trip is finally ending.  Storms are rolling in. It will be raining tonight. We leave for the airport in the morning. This has been a wonderful day.  It began with mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the altar and crypt of John XXIII which is just to the right of the main apse.  Our presider was Bishop Tobin who has served in the Congregation for Religious and is returning to the US. Today, it turns out, is the feast of Theresa of Avila. What a fitting ending to this trip and personally meaningful.  Theresa, one of the four women doctors of the church, taught us all so much about spirituality and how to be a woman of faith.

We then went to the rooms where the Protestant observers of the council stayed, in the Piazza Novona.  There we were greeted with two professors, one very active in the Lutheran/Catholic dialogue and the other in the Islam/Catholic dialogue.  The essence of this dialogue, they said is this: to be friends in our differences. We concluded with lunch and final thoughts from Ed Hahnenberg. 

I am changed in some ways I am sure.  There will be a difference in the way that I talk about the Council.  There are new images and new ideas that I am working with.  In future posts I will share these with you as they develop.  I continue to believe in the work of the Council and in many ways have discovered that the laity are those who are bringing it to life  in our day-to-day practice of our faith.

Ciao from Rome.

Saturday in Rome

Much has happened since I last wrote.  Thursday morning we found ourselves in St. Peter’s Square for the opening liturgy of the Year of Faith.  We were present at the papal mass, which was intended to duplicate the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Cardinals processed coming through the square, though many bishops were already seated on the dais.  The pope followed, though in the Pope Mobile – sort of an open air Hummer!  The Vatican diplomatic corps was also seated on the dais.  We had chairs though not everyone did.  The estimate is 40,000 people. 

Friday we went to Santa Sabina, the international headquarters of the Dominicans, the very same church given to St. Dominic to begin his order.  It was originally the home of a woman named Sabina who was converted by her slave, then both martyred. Their remains are interred in the church. It was a beautiful Romanesque church with gardens which overlook the city.  They have a 180 degree panoramic view. While we were there, as it had been raining that morning, a rainbow and spread from horizon to horizon, right over St. Peter’s basilica.

Last evening we went to visit with a member of the community of St. Egidio and prayed with them in the church of St. Mary Travestere.   The St. Egidio community was founded in 1968 by a group of male students who began by meeting on a corner of the street, shared the gospel and broke open their lives. They eventually felt called to work with the poor.  They have never missed a day since without gathering for prayer. Their work now extends to many countries. Last night people from Senegal and other African countries were there, trying to negotiate an end to war.

This morning’s trip was to the Pontifical Biblical Institute.  Our trip ends on Monday with mass in the crypt of St. Peter’s where John XXIII is buried.  My experience and impressions of the trip and the many speakers has been wonderful and will take awhile to sort out.  I will continue to share these as I am able.

So I will close these pages with God’s word that came with the rainbow in Scripture: I will always keep my covenant with you.  Perhaps the most important message of the trip.

Wednesday in Rome

Our Rome tour started out this morning driving through the streets of Rome and outside the ancient walls of the city to the church of St. Paul Outside the City.  The church is so named, literally because of its location. In ancient Rome the only person that could be buried inside the walls was the emperor.  So, when Paul was martyred he had to be buried outside the walls. That place was marked and became the site of this church.

Like most ot the older churches in Rome this one has been built layer upon layer.  The first church, a larger second, and when that one burned down in the 1800's, yet another.  This church is one of the most beautiful I have seen here, full of gold and guilt and quite large. Around the frieze are portraits of each pope. The final painted is HH Benedict XVI.  There are no pews. There is a special place where you canpray to the Apsotle. This is also the site of a Benedictine Monastery built 1200 years ago and lived in continuously since that time.

What is special about this church is that on the Feast of the conversion of St. Paul, 25 January 1961, Pope John XXIII went to visit the abbott there.  The cardinal heads of the curia were with him. It was quite a procession with people lining the streets and waiting inside the church. Once they arrived they were escorted up three flights of stairs to the abbott's parlor.  It was here, and at this time, that John XXIII announced there would be a council.  It came as a surprise to most everyone in the room... welcome to some and not to others!

This room is in the cloistered part of the abbey and rarely are visitors allowed there. However, our hosts were able to secure permission and we were escorted in.  It is a rather Victorian looking room and on the wall is a placque marking the announcement and a bronze bas relief cast of the head of John XXIII.  There was a palpable presence in the room, and all of us felt as if we were in the presence of something remarkable.

That day John did what each of us is called to - to do what we have the power to do. (Mark 14:8)