Day 8 was catacomb day, and I don't have many photos in the catacombs. We started at the catacombs of Marcellino and Pietro, which have only recently been opened to the public.
Then the catacombs at San Sebastiano. Also at San Sebastiano is the relic of the footprints of Jesus, from the site of the "Quo Vadis?" vision. That comes from one of the apocryphal acts documents, the Acts of Peter, and was then incorporated into a novel, called Quo Vadis? and then the movie of the same name (about 1953, I think). If you've never seen it, it's a great classic sword and sandal flick, not very historically accurate, but still fun. The story is that Peter met the risen Christ on the Appian Way, and Jesus left footprints in the stone. The stone with the footprints are in the church of San Sebastiano (see the photo). We were planning to go to the Quo Vadis chapel, on the supposed site of the vision, along the Appian Way, but we got behind and never made it there. But in any case, even if the footprints of Jesus are not "real" the point I always make is that it's important that Jesus did leave footprints in his life - in other words that he was not a phantom as the gnostics claimed, but that he was truly and fully human (as well as being divine).
We ended the day at San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura (St. Lawrence Outside the Walls), where the tomb of St. Lawrence is, and St. Justin Martyr is also in there with him. This church was accidentally hit by a bomb during WWII and had to be partially rebuilt. The last photo I'm including is a photo from the wreckage right after the bomb hit (it's on the wall in the sacristy, so I took a photo of the photo). It looks like Jesus is pulling St. Francis out of the rubble!
Here's a short (about a minute) video I took going around the Holy Column in the church of Santa Prassede. This is the column that Jesus was tied to when he was scourged by Pontius Pilate. They don't always have the barrier down, so you usually don't get to see it from all the way around. I wanted to get video of the whole thing all the way around because I ran across a note in an ancient document that said that those who made a pilgrimage (at that time to the Holy Land, since it was still in Jerusalem) could visit the Holy Column, and could see marks left from the hands of Jesus where he gripped it as he was being whipped. I assume that this is pious legend, but I figured since the column has that dark & light marble, maybe there's a place where the dark parts look like hands. I did not see it, but if you do, let me know!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
My voice was still recovering from a bad cold, so not sounding my best, but this was a great conversation about pilgrimage, for the Jubilee year - more of this coming in other interviews! (FYI, I think I was the third of three guests that day, so you will have to fast forward to find me)
It seems that one way or another we need to talk about different kinds, or different levels of heresy. What I have been calling heresy vs. heterodoxy, others call heresy on fundamental doctrines vs. heresy on less fundamental doctrines. In other words, Heresy with a capital H (over fundamental doctrines like the Trinity and christology) are the kinds of heresies that move one outside the boundaries of what Christianity is, and that's because the very definition of Christianity is defined according to these fundamental doctrines. To refuse to sign the Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325, or the Council of Constantinople in 381 - and indeed to reject any of the contents of the Creed today - means that a person is NOT a Christian.
So are the non-chalcedonians, such as the miaphysites (including St. Gregory of Narek, and today's Coptic Christians) - are they heretics? Well, like it is with a lot of things, that depends on your definition of heresy. If you include in your definition of ...
As promised, I thought that this would be a good discussion starter here in the community - this is from a conversation I had with my producer at Catholic Culture, around the podcast episodes on St. Gregory of Narek. If you've listened to the first episode on St. Gregory, you know that he is the first and only Doctor of the Church who was not Catholic! What are we to make of this? How do we explain it? Well, it was within the context of me trying to explain it that two really fundamental questions came up, and had to be hashed out between me and my producer. The first question - and this was surprising, given that we had a whole series on The Heresies - the first question is: What is a heresy? And how you answer that has serious implications for the second question, which is: What is the Universal Church? And that has serious implications for ecumenical dialogue, not to mention how we think about our fellow Christians who are not Catholic. So let's take the first question first (and here's ...
