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For All the Saints

I have groused that David Bercot’s Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs was deficient in its treatment of the cult of the saints in Christian antiquity. In fact, the only entries under “Should Christians pray to the dead?” are condemnations of necromancy by Tertullian and Lactantius! In an otherwise fine volume, this section grossly misrepresents the literary and archeological record of the early Church. For the early Christians practiced a lively and deep devotion to the saints.

Not to worry, though, because other books make up for the bit that is lacking in Bercot, and there’s always more room on the bookshelf. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press offers a nice anthology in its popular patristics series: The Cult of the Saints includes St. John Chrysostom’s homilies and letters related to the great men whom St. Paul refers to as the “saints in light” (Col 1:12). When you have Fathers praising Fathers — in this case, Chrysostom praising Ignatius (and many others) — you’ve got to listen up.

In his standard work on Early Christian Doctrines, J.N.D. Kelly notes how the earliest Christians reverently preserved the relics of the martyrs and every year celebrated their “birthdays” (into heaven, that is). Origen and Cyprian attest to the custom of seeking the intercession of the saints. And their literary remains find echo in graffiti throughout the ancient world. The ancient liturgies invoke the saints of both the Old and New Testaments, as well as the martyrs. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory Nazianzen exhort their flocks to seek the help of the saints. And it’s a multimedia testimony. We can still look upon those early images of saints, painted on the walls of the catacombs, engraved on tombstones, and etched into the sides of pilgrim flasks and oil lamps. Everywhere the Gospel reached, the strain re-echoed: “Pray for us!”

There’s more evidence in Peter Brown’s The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions). Though Brown does not write from a perspective of faith — perhaps because he doesn’t — he is a reliable witness. He has no dog in the Protestant-Catholic fight over the intercession of the saints. But Catholics will recognize a familiar devotion in some of their ancient forebears, as they appear in Brown’s book. I like his description of the Mediterranean region after the rise of Christianity: “while it may not have become markedly more ‘otherworldly,’ it was most emphatically ‘upperworldly.'”

Orthodox and Catholic Christianity still is. We profess belief in “life everlasting. We believe also that we live amid a “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). We believe that Christians must “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2). We believe that the dead cry out before the altar in heaven, pleading with God to right the wrongs upon earth (Rev 6:9-10).

In short, we believe in the faith of our Fathers. There’s good patristic material online at Catholic Answers and in the Catholic Encyclopedia. So celebrate the day with gusto. Celebrate with all the saints in heaven and on earth!

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A Day Late and a Decade Short

The month of the Rosary just came to a close, and I find myself up late, remembering that I’ve wanted to post links to some very good things.

Maureen, our faithful guide to things Celtic and patristic, provided excerpts of Pope Benedict’s recent words on the Rosary.

Meanwhile, in the world of paper and ink, a lovely new book appeared by my friend Gary Jansen: The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved. It’s deeply scriptural, and beautifully visual, with classic art for every mystery. It is an excellent introduction to the devotion — clear and simple. The Rosary’s sustained me, in one way or another, since I was in utero. Yet Gary’s book gave me new perspectives… Still, I’ve never seen a better introduction for people coming in cold — even people who know little or nothing about Christianity. The book’s a marvel of grace, highly recommended.

The Rosary’s a medieval flower, but it has patristic roots. The Egyptian Desert Fathers (fourth century) counted prayers on strings of beads or knotted ropes. Palladius mentions that Abba Paul was in the habit of saying three hundred prayers a day, and he counted them out with three hundred pebbles. The monks of the desert still retain the custom of praying all 150 psalms every day. Devout souls who couldn’t read would sometimes use beads to count out recitations of the Lord’s Prayer, and later the Hail Mary. You can see how this developed into fifteen “decades” focused on the mysteries of Jesus’ life.

Pope Benedict, back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, often spoke about the Rosary in ways that remind me of my mom. Read God and the World: A Conversation With Peter Seewald. It’s all good, but the chapter on the “Mother of God” is life-changing.

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Please Pray

Regular readers of this blog know the work of Father Mark Gruber, OSB, anthropologist and expert on things Coptic. (See my review of Fr. Mark Gruber’s Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers.)

Today I’m asking for your prayers for one of Father Mark’s kinsmen, Anthony, who was struck by a train last Thursday. Anthony sustained severe injuries, some of them permanent, and is hospitalized in a shock trauma unit. Please pray for him and for his family.

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Artful Bargain

My sainted wife keeps the budget in our house, and so she dictates the limits of my book-buying. One of this blog’s regular visitors, who shall remain nameless, lives in similar circumstances. And he reports that the lovely book Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art is now out in paperback with (as he put it) a “wife-friendly price.” I thought you all would want to know.

I discussed the hardcover here.

It would make a great Christmas present for the art lover or patristics nerd in your life.

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Mills Mulls Signs

My latest book, Signs and Mysteries: Revealing Ancient Christian Symbols, is reviewed in this week’s Pittsburgh Catholic by no less a critic than David Mills. As if that’s not cool enough … he actually liked it.

In Signs and Mysteries, Mike Aquilina explains 25 symbols we’ve inherited from our fathers in the early Church, which meant everything — even life and death — to the people who painted them on the walls of their churches, inscribed them on tombs, even scratched them on the walls of public buildings and underground tombs. The symbols they put on lamps and rings and bottles and jugs reminded them of a counter-cultural, life-changing — at times life-endangering — commitment…

The early Christians took their symbols from the Old Testament (like the lamb and the plow), the New Testament (the fish, the anchor, and of course the Cross), or both (the good shepherd, the banquet, and the vine), and even from the pagan culture around them (the ankh, the orant, and the philosopher). They even made up their own (the dolphin, the peacock, and the lighthouse). In every case, they drew wider and deeper meaning from the symbol…

For us modern Christians, these symbols offer “an urgent message . . . from a distant family member.” It’s as if our brothers and sisters, knowing that most of us suffer from spiritual attention deficit disorder, had plastered our homes and churches, and nature itself, with post-it notes reminding us of what Jesus has done and is doing for us. Unfortunately, few of us know enough to read the notes. Signs and Mysteries is an excellent aid in learning to read their messages.

He points out that there’s an interview with the illustrator of Signs and Mysteries, Lea Marie Ravotti, posted here.

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Join Us in Rome in 2009

Here’s the word from the St. Paul Center:

The Year of St. Paul is about celebrating the life of one of history’s most remarkable figures, one of the Church’s most remarkable saints. It’s about discovering how we, too, can imitate him in giving the Gospel to a culture that desperately needs it. And it’s about asking for his intercession for the Church life and mission today.

From March 14-22, 2009, you’re invited to join Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Mike Aquilina, and Father James Farnan, as they make pilgrimage to Rome in the footsteps of St. Paul. We’ll visit the port in Ostia where he may have entered Rome, the prison where he was held captive, the site of his execution, and the basilica built to house his relics. We’ll visit other holy sites of early Christianity as well—the basilicas built over the first house churches, the catacombs, the arenas of martyrdom, the haunts of St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Hippolytus, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Leo. We’ll also visit the Vatican, attend a general audience with the Pope, and browse the cobblestone streets and ruins of ancient Rome.

Father Farnan will offer Mass daily in Rome’s most beautiful churches. We’ll devote time each day to brief seminars, led by our hosts, on St. Paul and the early Church in Rome.

The cost of this eight-day pilgrimage, which roundtrip airfare from New York, lodging, breakfast, dinner, and all entrance fees is $3550 for adults and $3199 for children.

We hope you can join us for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk in St. Paul’s footsteps during the year of St. Paul.

Click here for the full itinerary.