In today’s mail came a press release from the Fraternity of St Genesius, which unites “members of the faithful in prayer and support for those involved in the theatrical and cinematic arts.” The organization was founded in Ireland in 2007 and now has hundreds of members. Late last month, its founder, Father John Hogan, received a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI.

I congratulate Father Hogan. And I can’t pass up an opportunity to celebrate St. Genesius the Comedian, a martyr whose life I told in an earlier post titled “Take My Life, Please.”

Genesius (d. 286 or 303) was the leader of a theatrical troupe in Rome, performing one day before the Emperor Diocletian The script called for these wise guys to make fun of the Christian rites, and Genesius was supposed to pretend to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. But a funny thing happened on the way to the punch line: When the water had been poured out on him, he proclaimed himself a Christian. Diocletian at first thought it was all part of the joke. But gradually it became clear that Genesius meant it. Suddenly, the emperor was not amused. For spoiling the party, Diocletian ordered the comedian to be tortured and then beheaded. Genesius must have had quite a following, though. We know that he was venerated at Rome as early as the fourth century: a church was built in his honor, and was repaired and beautified centuries later by Gregory III in 741.

On the Byzantine calendar, today’s the feast of St. Michael the Archangel and the Angelic Hosts. Devotion to my heavenly namesake was very well developed, very early in the Church’s history. Before Constantine’s peace, there were churches dedicated to St. Michael in Rome and in Egypt. And he appears often in early Coptic art. For the goods, see this book — and prepare to be wowed.

St. Michael is the patron of my ancestral city of Caltanissetta, Sicily.

In your kindness, pray today for all bloggers named Michael who happened to be born on Byzantine St. Michael’s day.

We at the St. Paul Center were pleased to see that Zenit posted a nice article on last week’s conference. Now we’re preparing for next week’s conference. I hope you can join us …

The 2008 Letter & Spirit Conference
St. Paul: Mission and Mystery
Sponsored by the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology
Nov. 14-15, 2008, St. Paul Seminary, Crafton, PA

Friday, November 14
Keynote Address:
“St. Paul: Mission and Mystery”
Dr. Scott Hahn, Founder and President, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology

Saturday, November 15
“The Biblical Basis for Bishops in Paul’s Pastoral Epistles”
Dr. Mike Sirilla, Associate Professor of Theology
Franciscan University of Steubenville

“The Mystery of Marriage in Paul”
Dr. John Bergsma, Associate Professor of Theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville

“The Mystery of Christ in Ephesians”
Dr. William Bales, Professor of Sacred Scripture, Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary

“The Mystery of the Spirit in First Corinthians”
Dr. Mary Healy, Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Heart Major Seminary

Panel Discussion
All scholars

Holy Mass
Celebrant & Homilist: Bishop David A. Zubik, Diocese of Pittsburgh

4th Annual Father Ronald Lawler, OFM Cap,
Memorial Lecture:
Sex, Marriage & Original Sin:
A Defense of Augustine’s Reading of St. Paul
Dr. John Cavadini, Chairperson of the Department of Theology
University of Notre Dame

REGISTER NOW!

If you haven’t ordered your Christmas cards yet, stop by Tom Craughwell’s site. Tom’s also added a new page, Custom Orders, in response to rising demand for commemorative cards for newly ordained priests, memorial cards for families, and prayer cards for parishes. There you can choose from some apostolic- and patristic-era faves, like St. Agnes, who is dear to my heart.

I reviewed Tom’s saints book here.

Mark Sullivan of National Catholic Register interviewed me about this blog and other works. It’s posted at the newspaper’s website, but available only to subscribers. Here’s a snippet:

Q: Pope Benedict has indeed been talking about the Fathers of the Church recently. Do you see this as a trend back towards the Fathers?

A: Christians have been trending this way for a couple of centuries now. A hundred years ago, it was mostly an academic thing. The patristics movement worked to recover the study of the Fathers, and the liturgical movement turned attention to the ancient texts of the Mass and the other sacraments. Both movements were very influential at the Second Vatican Council.

But the Fathers aren’t just for scholars or elites in the Church. They’re for everybody, and that’s what my blog is all about. The Fathers were preachers and pastors above all. Very few of them had academic careers. They wanted to reach people like you and me and the folks next door. They were brilliant. They were tough. They knew how to argue. They knew how to deliver a joke. What’s very cool is that they still have the power to reach us, across the millennia.

Pope Benedict realizes all this. He has made the study of the Fathers a family matter. He is re-introducing them as true Fathers in God’s family.

Q: What is it that attracts people to the Fathers?

A: There’s a natural fascination with ancient things. Go to any museum and watch the crowds in the Egypt rooms. Well, that fascination has a supernatural dimension as well. Christians want to see the tides of divine grace in history. People are curious, too, about their own origins and genealogy. Christians want to know about their ancestors in the faith. They want to find the lineage that takes them back to the Apostles, back to Jesus. It’s there in the Fathers. They give us an unbroken paper trail on all the doctrines and practices we hold today. The Catechism says they are “always timely witnesses” to the Church’s tradition.

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!

Wise words on Origen from Kevin Edgecomb.

The excerpts from De Lubac can be found (in print) in History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen.

Sister Macrina offers insight on the nature of Church hierarchy and authority. Hers is another patristics blog you should catch up on.