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All Roads Lead to Rome

Rome, Italy 

Having just left the great basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, we sat in silence, peering out the window of our bus at the gentle rain falling and glistening in the light that streamed from the sun as it streaked through the breaking clouds. One seminarian, Jacob Hartman of Jefferson City, broke the silence. “That’s it. Going to your death in chains seems a sad thing, but it’s those chains that were St Paul’s glory because of the love of Christ.”

Statue of St. Paul in the courtyard of The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Wall

Throughout our pilgrimage, many of us have pondered what the end goal of such a journey would be for us. Most pilgrimages have a single destination; Lourdes, Fatima, Santiago de Compostela, etc. But our road has led us across three countries and a dozen different holy sites. Yet, on this day, at the church where the Apostle’s body is now laid to rest beneath the chains that clung to his flesh, I think we would all agree about the end goal of travels. Like St Paul, we have come to Rome to die.

We know little about St Paul’s time in Rome apart from the brief description at the end of the Acts of the Apostles. What we do know, however, is that Paul’s pilgrimage on this earth would end there. In a way, so it is with us.

For many of us, ordination is mere months away. For others, it falls almost exactly a year’s time from now. But all of us walking in St Paul’s footsteps, each in our own way, have come to know and share his most ardent conviction: “I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). This is what transformed the chains of St Paul from a shackle of despair into a bond of love and hope.

This Advent it is our hope, like St. Paul, that everyone would share in this same truth. It is this reality, this experience of the love of God, that allows the light of Christ to break through the darkness of sin and death. It is this kind of faith that moves a heart to endure in love until the end. Friends, these chains of love are our glory. “If only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:17). For, it is as Our Lord says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13).

-John Rahimi, Archdiocese of Chicago

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