What is your Hope?

We began our day in Bursa with Mass and breakfast followed by a visit to the famous “Green Mosque” and the “Covered Bazaar” where they sell gold and sIlk products. Afterwards, we travelled to the lakeside town of Iznik, better known to us by its ancient name of Nicea: home to not one but two ecumenical councils.

Getting off the bus we walked down to the beach where we climbed a lone singular wall of stones, the ruins of what once was the wall of the Nicean Imperial Palace. It was here in 325 AD that Emperor Constantine called the first ever ecumenical council. It’s not easy to overstate how important this moment was for Christianity. It was here that the “Nicean Creed” which we pray at mass every Sunday was established. It was here that the Church responding to the widespread heresy of Arianism declared that Jesus was “consubstantial with Father” or (for those of us who didn’t pay attention in our senior year Metaphysics class), it was here that the Church recognized that Jesus is not some lesser god created by the Father but that like the Father for all eternity Jesus has been / is / will be truly God. So one might say it’s a pretty big deal!

After our time at the wall, we walked across the street to a delicious meal of fish caught from the lake, followed by some free time on the beach as brothers competed in stone throwing and foot races along the lakeshore. We then walked up to Saint Sophia Church, the location of the seventh ecumenical council, which was held in 787 AD settling the issue of iconoclasm, and declaring the validity of venerating images of our Lord and the Saints. Though the Church has now been converted into a Mosque, we could still see remnants of the frescoes which of Christ and the Saints which once decorated the Church. It was a powerful reminder that our God invisible and unknowable as He may be came down so that we might know Him and see Him, as we see each other face to face.

On one level it can be discouraging to come to Nicaea, a city so significant to the history of the Church, so formative to or beliefs now, and to see its most important Christian sights either in ruins, underwater, or appropriated by another religion. I’d be lying If I said that there wasn’t part of my heart that broke seeing the land so devoid of Christianity. However, the Lord brought to mind the homily Father Guthrie gave us that morning. He preached on the centrality of hope in our lives as seminarians and as Christians, and more importantly what we hope in. While these places we visited may no longer be full of Christians, the God that inspired and transformed the lives of these people over fifteen hundred years  ago, is the God who is still inspiring and transforming lives today. This is the infinite and unknowable God who came down to earth and became man so that we might know Him, and know His incredible love for us. If we place our hope in institutions or ministries, or church buildings, or even other people that hope will someday fail us, as all things inevitably grow and fade and change. However, if we place our hope in the unimaginable love Christ has for us, no matter what happens in our lives, we will never be disappointed, because this is the one thing we can always count on. So please pray for my brother seminarians and I, as I’ll be praying for all of you, that in the midst of our rapidly changing world where it is hard to know what God has planned, we may continue to be grounded in a hope in Christ’s deep love for us. 

God bless you all,
Patrick Glanville, Diocese of Rockford