#fr lebsock

[christendomstudent]

Debating with Love

Buongiorno! The last two weeks were some of the most exciting of my entire life, between the Holy Week liturgies here in Rome and the topics we've been covering in class. I struggle to put it all into words, but I'll do my best to give you a tiny taste of it!

In Italian class on Tuesday, we got to divide into teams and practice speaking Italian by having a debate; in my section, our topic was the U.S. Presidential candidates. At first, we were all pretty intimidated by the exercise, because discussing a complicated topic without using any English at all sounds impossible. However, we rose to the challenge and found that, for the most part, we were able to relax and even have fun as we navigated political vocabulary and did our best to understand each other and respond. Of course, we speak at least a little Italian all the time as we travel around Bella Roma, but I find that I'm more confident in my speaking abilities after the debate. Whether I end up discussing politics with native Italians or not, I think my ability to come up with sentences of my own from the vocabulary I know has improved, and that's always useful. There's nothing as satisfying as having even a short exchange with a native Italian and being understood! As someone in my class said toward the beginning of the semester, being able to communicate with someone helps you to see them as a person rather than just a part of the scenery, and as Christians we should all strive to do that with every person we meet.

On a similar note, in philosophy we've been studying charity, particularly how Thomas Aquinas talks about charity. Last week we had an intense discussion about whether it is better to love one's friend or one's enemy, and then we moved on to whether charity can increase in the soul, and if so, how. These topics are profound and complex, but they were important in the minds of the medieval Christian philosophers we're studying, and they are still relevant to us today. We know by faith that we should love both friends and enemies, and sometimes we run into situations where we must choose between an act of charity for a friend (that is, a brother or sister in Christ who has charity toward us) and an enemy (someone who does not have charity), and Aquinas concludes that it is actually better to love the friend, because it is proper to love those close to us more than those who are not as close. We also know that we should increase in charity throughout our lives, since this pleases God, so it is helpful to understand that charity isn't something we can add to ourselves or something that increases in a quantifiable way, but rather something that increases by becoming more deeply rooted in us and actually conforming us more to God.

In Apologetics we talked about salvation and whether we are saved by faith alone (as Luther and many modern-day Protestants believe) or by works. Fr. Lebsock described the stance of the Catholic Church on this issue, which is that we are saved by grace (i.e., God's life within us), and through grace our works of charity are joined with Christ's one redemptive Work, so that we can be saved through Him. So, we are saved by faith in Christ, which allows Him to work in us and transform us into His likeness, so that we can be justified. I found Fr. Lebsock's explanation both informative and beautiful, and I was reminded of just how amazing and unfathomable God's love for us is. It was the perfect topic to discuss right before the Triduum, when we commemorate Jesus' death on the Cross and the day of our salvation, the day that won us grace we never deserved. Once again, I was grateful to be studying the Catholic faith in the heart of Rome, with professors who care deeply about their own souls and about those of their students, rather than just facts and grades.

Learning to debate with charity and to communicate with others for the good of our own souls and theirs are some of the most important things we can ever learn, and our curriculum here has helped us do that in many ways. I am eternally grateful for my time in the Eternal City, and I hope you can all have the same experiences one day! Ciao until next week!

[christendomstudent]

Why Rome?

Buongiorno, amici! This week in the Eternal City has been the most amazing one yet, bringing together many aspects of our Christendom education over the last two and a half years, but adding a depth and vividness that only on-site study can offer. In both Apologetics and Art and Architecture, we were able to be educated in and by the landscape of Rome, which reminded me why it was so important to come here rather than just to study the same subjects at home.

Our Art and Architecture course is a combination of classroom lectures and on-site tours, taught by Professor Elizabeth Lev. On Monday she gave us a brief overview of ancient art forms, explaining how art changed as different materials became available.  Then, on Wednesday, she gave us a tour of the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and the church of Saint Clement.  Professor Lev has a gift for telling history vividly and in a way that stimulates the imagination as well as conveys facts.  She explained the history of the Coliseum and the site it stands on, which formerly held an artificial lake made for Nero’s magnificent palace, and how Emperor Vespasian chose to drain the lake and build an amphitheater in its place, providing free entertainment for all of Rome. This was a brilliant example of art being used as propaganda, to solidify the position of an emperor who feared he might not be popular.  Then, as we stood in the center of the Coliseum with the layers of arches rising up around us and the open sky above, she described the types of games that went on morning, noon, and evening for the people to watch, how both criminals and Christians were executed publicly in theatrical representations of mythological stories, and how a system of trap doors allowed animals and plants to be brought up and the arena transformed into scenes from faraway places.  In San Clemente, Professor Lev took us down through two layers of excavations beneath the current church, showing us the older church from early Christian times and then the pagan shrine to Mithra below that.  Finally, in the Forum, she pointed out the ruins of various Roman temples and government buildings, finally leading us to the place where Caesar was cremated and an altar was set up to deify him.  There, she described the situation in Rome, a massive empire with stunning marble buildings in its capital and the magnificent Coliseum nearby, a place where men could become gods, and then told us how Peter and Paul arrived just then and claimed to have met God made man.   It was an amazing morning, one that I struggle to find words for.  The union of faith and history, and being able to stand on the very spots where the events happened, seeing the ruins and imagining how the buildings must have looked when they were still standing, got me into the minds of the ancient Romans the way nothing else can.  It made me appreciate why pagan Rome was so successful for so long, but also why it was so amazing and providential that she became Christian.  Walking where those people walked, and seeing even a little of what they saw, makes everything about their history much more real and memorable than even the best classroom experience can.  Coming to Rome is worth it just for that tour!

In Apologetics on Thursday, Fr. Lebsock brought a guest lecturer in, a priest friend of his who is studying ecclesiology in Rome.  He gave a lively lecture on the Church and how she has various aspects--the contemplative, the evangelical, the hierarchical, and the traditional--and how all these aspects are centered around Mary, who is the perfectly receptive, sinless feminine figure the Church must strive to imitate. In turn, Mary is centered on Christ, so that the Church is centered around both, and rooted firmly in divinity while still being human as well, just as Christ is.  He pointed out that over-emphasizing any aspect of the Church causes us to fall into heresy and lose the richness of Catholicism, so we should strive to realize the balance of all the aspects.  This lecture was very enlightening to me, since I had never thought about the Church in this way before, and I found that it helped me understand better how to explain the Church to non-believers and also how to be a part of the Church myself.  Then, for the second half of class, Fr. Lebsock took us up to the roof of the Pontifical North American College where he studies, so that we could have a beautiful view of all of Rome.  With St Peter’s in the foreground and the Tiber flowing by, we could see the spires of almost every church and monument in the city.  Fr. Lebsock pointed out the route that St. Peter took to get to Rome, and described how he died and was buried on the site where St. Peter’s is today, and reminded us again that God intended from eternity for Rome to be the way she is, and to be the center of His Church which has now spread throughout the world.  Again, I realized how blessed we all are to be in Rome and to be able to see and hear and touch the concrete realities of our history and our faith.  There is nothing that could ever replace the experience of this semester, and no way to fully describe how wonderful it is.

Now that I’ve done my best to describe the indescribable, I will leave you to ponder your future trip to Rome! Even if it sounds difficult or even impossible to come here for a whole semester, it is completely worth the effort.  Arrivederci!