So I Went to Rome

“Go to Rome” was placed on my bucket list about four years ago. With good planning, it was about to become a reality, but one day not long before the trip I read that there would be a canonization on the last full day we were already planning to be in the city. Hence a few weeks ago, I became and “accidental pilgrim.”

I was already excited about seeing all the Catholic historical treasures in Italy and this seemed to make the trip more “holy” in a way that left me anticipating. We went to Easter Vigil in Basilica San Marco in Venice, saw the relics of St. Ambrose in Milan, and admired the art of Fra Angelico in Florence.

As I got closer to these sacred places and things, I wondered how I would feel. There I was at the Basilica of St. Mary Major a few feet from the reliquary that held the wood of the crib when (the extra million gathered) people started to awkwardly push each other to get closer. I realized at that moment that my life would be no better being 20 feet closer so I backed away.

Amongst all these treasures, I asked myself, \”Do I feel closer to God?\”

The answer was, “No.”

I realized that I feel closest to God when I serve Him and that is something that the world cannot steal or pushing people can deprive me of.

The day before I left on my trip, I finished up the many details needed to complete our quarterly burial for infants in our town who die prior to birth. There were eighteen infants, of varying gestational ages, who each had a family who had special needs and requests. I care for each of these babies from birth until burial including washing, dressing, and bundling them. I often photograph them if their parents wish me to, for me it\’s a deeply sacred task and God stays close to comfort and soothe me in the difficulty of it. It is my vocation, and thus makes me feel close to God in those moments of service.

Not feeling closer to God in these sacred places didn’t make me feel sad or disappointed. I felt encouraged because I know that there are people who do feel closer to God visiting these places and things, and that is wonderful. There are also people who feel closer to God listening to sacred music and people who feel closer to God in contemplative prayer.

As a Catholic I get the dynamic interaction of “relationship” with the Triune God that Evangelicals speak of and the added physical experience of the “incarnational principal\” where God brought holiness to things, people, places, and actions because He came down from Heaven and made them holy.

God made us so different that what makes us feel close to Him will vary by person and time. We are brought together in communion of the Mass as the summit of our faith, but then we each get to have individual “field trips” of faith that are unique to  us.

It was fun to feel the excitement of the pilgrims who collected in Rome. There were Spanish teenagers who broke into song on the subway, a singing hoard of seminarians dancing in the streets of Vatican City, and my daughter photo-bombed George Weigel, which made him laugh. Yet I still didn’t feel closer to God than I do at my little country Church in Virginia, and I found that wonderfully soothing.

We can sing a happy-clappy worship song, and experience sacred liturgy, and be blessed by the Sacraments, and study scripture, and visit sacred places of our religious heritage, and walk in the physical steps of the saints in their ancient home towns, and appreciate the amazing art that depicts our faith, and read deep theology, and take the same Body and Blood of Christ offered in the Piazza of St. Peter in our own home town.

I reflected that maybe in the years after my work with bereaved families ends, I may have a different feeling visiting these sacred places and that is fine. The sacred places will likely still be there waiting for me and they may not have changed, but I probably will have. Maybe I\’ll be ready for whatever new lesson God has in store for me, one that may very well use people and places and sacraments to allow me to learn with my whole self.