Writings remain timeless

Monsignor Michael Cariglio

This Monday, the liturgical Solemnity of the Saints Peter and Paul, formally closes the Jubilee Year of Paul the Apostle initiated by Pope Benedict a year ago.

The Jubilee Year celebrated the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Paul and focuses on his great conversion of life. He once was one who persecuted Christ and his church and then became a great missionary and witness to the risen Lord and his church, even to the point of being beheaded in Rome as a martyr for the faith.

Through the Jubilee Year of Paul, many parishes, dioceses, schools of higher learning have seized the opportunity to reflect prayerfully on Paul in the Acts of the Apostles and in his letters written to churches of his times and recorded in the sacred Scriptures.

His writings are valid for all times and reveal that the problems of modern day are, in fact, often the same problems that Paul encountered in his day. Most importantly Paul’s great conversion to Christ is virtually the same as the modern day conversion to Our Lord. It is interior. It is every day. It is nonstop.

Most notable of all during this Jubilee Year has been the unprecedented numbers of believers who have visited the Major Basilica of St. Paul in Rome. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have come to Rome in spiritual journey to visit the site of the Apostle Paul’s martyrdom for the faith.

With the grand and glorious edifice built on the tomb of Paul, the pilgrim is invited to make his/her way through the church, which appears to be every bit the length of almost two football fields, and at the transept, the width of almost another football field.

I propose an imaginary brief itinerary to appreciate the symbolic witness of the basilica. First, after entering a beautiful courtyard at the front of the basilica, you are invited to enter the basilica through a special door, named the Pauline Door. As you enter, make a commitment to follow Paul in the journey of an inner conversion of your life to God everyday.

Second, walk around the massive basilica and realize that beneath your feet have already walked millions of pilgrims who have chosen to walk in the footsteps of the great Apostle Paul.

Third, notice on the lateral walls up high the pictures of more than 260 popes from Peter to Benedict XVI, indicating unbroken the confession of faith in the risen Lord by the whole church through the ages.

Fourth, kneel before the tomb of St. Paul, which has been recently exposed to the public. There contemplate the symbolic chain with which the apostle was imprisoned in Rome. This chain exhorts us to be linked to Christ.

Finally, go to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. There in the sacrament, find anew and afresh the risen Lord who desires that every pilgrim be a letter, not written in ink, but in our hearts by the Spirit of the Living God, “not on tablets of stone but on the tablets that are hearts of flesh.” (2 Corinthians 3:3)

As the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul closes the Pauline Jubilee Year, undoubtedly there will be many and beautiful prayerful liturgical celebrations throughout the world in parishes, dioceses, places of higher learning and of course by Pope Benedict XVI in the Major Basilica of St. Paul in Rome.

In short, the Jubilee Year of Paul, like him, has called us again to the conversion of our lives, a conversion that is inner, every day and non-stop. St. Paul, apostle, pray for us.

Monsignor Michael Cariglio is judicial vicar in the Diocese of Youngstown and pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Youngstown.