January 2024 – Tony Lusvardi, S.J.

Saint Emilianus of Trevi

St. Emilianus of Trevi is perhaps destined to be overshadowed by St. Thomas Aquinas with whom he shares a feast day, January 28. He was one of the many bishops martyred during Roman persecution who provided inspiration and strength to their local communities but today are little know, the details of their biographies mingled with legend.

From the Martyrdom of St. Emilianus of Trevi, 12th century, Spoleto

I came across a striking set of 12th century carvings depicting the martyrdom of the saint in Spoleto last year and was taken by their vividness. St. Emilianus hailed originally from Armenia and came to Italy in the third century, where he was made the first bishop of Trevi. He was martyred during the persecution under Emperor Diocletian in 304, and his relics are preserved in Spoleto Cathedral.

He was condemned to die by a Roman proconsul for his refusal to sacrifice to the gods, but–as the panels from Spoleto recount–the first attempts to put him to death failed. The wild beasts sent to kill him instead bowed before him, and when he was tied up to be burnt the torches of his would be executioners fizzled out as they approached him. Finally, he was beheaded. The last panel of the work depicts Christ enthroned in heaven welcoming the martyr.

Martyrdom of St. Emilianus of Trevi, 12th century, Spoleto

The Virtue of Penance

Last week, I mentioned the seminar I taught this past semester about the sacrament of marriage. I also taught a course about the sacrament of penance. (I learned to be careful when describing my course load to make clear that those were, in fact, two different courses and not a sly commentary on marriage!)

*Jonah sarcophagus (ca. AD 300), Vatican Museums*

The sacrament of penance has a fascinating history, and the way in which it has been practiced over the centuries has varied more than perhaps any other sacrament. A major theme of the class, however, was that the sacrament itself is not the only way that Christians practice penance. As Thomas Aquinas pointed out (in the Summa Theologiae III q. 85), penance is not only a sacrament but also a virtue. He didn’t come up with that particular insight himself, of course, but was summarizing the theological tradition before him.

The Future of Christian Marriage

This week marks the end of the first semester at the Greg. One of the semester’s blessings has been the seminar I taught on the sacrament of marriage, which looked first at some classic theological texts on the subject and then attempted to grapple with the contemporary problems the Christian vision of marriage faces. No small task, and I learned much from the discussion. I’m grateful to my lively group of students.

To guide our discussion I assigned sociologist Mark Regnerus’s engaging and insightful book The Future of Christian Marriage (Oxford 2020). The book makes use of social surveys, Regnerus’s own extensive research on the subject, and 200 interviews conducted with young Christians in seven different countries. My students–who hailed from a total of eight different countries–found the book quite helpful for understanding the situation they themselves face. Having real-world data also improved our theological discussion, which, in today’s climate, can sometimes get bogged down in sloganeering.

At the root of Regnerus’s argument is the contention that attitudes toward marriage have changed from seeing it as a “foundation” to seeing it as a “capstone.” In other words, instead of a unit based on mutual exchange that helps a couple to weather life’s uncertainties, young people have increasingly come to see marriage as a capstone one acquires only after attaining personal, financial, and career success. This means that marriage is delayed, comes with more difficult-to-realize expectations of one’s spouse, and, for many, ultimately becomes unattainable. This is all part of the “atomization” of society as individuals become our primary social grouping at the expense of families.

San Giovanni dei Fiorentini

To celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord–which this year falls unusually on a Monday–I thought I’d share a few photos from one of Rome’s lesser known churches, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. A baroque church, it was built for the Florentine expats in Rome back when Florence was an independent city-state and named for the city’s patron, St. John the Baptist. The church contains a relic of Mary Magdalene (her foot), and is the burial place of the great–but tragically unhappy–baroque architect Francesco Borromini. It also contains a number of interesting artistic works featuring baptism.

I’ve written before about the importance of baptism, but I have a personal reason to be particularly fond of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. Its 17th century altarpiece, the Baptism of Jesus by Antonio Raggi, features on the beautifully designed cover of my book Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation. Of course, I’d like to think that what’s inside the cover is pretty interesting as well, and I’m pleased that the book’s release date is coming up later this month–January 26. There’s more information on the website of Catholic University of America Press, and the book is available on other online sellers such as Amazon.

In the meantime enjoy the views of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.

Baptism of Christ, Francesco Mochi, 1645

Mary the Mother of God and the relationships that define us

Madonna and Child, Umbrian , 14th century, Spoleto

Homily for the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. Fortunately, as you came into church this morning, you did not see armed troops guarding the doors, nor bishops jostling and shouting angrily at each other in Greek. We should be grateful for such peace and calm this New Year’s Day, 2024. Sixteen-hundred years ago, you might have seen just that. At that time, the fiercest controversy in the Catholic Church was over whether the title “Mother of God” could be applied to Mary, a controversy settled by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Before the Council of Ephesus, Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, had claimed that Mary could be called the “Mother of Christ” or the “Mother of Jesus” but not the “Mother of God.”

If you think for a minute about what is at stake in the title, you’ll realize that the controversy was not really about the identity of Mary, but the identity of her son. Mary can only be called “Mother of God” if Jesus is, in fact, fully man and fully God. The Council of Ephesus declared Nestorius a heretic for obscuring what we celebrate this Christmas season: that the Son of God has become man, that from the moment of his conception in Mary’s womb Jesus was and is God.

But today is a Marian feast. What does this title tell us about Mary? You have probably heard many times that Mary always points to Christ. Her final words recorded in Scripture are to the servants at Cana, after she has dropped an unsubtle hint to Jesus about the need for more wine at the party: “Do whatever he tells you,” she says (Jn 2:5). It is hard to think of a more exalted title to bestow on anyone than “Mother of God,” yet there’s a humility in the title too because by exalting Mary we are first exalting her son.

Mary is a woman of both humility and strength, of contemplation and action, of wisdom and patience, of courage and compassion, and yet her greatness—what makes her the greatest woman to have lived, worthy of the title of today’s feast—is the relationship she has with her son. And there is a lesson here for us, a lesson about the importance of relationships.