All Saints Day and All Souls Day: Rome Style

Things are continuing to stay busy here in Rome.  Classes are speeding along and I have been spending a lot of time studying and trying to keep up with the readings.  However, the 2-mile walk each day, to and from class, gives me an hour to just relax and walk with friends.  It is always difficult to be just starting at a new institution because the tunnel seems so long, but I have been assured by many of the newly ordained deacons that their time here in Rome has flown by.  It is pretty amazing that I left the United States three and a half months ago.  On one hand it doesn’t feel like it has been very long, but it also seems like it has been a long time since I have seen my family.  This is ironic because I talk to them a lot and can even video chat with them via Skype.

While things have been normal at the seminary and at the University, this last week was special.  Jean, the Secretary of the Vocations Office for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, and her husband, Tom, visited Rome for their first time.  It was nice to be able to spend some time with someone I know from Oklahoma City.  We saw a lot of the sights of Rome, enjoyed some great meals, and we even prayed at the bones of St. Peter (thanks to my diocesan brother, Cory).  This was a travel weekend at the North American College, but I have been telling the other seminarians that I “went to Rome for the weekend!”  The city is so large and I have been so busy that I have neglected to see a lot of the historical sights of the Eternal City.  It was a great weekend and I discovered a lot about the city.  It was also great to show Jean and Tom around St. Peter’s Basilica and the North American College.

Sunday, November 1, 2009, was All Saints Day in the Roman Catholic Church.  It is the day that we celebrate the lives of the Saints that have lived in this world and have led their lives to glorify God.  For Sunday Mass, we went to The Pontifical Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.  The Basilica was magnificent and very large.  We even went into the courtyard of the Benedictine Monastery and saw fragments of a lot of marble sarcophagi with early Christian markings on them.  There was also a beautiful little museum and Relic Room, complete with St. Paul’s staff.  There was also a very large tapestry with a depiction of St. Paul’s shipwreck near Malta.  It was pretty cool to think to myself that I had just been there just a few weeks ago.

Monday, November 2, 2009, was All Souls Day in the Roman Catholic Church.  It was also my birthday.  It is a tradition in the Church to bring to minds our loved ones whom have gone before us into the Kingdom of Heaven.  There was an option to have Mass within the North American College’s Mausoleum located in Campo Verano.  I had never been to an Italian cemetery prior to this trip and I was surprised with what I found.  In the United States, we are used to green fields with small gravestones.  However, there are so many people here, and they have been hundreds and hundreds of years of deaths, that they have had to adopt a system to deal with death.  The cemetery was composed of small, casket-sized plots with a stone lid and then a headstone covered with names and pictures of the deceased members of that family.  Some of the family plots were simple, but others were massive and quite expansive.  From what I was told, when a family member dies, they place the body beneath the stone lid and wait for the body to decompose.  They then place the bones in a small ossuary-type box and then place it in a different chamber.  There is also not a one-time fee for the plot.  If a plot is not continually paid for, the remains are disposed of, probably by cremation, the monument is destroyed, and then a new family may purchase the plot.  They also do not embalm the bodies, so there was a slight stench from the decomposing bodies.

Deep within the tight walkways, we came upon a beautiful red-bricked building overlooking the rest of the cemetery.  This tall, four-level mausoleum is where the earthly remains of around ten seminarians and faculty from the Pontifical North American College are entombed.  Instead of a small box for their bones, each body was placed behind a 5 or 6-foot wide, marble monument with their name, diocese, and age of death written in Latin.  When seminarians could only travel here by ocean, it would take a long time to get from Italy back to the United States, so if a seminarian or faculty member died, they were buried in this mausoleum.  One of the seminarians, Frank Parater, is being considered by the Vatican to become a Saint.  He is currently considered a “Servant of God”, which is only two steps away from becoming a Saint.  He died in 1920, after living a life in which inspired many people.  His young life evolved around prayer and he eventually discerned that God was calling him to become a Catholic Priest.  He eventually was sent by the Diocese of Richmond to study at the Pontifical North American College.  At the age of 23, he passed away and was buried at the mausoleum.  While he sounded like an amazing guy, his Last Will and Testament is really what caught everyone’s attention.

• “I have nothing to leave or to give but my life and this I have consecrated to the Sacred Heart to be used as He wills…This is what I live for and in case of death what I die for. …Since my childhood, I have wanted to die for God and my neighbor. Shall I have this grace? I do not know, but if I go on living, I shall live for this same purpose; every action of my life here is offered to God for the spread and success of the Catholic Church in Virginia. …I shall be of more service to my diocese in Heaven than I can ever be on earth.”

During the Mass of All Souls Day at the mausoleum of the North American College, I stood right next to his tomb.  What a wonderful blessing it was to realize that God tries endlessly to stir our spirit to follow Jesus Christ.  Even in Frank Parater’s final days of his illness, he kept God’s will as his focus and was completely reliant on Him.  The more I learn about him, the more I wish I could have met him in person.  That is the whole point of even venerating the Saints within the Catholic Church.  They provide examples for us of people that have followed God with complete trust and have showed us a glimpse of the Father’s love.

The rest of my birthday was pretty normal.  It was raining all day, so I was not able to go out for dinner with some of my friends, but I received a lot of birthday wishes from the seminarians within the North American College and from my friends in the United States.  I even received a special call from Mrs. Wynn’s 5^th Grade Class at All Saints Catholic School in Norman, Oklahoma.  During our short video chat, they sang “Happy Birthday” to me.  They are special kids and I really appreciate their prayers and support.  They are the future of our Church and I have been very impressed with their love for God and his Church.

November 4, 2009 | Categories: Life at the North American College | Tags: All Saints Catholic School, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, birthday, Campo Verano, Catholic Church, Diocese of Richmod, Francis Parater, Frank Parater, Last Will and Testament, Mass, Mausoleum, Norman, North American College, November 2nd, Oklahoma, Roma, Roman Catholic Church, Rome, Saints, Servant of God, St. Paul Outside the Walls, tomb | 2 Comments »