Our family, my husband and I, our
two grown daughters and our son-in-law, last month aligned all our schedules
and made a trip to Europe. God’s intervention was evident in accomplishing the
coordination of all the schedules, jobs, flights allowing us to converge in
Rome. It was the trip of our lifetime, enriching, inspiring, educational; I
felt I was a participant in a virtual history lesson. It is no wonder Paul was compelled to end his
missionary journeys in Rome. God is now worshiped in the hundreds of churches
in Rome. Christianity spread in Italy and the entire Roman Empire from the
influence Paul initiated despite the persecution he experienced, and as followed
for thousands of Christians after his death. The Coliseum is now a memorial to
the Christians who died there. The
catacombs, tombs of the Christians, are a testament to their perseverance
through adversity. The magnificent churches welcome visitors of all faiths to
stop and pray in their quiet, beautiful, artistic settings.
We went on a walking tour the day
we all arrived in Rome; included were the Pantheon (a 2000 year old temple now
used as a church), the Spanish steps, the Trevi Fountain, several large piazzas
(city squares for large gatherings-not usually square but elliptical); all well
known “tourist attractions”. We took a
wrong turn along the way, after the Pantheon and before the Trevi fountain, but
found ourselves before a large door in an imposing façade. Dennis, our son-in-law, noted people going in
and out, and peeked inside. He said “I think we should go in and see this
building, it is a church”. We didn’t know what church it was, there was no sign
indicating the name, the “times of services” or any officiant’s name, nothing
that seemed welcoming to U.S. visitors to Italy. We all followed Dennis and
were immediately transported back in time. The building was a work of art with beautiful
frescos on the ceilings, paintings and sculptures along the walls; it was awe
inspiring and we were glad we had detoured from our mapped route. We never did find the name of the church
anywhere inside while we were there. I later
performed an internet search of an inscription on a sculpture inside the church
from one of our photos. The inscription search led to an old document
referencing the same sculpture as one located inside the “Church of Sant
Ignazio di Loyola”, built in 1650. The pictures of that church matched all the
photos we had taken inside. I had located
the correct church building among the 900 churches of Rome.
Early the next morning, we got up
to “run” for exercise. The youngsters run, but I walk fast, and they were
tolerant of my pace. The view of Rome at 6:00 a.m. is much different than it is
on an afternoon walking tour. We did the same tour in a third of the time since
people of Rome sleep much later than 6:00 a.m.
The City of Rome with its sculptures, bridges, ancient castles and
buildings, church domes, and the Tiber River was spectacularly beautiful in the
light of dawn. We also stumbled across the
Coliseum and the Roman Forum we had not seen the previous day. Paul may have
stood right there in the Forum and preached from steps of a temple. I could
visualize Paul speaking in Rome of the one true God as compared to the “Unknown
god” similarly to his speech in Athens, Greece:
Acts 17:22-28
22 Paul
then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I
see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For
as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even
found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what
I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The
God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and
does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And
he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself
gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole
earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of
their lands. 27 God did this so that they
would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far
from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live
and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his
offspring.’
Men have striven through the ages
to show their dedication to God through their gifts of art and beauty endowed
inside the magnificent church buildings. We may certainly enjoy their efforts
of the past that have stood through wars and earthquakes. God is not living in
the spectacular church buildings in Rome.
He lives in our hearts if we allow him to do so. We may shine like the
burnished gold ornaments, the paintings and mosaics that captured my attention.
We may draw others to Christ as we spread the good news like Paul, in Rome.
Dear God, Help me to be an
instrument that shines like gold, and attracts others to “The Way” through “The
Word”.
Sherilyn Svien
Stephenville, TX
