A STORY FOR EASTER
Foreword. I wrote this for Easter but Easter has passed. Thought you would enjoy it anyway.
A few years back, on a trip to Rome with our parish Priest I had the privilege to visit many of the great cathedrals of Rome. As I stood in one of the immense doorways of St Peters Basilica, my breath was taken away, by not only the beauty of that place but the immense size of it. It is a memory that I visit quietly and often in my daily musings. Many of the world’s other great Cathedrals or Basilicas would actually fit inside of it. Many of the princes of the church are interred there, including St Peter himself. It is the heart of the Vatican. It is part of a vast complex of buildings including the Sistine chapel where the great Michelangelo showcased his artistic and architectural skills. In front of it is a vast public square with fountains and obelisks that showcase’s its beauty. It has existed since the sixteenth century and Catholic or not it is something you will never forget.
On the other side of the world back in Minnesota, there was a highway I used to travel in my many trips from my home town to the cities and off to the side of the road you could see a small white country church. It wasn’t made of granite blocks and it wasn’t set in a public square but rather a simple gravel parking lot. It was made of wood frame and white clapboard siding and a few small stain glassed windows. Two simple wooden doors at the top of about five wooden steps led to the inside. On one side of the church was a belfry with a steeple and although I never heard the bells ring, I can hear them in my mind, calling the faithful from the surrounding countryside to worship. Behind the church on a gentle hillside was the final resting place of the hard-working faithful that went there to refresh their faith and their souls. They now lay there in silent repose. I doubt the church is over a hundred years old and I doubt those who designed it and built it, will ever be remembered by more than a few, except their lord.
Two totally different places but yet both built to serve the same purpose. A place to worship our lord. One immense and majestic, the other simple and humble like. The prayers that were uttered in one of them were just as important in the eyes of the lord, as the other. There is something to be said for the magnificence of St Peters Basilica in all of its splendor, but the humbleness and the serenity of that little wooden church seems at times to me at least, to be more in tune with what Jesus asked of all of us. I am sure the lord hears all of the prayers of the faithful, wherever they come from. I make these comparisons, not to extoll one or the other but to showcase them both for what they are. Gods houses.
Its Easter Sunday and both of these places will be eerily quiet this year. Shuttered by a sickness that threatens our very way of life. No bells, no crowds in the square and no cars in the parking lot. We are left, each to our own, to celebrate the resurrection of our lord in our own humble way. They can’t take that away from us.
Happy Easter everybody and may God bless
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