DEFENSELESS ROME at the
mercy of the rampaging barbarian horde, the seat of Christendom ready for the
sacking, for scorching, for reduction to rubble.
The populace cowering in
terror, their armies having long abandoned them to the slaughter. Who stands
against the impending mayhem and murder? None but the Santo Papa, in his full papal regalia meeting the Barbaro at the very gates of the Holy
City. Whereupon heaven opens, San Miguel
Arcangel with flaming sword
descending, scaring the wits out of the invaders. And Iglesia Catolica Apostolica Romana was saved.
The earliest tale of the
invincibility of the Catholic Church I heard from my maternal grandmother, Rita
Pineda Canlas vda. de Zapata, as part of my catechetical studies at age 4.
It did not matter that my Apu Rita did not even know the
characters in the story, neither did she care of its veracity. All that counted
was that it came from the cura parroco of
her youth, the saintly Padre Daniel
and served as an affirming moment of her Faith. And assured that I, her beloved
apo, believed and would live up to
that Faith.
I was already in high
school, in the seminary, when grandma’s story found flesh in the encounter of
Attila the Hun and Pope Leo I at Mincio – outside Rome – where the pontiff
successfully convinced “the scourge of God” to withdraw from all of Italy. No
Archangel Michael appearing in the clouds there, but “divine intervention”
still cited – at least by my History professor Ciso Tantingco – in the famine
and disasters visited upon the Hun tribes that gave Attila the scare to call off
his invasion and plunder of Rome.
In those formative years, Attila’s
story made one manifestation of gospel truth on the impregnability of the
Church, as in Matthew 16:18: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.”
Thus, the Church not only
surviving but triumphing over every persecution, its persecutors cast to
damnation: from its earliest days in the pagan Rome of Nero onto Diocletian and
Galerius, to the Visigoths of Alaric, from the reign of empires and
authoritarianism, to the spectre of communism.
Stalin
“The Pope! How many
divisions has he got?” Famously, and haughtily, asked Stalin dismissing the
relevance of the Vatican in the post-WWII restructuring of Europe.
Less famously but as
disdainfully, he told Churchill: “God is on your side? Is He a Conservative?
The Devil's on my side, he's a good Communist.”
But, apparently, not good enough
when it comes to sustainability: Stalin’s pride -- the monolith that was the USSR
– totally disintegrating on its 74th year. Though outliving the
Soviet supremo by 38 years.
Afflicted with the worst
case of odium fidei – hatred of the
Faith – was Hitler who subjected Catholics – second only to the Jews – to his persecutory
perversity. The Church having stood up and spoke against the Fuehrer even at
the very beginning of his ascendancy.
Hitler ended a suicide in
a bunker under the rubble of Berlin; his thousand-year Reich lasting but a
decade.
Truly, G.K. Chesterton
with his usual paradox: “Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually
defeated thing which survives all its conquerors.”
Indeed, as that anecdote
-- currently trending in the web – of Napoleon boasting to a Cardinal how, if
he, Bonaparte, so desired, could destroy the Catholic Church in an instant. And
the Cardinal responding with a laugh: “We the clergy, with our sins and
stupidity have been trying to destroy the Church for 1,800 years. What makes
you think you can do better?”
That the Church has not
imploded with all the vicious battering from within, incessant through the ages
– from the heresies to the schisms, the forgeries, the decadence of the
medieval papacy finding its zenith in the depravity of Alexander VI, the
excesses of the Inquisition, the impact of the Reformation, all the way down to
the cases of priestly paedophilia – can only bespeak of, aye, witness to, its
divine foundation.
The Rock
Taking on Matthew 16:18,
St. Augustine wrote in Interpreting
John’s Gospel:
“Peter, because he was the
first apostle, represented the person of the church by synecdoche…(W)hen he was
told ‘I will give you the keys of heaven’s kingdom…’ he was standing for the
entire church, which does not collapse though it is beaten, in this world, by
every kind of trial, as if by rain, flood and tempest. It is founded on a Stone
[Petra], from which Peter took his name Stone-Founded [Peter] – for the Stone
did not take its name from the Stone-Founded but the Stone-Founded from the
Stone…because the Stone was Christ.”
How providential for this
to be written on Corpus Christi Sunday, imbuing a deeply personal meaning to
that truth long revealed and ever revealing: The Church is the Body of Christ.
We are the Church. We are the Body of Christ.
Then, who can be against
us? Indeed, not even the devil can destroy us?
Lest I lapse into some
Catholic conceit, and dare all self-proclaimed wanna-be-destroyers of the Church
to “Bring it On,” let me just leave it to Luke 1:52: “He hath put down the
mighty from their seat, he hath exalted the humble.”
The arrogance of power. Hubris,
it is called in Greek tragedy. Finding its full meaning in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride
goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
So shall it come to pass.
Have faith.
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