Inspired By Italy #4: The Capuchin Friars

This plaque marks the beginning of a long corridor running beside a series of 6 small chapels (think alcoves), and more fitting words could not be found. But it’s not a place for weak stomachs.

I’ll let you do your own Google searches about the Capuchin friars, an order within the Franciscans that sought, in the 1520s, to bring the Franciscans back from perceived liberalism. You can use Google Maps to see the street view of the crypt and museum with the church above them.

The real story, however, is the unusual “artwork” in the crypt itself. I use that term loosely because the art is almost completely made of skeletal remains. You know, bones. There’s literally a chapel of pelvises and a chapel of leg bones. Everywhere you turn there are bones – a chandelier of pelvises, arm bones arranged to form a flower, skulls stacked to fill a wall.

Yes, it’s a little creepy. However, it is an attempt to make a point.

How often do you consider your own future? How often do you ponder what will come of your body in another 100 years? These bones are set inside of a building that’s more than 400 years old. People don’t live 400 years. In that time, our bodies decay, our flesh fades, and eventually our bones become dust.

Even the Bible urges us to consider our future. In Hebrews 9, we are reminded that man is appointed to live and to die and, after that, to face judgment. And these friars wanted the reality of death and of a future judgment to impact our lives on earth.

For example, our evangelism should be fueled, in part, by a love for the lost and the reality of death and judgment and hell. Our parenting should have an awareness of our own mortality and the future of the church and our descendants. We should even approach our work and participate in society in ways that recognize our influence for Christ may very well outlast our lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not recommending joining up (they are all over the globe, including the United States). And there are certainly aspects of their beliefs that are outside of the commands of God. But we could still learn to ponder eternity, to live in light of eternity, and learn from this admittedly unusual crypt.

Inspired By Italy #3: Mary Does WHAT?

It’s not the center of attention; that would be Michelangelo’s statue of David. It’s not the coolest piece; that would be some of Michelangelo’s unfinished works with elbows and feet sticking out of solid blocks of marble. But it’s the one that caught my attention the most. The painting, called The Immaculate Conception, by Carlo Portelli, has sparked discussions and Google searches over the last couple of weeks. And wouldn’t you believe, in God’s providence, it was part of a temporary traveling exhibit, hanging on the wall in the alcove to the right of David.

I took a picture; you can see it here.

Do you see what I see? Looking back, I now wonder how many times I had seen something similar in our travels in Rome and Florence and not noticed it. But this time, I couldn’t miss it. Do you see it?  Let me help; I’ll zoom in a little.

Plain as day: Mary standing on a snake’s head. Wait, WHAT?

Remember Genesis 3 and the introduction of sin into the world by Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit? In verse 15, as God is pronouncing a curse on the serpent, he pronounced the gospel message. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” God promised a Savior, a Redeemer, all the way back in Genesis 3:15.

However, the Roman Catholic Church has ascribed to Mary that which the Bible ascribes to Jesus. It’s at his death and burial and resurrection that Jesus defeated sin and Satan.

There’s a theme here. According to the Roman Catholic Church, Mary, as the blessed virgin who was chosen to carry and give birth to Jesus, shares in the work of our salvation. She is, in their view, the second Eve just as Christ is the Second Adam.  

Funny thing is that I can’t find any passage in Scripture even remotely suggesting that Mary might be a “second Eve”. Paul very clearly makes the connection between Christ and Adam, both in Romans 5 and in 1 Corinthians 15. It seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church is ascribing at least part of the saving work of Christ, our covenant representative, to Mary.

If you’ve ever wondered why the Protestant Reformation was necessary, we begin to get an answer here. Ascribing to Mary glory that belongs to Christ and having to add to the Bible in order to do it sounds like a pretty good practice to fight against.

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Inspired by Italy #2

Two years ago, as we were walking among the ruins of castles and churches in Scotland, my kids got tired of my oft repeated refrain of amazement: “We are living as many years after Jamestown as this building was built before Jamestown.”  The idea, of course, was that we’re living 400 years after the Jamestown settlement in the New World, but walking around a castle that was built in the early 1200s.

But that was Scotland. The story is different in Italy.

The Complex of Seven Churches in Bologna (too much to explain here, but literally seven different church buildings all built with shared walls over the course of 700 years) was completed around 1000 AD. St Peter’s Basilica was being built in the early 1500s as Martin Luther was coming to grips with the false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (we typically just call it “The Duomo”) was completed in the middle of the 15th century. There are even churches that were technically never completed that are still standing and in use. It’s Italy; I could multiply the illustrations.

Buildings are, of course, subject to decay. The Church is the only permanent, perpetual institution on earth. When Christ returns and consummates his kingdom and we enter the New Creation, the Church will remain. As unbelievers are cast into the lake of fire, believers will be welcomed into the very presence of Christ for eternity. Thus “the Church is permanent and perpetual.”

I realize, of course, that no particular individual church is guaranteed to exist forever. I realize that there may come a day when Grace Covenant Church ceases to exist for whatever reason. But the Church as the Body of Christ, as the Bride of Christ cannot fail.

This truth makes me wonder something about the church architecture of today. Why don’t more churches today build buildings designed to last? Now, I know, we don’t have the money that the Pope has. I know, it’s far more difficult to get marble blocks we can use as foundations and walls of a new church, but if the church is the one permanent entity in the world, the only organization guaranteed to continue into the New Creation, why wouldn’t we build church buildings with that in mind?

How exciting and encouraging would it be to think that in the year 2819, people might be walking around Athens, AL and standing amazed that Grace Covenant Church was built with an eye to future generations.

Inspired by Italy #1

A young girl, perhaps 9 or 10 years old, stood at a confessional booth in the Sacrament of Penance Chapel, one of the forward side chapels of St. Peter’s Basilica. She nodded several times with some vigor. I was left to assume the questions the priest was asking from inside that booth.

Meanwhile, a man sat alone in the middle of the chapel, praying.

Outside the ropes (because I wasn’t going into that chapel) I watched curiously.

It only took a few minutes to learn that the man was not, in fact, alone; the girl at the confessional booth was his daughter. The rest of their family was standing just behind me, which I only learned when the two of them passed by me to a younger boy asking, “What were you talking about?” and the father announcing, “She said she felt like she was floating on a cloud.”

It appears that this was his daughter’s first confession and, of all places, it occurred in what can only be described as the most influential, most important building in Roman Catholicism. For crying out loud, the Pope’s house isn’t too far away from that very building.

What struck me, however, was the fact that a dad was able to “walk with” his daughter through this pinnacle event in her life. His joy for her joy was what caught my attention.

Without making ANY evaluation of Roman Catholicism (yet) - Parents, this is your great calling – to pass on the faith to your children. Are you teaching them the Bible? Are you teaching them the doctrines of our holy religion? Are you praying with and for your children regularly? Are you modeling a life of grace and faith and repentance? Will it be your day of great joy when they embrace the faith of their parents?

This doesn't happen by accident. This demands intentional, thoughtful, perpetual labor on the part of the parents. I witnessed what I expect to be the culmination of a life of teaching and training. May God grant to us this same commitment and, even greater, this same result - a child confessing Christ for the first time.