Lenten reflection preached at the Anglican Centre in Rome.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Forty days and forty nights You were fasting in the wild; Forty days and forty nights Tempted, and yet undefiled. It is now Lent and yet this is also an exciting time in this Eternal City of ours, the weather is changing, days are getting longer and warmer, the pouring rain will soon make way to a glorious spring, the flowers will bloom in the parks and over our monuments of old, visitors and residents alike will gather around our piazze to enjoy the gift of life and maybe have a spritz, only on a Sunday though, as it's Lent!

The queen of seasons is at hand and so is Easter. In this special Jubilee year, so much is going on around us, including fine art exhibits. I believe art plays a vital role in our journey of faith, God has always revealed himself through beauty in the history of humankind. Here in Rome, we are surrounded by exquisite art, some of it is in the extraordinary gallery right below our feet.

Among many interesting art exhibitions now in Rome is the Caravaggio one at the Palazzo Barberini. It provides a unique opportunity to admire the Odescalchi Conversion of Saint Paul from our neighboring palazzo right across the Corso. The painting in question is otherwise reserved for the sole eyes of a Roman princely family and their visitors. This was the first, rejected, version of the other Conversion of Paul which hangs in the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, only a short walk from my church of All Saints’. I highly recommend visiting it, the one with the Caravaggio I mean, but All Saints’ is worth seeing too! In both versions of the painting, what captures the viewer’s eyes is the immediacy of the event, Paul has fallen off his horse and he is helplessly looking up, where those rays of divine light are coming from.

Instead, if you take a stroll down to the Piazza Navona from this location, on such a fine day, you might come across the French church of Saint Louis des Françaises – home to one of the most renowned Caravaggio paintings, the Conversion of Saint Matthew, another Caravaggio, another apostle… this depiction of a Conversion may not be equally dramatic at first but Caravaggio conveys the pathos of the moment truly well. 

The scene is taking place in a contemporary setting, seemingly the backroom of a Roman trattoria, they have largely remained identical since the 17th century. Everyone is dressed in late-Renaissance clothing. Light and darkness play an important role in Caravaggio’s works and in this case, that divine light is coming from the right-hand size of the large painting, almost like a floodlight in a movie set. Jesus, as the new Adam, is pointing at Matthew, everyone is in utter disbelief. I can get behind those feelings, my personal journey of faith was also somewhat unusual as I am sure was yours in one way or another. Light and darkness define each and every one of us as humans and our journey of Conversion is a constant battle between the two.

In the Doria-Pamphilj gallery in this very palazzo, we have a third Caravaggio, the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt, Joseph is holding a music sheet for an angel, Our Lady is asleep while tenderly holding the baby Jesus, in a rather sweet manner, which is quite unusual for Caravaggio. Now remember they are in a desert and indeed it is only below Mary herself that there is grass and flowers flourishing marking yet another sign of Conversion, the one she accepted in Jesus Christ. Sunbeams scorching all the day; Chilly dew-drops nightly shed; Prowling beasts about thy way; Stones thy pillow; earth thy bed.

Caravaggio is known for being able to convey the most intense emotions in a dramatic manner. He painted saints as criminals and prostitutes, Rome has plenty of these paintings, he was an outlaw himself. Perhaps, Jesus would have preferred his presence to that of many holier men and women, and that is why I believe that the Spirit moved through his hands when he came to depict Conversion which is a journey of light and darkness. Conversion also means change and Caravaggio was just that, that passage between the graceful order of the Renaissance and the tempestuous drama of the Baroque. Change or better, Conversion, is a theme that draws us back to this season of Lent, a perfect time of renewal. 

I have never been a fan of making a big fuss over what we’re giving up for Lent, Matthew reminds us to pray in our room, closing the door behind us, only for the Father to hear our prayers. Failing at Lent is also fine, this is a season of Conversion, and I believe Conversion is a life-long process. Shall not we thy sorrow share, And from earthly joys abstain, Fasting with unceasing prayer, Glad with thee to suffer pain?

Going back to Matthew, Conversion is also the message behind the Gospel passage we had today. In it, we had the one prayer that defines us as Christians, the Our Father, a short but simple invocation which contains the whole of our theology and calling. We are waiting for God’s kingdom to come, we are asked to partake in the eucharist, to forgive our neighbor and to be delivered from the snares of the evil one. The Lord’s Prayer isn’t simply a prayer but a rule of life for Christians. The first one to pray it was Jesus himself, made human like one of us. Now, we are about to receive Holy Communion, Anglican Divine George Herbert used to say that in Exodus 16, God fed his people with the manna and it is with the Lord’s Prayer we give that same manna back to God, the Lord’s Prayer is indeed also a prayer of thanksgiving, the new covenant fulfilling the old. 

I find it compelling to think that it was Matthew, the tax-collector, who gives us the Lord’s Prayer. Conversion is a journey of faith, and faith is a battle between light and darkness. The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t have much of an iconographic tradition but within our Anglican tradition, it often appears as an altarpiece in many 18th century churches in the United Kingdom or colonial America, even the first non-Catholic church built in Rome had it, this was Holy Trinity Anglican church in the Piazza S. Silvestro.

The Lord’s Prayer is also the first step towards Conversion. It is the first prayer we learn after making the sign of the cross. I believe that unity must be a part of Conversion. The Church predates the Bible, God sent Jesus who then sent the apostles to spread his Gospel and convert the world, they themselves being blessed by the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. 

I am lucky enough to have followed many theology courses at the Pontifical Gregorian University around the corner and one pattern which is clear is that Bible-worship is wrong. Indeed, as one good professor of mine says, it is the Bible which serves the Church and not the other way around, the Bible as we know it was only put together around the second century, by the Church itself and its tradition. 

It is faith and tradition which hold our belief system together through our Church going back to the apostles. I deeply believe, like those who founded this Anglican Centre, that with Conversion should come unity, ut unum sint, that together, they may be one. When two or three are gathered together, God will be in the midst of them as we Anglicans always pray at the end of the day. The Word of God should be a weapon against idol worship and not its wrongful tool! And if Satan, vexing sore, Flesh or spirit should assail, Christ, his vanquisher before, Grant we may not faint or fail.

Division was never envisioned by those early Christians and that is literally why those clever men at Nicaea, 1700 years ago this year, reminded us to believe in one Holy Catholic Church at the end of the Creed of faith, Catholic standing for the Church universal. The Church fathers didn’t require us to believe in a certain book but in a set of beliefs which defined who we are as Christians. That is not at all to say that Scripture is irrelevant, what has been chosen by the Church fathers in the early centuries of the Church is important, it is the books and letters chosen by the apostles and their successors to evangelize the world, it is what the Church convened was God’s Word and that Word of God is contained in Scripture today. 

That Scripture given to us by God through the Church is equal to Tradition and Reason in the so-called three-legged stool which Richard Hooker used as an example in the 16th century when he tried to define Anglican theology. I don’t think we made many improvements since then! So shall we have peace divine; Holier gladness ours be due; Round us, too, shall angels shine, Such as ministered to thee.

It is a privilege to be praying the prayer that Jesus taught us with my fellow Christians from all countries, all faith traditions and all walks of life, in the hope of eventually making our impartial communion a full communion. 

Art is certainly a unifying factor, when Pope Francis, who is thankfully getting better, visited my church back in February 2017, he didn’t celebrate mass of course, but what he did was to bless an eastern Orthodox icon from Bethlehem, Palestine in an Anglican church acting as the successor of Saint Peter and head of the Roman Catholic Church. Serving at that one service will always remain one of the highlights of my liturgical career. At this time of political uncertainty, war, famine, persecution and destruction, let us be reminded of that process of Conversion, renewed in the simplest of prayers, the one that Our Lord taught us. 

So why art? Art has long been used by the Church to illustrate the meaning of Scripture to everyone, peasant, prince or cardinal alike, but also to beautify our sacred spaces and create an active dialogue with the spiritual, even more so in the case of eastern icons. I think that art has always been the most efficient tool of evangelization, this city is certainly a testament to it. 

As an art historian, I believe art is what defines humans as such – we are the most capable of creatures, we can create efficient weapons that can obliterate entire nations and yet the most powerful one we have is love and that is often shown in the most delicate and beautiful things humans can produce. Whether it is a quiet act of kindness to an elder or the poor, a young couple in love, a newborn baby or indeed a painting or a statue. The brains and hands that can destroy can also create true windows into the angelic spheres of heaven. The image that comes to mind is a mother lion gently holding a tiny cub with those same jaws that break through the toughest of buffalo bones. The love Christ has for us is a little bit like that; the God who smote Egypt and divided the waters of the Red Sea became incarnate in his son through the womb of a frail maiden, that same God died on the cross to free us from sin and will always welcome us back into the fold despite our failures.

God first became human through the fragile body of a child, like the many innocent ones who are dying at this time in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and Syria, where around 7,000 Christians have been slaughtered in the last few days, and sadly many other places in the world. The incarnate God bore the weak body of a tortured man scarred by the blood and sweat of the Passion, yet this was also the one Judge eternal, throned in splendor. Art is weak, many protesters have recently defaced many fragile artworks by throwing anything at these poor paintings, yet those same fragile artworks have converted many in churches and galleries. Weeping people in front of the most delicate objects but with the fiercest of messages. I witnessed it myself. 

Make your Lenten penance an occasion to visit the many churches in this city and immerse yourself in God’s Word through the many artworks that our churches are decked with. Many of these churches are also the site of Conversion of many saints of the past. May art lead us into Conversion and may this Lent be a season of reflection through beauty. Keep, oh, keep us, Savior dear, Ever constant by thy side; That we may with thee appear, In thy resurrection-tide.

As a Christian of the Anglican persuasion, in the discernment process to the ordained life, I pray the daily office of the Book of Common Prayer whose soothing prose and comforting words give structure to my life through prayer. George Herbert used to say that prayer is the key of the day and the lock of the night. To me, one of the most exciting sides of praying the office is when something slightly different comes up. 

For example, when we switch canticles during Lent. My favorite such case is when we replace the invitatory canticle, the Venite, with the Easter Anthems on Easter morning, often sung to Anglican Chant. It is a moving collection of passages from the Pauline letters. So let us remember the prayer that Jesus taught us and may our Lenten journey of Conversion lead us to Christ:

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore, let us keep the feast; Not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin: but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is risen from the dead: and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death: by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die: even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.