Been walking my mind to an easy time, my back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
James Taylor, Fire and Rain (1970)

One could write about a few things these days, Catholic things about a Catholic Church that no longer exists. Years ago, I had an encounter with the goodness of God. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was touched and I suddenly understood many things. Pieces of a complex machine that had always been laying around were assembled and began to hum, well oiled and adjusted. Helped by the Fathers of the Church I understood Christianity for the first time. I met Christ face to face and I recognized Him.

And then came this age. It creeped on all of us like a well trained assassin. The crime was completed by the end of 2022 and now what we have is a crime scene waiting for the investigators and the coroner.

So, after solving a few minor problems and meditating a lot, I decided to write about the Church that was. Today is a good day to do that. April 21, 2777 ab Urbe condita. It is Rome’s birthday today. That Rome born 753 years before the birth of Our Lord began as seven little cities on top of seven hills. The iron age was young, King Solomon had died two centuries earlier, the exile of Israel in Babylon was still in the future. Iron was going to be associated with Rome. Daniel describes Rome in his prophecy of the statue as the “legs made of iron”. The mission of Rome was to prepare the world for the Messiah. After that dreadful Roman cross on Calvary it was Roman roads that made possible for Christians to take the Gospel to far lands. The Church was sent to the fringes of the Empire to hide from cruel persecution. In time, Christ owned Rome when the sacred hill of Mons Vaticanus was conquered by the martyred blood of St. Peter. Three centuries later we see Christian emperors and the pagan culture evaporated. Eventually Rome fell like a dry husk so that Christendom could be born. Sometimes I think we live in the ruins of old Rome awaiting the arrival of Christ.

I know we are living in the end of an age. It is hard to see it clearly because we are too close. Our desires and our attachment to things familiar do not let us understand exactly where we are. That number: 2777 ab Urbe condita helps us realize where we stand.

In Rome lays the seed of all things modern: the centralization of state powers, the constant state of war; the glorious virtues that make strong men and lasting empires; the corroding vices that make men and empires weak. Rome encountered Christ before anyone. The first to say “He truly was the Son of God!” was a Roman soldier. Rome experienced a dissolution so complete that still stands as a solid example of what happens to a world that can’t see beyond unbridled ambition and the appetites of the flesh.

On this day I decided I am going to write about the Church that defeated the Roman Empire to build Christendom. I simply have no interest in the deeds of the present managers of apostasy and destruction. Those are so simple they don’t even know they are already dead. Like that last Emperor of Rome who charged with his Legions not knowing that they were mere shadows and their Empire was already dust.

When the Church resurrects, this fragile global empire, this new Rome will also be a thing of the past, a vanishing whirlwind. Maranatha.