THE P RTAL
September 2012 Page 13
Newman and the Witness of the Catacombs by Brother Sean of the Spiritual Family of the Work
In pagan Rome it was believed that immortality and greatness were ensured by the endurance of the remembrance of a person . It was this belief that gave rise to wonderful feats of architectural brilliance . At the same time , no greater punishment could one inflict on the Romans than to pronounce a damnation memoria – a condemnation of memory , in which every trace of them was obliterated .
In Christian Rome , however , its greatest treasures lay hidden beneath its surface . Away from the bustle of crowds which proud and flamboyant monuments attract , there was the silent Rome of the Christian catacombs . Here , deep underground , among the tombs of the early Christians , we find little in comparison to the grandeur with which their pagan counterparts embellished their final resting places . The early Christians knew their future was not held in structures of bricks and mortar , but rather in the hope for that which God had prepared for them from all eternity .
When Newman first visited Rome , he expressed similar sentiments . Of Rome ’ s ‘ dignity and beauty ’ he knew nothing like it but Oxford . But what gave this city its solemn charm was not its architecture , nor the ‘ court of Rome assembled ’ with the glory of ceremony and pomp , nor indeed its ‘ gentle menushers with their frills and bad wigs ’, but rather it being what he called ‘ a place of martyrdom and burial of some of the most favoured instruments of God ’.
Place of martyrdom
As a boy of15 Newman read Joseph Milner ’ s “ Church History ”. In the stagnant religiosity which he saw in England , he yearned for the vibrancy and zeal of the early Church . In his journal he admitted to being ‘ nothing short of enamoured ’ by the lives of Augustine , Ambrose and the primitive Christians . For the young Newman the first centuries enticed his imaginative devotion , creating in him a longing for that beauidéal of the Church Fathers , the Catacombs and the martyrs . had visited its catacombs . Providentially this catacomb was also the place where St Philip Neri , in the sixteenth century , had received the inspiration to found The Oratory . Unbeknown to him , fifteen years after his visit here , Newman would found in the same Oratory in England .
The refuge of the persecuted Christians
Some days later , Newman wrote to his sister Harriett describing how he had ‘ made a pilgrimage ’, visiting ‘ the refuge of the persecuted Christians .’ While he speaks little of the impact which places such as the catacombs had on him , we know that during his Mediterranean voyage of 1832-1833 , Newman was thinking constantly of the Church in England , which he believed had to be renewed to a purer faith like that of the early Christians .
During this voyage he wrote with almost longing nostalgia that he may belong to that Church which held such treasures : ‘ O that thy creed were sound ! For thou dost soothe the heart , thou Church of Rome , by unwearied watch and varied round of service , in thy Saviour ’ s home .’
Catacombs of St Sebastian
On Newman ’ s first visit to Rome in 1833 many of the Catacombs still lay forgotten , neglected and inaccessible . On the 1st April , he managed to visit the Catacombs of St Sebastian . Unlike other Roman Catacombs , St Sebastian ’ s had continued to be a place of pilgrimage . The paintings in the simple interior of the basilica of St Sebastian , attest to the multitude of holy men and women , who , throughout the centuries ,