Robert Barron - The Church Is Built on the Rock
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Peace be with you. Friends, we have a special treat this year because the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29th, falls on a Sunday. So, we have a chance to meditate on these two great saints, these pivotal saints in our Church. And I’ve been thinking a lot about Peter and Paul because, as I record these words, you know, just a few, what, 10 days ago, I was in Rome. I was doing some network coverage for the papal conclave and spent a lot of time in Rome, kind of moving around. Because 12 years ago, I was there doing coverage for NBC News. I was under contract with them. This year, I was kind of a freelancer. I was going from, you know, pillar to post and station to station.
So, I was kind of moving around Rome quite a bit. And you can’t move around Rome without noticing all these monuments of the ancient Roman Empire. For example, there’s a spot called Largo Argentina. Not a well-known spot, but boy, an important one, because that was the place where Julius Caesar was assassinated, stabbed to death by the senators of Rome in 44 BC. It’s the ruins, actually, of the theater of Pompey. The Senate, I think, was under construction or something, so they moved it to the theater of Pompey, and that’s where Caesar was killed. You can drive right by the spot; you can see it, and man, the history that turned on that event! Think of the death of Caesar and then what followed it: Brutus and Cassius against Antony and Octavian, then the rise of Octavian, who becomes the emperor Augustus and the whole Roman Empire, and everything that followed from it followed from that fateful day and play.
So, I went by Largo Argentina a lot. Not too far from that is the Circus Maximus, the Circo Massimo, as the Italians call it. There’s not much left of it, but you can see the whole outline of it, and you see how enormous it was. I think around 100,000 people could fit, or more than that, even, at the Circus Maximus. It’s where they had these games, and they had the chariot races. And you know the splendor of it is largely gone, but the size of it you can certainly take in and just think of people from all over the world coming to that place to compete and to perform. You look right above the Circus Maximus, and you see on the Palatine Hill, well, the Palatine, one of the principal hills of Rome; that’s where the emperor’s palace was.
That’s where the word «palazzo» and " palace» comes from: Palatine. And the box of the emperor was on the edge of the Palatine looking out into the Circus Maximus. So, there was the center, the seat of Roman power, right there on the Palatine Hill. Look down east from the Palatine Hill, and you see the Roman Forum. It’s kind of a hodgepodge today of, you know, the ruins of it. But you sense this was once the center of everything. This is where the Senate was, where temples were, and it was where Roman public life was lived, the market, all of it.
And again, think of during the height of the Roman Empire. Every country, you know, around the Mediterranean, from Africa to England, came there to the Roman Forum to do business, to enter into politics, and so on. Look further east past the Forum; what do you find? But the mighty Colosseum! And though, you know, nearly two millennia have gone by and though it’s not the splendor that it was, it’s still a massively impressive building. Beautiful! And then you realize that’s the prototype of almost every stadium in the Western world. Every football stadium has basically in the form of the Colosseum. And then you remember, you know, the gladiatorial combats and the games, and again the whole world looking to that place.
My point is you can’t go to Rome without taking in the, as Edgar Allan Poe said, the grandeur that was Rome, the grandeur of Rome, the Roman Empire, and to imagine it at the height of its power when it dominated the known world. At that time, somewhere around the year 60, a middle-aged man came to the great city. His name was Sheimeon Bariona, Simon, son of John. He was a fisherman from Galilee. It’s a nothing place, and he was kind of a nobody from this nothing place. But he came as the friend of Yeshua from Nazareth, whom he knew, whom he listened to, from whom he received a nickname, Keas in Aramaic, Rocky if you want, rendered Petro in Greek, Petrus in Latin, hence Peter.
So Sheimeon Bariona, Simon, son of John, Peter the Apostle, came to Rome around 60. He’s got this extraordinary message, an unbelievable message that Yeshua from Nazareth, whom Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, had brutally put to death, God had raised from the dead. And this Yeshua from Nazareth was now the king of the world. He’s the one who deserved the title kurios or lord, not Caesar, but Jesus. Simon came to Rome with that message. They speculate he lived in what’s now called the Trastevere neighborhood in Rome.
Now it’s full of restaurants and kind of night spots and trendy places, and it’s a touristy part of Rome. In those days, it was where the Jews lived. And so likely, Sheimeon Bariona came there. Well, the Romans found his message so off-putting, so disturbing that around the year 64, probably in the wake of Nero’s fire, when he was casting about for scapegoats, they rounded him up and transported him, again probably from Trastevere, to the Circus of Nero.
Now, that’s not the Circus Maximus, the giant circus, but a smaller one. And this one was actually outside the main city. It was near Vatican Hill, which was outside of ancient Rome. Well, there they had games and so on, but they also executed criminals for the people’s entertainment. Sheimeon Bariona, Peter the Apostle, was crucified there. Tradition says upside down. And I’ve always found that very credible because it’s such a strange detail. I think it was remembered because it was so vividly real. You know, in the very center of the Circus of Nero stood the Egyptian obelisk, which can be seen to this day in the center of what’s now called St. Peter’s Square. Likely, one of the last things Peter saw was that obelisk. He died there, and he was cut down from the cross and dragged out of the circus to a little cemetery on Vatican Hill, and there he was buried.
Okay, imagine someone now watching that scene around the year 64 AD at the height of the Roman Empire, just outside the walls of the great capital. This poor guy, this poor middle-aged fisherman from Nowhere’sville, is put to death brutally and then buried. Any objective viewer would say, «Well, one more poor slob done in by the power of Rome. Rome will last forever. Whatever that guy was standing for, that’s not going to last. He is going to be long forgotten.»
Well, here’s the question, everybody. I thought about this a lot when I was in Rome this time. Where’s the Roman Empire? It’s gone. It’s nowhere. Where’s the successor of Nero? There is none. It doesn’t exist. What’s left of the Circus Maximus, the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Palatine Hill? What’s left? Ruins. A wreck. Where’s the empire of Sheimeon Bariona? It’s everywhere. It’s all over the world. North to south, east to west, on every continent — everywhere you look, all over the world. Signs of the empire proclaimed by Peter the Apostle. And where’s his successor?
I thought about this a lot when I was there. Nero’s successor gone-doesn’t exist. Peter’s successor? I saw him with my own eyes walking out onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica built over the spot where they buried him in the year 64 AD. On the loggia of that basilica appeared Leo I XIV, the 266th successor of Peter in an unbroken line. Now, in the Gospel for today, this feast of Peter and Paul, we have that familiar passage from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus says, «You know, who do people say that I am?» Well, some say this, and some say that. Well, who do you say I am?
And it’s Sheimeon Bariona, Simon, son of John, who speaks up. «You’re the Christ. You’re the son of the living God.» Because you’ve said this, you are Keas. You’re Rocky. You’re Peter. And upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. See, anyone in the year 64 at the heart of Rome and the Roman Empire would have said nothing will ever bring this great empire down. Long ago, its enemies brought it down. What brought the church down? Nothing. Nothing has brought it down. It’s built on a rocky foundation. I saw it. I saw the basilica that’s built as the most beautiful grave marker in the world on the rocky foundation of Peter’s faith.
Indeed, the gates of hell have not prevailed against it, despite all of its troubles and ups and downs. And yes, the corruption of some of its leaders and the sinfulness of all of its members. Yes. Yes. Yes. Despite all of that, it’s still here. It’s still here. And Peter’s successor, I just saw him, is this living, breathing, smiling figure. Can I suggest to you, everybody, there’s something mystically true here? This is not just idle fantasy, not just a nice literary invention. No. From the words of Jesus to what I saw in Rome a few days ago, we can trace a direct line.
So here’s the question, and I’ll invoke here the man who inspired the order to which our new pope belongs, namely Augustine of Hippo. Augustine wrote a book a long time ago called The City of God, and he proposed there are two basic cities: the city of man, which is based on self-love. Its great mark is violence. And then there’s the city of God. It’s based on charity. It’s based on love of God. It’s based on nonviolence and forgiveness. The great question, Augustine developed it over more than a thousand pages, but the basic question is very simple: To which city do you belong? To which emperor do you pledge allegiance? You’re a citizen, finally, of which city?
And it comes down to a choice, everybody. There’s no wriggling off the hook: city of God or the city of man? I don’t know anywhere this is on better display than in the city of Rome to this day -the wreck and ruin of a once great empire. Okay, signs of it are all over the place. And this living church, having endured two millennia, the successor of Peter is alive and well. All right. Which city? Which city? Which king? That’s the only question that finally matters. And God bless you.