From Imprisonment to Glory

This might be your lucky day. I say that because it certainly turned out to be so for me! 

Monday rolled around much too quickly for my liking (as is often the case in life, no?), but I faithfully marched out of bed and onto the streets of Rome, to the foot of the Esquiline Hill and the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains. This church houses the two sets of chains that bound the Apostle Peter during his imprisonment in Jerusalem, and at the Mamertine Prison in Rome. Tradition says that the two sets of chains miraculously fused into one when they were brought together at this church in the 5th century.

So, the theme of imprisonment was already in the air when I arrived to find about 200 Station Church pilgrims locked out and waiting in the square in front of the church. Turns out that Monday also rolled around too quickly for the sacristan in charge of opening the church up for us, and much of the crowd dispersed as 6:45am turned to 7am turned to ten-past. Not having first-hour class this morning, and particularly desiring to offer Mass at this Petrine church for my brother Fr. Peter Mitchell's birthday today, I decided to wait and see what happened. Sure enough, the kindly rector of the church soon came out of a side door to ask why no one had come in yet!

Ten minutes later, I was processing out as the main celebrant and found myself seated handsomely upon a marble throne that was much too big for me!

From imprisonment to glory – that is today's Lenten lesson. No matter how bound and left-out we may find ourselves to be by sin or the trials of life, the smallest movement of faith and patience on our part can reap rewards beyond our imagination. Peter's chains stand today as a symbol of the great freedom we have in choosing to become not slaves of sin but servants of the Lord, as Peter himself exhorts us in his first letter: 1 Pt 2:16.

Moving from glory to glory, and aware of the fact that often when it rains it pours, I also had the unexpected grace after Mass of enjoying a cappuccino and pastry at the cafe where my namesake, Blessed John Paul II, used to get his morning coffee when he was a student at the Angelicum University. God is good!