14 November 2022 - CATACOMBS OF WASHINGTON D.C.

 

CATACOMBS

 OF WASHINGTON D.C.

G'day folks,

Franciscan monks created a facsimile of the Holy Land for North Americans who couldn’t afford the trip overseas. 

Beneath Washington, D.C., a dimly lit web of passages weaves throughout row after row of eerie wall graves, recalling early Christian burials in the catacombs of ancient Rome. The subterranean complex is located underneath the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America, with a Dan Brown-style entrance near the main altar and the bones of a boy martyr inside.

 

However, the Catacombs of Washington, D.C., aren’t quite as ancient as the name would suggest, and all but one of the graves are totally fake. They were built at the turn of the 20th century by a well meaning group of Franciscan monks who wanted to create a facsimile of the Holy Land for North Americans who couldn’t afford the trip overseas.

These catacombs do have an official Papal endorsement and contain one very real skeleton of what looks to be a seven or eight-year-old child. Legend holds that the bones belong to a martyr from the second century and made their way to D.C. from the Catacomb of St. Callistus in 1929.

 

Above the catacombs the Franciscans also brought together a sort of spiritual amusement park, complete with replicas of the tomb of Jesus and numerous other altars, chapels, and grottos from the Old World. Visitors can complete a veritable world tour of Roman and Middle Eastern religious shrines in a single afternoon.

A Roman architect named Aristides Leonori produced the design for a mini-catacomb based on measurements and photographs of the originals in Italy. Three architecturally distinct sections represent various chapters from early Christian lore.

Unlike the Roman originals, which were scraped from the earth and soft rock by hand two millennia ago, the D.C. catacombs were cast from aggregate cement and come in at a spry 120 years of age. They’re also much smaller in scale: essentially three interconnected arcades, as opposed to the hundreds of miles that stretch beneath Rome.

23 August 2018 - MOTHER TERESA

MOTHER 

TERESA

G'day folks,

Welcome to the life of Mother Teresa. 

Mother Teresa (1910–1997) was a Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to serving the poor and destitute around the world. She spent many years in Calcutta, India where she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation devoted to helping those in great need. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and became a symbol of charitable, selfless work. In 2016, Mother Teresa was canonised by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa.

Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. Little is known about her early life, but at a young age, she felt a calling to be a nun and serve through helping the poor. At the age of 18, she was given permission to join a group of nuns in Ireland. After a few months of training, with the Sisters of Loreto, she was then given permission to travel to India. She took her formal religious vows in 1931 and chose to be named after St Therese of Lisieux – the patron saint of missionaries.

On her arrival in India, she began by working as a teacher; however, the widespread poverty of Calcutta made a deep impression on her, and this led to her starting a new order called “The Missionaries of Charity”. The primary objective of this mission was to look after people, who nobody else was prepared to look after. Mother Teresa felt that serving others was a fundamental principle of the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

She experienced two particularly traumatic periods in Calcutta. The first was the Bengal famine of 1943 and the second was the Hindu/Muslim violence in 1946, before the partition of India. In 1948, she left the convent to live full-time among the poorest of Calcutta. She chose to wear a white Indian sari, with a blue border, out of respect for the traditional Indian dress. For many years, Mother Teresa and a small band of fellow nuns survived on minimal income and food, often having to beg for funds. But, slowly her efforts with the poorest were noted and appreciated by the local community and Indian politicians.

In 1952, she opened her first home for the dying, which allowed people to die with dignity. Mother Teresa often spent time with those who were dying. Some have criticised the lack of proper medical attention, and their refusal to give painkillers. Others say that it afforded many neglected people the opportunity to die knowing that someone cared.

Her work spread around the world. By 2013, there were 700 missions operating in over 130 countries. The scope of their work also expanded to include orphanages and hospices for those with terminal illnesses.

 Mother Teresa never sought to convert those of another faith. Those in her hospices were given the religious rites appropriate to their faith. However, she had a very firm Catholic faith and took a strict line on abortion, the death penalty and divorce – even if her position was unpopular. Her whole life was influenced by her faith and religion, even though at times she confessed she didn’t feel the presence of God.

The Missionaries of Charity now has branches throughout the world including branches in the developed world where they work with the homeless and people affected by AIDS. In 1965, the organisation became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.

In the 1960s, the life of Mother Teresa was brought to a wider public attention by Malcolm Muggeridge who wrote a book and produced a documentary called “Something Beautiful for God”.

In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace.” She didn’t attend the ceremonial banquet but asked that the $192,000 fund be given to the poor.

In later years, she was more active in western developed countries. She commented that though the West was materially prosperous, there was often a spiritual poverty.

 When she was asked how to promote world peace, she replied,”Go home and love your family”.

Over the last two decades of her life, Mother Teresa suffered various health problems, but nothing could dissuade her from fulfilling her mission of serving the poor and needy. Until her very last illness she was active in travelling around the world to the different branches of The Missionaries of Charity. During her last few years, she met Princess Diana in the Bronx, New York. The two died within a week of each other.

Following Mother Teresa’s death, the Vatican began the process of beatification, which is the second step on the way to canonization and sainthood.

  Awards given to Mother Teresa

• The first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. (1971)
• Kennedy Prize (1971)
• The Nehru Prize –“for the promotion of international peace and understanding”(1972)
• Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975),
• The Nobel Peace Prize (1979)
• States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985)
• Congressional Gold Medal (1994)
• U Thant Peace Award 1994
• Honorary citizenship of the United States (November 16, 1996),

 Clancy's comment: A selfless woman with massive vision.

I'm ...

R.I.P