Taking Pictures

I have missed our past two chapels together as my husband and I have been celebrating our anniversary in Italy. It was a wonderful trip, which we faithfully documented with several cameras of all shapes and sizes. One of my friends used to joke that with her husband if he didn't take a picture of something to him "it was as if it never happened". I was thinking of that this morning as I put my camera into my box.

The first part of our trip was in Rome. It is a fascinating city and we loved getting to walk around the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. It was awe inspiring to think about how many people had once lived in that spot, and see the ruins of structures I had learned about in school. Paul lived in Rome for two years, preaching the gospel of Christ, spreading the message of God's love to the Gentiles. We took lots of pictures.We then visited St. Peter's Basilica, where there has been a church since the 4th century as St. Peter's tomb is supposed to be deep below the altar and when we were allowed, we took pictures.

We are so obsessed with snapping pictures of everything these days, our activities, children, pets, even our food, that it seems strange that we have no pictures of Jesus. No instagrams of he and the disciples healing the sick. No portraits of Jesus with Mary and Martha for them to proudly display on the mantle. No travel album from Paul to accompany his many letters. We have no way to see anyone who existed at the same time as Christ. I reminded the children today that faith is believing in what we can't see, or as Jesus said to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen me but have still believed". (John 20:29)

When we were down in the crypt at St. Peter's our guide told us a story. She said like many things in Rome, the current crypt was built over the foundation of an older church and that church was built over the location of several ancient graves and had been guarded by Christians for centuries as the place where the apostle Peter was buried. And while church after church was built on this site, there was no way to really prove that the story was true. That is until modern times when further excavation and dating were done on several of the bodies found there and one was identified as very likely belonging to St. Peter. It is a wonderful story. And if I had been allowed to explore that ancient area below the crypt and take pictures I am sure I would have. However my faith depends not on the proof of the existence of the bones of an ancient apostle, but on the belief in the life of a living Christ.