The Msgr.’s depiction of the 400s is accurate, of course. But in a bit of shameless self-promotion, here is part of a written mini-lecture I have used when teaching humanities in a Christian college, which talks about the same mysterious way that God works to build His church, starting a century later, and in the “other” Imperial capital...
“The Hagia Sophia, the massive cathedral in Constantinople which has since been turned into a mosque, was built in 532. It wasn’t long afterward that two things happened that changed the course of history.
“The first was the weather in 536, where the sun’s heat was blocked, probably by volcanic ash, all the crops failed, and starvation blanketed the Roman Empire.
“The second event was the first of the great plagues that act as bookends on the Middle Ages. Most people know about second one, the Black Death of 1347, but very few people, I suspect, know about the Plague of Justinian in 542, six years after the famine of 536. The 542 plague so decimated Constantinople that Europe was unable to defend itself against the entry of numerous barbarian immigrants from the east (perhaps some of whom were moving into Europe because of the famine caused by the weather in 536 made them leave where they had been), which led to the complete collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
“Now let’s consider the situation for a moment. Imagine you are living in, say, 570. If you were old enough, you would remember the time when there was so much wealth that the society could afford to build the largest cathedral anyone had ever seen. Now it’s 570, however, and everything is a wreck: first came the famines, then the pestilence, then the invaders—everything is against you. It would be understandable if you began to wonder whether God cared anything about you, or maybe whether there was a God who cared about anything in the first place.
“But look at what happened as a result—not from your perspective, but from God’s. First, a bunch of people entered Europe who otherwise would probably have stayed home. Virtually all of them became Christians, which saved their souls, and also turned Europe into the enclave of Christianity for the next 1300 years or so, since they and their descendants not only were Christians, but Christian warriors.
“Second, the political and social vacuum caused by the collapse of the Roman Empire, particularly in western Europe, was filled in Britain, France, Germany, and later Spain and Portugal by the rise of monasteries, organized so that the truth of Christ could be kept intact. Intact, in the face of what? In the fact of the Satanic threat to Christianity that, if you’re living in 570, was about to begin, though you don’t know it, of course: because it’s in 570, in a place you’ve never heard of, that the man who founded Islam is born.
“And what about you? You’re still alive, but you remember the people who starved to death in the famine, and the 40% of the population of Constantinople who died in the Plague of Justinian, and those who died at the hands of the barbarian invaders: what about all of them? Well, the overwhelming majority of them went to heaven, so they lost nothing—and even with all of your suffering, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you die and go to heaven, so you have nothing to lose. And then there’s the untold millions of European Christians who were kept from the clutches of Islam from the 600s on, and who continued in the faith; they undoubtedly thanked you, when they died and went to heaven, for your steadfastness in Christ that kept the church available for them. Finally, as Christianity’s power began to fade in Europe in the 1800s, God moved the population center of His church out of Europe, to Asia and Africa with the work of the missionaries, and to America with the work of the pilgrims and pioneers.
“What is the lesson? It is this: God has always been at least twenty steps ahead of Satan; we only see the now, but God is in the future just as much as in the present and in the past, and as bad as things may look at any given moment, the Bride of Christ is always safe in His hands.”
ping
Just a reminder of what the passage does say, not what it doesn't say.
To Roman Catholics evangelization means making or keeping people Catholic.. that is not what Jesus had in mind
Msgr. Pope is not monsignor in the Roman Church for no reason at all. He has a fine grasp of his material, and very often some of his points should be thoughtprovoking to any participant in the 21st Century panorama of widely divergent doctrines. I am always ready to examine his insights. Thank you for posting this article.
bkmk