“How can I repay the Lord?”
It was a gray January day when my classmates and I took a train and then a cable car to the ancient medieval city of Orvieto. The cold air nipped at our faces as we made our way across the ramparts of the old fortress. We struggled to keep up with our residence director as we grew distracted by the panoramic views. The countryside of Umbria, Italy’s heart, lay before us with its rolling hills and sage green foliage. The scent of olive wood burning drifted along the breeze, and the cold stone battlements reflected cool sunlight. Sipping Orvieto Classico from plastic cups, the wine warming us, we listened to our residence director tell us the origins of Orvieto, and the miracle at its center.
The site of a miracle
Orvieto as a town has been around since the time of the Etruscans (c. 900-27 B.C.) and was later used by the Romans as a guardhouse over the valley that leads straight to Rome. Later, it became a popular residence of the pope. In 1263, in the nearby town of Bolsena, a priest celebrated Mass while struggling with his faith in the Eucharist. At the consecration, the host began to bleed. The blood covered his hands, the corporal beneath the host, and seeped into the altar stone itself. Amazed, and reaffirmed in his faith, the priest traveled to the nearby town of Orvieto with the corporal to show the miraculous blood to Pope Urban IV. The feast of Corpus Christi was inaugurated in 1264, and the elevation of the host was added to the Mass. Thomas Aquinas, himself a resident of Orvieto, was asked to write hymns for the feast — hymns we still sing today. Later, the people of Orvieto gathered under the instruction of Pope Nicholas IV, to build their response to God.
In 1290, construction began on the Duomo, a gorgeous gothic cathedral built to house the corporal upon which the blood of Jesus fell. Multiple artists took over throughout the years, all leaving their mark on the building. The outside is striped with white and black stone, and the façade is plated in gold, tiny intricate mosaics, and elaborate carvings. On a sunny day, I’m told, you can hardly look at the face of the cathedral because of the splendor of the gold. Our cloudy day was perfect for examining the façade in all its glory. The rose window, the eye of God, looks out over the quiet town benevolently.
Inside, my eye was immediately directed upward, toward heaven and the incredible striped columns and walls. Marble statues of the twelve apostles turned and seemed to look directly at me, reminding me of the verse from Hebrews: “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (12:4). The angel Gabriel, captured in white, called out his silent greeting to Our Lady from across the sanctuary, looking as though he has just alighted from heaven. The small side chapels were covered in intricate frescos lovingly painted by Fra Angelico, Luca Signorelli, and others. Inside the left side chapel, beneath the altar, is the corporal that bears the blood of Jesus Christ.
I enjoyed the atmosphere of Orvieto: the smell of burning olive wood, the delicious wild-boar meat, the winding lanes, and the beautiful pottery. Yet I went there not as a tourist, but as a student and a pilgrim. For me, Orvieto held not just a miracle, but a valuable lesson which is the foundation of our lives as Catholics.
Our response to the Lord
In all my studies both in Rome and Orvieto throughout my semester abroad, in every story I was told, the words “and so…” featured prominently. Snow fell in August, and so they knew where to build the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. St. Peter is buried under this hill, and so Constantine leveled it out and built St. Peter’s Cathedral. St Cecelia loved Our Lord, and so she died singing. The consecrated host bled onto the corporal, and so the people hauled marble up a mountain and built one of the most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in all of Italy.
Kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, exposed on the altar beneath which the miracle resides, I couldn’t help but wonder: What should my “and so” be? I have been blessed to simply be Catholic; now I am even more blessed to have lived and studied in the eternal city. I am blessed to have been to Orvieto, to have tasted its delicious food, and to have adored inside its gorgeous Cathedral. I have been blessed to walk the streets of the little Italian town, streets where Thomas Aquinas walked as he thought up the words to the “Tantum Ergo.” All that we do in this life is a response to a God who loved us first. Every day of our lives should be an “and so…” a response to God’s goodness. So how should we respond? There, before the Blessed Sacrament, the words of a psalm came to me:
“How can I repay the Lord
for all the great good done for me?
I will raise the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord”
Ironic, isn’t it, that the psalmist tells us that in return for all the good God has done, we should call on him more to repay him? God wants our response to his love to be to draw even closer to him. And so man builds Churches and shrines and cities — places where God and man can be close together. In the tiny town of Orvieto, I was reminded of how much God desires and treasures the response of man. God desires to be close to me, not just during the semester abroad in Rome where I sought him as a pilgrim but always and everywhere throughout the pilgrimage of life. Our response to the Lord should be to call on his name, whether it be in a mountain Cathedral or a tiny chapel in an Ave Maria dorm.
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