The Oldest Church in Existence To-day

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 2, 14 January 1925, Page 13

The Oldest Church in Existence To-day

.:.-:'lf you get your New Testaments and look ; at the concluding verses of the Second Epistle ;,- of St. Paul to his beloved disciple Timothy, r you will read :: ;'; "Eubulus and Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brethren salute thee." • -'Long since. have they gone with the Apostle ; i;into eternal life; but a memorial of at least two, Pudens and Claudia, husband and wife, ' still exists in the Rome of to-day. \. The house in which they lived with their ■sons and daughters, all later on to bear the ■ title of Saint, whose walls held within them ;. for seven years the Prince of the Apostles, when, as Bishop of Rome, he. baptised, con- ." firmed, and administered the Sacrament of Holy Orders, that sheltered St. Paul more than once in his stormy career, and hundreds of Christians flying from their pagan persecutors, is still standing, after all these cen--1: turies. It -is somewhat altered and enlarged, to be sure; but if some clay you go to Rome and seek it" out for yourselves, your feet will .v.press the very mosaics of the pavement tr>.dden by Peter and Paul and Pudens and ..Claudia. That house is now the very oldest i church in existence. fe : Divine Worship. . tians of Rome assembled, as we low do, for -v: divine worship. Of course in those terrible days of persecution and terror, there rot: be no churches built as we now have them. Meetings were held and Mass celebrated privately, by stealth as it were, in the houses t of those Christians who were fortunate en .nigh - to have space to offer. -v: Pudeiis was the first of these. He was a noble Roman Senator, converted to the faith by. St. Peter himself and his devoted friend.. ;H His devotion to his Crucified Lord was even f- : greater, and he sealed his faith in. Hiini with ; 1 his blood before long. He was a rich and generous man, ,-iarried [£ to the Lady Claudia, a princess of Britain, f. then under the dominion of the Roman Emir perors. She also was a Christian. ...They had two sons, Novatus. and Timo- ?. theus, and two beautiful daughters, Pudenziana and Praxedes, deeply attached to each other. .; . - ; ;"-■ After the martyrdom of their father and : the deaths of Claudia and their two brothers, ; the - sisters gave their possessions to the r poor, and spent their lives in good works visiting the sick, comforting the; sorrowful, aiding those in distress and —a favorite good 1: workgaining possession and giving Chrisburial to the bodies of numerous mar- « tyrs, thrown contemptuously to the dogs after „ .deaths by the x executioners. ]»|ps, their, father, although he had be- :; follower of Christ, had been highly

respected and esteemed by the very men who had put him to death, and so his daughters went for years unmolested and apparently unnoticed in their course of life, so opposed to Pagan ideas. Then Pudenziana. was taken ill and died, a terrible blow to her loving sister, not only in her affections, but that now she was left entirely alone, no longer young, and in the midst of a cruel new persecution of her brethren in the faith. So she prayed to God in His mercy to take her too, and He heard her prayer. Roman Attack. Not long after Pudenziana's death a great crowd of Christian assembled in the house for Mass on a certain occasion. While, unconscious of danger they knelt and prayed, Roman soldiers burst. in upon them and left

none but ..Praxedes herself alone. This was* the last pang. „ - - ~ ; _ -~- . ......A few weeks after she was reunited to her dear ones in heaven, and the family of Pudens was extinct on this earth. But their home was still "used as a temple of God, and was for nearly three centuries what may be called the "Cathedral" of Rome, .K_ .' Different Popes have made alterations and changes in its walls, but the original house \ is still there, as I have told you, the first church of Rome and now the very oldest in, the world. The altar upon which St. Peter said Muss is there, too, but it has been sheathed in stone, to prevent decay. „ Oh the front of it is this inscription: -; Altar of St. Peter. "Upon this altar, St. Peter used to offer the • Body and Blood of Our Lord in behalf of the living and the dead." y When Christianity became the religion of Pome and its pagan temples were overthrown, the house of Pudens the Senator became known as the Church of St. Pudenziana, and father and daughter lie together under the high altar. .Praxedes has a church of her own but a short distance from her loved ones; Claudia, Novatus, .and Timotheus rest together near by, and the family of Saints await in peace the dawn of eternal day Franciscan Herald,