In lieu of Father Jack’s weekly letter:

You may have met me in the vestibule or run into me around the parish in the last couple of weeks, but if you’re wondering who the new guy is on the altar on Sunday morning, allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Michael Dion, and I am a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Seattle. Since many of you have asked, I’m not connected to a religious order, like the Benedictines or Jesuits or Dominicans; rather, I hope to be ordained to be a regular diocesan priest for the parishes of Western Washington. God willing, that will happen in about two years’ time. For now, I have my summer assignment here. The seminary year is more or less the same as a school year, starting in the fall and ending in the spring. During the summer break, we are sent to parishes to be a sort of “priest intern.” So I’ll be following Fr. Jack around a lot.

I grew up in Enumclaw, and moved to Seattle to attend school at the University of Washington. I graduated with a degree in Communication in 2008, and after working for a year I joined the seminary program. I went to Mount Angel Seminary in 2010 for two years of philosophy, and then was sent to the North American College in Rome to begin theology. I will return in September for my third year there.

My time in Rome has given me a lot to reflect upon in regards to the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul which we celebrate this Sunday. Both men were led by the Holy Spirit to inform whoever would listen to them that God had in become a man and given us a way to live in unity with Him. Given a way to receive forgiveness, a way to go beyond fearful idol-worship as much as beyond atheism and agnosticism which say there is no God or that it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

Their obedience to the Spirit took them from the far-reaches of the mighty Roman empire to its all-powerful heart, where they labored to build up a community that was faithful to Jesus Christ and his Gospel. For their audacity to hold true to what they knew, Peter and Paul were killed. They were witnesses to their experience of God: in Greek, μάρτυρες: martyrs. In this they show us a dynamic of the life of faith. Something impossible to see or touch or feel – the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives – was made concrete in their actions: by preaching God in words that moved through the air, by the material gifts they gave to others in charity, by their kindness and patience. Ultimately, they proclaimed their certainty of a greater life with God by their willingness to accept the end of their mortal life here below. What great faith and hope!

This is what it means to be a witness: to act upon our good desires and intentions and make them concrete, make them visible within the world. God gives us good ideas so that we can turn them into good things and good deeds. When we live the way the Lord made us to live, we truly make God present, because what He gives us spiritually affects what we do physically, with our bodies! Then we are no longer just living in the flesh, but are living “in Spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24)!

Rome was not chosen to be the center of the Church because it is pretty or because it is important. It was chosen because of a physical fact: It is the place where the bodies of two men in spiritual union with Christ were laid to rest until the resurrection which they tirelessly preached. It is the ground where the blood of the apostles Peter and Paul poured forth. It is the preeminent place of witness to Jesus.

O Roma felix, quae duorum principum es consecrate glorioso sanguine: Horum cruore purpurata ceteras excellis orbis una pulchritudines.

O happy Rome, you that were consecrated with the glorious blood of two princes: dressed in purple with their blood, you surpass all the beauties of the world.