While visiting the Colosseum yesterday, I noticed a pile of stones and stopped to take a photograph. Those stones reminded me of an old proverb: “Rome was not built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.” We often focus on the first part: “Rome was not built in a day.” We use it to remind ourselves to be patient. But the second part is equally important: they were laying bricks every hour. Patience does not mean doing nothing. It means continuing faithfully, even w

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis. Yesterday, in Assisi, I visited the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, home to the small church St. Francis rebuilt after hearing Christ say, “Francis, repair My Church.” At first, he understood these words literally. The church was old and falling apart, so he repaired its stones with his own hands. In time, he realized that Christ was calling him to something greater. The Church is not only a building mad

Sculpted between 1519 and 1534, Michelangelo’s unfinished Prigioni (the Captives), now stand in Florence's Galleria dell’Accademia. They are half-trapped, half-free, frozen in a perpetual struggle to break out of the heavy, unyielding stone. Michelangelo believed that the sculpture already existed inside the marble; his job as the master artist was simply to chip away the excess stone to set it free. When we look at and think of these figures, we see a profound spiritual trut