After Rome

After feeling enveloped by saints who
perched upon the colonnade of St. Peter’s
square and were poised on pedestals under the
basilica’s gleaming ceiling, as they preached
and prayed, pointed to God’s glory with their fingers
and their flowing marble robes,
After witnessing the celestial clouds burst from
Gesu’s roof with baby cherubim ushering in Christ’s
eternal light almost ready to assume the worthy
Roman Jesuits into the divine realm,
After looking behind the towering scene
of St. Charles’ sublime ascent and seeing exposed
his once-red heart that still beats so boldly
to give the Church good priests,
I was worried that, coming back to Cleveland,
our cathedral would look like a cardboard cottage
and St. Stephen’s like a rinky dink doll house,

But when I drove past graffitied walls to
East 40th for Conversion of St. Paul, heard
the nuns plainly chant their midday prayer,
and saw my Lord within the carved wood
exposed in gold, beaming throughout the
small, brown church, I felt overwhelmed.

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This poem also appears in the June 2023 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 88, No. 6, page 8). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.