During his first Mass for Archdiocese of New York pilgrims in Rome, Archbishop Ronald Hicks recalled his earliest experiences in the Eternal City, the importance of churches and church buildings to Catholic life, and how they are a doorway to the beauty of the faith. 

Celebrating Mass at St. Mary Major, one of the four major papal basilicas in Rome and the oldest church in the West dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Archbishop Hicks spoke about his first visit there. 

“When I was 20 years old, I was a junior at Loyola University Chicago, and I had the opportunity to study for one semester at their campus here in Rome. We arrived in January, got our things settled, and they immediately put all 200 of us on tour buses to start touring around the major sites of Rome. The first site we visited was Santa Maria Maggiore [St. Mary Major]. This was it. And my friends, this was my first love,” he said in his homily. 

A gymnasium, not a church 

The parish church where he grew up in Chicago was somewhat different. 

“I grew up on the south side of Chicago, 14 blocks from where Pope Leo grew up. My church was meant to be a gymnasium, and then they were eventually going to build the real church. They just never built the real church. I grew up in a gymnasium. That’s what I was used to. I came here, and I looked around, and I didn’t have words. I fell in love.” 

The physical beauty of St. Mary Major and other churches serves a distinct purpose for the faith, he said. 

“We know that beauty is actually an avenue to God. It’s called transcendence, a transcendent beauty. When we experience something beautiful, we can be transcended to God and have an encounter with him, with his healing, and with his love. That’s why it is so important in the Catholic Church that we build beautiful churches, because it’s an avenue to help people have a real connection to that transcendent beauty of God himself,” Archbishop Hicks said. 

Pallium Mass on June 29 

More than 150 pilgrims have joined the archbishop during his trip to Rome, where he will receive his pallium on Monday, June 29. 

The Good Newsroom will livestream the Mass at which the pallium will be conferred. Stay with The Good Newsroom for full coverage of the pallium pilgrimage to Rome.