Ad catacumbas! Eeeek, someone's staring at me! Greetings from the land of the sepulchres. The catacombs are the precious monuments of primitive Christianity that have survived to today! Their enshrined testimony can speak to any Catholic: for the nourishment of our souls, for the comfort of believers as well as for the illumination of those astray. The catacombs speak of the integrity of Catholic doctrine and so prove to be a real magistra vitae.
In the immediate post-apostolic period, Christians started to build catacombs in Rome. The cult of the martyrs was associated from the very beginning with their tombs. The Christian populace wanted to be buried together and close to the martyrs. Today, the bones of all of these deceased martyrs lay in churches in Rome, but we still visit the catacombs to pay homage to the celebrated martyrs as well as to offer Holy Mass there in suffrage of the souls of the departed.
While many pilgrims often visit the catacombs southeast of Rome, few have aquaintance with the catacombs on the north of the city, those of Saint Agnes and Priscilla (my two personal favorites!). However, to the surprise of many, enormous catacombs lay under the entire city of Rome.
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