The Vatican on Monday, in two days, will release a new biography on the life of Pope Leo XIV, entitled “Leo from Chicago.”
Above, and also here, are links to a brief trailer introducing the film
Below, the message that was on my desk when I arrived on October 29 at my room in Jerusalem, in the Dormition monastery of the Benedictines, near the Upper Room where the Last Supper took place, and where Pentecost occurred, 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus
Below, a view of the stone where, it is believed by tradition, the body of the crucified Jesus was placed, and prepared for burial. Many come to pray at this spot. I prayed here too, and took a picture of my hand on the stone, and prayed, with and without words, as I discuss in the letter below.
Nearby, a few steps away, is the Holy Sepulchre, where the body, after it was washed and anointed with oil, was moved. Pilgrims may also enter the Holy Sepulchre and kneel by the stone where Jesus lay.
That is the place where a life returned to his lifeless body, and he rose from the dead, initiating a new creation, and beginning the process of making all things new.
Letter #71, 2025, Sat, November 8: Pope Leo biography
“Leo from Chicago” on Pope Leo’s American roots to debut November 10
To mark the six-month anniversary of Pope Leo’s election, “Leo from Chicago,” a documentary from Vatican Radio – Vatican News on the Pope’s American roots will be released on November 10. At 6 p.m. Rome time CET, the documentary will be published in three languages (English, Italian, Spanish) on Vatican News’ channels.
By Vatican News
On the occasion of the six-month anniversary of the election of Pope Leo XIV, Vatican Radio – Vatican News is releasing Leo from Chicago, a documentary retracing the story, family roots, studies, and Augustinian vocation of Robert Francis Prevost in his native United States.
The journey unfolds from his childhood in Dolton, through the memories of his brothers Louis and John, and continues among schools and universities, communities and parishes, featuring the voices of confreres, teachers, classmates, and longtime friends.
Leo from Chicago follows the June release of the documentary León de Perú, which focused on the future Pope’s missionary years in Peru.
It is produced by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Chicago and Apostolado El Sembrador Nueva Evangelización (ESNE).
Leo from Chicago was produced by journalists Deborah Castellano Lubov, Salvatore Cernuzio, and Felipe Herrera-Espaliat, who traveled to the United States, with editing by Jaime Vizcaíno Haro.
At 6:00 p.m. Rome time CET on Monday, November 10, the documentary will be published on the Vatican News YouTube channel in three languages (English, Italian, and Spanish) and distributed through other international media outlets.
A week in Israel
I am now back in Rome after seven days in Israel.
I went there with one principal objective: to visit the holy places, and, in silence, to wait, and re-commence my life’s work, as I enter what objectively is a final phase of life, autumn time, a time of harvesting, before winter comes.
I came to the Holy Land with the memory of many passages of scripture, and of poetry, which I carried with me.
I walked for six days through the streets of Jerusalem and the villages of Galilee, and finally, on the 7th day, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where, tradition holds, Jesus’ body was laid on a stone, prepared for burial, then laid in a nearby tomb, the Holy Sepulchre, which can still be visited today.
Among the words, in my mind and memory, were words my father once read to me, as if to give me a guide for my journey, or to encourage me, to give me heart, after I told him I wished to come to Rome and become a writer and hopefully a scholar about the Church…
The words were from a poem by T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding…
The words refer to a chapel in England, a chapel that is a place where a poet’s journey, or a pilgrim’s journey, or a man’s journey, ends, but also, begins, a place where any soul’s journey ends, and also begins…
But for me the words came to refer to Rome, to the whole city of Rome…
And, now, they also refer to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which I visited on the evening of November 4, for about three hours, until the church closed.
There I was privileged to do what Eliot encouraged pilgrims and poets to do, for a certain time, in silence:
You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.
***
The intersection….
For me the words have now become:
“The intersection of the timeless moment is… the city of Rome, and nowhere. Never and always.”
And now, after my recent trip to Israel, the words have become:
“The intersection of the timeless moment is… the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and nowhere. Never and always.”
***
A new task…
So, I am no longer here, in these letters, writing to report on anything, or on everything, as chroniclers and journalists do, but only, as it were, “to kneel, where prayer has been valid.”
Something different.
Because, for me, the moment of the intersection of time with the timeless, toward which my life and heart have been tending since the beginning, is now drawing near, and thus the time to prepare for it is growing shorter, and as the time shortens, the veil between this world and that other, eternal world, has, in a way, grown, it seems, gossamer-thin, nearly transparent…
And so, now, I am squinting a bit, looking through a veil, seeking to discern and perhaps describe what I may be granted to glimpse, very imperfectly, of course, on the other side of the veil…
***
Also, Josaphat….
I was also moved to go to the Holy Land in these last days because my birthday is coming, in just four days now, on November 12 (feast of St. Josaphat, 1580-November 12, 1623).
So, a turning point.
The mortal remains of St. Josaphat are, as providence would have it, buried in… St. Peter’s Basilica, a few steps from where I am writing these lines.
So, when in Rome, I have the chance, every so often, to visit the tomb of my patron saint, something special.
I have long meditated on the life of Josaphat, who, prompted by the Holy Spirit, sought to reconcile the Orthodox and Catholics of his time, around the year 1600… so, some four centuries ago… believing that it was Christ’s will and prayer that all His disciples should “be one.” It was an effort which ended in his martyrdom.
Here is a brief summary of Josaphat’s death:
On 12 November 1623, St. Josaphat was beaten to death with an axe during an anti-Catholic riot by Eastern Orthodox Belarusians in Vitebsk, in the eastern peripheries of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
His death reflects the conflict between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches that intensified after four Ruthenian Orthodox Church (Kiev Metropolitanate) bishops transferred their allegiance from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to the Holy See, under the terms laid down by the 1439 Council of Florence, by signing the 1596 Union of Brest. Archeparch Josaphat remains one of the best-known victims of anti-Catholic violence for his role in both personally accepting and very effectively spreading the Eastern Catholic Churches as a hieromonk and bishop, and was canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX as a saint and a martyr of the Catholic Church. (link)
***
So… now I carry Jerusalem, the City of Peace, in my memory, holding in my mind the feel of the cool, smooth stones that my hands touched — both the stone they laid His lifeless body on to clean and anoint, and the stone in the Sepulchre, where new and eternal life flowed into that still and silent frame, promising new life to our fallen and sorrow-filled but now redeemed universe.—RM
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