November 1, 2025 - Daniel Kuehler

Join Professor Dan Kuehler of Hillsdale College as he shares a deeply moving reflection on his nine-day pilgrimage through Rome and Assisi. Through vivid storytelling and sacred art, Dan brings to life the churches, relics, and saints that inspired his renewed devotion. From St. Peter’s Basilica to the Church of St. Philip Neri, discover how these encounters invite us all to grow in holiness and desire for sanctity.

MC: Adam Hohn

Presenter: Daniel Kuehler

Deacon: Rick Freedberg

Brought to you By: The Knights of Columbus

participantOne:(760-20200): Dan's been a presenter here before, but he's a professor at Hillsdale College. He's also a local parishioner here in the Cantor and in all different things. But Dan's going to share some stuff of different churches that he's toured around. So now at this time, I want to welcome Dan Killiard. Thank you.

participantOne:(29640-48980): All right, good morning, everybody. If you want to come over towards the center, I've got some pictures to share with you from Rome. I was privileged to go on a pilgrimage with Dr. Edward Sri, who's with the Augustan Institute and FOCUS, which is the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. And...

participantOne:(49420-77340): I just want to share with you a little bit of my experience, and hopefully that will help us all increase our love and devotion to the saints. In true Joseph Gruber fashion, we should start with a prayer again. So join me. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Direct, O Lord, our actions by thy holy inspiration, and carry them on by thy gracious assistance, that every word and work of ours may begin in thee, and by thee be happily ended. Amen.

participantOne:(78020-119300): Alright, so if you want to make your way over here, that's fine. I'm going to get my iPad started. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said, What we love, we come to resemble. What we love, we come to resemble. Okay. Do you want to love the saints more? Do you want to love God more? Okay.

participantOne:(119940-149480): Over these nine days of this pilgrimage, we venerated the relics in the tombs of over 50 saints in just nine days. And over the course of that nine days, I got tons of new friends in the saints. And so I want to just highlight some of these. I took over 500 pictures, but I'm not going to do that to you this morning. You might know that this is St. Peter.

participantOne:(151120-184420): St. Peter's Basilica. It's the most famous grave marker in the world. Below the high altar here, you have the tomb of St. Peter. This crypt is known as the Confessio. Confessio means confession of faith. The tomb and the crypt around it is called the Confessio because St. Peter's confession was marked and ratified by his blood.

participantOne:(186680-220820): So what's common for you as a pilgrim is to kneel around the Confessio and to confess the Apostles' Creed. We all know St. Peter. He stumbled many times, but he was still chosen by Christ as the first pope. Even after Christ appeared to them in full glory after the resurrection, he still went back to fishing, and he brought six other apostles with him. And yet...

participantOne:(221200-266920): he still had the virtue of fortitude to persevere to the very end in holiness. This is also in St. Peter's Basilica. It's kind of hard to see, but what's being depicted here is Pope Leo the Great, and over here is Attila the Hun, called the Scourge of God. And what it's depicting is a vision, by tradition, that Attila had of St. Peter and Paul,

participantOne:(267540-295920): He was about to invade Rome in the mid-400s, and the emperor was too weak to send an army. I don't think they even had any troops to send, but he sent some delegates, and Pope Leo the Great was the head of the delegates. And so he met Attila, and according to tradition, Attila saw behind Pope Leo Peter and Paul with swords drawn, and so he retreated and did not invade the city of Rome.

participantOne:(298320-345080): the virtue afforded to you. It's kind of hard to see, but this is the church of St. Philip Neri. Yay! Yes. He's awesome. St. Philip Neri is the second apostle of Rome, and he's the third patron saint of Rome after Sts. Peter and Paul. This basilica was probably my favorite out of all of them. Okay.

participantOne:(347260-379600): But I want to share with you a little bit of the story of St. Philip Neri. He's known as the apostle or patron saint of joy also. And he's also a great saint for the virtue of prudence. He gave such great practical wisdom. In confession, he was hearing confessions, and this one woman came to him and confessed the sin of detraction, which is basically gossip. And he said, I want you to, for your penance...

participantOne:(380080-412660): to leave and go grab a pillow full of feathers and come back. And the woman said, yes, father. She came back and she presented the pillow with the feathers. She said, okay, now I want you to go up to a very high point in the city and I want you to open the pillow and release all the feathers and then I want you to come back. And she thought, okay, that's weird, but I will do it.

participantOne:(414420-441320): She came back the second time, and the directive was, now I want you to go and pick up every feather that you have scattered. And she said, but Father, I cannot do that. That is impossible. It's the same when we spread detraction of others. You can never pick up those feathers that are scattered.

participantOne:(443340-477320): He was a funny guy also. Some, one of his, uh, members of his, uh, order came and said, Hey look, I want to mortify my flesh more. Will you permit me to wear a hair shirt? And he knew the pride of this man, and so he said, Yes, I will allow it, but you have to wear it on the outside so you look ridiculous. Which is supposed to, it's like turning everything on its head.

participantOne:(479240-495680): St. Philip Neri died from an enlarged heart. He was also a mystic, and there was a very profound experience that he had, praying in front of the crucifix, which I will show you, where a...

participantOne:(496040-522460): how do you say this, like a globe of fire entered his chest and actually broke two of his ribs, and the autopsy after his death actually confirmed this, and his heart was huge. He died of an aneurysm, but he really died of an enlarged heart. And he served the poor throughout half of his life in Rome, and his heart was so big that it

participantOne:(522079-564500): It was a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality that was already going on inside of himself. The beauty of his life is metaphorically here in this high Baroque architecture. This is where he is buried in the side altar. Look at that organ! This is the church of Saint Monica. Saint Monica is the patron saint of troubled marriages.

participantOne:(565000-598240): of children who have left the faith, and of people struggling with addiction. We know from St. Augustine's Confessions that St. Monica, before she became Catholic, struggled with alcoholism. She was an alcoholic. So this crucifix is the one that Christ himself spoke to St. Philip Neri and basically urged him to dedicate his life to serving the poor.

participantOne:(598520-609420): When you kneel at this kneeler right here, Christ is looking directly at you. I know you can't really see it, but the expression on Christ's face is the most powerful.

participantOne:(609839-639240): horrific and depraved I've ever seen in a crucifix. His mouth is gaped open, and his teeth are clung to his lips, and his eyes are so distraught and pained. It's utterly crushing. Speaking of the Church of St. Monica, what's in the...

participantOne:(639640-678320): paintings around the perimeter of the church. The life of Mary, the highest saint, God's highest creation. I want to point out two things, I didn't show it here. I want to point out two things of this artwork. All of these churches over here have just the best artwork. It's amazing, right? But what's so amazing about these churches is that they'll have on one side Old Testament typology,

participantOne:(678520-710300): and on the other side, New Testament fulfillments of those typological stories. So in the back of St. Monica's Church, in the life of Mary, they have two scenes of the nativity. And above the life of Mary, there are all these Old Testament women that prefigure Mary. And the two Old Testament women that are above the nativity scenes are Jael and Judith.

participantOne:(712439-755460): And they were chosen specifically above the Nativity because those two women drove either a tent peg or cut off the head of tyrant generals of armies. This prefigures Mary in her crushing the head of the serpent, the tyrant commander of the evil army of angels. This is the tomb of Saint Monica.

participantOne:(762040-792540): You might recognize this painting. This is a very famous painting by Caravaggio. Sorry it's not a great angle. What it's depicting here is the calling of St. Matthew. What's amazing about this painting is that it's just in a random side chapel in the Church of St. Louis. It's not even front and center anywhere. It's on a little side chapel where you could have a private mass and

participantOne:(792800-820120): What's going on here? Here is St. Matthew, and he's pointing to himself. He's saying, I, Lord, you want me? Here is Christ, actually, in the background. And you might notice his hand, it's going like this. This is an homage to the creation of Adam, the Michelangelo painting that's in the Sistine Chapel.

participantOne:(820939-842200): And so what this gesture is saying, Christ is divine, right? But also what's coming behind Christ is the light, the breakthrough of grace shining right on Matthew. And Matthew's virtue in this is, well, after this painting, is the docility to the Holy Spirit.

participantOne:(842720-874000): The openness to grace. Grace invades, and it's really funny too, the real window kind of has that same kind of slant of light kind of flooding the scene. Which, you know, this is not random. Everything is purposeful in all of these churches. All the artwork, the placement of the artwork is purposeful. And what is being depicted is very purposeful. Docility to the Holy Spirit. Say amen.

participantOne:(884959-903760): This is in the church of St. Catherine of Siena. It's called Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. And here you have St. Dominic, who gave us the rosary, among other things. The Dominican order. Order of preachers.

participantOne:(907620-937040): What was really great about this pilgrimage was the immense amount of time that we had to pray in these churches. It was partially a tour, but it was mostly a time for prayer. And we could really take the time, 40 minutes sometimes, in one church and just to pray. And so I found it very moving actually to touch my rosary on the reliquary that's holding the relic of St. Dominic right here.

participantOne:(937319-962180): St. Dominic is from the 11-12 hundreds. And to know that we're still praying the rosary after 800-900 years, there's just something special. We are an incarnational religion. We're not Platonists. We're not Gnostics. We love the body. The body and soul go together. We're a unity of body and spirit.

participantOne:(963680-1000380): So we need these tangible realities, we need these tangible things to remind us of the intangible spiritual realities. So this is the full Church of St. Catherine of Siena, and she is buried right under the high altar. This is also where St. Pier Giorgio Frassati was for a time, right around the canonization period.

participantOne:(1001340-1020440): You'll notice that this style of architecture, this is just random, but the style of architecture is unlike the high Baroque that you saw in St. Peter's and in St. Philip Neri's church. This actually goes back to the medieval period, and the church is darker on purpose because...

participantOne:(1021060-1049540): There's more of a communication of the mystery of the mass that's going on. Everything in the high Baroque architecture is a reaction to the Protestant Reformation. So you've got angels jumping out at you, you've got ornamentation everywhere, and it's saying... It's trying to shake you up and say, hey, look, this is real. Angels are real. The saints are real. This is much more concerned with the mystery.

participantOne:(1049760-1056840): shrouding everything in a sort of cloud of incense. That's why it's darker.

participantOne:(1058020-1082240): Can I? Yes. What's the Minerva thing? Sopra Minerva. Minerva, isn't that a pagan? It is. It is. Yeah. Sopra is above. So Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, this was built upon the temple that used to be Minerva's temple. Now it's a church dedicated to Mary and also to St. Catherine of Siena.

participantOne:(1083580-1115400): She had a very profound ability to read the hearts of people. She could detect all of the fallings and failings and faults of people. And one day, Christ spoke to her and said, This gift that you have, that you can read other people's hearts and see their flaws, you think this is from me? This is not from me. This is from the devil.

participantOne:(1116020-1159980): Whoa. Yeah. Yes. Catherine, let's see it. This is the Church of the Twelve Apostles, and I'll zoom in on the painting behind the altar. Sorry, it's blurry. Who's buried under the altar of the Twelve Apostles? James the Less and Saint Philip. And here it is depicting their death.

participantOne:(1160660-1190360): So crucifixion and being clubbed to death. I can't remember who was who. I should remember that. I think James has a club upstairs. Okay, yeah. Dr. Sri said, you know all of your favorite sports team's logos? You should know all of the symbols of the apostles just as well. Because usually it's the instrument of their death, usually, except for St. John and others. He got that from Joseph. Okay.

participantOne:(1190879-1213120): This is St. Ignatius of Loyola's church. This is the church of the Jesu. It's the Jesuit church. Yes, it is a Catholic church. This is where St. Ignatius of Loyola is laid. And...

participantOne:(1214639-1242320): You might know about Saint Ignatius that he was Really had his profound conversion when his leg was shattered and he was bummed up in bed And he was reading the life of Christ and the lives of the Saints the stories of the Saints actually Was the conduit was the occasion for him to experience this profound conversion? and this is why

participantOne:(1243680-1271020): Man, I just, the saints came alive for me for the first time on this trip. What was the time frame? It was nine days in the summer. For St. Ignatius. Oh, sorry. He was in the 1500s. How did his leg get shattered? What happened to his leg? Cannon. Cannon. He was in the military in a battle. He had all these grand designs. He actually healed.

participantOne:(1271280-1301040): and noticed that his leg was crooked and it was so vain that he insisted that they free break his leg so that it could heal straight. He was a very macho man. Did it heal straight? Yeah. Oh, I was wondering. Second time over. On the opposite side is the hand of St. Francis Xavier. It's preserved, you can see it. It's actually here.

participantOne:(1303660-1338360): Yeah, he was the guy who baptized like over 100,000 pagans in India and throughout Asia. This is one of the other four major basilicas in Rome. This is Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Mary Major, otherwise known as Our Lady of the Snows. There is no saint that's buried under the altar here. What is, however, buried is the manger.

participantOne:(1338920-1365140): of Christ. And this is a very old church. This is also, well, yes, it goes way, way back. But the building is from the Baroque era, 15th, 16th, 100s. The church was founded like in the 300s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The site was very old. But since then, there have been multiple churches on this site. Mm-hmm.

participantOne:(1366360-1391100): What's really interesting about this, there are 42 columns going up to the high altar, along with the story of salvation history. So that's basically just an incarnation of the 42 generations between... Was it Joseph? 42, that would have been between...

participantOne:(1392660-1425240): Between Abraham and Jesus. Abraham to Moses, to David, to Christ. Right, right, right. So in the art and architecture, there's telling the story of salvation history. Yeah, because it's 314s. 314s, that's right. No, it's Abraham to David, David to the Babylonian exile, Babylonian exile to...

participantOne:(1425700-1460340): to Christ. That's what it is. This is another relic. What is this? The pillar. Old. This is the pillar that Christ was scourged at. It's in a very small chapel in the church of San Presente. Just off on the side, casually. Do you know if there's any blood on it? If there is...

participantOne:(1460760-1484540): It's probably so microscopic at this point. Does it seem like now would have tested? Maybe. We've got to science. Yeah, but isn't it Jewish tradition or law that the person is killed in a bloody fashion, that all the blood has to be cleaned up before they can actually put the individual to rest? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

participantOne:(1486180-1519980): We have Christ's blood under the microscope before. All the Eucharistic miracles have the same blood type as the universal donor, universal recipient. Sorry. Now, these relics are in the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and what you're looking at here are relics of the true cross,

participantOne:(1521060-1554000): Two of the crown of thorn thorns that are gilded in gold. This is the finger of St. Thomas, the apostle. Here are some of the nails of Christ on the cross, just melted and mixed with other metals. They're not purely the nails that were used. This is the INRI sign that hung above the cross. And here is another small relic of the manger.

participantOne:(1554520-1595000): Oh, and I didn't say, this is the full crossbeam of St. Dismas, the first Cananias saint, the good thief who hung on the cross. It's all real. This is also not a great picture, but this is the church of St. John Lateran. This is the mother church of all Catholic churches in the world because this is the Pope's church.

participantOne:(1595840-1640520): And what you have along the sides here are all the 12 apostles. Huge! It's absolutely amazing. They're like 15 feet high. I don't know, it's just insane. In the front of church, you have the skulls of St. Peter and Paul. And I'll show you St. Bartholomew's. St. Bartholomew is skinned, and so you have his face here in the flesh and the scalpel.

participantOne:(1641879-1686180): just incredible what they can do in marble. This is also in St. John Lateran. Behind the gilded image of the Last Supper is a piece of the table that the Last Supper was celebrated on. Speaking of Old Testament, New Testament typology, for example, here is Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. On one side and on the other side you have

participantOne:(1686840-1726860): Oops, sorry, wrong image. This should be, which I thought I added, but it should be Christ being kissed by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane as he's being betrayed. This is not that though. This is St. Paul outside the walls. And St. Paul, the first apostle of Rome, is buried here.

participantOne:(1727200-1782840): And this chain is believed to be the chain that actually bound him in prison. And around the perimeter of the building you have all these medallions of all the popes tracing all the way back to St. Peter himself. So you know that Rome is a city that's built on a city that's built on a city. And where do we find the successor to Caesar? Where is Caesar's successor? Where is he?

participantOne:(1783940-1832460): One of the Habsburgs, maybe? Nowhere to be found. Where's the successor of St. Peter? I saw him. He was like this distance away from me. St. Francis of Assisi. Is this in Assisi now? This is in Assisi. And this is the cross, the crucifix that spoke to St. Francis, telling him, Francis, my church is in ruin. Rebuild my church now.

participantOne:(1832700-1872760): I don't know the exact words. Something like that. He thought it meant put the stones back together on the little place he was in, right? Exactly. But now this is housed in the Basilica of St. Clair of Assisi. And this is the last one. This idyllic town in the middle of a huge valley. This is the town of Bagno Reggio, which is where St. Bonaventure was born.

participantOne:(1872980-1906240): Only 11 people live in this town. And when you walk down here, there's a little grotto. And this grotto is marked as the place where St. Bonaventure used to pray in solitude. So I want to close with actually some words of St. Philip Neary. Actually, no, I don't. We had a last supper here.

participantOne:(1906580-1929980): before we departed on our ways and Dr. Sri gave some of us an opportunity to talk about what the trip meant and blah blah blah. And so the last person to speak was this tiny girl. She was 10, 11 years old and she trumped everybody else's responses. She said, you know what? I never thought that I could be a saint.

participantOne:(1930340-1956720): before this trip, but seeing and hearing all of these stories about the saints really has given me a desire to become one myself. And this is the one thing that all the saints have in common. They desired to become a saint. How much do we desire for sanctity? How much do we desire to become a saint?

participantOne:(1958940-1981280): St. Philip Neary says this, the best preparation for prayer is to read the lives of the saints, not from mere curiosity, but quietly and with recollection a little at a time, and to pause whenever you feel your heart touched with devotion. Imagine yourselves to be spiritual beggars in the presence of God and his saints.

participantOne:(1981660-2015120): You should go round and round from saint to saint, imploring alms with the same real earnestness with which the poor beg. Mother Angelica, who founded EWTN, said, We are all called to be great saints. Don't miss the opportunity. Thanks for listening. All right. Thank you, Daniel.

participantOne:(2015560-2030560): Everyone, we have discussion questions at the tables in the back. So if you want to get a little bit more coffee and then make your way back there and then have some great discussion.