“Rome was only a home for countless human hearts. And every heart chose whom it would serve. As long as people loved not the city’s mighty walls or its seemingly limitless power, but God dwelling among them, the city stood. When that love ran dry and nothing remained but pride – everything collapsed in an instant.
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“You want to know why the city fell? Wait. Let me tell you about something else. There are two cities, built by two kinds of love. The earthly city was built by love of self carried to the point of contempt for God; the Heavenly City, by love of God carried to the point of contempt for self. The first glories in itself. The second glories in the power of the Lord.
“Vladyka, you witnessed the collapse of something everyone thought unshakable. Rome had stood for a thousand years. How do you go on living when stability itself has become a thing of the distant past?
“The question is not whether to love it, but how to love it rightly. Our citizenship is in heaven, says the Apostle, and from there we await the Savior. Remembering this does not mean despising the earth. It means refusing to demand from it what it could never give us in the first place – an unshakable foundation.
“Twice over. The person who remembers his true Homeland takes better care of the roadside inn than the one who mistakes it for his final home. Longing for the Heavenly City neither abolishes nor destroys anything on which earthly life depends. We obey human ordinances in pursuit of peace on earth – provided they do not conflict with our faith.
“the Christians, who, they say, brought disaster upon Rome by abandoning the old gods.
“Who, he said, remained unshaken in His love for humanity even while facing hatred and mockery on the Cross
“standing with Rome is best recognized by the fact that she had three audiences with Pope Francis