The Memory Remains.

It is real.

Inevitably at this time of year, my thoughts return to Rome. That fateful spring remains with me, resting in the form of memories which I often draw upon. I can't believe it's been four years already, yet still I have not fully digested those events. The sound of the tram, the smell of the rainy air, the sight of cypress trees, the plaintive intoning of vespers, the look on a worn pontiff's face: I draw life from those unforgettable six days.

The memories remain, but the themes change with each visit. This year, I think to my first trip down into the catacombs, where Christians hid, prayed, and buried their dead in the time of Pagan Rome. I think of the former resting place of St. Cecilia in the catacombs of St. Stephen, or her current resting place in the comparatively newer basilica which bears her name. I remember the former burial places of Peter and Paul, evidenced by thousands of scrawled messages left throughout a Pagan tomb. I remember the coliseum, the ancient marble of St. Peter's, the nearly two-millennium old icons and implements of worship.

When you walk in these places, a person of faith can still smell the blood in the soil. It was in these places where the story of Christ – that which secular professors classify as a mythology – walked straight onto the paths of recorded history. Paul was a real man, and a Roman citizen. Early Christians marked the spot where Peter, urged to flee, instead turned around and returned to a certain brutal martyrdom in Rome. The ruins of the world's greatest empire still stand, though slowly they crumble.

It is a fact: a small group of reformed Jews, following what seemed an outlandish story, toppled the greatest empire in human history. When I kissed the ring of Pope John Paul the Second, looked at his ravaged and careworn face, and perceived that he was carefully listening to me, I saw the end point of history. A miraculous history. A triumphant history. Peter began the process that toppled Pagan Rome. John Paul the Second – the boy from rural Poland – toppled the Soviet Union.

At the inevitable times when my faith suffers, I turn to the greatest tool of Catholic apologetics: the almanac. History, you see, tells an incredible and improbable (if not impossible) tale of a Catholic Church which grew from an obscure sect into the single greatest force in the history of world culture. Not bad, considering the first Pope was an illiterate and cowardly fisherman.

Seen in this light, I no longer worry about corrupt politicians, evil rulers, and peddlers of immorality. Seen in the light of history, the vast din of self-inflicted human stupidity turns into a dull roar, above which clearly ring the bells of goodness.

When I celebrate Easter, I know that I am not partaking in tradition or upholding a myth; rather, I am celebrating history. My history. I know that I am partaking in a triumph. My triumph. My salvation.