POPE FABIAN THE MANURE SHOVELER

A  NOTE  TO  THE  READER:   THIS  WEBSITE  IS  NOT  A  WEBSITE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH,  OR  PAID  FOR  BY,  OR  SPONSORED  BY,  OR  PRE-APPROVED  BY  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.

The  Romans,  especially  the  Romans  of  the  Eastern  Empire   centered  in  Constantinople,   the  great  city  of   our  Muslim  brothers  and  sisters  in  Turkey,  now  referred  to  as  Istanbul,   loved  giving  their  leaders  nicknames.

I  am  friends  with  a  few  of  today's  Turks,   and  --  believe  me  --  they  are  still  like  this.

The  strangest  nickname  of  all  was  given  to  one  of  the  successors  to  the  Chair  of  Peter,   Fabian  the  Manure  Shoveler,   who  was  the  Pope  of  God's  Church  from  236  to  250  A.D.

As  soldiers  of  the  Roman  army  watched  in  shock  and  awe  at  the  astonishing  courage  of  the  Christians  whom  they  arrested  and  murdered  for  the  Roman  emperors,    they  slowly-but-surely  underwent  conversion,  themselves,  and  spread  the  new  Faith   throughout  the  Empire,  as  foreshadowed  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  when  they  divided  the  clothing  of  crucified  Christ  among  themselves.  Matthew  27:35.

As  the  Faith  spread  from  household  to  household,  mostly  by  this  means,   servants  in  many  of  the  households  of  Rome  joined  the  anawim   in  God's  Church.

One  of  them  was  Fabian,  whose  Roman  master  dispatched  him   to  purchase  a  wagon  load   of  manure  for  his  garden  in  236  A.D.

It  so  happened  that  as  Fabian  made  his  purchase,   and  backed  up  his  master's  wagon  up  to  the  manure  piles   and  began  shoveling  a  nice  ripe  load  of  manure   into   his  master's  wagon,   the  Christians  of  Rome  were  down  the  street  gathering  to  elect  a  successor  to  Pope  Anterus,  who  had  just  passed  away.

While  the  faith  of  God's  people  was  ardent,   it  took  a  special  man  to  accept  being  elected  to  the  Chair  of  Peter.  Over  the  decades,  accepting  one's  election   to  the  Chair  of  Peter  pretty  much  amounted  to  a  self-imposed  death  sentence.

And  so,  as  Fabian  shoveled  one  steaming  scoop  of  manure  after  another  into  his  master's  wagon,    the  Faithful  gathered  a  few  blocks  away  prayed  devoutly  for  guidance   from  the  Holy  Spirit  respecting   the  identity  of  their  new  leader.

As  they  did  so,  a  white  dove  perched  on  one  of  the  nearby  rooftops  above  their  heads  took  to  air,   and  in  full  view  of  the  crowd,  who  could  not  help  but  notice  the  dove  --  already  a  symbol  of  the  Holy  Spirit  among  the  faithful  --  flew  over  their  heads  and  down  the  street,  and  gently  alighted   upon  the  head  of  Fabian.

Very  deeply  impressed   by  the  incident,  the  crowd  rushed  down  the  street,  grabbed  poor  Fabian,  and  hoisted  him  onto  their  shoulders,  celebrating  him  as  the  choice  of  God  the  Holy  Spirit.

And  what  did  Fabian  say?  How  did  he  respond?

He  said,   "Accipio"  --  "I  accept."

And  so  the  early  Church  elected  one  of  its  more  successful  early  administrators,    Fabian  the  Manure  Shoveler,   as  Pope.