Saints: August 2011 Archives

Today's feast is probably of a little known saint, Saint Jeanne Jugan (1792-1879). Her's a remarable life of grace and heroic virtue. 

"...Jeanne Jugan was concerned with the dignity of her brothers and sisters in humanity whom age had made more vulnerable, recognizing in them the Person of Christ himself. "Look upon the poor with compassion," she would say, "and Jesus will look kindly upon you on your last day." Jeanne Jugan focused upon the elderly a compassionate gaze drawn from her profound communion with God in her joyful, disinterested service, which she carried out with gentleness and humility of heart, desiring herself to be poor among the poor. Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families. In the Beatitudes Jeanne Jugan found the source of the spirit of hospitality and fraternal love, founded on unlimited trust in Providence, which illuminated her whole life. This evangelical dynamism is continued today across the world in the Congregation of Little Sisters of the Poor, which she founded and which testifies, after her example, to the mercy of God and the compassionate love of the Heart of Jesus for the lowliest. May Saint Jeanne Jugan be for elderly people a living source of hope and for those who generously commit themselves to serving them, a powerful incentive to pursue and develop her work!

Pope Benedict XVI

Canonization homily

11 October 2009

A feast day slide show done by the Little Sisters of the Poor. You can read more about Saint Jeanne Jugan here.

O God, who willed that Saint John the Baptist should go ahead of your Son both in birth and in death, grant that as he died a Martyr for truth and justice, we, too, may fight hard for the confession of what you teach.

Christ humbled himself, you have something, Christian, to latch onto. Christ became obedient. Why do you behave proudly? 

And when the Lord saw [the mother of the deceased young man], he had compassion on her and said to her, 'Do not weep.' And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, 'Young man, I say to you, arise.' And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother" (Luke 12:13-15).

O God, who brought Saint Louis from the cares of earthly rule to the glory of a heavenly realm, grant, we pray, through his intercession, that by fulfilling our duties on earth, we may seek out your eternal Kingdom.

Gracious God of our ancestors, You led Peter Julian Eymard, like Jacob in times past, on a journey of faith. Under the guidance of Your gentle Spirit, Peter Julian discovered the gift of love in the Eucharist which Your Son Jesus offered for the hungers of humanity. Grant that we may celebrate this mystery worthily, adore it profoundly, and proclaim it prophetically for Your greater glory. Amen.

Saint Alphonsus, born in 1696, a lawyer by 20. ordained priest in 1726, a founder of a religious congregation of priests and brothers, a bishop, an author and a Doctor of the Church, is remembered today's at Mass.

Perhaps he's best known for founding the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer - better known as the Redemptorists - in 1732 with official papal approval in 1749. The Redemptorists were did missionary work, taught catechism and gave retreats; they concentrated mostly on the country side for their spiritual labors.

It is true that you can't force a sacrament on someone and that one's perfect freedom has to be respected, history tells us that Alphonsus was forced against his own will, to be the bishop of Naples' small Diocese of St. Agatha in 1762, a ministry he exercised for 13 years. During these years he set about correcting liturgical abuses and other such things, reformed the seminary, sent priests to be missionaries, and helped the poor.

On August 1, 1787, at Pagani, Alphonsus Liguori died at mid-day, as the bells were calling the faithful to pray the Angelus.

In 1839, Alphonsus was canonized and and the Magisterium declared him to be a Doctor of the Church in 1871.