Saints – Page 33

Saint Jeremiah

The Catholic Church places the Old Testament prophets, like Jeremiah, for example, as saints. The Roman Martyrology is the Church’s official book listing the saints (the entry is below); typically the OT prophets are not commemorated at the altar.

Saint Jeremiah’s Prayer for Protection

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my boast. Behold they say to me,”Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come.” But I have not grown weary in following after You, nor have I desired the day of man. You know the words of my lips are before Your face. Do not be as a stranger to me, and spare me in the evil day. Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but I may not be ashamed. May they , but not I, be terrified. Bring upon them an evil day and crush them with a double destruction.

From the Roman Martyrology (2005), we read,

Commemoratio sancti Ieremiae, prophetae, qui, tempore Ioachim et Sedeciae, regum Iudae, Civitatis Sanctae eversionem populique deportationem monens, multas persecutiones passus est, quam ob rem Ecclesia eum habuit ut Christi patientis figuram. Novum aeternumque insuper Testamentum in ipso Christo Iesu consummandum praenuntiavit, quo Pater omnipotens legem suam in imo filiorum Israel corde scriberet, ut esset ipse iis in Deum et essent illi ei in populum.

A translation:

The Commemmoration of Saint Jeremiah the prophet, who in the days of Joachim and Zedekiah, Kings of Judah, warned of the sack of the Holy City and the expulsion of its people. He suffered such persecution that the Church holds him as a figure of the suffering Christ. He, moreover, prophesied the the new and everlasting testament would be perfected in Christ Jesus Himself in Whom the almighty Father would write His law in the very hearts of the sons of Israel, that He might be their God and they His people.

Saints John XXIII and John Paul II

Today, Sunday, 27 April 2014, Pope Francis recognized as saints Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. Also present was Benedict XVI, pope emeritus, concelebrating Holy Mass. He say among the cardinals. More than 90 heads of state, other secular leaders among with more than a thousand bishops and 150 cardinals were present with more than a million people.

At the heart of this Sunday, which concludes the Octave of Easter and which John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, are the glorious wounds of the risen Jesus.

He had already shown those wounds when he first appeared to the Apostles on the very evening of that day following the Sabbath, the day of the resurrection. But, as we heard, Thomas was not there that evening, and when the others told him that they had seen the Lord, he replied that unless he himself saw and touched those wounds, he would not believe. A week later, Jesus appeared once more to the disciples gathered in the Upper Room, and Thomas was present; Jesus turned to him and told him to touch his wounds. Whereupon that man, so straightforward and accustomed to testing everything personally, knelt before Jesus with the words: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).

The wounds of Jesus are a scandal, a stumbling block for faith, yet they are also the test of faith. That is why on the body of the risen Christ the wounds never pass away: they remain, for those wounds are the enduring sign of God’s love for us. They are essential for believing in God. Not for believing that God exists, but for believing that God is love, mercy and faithfulness. Saint Peter, quoting Isaiah, writes to Christians: “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24, cf. Is 53:5).

Saint John XXIII and Saint John Paul II were not afraid to look upon the wounds of Jesus, to touch his torn hands and his pierced side. They were not ashamed of the flesh of Christ, they were not scandalized by him, by his cross; they did not despise the flesh of their brother (cf. Is 58:7), because they saw Jesus in every person who suffers and struggles. These were two men of courage, filled with the parrhesia of the Holy Spirit, and they bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness and mercy.

They were priests, bishops and popes of the twentieth century. They lived through the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown by those five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was the closeness of Mary our Mother.

In these two men, who looked upon the wounds of Christ and bore witness to his mercy, there dwelt a living hope and an indescribable and glorious joy (1 Pet 1:3,8). The hope and the joy which the risen Christ bestows on his disciples, the hope and the joy which nothing and no one can take from them. The hope and joy of Easter, forged in the crucible of self-denial, self-emptying, utter identification with sinners, even to the point of disgust at the bitterness of that chalice. Such were the hope and the joy which these two holy popes had received as a gift from the risen Lord and which they in turn bestowed in abundance upon the People of God, meriting our eternal gratitude.

This hope and this joy were palpable in the earliest community of believers, in Jerusalem, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 2:42-47), as we heard in the second reading. It was a community which lived the heart of the Gospel, love and mercy, in simplicity and fraternity.

This is also the image of the Church which the Second Vatican Council set before us. John XXIII and John Paul II cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the Church in keeping with her pristine features, those features which the saints have given her throughout the centuries. Let us not forget that it is the saints who give direction and growth to the Church. In convening the Council, John XXIII showed an exquisite openness to the Holy Spirit. He let himself be led and he was for the Church a pastor, a servant-leader, led by the Spirit. This was his great service to the Church; he was the pope of openness [NB: from editor docility] to the Spirit.

In his own service to the People of God, John Paul II was the pope of the family. He himself once said that he wanted to be remembered as the pope of the family. I am particularly happy to point this out as we are in the process of journeying with families towards the Synod on the family. It is surely a journey which, from his place in heaven, he guides and sustains.

May these two new saints and shepherds of God’s people intercede for the Church, so that during this two-year journey toward the Synod she may be open to the Holy Spirit in pastoral service to the family. May both of them teach us not to be scandalized by the wounds of Christ and to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of divine mercy, which always hopes and always forgives, because it always loves.

St John Baptist de la Salle

The seventeenth-century Frenchman John Baptist de la Salle was drawn to what he discerned as God’s will for him be abandoning all earthly things. He was capable, from a noble family, good looking and yet the entitlements of society were insufficient for his heart. John was ordained at 27 and was offered place among the canons at Rheims which he later gave up.

We believe that Divine Providence shows us the path to walk by putting people and circumstances in our way as pointers to serve Him and Him alone. The events of his era led John Baptist and others to take seriously the work of mercy educating young men, especially the poor.

The charism of educating the poor was so attractive that men who desired to serve the Lord and the Church a brothers and not priests gave way to the founding of a community of religious men called the Brothers of the Christian School (Christian Brothers, or De La Salle Brothers and sometimes the French Christian Brothers). Over time the work was more defined by educating boys of poor families, training teachers and setting up homes and schools for delinquents of the wealthy. It was John’s desire that the men in his care would be become a good Christian men.

De La Salle had lived his final years with chronic asthma and the painful rheumatism giving himself totally to God on Good Friday. He was 68. The Church canonized Father John Baptist de la Salle in 1900 and in 1950, Pope Pius XII named de la Salle patron of schoolteachers.

3 new saints from the Americas

This morning we have three new saints! His Holiness canonized three new patrons, to pray for us in heaven. Actually, God makes saints, the Church discerns who the saints are. All three have strong connections to the Americas: Canada and Brazil.

Saint José de Anchieta is the newest Jesuit saint. The saint died in 1597. De Anchieta is known as the “Apostle of Brazil” and “Father of Brazilian Literature,” a person in Brazil’s history. Writing to the Society of Jesus, Father Adolfo Nicolás, superior general, said:

The Society must not refuse this invitation offered to present anew this versatile figure who is inspiring and extremely relevant to this day. What does the Lord want to say to us in giving us the gift, in less than a year, of Church recognition of the evangelical value of the lives of our two companions, Peter Faber and José de Anchieta? These are two men who accomplished missions so different and yet so similar in the Jesuit spirit that should animate our mission. Both, with the passion of their lives, invite us to discover that the “restoration,” more than being a mere historical event for us, ought to manifest the ever present “mode of being” of an apostolic body in continuous re-creation.

José de Anchieta, “of medium height, lean, with a strong and decisive spirit, bronzed features, bluish eyes, ample forehead, large nose, thin beard, and with a happy and friendly face,” spent 44 years of his life traversing a good part of the geography of Brazil and carrying the good news of the Gospel to the native peoples.

Read Father Adolfo Nicolás’ whole letter here.

Saint Marie de l’Incarnation (Marie of the Incarnation) is an amazing Ursuline sister who founded the first Ursuline convent in Canada, founded Canada’s first school and is called “Mother of Canada.” The biography of Saint Marie is written by the Ursulines.

Saint François de Laval, was the first bishop of Québec. You can read about him at Center Francois de Laval.

In literature Saints Marie of the Incarnation and François de Laval are found in Willa Cather’s 1931 novel of early Quebec, Shadows on the Rock.

May our three new heavenly companions to show us by their example how to love God in a particular way.

Theology of the Body, briefly visited with St Gregory Palamas

The Eastern Christian Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) whose feast day is observed twice a year by Orthodox Christians –once on November 14 and then on the Third Sunday of Lent. For Catholics Saint Gregory Palamas is a great guide for our spiritual training in Lent.

John Paul II was very keen on the theology of the body for some very good reasons. One of which is that he thought that the recovery of certain biblical principles as they are related to the human body were essential for the truthfulness, goodness and beauty Christian life life to thrive. His massive tome on the subject takes times to digest. But he’s not the only one to use the theme of “theology of the body.”

Some tend to reject the idea that the human body has anything to do with spiritual life. Nothing can be further from the truth. Christians, especially liturgically oriented Christians like Catholics and the Orthodox, believe that the body Saint Gregory, the archbishop of Thessalonki taught a great deal about the importance of the body in the prayer life. Gregory was a proponent of hesychasm, a Greek work meaning stillness, quite. As it is related to a form of prayer it attends to the inner prayer life. It is mental prayer. The Jesus Prayer is prayed.

The point is to prayer unceasing no matter what we are doing. We know this from Saint Paul the Apostle. Saint Gregory helps us to focus on the essentiality of inner prayer amidst the noise of life. No activity is outside of God’s grace because the material world is not contrary to the things of God. However, if the material world becomes an idol, then sin creeps in, which is not good.

Incessant prayer and the worthy reception of the sacraments lead to communion with God. Nothing, particularly, the body-ethic, is outside communion with God, through the energy, not the substance, of the Holy Spirit. This is called thesois. The uncreated energy is defined as grace. It is the uncreated energy of God which transfigures and illuminates us drawing us in communion with the Divine Majesty.

Don’t get grumpy as the mid-Lent blues set in… but keep focus on your mental prayer as it will lead to a deeper relationship with Jesus. Pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance.

Saint Joseph…a contemplative of pure love

“… the apparent tension between the active and the contemplative life finds an ideal harmony that is only possible for those who possess the perfection of charity. Following St. Augustine’s well-known distinction between the love of the truth and the practical demands of love, we can say that Joseph experienced both love of the truth-that pure contemplative love of the divine Truth which radiated from the humanity of Christ-and the demands of love-that equally pure and selfless love required for his vocation to safeguard and develop the humanity of Jesus, which was inseparably linked to his divinity.”

Blessed John Paul II
Guardian of the Redeemer

Saint Joseph: participator in Mary’s dignity

The Catholic devotion to Saint Joseph is strong and vital, and it is has been for centuries. You will see the phrase, “Ite ad Joseph” at the Saint Joseph shrine or altar. In fact, over the head of Joseph in this image you see the scroll with just that: Ite ad Joseph. The beloved spouse of Mary, since 1870, has been the Patron of the Church, named so by Pope Pius IX. In biblical typology of the OT Saint Joseph is prefigured by an earlier Joseph who is the protector of Israel.

Pope Leo XIII in his 1889 encyclical, Quamquam pluries, speaks of Saint Joseph an “exemplary model of kindness and humility.” Such are the virtues that we expect all Christians to possess and develop: this is especially true for fathers, parents, priests, educators, and the like. As the spouse of Mary and earthly father of Jesus we come to understand Joseph as a “participator in her [Mary’s] sublime dignity.” Leo develops in a new way a theology of Joseph in looking at his chaste spousal relationship to Mary by describing him for us when he says that Joseph was “closer than any” other person.

Leo also designated Saint Joseph to be the universal patron of the Church.

One aspect of Saint Joseph that’s not well spoken of but was raised by Pope Leo is Joseph as protector, guide, patron of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Considering biblical typology with regard to Joseph we see the Spouse of Mary as connected with, that is, echoing, Joseph of Egypt found earlier in the OT and as the earthly father of Jesus he is custodian of holiness. This man of righteousness we say exercised significant overseeing of Jesus is the “true bread come down from heaven.” Hence, Joseph’s role as guardian of the Holy Child, it is not unrealistic to consider as crucial to the life of both the ministerial AND lay priesthood. What is seen in Joseph is now seen in the our priestly life. Catholics distinguish the two priesthoods, one serving the other in a unique manner all oriented to salvation in Christ Jesus.

Just as Joseph attended to his family and daily work, he also was attentive to life of prayer and sacrifice given to him through the Torah (the Law of Moses). It is fitting to see these things held in creative tension but likely with an accent on prayer. All the things we say that Joseph could have done that would be opposite to having concern for Mary and Jesus were actually fulfilled because the Holy Spirit was such a powerful presence in Joseph. Without this Divine Presence Joseph would have collapsed under the weight of self-absorption. The intense friendship (that is, obedience) with the Divine Majesty allowed for his earthly love to taken on a new dynamism for all of history. One might say, like we ascribe to Mary, that Joseph was the second disciple of Jesus. Yet, he is the first to experience this discipleship in an unrepeatable way as being that close to the dignity of Mother and Son.

One last point of salvation history, Joseph is a fitting patron of the priesthood because he was the spouse of Mary, and that the report of Fatima is that he was with Mary then, leading up to these last days in the Lord.

Saint Joseph, husband of Mary

Saint Joseph, guardian of Jesus and chaste husband of Mary, you passed your life in loving fulfillment of duty. You supported the holy family of Nazareth with the work of your hands. Kindly protect those who trustingly come to you. You know their aspirations, their hardships, their hopes. They look to you because they know you will understand and protect them. You too knew trial, labor and weariness. But amid the worries of material life, your soul was full of deep peace and sang out in true joy through intimacy with God’s Son entrusted to you and with Mary, his tender Mother. Assure those you protect that they do not labor alone. Teach them to find Jesus near them and to watch over Him faithfully as you have done. Amen.

Blessed John XXIII

Saint Katharine Drexel

St Katharine Drexel (1858 – 1955) whose feast is today.

Some of her insight may be found in these three ideas (the other being under the picture): “The patient and humble endurance of the cross—whatever nature it may be— is the highest work we have to.”

“We must attract them by joy, in order to lead them to its source: the Heart of Christ.”

Drexel, the Philadelphia heiress who renounced a life of privilege used her family’s money to work for Jesus Christ: she worked to help the minority population in the USA, founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and sought to share profundity of the Cross of Christ in joy. A millionaire turned saint…read Suzanne Duque Salvo’s poignant narrative of this American saint.

Mother Katharine was a determined and a cheerful woman of faith.

Saint Valentine

Happy Saint Valentine’s day.

Valentine was a Roman nobleman who gave his home to be used for Christian marriages. Valentinus, as he was called in the ancient language, died for the Faith on February 14, and since the Middle Ages has been associated with love.

The day was first associated with romantic love in Geoffrey Chaucer’s works in the High Middle Ages, when the the ideal of courtly love flourished. This was especially true in 18th-century England.

Christians ought to love as Jesus loved: complete self-giving. Remember to love well.