Saints – Page 37

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

Today is the liturgical memorial of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. The Church proposes yet another fine example of love for our spiritual life. With the help of her confessor Saint Claude, Saint Margaret Mary sparked a renewal of dedicating Fridays to the Lord’s Crucifixion and a devotion to the Sacred Heart.

As we know, Jesus revealed to St Margaret Mary how deep and intense his love for the human race is. How shall we respond to his love?

A prayer of consecration to the Sacred Heart is found here.

This poetic text by J. Michael Thompson gives perspective to the relationship Saint Margaret Mary points to:

Both blood and water came flowing in streams

from the opened side of the Redeemer:

blood, which bought back all creation;

water, gushing forth to endless life!

Let the righteous hasten, let not the sinner be fearful;

the fountain of the Savior’s heart stands open endlessly:

blood, which bought back all creation;

water, gushing forth to endless life!

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:

blood, which bought back all creation;

water, gushing forth to endless life!

Blessed John XXIII

Blessed John XXIII has his liturgical memorial today. He’ll be a canonized on 27 April 2014. Good Pope John is well-known for his calling the Second Vatican Council but he’s also a pope remained close the Church’s tradition.

Hymn texts are a wonderful way of getting at who a person is. J. Michael Thompson wrote this hymn.

1. Come now, you lovers of the feasts!
In tune with heaven’s choir,
In honor of our good Pope John
We sing with harp and lyre!
From peasant stock in Bergamo
He heard at first your call,
And left his home and family
To freely give his all.

2. As priest, he healed old enmities
And followed your own path,
Resolving such disputes with love
And took the shepherd’s staff.
Sent eastward, in the time of war,
He served the Prince of Peace,
Providing help to those in need
In Turkey and in Greece.

3. When sent by Rome to France, he sought
To heal the scars of war,
He spoke of peace and love to both
Those near and those afar.
Then to the church of Venice called,
He led with shepherd’s care,
And in obedience and peace
He preached the gospel there.

4. The Spirit’s loving voice was heard
By leaders come to Rome;
Thus he ascended Peter’s chair
And took the name of John.
Instead of fierce severity,
With mercy’s medicine
He met the needs of present day,
Preached newness from within.

5. As “servant of God’s servants,” he
Convened a Council’s skills
To join the Church to changing world,
With grace to heal life’s ills.
When illness brought him near to death,
He offered up his life
That God might bless the Council’s work,
With blessings come from strife.

6. To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Paraclete,
We sing our song of glory now,
A hymn both strong and sweet.
With Good Pope John and heaven’s choirs
May we our praises raise
Till we are joined with them at last
For endless length of days!

J. Michael Thompson
Copyright © 2010, World Library Publications
CMD
KINGSFOLD

I heard the talk of Christians: why Saint Pelagia once the Harlot is important

At this morning’s Mass we heard from the Prophet Malachi. If you don’t know about this minor prophet, I would spend some time with today’s first reading but also do some research to know more about Malachi. He’s a compelling voice.

Dominican Father Jordan from New Haven’s Priory preached on the life of a favor saint of his, Saint Pelagia once the Harlot. An unknown saint of the Antiochene Church whose life clearly illustrates what Malachi is getting at, and opens up for us in the Mass prayers. The Church puts on our lips these ideas found in the Collect by addressing God the Father: “pour out your mercy upon us,” “pardon what conscience dreads,” and “give what prayer does not dare to ask.”

When the Communion rite is finished, the Prayer after Communion asks God for the grace to be “refreshed and nourished by the Sacrament … so as to be transformed into what we consume.”

Pelagia was dancer and actress known for her beauty. Tradition tells us that her early life was none-too-moral. But her story ends as you would expect: in the arms of the Lord. Let me say up front: Pelagia’s life is a narrative of mercy.

Where the majority of the bishops of the region wouldn’t speak with Pelagia but a bishop known for wisdom and holiness, Saint Nonnus, was willing get out of his comfort zone. Imagine that a bishop would recognize a woman’s natural beauty, and be able to admit it. But I digress. Key for me is what Pelagia said, “I heard the talk of Christians and I want to follow Christ.”

The hagiography reports a letter Pelagia sent to Bishop Nonnus that moved him. She writes,

To Christ’s holy disciple from the devil’s disciple, a sinful woman. I have heard that your God has bowed the heavens and come down to earth, not to save the righteous but sinners. Such was His humility, that He ate with publicans, and He upon Whom the cherubim dare not gaze lived among sinners and spoke with harlots. Therefore, my lord, since you are a true servant of Christ (as I hear from the Christians), do not spurn me who with your help seek to draw near the Savior of the world and to behold His most holy countenance.

[The saint’s biography (at the link above) is taken from The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, Volume 2: October, compiled by St. Demetrius of Rostov.]

Pelagia’s story is our story, but in truth, the narrative that all the saints give is our story. Hagiography shows the contours of grace and sin and final redemption (communion) by Christ Jesus and that it is possible to live by what the New Testament (indeed, the whole Bible) reveals. Let me say that Pelagia is a model of recognizing in the witness of others (“heard the talk of Christians”) her own call from the Lord to be His disciple. AND being a student of Jesus’ is our aim, isn’t it? Where Pelagia was in her life so where we might have been, or may end up. Mercy was recognized and given and received and given to others. The text of The Life of St. Pelagia the Harlot is given to monks and nuns to encourage them in their life of conversion. The life of the saints is always formative and it opens a new door in evangelization. If it’s good for the monastics it’s gotta be good for the laity.

The saint’s life was first written by Deacon James who, in his Preface, tells us what we ought to glean from Pelagia’s life:

We should always have in mind the great mercy of our Lord who does not will the death of sinners but rather that all should be converted to repentance and live (1 Tim. 2). So, listen to a wonder that happened in our times. It has seemed good to me, James, to write this to you, holy brothers, so that by hearing or reading it you may gain the greatest possible aid for your souls. For the merciful God, who wills that no one should perish, has given us these days for the forgiveness of our sins, since in the time to come He will judge justly and reward everyone according to his works. Now be silent, and listen to me with all the care of which you are capable because what I have to tell you is very rich in compunction for us all.

Deacon James puts his finger on the matter at hand: to always have in mind the great mercy of God who saves sinners. Does this sound familiar? Pope Francis has emphasized this point of departure. Mercy.

Will I convert someone today by my talk? Will someone recognize me as a Christian by what I say and by what I do???

In Orthodoxy Saint Pelagia is honored on October 8 and in Catholicism she’s liturgically honored on May 4.

The relics are located in the Milan Cathedral and have been there for centuries.

[The Life of Saint Pelagia the Harlot was translated by Sr. Benedicta Ward, S.L.G., “Pelagia, Beauty Riding By” in Harlots of the Desert, a study of repentance in early monastic sources (Cistercian Publications, Inc., Kalamazoo, 1986): Latin Text in PL 73, 663-672).]

Blessed John Henry Newman

The liturgical memorial of Blessed John Henry Newman is observed in the United Kingdom but it is not on the Ordo for Catholics in the USA. In time I suspect the Holy See will make it so for Catholics in the USA once Newman is canonized. In the meantime, we ask for his intercession privately.

To mark the Newman memorial here is a Vatican Radio interview with Monsignor Roderick Strange who authored John Henry Newman: A Mind Alive (2008).

Below is the second reading for the Office of Readings and the Mass Collect.

From the writings of Blessed John Henry Newman, Priest
(Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Chapter V: Position of My Mind since 1845, London 1864, pp. 238-239, 250-251)

It was like coming into port after a rough sea.

From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opin- ions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervor; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.

Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. I am far of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of Religion; I am as sensitive of them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speak- ing of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be

part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe?…

I believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St Athanasius, St Augustine, and St Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days.

Responsory Ephesians 3:7, 10; John 16:13

R. Of this Gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power,* that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known.

V. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. *That through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known.

Let us pray.

O God, who bestowed on the Priest Blessed John Henry Newman the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church; graciously grant that, through his intercession and example, we may be led out of shadows and images into the fulness of your truth.

Blessed Bartolo Longo

From Satanist Priest to great Marian Blessed. What a headline! But it is a true one. We honor the memory of Bartolo Longo as a beatus of the Church today.

If anything we can say of Longo’s life is that we are never to give up hope!!! Keep Praying for him or her whomever it may be…

The tomb of Blessed Bartolo Longo in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary in Pompeii which he founded. He leads us back to Our Lady’s feast on the 6th and 7th.

Read more on Blessed Bartolo Longo here and here.

Saint Mother Theodore Guerin

Catholics in USA have a special reason to be happy today: one of our own is venerated at the altar. We liturgically remember Saint Mother Theodore Guerin (1798-1856).

Saint Mother Theodore is the 8th saint from the USA to be raised to the altar.

She is the patroness of the Diocese of Layfayette in Indiana.

John Paul beatified Guerin and Benedict canonized her in 2006.

Here are some quick facts.

Lots more info is noted here.

Saint Jerome

Today we liturgically remember Saint Jerome (340-420). Because the sacred Liturgy is our first theology, let me quote the opening collect prayed at Mass:

O God, who gave the Priest Saint Jerome a living and tender love for Sacred Scripture, grant that your people may be ever more fruitfully nourished by your Word and find in it the fount of life.

And from the Communion collect:

…stir up the hearts of your faithful so that, attentive to sacred teachings, they may understand the the path they are to follow and, by following it, obtain life everlasting.

The controlling ideas the Church wants us to focus on are namely, that we have a living and tender love for Scripture with the hope that we would be nourished by it and find in Scripture a source of life. Likewise, our understanding this path we may enter into heaven. Christians: we are to walk toward the light of everlasting life. Indeed. Jerome is one of our guides in our study of Scripture.

Jerome was born in Dalmatia (present day Croatia). Having studied in Rome and he was baptized there before being ordained a priest in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. Recognizing his giftedness, Pope Damasus called Jerome to Rome to serve as his secretary; following the death Damasus, Jerome went East again, that is, Bethlehem, where he was active in building projects: a monastery, a hospice, and a school. His intellectual gifts were set on translating the Bible into the vernacular Latin. We still us Jerome’s biblical translation (with some revisions) today. His letters and commentaries on Holy Scripture still give insight. He is honored with being a Doctor of the Church.

And, likely his most famous line is noted in today’s Office of Readings from Jerome’s prologue of the commentary on Isaiah:

I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: Search the Scriptures, and Seek and you shall find. Christ will not say to me what he said to [others]: “You erred, not knowing the Scriptures and not knowing the power of God.” For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of Gods, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Venerable Alfred Pampalon: Patron of Alcoholics and Drug Addicts

Recently, a friend, Father Sean, recommended the Venerable Alfred Pampalon is the Patron of Alcoholics and Drug Addicts, on his Facebook page. I am not sure what prompted him to do, but it was a welcomed and helpful piece of information. As you know, there is a Catholic saint and blessed for every need; even those being proposed for sainthood have causes to mind. Today is the anniversary of death of Father Alfred Pampalon.

For me, this is a great “find.” Why? Because for the last year my sister has been possessed by her addiction to alcohol. To date, she’s been brought to the hospital for various reasons: alcohol induced seizures, ulcers, depression and the like. Alcohol is truly an insidious disease. With this so personal experience I am humbled and moved by the fragility of those who carry such a cross as alcoholism and depression. In many ways my sister’s cross is an opening for grace to enter more deeply into my own sinful life. So, I am happy to know of Father Alfred and his patronage. Through his intercession I am hoping for a healing for my sister and my family, but also for others who carry this disease inside them. Alcohol and the related problems are a real cross to bear; Alfred’s was TB as was the residual set of health complications. But it is said that he had a burning desire to help his people know (meet) Jesus and to lighten the burden of those whose cross so very heavy to bear.

Father Alfred Pampalon (24 November 1867 – 30 September 1896), born in French Canada. Father Alfred was a Redemptorist priest who studied in Belgium. Father Alfred is known as a great apostle of the Saint Anne de Beaupré shrine. He died very young at the age of 28 of TB. his cause for canonization was opened and he was recognized has having heroic virtue. Thus he was declared Venerable Servant of God, May 14 1991, by Pope John Paul II.

Dear Father Alfred, listen to my cry and come to my aid. Obtain for me the favors I desire. You are well known as the protector of people who are suffering in body, mind and spirit.

You show special compassion for alcoholics and drug addicts. You have freed so many people from their dependencies. Free NN. (me) also, I beg you, dear Father Alfred, and free those people I recommend to you, especially members of my family.

I come to you with confidence. I pray for myself and for all those who are dear to me. Come also to the assistance of the Church and of the whole world. Amen.

Father Alfred realized clearly that “There is no virtue without prayer.” Here is a novena of prayers.

Dom Antoine Marie, OSB, monk of the French Abbey of Saint-Joseph de Clairval, writes extensive biographies of the saints for his abbey’s newsletter. If you are interested, here is entry for Father Alfred.

Saint Lorenzo Ruiz

Today is the feast of Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint.

With the Church we pray,

Grant us, we pray, Lord God, the same perseverance shown by your Martyrs Saint Lawrence Ruiz and his companions in serving you and their neighbor, since those persecuted for the sake of righteousness are blessed in your Kingdom.

Lorenzo was a layman, a husband and a father; he was educated by the Dominican friars and a member of the Third Order. He was especially devoted, as you’d expect for someone connected to the Order of Preachers, to the rosary. Because he was unwilling to renounce his faith in Christ, he tortured and later suffered martyred with 14 others for the faith. Lorenzo Ruiz was canonized by John Paul in 1987.

Saint Vincent de Paul

The prayers for the Mass of Saint Vincent de Paul today have us focus on “the relief of the poor and the formation of the clergy” imitating what Vincent loved and did in following the Savior. The Church’s mission is one of service and education. Baptized into the company of saints, all Christians ought to have concern for the least in society; likewise, the baptized are to be concerned for their own education in the faith aiming to be as Saint Paul said, mature Christians. In Vincent’s world, education of the faithful came through the formation of healthy and holy clergy. An uneducated, that is, an untrained clergyman can lead others to perdition.

“Charity is the cement which binds communities to God and persons to one another in such a way that whoever contributes to union of hearts in a Company binds it indissolubly to God.” (Coste II, Letter 651, p. 413)

Saint Vincent said in his common rules as noted by Vincentian Father José María Román:

Charitable behaviour towards the neighbor should always be characteristic of us. We should try, then: 1) to behave towards others in the way we might reasonably expect to be treated by them; 2) to agree with others, and to accept everything in the Lord; 3) to put up with one another without grumbling; 4) to weep with those who weep; 5) to rejoice with those who rejoice; 6) to yield precedence to one another; 7) to be kind and helpful to one another in all sincerity.

Hence, Vincent stressed three attitudes for his companions in the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, but they are also applicable to us who are not Vincentians, namely: mutual respect, condescension (humility) and bearing with the weaknesses of our neighbors.

Our prayer today ought to note how we engage in concrete works of charity, spiritual and corporal, and how we attend to our education in the faith while supporting those preparing to serve the world as Catholic priests.

The Vincentians need our prayers, so, I’d like to remember the Fathers of the Congregation of the Mission who serve in the Archdiocese of Hartford, especially those at St Stanislaus Church, New Haven, CT.

I’d recommend reading St Vincent de Paul: A Biography by Father José María Román, CM (London, 1999), but the same author has published various aspects of Saint Vincent’s life and work online.