My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by His Divine help. I can do all in Him who strengthens me. His Power is infinite, and if I lean on him, it will be mine. His Wisdom is infinite, and if I look to Him for counsel, I shall not be deceived. His Goodness is infinite, and if my trust is stayed in Him, I shall not be abandoned.
Pope Saint Pius X
John Eudes (1601-80) who, as a child, made a vow of chastity. He was educated by the Jesuits at the College of Caen, where it is said that he was conspicuous for piety; and, committed to the protection of the Virgin Mary. Eudes apparently would sign a covenant with the Blessed Mother in his own blood.
Following his education, Eudes joined the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory de Bérulle, and was ordained priest at Paris. His natural capacities were perfected by grace: he had an intense love of neighbor and the education of the young for service in the priesthood Jesus Christ. In the 20 years of Oratorian life Eudes was elected Rector of the Oratorian house at Caen, but instead left the fraternity and set on his own drawing together priests under the inspiration of the holy names of Jesus and Mary for to do what his heart desire, a new seminary.
Formed by the Jesuits and Oratorians, John Eudes was zealous for the Kingdom. He promoted devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary which it seems he was singular in doing. Today’s devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is closely linked to Eudes.
Historians tells us that John Eudes courageously resisted the heretical doctrines of the Jansenists, he preserved unalterable obedience towards the Chair of Peter.
Pope Pius X beatified John Eudes and Pope Pius XI canonized him while making Saint John Eudes a saint to be honored on the universal calendar of the Church with an Office and Mass.
I find saints to be helpful, provocative and needed. Christian living is difficult enough that I find myself in need of good witness to help me understand the horizons of Christian life, to invite me to live differently and to anchor me more squarely in the reality of what Scripture and tradition propose. Read the Roman Martyrology and you’ll notice through the centuries there are men and women lifted up by the Church as worthy of following. Recall that a saint’s purpose to is to point us not to himself, but to Jesus Christ. Saints are not self-referential.
Christianity can really be characterized as a genealogy beginning with the Trinity right down to our present age. In history we count the Mother of God, Mary, as the first disciple of God; in the coming months we’ll have two new disciples honored at the altar, John XXIII and John Paul II. These men for me, indicate a path to a right relationship with the Lord.
On one hand saints tell us not to be overly anxious, that following Christ is humanly possible and yet, work is needed to be a true follower of Christ. By work I mean a personal attention to the desires of the heart, knowing the person of Jesus, having a substantial freedom from a divided heart and tongue (sin) and a life worthy of being in the presence of God. A saint realizes he or she is a sinner and the only to be with God is to rely on His grace.
The other day Andy Crouch of the WSJ wrote a good piece titled, “Saints Be Praised–Officially or Otherwise: Catholics have the most rigorous process for naming them, but even Protestants have informal ones.” Here we have a broad approach among Christians in recognizing holy men and women.
In part Mr Crouch writes,
Saints, whether formally recognized by Catholicism or informally regarded as such by other denominations, are bracing reminders that the transformation of spirit promised by religion—so elusive for most of us—is possible in this life. Christians of any kind can appreciate the remarkable lives of the two men the Catholic Church will canonize later this year.
Saint Roch (+1327) is a patron of the sick. He knew first hand the sufferings sick people face, and how the illness, though a cross, makes a bridge to something greater.
Saint Roch was a layman who followed the good example of Saint Francis of Assisi, and it is said that he was a member of the Secular Franciscans though there are no records attesting to this and yet the Franciscans observe his liturgical memorial on August 17.
Catholic healthcare was emboldened in the time following Roch’s death with various hospice works and groups gathering as a confraternity to assist the professionals and families. Many were healed of their diseases through Saint Roch’s intercession.
Blessings on my friend, Father Matthew Rocco Mauriello and his parish, Saint Roch, Greenwich, CT.
I didn’t know until I saw the following post on the Daylesford Abbey FB page:
Today we remember Saint Arnold of Soissons (1040–1087), the patron saint of hop-pickers and beer brewers. Arnold, born in Belgium, founded the Abbey of St. Peter in Oudenburg. At the abbey, he began to brew beer, as essential in medieval life as water. He encouraged local peasants to drink beer, instead of the contaminated village water, due to its “gift of health.” During the process of brewing, the water was boiled and thus, unknown to all, freed of pathogens.
As one would have thought, a Benedictine monk perfected beer making. Saint Arnold did good work for the health of his people through brewing beer.
Saint Arnold, pray for hop pickers, beer brewers, and for all of us who enjoy a good beer.
The liturgical and pious legend tells us that when the Deacon Lawrence was asked by the Emperor Valerian and civil authorities to turn over the Church’s treasures (money, vessels, chalices, clothing, etc.), Lawrence gathered the poor, elderly and weak presenting them as the Church’s as the treasures. The holy deacon had the ecclesiastical position that today we would call archdeacon, the one deacon who attended to the material affairs of the Church. Like his mentor Sixtus II and bishop (whose feast was celebrated a few days ago), Lawrence was met his Lord and God with a martyr’s love. Tradition tells us that he was martyred on a grid iron over flames, i.e., BBQ.
Like our current Holy Father, based on the gospel and the Jesuit charism, he has lifted our awareness for the marginalized showing us how very central to our gospel living these gifts are. Let us pray for a deeper love for the poor.
Saint Lawrence is buried in a basilica church dedicated to him outside the original walls of Rome. It’s also the place where Pope Pius IX is buried.
On this feast of the Sainted Deacon Lawrence, let’s pray for all deacons.
Saint Lawrence, pray for us.
A group of eleven Sisters of he Holy Family of Nazareth were murdered by the Nazis in exchange for 120 condemned citizens of Nowogródek, current day Belarus.
Sister Stella and her companions were murdered on this date, 1 August 1943 by the Gestapo in Novogródek, Hrodzyenskaya voblasts’, Belarus.
Invited by the bishop of the area to come serve the Church in the village of Novogródek in 1929, the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth were well received by the people.
Tensions ran high with the Nazi occupation. When it became clear that the sacrifice of life was imminent, the Sisters in conversation with their chaplain, Father Zienkiewicz, said, “My God, if sacrifice if life is needed, accept it from us and spare those who have families. We are even praying for this intention.”
Blessed John Paul beatified the sisters on 5 March 2000.
The Blessed Martyrs are stilled remembered with devotion.
O God, who constantly raise up in your Church new examples of virtue, grant that we may follow so closely in the footsteps of the Bishop Saint Alphonsus in his zeal for souls as to attain the same rewards that are his in heaven.
The following text is taken from a sermon by Saint Alphonsus Liguori (September 27, 1696 – August 1, 1787), bishop, founder of a religious order and a Doctor of the Church. You and I would do well to take stock of how much we really live a life of virtue and how much we are concerned with our final end, hopefully, heaven.
Saint Alphonsus:
All holiness and perfection of soul lies in our love for Jesus Christ our God, who is our Redeemer and our supreme good. It is part of the love of God to acquire and to nurture all the virtues which make a man perfect.
Has not God in fact won for himself a claim on all our love? From all eternity he has loved us. And it is in this vein that he speaks to us: “O man, consider carefully that I first loved you. You had not yet appeared in the light of day, nor did the world yet exist, but already I loved you. From all eternity I have loved you.”
Since God knew that man is enticed by favours, he wished to bind him to his love by means of his gifts: “I want to catch men with the snares, those chains of love in which they allow themselves to be entrapped, so that they will love me.” And all the gifts which he bestowed on man were given to this end. He gave him a soul, made in his likeness, and endowed with memory, intellect and will; he gave him a body equipped with the senses; it was for him that he created heaven and earth and such an abundance of things. He made all these things out of love for man, so that all creation might serve man, and man in turn might love God out of gratitude for so many gifts.
But he did not wish to give us only beautiful creatures; the truth is that to win for himself our love, he went so far as to bestow upon us the fullness of himself. The eternal Father went so far as to give us his only Son. When he saw that we were all dead through sin and deprived of his grace, what did he do? Compelled, as the Apostle says, by the superabundance of his love for us, he sent his beloved Son to make reparation for us and to call us back to a sinless life.
By giving us his Son, whom he did not spare precisely so that he might spare us, he bestowed on us at once every good: grace, love and heaven; for all these goods are certainly inferior to the Son: He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for all of us: how could he fail to give us along with his Son all good things?
The reflection of Trappist Father Dominic (Spencer Abbey) is the best I can do today for Saint Peter Chrysologus (380-450), bishop of Ravenna, and Doctor of the Church. One Chrysologus’ famous lines that gets retold, “Anyone who wishes to frolic with the devil cannot rejoice with Christ.”
Father Dominic preached:
Saint Peter Chrysologus, whom we honor today, puts the following words on the lips of the Risen Lord Jesus, who still bears his wounds as he appears to his disciples:
In me, I want you to see your own body, your members, your heart, your bones, your blood. You may fear what is divine, but why not love what is human? You may run away from me as the Lord, but why not run to me as your father? Perhaps you are filled with shame for causing my bitter passion. Do not be afraid. This cross inflicts a mortal injury, not on me, but on death. These nails no longer pain me, but only deepen your love for me. I do not cry out because of these wounds, but through them I draw you into my heart. My body was stretched on the cross as a symbol, not of how much I suffered, but of my all-embracing love. I count it no loss to shed my blood: it is the price I have paid for your ransom. Come, then, return to me and learn to know me as you father, who repays good for evil, love for injury, and boundless charity for piercing wounds.
Indeed we are called to recognize our own humanity in both the Crucified and Risen Lord. In the incarnation Jesus reflects back to us, actually reveals to us, our own humanity. St. Leo the Great will add in a Lenten homily: “Is there anyone whose own weakness is not recognizable in Christ’s?” And he assures us: “The body that lay lifeless in the tomb, that rose again on the third day, and that ascended above the heavens to the Father’s right hand, belongs to us.”
The Church universal celebrates the liturgical memorial of Saint Martha today. However, for those who live the Benedictine charism, the ordo (notes for Mass and the Divine Office) is much more expansive by observing the feast of Saints Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Even though these holy siblings predate Benedict and his blessed Rule, they are easily considered Benedictines.
The reason being is that Benedictines see all three siblings as Christian examples of interpersonal friendship and mutual obedience, hospitality (openness) and friendship with the Lord. But there is a deeper meaning in keeping the holy siblings together in the liturgical act. Each of the protagonists represent a fullness of the Christian life: penitence, service and contemplation (awareness). You could easily include confession of faith as when Martha declares her belief in Jesus’ radically claim of resurrection.
As Brother Emmanuel, a newly ordained Deacon at St Joseph’s Abbey (Spencer said),
Our Father, Saint Bernard, compares the monastic community to a family, like the one Jesus visited at Bethany. In the monastic community we find Lazarus, the penitent; Martha, the active servant and Mary, the contemplative. All three are necessary to make the monastery what it ought to be. For Saint Bernard true monastic perfection consists in ‘the union of all three vocations: that of the penitent, the active worker and the contemplative.’ (Sermon for the Assumption) Thomas Merton agreed that while the contemplative life was to be preferred to the active life, the ‘most perfect souls’ would combine the vocations of Lazarus, Martha and Mary.
Benedictine monks, nuns, sisters and oblates are known for offering hospitality to pilgrims. In the Rule of Saint Benedict, Chapter 53 on The Reception of Guests, we read: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for him himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matthew 25-35).” You could easily include, You must honor everyone (1 Peter 2:17). This chapter is a manner of being, a path of meeting the Lord through a relationality with the person in front of us. Hence, hospitality is way of living communio, as way of engaging in friendship, as way of extending and receiving invitation to be a better person, as way to walk a journey with the other given to us to care for.
So, the feast of Saints Mary, Martha and Lazarus is a feast of friendship and hospitality. We are friends with Christ he first called us His friends, and friends open us to Him.
We need Saints Mary, Martha and Lazarus to show us how to live. They open show us to be Christians. Mary, Martha and Lazarus show us how to be a new Benedict and Scholastica.