Tag: St Robert Bellarmine

St Robert Bellarmine

The 17th century Jesuit, Saint Robert Bellarmine (+1642) is liturgically recalled today. He was a very competent theologian and who took on Protestant heresy. One aspect of Bellarmine’s teaching was his insistence on obedience to the Church and her teachings. These were days in which a Jesuit’s obedience was clear and decisive. You can say that Bellarmine was in medio ecclesiae—in the midst of the Church, right where Christ placed us. One’s obedience to the Church was in contradistinction to the Protestant method. The obedience Bellarmine advocated was not blind; he fostered study, scrutiny and understanding the Church’s “difficult teachings.” Study, scrutiny and understand keeps the head and body together: it’s impossible to sever Christ from the Church.

Robert Bellarmine: Jesuit, priest, bishop, cardinal, Doctor of the Church, pray for us.

Saint Robert Bellarmine

San Roberto Bellarmino.jpg

Today’s saint is special to me for many personal reasons, one of which is the fact that he gave himself to the Lord for his total and unreserved use. One can claim to like Bellarmine for his intellect, or the way he worked with controversial Catholic preachers and theologians and Protestants, or with Galileo, or his service to several popes, but what about his capacity to love the Lord and his neighbor, and what about his ability to know his limitations and his gifts, or his capacity to live the Beatitudes? 

Each time I am in Rome I make a path to St Ignatius’s Church where Bellarmine is buried in the third chapel on the right as you face the main altar, near to his dear friend, Saint Aloyius Gonzaga, to pray for several intentions, among them are: theologians, the pope, the Jesuits, +Avery Robert Dulles and of course, myself.


The Roman Martyrology (2005) has this entry for Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621): 

The feast of St. Robert Bellarmine, from the Society of Jesus, Doctor of the Church and bishop, who was outstanding at arguing the theological controversies of his day. He resigned his red hat, then gave himself wholeheartedly both to pastoral ministry in Capua, with great success, and took up very many challenges in defense of the doctrine of the faith at the Holy See in Rome.

Stigmata of our Holy Father Francis

The liturgical calendar can vary from country to country and the various religious orders may have their calendar of saints, e.g., the Benedictine, Carmelite, Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, etc. On the universal Roman calendar today is the optional memorial of Saint Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit, bishop, cardinal and Doctor of the Church (see the prayer in the entry below). On the Franciscan sanctoral calendar, today is this the feast of Saint Francis’ stigmata. And so I offer these Mass prayers for  prayer.

St Francis receiving the stigmata.jpg

May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14)
Almighty God, you renewed the marks of the sufferings of your Son in the body of our holy Father Francis in order to inflame our hearts with the fire of your love. Through his prayers may we be conformable to the death of your Son and thus share also in his resurrection.
Lord, may the humble and devout prayer of Saint Francis sustain us. Through this offering may we always experience within us the saving benefit of the sufferings of your Son. (Prayer over the Gifts)
Almighty God, in many ways you displayed the wondrous mystery of the cross in our holy Father Francis. May we follow the example of his devotion and find strength in constant meditation on the same cross. (Prayer after Communion)