Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Saints

  • Saint John of the Cross, Priest

    Saint John of the Cross, Priest

    A long time ago now, someone once gave my family an ornament for our Christmas tree. It was very curious: basically just a large nail hung from a green ribbon. You probably already know the significance of the nail: when looking at the manger, we remember the cross. When gazing on the Christmas tree, we remember the tree from which our Savior hung. The nail was a reminder that Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter are all part of the same mystery.

    Saint John of the Cross is a good reminder of this truth. Born in Spain, he eventually became a Carmelite. He came to know a Carmelite nun by the name of Teresa of Avila, and through her urging, joined her in a reform of the Carmelite order. His great writings helped to accomplish this and are noted as spiritual masterpieces, and helped him to be recognized as a Doctor of the Church. But not everyone, of course, agreed with the reform of the order, and he paid the price for it by being imprisoned. In some ways, Saint John of the Cross reminds me more of Lent than Advent. But then, so does that nail ornament.

    Even as we wrap ourselves in the hope and promise of Advent, we have to pause and remind ourselves of what the promise is all about. Jesus came to pay the very real price for our many sins.

    Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

  • Saint Lucy, Virgin Martyr

    Saint Lucy, Virgin Martyr

    In every age, the task of maintaining one’s purity is a challenge. Some ignore the task, but some take it up at great personal cost. This was true of Saint Lucy, who desired to remain pure because of her commitment to Christ. She was born of noble parents in Sicily around the year 283. Her father died early in her life, and so she was dependent on her mother. She consecrated her virginity to God and sought to renounce worldly possessions in favor of caring for the poor. Her mother, after suffering from a hemorrhage for several years, decided to make a pilgrimage to Catania, to see the relics of St. Agatha. She was indeed cured of her disease, and in her joy consented to Lucy’s desire to preserve her virginity and give greatly to the poor.

    But that generosity, probably mixed with frustration over her commitment to virginity before marriage, was viewed with great skepticism by her unworthy suitor, who denounced her as a Christian to the Governor of Sicily. She was condemned to a life of prostitution, but prayer rendered her immovable and she could not be dragged off to the house of ill repute! At that point, logs were piled around her and a fire was set, which had no effect on her at all. She was finally put to death with a sword and suffered martyrdom for her dedication to Christ.

    As one of the prominent figures of Advent, St. Lucy points the way to the coming Christ. The details of her story have been disputed, however the point of the story is not to provide a historical record, but rather a spiritual record and a witness to Jesus. Her commitment to Christ provided a rich and unobstructed pathway for the entrance of her Lord into her heart.

    We too have challenges along the way to holiness. We might not be called to give our lives rather than forsake our virginity or even our belief in Christ, but we are called to lay down our lives to cover the rough places in the road so that others can come to find Him. Along the way, we are encouraged by great saints like Agatha and Lucy. Every single one of them points us in the right direction: to Christ our God who comes to be incarnate among us in every age.

  • Saint Nicholas, Bishop

    Saint Nicholas, Bishop

    Did you all put your shoes out for Saint Nicholas last night? I did, but all I got was a note. It said, “You’re too old to get gifts in your shoes, and besides, they’re smelly!” I thought that was a little rude, but then there was a box next to the shoes with a note that said, “Give these to the students at Mass this morning.” The box had candy canes in it, and I’ll bless those after the homily and give them out as you head back to school after Mass today. I’ll say more about the candy canes in a bit.

    Now, the general rule of thumb is that the saints are always supposed to point us to God. That’s why they are saints. In the midst of all life’s difficulties, the saints have been faithful to God and have shown the way to love him more. The stories of the saints aren’t always very factual, and we cannot rely on them for actual historical records. That’s not their purpose. The stories of the saints are designed to illuminate the saints’ lives in a colorful way and to get us thinking about strengthening our relationship with God. The stories of the saints are called hagiography, so that’s a thing you learned today!

    That brings us to the stories about Saint Nicholas. He died probably around the year 350 or so, so we don’t really know a lot about him. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stories! One of the best known is that St. Nicholas came from a very well-to-do family. He became aware of a family in his village that had three daughters who were close to marrying age. The father was very poor and could not provide a dowry for his daughters, so that meant in that time, they would generally have to resort to being used more or less as slaves. St. Nicholas had no intention of letting that happen.

    So one night, he walked by the man’s house and tossed a bunch of gold coins wrapped up in a cloth through the window. The man rejoiced the next morning on finding it, and so he gave thanks to God. He was able to provide a dowry for his oldest daughter. A while later, the second daughter was to be married, and St. Nicholas repeated the same action. The man again woke up to find the gold, and what did he do? He gave thanks to God! And then he was able to provide for his second daughter’s dowry. A short time after that, St. Nicholas did the same so that the youngest daughter could have a dowry, and this time the man woke up when he heard the gold hit the floor in his house. So he ran out the door and began to follow Nicholas, and eventually realized who it was he was following. He knelt down and wanted to kiss the saint’s feet, but Nicholas would not let him, and made him promise not to tell of it as long as he lived.

    And so this was the story that led to the giving of gifts on St. Nicholas’s feast day. And it’s just a little twist of the tongue in English that turned St. Nicholas into Santa Claus. I think the celebration of St. Nicholas shines an interesting light on our gift giving. St. Nicholas did not want to be known for his generosity. He wanted to keep it quiet and was content to have the man give the glory and praise to God for the generous gift. How willing are we to do the same? The giving of gifts is not bad or good; it is the intent of the giver and the heart of the receiver that really matters. When we wrap up our gifts in these Advent days, and when we unwrap them on Christmas, I wonder if we can tuck some prayer in it somewhere. Maybe we can find a way to give glory to God among all the hectic-ness of our Christmas season.

    Now getting back to the candy canes. It’s traditional to receive candy canes on the feast of Saint Nicholas. And that’s because, just as the saints are supposed to point us to Jesus, so do the candy canes! First, there is the shape of them. Right side up, they look like a bishop’s staff, and Saint Nicholas was a bishop. It also looks like a shepherd’s staff, reminding us of the shepherds who heard the angels sing when Jesus was born. Upside-down, they look like the letter “J,” which stands for Jesus. They are made of hard candy, which reminds us that Jesus is our rock. They are sweet and taste of peppermint, which reminds us of the sweet presence of Jesus and the spices the wise men brought. The white stripes remind us that Jesus is sinless, and that we are all called to holiness. The red stripes remind us that Jesus bled and died for us, giving his life on the cross, so that we might live forever with him.

    So when you eat your candy canes, remember that they point us to Jesus, and give Jesus thanks for the many blessings he came to bring us. As we continue to prepare for his birth this Advent, let’s try every day to find a gift in our lives to be thankful for, whether it’s something big like having a warm home on these cold winter days, or something small like a smile from one of our friends. Remember, Jesus loves you more than anything, and that’s something to be grateful for every single day!

    Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

  • Saint Cecilia, Virgin Martyr

    Saint Cecilia, Virgin Martyr

    For those of you who are musicians, whether you play an instrument or sing, this is your feast day. Today we celebrate Saint Cecilia, a virgin and martyr of the early church who is the patron saint of musicians.

    Saint Cecilia was a force for good among those who knew her. She worked hard to convert as many as she could to the faith, and before her death, is said to have converted at least four hundred people. She was born to a rich family, and promised in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She prayed, fasted, and wore sackcloth, beseeching the saints and angels to guard her virginity.

    During her wedding ceremony, she was said to have sung in her heart to God, which, of course, is why she became the patroness of musicians. Before the consummation of the marriage, she informed Valerian of her vow of virginity and that she had an angel protecting her. He wanted to see the angel as proof. She said he would see the angel after he was baptized, which he was by Pope Urbanus. Returning, he found the angel at her side. Valerian’s brother Tibertius heard of the angel and his brother’s baptism, and he asked to be baptized too.

    After their baptisms, Cecila went about preaching and calling people to baptism, and Valerian and Tibertius would each day bury the saints who were murdered by the prefect of the city. Eventually Valerian and Tibertius were arrested and executed by the prefect after they refused to make sacrifice to pagan gods. Eventually Cecilia was arrested and condemned, although it took three attempts to put her to death.

    Saint Cecilia’s life and death put the obligation of evangelization on the front burner. If she could evangelize four hundred people at the eventual cost of her own life, can we witness to the faith with our life, and invite people to come to know Jesus by reflecting him in what we say and do? Saint Cecilia may be the patroness of musicians, but I think she can be said to be the patroness of evangelization as well.

    Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

  • The Solemnity of All Saints

    The Solemnity of All Saints

    Today’s readings

    I think we all bristle, unfortunately and mistakenly, at the idea of being a saint. Saints are those super-holy folks who are depicted in artwork and glorified in amazing stories. We are just ordinary people who struggle with our holiness, at best. But today, the Church is asking us to think about saints in a broader way. Yes, we include all those “official” saints that have been canonized through the ages. The Church rejoices in the saints because when someone becomes a saint, the Church recognizes that he or she is definitely in heaven, the goal of all our lives. That’s what the process of canonization is all about. And bringing people to heaven is the whole point of the Church. So, from the many saints of every time and place, we know of thousands of people that are certainly in heaven. This illustrates that God’s will is done, doesn’t it?

    But, as I said, I think the Church wants us to think about saints in a broader way. There is the story of a schoolteacher who asked her children what a saint was. One little girl thought about the saints she saw in stained glass windows, and said “Saints are people the light shines through.” Think about that for a minute – that little girl isn’t far from the kingdom of God there. Because all people are called to let the light of Christ shine through them, and saints are those people who have made that the business of their lives.

    Heaven is that great multitude that John the Revelator tells us about in today’s first reading: that multitude “which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” They are wearing, he tells us, white robes, which have been washed in the blood of the lamb. That seems very counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? Everyone knows that blood stains like nobody’s business. But he’s speaking poetically here, and recognizes that nothing washes us sinners quite as clean as the saving blood of Jesus Christ.

    And that’s really the only way. Because we’re quite right when we bristle a bit at being called saints. We can’t be saints all on our own. We aren’t good enough, we can’t make up for our sins with any kind of completeness, and there’s basically no way that we can jump high enough to get to heaven. But this feast of All Saints recognizes that we don’t have to. We don’t have to because Christ has saved us through no merit of our own but based solely on God’s love for us. The fact that we can be called saints is a grace, and we dare not bristle so much that we turn away from that grace.

    It may help to know that most, if not all, of the saints struggled with holiness too. Think about Saint Paul himself: he began his career by persecuting Christians and we know that he had a hand in the stoning of Saint Stephen. Or think about Saint Augustine who was an intellectual man who disdained Christianity, until his mother’s prayers caught up with him. Or we might think even more recently of Saint Teresa of Calcutta who experienced a very dark time in her life when she could not even communicate with Jesus. But Jesus was still there and led her to heaven.

    We are all of us on a journey, and we know that our true home is not in this place, however good it may be. We are on a journey to heaven, and that means that we are in the process of becoming saints. That journey consists in following the Way who is Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Redeemer. He has commanded, “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” and there is no way to do that except to follow him.

    So, no, of course, not all of us will be canonized. Most of us will go to the Kingdom rather imperfect in many ways, and will have to work that out in the grace of Purgatory. But if we look to those canonized saints for inspiration, perhaps our relationship with the Lord will lead us and our brothers and sisters to that place where all the saints worship around the Throne of the Lamb.

    Today we, the Church militant, honor the Church triumphant: not only the great saints like Mary and Joseph, Patrick and Benedict, Michael and Gabriel, Francis and Dominic, but also those saints that God alone has known. We glory in their triumph that was made possible by them joining themselves to Christ. We take inspiration from their battles and from the faith that helped keep them in Christ when they could have turned away. If God could do that in their lives, he can certainly do that in ours too. Perhaps, if we are willing to accept it, he can fill us with saintly attributes: strength in weakness, compassion in the face of need, witness to faith in times when society lacks direction, and so much more.

    Those virtues are virtues that we think about when we call to mind those official, canonized saints. But they are virtues for which we can and should strive as well. The desire and the grace to attain those virtues comes from God himself, and the reward for receiving that grace and living those virtues is a heavenly relationship with God. What could be better than that?

    This is a lot of work, it may well go unrewarded this side of the Kingdom of God, and it’s not easy to live a saintly life, but Jesus makes a promise today to those who strive to do so: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven!”

  • Saint John Paul II, Pope

    Saint John Paul II, Pope

    Today, we celebrate the feast of Pope Saint John Paul II, who was born in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland.  After his ordination to the priesthood and theological studies in Rome, he returned to his homeland and resumed various pastoral and academic tasks.  He was ordained an auxiliary bishop and, in 1964, became Archbishop of Kraków and took part in the Second Vatican Council.  On October 16, 1978, he was elected pope and took the name John Paul II, honoring his two predecessors, Pope Saint John XXIII, and Blessed Pope Paul VI.  His exceptional apostolic zeal, particularly for families, young people, and the sick, led him to numerous pastoral visits throughout the world.  Among the many fruits which he has left as a heritage to the Church are above all his rich theological teaching and the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church and for the Eastern Churches. 

    In Rome on April 2, 2005, the eve of the Second Sunday of Easter (or of Divine Mercy, a feast to which he had particular devotion), he departed peacefully in the Lord. He was canonized by Pope Francis on that same feast in 2014, and was canonized in 2018, also by Pope Francis. Normally a saint’s feast day falls on the day of his or her death, but because that date would often fall during holy week, and because the Church desired that his feast be celebrated with due solemnity each year, his feast is today, on the anniversary of the date of the Mass for his inauguration to the pontificate.

    Saint John Paul’s contributions to the Church and the world are profound: contributing to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and reinvigorating the Church through authentic teaching and his own personal charisma. We may remember that he often echoed the Scriptural teaching of “Do not be afraid,” and modeled the freedom of living one’s faith and witnessing without apology. May we all be reinvigorated as we celebrate his feast, and devote ourselves totally to Jesus, through Mary, as he did.

    Saint John Paul II, pray for us.

  • Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs/Make a Difference Day

    Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs/Make a Difference Day

    St. Isaac and St. John were among eight missionaries who worked among the Huron and Iroquois Indians in the New World in the seventeenth century. They were devoted to their work and were accomplishing many conversions. The conversions, though, were not welcomed by the tribes, and eventually St. Isaac was captured and imprisoned by the Iroquois for months. He was moved from village to village and was tortured and beaten all along the way. Eventually he was able to escape and return to France. But zeal for his mission compelled him to return, and to resume his work among the native peoples when a peace treaty was signed in 1646. His belief that the peace treaty would be observed turned out to be false hope, and he was captured by a Mohawk war party and beheaded.

    St. John worked among the Iroquois and ministered to them amid a smallpox epidemic. As a scholastic Jesuit, he was able to compose a catechism and write a dictionary in the Huron language, which made possible many conversions. He was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Iroquois.

    Anything worthwhile costs us something, and that’s especially true of our faith. If we are serious about it, if we love God and want to be caught up in his life, we’re going to have to pay for it in some way. Saints Isaac, John, and their companions make that clear. One of the biggest costs to us, I think, is our comfort zone. To really live the faith, we have to get out of that comfort and do what God wants of us. In the Gospel, Jesus was telling his disciples that they would have to give witness to him. And they understood that that would cost them something – perhaps cost them their lives.

    We disciples are also going to have to pay some price for living our faith. Probably not something as drastic as being tortured and beheaded, but something fairly costly for us. For us today, perhaps that cost is giving up a beautiful fall Saturday to clean brass in the church, make stress blankets for Linden Oaks or mats for the homeless from used plastic bags, or closing the parish garden at the Vianney House, or any of the myriad of projects we are planning today.

    Today, on our Make a Difference Day, we give strong witness to our faith in our work. As we come together to pack meals at Feed My Starving Children, spend time in adoration praying for our community, or clean up the grounds along Renwick Road, our presence and concern may be the way God is using us to get someone’s attention and see his presence in her or his life. Living our faith is always going to cost us something and that something is likely to be status or popularity, or at least the wondering glance from people who aren’t ready to accept the faith. But the volumes that we speak by living our faith anyway might just lay the groundwork for conversion and become a conduit of grace. We are told that we don’t have to hammer out all the words we want to say; that the Holy Spirit will give us eloquence that we can only dream of. And it’s true, if we trust God, if we live our faith when it’s popular or unpopular, we will have the Spirit and the words. God only knows what can be accomplished in those grace-filled moments! I pray that you see Christ everywhere as you witness today.

  • Saint Francis of Assisi, Religious

    Saint Francis of Assisi, Religious

    Today, we celebrate the memorial of one of the most beloved saints of all time, Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint Francis had a conversion that came when he was very young. He had contracted a serious illness, and spent a good deal of time in intense and difficult prayer. In that time of prayer, our Lord called Francis to renounce everything that people who live according to the flesh tend to desire, and to embrace everything that the world tended to shrink from. He did this by embracing a leper, and piled all of his earthly possessions – including the clothes he was wearing – before his father, who had demanded that he give restitution for the gifts he had given to the poor.

    Prayer before the cross in the crumbling church of San Damiano led Saint Francis to seek to reform the Church. Our Lord told him to “go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis saw that our Lord was not merely referring to that church, even though it was nearly in ruins. He saw the ruin of the Church as a whole at a difficult period of history and sought to build it back up by authentically preaching and living the Gospel.

    He didn’t seek to found a religious order, but it happened anyway. People were drawn to the way that he lived the faith, and so he wrote a rule of life for his followers which began as a collection of texts from the Gospels. When he was pressed to form the Franciscan order, he did it willingly and did everything he needed to do to create the legal structure the Church required.

    During the last years of his life, Saint Francis received the stigmata. During his last hours, he received permission to have his clothing removed so that he could die naked on the earth, as Our Lord died. On his deathbed, he prayed the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our sister death.”

    Saint Francis is well-known for the Canticle of the Sun, and his famous prayer. But he is also credited with composing one of my favorite hymns, “All Creatures of our God and King.” His devotion to the Church, to the gospel, to the creatures of the earth, and most especially to our Lord inspires people even today. And his dedication to rebuilding the Church is one that our current pope took on when he chose his papal name. Through the intercession of Saint Francis, may we all find true joy in following our Lord and his call in all things.

  • Saint Thérèse of Liseaux, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

    Saint Thérèse of Liseaux, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

    Today, we celebrate the memorial of Saint Thérèse of Liseaux, the Little Flower, who was one who sought to proclaim the Lord in every simple act of her life. Saint Thérèse had a child-like faith: child-like, that is, in her trusting obedience to God’s will, even in the smallest of matters. She truly believed that small acts of faith and love would work wondrous miracles for the Kingdom of God.

    Thérèse was a very sickly young lady. A childhood illness left her weak for the rest of her life, and during her last year on earth, she was dying of tuberculosis. She entered the convent at the age of fifteen, and when she died she was just twenty-four years old. Yet in that short span of time she wrote much about her faith and encouraged others to embrace a simplicity of life and a dedicated obedience to God’s will. Those writings have had a profound influence on the spiritual lives of so many of the faithful. In 1997, Pope Saint John Paul II named her a Doctor of the Church, one of just four women to have that special title.

    Saint Thérèse was not one who sought the limelight. She did not seek to make a name for herself or become anything other than what God wanted her to be. In her view, even the most menial tasks in the convent could be transformed into great acts of love. And her preference for hidden sacrifice did indeed convert souls. Saint Thérèse is one of the most beloved saints in the Church. Her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, is read and loved throughout the world.

    Saint Thérèse’s rule of life, doing little things with great love, is one that can be such a freeing experience for all of us. Today, maybe we can try to find even one small task that doesn’t seem very glorious and do it with love and cheerfulness just as Saint Thérèse would. Perhaps we too can find joy in the routine and menial parts of our day, doing them with great love for the glory of the Kingdom of God.

  • Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    Saint Jerome is something of an enigma. Though he was a scripture scholar, he wasn’t the epitome of the quiet, scholarly saint that one might imagine him to be. Perhaps unfortunately, he was known for his quick temper and sometimes mean-spirited pen. If they had email or social media in those days, he’d probably be the one to fire off a quick nasty-gram without even taking time to think about it.

    But we need to be extremely thankful for Saint Jerome as we open up the Scriptures today. Without his tireless efforts, our understanding of Sacred Scripture would be quite limited, I think. It was Saint Jerome who spent so much time translating the Scriptures from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, creating what is known as the Vulgate translation. This was the standard text of the Scriptures for a long time in the Church, and is still an important basis for today’s English-language and other translations. His commentaries on the Scriptures are important to us to this very day.

    Jerome was a preeminent scholar. He studied the Scriptures all the time and was an expert in Biblical languages including Hebrew, Greek, Chaldaic and of course Latin. He also spent a good deal of time in the Holy Land, walking the path of Christ, staying in the places where he stayed, even living for a time in the cave believed to have been Jesus’ birthplace. He wasn’t just a scholar studying the Scriptures from a theoretical viewpoint; he was instead devoted to the Scriptures, letting them wash over his life with love. He once said that “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” To know the Lord, we have to immerse ourselves in Scripture.

    For those of you who are students or alumni of our Biblical Institute or our Bible Studies, today is a Patronal feast day for you. Saint Jerome’s love of Scripture has made it possible for all of us to come to know Christ in a more intimate way through our own study and devotion to the Word of God. Saint Jerome, pray for us, and lead us back to the Scriptures with the same love and devotion you had.