Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Saints

  • All Saints & All Souls

    All Saints & All Souls

    Readings: All Saints | All Souls

    “Beloved, we are God’s children now;
    what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
    We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
    for we shall see him as he is.”

    “The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
    and no torment shall touch them.
    They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
    and their passing away was thought an affliction
    and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
    But they are in peace.”

    This weekend we celebrate two closely-related feasts: The Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, which we commonly call All Souls Day. I say they are closely-related feasts because they show the journey we are on to our salvation. We know that we are not at home in this world: our true citizenship is in heaven, and we are but travellers through this world, hoping to come at last to the Kingdom of Heaven. The people that we know for sure are in heaven are saints, and so it is our quest in this world to become saints. Our goal is to come to perfection and get caught up in the life of God, so that we can live forever with him one day.

    The Solemnity of All Saints celebrates all those men and women who have lived heroic lives and have attained the goal of perfection in holiness and complete unity with God. We know they are in heaven either because they died a martyr’s death, giving their lives for Christ and pouring out their blood just like he did, or we know of miracles that have been attributed to their intercession that occurred after their death, indicating they are with God in heaven. These saints may already be canonized saints, or perhaps they are people we don’t even know about who have attained that perfection. It is conceivable that we don’t know every saint, because ultimately God knows whether one has attained perfection or not. All Saints Day allows us to celebrate all those saints we don’t know about in addition to the ones we do know.

    The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, or All Souls Day, is an opportunity to pray for all those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, as well as those whose faith God alone knows. On this day, we especially pray for those who have not attained full perfection in this life, either because of venial sins or attachment to mortal sins, and we endeavor to help them through prayer and through the Sacrifice of the Mass. This is what Purgatory is about, and far from being a punishment, Purgatory is understood to be a gift through which a soul is cleansed through the sanctifying action of our Lord so that they can fully enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

    As I said, these feasts are closely related, and during their observance we as a church remember three ranks of saints. There are the saints associated with the Church Triumphant, and these would be the saints in heaven, those who have overcome the power of the evil one and have been perfectly united with God. There are the saints associated with the Church Suffering, those who are in purgatory and especially those who have no one to pray for them, for whom we pray that our Lord would give them the salvation and rest they long for. And there are the rest of us, the saints associated with the Church Militant, including you and me, who are doing our best to overcome evil in this world, and to unite ourselves with our God so that we may come to everlasting life.

    What we really celebrate in these days is the joy of salvation. God made us all for himself, and he wills that every single one of us would be saved. He will not rest until all of this is made right, and all have had a chance to enter into eternal life. This journey of salvation, the quest to become saints, is what our faith life is all about. The goal is not so much to “graduate” from faith formation by receiving all the sacraments. The goal is not to jump through hoops and check off the requirements of the Church. The goal is to become saints, because as far as we know, there are only saints in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Heaven is where we long to take our rest.

    This journey of salvation is wonderfully expressed in one of my favorite hymns, “For All the Saints.” Here is one of the verses:

    O blest communion, fellowship divine!
    We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
    Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
    Alleluia, Alleluia!

  • Saint Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr

    Saint Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr

    Today’s readings

    Franklin Roosevelt once said “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” We can be afraid of all sorts of things: of the dark, of strangers, of taking a risk, of all sorts of danger. And to a certain extent, fear is good. It keeps us from putting ourselves in harm’s way. But sometimes fear can keep us from taking normal risks that help us to become what we were meant to be. Maybe it keeps us from trying out for a team or a play or starting an activity at school that would have helped us. And at its worse, maybe it keeps us from forming a relationship with Jesus.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns us not to be afraid of the things of this world. “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” He tells the people to get it right, to be afraid of the devil; the evil one who can keep us from God for all eternity. But he also gives us consolation: we should not be afraid because God knows us intimately; he even knows how many hairs we have on our heads! We are worth everything to our God who made us and wants us to be close to him.

    Saint Ignatius of Antioch knew that, because he preached Christ and refused to worship pagan gods, that the Roman government was going to put him to death. He wrote to his parishioners and begged them not to try to pull strings to stop his death. He would rather die for Christ than live a lie. He ultimately was not afraid to die; he willingly gave up his life for Jesus, just like Jesus willingly gave up his life for all of us.

    In these days before Halloween, there are all sorts of spooky things that try to scare us. But we should not ever be afraid because our God knows us and loves us and won’t let anyone take us away from Him, if we do our part and choose to love him every day.

  • St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin

    St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin

    “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.” St. Margaret Mary spoke these as her dying words, while being anointed at the age of 43. Margaret was a simple woman and a Visitation nun. She worked as an assistant in the convent infirmary, but God had other plans for her. After being a nun for just three years, she began to receive revelations in which Christ called her to make his love for all humanity known. His human heart was to become the symbol for this divine and human love for all of us. He called her to frequent Holy Communion, especially on First Fridays, and to spend Thursday evenings in an hour’s meditation on the agony at Gethsemane. This devotion eventually spread to the entire Church under the name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

    I have two Margaret Marys in my own life: my sister and my grandmother on my father’s side. My grandmother was one who was a great model of faith for me. She and I would often sit together and talk about her childhood in Ireland, and all the problems of the world. She was one of my best friends until her death shortly after I graduated from college. She too had a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus – in fact, I remember seeing the painting of the Sacred Heart on the wall of her living room, prominently displayed, with last year’s palm from Palm Sunday tucked behind it. It’s a huge understatement to say that grandma’s love for Christ and the Church helped encourage my vocation throughout my life.

    We all have a place wrapped up in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and we have St. Margaret Mary to thank for bringing that devotion to the Church. Like St. Margaret Mary, we disciples are also called to make God’s love manifest in the world through his most Sacred Heart. With St. Margaret Mary, we need to say, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.

  • Saint Francis of Assisi

    Saint Francis of Assisi

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel reading, in which the seventy-two disciples return from their missionary journey announcing the good news and taking nothing with them for the journey, was one that today’s saint, Saint Francis of Assisi, took to heart. Francis’s life was devoted to poverty of spirit, serving the poor, and proclaiming the Gospel. Saint Francis sought to follow the Gospel as closely as he possibly could, making every effort to live as our Lord lived and even to die as he died.

    Saint Francis’s conversion 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 an 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 the song we began with this morning, “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.

  • The Holy Guardian Angels

    The Holy Guardian Angels

    Today’s readings: Exodus 23:20-23; Psalm 91; Matthew 18:1-5, Matthew 18:10

    “For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways.” These are incredibly comforting words that the Psalmist sings to us today. God never allows anything to overshadow us, never misses any event of our lives. Moreover, he commands the angels, his servants, to watch over and guard us in all our ways. Today we celebrate that the angels keep us safe and lead us ultimately to God himself.

    I love the feast of the Guardian Angels, because my Guardian Angel was probably the first devotion that I learned. I remember my mother teaching me the prayer. Say it with me if you know it:

    Angel of God,
    my guardian dear,
    To whom God’s love
    commits me here,
    Ever this day,
    be at my side,
    To watch and guard,
    To rule and guide.
    Amen.

    The impetus for today’s feast is summed up in the first line of the first reading. Hear it again:

    See, I am sending an angel before you,
    to guard you on the way
    and bring you to the place I have prepared.

    From the earliest days of the Church, there has always been the notion of an angel whose purpose was to guide people, to intercede for them before God, and to present them to God at death. This notion began to be really enunciated by the monastic tradition, with the help of St. Benedict, St. Bernard of Clairvaux and others. It is during this monastic period that devotion to the angels took its present form.

    Many of us have probably moved over on our seats to make room for our Guardian Angel. As amusing as that may be, the concept of an angel to guard and guide us is essential to our faith. The gift of the Guardian Angels is a manifestation of the love and mercy of God. Devotion to the Guardian Angels, then, is not just for children. We adults should feel free to call on our angels for intercession and guidance. We should continue to rely on that angel right up to death, when our angel will present us to God. We hear that very prayer in the Rite of Christian Burial:

    “May the angels lead you into paradise;
    may the martyrs come to welcome you
    and take you to the holy city,
    the new and eternal Jerusalem.”

    May the Guardian Angels always intercede for us. And, as we hear in today’s Gospel, may our angels always look upon the face of our heavenly Father.

    Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.

  • Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, bishops and martyrs

    Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, bishops and martyrs

    Today’s readings

    Saint Cornelius was ordained as the Bishop of Rome in 251. His major contribution was to defend the faith against the Novatian schismatics, a group who denied the readmission into the Church of those who had lapsed in the faith when they performed a ritual sacrifice to pagan gods, under the threat of death by the Roman Emperor. Cornelius argued that being coerced did not sufficiently demonstrate a denial of the faith, and those who fell into it should be readmitted after performing penance. Saint Cyprian was a brother bishop who helped him in this struggle. Both men were subsequently martyred for the faith. Cornelius died in exile in 253, and Cyprian was beheaded in 258.

    The focus of both men was to preserve church unity during a time when there was much oppression against the church. Cyprian wrote to Cornelius, “Dearest brother, bright and shining is the faith which the blessed Apostle (that is, St. Paul) praised in your community. He foresaw in the spirit the praise your courage deserves and the strength that could not be broken; he was heralding the future when he testified to your achievements; his praise of the fathers was a challenge to the sons. Your unity, your strength have become shining examples of these virtues to the rest of the brethren.”

    The unity of the Church is one of the four marks of the Church, along with holy, catholic and apostolic. So preserving our unity is one of our primary duties, even now. That’s a challenge to us in these days of so many people not really living their faith; being “spiritual but not religious,” whatever that means, and so many little splinter churches starting up. This was not how Christ intended it to be and it’s up to all of us to be open to the return of our brothers and sisters.

    So what will our own efforts at unity look like today?

  • Saint Peter Claver, Priest

    Saint Peter Claver, Priest

    Today’s readings

    Saint Peter Claver was ordained in 1615 in what is now Colombia. During that time, the slave trade was vigorous, and the port of Cartagena was a central entry point for African slaves. Ten thousand slaves would pour into Colombia through Cartagena every year under extremely foul conditions. Around a third of them would die in transit.

    Whenever a ship would enter the port, Peter Claver would swing into action. After the slaves were herded out of the ship, Claver plunged in among them with medicine, food, and other supplies. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God’s saving love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves.

    He ministered in the Colombian missions until his death, vowing to be “the slave of the blacks forever.” He died in 1654 and was given a public and pompous funeral by the city magistrates, even though they had previously expressed their displeasure for his ministry to the black outcasts. He was canonized in 1888 and Pope Leo XIII declared him to be the worldwide patron of missionaries to the black peoples.

    Just like Jesus in today’s Gospel reading, Saint Peter Claver sought to make God’s love present in miraculous ways, and brought healing to those who had been bought and sold. May we all be healers today.

  • Saint Pius X, Pope

    Saint Pius X, Pope

    Today’s readings

    St. Pius would have been a great organizer of the feast that our Gospel tells us about today. The whole point of the feast is that all are welcome, but some choose not to come, or don’t come worthily. Jesus was speaking pointedly to the Jewish rulers who should have had the place of honor at the banquet. But they all had excuses that kept them away. And so the banquet was made available to all the nations – Gentiles too! – if they would come properly attired, that is, if they would come worthily, with open hearts and longing minds.

    St. Pius X was born Joseph Sarto, the second of ten children in a poor Italian family. He became pope at the age of 68, and he too wanted to open the banquet for all those who would come worthily. He encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, which was observed sparingly in his day, and especially encouraged children to come to the banquet. During his reign, he famously ended, and subsequently refused to reinstate, state interference in canonical affairs. He had foreseen World War I, but because he died just a few weeks after the war began, he was unable to speak much about it. On his deathbed, however, he said, “This is the last affliction the Lord will visit on me. I would gladly give my life to save my poor children from this ghastly scourge.”

    “The feast is ready,” we are told in today’s Gospel. May we all take this occasion to receive the Eucharist worthily and often, reviving our devotion and love for the Eucharist every day. May we all be among those brought in for the feast, and found to be appropriately attired with pure hearts.

  • Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

    Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

    Today’s readings

    Maximilian Kolbe became a Franciscan novice at the age of 16. Earlier in life he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin offering him two crowns, a white one of purity, and a red one of martyrdom. Maximilian said “I choose both.” The Blessed Virgin smiled and departed from him. Maximilian devoted his life to purity through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. He founded the Mission of the Immaculata to combat religious indifference, which he saw as the greatest problem in society. By the time the Nazis overran Poland, the mission numbered as many as a million people.

    Maximilian was twice arrested by the Nazis and the second time taken to Auschwitz. One day a fellow prisoner escaped, and the commandant decided to put ten men to death, whom he chose by arbitrarily pointing men out as he walked among their ranks. Just after the tenth man was chosen, Maximilian stepped out of the ranks and asked to take the place of one man, who had a wife and children. The commandant asked “what about you?” to which Maximilian replied, “I am a priest.” Because the regime at the time was striving to eliminate all the leaders of the people, Maximilian’s request was granted, and he died in the starvation chamber some three months later.

    Saint Maximilian had a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so it is appropriate that we celebrate his feast on this day, the vigil of Mary’s Assumption.  Through the intercession of Saint Maximilian and our Blessed Mother, may we too combat religious indifference and give our lives in service to others.

  • Saint Clare, Virgin

    Saint Clare, Virgin

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate Saint Clare, who, having refused to marry at 15, was moved by the dynamic preaching of Saint Francis.  He became her lifelong friend and spiritual guide.

    So at age 18, she escaped one night from her father’s home, in order to flee the pressure to marry, and was met on the road by friars carrying torches.  They led her to a little chapel called the Portiuncula, where she received a rough woolen habit, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope with knots in it, and had her long hair cut by Saint Francis himself.  He placed her in a Benedictine convent, which her father and uncles immediately stormed in rage.  She clung to the altar of the church, threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair and remained adamant.

    Sixteen days later her sister Agnes joined her.  Over time, others joined them too.  They lived a simple life of great poverty, austerity and complete seclusion from the world, according to a Rule that Saint Francis gave them as a Second Order, which became known as the Poor Clares.  Francis obliged her under obedience at age 21 to accept the office of abbess, one she exercised until her death.

    The nuns went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat and observed almost complete silence.  Later Clare, like Francis, persuaded her sisters to moderate this rigor, saying: “Our bodies are not made of brass.”  The greatest emphasis, of course, was on gospel poverty.  They possessed no property, even in common, subsisting on daily contributions.  When even the pope tried to persuade her to mitigate this practice, she said to him: “I need to be absolved from my sins, but I do not wish to be absolved from the obligation of following Jesus Christ.”

    In the Convent of San Damiano in Assisi, Saint Clare served the sick, waited on table, and washed the feet of the begging nuns.  She came from prayer, it was said, with her face so shining it dazzled those about her, much like the vision of the glory of God to which Ezekiel was treated in today’s first reading.

    We are all called to the holiness of life that leads us to see God’s glory.  For Saint Clare, that meant breaking away from her family’s expectations of marriage so that she could be wed to Christ.  For us, there will also be some kind of sacrifice involved.  Through the intercession of Saint Clare, please God let us be willing to make the sacrifice so that we can see the glory of God.