Well, they got St. Patrick in there. But they forgot to give a shout out to Tom Lehrer (look him up). I guess there’s a problem with the fully formed conscience, but we can work on that.
Category: Saints
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Ss. Joachim and Anne, Parents of Mary
Today's readings: Sirach 44:1, 44:10-15, Psalm 132:11-18, Matthew 13:16-17
“Now I will praise those godly men and women,
our ancestors, each in their own time.”We don’t know much, well anything really, about Joachim and Anne. Even in the Gospels where the ancestry of Jesus is traced, nothing is really said about Mary’s family, so we don’t have names that tell us anything about who Mary’s parents were. Their names themselves are really sourced by legend written more than a century after Jesus died.
The Church has always inferred that Joachim and Anne were heroic people, having given birth to a woman of great faith. Mary perhaps had learned her great reverence for God from them, perhaps had learned to trust in God’s plan from them. She knew the law and was a woman of prayer, and we can only surmise that had to come from her parents who had brought her up to love God and his commandments.
This feast helps me remember my own grandparents, whose faith and love are a part of me today. Their humor, their reverence for God, their love for people, all of that has become a part of who I am today. Maybe you too can remember some of the graces that have come from your own ancestors in faith. And for all these great people, along with Ss. Joachim and Anne, we give thanks today. As Sirach tells us today, “At gatherings their wisdom is retold, and the assembly proclaims their praise.”
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Feast of St. James, Apostle
“Can you drink the chalice of which I am going to drink?”
What does that even mean for us? We know what Jesus’ chalice was like: it led him through sorrow, and abandonment, and ultimately to the cross. If we have ever been in a situation in which we have felt intense grief, or felt abandoned, or had to stand by and watch the death of one that we loved, well then, we know a little bit of what that chalice is going to taste like.
Being a disciple is messy business. It means that it’s not all the glory, pomp and circumstance. It means that our faith sometimes has to move from the mountaintop experiences down into the valleys of despair. It means that there are times when we will be in situations that are frustrating, infuriating, debilitating, grievous and horrible. We will have to drink a very bitter chalice indeed. And Jesus wasn’t just talking to John and James when he said “My chalice you will indeed drink.” That’s the cup reserved for all of us who would be his disciples.
Very clearly those words of St. Paul ring true for us:
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being given up to death
for the sake of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.But what is unspoken here but clearly implied is the grace. Those who abandon their lives to take up the cross, wherever that leads them, will always have at their disposal the grace to live a life that is joyful in the face of affliction, confident in the midst of uncertainty, whole in the midst of destruction. There is nothing that the world or its evils can throw at us that cannot be ultimately overcome by the grace of God. We will still have to live through sadness at times, but that sadness can never and must never overtake the joy we have in Christ.
Like St. James and his brother John, we are all called to drink from the chalice which Jesus drank. That means that we will always bear the dying of Jesus in our own bodies. We can't explain why bad things happen to good people, but we can explain how good people handle bad situations well: they handle it well because they know Christ and live in Christ every day of their lives. Sometimes the chalice we will have to drink will be unpleasant, distasteful and full of sorrow. But with God's grace, our drinking of those cups can be a sacrament of the presence of God in the world.
Everyone who is great among us must be a servant, and whoever wishes to be first among us must be our slave. St. James knew how to do that and still thrive in his mission. May we all be that same kind of sacrament for the world.
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St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
[display_podcast]St. Bonaventure is known for his theological writings with regard to holiness. He was chosen to be minister general of the Franciscan Order in 1257, and devoted himself to bringing the Order to a closer living of the principles of St. Francis. This was especially important to him, since he was cured of a serious illness as a child through the prayers of St. Francis himself. He is known for his writings, which are very close to a kind of mysticism, even though St. Bonaventure was a very active preacher and teacher, and not a strict contemplative as you’d expect a mystic to be.
The thought that mysticism and active work in the world can co-exist is especially important. Just because we are busy doesn’t mean we don’t make time to pray. That was what tripped up the Israelites who thought they were too busy defending themselves that they couldn’t rely on the Lord. Isaiah prophesied differently. And that was the thought that tripped up the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida. They had seen the mighty works of Jesus, but they just couldn’t get past the surface and see how Jesus’ Gospel could relate to their life.
When we get there, that’s a red flag that something has gone wrong. When we find that we have gotten so caught up in the busy-ness of our lives that we’ve lost sight of Jesus, then we know that we have some repairs to make on our life of faith. Because the true witness of a person of faith is that he or she does work in the world that testifies to the richness of their prayer. “Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm,” Isaiah tells us today. So if we find ourselves a little infirm in our living today, we know that we need to turn to our prayer to make things right.
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Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin
[display_podcast]Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 to a Christian Algonquin woman. Her parents died in a smallpox epidemic – which left Kateri herself disfigured and half blind – when she was just four years old. She went to live with her uncle who succeeded her own father as chief of the clan. Her uncle hated the missionaries who, because of the Mohawks’ treaty with France, were required to be present in the region. Kateri, however, was moved by their words. She refused to marry a Mohawk brave, and at age 19, was baptized on Easter Sunday.
Her baptism meant that she would be treated forever as a slave. Since she refused to work on Sundays, she was not given anything to eat on those days. She eventually took a 200 mile walking journey to the area of Montreal, and there grew in holiness under the direction of some Christian women in the area. At age 23, she took a vow of virginity.
Kateri’s life was one of extreme penance and fasting. This she took upon herself as a penance for the eventual conversion of her nation. Kateri said: “I am not my own; I have given myself to Jesus. He must be my only love. The state of helpless poverty that may befall me if I do not marry does not frighten me. All I need is a little food and a few pieces of clothing. With the work of my hands I shall always earn what is necessary and what is left over I’ll give to my relatives and to the poor. If I should become sick and unable to work, then I shall be like the Lord on the cross. He will have mercy on me and help me, I am sure.”
Kateri certainly knew what Jesus meant when he said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” She was able to put all of her life behind her, so that she could embrace the cross of Christ. She took very seriously the kind of “white martyrdom” – bloodless sacrifice of one’s life for Christ – that Jesus calls us to today. She may even have heard her Savior say to her, “Whoever finds her life will lose it, and whoever loses her life for my sake will find it.”
Our call to personal holiness might not be as radical as Kateri’s was. But we are called to embrace the cross and follow Christ wherever he leads us, and we may well be called upon to sacrifice whatever is comfortable in our lives to do it. If we focus on that, we can take comfort in the Psalmist’s words today: “ the one that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me; and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.”
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St. Thomas the Apostle
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You know, sometimes I think we don’t know what we believe until we’re called upon to explain it. Especially for those of us who are “cradle Catholics” – the ones who were baptized Catholic and have grown up in the faith all our lives. We just accept the things the Church teaches, and never really stop to question them. And that’s okay, but it’s also okay when we’re called upon to explain our beliefs, if we have to do a little research. Because there’s always more to learn, and there is always more believing to be done!“Do not be unbelieving, but believe” is what Jesus tells St. Thomas today. He might as well say that to all of us. Because we should never stop exploring our beliefs, never stop learning about our faith. We’ll never know it all anyway – at least not on this side of heaven. On that great day when everything is revealed, things will be different, but until then, we have to renew that call to “not be unbelieving, but believe!”
I had a couple preparing for marriage in my office the other day. The bride is not Catholic, but they are preparing to have their wedding here at St. Raphael, so they have of course been going through our marriage preparation program. He remarked when we met the other day that “this might sound bad, but I’ve been learning more about the faith in explaining it to her.” I told him that didn’t sound bad at all, and that moments like that are an opportunity for us to grow in faith. So many spouses of people going through RCIA have said the same thing: they learn as much as their non-Catholic spouse when the attend RCIA with them. Learning about our faith is a life-long, joy-filled process. Do not be unbelieving, but believe!
And so we are going to give poor Thomas the doubter a break today. Because we all need to grow in our faith. And what a wonderful invitation we have from our Lord: “Do not be unbelieving, but believe!”
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The Birth of St. John the Baptist
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“What, then. will this child be?” That question from today’s Gospel is certainly key for the celebration of the birth of St. John the Baptist, but definitely also appropriate for all of us too. At the birth of John the Baptist, the Incarnation was starting to get noticeable. God’s plan had already been worked out with Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and Zechariah. But now their relatives and neighbors were starting to see things happen. Unusual things. Like the birth of a boy to a couple way too old to be starting a family. Naming him something that no one in their families had been called. It’s no wonder that people were starting to notice the mystery and asked “what, then, will this child be?”And that’s a question that’s important for all of us. Every time a new child is born, we might wonder what their life and their world will be like. This Sunday, I baptized seven children and I couldn’t help but wonder where life would take them. What, then, will they be? Because we all have a purpose. Just as John the Baptist was called from his mother’s womb to be the forerunner of Christ, so we all have a call – very much from our mother’s womb – something God has always intended for us to do. It is, of course, the great project of our lives to work that out. And we must pray daily for the discernment necessary for us to know God’s will so that we would be what God intended. That’s the only way we can be really happy, I’m convinced of it.
We are all, as the Psalmist says, wonderfully made. We are all called to live a prophetic life that gives witness to Jesus Christ, just as his cousin John the Baptist did in his life. When we finally embrace God’s will for us, that’s the only time we can be truly free. Just as finally accepting God’s plan and naming the child according to God’s plan freed Zechariah’s tongue. God’s will in our lives is never constrictive: it is freeing, and when we freely choose to follow, we can never be anything but happy.
This wonderful feast of John’s birth is really a tradition. Just like we don’t know the exact day of Jesus’ birth, John’s is not known either. There were no birth certificates back then! St. Augustine was the one who taught that this should be the date of John’s birth – six months before Jesus was born. And he was born near the summer solstice, at the point where days start getting shorter, while Jesus was born at the winter solstice, at the point where days start getting longer. This mimics John the Baptist’s statement in John’s Gospel that “He (meaning Jesus) must increase, and I (meaning John the Baptist) must decrease.
What, then, will we be? Where will God’s will take us? God knows. So we just pray for the grace to receive it, so that we can be really, truly free. Because when we decrease so that Jesus can increase, great things can and will happen.
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St. Anthony of Padua
Today's readings | Today's saint
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You know, it’s a bit of a happy coincidence that we have today’s first reading on this feast of St. Anthony of Padua. St. Anthony, of course, is best known for his intercession on behalf of all of us who are forgetful and lose track of things from time to time, or, if you’re like me, even all the time! But it is today’s first reading that really highlights the lost and found-ness that Anthony wants to help us with.St. Anthony himself was one who longed to seek after God. He became an Augustinian as a young man. Later, seeing the bodies of Franciscan martyrs brought back to his city, he became a Franciscan in order to be closer to God. He wanted to be sent out on mission to preach to the Moors, but an illness prevented his doing that. Instead, God had plans for Anthony to become a great man of learning, study, prayer and preaching. Throughout his life, Anthony often found himself at the precipice of something new and adventurous. God always had plans for Anthony’s life, and often, they were different from what Anthony expected. But he was always willing to follow.
One could see him in that cave with Elijah, finding God not in the heavy wind, or the fire, or even in the earthquake. But knowing that the still, small voice, that tiny whispering sound, was undoubtedly the Lord doing a God-thing in his life.
Maybe we find ourselves today having lost track of our relationship with God in some way. Maybe our prayer isn’t as fervent as it once was. Or maybe we have found ourselves wrapped up in our own problems and unable to see God at work in us. Maybe our life is in disarray and we’re not sure how God is leading us. If we find ourselves in those kinds of situations today, we might do well to call on the intercession of St. Anthony. Finder of lost objects, maybe. But finder of the way to Christ for sure.
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St. Boniface, bishop and doctor
Today's readings | Today's saint
[display_podcast]Be eager to present yourself as acceptable to God,
a workman who causes no disgrace,
imparting the word of truth without deviation.St. Paul encourages his friend Timothy today to remain faithful to God and the Gospel and to be a tireless worker for the Truth. Those qualities make this reading such an appropriate one for the feast of St. Boniface, bishop and martyr.
Boniface was a Benedictine monk in England. He gave up the real possibility of being elected abbot of his community in order to reach out to the German people. Pope Gregory II sent Boniface to a Germany where paganism was a way of life, and where the clergy were at best uneducated and at worst corrupt and disobedient. Reporting all of this back to Pope Gregory, the Holy Father commissioned him to reform the German Church. He was provided with letters of introduction to civil and religious authorities, but even so met with some resistance and interference by both lay people and clergy. Yet, he was extremely successful, centering his reforms around teaching the virtue of obedience to the clergy and establishing houses of prayer similar to Benedictine monasteries. Boniface and 53 companions were finally martyred during a mission, in which he was preparing converts for Confirmation.
What guided Boniface, what guided Paul and Timothy, was the words of today’s Gospel reading, those words which tell us the greatest of the commandments:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
And:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.When we love as we are loved, we cannot help but remain close to God and be vessels of grace to others and of life to the Church. Boniface, Paul and Timothy were men who loved this deeply. We are called to love that way too, today and every day, for the honor and glory of God.
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Feast of Ss. Philip and James, Apostles
Today's readings | Today's saints [display_podcast]
Today is the feast of St. Philip and the man we call “St. James the Lesser” because he is not the St. James that we know as a relative of Jesus and the traditional author of the book of James. Unfortunately, all that we know about this St. James is that Jesus chose him as an apostle. St. Philip we know a bit more about. We hear of him in the Gospel story of the feeding of the multitudes because he is the one who tells Jesus “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” In today’s Gospel we see him again as an apostle who is slow to believe. “Show us the Father,” he says, “and that will be enough for us.”
So this, I think, is the feast for all of us disciples who don’t put ourselves in the limelight. Maybe we’re slow to believe, or aren’t really sure how to accomplish the mighty deeds God requires of us. Maybe we’re pretty unknown in discipleship circles. And maybe that’s good enough for us. Today’s feast says that’s okay. It says that we will become great believers in God’s time, led by our Savior. It says that we might need a little convincing that we can do the work God asks us to do, but that filled with the Holy Spirit, all things can be accomplished. It says that we don’t have to be on the front page of the book to live our faith with conviction.
Today is the feast of apostles who are called to make God’s love known despite their imperfections or apparent lack of ability. It is a feast for all of us who know that we are called by God and led by the Spirit to do great things in Christ. To Philip and James and all the rest of the Apostles, Jesus said then, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.” Jesus says that to us today, too, all of us disciples who are slow to believe and understand. “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do.”
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