Category: Saints

  • John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    Today’s readings | Today’s saint

    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. When glorying in the Incarnation, we remember the Paschal Mystery. Jesus was born into our world to die our death and take our sins with him. The nail was a reminder that Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter are all part of the same mystery.

    When I think about the great men and women of Advent, John of the Cross seems a bit out of place for me. 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 the other side of being a reformer is that he was also persecuted. Not everyone, of course, agreed with the reform of the order, and he paid the price in prison for it. St. John of the Cross reminds me so much more of Lent than Advent. But then, so does that nail ornament.

    Even today’s Gospel reading reminds us of the Cross:

    From the days of John the Baptist until now,
    the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence,
    and the violent are taking it by force.

    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 sins. Today we should reflect on John the Baptist, John of the Cross and that nail ornament on my parents’ Christmas tree. May we all be truly grateful for the birth of our Savior who died on our Cross.

  • The Immaculate Conception of Mary

    The Immaculate Conception of Mary

    [Mass for the school children.]

    Today’s readings | Today’s feast (more)

    Immaculate ConceptionI know that I could ask you all what holiday we are getting ready to celebrate and you’d all tell me… But what do we call the season of the Church year that we are in that helps us get ready for Christmas? That’s right, Advent. Advent is a time that reminds us that God’s promises to us will always be fulfilled.

    Advent is a time that we can see how dark our world is. Since it comes in winter, the days are “shorter:” there is less daylight and sunshine than we have in the summer. The days are also colder. This makes us think about how dark and cold our world can sometimes be. When we see war and crime and people hating one another on the news, the world looks darker. And even closer to home, when we hurt our family or friends or don’t act the way we should in school or in Church, our hearts can look darker and colder.

    But the Good News is that God has promised that none of this has to stay that way. God has also promised that we don’t have to worry about changing it all on our own, because well, we can’t. God has promised us a Savior: Jesus Christ, who would come to our world and lead us back to the warmth and light of God’s presence, where we were always supposed to be in the first place. During Advent, we are waiting for God’s promise of a Savior.

    And there’s still more Good News. During Advent, God gives us some special people to help us in our waiting. Those people remind us of God’s promises and direct us back to thinking about how much God loves us. One of those special people is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and today we celebrate her feast day.

    Today we remember that Mary was always special. In order to be the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, she would have to have been a very good person. Today we celebrate that God made her special even before she was born; God made her special all the way back to the very beginning. Because of that, she was chosen to be Jesus’ mother, the one who would give birth to him and raise him as a child.

    And we know how special Mary was as a mother. Even when she had no idea how she could become the Mother of God, she said, “I am the Lord’s servant! Let it happen as you have said.” She gave birth to Jesus in a very lonely place. She raised him and helped him to become a strong and wise man. She followed him as a disciple and stood by him, even when he was nailed to the cross and died for all of our sins. After he rose from the dead, she stayed with the first Christians and helped to spread the Word about her son. Finally, at the end of her life, Jesus took her up body and soul into heaven, because he would not let death touch someone who was so special to him.

    And the Good News doesn’t stop there. Because Mary was so special to God, she shows us how special we are to God. As we celebrate God’s love for Mary today, we can also celebrate his love for us. Mary got to hold her Savior – the One God always promised us – in her own arms. When those of us who are old enough come to Communion today, we will be able to hold our Savior – the one God always promised us – in the palm of our hand. Mary’s life was brightened when Jesus was born. Our lives will be brightened too, this Christmas time, and every time when we make room in our hearts for Jesus.

    Winter can be a dark and cold time, and we can see lots of darkness in our world and feel coldness in our hearts. But Advent always reminds us, with the help of special people like Mary, that God will always keep his promises. God promised Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus because by the power of God, she was special. God promised us a Savior and he sent us his only Son. God promises all of us that we too can be his special people, and he will fulfill that promise just like all the others.

    Today, we pray with Mary’s help, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

  • St. Ambrose

    St. Ambrose

    Today’s readings | Today’s Saint

    St. Ambrose was a man who heard well the words of today’s Gospel:

    Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
    will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.

    While he was still a catechumen, St. Ambrose was chosen as bishop of Milan and was consecrated on December 7, 374. Ambrose was a classically educated man, a revered Scripture Scholar and a solid preacher. It is his preaching that in some ways influenced St. Augustine to convert to Catholicism, and it was Ambrose who baptized Augustine.

    Ambrose was a man not just of great learning, but also great courage. He strongly defended the Church against attacks by the Arians, and also by the empire. Ambrose specifically admonished Emperor Theodosius for the massacre of 7,000 innocent people. The emperor did public penance for his crime.

    St. Ambrose’s sermons and his works tell us that he was a very educated man who was willing to roll up his sleeves and get involved in the issues of the day. He practiced what he preached and he was not shy about calling people to repentance. He was able to influence learned men such as Augustine, and won many converts to the Church.

    Indeed, St. Ambrose knew well that it was imperative to build one’s spiritual house on rock by hearing and acting on the words of Jesus. As Isaiah tells us today, those words are trustworthy, and have power to trample out the proud and arrogant. May all of our thoughts and actions this day and every day aim at building on that solid rock.

  • Saint Andrew Dung-Lac & companions

    Saint Andrew Dung-Lac & companions

    Today's saints | Today's readings

    St. Andrew Dung-Lac was a priest in Vietnam in the early nineteenth century. He and his 116 companions, including Spanish Dominicans, members of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, and 96 Vietnamese, including 37 priests – of which Andrew Dung-Lac was one – were all martyred around the year 1839. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 Catholics were martyred in Vietnam during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

    These martyrs knew well the dilemma that faced St. John in today's reading from the book of Revelation. The scroll – the word of God – tasted sweet on the tongue, but became sour in the stomach. The sweetness of receiving the Gospel very often becomes sour when one now has to live it. But live it we must, and quite often at a price. For St. Andrew and his companions, it was at the price of their very lives. For each of us, the price may be different.

    Whether we have to pay by having to give up a job promotion because it does not allow us to live the Gospel, or of having a strained or broken relationship with someone in our lives because they do not share our beliefs, or even just the social stigma of not giving in to the peer pressure that leads us to consumerism, the call of the Gospel can turn our lives sour indeed. This is often called a "white martyrdom" (as opposed to the "red martyrdom" of those who paid with their blood) and we are all called to suffer it at some point.

    But may we all step up and eat the scroll, proclaiming its message by our very life's witness.

  • The Presentation of Mary

    The Presentation of Mary

    Today's feast | Today's readings: Zechariah 2:14-17, Luke 1:46-55, Matthew 12:46-50

    You know, I'm not sure how my mother would react to my not acknowledging her presence like that, but I know it wouldn't be good! But, lest we impute the wrong motives to our Savior, we should understand that He was well aware of Mary's contribution to the will of God. St. Augustine reminds us that Mary was extremely obedient to God's will and singularly cooperative with God's plan of salvation. He says: "Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father's will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ's disciple that to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood."

    Jesus was holding up Mary as an example of discipleship to all of us. Our constant efforts and prayers should be directed at being as open to the will of God as she was. By her fiat, saying yes to God through the angel Gabriel, Mary opened the world up to the possibility of salvation through Jesus Christ.

    The feast of the Presentation of Mary goes back to around the sixth century in the Eastern Church. It appeared in the Latin Church around the eleventh century and was made a feast of the Universal Church in the sixteenth century. This feast is not historical, but is based on a tradition from the early church of Mary having been presented in the Temple to God by Joachim and Anne when she was around three years old. This was to fulfill a promise made to God when Anne was childless. The tradition continues the theme which begins at Mary's Immaculate Conception, continues through the celebration of her birth, and through the Presentation we celebrate today. This tradition teaches us that Mary's destiny to fulfill God's will began before she was born and continued through her early childhood.

    We call on the intercession of Mary our Mother today, that she would guide us to lives open to the will of God, and that she would lead us always to proclaim the greatness of the Lord in soul and in spirit.

    Pray for us, O holy Mother of God;
    That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

  • St. Elizabeth of Hungary

    St. Elizabeth of Hungary

    Today’s readings | Today’s Saint

    [Mass for the School Children]

    Today we celebrate the feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Elizabeth was the daughter of the king of Hungary, and she married Louis IV of Thuringia when she was fourteen years old. They were happily married and had three children together. Together, they tried to live the ideals of St. Francis who was all about living simply and helping the poor. So they sold their possessions and gave the money to the poor. This upset Elizabeth’s in-laws, who probably were hoping to inherit the things Louis and Elizabeth owned. When Louis was on the way to fight in a war, he was killed. Elizabeth’s in-laws forced her out of the palace, and she and her children went to live with her uncle who was a bishop. After Louis’s friends returned from the war, they restored Elizabeth to the palace and her rightful place. St. Elizabeth is a woman who lived a simple life and dedicated her life to loving others and helping the poor. She is the patron of Catholic Charities.

    The story of St. Elizabeth and the story about the old man in the play our fifth graders acted out remind us about two things. First of all, they remind us that living a simple life brings us closer to God. The old man didn’t care about how rich he could become if he sold his land; he only wanted to live in the house he grew up in for the rest of his days. Elizabeth didn’t care about all the possessions and luxury she could have in the palace; she only wanted to live the Gospel and help the poor. By not surrounding themselves with money and luxury, they could see and appreciate all the things that really matter.

    Second, these stories remind us that sometimes loving people is hard. The old man loved everyone in the town, but when they thought they could get rich, they turned on him. He loved them anyway. Elizabeth loved the poor. So when her in-laws threw her out of the palace, it would have been easier for her to stop helping the poor. But she didn’t. By choosing to love people even when it was hard to do that, both the old man and St. Elizabeth were models of God’s love for all of us.

    Today’s Gospel calls us to do something that is hard for us to do: love our enemies and be good to them. Who wants to do that? It’s so much easier for us to love, and be kind to, people who love us back and who are also kind to us. But anyone can do that, Jesus tells us. All of us who want to follow Jesus have to go a little further and to love everyone, whether they love us or not. Yes, that’s hard to do. But if we could just trust Jesus enough to love and be kind to someone who isn’t kind to us, we could really change things. We could really see how God’s love changes everything if we would love everyone, no matter how hard that is to do. We have to treat others just as we want to be treated.

  • St. Martin of Tours and Veterans Day

    St. Martin of Tours and Veterans Day

    Today’s readings | Today’s feast

    “Blessed is the one who fears the Lord.”

    St. Martin of Tours is a fitting saint to intercede for veterans today. He himself was a soldier and served his country faithfully. After a time, he asked for and received release from military service. He had become a catechumen, and said to his superiors, “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” Having received his release, he became a monk and served God faithfully. As a soldier of Christianity now, he fought valiantly against paganism and appealed for mercy to those accused of heresy. He was made a bishop, albeit reluctantly, and served faithfully in that post. He was a man of whom the psalmist says today, “Blessed is the one who fears the Lord.”

    On this Veterans Day, we honor and pray for veterans of our armed forces who have given of themselves in order to protect our country and its freedoms. We pray especially for those who have died in battle, as well as for those who have been injured physically or mentally during their military service. We pray in thanksgiving for all of our freedoms, gained at a price, and pray that those freedoms will always be part of our way of life.

    I received this prayer for Veterans Day. As I pray it, think of someone you know who may be a veteran, or perhaps is currently serving in the armed forces. Maybe that veteran is even you. If you don’t have anyone particular to pray for, ask God to hear this prayer on behalf of a veteran who has no one to pray for them. So let us pray:

    We ask for blessings on all those who have served their country in the armed forces.
    We ask for healing for the veterans who have been wounded, in body and soul, in conflicts around the globe.
    We pray especially for the young men and women, in the thousands,
    Who are coming home from Iraq with injured bodies and traumatized spirits.
    Bring solace to them, O Lord; may we pray for them when they cannot pray.

    Have mercy on all our veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,
    Bring peace to their hearts and peace to the regions they fought in.
    Bless all the soldiers who served in non-combative posts;
    May their calling to service continue in their lives in many positive ways.

    Give us all the creative vision to see a world which, grown weary with fighting,
    Moves to affirming the life of every human being and so moves beyond war.
    Hear our prayer, O Prince of Peace, hear our prayer.

    We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

    St. Martin of Tours, pray for us.

  • The Solemnity of All Saints

    The Solemnity of All Saints

    Today’s readings | Today’s feast (more)

    AllSaintsDuring his lifetime, Pope John Paul II canonized some 480 saints. Many people felt that this was a kind of “inflation” of saints, since he alone canonized more than one for every day of the year. But the pope’s view on this was that holiness is the true mission of the Church, and the real call of the Second Vatican Council. The whole purpose of the Church, in his view, was to bring men and women of every time and place to the great reward of heaven. Toward that end, it should not be surprising, he felt, for the Church to raise so many holy men and women to the glory of sainthood.

    When the Church canonizes a saint, what she is really saying is that that person, through holy living and a faithful relationship with Christ, has received the reward of heaven. Interestingly enough, the Church has never named one single person who is in hell, but has named thousands of saints who are definitely in heaven. The doctrine on the communion of saints is that that wonderful communion binds together the faithful on earth, the souls in Purgatory, and the saints in heaven under the headship of Christ who has provided for the redemption of all. These are called saints because their destination is heaven itself.

    But this particular fest day does not celebrate the sanctity of any particular saint. Not any of the 480 canonized by Pope John Paul, nor any canonized before or after him. This feast day celebrates the saints that we never hear about, at least not officially. These are the saints whose holiness has consecrated the everydayness of life for those who knew them, but whose deeds never gained them the recognition and following of the Church as a whole. Members of this great cloud of witnesses may have made it their life’s work to reach out to the poor or the sick or dying. Maybe they worked for justice in societies that were filled with greed and oppression. Maybe they were all about teaching the young or advocating for those who had no voice in society. Maybe they were people who cured diseases or made life easier for those who labored day after day to feed their children. There are so many who have left this world a little better than they found it. We may never have heard their stories or known their names, but they too are part of the Communion of Saints.

    But even that great number of holy men and women does not exhaust the list of saints we celebrate today. Because the Church recognizes those who may not have accomplished great things, but still have attained great holiness. Because holiness is not first of all about what we do, but what God does for us and in us and through us. So the members of this great cloud of witnesses may have been your parents or grandparents whose prayer life, witness and teaching has been responsible for bringing you to the faith. Maybe they were those who served in our armed forces heroically and with integrity. Maybe they are your coworkers who work and live with honesty and grace. Maybe they are the neighbor who helped you clean out your flooded basement. Maybe they are the lady you knew from Church who lived the last days of her life in great pain, but never complained and was always cheerful. These holy men and women have sanctified their families and their homes, and have affected their communities for good. They may never find their names on the list of those in the beatification process, but they too are part of the Communion of Saints.

    The point of all of this, and the point of this great feast, is that the Church believes that the 480 who were canonized by Pope John Paul and the thousands who have been canonized over time are nothing but a drop in the bucket! All of us, brothers and sisters in Christ, are called to be saints. And that’s not a popular idea in the thinking of the world today. How many times have you heard someone say with a glint in their eye, “Oh, I’m no saint…” How heartbreaking that kind of thinking is! You yourself may think the whole idea of becoming a saint is impossible, out of the question. Because saints are those lofty men and women who have done incredible things. But that’s not our belief. If the saints are those who are in heaven, then we are all called to be saints, because we were all made for heaven. Why would we want anything else for our lives? The Church says, in stark opposition to all that un-saintly thinking, that we are all called to the Kingdom of God, and that it is absolutely possible for all of us to become saints.

    So how do we do that? How can we become saints? What is the path that will lead us to holiness of life? Well, today’s Gospel provides a blueprint. In this very familiar reading from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us the qualities of those who not only will become saints, but actually are already saints by their way of life and their relationship with God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, he says, and blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, and the merciful. Blessed are those who make peace, those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, or are insulted and slandered because of Christ. These are rewarded with all the blessings of the kingdom. These courageous people are the saints among us.

    But we may think that maybe we don’t want to be that kind of people. Who wants to be slandered, persecuted, or known to be meek or poor? What kind of happiness does that give us in this life? Well, Jesus does not want us to be persecuted souls, suffering for nothing. He has no interest in wimpy saints who wallow in self-pity. No, all these are blessed, he says, because they have weathered the storms of life – storms that afflict us all at one time or another in life – and have been faithful to Christ. We are blessed when life tries us and we remain faithful to God who remains faithful to us. In times of trial and distress, we are blessed and we are happy because we have found God working in our lives in ways we might not otherwise see. We absolutely believe that holiness has rewards in this life and in the life to come. If we live that way, we can rejoice and be glad in this life, and look forward to a great reward in heaven.

    When I came here in June, I said in my introductory bulletin article that it was my prayer that we would all grow in holiness together. This feast of All Saints is a celebration of that prayer. We have been created by God, for God, and we are truly happy – truly blessed – when we are living that way. Today as we offer our gifts at the altar, let us also offer our lives that we may be made holy by the One who is holiness itself. And after we have received the Body and Blood of our Lord in Holy Communion, let us give thanks for those saints in our lives who have brought us to God. May we all become the saints we were created to be and eventually receive the great reward that waits for all those who believe in Christ.

  • St. Isaac Jogues, John de Brébeuf and Companions, Martyrs

    St. Isaac Jogues, John de Brébeuf and Companions, Martyrs

    Today’s Feast | Today’s readings: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Matthew 28:16-20

    joguesbrebeuf

     

    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 Indians 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 Huron, which made possible many conversions. He was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Iroquois. These eight missionaries received the Great Commission that we heard in today’s Gospel: Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:18-19)

    St. John prayed for the grace to accept the martyrdom he knew he may one day have to suffer. He wrote about it in his diary:

    May I die only for you, if you will grant me this grace, since you willingly died for me. Let me so live that you may grant me the gift of such a happy death. In this way, my God and Savior, I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

     

    My God, it grieves me greatly that you are not known, that in this savage wilderness all have not been converted to you, that sin has not been driven from it. My God, even if all the brutal tortures which prisoners in this region must endure should fall on me, I offer myself most willingly to them and I alone shall suffer them all.

    What we see in St. Isaac and St. John and their companions is that we can never relax our zeal for the mission. Whatever the costs to us, Christ must be made known, those who do not believe must be converted, and sin must be driven out of every time and place. That is the mission of disciples in this world, and sometimes the mission results in death. For us that probably isn’t true, but would that we would endure the sufferings of proclaiming an unpopular message to those who need to hear it. Would that we would endure those sufferings with the same zeal for the mission that these French Jesuits did. As I said on the memorial of St. Ignatius on Tuesday, our martyrdom may not be bloody, but it is none the less real. And our mission may not be to a culture so different to us as the Indian cultures were to the French, but that mission is none the less vital to the salvation of the world.

  • Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

    Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

    Today’s feast | Today’s readings: Philippians 3:17-4:1 / Psalm 34 / John 12:24-26

    St. Ignatius was a convert to Christianity who eventually became the bishop of Antioch. During his time in Antioch, the Emperor Trajan began persecuting the Church there and forced people to choose between death and denying the faith. Ignatius would have none of that, so he was placed in chains and brought to Rome for execution. During the long journey, he wrote to many of the churches. These letters famously encouraged the Christians there to remain faithful and to obey their superiors.

    Obedience was a strong theme for Ignatius, who was very concerned about Church unity. He felt that unity could best be achieved by all being obedient to the bishop and acting in harmony with one another, living the Gospel that had been proclaimed to them. Perhaps the most famous of his letters, though, was the final one in which he exhorted the Christians in Rome not to try to stop his execution. He said to them, “The only thing I ask of you is to allow me to offer the libation of my blood to God. I am the wheat of the Lord; may I be ground by the teeth of the beasts to become the immaculate bread of Christ.”

    How well Ignatius knew the writings of St. Paul as we heard from the letter to the Philippians today. Paul rightly reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven. Whatever we have to suffer in these days, we must remember that we are not home yet. We still have the Kingdom of God to look forward to, and we must never be deterred from our journey to get there. Ignatius knew that the way for him to be with Christ was through the martyrdom he would have to suffer, and he did not want to be deterred from going through it.

    Ignatius was that grain of wheat that fell to the ground and died, only to become a stalk that bore much fruit. We too must be willing to die to ourselves, letting go of hurts and the pains this life can bring us, so that we might merit the everlasting crown of heaven. Our martyrdom may not be bloody, but it is no less real, and we must be willing to suffer it in order to be with Christ. In today’s Eucharist, may we too be ready to offer the libation of pouring out our lives and being ground into the great wheat of the Body of Christ.