Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Saints

  • Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

    Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

    Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Josaphat, who was born in what is now Poland to Orthodox parents. He later became a Basilian monk, and was chosen bishop of Vitebsk, in what is now Russia. His task was to bridge the divide between the Roman and Orthodox Church, but this was not easy, because the Orthodox monks did not want union with Rome; they feared interference in liturgy and customs. But over time, using synods and other instruction, he was able to win many of the Orthodox in that area to the union.

    But the fight was far from over. A dissident faction of the church was formed, and they fomented opposition to Josaphat. Eventually the mob murdered him and threw his body into a river. The body was recovered and is now buried in St. Peter’s basilica. Josaphat is the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.

    Josaphat had an insurmountable task to accomplish. But he had faith that God would give him what he needed to accomplish the mission. He knew well Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel: that we must persistently pray for what is right.  There is still a great divide today between the Latin and Orthodox churches.  We must never stop praying that Saint Josaphat’s vision would be fulfilled.

  • Pope Saint John Paul II

    Pope Saint John Paul II

    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.

  • Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

    Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

    Today we have the optional memorial of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, a wife, mother, nun and founder of a religious community.  I decided to celebrate this memorial because I think her story is one that is deeply encouraging. 

    Jane’s mother died when she was 18 years old, and her father became the influence on her life and education.  At 21, she married Christophe, the Baron of Chantal, by whom she had six children, three of whom died in infancy. At her castle, she restored the custom of daily Mass, and was seriously engaged in various charitable works.  She would offer a meal to the needy at her door.  Often people who had just received food from her would pretend to leave, go around the house and get back in line for more. When asked why she let these people get away with this, Jane said, “What if God turned me away when I came back to him again and again with the same request?”

    Jane’s husband was killed in a hunting accident after seven years of marriage, and she sank into a deep depression that lasted for four. She continued to struggle with depression for the rest of her life.  She had been recovering at her family home, but eventually her father-in-law threatened to disinherit her children if she did not return to his home.  Jane Frances managed to remain cheerful in spite of him and his insolent housekeeper.

    When she was 32, Jane met Saint Francis de Sales who became her spiritual director, softening some of the severities imposed by her former director. She wanted to become a nun but he persuaded her to defer this decision. She took a vow to remain unmarried and to obey her director.

    After three years, Francis told Jane of his plan to found an institute of women that would be a haven for those whose health, age, or other considerations barred them from entering the already established communities. There would be no cloister, and they would be free to undertake spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation: humility and meekness, and became known as the Daughters of the Visitation, or Visitation nuns.

    Many sought Jane Frances out for spiritual direction, and she would always counsel them, “Should you fall even fifty times a day, never on any account should that surprise or worry you. Instead, ever so gently set your heart back in the right direction and practice the opposite virtue, all the time speaking words of love and trust to our Lord after you have committed a thousand faults, as much as if you had committed only one. Once we have humbled ourselves for the faults God allows us to become aware of in ourselves, we must forget them and go forward.”

    She died in 1641, at sixty-nine years of age.

    Saint Jane Frances suffered from depression for most of her life.  In writing about this experience, she mentioned a variety of distressing temptations and that she was no longer like herself.  Her spirituality, along with the direction of Saint Francis de Sales, provided a way of holiness that meant confronting her depression with virtue.  While this path never completely cured her depression, it did at times alleviate symptoms.  Her struggles enabled her to extend empathy and gentleness to those around her.  Saint Jane Frances is the patron saint of those with depression, mothers, widows, and wives.

    Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us. 

  • Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

    Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

    Today’s readings

    Today Jesus extols the virtues of child-like faith. Such a faith is dependent on our God who seeks us out like a shepherd in search of a lost sheep. This is a faith that realizes that God is in charge, and that we are happiest when we let God do what he wants to do in us, rather than fighting his inspiration. This was the kind of faith that Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross had.

    Born into a prominent Jewish family in Breslau, Germany as Edith Stein, she abandoned Judaism in her teens. She studied philosophy under Edmund Husserl, a leading proponent of the philosophy of phenomenology. Edith earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1916. Later, she was influenced by the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila, and she became a Catholic on January 1, 1922. She taught in various schools until 1933, when anti-semitic legislation went into effect, and at that time entered the Carmelite convent at Cologne, where she took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

    At the end of 1939, she moved to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands. The Nazis occupied that country in 1940. In retaliation for being denounced by the Dutch bishops, the Nazis arrested all Dutch Jews who had become Christians. Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.

    Faithfulness is easy when there aren’t any obstacles on our path to God. What we need to remember is that when obstacles appear, it doesn’t mean we are cut off from our God. That can never happen. When obstacles appear, when our faith is tested, we need to listen for God’s voice and follow the way he marks out for us. The Psalmist today has all the advice we need to hear: “How sweet to my palate are your promises, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

  • Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

    Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

    Today’s readings

    Today is the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, 16 years ago.  It is also Father John’s anniversary of thirty-three years.  I find our Liturgy today to be particularly inspirational on this anniversary day.  First we have Saint Paul who is standing trial for his witness and preaching of the faith.  Then we have Peter, who is going through his own sort of trial, wrestling with his guilt of having denied Jesus three times.  Jesus gives him the opportunity three times to profess his love, and experience his mercy.  Then we have Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions, 22 Ugandan martyrs who were young people killed by the Bagandan ruler Mwanga, who insisted they give in to his immoral demands or face death.

    The inspiration of the martyrs and Apostles inspires my own zeal for the priesthood and living the faith.  We might never be in the situations they had to endure, we might never be killed for the faith, but we are all called to be willing to die for it.  Frankly, if we are not willing to die rather than abandon the faith, we have to ask if we are really fully invested in our relationship with Jesus.  He certainly gave his life for us, and so it is incumbent on each of us to lay down our lives and sacrifice in our own way to live the Gospel. 

    And so perhaps today we look at our own failures in our relationship with the Lord.  Jesus says to us, “Do you love me more than these?”  And to our response, he says, “Feed my sheep.”  Witnessing to what is right and good is often inconvenient, and for those like Saint Charles and Jesus’ disciples, sometimes dangerous. But that is what disciples do. That is our ministry, the work to which we have all been called.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

    Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

    Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious, a mystic, and a Doctor of the Church.

    Saint Catherine was born at Siena, in the region of Tuscany in Italy. When she was six years old, Jesus appeared to Catherine and blessed her. As many parents do for their children, her mother and father wanted her to be happily married, preferably to a rich man. But Catherine wanted to be a nun. So, to make herself as unattractive as possible to the men her parents wanted her to meet, she cut off her long, beautiful hair. Her parents were very upset and became very critical of her. But Catherine did not change her mind: her goal was to become a nun and give herself entirely to Jesus. Finally, her parents allowed it, and her father even set aside a room in the house where she could stay and pray.

    When Catherine was eighteen years old, she entered the Dominican Third Order and spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer and works of penance. Gradually a group of followers gathered around her—men and women, priests and religious. They all saw that Catherine was a holy woman and they flocked to her for spiritual advice. During this time she wrote many letters, most of which gave spiritual instruction and encouragement to her followers. But more and more, she would speak out on many topics and would stand up for the truth. Because of this, many people began to oppose her and they brought false charges against her, but she was cleared of all of wrongdoing.

    Because of her great influence, she was able to help the Church navigate a rocky period of two and eventually three anti-popes, men who claimed to be the pope but were not legally elected. She even went to beg rulers to make peace with the pope and to avoid wars. At one point, Saint Catherine convinced the real pope to leave Avignon, France, where he had been staying in exile, and return to Rome to rule the Church, because she knew that this was God’s will. He took her advice, and this eventually led to peace in the Church.

    Catherine had a mystical love of God, and his goodness and beauty was revealed to her more and more each day. She wrote of God, “You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.”

    Saint Catherine is one of just three female Doctors of the Church, being named so by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Doctors of the Church are men and women saints who have written great works of theology and spirituality.  There are just four women who are Doctors of the Church: Saint Catherine, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Therese of Liseaux, and Saint Hildegard of Bingen. Saint Catherine is also the co-patron saint, with Saint Francis, of Italy. 

    I love the story of Saint Catherine is amazing for a couple of important reasons.  First, it shows that God wants to be friends with us.  God reached out and called Saint Catherine in a special way, but he calls each of us in our own special way to be his friends.  Second, Saint Catherine’s story shows the important contribution of women to the Church.  Many people think the Church does not value the contribution women, but nothing is further from the truth.  Over time, countless women have contributed so much to what the Church knows about God and the spiritual life.  Without the witness of the women who came to the tomb after Jesus was buried, we would not have known the Good News that he rose from the dead.  Without the contribution of Saint Catherine, our understanding of God’s fierce love for people would be much poorer.

    So we have much for which to be grateful on this feast of Saint Catherine.  Through her intercession may we all have a deep appreciation and love for the depths of the mysteries of God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

    Alleluia!

  • Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s readings

    On today’s feast, we celebrate the faithfulness of Saint Joseph. When he became betrothed to Mary, he got more than he could ever have bargained for. It certainly would have been easy to divorce her quietly when the news of her pregnancy became known, and it certainly would have been difficult to continue the relationship under those circumstances. Yet, he heeded the word of the angel in his dream, and was faithful to God’s will for him. His faithfulness preserved the heritage of Jesus, so that he would be born of David’s line.

    And so we owe much to Joseph and his willingness to act on his faith in God’s word.  We know that he was part of the ancestral line that extended from the beginning to the birth of Jesus, but I don’t know if Saint Joseph knew that.  We know that he was the strong family leader who made possible the growth of his foster son and the protection of his holy family, but other than that, we don’t know much about him, and we hear nothing from him.  There was a lot of the big picture that Joseph didn’t get to see; he acted in faith on the little messages he received in dreams.  I wonder if any of us would be so willing to make that leap of faith.

    Saint Joseph was the faithful father who protected Mary and Joseph, taught him the faith as a good father would, and taught him his craft.  He is the patron of fathers, of workers, and of the universal Church, among others.

    When we find faithfulness difficult, we can “Go to Joseph,” look to Saint Joseph for help. Through his intercession, may our work and our lives be blessed, and may we too be found faithful to the word of the Lord.

  • Saint Patrick, Bishop

    Saint Patrick, Bishop

    Today’s readings

    Lent is a time of conversion and renewal of faith.  Saint Patrick’s life was one of conversion.  He wrote about that in his famous Confession, which was a work that talked all about his life of faith.  Listen to what he said at the beginning of it: “And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance.  And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.”

    And so we have here a great story of conversion.  And that’s helpful, because, of course, we are all sinners, and we are all on our way back to God.  I think that it’s so important for us to see that many great saints didn’t start out so saintly.  They were sinners, but they just kept on trying to be better, to be holier, to come to know and love God more.  Saint Patrick writes of an unmentioned sin, dating from before he was ordained, even before he was living a Christian life.  The sin was apparently known to a friend of his – a friend who lobbied for him to become a bishop, and then later betrayed him to his superiors.  Patrick had long since moved on from where he was at the time this sin was committed: he is an older man now, looking back on the mistakes he made as a youth, and not bearing any ill-will toward those who would rub his nose in it, he thanks God for the strength he has since gained: “So I give thanks to the one who cared for me in all my difficulties, because he allowed me to continue in my chosen mission and the work that Christ my master taught me.  More and more I have felt inside myself a great strength because my faith was proven right before God and the whole world.” 

    Saint Patrick had to weather so many storms in his life. He was kidnapped and enslaved, he worked in mission territory among people who at times were hostile to the Christian way of life, he was betrayed by a friend and besieged by fellow clergymen who were jealous of the success of his ministry and critical of the way he did it.  But through it all, he was grateful for the power of God at work in him.  The faith that led him to be that way was nourished on a strong friendship with God.

    One of my favorite things that we have from Saint Patrick is known as the “Lorica” or “Breastplate” prayer.  Some say he didn’t actually write it, but I think he did, because it was the kind of thing that he would have written, given the faith that he had. It’s a great prayer of deliverance from evil and reliance on the power of God:

    I arise today

    Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

    Through the belief in the threeness,

    Through the confession of the oneness

    Of the Creator of Creation.

    I arise today

    Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,

    Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

    Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

    Through the strength of his descent for the Judgment Day.

    I arise today

    Through God’s strength to pilot me:

    God’s might to uphold me,

    God’s wisdom to guide me,

    God’s eye to look before me,

    God’s ear to hear me,

    God’s word to speak for me,

    God’s hand to guard me,

    God’s way to lie before me,

    God’s shield to protect me,

    God’s host to save me

    From snares of demons,

    From temptations of vices,

    From everyone who shall wish me ill,

    Afar and anear,

    Alone and in multitude.

    Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

    Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

    Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

    Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

    Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

    Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

    Christ in every eye that sees me,

    Christ in every ear that hears me.

    I arise today

    Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

    Through belief in the threeness,

    Through confession of the oneness,

    Of the Creator of Creation.

    What a wonderful prayer, a prayer that we would recognize Christ in every part of our day, no matter how little or big a thing we are doing. That we would recognize Christ in every person in our lives, and that we would recognize Christ wherever we are.

  • Friday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings
    Mass for the school children.

    The readings for daily Mass usually follow in a series.  So we read from a certain book of the Bible for a while, and then we move on to another one for a while.  So for the last couple of weeks, we have been listening to the story of the rise and fall of good King David, mostly from the books of Samuel.  Today’s is kind of a poetic summary from the book of Sirach, the wisdom writer.  Yesterday, in our first reading, we heard the story of his peaceful death and the transfer of the kingship to his son, Solomon.  Today, tells us about David in more poetic, and somewhat apologetic and glowing terms.  From it, we can see that, when David was at his best, he gave praise to God. 

    In our Gospel today, we hear about the end of Saint John the Baptist’s life.  Herod’s wife, Herodias, held a grudge against John because he opposed their marriage.  So she schemed to end his life.  Saint John the Baptist was one who lived his entire life pointing the way to the Lord.  With every fiber of his being, and until his last breath, he gave praise to God.

    So both King David and Saint John the Baptist did their best to give praise to God until their dying breath.  This is the role of disciples, which includes you and me.  We should always give praise to God and point others to him.  At our best, we should be an Assembly of holy people, helping all the world to find our God.  Whatever we do, and wherever we are, people should see Jesus in us.  In fact, we might be the only Jesus someone sees.  Let’s never get in the way of that.

    In the quiet times of Mass, spend some time thinking about how you might be Jesus to the people around you today, and ask God to give you the grace to do it.

  • Saint Blase, Bishop and Martyr

    Saint Blase, Bishop and Martyr

    Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Blase, and all that we really know about him was that he was the bishop of Sebaste in Armenia during the fourth century.  Everything else is legend.  But, even if the entire story isn’t true, there is Truth in the legend, because it points us to Christ.  Saint Blase is, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews says, one of that “great cloud of witnesses” who helps us to “keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of our faith.”  He was known to take up the work of Jesus the healer, just as Jesus commanded the Twelve to do in today’s Gospel reading, as he sent them out two by two.

    The legendary Acts of Saint Blase were written 400 years after his death. According to them Blase was a good bishop, working hard to encourage the spiritual and physical health of his people. Because of persecution that still raged throughout Armenia, Blase was apparently forced to flee to the back country. There he lived as a hermit in solitude and prayer, but made friends with the wild animals. One day a group of hunters seeking wild animals for the amphitheater stumbled upon Blase’s cave. They were first surprised and then frightened. The bishop was kneeling in prayer surrounded by patiently waiting wolves, lions and bears.

    As the hunters hauled Blase off to prison, the legend has it, a mother came with her young son who had a fish bone lodged in his throat.  At Blase’s command the child was able to cough up the bone.  Supposedly, that is the reason he has become the patron saint of those suffering from diseases of the throat.

    Eventually, Blase was tortured for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods, and when he still refused to do so, he was beheaded in the year 316.  Today we pray in a special way for protection from afflictions of the throat and from other illnesses.  The blessing of Saint Blase is a sign of our faith in God’s protection and love for us and for the sick.