Today’s memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus is a feast of siblings. It’s a wonderful reminder of how family should be: united in faith, and bringing each other to Christ. The story of the raising of Lazarus, of which we have a fragment in today’s Gospel reading, is a story of how shared faith can triumph over death. It’s our responsibility to bring our loved ones to Jesus, and for Martha and Mary, the need for that was very real. Today’s memorial remembers Martha who toiled for the sake of hospitality, and professed her faith in Jesus when her brother died; it remembers Martha too, who famously sat at the feet of Jesus, drinking in his every word. And we also remember Lazarus, from whom we never hear, but who Jesus loved enough to raise him from death. In them we see ourselves: called to serve and profess our faith, called to contemplate the presence of Jesus, and called to the resurrection of the dead, which Lazarus saw firsthand.
Category: Saints
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Saints Joachim & Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Grandparents of Our Lord
Today we celebrate the memory of Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and thus, grandparents of Our Lord. I always like to say that today is the real grandparents day, not that “Hallmark holiday” that comes up sometime in the fall. Today we pray for grandparents and give thanks for the blessing they are in our lives.
We don’t know much, well anything really, about Saints 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 records 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, but even so, they have been confirmed by revelations to saints throughout the ages.
The Church has always inferred that Joachim and Anne were heroic people, having given birth to a woman of great faith. Mary probably 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. The Psalmist today recalls God’s promise to David: “Your own offspring I will set upon your throne.” Through the Blessed Virgin, God brought that promise to fruition. Blessed are the eyes that saw that: as they watched Mary’s life play out, Joachim and Anne were certainly overjoyed at the nearness of salvation.
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 Saints Joachim and Anne, we give thanks today.
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Saint Thomas, Apostle
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 often 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 once had a couple preparing for marriage in my office. The bride was not Catholic, but they are preparing to have their wedding in the Catholic Church, so they of course were going through our marriage preparation program. The groom remarked when we met that 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 so-called-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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Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
Today we celebrate a feast of great importance to our Church. Saint Peter, the apostle to the Jews, and St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, come together to show how the Church is truly universal, that is, truly catholic. There are similarities between the two men. Simon’s name is changed to Peter after he professes belief in the Lord Jesus, and Saul’s name is changed to Paul after he is converted. Both men started out as failures as far as living the Christian life goes. Peter denied his Lord by the fire and swore that he didn’t even know the man who was his friend. Paul’s early life was taken up with persecuting Christians and participating in their murder. And both men were given second chances, which they received with great enthusiasm, and lived a life of faith that has given birth to our Church.
In today’s Gospel, Peter and the others are asked “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Both Peter and Paul were committed to the truth about who Christ was. They had too much at stake to get it wrong. Having both failed on this early on, they knew the danger of falling into the trap. So for them Jesus could never be just another guy, even a holy man – that was inadequate. And both of them proclaimed with all of their life straight through to their death that Jesus Christ is Lord. We too on this day must repent of the mediocrity we sometimes settle for in our relationship with Christ. He has to be Lord of our lives and we must proclaim him to be that Lord to our dying breath.
Both Peter and Paul kept the faith, as Paul says in today’s second reading. If they hadn’t, one wonders how the faith, how the Church, might look today. But because they kept the faith, we have it today, and we must be careful to keep the faith ourselves. Too many competing voices in our world today would have us bracket faith in favor of reason, or tolerance, or success, or whatever. But we can never allow that, we can never break faith with Saints Peter and Paul, who preserved that faith at considerable personal cost.
Perhaps Saints Peter and Paul can inspire our own apostolic zeal. In this beginning of a post-pandemic time, our apostolic zeal can be to heal the sick: by looking in on those who have been ill, by being careful when visiting vulnerable loved ones. In this time of social unrest, our apostolic zeal can be to embrace the marginalized: to reflect on any traces of racism in our own lives and root them out, and to stand with our brothers and sisters of color, not just in this moment, but from now on, so that they will never be marginalized again. In this time of natural disaster and other disasters like the building collapse in Florida, our apostolic zeal might see us reaching out to help those affected. Our apostolic zeal is similar to that of Saints Peter and Paul: it comes about because Jesus is Lord, and that truth is forever important.
Then, as we bear witness to the fact that Jesus is Lord of our lives and of all the earth, we can bring a world that has settled for the mediocre to look for something better, holier, more fulfilling. Perhaps in our renewed apostolic zeal we can bring justice to the oppressed, right judgment to the wayward, love to the forgotten and the lonely, and faith to a world that has lost sight of anything worth believing in. Now is the time for the Church to be released from its chains and burst forth to give witness in the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist
Today we celebrate a feast that is a bit unusual for us. When we celebrate a saint’s day, it is usually celebrated on the feast of their death, not their birth. But today we celebrate the birth of a saint, Saint John the Baptist, and the fact that we’re celebrating his birth points to the fact that St. John the Baptist had a very special role to play in the life of Christ. In fact, the only other saint for whom we celebrate a birthday is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In our first reading today, Isaiah says that he was given his name while in his mother’s womb. The same was true of Saint John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel. Names have meaning. The names of the prophets we encounter in today’s Liturgy of the Word are particularly meaningful. Isaiah means “The LORD is salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile. The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.” And that was in fact the message of his life. He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.
Ultimately, the purpose for Saint John the Baptist’s life was summed up in a statement he made about himself and Our Lord later on in the Gospel of John: “I must decrease, He must increase.” And so it must be for us. Sometimes we want to turn the spotlight on ourselves, at least unconsciously, when that is, of course, exactly where it should not be. For John the Baptist, the spotlight was always on Christ, the One whose sandals he was unfit to fasten. Just as the birth of Saint John the Baptist helped his father Zechariah to speak once again, so his life gives voice to our own purpose in the world. Like Saint John the Baptist, we are called to be a people who point to Christ, who herald the Good News, and who live our lives for God. We are called to decrease, while Christ increases in all of us. We are called to be that light to the nations of which Isaiah speaks today, so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
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Saint Joseph the Worker
Today’s readings (I chose option 2 of the first readings.)
In his encyclical, Laborem Exercens, Pope Saint John Paul II said, echoing the sentiments of the Second Vatican Council, “The word of God’s revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamental truth that humankind, created in the image of God, shares by their work in the activity of the Creator and that, within the limits of their own human capabilities, they in a sense continue to develop that activity, and perfect it as they advance further and further in the discovery of the resources and values contained in the whole of creation.” (25)
The Christian idea of work is that through the toil of work, the Christian joins her or himself to the cross of Christ, and through the effects of work, the Christian participates in the creative activity of our Creator God. Today we celebrate the feast day for all Christian workers, the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. This feast recalls that Jesus himself was a worker, schooled in the drudgeries and the joys of the vocation of carpentry, and probably masonry, by his father, Saint Joseph, who worked hard, as many do today, to support his family.
In today’s first reading, Saint Paul, urges all disciples to do whatever they do, as if they were doing it for the Lord. This is a great spiritual principal that reminds us that our lives our not all about us, that we receive our abilities and talents from the Lord, and that we are accountable to God for all that we do, in thought, word, and deed. He reminds us, too, that our working should be cause for thanksgiving: thanksgiving that we have our abilities, and that we can use them for God’s purpose and for the support of ourselves and for the family entrusted to us.
Sometimes, it is true, work is far from blessed. There is, of course, a responsibility of the employer to provide a workplace that upholds human dignity. But often work seems less than redemptive. To that, Saint John Paul said, “Sweat and toil, which work necessarily involves in the present condition of the human race, present the Christian and everyone who is called to follow Christ with the possibility of sharing lovingly in the work that Christ came to do. This work of salvation came about through suffering and death on a Cross. By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, humankind in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. They show themselves true disciples of Christ by carrying the cross in their turn every day in the activity that they are called upon to perform.” (Laborem Exercens, 27)
And so we all forge ahead in our daily work, whether that be as a carpenter, a tentmaker, a homemaker, a mother or father, a laborer, a white collar worker, a consecrated religious or ordained person, or whatever it may be. We forge ahead with the joy of bringing all the world to redemption through creation, through the cross and Resurrection of Christ, and through our daily work.
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The Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
I am so glad that Pope Francis declared this the year of Saint Joseph, because I think we, as a Church, as the people of God, have been needing to be stronger in our devotion to Saint Joseph for a long time now. Saint Joseph is the intercessor and the model for all of us in our vocation, whatever that vocation may be. Today, I think we should reflect on what our vocation, our calling is, and how we are living it, and then intercede for the assistance of Saint Joseph as we try to live our life better.
Men have many different roles in their lives: fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, workers, employers, mentors, even sons of God. Women’s roles are similarly varied, and each person is expected to fulfill different roles with different people, sometimes all in the same moment. People need a role model and intercessor in order to carry out all those roles with faithfulness: that role model is Saint Joseph. There is a saying, in Latin, Ite ad Ioseph, in English, “go to Joseph.” It comes from the Old Testament, when the people were facing a famine, they knew that the Joseph in the Old Testament was wise and had stored up grain in abundance. So they were told to “go to Joseph” for help in their time of need. We need to go to the New Testament Joseph, Saint Joseph, in order to live our calling, be faithful to God, love our families, support our communities, and to be happy in our lives.
In Joseph, we see the model of so many virtues that help us in our vocations:
- Faithfulness: Joseph was faithful to God and faithful to Mary. His faithfulness helped him overcome the uneasiness of becoming Mary’s husband after he understood what God required of her, and of himself.
- Obedience: Joseph was obedient to God in everything. He often heard from God in his dreams, and every time, he did what he was asked to do. His obedience helped God’s plan for the salvation of the world to come to fruition.
- Purity: Joseph’s purity gave him strength to love and protect Jesus and Mary. His purity helped him to be devoted to them. His pure heart helped him to be completely focused on doing what was best for his family.
- Courage: It took courage to keep his family safe from Herod, and during their time in Egypt, and along the many journeys they had to take.
These are just some of the many virtues we see in Saint Joseph. And we need all of them today! We need faithfulness to remember our calling and to live as God has called us to live, without giving in to the distractions the world throws at us. We need obedience to do what God requires of us, even when it’s inconvenient, even when it calls us to die to ourselves a little bit (or die to ourselves a lot!). We need purity in an age when pornography is so very available and sexuality has been made into something unclean, which is never how God intended it to be. We need courage to live all these things in a world that is hostile to our beliefs, convictions, and way of life. We need to “go to Joseph” for so many reasons in these days.Ite ad Ioseph. Go to Joseph. Living in the world today requires this devotion: we need to go to Joseph often and repeatedly. Our devotion to Saint Joseph can be a game changer in our world today. Through his intercession, may our God transform our lives, our families, our workplaces, and our world.
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Saints Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
We have been hearing from the martyrs a lot recently. On Wednesday, we remembered Saint Blaise, a bishop and martyr who is the patron saint of those with illnesses, specifically of the throat. Yesterday, we remembered Saint Agatha, a virgin and martyr who was put to death in the third century. Today we remember Saint Paul Miki and his 25 companions – religious, lay people, catechists, and even children – who were crucified on a hill in Nagasaki in the late sixteenth century.
Saint Paul Miki wrote, in his final moments: “The sentence of judgment says these men came to Japan from the Philippines, but I did not come from any other country. I am a true Japanese. The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. I certainly did teach the doctrine of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason I die. I believe that I am telling only the truth before I die. I know you believe me and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you to become happy. I obey Christ. After Christ’s example I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.”
The courageous deaths of Saint Paul Miki, his companions, and all the other martyrs we have brought to memory in these past days recalls the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Their deaths point the way to our Lord, especially the deaths of Paul Miki and his companions, who like their Lord, were put to death on crosses. May their courage and wisdom inspire us to live and die with faith in God’s mercy, and give us the grace to live our lives in witness to God’s love and Truth.
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The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas (Saint Thomas Becket)
The birth of Christ in our world ought to mean something to us: the birth of Christ ought to mean a change in our attitudes and our behaviors and even in the course of our lives.
Today is a commemoration of Saint Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who ultimately lost his life to the man who gave him that prestigious post. When King Henry began to usurp Church rights, Thomas found himself in a bind. Would he be beholden to the king, or would he protect the Church on behalf of the King of Kings? While it was a struggle for him, he ultimately knew that he must take a stand, no matter what the cost.
In today’s first reading, Saint John makes the point very clear. We cannot say we love God and yet defy his commandments. And we certainly cannot love God who is love itself, while at the same time refusing to love our brothers and sisters. Being Christian looks like something, and the world looks at us to see what it is. If the birth of Christ means something to us, we have to share that meaning with the world by loving, no matter what the cost.
Perhaps the one who knew this best was Mary herself. Simeon the prophet knew that he had seen the promise when he looked at the child Jesus. Then he clearly told Mary that this Savior would cost her some happiness in life. Because Jesus would be a contradictory sign in the world, her heart would be pierced with sorrow. But all of this was to make manifest God’s glory.
The birth of Christ in our world and into our lives this Christmas ought to mean something to us. A watching world should be able to look at us and see Christ. On this Christmas Day, may we be found changing our hearts and minds so that we can be that Christ for all the world to see, no matter what the cost.
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Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin
Today’s readings
Mass for the school children.Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, who was called “Mother Cabrini” during her life, was a humble woman of great faith and fortitude. Because of poor health, she was refused entrance to the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, the religious community that had educated her. But in 1880, along with seven other young women, Frances founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pope sent her to New York, where she intended to found an orphanage. The house they were to use turned out not to be available, and the bishop advised her to return to Italy. But she stayed, and eventually founded not only that one orphanage, but 67 institutions dedicated to caring for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated and the sick.
Frances worked hard to educate Italian immigrants, providing for their religious education as well. She established schools and orphanages despite the great obstacles she often faced. She later traveled all over the world, establishing these institutions in Europe, Central and South America, and all over the United States. She was relentless in this work until the day of her death. She died on December 22, 1917 at Columbus hospital in Chicago, which she also founded. In 1946, she was canonized by Pope Pius XII. She was the first American citizen to be canonized a saint. She is the patron saint of immigrants.
Our Gospel today urges us to be working hard for the Kingdom of God, because we don’t know when our Lord will return to the earth and take us home. We want to be found busy in God’s service and we want to be strong in our relationship with Jesus when that great day comes. As the end of our Church year comes in just a couple of weeks, the readings right now have us thinking about the end of time, because we don’t know when that will happen. When it does, we want to be rejoicing because we have worked hard to be able to celebrate that day. Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is a great example of a person who did what she could to help those who were in need. She knew our Lord very well, because she saw his face in the poor immigrants who came to her. Blessed are we if we meet our Lord in that same way, and he finds us ready to rejoice with him when he returns!
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