1815 St.
Francis
Xavier Bianchi Barnabite priest called “the Apostle of Naples.” stopped
lava
Born in Arpino,
Italy, in 1743, he became a Barnabite and was ordained
in 1767. Francis worked endlessly for the poor and abandoned. His work
load and austerities ruined his health, and though he lost the use of
his legs, he continued in his labors. He was canonized in 1951.
Francis Xavier
Bianchi, Barn. (AC)
Saint Francis
studied
in Naples, was tonsured at 14 and, despite his
father's objections, joined the Congregation of Clerks Regular of Saint
Paul (the Barnabites). After his ordination in 1767, Francis served as
president of two colleges, and became famous for his gift of prophecy
and the miracles credited to him (he is reported to have stopped the
flow of lava from the erupting Vesuvius in 1805). He was considered and
acclaimed 'Apostle of Naples' for his work among the poor and abandoned
and to preserve girls from the danger of an immoral life. Owing to
overwork and to his austere lifestyle, he ruined his health and lost
the use of his legs. Unable to be moved because of his health, he was
left alone at his college when his order was expelled from Naples and
died there. He inspired boundless veneration in Naples and miracles
were attributed to him (Attwater2, Benedictines, Coulson, Delaney).
|
1835 St.
Maria Magdalen of Canossa Foundress
of the Daughters of Charity at Verona, Italy saw the Blessed Mother
surrounded by six religious dressed in brown She
herself tended the poorest and dirtiest children witnesses observed her
rapt in ecstasy, and once she was seen levitating
Born in 1774, she was the
daughter of the Marquis of Canossa, who died when Maria Magdalen was
three. Her mother abandoned the family, and Maria Magdalen managed her
father’s estate until she was thirty-three, then founding her
institute. When she died, her Daughters of Charity were widespread. She
was canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
Magdalen of Canossa, Founder (RM) Born in Verona,
Italy, March 1,
1774; died there on April 10, 1835; declared venerable on January 6,
1927; beatified December 7, 1941, by Pope Pius XII; canonized by Pope
John Paul II on October 2, 1988; feast day formerly on May 14.
Saint Magdalen was only five years old when her father, the
marquis of
Canossa, died. Two years later her mother remarried and abandoned her
four children to the care of their uncles. Although they treated the
children well enough, their French governess was harsh. Perhaps as a
result of this ill-treatment, Magdalen suffered a painful illness when
she was fifteen. Upon her recovery, she was determined to become a nun.
In October 1791, she enter the Carmel for a short time before returning
home to manage her father's estate until she was 33.
During the Napoleonic wars, her family took refuge in
Venice. There she
had a dream in which she saw the Blessed Mother surrounded by six
religious dressed in brown. Our Lady led them two by two into a church
filled with women and girls, into a hospital, and into a hall filled
with bedraggled children. She admonished the religious to serve all
three, but especially to help the poor children. Almost immediately she
began tending the sick in the city's hospitals and working with
children.. The family returned to Verona, where they were visited by
Napoleon himself. Magdalen requested from him the empty convent of
Saint Joseph, which she intended to use for the poor. Several women had
already joined her in her charitable work and with the gift of the
convent, they opened the first house of her institute, the Daughters of
Charity. Its mission followed her vision: the education of poor girls,
the service of the sick in hospitals, and the teaching of the catechism
in parishes.
The doors of the house in the San Zeno district was opened
to poor
girls on May 8, 1808. Thereafter, community prospered and its fame
spread. The Canossians were invited to open a house in Venice, then in
Milan, Bergamo, Trent, and elsewhere in northern Italy. Since Saint
Magdalen's death, well over 400 have been established throughout the
world.
Saint Magdalen drew up the
rule in Venice. The congregation received
formal papal approval from Pope Pius VII in 1816 and definitive
approval from Pope Leo XII in an apostolic brief dated December 23,
1828. When she was declared venerable by Pope Pius XI in 1927, he wrote
that "many are charitable enough to help and even to serve the poor,
but few are able deliberately to become poor with the poor."
But that is exactly what the marchioness did. She herself
tended the
poorest and dirtiest children. Although the congregation's primary
concern was poor and neglected children, she also founded high schools
and colleges, especially for the deaf and dumb. Magdalen organized
closed retreats for females. In Venice, she even launched a small
congregation of men to carry on similar work with boys. Following her
death, the Daughters of Charity entered the mission field.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the hectic pace of her life,
Saint
Magdalen developed enormous powers of recollection and prayer. She
attained remarkable levels of contemplation. On several occasions,
witnesses observed her rapt in ecstasy, and once she was seen
levitating.
Towards the end of her life, Magdalen was bent almost double
and could
sleep only in a sitting position. She became seriously ill in Bergamo
at the end of 1834 and was taken back to the mother house in Verona. By
Holy Week 1835, she knew she was dying, though none of her doctors
agree with her. She asked for the last rites, then died suddenly
(Benedictines, Walsh).
|
1837
Anne Mary
Taigi Endowed
with the gift of prophecy, she read
thoughts and described distant events incorruptible.
Born at Siena 1769 daughter of a
druggist
named Giannetti, whose business failed, she was brought to Rome
and
worked for a time as a domestic servant. In 1790 she married
Dominic
Taigi, a butler of the Chigi family in Rome, and lived the normal life
of a married woman of the working class. In the discharge of these
humble duties and in the bringing up of her seven children she attained
a high degree of holiness. Endowed
with the gift of prophecy, she read
thoughts and described distant events. Her home became the
rendezvous
of cardinals and other dignitaries who sought her counsel. She was
beatified in 1920.
She frequented
the
Sacraments of
Penance and the Holy
Eucharist, and it was observed that her piety increased on the approach
of every feast of Our Lady. The Rosary was her only book, and her
devotion to the Angelus was so great that she used to fall on her knees
at the first sound of the bell, even though she heard it when crossing
a stream.
And she had the
most
important prayer of all -- the Mass. Every day,
without fail, she would leave her sheep in God's care and go to Mass.
Villagers wondered that the sheep weren't attacked by the wolves in the
woods when she left but God's protection never failed her. On several
occasions the swollen waters were seen to open and afford her a passage
without wetting her garments..
No matter how
little
Germaine had, she shared it with others. Her
scraps of food were given to beggars. Her life of prayer became stories
of God that entranced the village children.
But most startling of
all was the forgiveness to showed to the woman
who deserved her hatred.
Hortense,
furious at
the stories about her daughter's holiness, waited
only to catch her doing wrong. One cold winter day, after throwing out
a beggar that Germaine had let sleep in the barn, Hortense caught
Germaine carrying something bundled up in her apron. Certain that
Germaine had stolen bread to feed the beggar, she began to chase and
scream at the child. As she began to beat her, Germaine opened her
apron. Out tumbled what she had been hiding in her apron -- bright
beautiful flowers that no one had expected to see for months. Where had
she found the vibrant blossoms in the middle of the ice and snow? There
was only one answer and Germaine gave it herself, when she handed a
flower to her mother and said, "Please accept this flower, Mother. God
sends it to you in sign of his forgiveness."
As
the whole village
began to talk about this holy child, even Hortense
began to soften her feelings toward her. She even invited Germaine back
to the house but Germaine had become used to her straw bed and
continued to sleep in it.
At
this point, when
men were beginning to realize the beauty of her
life, God called her to Himself. One morning in the early summer of
1601, her father finding that she had not risen at the usual hour went
to call her; he found her dead on her pallet of vine-twigs. She was
then twenty-two years old, overcome by a life of suffering.
With
all the evidence
of her holiness, her life was too simple and
hidden to mean much beyond her tiny village -- until God brought it too
light again. When her body was exhumed forty years later, it was found
to be
undecayed, what is known as incorruptible.
As is often the case with
incorruptible bodies of saints, God chooses not the outwardly beautiful
to preserve but those that others despised as ugly and weak. It's as if
God is saying in this miracle that human ideas of beauty are not his.
To him, no one was more beautiful than this humble lonely young woman.
After her body was found in this state, the villagers started to speak
again of what she had been like and what she had done. Soon miracles
were attributed to her intercession and the clamor for
her canonization began.
In this way, the
most
unlikely of saints became recognized by the
Church. She didn't found a religious order. She didn't reach a high
Church post. She didn't write books or teach at universities. She
didn't go to foreign lands as a missionary or convert thousands. What
she did was live a life devoted to God and her neighbor no matter what
happened to her. And that is all God asks.
In Her
Footsteps: Do you make excuses not to help others because
you have so little
yourself? Share something this week with those in need that may be
painful for you to give up.
Prayer:
Saint Germaine,
watch
over those children who suffer abuse as you did.
Help us to give them the love and protection you only got from God.
Give us the courage to speak out against abuse when we know of it. Help
us to forgive those who abuse the way you did, without sacrificing the
lives of the children who need help. Amen |
1846
St. Mary Magdalen Postel opened a school for girls at
Barfleur a leader in Barfleur against the
constitutional priests and sheltered fugitive priests in her home
venerated for her holiness and miracles
Apud Abbatíam
Sanctíssimi Salvatóris,
diœcésis Constantiénsis, in Gállia, sanctæ
Maríæ-Magdalénæ Postel, Fundatrícis
Institúti Sorórum Scholárum Christianárum a
Misericórdia, a Pio Papa Undécimo in sanctárum
Vírginum album relátæ.
At the
abbey of our Most Holy Redeemer, in the
diocese of Coutances in France, St. Mary Magdalene Postel, foundress of
the Sisters of Mercy of the Christian Schools, who was added to the
list of the holy virgins by Pope Pius XI.
Mary was born at
Barfleur, France,
on November 28 and baptized
Julia Frances Catherine. She was educated at the Benedictine
convent at Valognes, and when eighteen she opened a school for girls at
Barfleur. When the French Revolution broke out, the revolutionaries
closed the school and she became a leader in Barfleur against the
constitutional priests and sheltered fugitive priests in her home,
where Mass was celebrated. When
the concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Holy See brought peace
to the French Church, she worked in the field of religious education,
and in 1807, at Cherbourg, she
and three other teachers took
religious vows before Abbe Cabart, who had encouraged her in her work -
the beginning of the Sisters of the Christian Schools of Mercy. She was
named superior and took the name Mary Magdalen. During the next few
years the community encountered great difficulties and was forced to
move several times before settling at Tamersville in 1815. It was not
until she obtained the abbey of St. Sauveur le Vicomte that the
congregation finally began to expand and flourish. She died on July 16
at St. Sauveur, venerated for her holiness and miracles, and was
canonized in 1925.
1846 St Mary-Magdalen
Postel,
Virgin, Foundress of The Sisters of The Christian
Schools of Mercy
John Postel and Teresa Levallois his wife were members of
the
bourgeoisie in the smail port of Barfleur, to whom on November 28,
1756, was born a daughter, who was baptized with the names Julia
Frances Catherine. This child was of a pious disposition, and
several illustrative anecdotes are told, of the sort that may be found
in the childhood of some who grew up to be anything but saints;
however, it may be noted that she was allowed to make her first
communion when she was eight, four years earlier than was customary in
those days. She was sent to a local school and afterwards to that
of the Benedictine convent at Valognes, and while there she determined
to devote her life to the direct service of God and her neighbour and
took a private vow of perpetual virginity. On leaving school when
she was eighteen she returned to Barfieur, where she opened a school
for girls, and her pupiis in after life were a consistent witness to
the grounding they had received from their first teacher.
Julia carried on quietly for five years, and then the
revolution
burst. In 1790 the National Assembly imposed an oath on the
clergy to maintain the civil constitution, which oath Pope Pius VI forbade as detrimental
to the freedom of the Church. Nevertheless, many clergy (the
"constitutionals ") took it and the Church in France was torn by a
schism.
In Barfleur the constitutional clergy had the
upper hand, and Julia Postel was a leader among those who refused to
attend their services or accept their ministrations. She made a
secret chapel under the stairs in her house, and here Mass was offered
by the abbé Lamache, rector of Notre Dame de Barfleur, who had
been proscribed as "refractory". M. Lamache trusted her to
the extent of reserving the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel, and Julia
made the secret arrangements necessary to enable him to minister to his
flock.
After a time it was deemed imprudent to reserve the
Blessed Sacrament there any longer and, in accordance with the law of
the Church in time of persecution or other extreme need, Julia was
allowed to carry it on her person and to administer it as viaticum to
the dying when no priest was at hand: a veritable "maiden-priest ", as St Pius X did not hesitate to call
her in the decree of beatification.
Admiration for her was
not confined to the "refractories". Once when
her house had been searched the comment of the disappointed soldiers
was, "Let her alone. She does nobody any harm, and is very
kind to the children." Year after year of such danger,
responsibility, and nervous strain could be supported only by an
intense inner life. And if Julia was always with God, God showed
time and again that He was always with her.
For four years after the concordat of 1801 Julia
was one of those devoted workers who laboured at whatever task came
next to repair the ravages of revolution in the religious life of the
people; she taught, she catechized, she prepared children and adults to
receive the sacraments, she organized works of mercy, and always she
prayed. Then, in her fifty-first year, armed with her
reputation and a testimonial from a priest, but with no material
resources beyond her own hands and head, she went to Cherbourg where
she heard the municipality was in need of school-teachers. She told a
local chaplain, the abbé Cabart, that "I want to
teach the young and to inspire them with the love of God and liking for
work. I want to help the poor and relieve some of their
misery. These are the things I want to do, and for long
I've seen that I must have a religious congregation to do it." M.
Cabart was not the man to discourage enthusiasm or fail to recognize
ability. He told Julia she was just the woman he had
been looking for and he would find her a house.
One
was soon rented; it was dedicated in honour of our Lady, Mother of
Mercy (the patron of that former chapel under the stairs); pupils were
got together; three other teachers joined her, Joan Catherine
Bellot, Louisa Viel and Angelina Ledanois. In 1807 these four
took the vows of religion before M. Cabart, representing the bishop,
and Julia took the name of Mary-Magdalen. Three years later it was
reported to the charity commissioners that two hundred little girls
were being instructed by them in sacred and profane knowledge,
handicrafts being taught to others, ragamuffins rescued from the
streets, and ten thousand francs a year given in alms.
In 1811, when
the community numbered nine sisters,
the Sisters of Providence returned to Cherbourg, and, rather than
appear to emulate and rival them, Mother Mary-Magdalen withdrew her
family to Octeville-L'Avenel, where they lived for six months in great
hardship in a barn adjoining the school-house. Then they
migrated to Tamerville, and looked after orphans and the poor there
until their lease fell in. Again they migrated, this time
to Valognes, where it looked as if the foundress's undertaking would
come to nothing. There were already three convents of nuns
teaching in the town, and Mother Mary-Magdalen and her six sisters had
to subsist on the work of their hands, they and their twelve
orphans. Sister Rosalia died, and when an untrue rumour that she
had starved to death got around, the abbé Cabart thought it was
the last straw, wished to sever his connection with them, and told the
community it was time to give up. The superioress thought
otherwise.
"Tell monsieur l'abbe ",
she said, "that I am so certain that our Lord desires the realization
of my aims that I shall not cease to pursue them with the greatest
ardour. He who has given my daughters to me and who watches over
the birds of the air can easily provide me with the means to support
them. So long as God gives me strength to work I shall
never leave one of them."
That act of faith turned the tide-but not yet.
For two years they lived at Hamel-au-Eon, in extreme poverty, doing any
work that came along, needlework, repairs, in the fields, and then
Prince Le Brun offered them their former house at Tarnerville and the
charge of a school.
Allmost at once a famine broke out, which gave
Mother Mary-Magdalen's sisters their chance to earn a permanent place
in the hearts of the people, and then in 1818 in consequence of a new
by-law she had, at sixty-two years old, to sit down and pass an
examination to qualify as a head teacher. Though the community
was reduced by deaths to four, a school was started at Tourlaville: and
with this expansion of activity the community began to grow in numbers;
by 1830 a larger convent was imperatively needed. Mother
Mary-Magdalen obtained the dilapidated abbey of
Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, which had been founded in the eleventh
century and abandoned at the Revolution. Here in the first twelve
months the community received ten postulants, before whose coming its
total number was only fifteen; among them was Bd Placida Viel. In 1837
the rule by which Mother Mary-Magdalen had governed her sisters for
twenty-eight years was laid aside (not on her own initiative, but
without a word of protest from her) and that approved by the Holy See
for the Brothers of the Christian Schools was formally adopted; a
canonical novitiate was begun, and at the end of the year their vows
were received by Mgr Delamare, Bishop of Coutances, who was the devoted
friend and adviser of the community.
The last eight years of the foundress's
life, though they had their trials, setbacks, and crosses, was a
period of expansion and achievement: the congregation grew, the number
of its pupils increased, and the great abbey church of
St-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, which had been in ruins, began to rise
again. She died when this last work was not yet finished on July
16, 1846, at the age of ninety years. Miracles were not wanting
to confirm her reputation for sanctity; and in 1925 she was
canonized. For forty-one years the
life of St Mary-Magdalen Postel was the vicissitudes and progress of
the institute that she founded; had she never been raised to the altars
of the Church her name would still be rendered illustrious by the
Sisters of the Christian Schools.
See the life by Mgr Grente
(Eng. trans., 1928) and
his Une sainte normande (1946).
There are other lives in French, e.g.
by Mgr Legoux (1908, in two volumes) and by P. de Crisenoy (1938).
|
1868 Saint (Mary)
Euphrasia
Pelletier generously given this special gift of God that she is
called the "ecstatic saint." bilocation V (RM)
Born on Noirmoutier Island, Brittany, France, in 1796; died
at Angers,
France, on April 24, 1868; beatified in 1933; canonized in 1940 by Pope
Pius XII.
Rose Virginia Pelletier, one of ten children of a refuge
doctor of the
Vendée wars, studied at Tours and in 1814 joined the Institute
of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge, founded by Saint John Eudes in 1641 to help
wayward and endangered women. She was professed in 1816, taking the
names Marie-Euphrasie, was elected superior in 1825 (age 29), and, at
the bishop's invitation made a new foundation at Angers in 1829. Two
years later, Mother Euphrasia founded a contemplative community to
complement the active social work of the others.
Having done this successfully, Mother Euphrasia returned to
Tours; but
experience had suggested to her the desirability of radical changes in
her congregation's organization. She decided that a new congregation
under a central authority was needed rather than individual foundations
under separate bishops. Of course, Mother Euphrasia met with opposition
and was accused of being an ambitious, insubordinate innovator. Even
her detractors, however, said that "she was capable of ruling a
kingdom."
With modesty and determination she rode out the storm, and
in 1835,
papal approval was given to the Institute of Our Lady of Charity of the
Good Shepherd, dedicated to working with wayward girls, at Angers. The
institute spread rapidly and by the time of Mother Euphrasia's death
had thousands of sisters in 110 convents on four continents.
In all her work, Euphrasia provided the compassion and
solicitude of
the Good Shepherd to her sisters, penitents, and young girls in
difficult family situations. Her strength and cheerfulness during the
stormy times offer us an example of effectuating the gift of hope
(Attwater, Benedictines, Bernoville, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer).
Mystical ecstasy is the elevation of the spirit to God
in such a
way
that the person is aware of this union with God and both internal and
external senses are detached from the sensible world. Mary Magdalene de
Pazzi was so generously given this special gift of God that she is
called the "ecstatic saint."
She was born into a noble family in Florence in 1566. The
normal course
would have been for Catherine de Pazzi to have married wealth and
enjoyed comfort, but she chose to follow her own path. At nine she
learned to meditate from the family confessor. She made her first
Communion at the then-early age of 10 and made a vow of virginity one
month later. When 16, she entered the Carmelite convent in Florence
because she could receive Communion daily there.
Catherine had taken the name Mary Magdalene and had been a
novice for a
year when she became critically ill. Death seemed near so her superiors
let her make her profession of vows from a cot in the chapel in a
private ceremony. Immediately after, she fell into an ecstasy that
lasted about two hours. This was repeated after Communion on the
following 40 mornings. These ecstasies were rich experiences of union
with God and contained marvelous insights into divine truths.
As a safeguard against
deception and to preserve the revelations, her
confessor asked Mary Magdalene to dictate her experiences to sister
secretaries. Over the next six years, five large volumes were filled.
The first three books record ecstasies from May of 1584 through
Pentecost week the following year. This week was a preparation for a
severe five-year trial. The fourth book records that trial and the
fifth is a collection of letters concerning reform and renewal. Another
book, Admonitions, is a collection of her sayings arising from her
experiences in the formation of women religious.
The extraordinary was ordinary for this saint. She read the
thoughts of
others and predicted future events. During her lifetime, she appeared
to several persons in distant places and cured a number of sick people.
It would be easy to dwell on the ecstasies and pretend that
Mary
Magdalene only had spiritual highs. This is far from true. It seems
that God permitted her this special closeness to prepare her for the
five years of desolation that followed when she experienced spiritual
dryness. She was plunged into a state of darkness in which she saw
nothing but what was horrible in herself and all around her. She had
violent temptations and endured great physical suffering. She died in
1607 at 41, and was canonized in 1669.
Comment: Intimate union,
God's gift to
mystics, is a
reminder to all
of us of the eternal happiness of union he wishes to give us. The cause
of mystical ecstasy in this life is the Holy Spirit, working through
spiritual gifts. The ecstasy occurs because of the weakness of the body
and its powers to withstand the divine illumination, but as the body is
purified and strengthened, ecstasy no longer occurs. On various aspects
of ecstasy, see Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, Chapter 5, and John
of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 2:1-2.
Quote: There are many
people today who see
no purpose
in suffering.
Mary Magdalene de Pazzi discovered saving grace in suffering. When she
entered religious life she was filled with a desire to suffer for
Christ during the rest of her life. The more she suffered, the greater
grew her desire for it. Her dying words to her fellow sisters were:
"The last thing I ask of you—and I ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ—is that you love him alone, that you trust implicitly in him and
that you encourage one another continually to suffer for the love of
him."
|
1857 Dominic
Savio
Bosco would write Dominic's biography known for cheerfulness,
friendliness, careful observation, and good advice (RM)
Born in Riva, Piedmont, Italy, in 1842; died at Mondonio,
Italy, on
March 9, 1857; beatified in 1950; canonized in 1954. Dominic was
one of ten children of a peasant blacksmith and a seamstress. He grew
up with a desire to be a priest. When Saint John Bosco began to train
youths as clergy to help him care for neglected boys at Turin,
Dominic's parish priest recommended today's saint. Bosco, who would
write Dominic's biography, was impressed upon meeting him.
In October 1854, at the age of twelve, Dominic became a
student at the
Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales in Turin. He is best known for the
group he organized there, called the Company of the Immaculate
Conception. In addition to its devotional measures, it handled various
jobs, from sweeping the floors to taking special care of boys who were
misfits.
Early in his stay at the oratory, Dominic halted a fight
with stones
between two boys. Holding a crucifix between them he said, "Before you
fight, look at this, both of you, and say 'Jesus Christ was sinless,
and He died forgiving His executioners; I am going to outrage Him by
being deliberately revengeful.' Then you can start- -and throw your
first stone at me."
He scrupulously followed the discipline of the house,
incurring
resentment from some other boys from whom he expected the same
behavior. Nevertheless, he never repaid ill-treatment in kind. Bosco's
guidance probably curbed Dominic from becoming a young fanatic. He
forbade Dominic to perform bodily mortification without his permission,
believing that with ". . . heat, cold, sickness (and) the tiresome ways
of other people--there is quite enough mortification for boys in school
life itself."
He found Dominic shivering in bed one cold night with only a
thin
sheet. "Don't be crazy. You'll get pneumonia," he said. "Why should I?"
replied Dominic. "Our Lord didn't get pneumonia in the stable at
Bethlehem."
On one occasion when Dominic was missing from morning until
after
dinner, Bosco found him in the choir of the church, standing in a
cramped position by the lectern, deep in prayer. He had been there for
six hours, yet he thought that early Mass was not yet over. Dominic
referred to these times of intense prayer as "my distractions."
Bosco reports that in one strong 'distraction,' Dominic saw
a wide,
mist-shrouded plain, with a multitude of people groping about in it. To
them came a pontifically vested figure carrying a torch that lighted up
the whole scene, and a voice seemed to say, "This torch is the Catholic
faith which shall bring light to the English people."
Bosco reported this to Pope Pius IX at Dominic's request,
and the pope
said that it confirmed his intention to give attention to England. (You
may recall that England became a primary preoccupation of Don Bosco's
later life.) Some say this was the impetus for Pope Pius IX to restore
a hierarchy to England in 1850.
Dominic became known
for his
cheerfulness, friendliness,
careful
observation, and good advice. Though only a boy, he was blessed with
spiritual gifts far beyond his age--knowledge of people in need,
knowledge of the spiritual needs of those around him, and the ability
to prophesy. Dominic's fragile health worsened, and in 1857, he was
sent home to Mondonio for a change of air. He was diagnosed with
tuberculosis, and was bled, which probably hastened his death.
He received the last
sacraments and asked his father to read the
prayers for the dying. Toward the end, he tried to sit up. "Good- bye,
Father," he said, "the priest told me something . . . but I can't
remember what. . . ." Suddenly he smiled and exclaimed, "I am seeing
the most wonderful things!" and died. Soon afterwards John Bosco wrote
his vita, which contributed to his canonization. He was the youngest
(15 years old) non-martyr to receive official canonization in the
history of the Church (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, White).
Dominic Savio is the patron saint of Pueri Cantors, choirs,
choirboys,
boys, and juvenile delinquents (White).
|
1870 St. Anthony
Mary Claret archbishop Cuba prophet miracle-worker
[Antonio
Maria Claret y Clara] (Spanish, priest, retreat master,
missionary, founder of the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary [commonly called Claretians] and of the
Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate, archbishop in Cuba, confessor to
queen of Spain, prophet and miracle-worker, preacher of 10,000 sermons,
author of 200 works, spread devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and Our
Lady, d. 1870 in a French Cistercian monastery at age 63)
Anthony
(Antony) Mary Claret B, Founder (RM) Born in Sallent, Spain,
December 23, 1807; died in Narbonne, France, October 24, 1870;
canonized 1950.
"When
I
see the need there is for divine teaching and how hungry people
are to hear it, I am atremble to be off and running throughout the
world, preaching the Word of God. I have no rest. My soul finds no
other relief than to rush about and preach."
"If
God's
Word is spoken by a priest who is filled with the fire of
charity--the fire of love of God and neighbor--it will wound vices,
kill sins, convert sinners, and work wonders."
"When
I
am before the Blessed Sacrament I feel such a lively faith that
I cannot describe it. Christ in the Eucharist is almost tangible to
me... When it is time for me to leave, I have to tear myself away from
His sacred presence." --St. Antony Claret
As
the
son of a weaver, Antony became a weaver himself and in his free
time he learned Latin and printing. At the age of 22 he entered the
seminary at Vich, Catalonia, Spain, and was ordained in 1835. After a
few years he began to entertain the idea of a Barthusian vocation but
it seemed beyond his strength, so he travelled to Rome to join the
Jesuits with the idea of becoming a foreign missionary. Ill health,
however, caused him to leave the Jesuit novitiate and he returned to
pastoral work at Sallent in 1837. He spent the next decade preaching
parochial missions and retreats throughout Catalonia. During this time
he helped Blessed Joachima de Mas to establish the Carmelites of
Charity.
He
went
to the Canary Islands and after 15 months there (1848-49) with
Bishop Codina, Anthony returned to Vich. His evangelical zeal inspired
other priests to join in the same work, so in 1849 he founded the
Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (the Claretians),
dedicated to preaching missions. The Claretians have spread far beyond
Spain to the Americas and beyond.
In
1850,
Queen Isabella II, appointed him archbishop of Santiago, Cuba.
The people of this diocese were in a shocking state, and Claret made
bitter enemies in his efforts to reform the see--some of whom made
threats on his life. In fact, he was wounded in an assassination
attempt against his life at Holguin in 1856, by a man angered that his
mistress was won back to an honest life.
At
the
request of Queen Isabella, he returned to Spain in 1857 to
become her confessor. He resigned his Cuban see in 1858, but spent as
little time at the court as his official duties required. Throughout
this period he was also deeply occupied with the missionary activities
of his congregation and with the diffusion of good literature,
especially in his native Catalan. He was also appointed rector of the
Escorial, where he established a science laboratory, a natural history
museum, and schools of music and languages. He also founded a religious
library in Barcelona.
He
followed Isabella to France when a revolution drove her from the
throne in 1868. He attended Vatican Council I (1869-70) where he
influenced the definition of papal infallibility. An attempt was made
to lure him back to Spain, but it failed. Antony retired to Prades,
France, but was forced to flee to a Cistercian monastery at Fontfroide
near Narbonne when the Spanish ambassador demanded his arrest.
Anthony
Claret was a leading figure in the revival of Catholicism in
Spain, preached over 25,000 sermons, and published some 144 books and
pamphlets during his lifetime. His continual union with God was
rewarded by many supernatural graces. He was reputed to have performed
miraculous cures and to have had gifts of prophecy. Both in Cuba and in
Spain he encountered the hostility of the Spanish anti-clerical
politicians (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Walsh,
White).
He
is the
patron saint of weavers; and of savings and savings banks, a
result of his opening savings banks in Santiago in an effort to help
the poor (White).
|
1889
Bl. Mary
Teresa de Soubiran care of working girls orphans; Eucharistic
adoration; enjoyed mystical gifts of a high order (Benedictines).
(1835-1889)
Blessed
Mary-Teresa de Soubiran (AC) Born in
Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, France, in 1834; died in 1889; beatified in
1946. Though she was born into nobility, Mary-Teresa wished to become a
Carmelite. Her uncle, who was a priest, convinced her to found a
béguinage instead in 1855. At that time she took the name
Mary-Teresa. In order to attain her apostolic ends more fully, she
transformed the béguinage into the Institute of Mary Auxiliatrix
with the approval of her bishop. The jealousy of a manipulative sister
led to Mary-Teresa being driven from her congregation and deprived of
her property. Instead of giving up, in 1868, Mary-Teresa sought refuge
in the Institute of Our Lady of Charity in which she was permitted to
take vows and in which she persisted until her death. Only then was the
truth of her situation revealed. Mary-Teresa also enjoyed mystical
gifts of a high order (Benedictines).
Most women saints have been foundresses of religious orders.
Their
lives were not without drama, but it was not usually the sort of drama
that would hit the headlines of the daily papers. The case of Blessed
Mary Teresa de Soubiran was an exception. She was the victim of a
melodrama that rivaled some of our soap operas. Mary Teresa de Soubiran
was born into an old noble family of southern France in 1835. Her
family upbringing was rather strictly religious; but that didn't matter
to her, for she felt called anyway to the "hidden life" of a
contemplative nun.
A priest-uncle, Canon
Louis de Soubiran, ignored her
preference for the
cloistered life, and induced her instead to found a convent of
Beguines. Beguines were almost more a pious society than a religious
order. Their very liberal rule of life allowed each member to retain
her own property, and even the vows of chastity and obedience were
temporary rather than once-and-for-all. Mary Teresa accepted this
assignment, but during the nine years it lasted she succeeded in making
the rule stricter. The members eventually gave up their property,
opened an orphanage, and began to devote themselves to nighttime
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In 1863 Mother Soubiran worked
these ideas into a new rule, and in 1864 she and some of her sisters
opened a new convent in Toulouse, where they could follow the new
lifestyle. By now they had extended their program to include the care
of working girls as well as orphans; and Eucharistic adoration was
scheduled not just once a month but every night. Mother Teresa called
the order the "Society of Mary Auxiliatrix." By 1868 Pope Pius IX had
granted it the initial approval.
Soon afterward, the troubles began. In 1868 Mother
Teresa
received a novice known as Mother Mary Frances. A capable woman, Mary
Frances was chosen assistant mother-general in 1871. Five years older
than the foundress, she now argued persuasively in favor of a vast
program of expansion. As a result, the community spent beyond its
means, and Mother Mary Frances announced that their financial position
was close to bankruptcy, and she blamed it on the foundress. The upshot
of it was that the sisters voted to expel Mary Teresa from the
sisterhood she had established.
Cast out but still desirous of remaining a religious, Mother
Mary
Teresa asked for admission into another order. The Visitation nuns
refused her, as did the Carmelites. Finally she was allowed to take her
vows in 1877 as a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the
Good Shepherd. They engaged in rescue work in Parish. Thus the exiled
nun banished from her thoughts - though not from her prayers - the
religious community that she had originated.
Meanwhile, Mother Mary Frances had done everything possible
to efface
the memory of the foundress from the Society of Mary Auxiliatrix. Mary
Teresa did not live to see the reaction that set in. She died of
tuberculosis on June 7, 1889, completely resigned to her situation, yet
foretelling that there would be a change within a year. By 1890
the Society was so weakened and Mother Frances had proved so
domineering and unstable that, faced by the opposition of her nuns, she
resigned her office and left the order. After her death in 1921, it was
learned that when she entered the community, Mother Frances concealed
the fact that she was a married woman and that her husband was still
living. That meant that she had never really been a nun, much less a
Mother superior, for her vows would have been invalid. Consequently,
her actions as superior had also been invalid - including her expulsion
of Mother Teresa. And by the same token, Mother Teresa's membership in
the order she founded had continued without interruption until her
death, since her exclusion had been illegal!
We know that God is just, but it helps every now and then to
see Him
come to the rescue of those who have patiently suffered injustices.
Meanwhile, in Blessed Mary Teresa's case, what a scenario!--Father
Robert F. McNamara
|
1894 St. Conrad of
Parzham
Franciscan mystic lay brother Marian devotions gift of prophecy read
people’s hearts
Born Carl Birndorfer in Parzham, Bavaria, Germany, on December 22, 1818, he
became a Capuchin lay brother in 1849. For more than thirty years,
Conrad served as porter or doorkeeper of the shrine of Our Lady of
Altotting, and he was known for his Marian devotions. Conrad had the
gift of prophecy and of reading people’s hearts. He died in Altotting
on April 21. He was canonized in 1934.
|
1897
Saint Therese of Lisieux Since her death she has worked innumerable
miracles one of the patron saints of the missions
the Little
Flower of Jesus, born at Alençon, France, 2
January, 1873; died at Lisieux 30 September, 1897.
Generations of
Catholics have admired this young saint, called her the
"Little Flower", and found in her short life more inspiration for own
lives than in volumes by theologians.
Yet Therese died
when
she was 24, after having lived as cloistered
Carmelite for less than ten years. She never went on missions, never
founded a religious order, never performed great works. The only book
of hers, published after her death, was a brief edited version of her
journal called "Story of a Soul." (Collections of her letters and
restored versions of her journals have been published recently.) But
within 28 years of her death, the public demand was so great that she
was canonized.
Over the years,
some
modern Catholics have turned away from her because
they associate her with over- sentimentalized piety and yet the message
she has for us is still as compelling and simple as it was almost a
century ago.
Therese was born
in
France in 1873, the pampered daughter of a mother
who had wanted to be a saint and a father who had wanted to be monk.
The two had gotten married but determined they would be celibate until
a priest told them that was not how God wanted a marriage to work! They
must have followed his advice very well because they had nine children.
The five children who lived were all daughters who were close all their
lives.
Tragedy and loss
came
quickly to Therese when her mother died of breast
cancer when she was four and a half years old. Her sixteen year old
sister Pauline became her second mother -- which made the second loss
even worse when Pauline entered the Carmelite convent five years later.
A few months later, Therese became so ill with a fever that people
thought she was dying.
The worst part
of it
for Therese was all the people sitting around her
bed staring at her like, she said, "a string of onions." When Therese
saw her sisters praying to statue of Mary in her room, Therese also
prayed. She saw Mary smile at her and suddenly she was cured. She tried
to keep the grace of the cure secret but people found out and badgered
her with questions about what Mary was wearing, what she looked like.
When she refused to give in to their curiosity, they passed the story
that she had made the whole thing up.
Without
realizing it,
by the time she was eleven years old she had
developed the habit of mental prayer. She would find a place between
her bed and the wall and in that solitude think about God, life,
eternity.
When her other
sisters, Marie and Leonie, left to join religious orders
(the Carmelites and Poor Clares, respectively), Therese was left alone
with her last sister Celine and her father. Therese tells us that she
wanted to be good but that she had an odd way of going about. This
spoiled little Queen of her father's wouldn't do housework. She thought
if she made the beds she was doing a great favor!
Every time Therese
even imagined that someone was criticizing her or
didn't appreciate her, she burst into tears. Then she would cry because
she had cried! Any inner wall she built to contain her wild emotions
crumpled immediately before the tiniest comment.
Therese wanted
to
enter the Carmelite convent to join Pauline and Marie
but how could she convince others that she could handle the rigors of
Carmelite life, if she couldn't handle her own emotional outbursts? She
had prayed that Jesus would help her but there was no sign of an answer.
On Christmas
day in
1886, the fourteen-year-old hurried home from
church. In France, young children left their shoes by the hearth at
Christmas, and then parents would fill them with gifts. By fourteen,
most children outgrew this custom. But her sister Celine didn't want
Therese to grow up. So they continued to leave presents in "baby"
Therese's shoes.
As she and
Celine
climbed the stairs to take off their hats, their
father's voice rose up from the parlor below. Standing over the shoes,
he sighed, "Thank goodness that's the last time we shall have this kind
of thing!"
Therese froze,
and
her sister looked at her helplessly. Celine knew
that in a few minutes Therese would be in tears over what her father
had said. But the tantrum never came. Something incredible had happened
to
Therese. Jesus had come into her heart and done what she could not do
herself. He had made her more sensitive to her father's feelings than
her own. She swallowed her tears, walked slowly down the stairs, and
exclaimed
over the gifts in the shoes, as if she had never heard a word her
father said. The following year she entered the convent. In her
autobiography she referred to this Christmas as her "conversion."
Therese be known
as
the Little Flower but she had a will of steel. When
the superior of the Carmelite convent refused to take Therese because
she was so young, the formerly shy little girl went to the bishop. When
the bishop also said no, she decided to go over his head, as well.
Her father and
sister
took her on a pilgrimage to Rome to try to get
her mind off this crazy idea. Therese loved it. It was the one time
when being little worked to her advantage! Because she was young and
small she could run everywhere, touch relics and tombs without being
yelled at. Finally they went for an audience with the Pope. They had
been forbidden to speak to him but that didn't stop Therese. As soon as
she got near him, she begged that he let her enter the Carmelite
convent. She had to be carried out by two of the guards!
The Vicar General
who had seen her courage was impressed and soon
Therese was admitted to the Carmelite convent that her sisters Pauline
and Marie had already joined. Her romantic ideas of convent life and
suffering soon met up with reality in a way she had never expected. Her
father suffered a series of strokes that left him affected not only
physically but mentally. When he began hallucinating and grabbed for a
gun as if going into battle, he was taken to an asylum for the insane.
Horrified, Therese learned of the humiliation of the father she adored
and admired and of the gossip and pity of their so-called friends. As a
cloistered nun she couldn't even visit her father.
This began a
horrible
time of suffering when she experienced such
dryness in prayer that she stated "Jesus isn't doing much to keep the
conversation going." She was so grief-stricken that she often fell
asleep in prayer. She consoled herself by saying that mothers loved
children when they lie asleep in their arms so that God must love her
when she slept during prayer.
She knew as a
Carmelite nun she would never be able to perform great
deeds. "Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love?
Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by
scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every
glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."
She took
every chance to sacrifice, no matter how small it would seem. She
smiled at the sisters she didn't like. She ate everything she was given
without complaining -- so that she was often given the worst leftovers.
One time she was accused of breaking a vase when she was not at fault.
Instead of arguing she sank to her knees and begged forgiveness. These
little sacrifices cost her more than bigger ones, for these went
unrecognized by others. No one told her how wonderful she was for these
little secret humiliations and good deeds.
When Pauline
was
elected prioress, she asked Therese for the ultimate
sacrifice.
Because of
politics
in the convent, many of the sisters
feared that the family Martin would taken over the convent. Therefore
Pauline asked Therese to remain a novice, in order to allay the fears
of the others that the three sisters would push everyone else around.
This meant she would never be a fully professed nun, that she would
always have to ask permission for everything she did. This sacrifice
was made a little sweeter when Celine entered the convent after her
father's death. Four of the sisters were now together again.
Therese
continued to
worry about how she could achieve holiness in the
life she led.
She didn't want
to
just be good, she wanted to be a
saint. She thought there must be a way for people living hidden, little
lives like hers. "I have always wanted to become a saint.
Unfortunately when I have compared myself with the saints, I have
always found that there is the same difference between the saints and
me as there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds
and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passers-by. Instead of
being discouraged, I told myself: God would not make me wish for
something impossible and so, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at
being a saint. It is impossible for me to grow bigger, so I put up with
myself as I am, with all my countless faults. But I will look for some
means of going to heaven by a little way which is very short and very
straight, a little way that is quite new.
" We live in
an age
of inventions. We need no longer climb laboriously
up flights of stairs; in well-to-do houses there are lifts. And I was
determined to find a lift to carry me to Jesus, for I was far too small
to climb the steep stairs of perfection. So I sought in holy Scripture
some idea of what this life I wanted would be, and I read these words:
"Whosoever is a little one, come to me." It is your arms, Jesus, that
are the lift to carry me to heaven. And so there is no need for me to
grow up: I must stay little and become less and less."
She worried
about her
vocation:
"I feel in me the
vocation of the
Priest. I have the vocation of the Apostle. Martyrdom was the dream of
my youth and this dream has grown with me. Considering the mystical
body of the Church, I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave
me the key to my vocation. I understood that the Church had a Heart and
that this Heart was burning with love. I understood that Love comprised
all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and
places...in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my
delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I
have found it...My vocation is Love!"
When an antagonist
was elected prioress, new political suspicions and
plottings sprang up. The concern over the Martin sisters perhaps was
not exaggerated. In this small convent they now made up one-fifth of
the population. Despite this and the fact that Therese was a permanent
novice they put her in charge of the other novices.
Then in
1896, she
coughed up blood. She kept working without telling
anyone until she became so sick a year later everyone knew it. Worst of
all she had lost her joy and confidence and felt she would die young
without leaving anything behind. Pauline had already had her writing
down her memories for journal and now she wanted her to continue -- so
they would have something to circulate on her life after her death.
Her pain was
so great
that she said that if she had not had faith she
would have taken her own life without hesitation. But she tried to
remain smiling and cheerful -- and succeeded so well that some thought
she was only pretending to be ill. Her one dream as the work she would
do after her death, helping those on earth. "I will return," she said.
"My heaven will be spent on earth." She died on September 30, 1897 at
the age of 24 years old. She herself felt it was a blessing God allowed
her to die at exactly that age. She had always felt that she had a
vocation to be a priest and felt God let her die at the age she would
have been ordained if she had been a man so that she wouldn't have to
suffer.
After she died,
everything at the convent went back to normal.
One
nun
commented that there was nothing to say about Therese. But Pauline put
together Therese's writings (and heavily edited them, unfortunately)
and sent 2000 copies to other convents. But Therese's "little way" of
trusting in Jesus to make her holy and relying on small daily
sacrifices instead of great deeds appealed to the thousands of
Catholics and others who were trying to find holiness in ordinary
lives. Within two years, the Martin family had to move because her
notoriety was so great and by 1925 she had been canonized.
Therese of Lisieux
is
one of the patron saints of the missions, not
because she ever went anywhere, but because of her special love of the
missions, and the prayers and letters she gave in support of
missionaries. This is reminder to all of us who feel we can do nothing,
that it is the little things that keep God's kingdom growing.
Teresa of the Child
(Infant) Jesus V (RM) + (also known as Thérèse of
Lisieux, Marie Francoise Martin)
Born in
Alençon, France, January 2, 1873; died in Lisieux, Normandy,
France, on September 30, 1897;
canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, who
in 1927 declared patron of foreign missions (together with Saint
Francis Xavier);
in 1997, she was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope
John Paul II.
"I
had offered myself...to the Child Jesus as His little
plaything. I told Him not to use me as a valuable toy...but like a
little ball of no value...He let His little ball fall to the
ground and He went to sleep. What did He do during His gentle sleep and
what became of the abandoned ball? Jesus dreamed He was still playing
with His toy, leaving it and taking it up in turns, and then, having
seen it roll quite far, He pressed it to His heart, no longer allowing
it to ever go far from His little hand." --St.
Thérèse of Lisieux
Thérèse
was the ninth child of Louis Martin, a watchmaker, and
Azélie-Marie Geurin, a maker of point d'Alençon lace. She
was baptized
Marie-Francoise Thérèse. Her mother died in 1877 when
Thérèse was
five, and the father moved the family to Lisieux, where the children
could be overseen by their aunt.
Thérèse's
two older sisters became Carmelite nuns at Lisieux. When she
was 15, Thérèse told her father that she was so much
devoted to Jesus
that she wished to do the same but the Carmelites and her bishop
thought that she was too young. A few months later during a pilgrimage
to Rome for the jubilee of Pope Leo XIII, she met the pope. As she
knelt before him, she broke the rule of silence and asked him, "In
honor of your jubilee, allow me to enter Carmel at fifteen..." The
pope was impressed by her fervor, but upheld the decision to make her
wait.
At the end of the
year, she was received in the Carmel and took the
name Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Her father suffered a
nervous
breakdown and was institutionalized for three years. Despite her
fragile health, she lived the austere life faithfully. At 22, she was
appointed assistant novice mistress, although in fact she fulfilled the
duties of the novice mistress. After her father died in 1894, the
fourth sister joined the convent.
Her prioress
Mother
Agnes (her blood-sister Pauline) requested the she
write her autobiography, L'histoire d'une âme (The story of a
soul).
She began in 1894 to write the story of her childhood, and in 1897,
after finishing it the previous year, she was ordered by the new
prioress, Mother Marie de Gonzague, to tell of her life in the convent.
Both were combined in the final book, which was revised and circulated
to all the Carmelite houses.
Thérèse
of Lisieux's autobiography was three sections written
specifically to her sister Pauline, her sister Marie, and her prioress.
It was edited by Pauline (Sister Agnes) and made to appear as though
written to her prioress. Highly edited book sold without notation until
1956. In 1952 the unedited manuscripts were published in their original
form. The first English version, translated by Ronald Knox, appeared in
1958 under the title Autobiography of a saint. Thérèse
was childlike,
not polished, and she was sentimental. Surprisingly,
Thérèse found it
hard to say the rosary, which should be a comfort to those
saints-in-the-making who find it difficult, too.
The appeal of
the
book was immediate and astonishing:
It had an
instant
appeal in every language into which it was
translated. Her "little way" of searching for simplicity and perfection
in everyday tasks became a model for ordinary people. The saint's nine
years in the convent were uneventful and 'ordinary,' such as could be
paralleled in the lives of numberless other young nuns: the daily life
of prayer and work, faults of pride and obstinacy to be overcome, a
certain moodiness to be fought, inward and outward trials to be faced.
Sister Thérèse stuck bravely to her 'little way' of
simple trust in and
love for God.
Afflicted with
tuberculosis, Thérèse hemorrhaged but endured her
illness with patience and fortitude. She wished to join the Carmelites
at Hanoi in Indochina at their invitation, but her illness became
worse. She moved into the infirmary in 1897 and died at the age of 24.
Her last words were, "I love him. My God I love you."
Since her death
she
has worked innumerable miracles, and her cultus has
spread throughout the world. She had become the most popular saint of
modern times: Thérèse had shown innumerable people that
sainthood is
attainable by anybody, however, obscure, lowly, untalented, by doing
the small things and discharging daily duties in a perfected spirit of
love for God. Her popularity was so great that a large church was built
in Lisieux to accommodate the crowds of pilgrims to her shrine.
In contemplating
her
death, Thérèse said, "I will let fall a shower of
roses," meaning favors through her intercession. From this we get the
novena of St. Thérèse which requires the praying of 24
Our Fathers each
day for nine days in honor of the 24 years of life that God granted the
saint. It is said that when the prayer has been heard and answered, the
petitioner will receive a rose from the heavenly garden as a sign. For
this reason, she is called "the Little Flower of Jesus."
Thérèse's
attraction is her utter simplicity. She was no scholar; no
great student of the Bible or the Fathers. She simply longed to be a
saint, as she believed her person could. "In my little way," she wrote,
"are only very ordinary things. Little souls can do everything that I
do."
She
was full of fun.
She drew a coat of arms for herself and Jesus,
surmounted with her initials M.F.T., and the divine ones I.H.S. She
made superbly innocent and happy jokes. She recorded that she would
pretend she was at Nazareth in the Holy Family's home. "If I am offered
salad, cold fish, wine or anything with a strong flavor, I give that to
good Saint Joseph. I give the warm dishes and the ripest fruits to the
Holy Virgin. I give the infant Jesus soup, rice, and jam. But if I am
offered a bad meal, I say gaily to myself, 'My little girl, today it is
all yours'."
Thérèse
was a happy saint. Even as she suffered pain--physical and
emotional (being scolded for pulling up flowers rather than weeds in
the garden)--she always thanked God for everything (Attwater, von
Balthasar, Benedictines, Bentley, Day, Delaney, Gorres, Robo,
Sackville-West, Sheppard, White).
In
art, St.
Thérèse is a Discalced Carmelite holding a bouquet of
roses
or with roses at her feet. She is the patron saint of foreign missions
(due to her prayers for and correspondence with missions), all works
for Russia, France, florists and flower growers (White); aviators, and,
in 1944, was named copatroness of France with Saint Joan of Arc
(Delaney).
|
1898 Charbel
Makhlouf
the Maronite, Hermit After his death many favors and miracles were
claimed through his intercession in heaven. (RM)
(also known as Sharbel)
Born at Béqaa-Kafra, Lebanon, in 1828; died at
Annaya, 1898;
beatified during Vatican Council II in 1965; canonized 1977.
Charbel left the following prayer:
Father of truth, behold your son who
makes atoning
sacrifice to you. Accept the offering: he died for me that I might have
life.
Éditions Magnificat
Joseph Zaroun Makhlouf was the son of a Catholic Lebanese
mule driver,
who died when Joseph was in early childhood. He was raised by his
uncle, who was displeased by the boy's early devotion to prayer and
solitude. At the age of 23, Joseph went secretly to the monastery of
Our Lady of Mayfug, a house of the Maronite Baladite order. When he was
admitted to the order in 1851 he took the religious name Charbel--a 2nd
century Antiochean martyr. In due course, Charbel made his solemn vows
in 1853 and, in 1859, he was ordained to the priesthood, thus becoming
what is known as a 'hieromonk.' This practice is more common in Roman
rather than Eastern traditions.
Father Charbel traversed
the divide between East and West in other ways
as well. For example, one of his favorite books was the Imitation of
Christ.
He lived the life of a model monk in the monastery of St.
Maro at
Annaya (Gibail) for 15 years--singing office in choir and working in
the monastic vineyards and olive orchards with strict obedience and
personal self-denial. He wished, however, to more closely imitate the
Desert Fathers. To do this, in 1875, he took a hermitage near St. Peter
and St. Paul.
For the next 23 years he lived an ascetic life. His home
consisted of
four tiny rooms and a chapel, which were shared with three others. For
all these years Charbel spoke to another monk only when it was
absolutely necessary. He ate but one meal of vegetables daily. He
tasted no meat. He drank no wine, save a drop at the Eucharist. He ate
no fruit. He also undertook four annually periods of fasting. He
refused to touch money.
Instead of a bed Charbel Makhlouf had used a duvet filled
with dead
leaves, on top of which he used a goatskin for cover. His pillow was a
piece of wood. When anyone came to inhabit the three other rooms,
Charbel placed himself under obedience to them. He recited his office
at midnight. During these 23 years, more and more people came to ask
his counsel, prayers, and blessing.
Thus in the 19th century Father Charbel Makhlouf--along with
a few
other saintly men--had tried to live again the austere life of the
desert fathers of the early church. He belonged to the Christian body
known as Maronites, a group which traces its name back to Saint Maro, a
friend of Saint John Chrysostom. This group of Christians, most of whom
still live in Lebanon, have been united to the Western Church since the
12th century, thus bringing into Western Christendom traditions of
great value that might readily have been forgotten. These traditions
are ones of enormous self- discipline, and few have exemplified them
better than Charbel Makhlouf.
After 23 years of this ascetic life, Charbel had a
paralyzing stroke
just before the consecration while celebrating the Eucharist in his
chapel, and died eight days later on Christmas Eve. After his death
many favors and miracles were claimed through his intercession in
heaven. Today his tomb is visited by large numbers of people, not only
Lebanese Maronites and not only Christians
It was also necessary for the Roman authorities to
investigate the
phenomenon of a kind of "bloody sweat" that flowed from his body during
the period up to 1927 and again in 1950. Some months after his burial,
the body was fresh and incorrupt and was placed in a new coffin, where
a reddish perspiration flowed and caused the monks to change his
clothes twice weekly. In 1927, the patriarch initiated an enquiry and
the body was reburied. In 1950, after liquid was observed on the wall
of the tomb, the body was found fresh and incorrupt again.
Instantaneous cures and miraculous healings were claimed, some of whose
beneficiaries are non- Christian. The body was reburied under concrete.
This extraordinary phenomenon provides a modern, verifiable account of
the types of events frequently claimed for Medieval saints (such as
Enero) and frequently disregarded as superstitious (Attwater, Bentley,
Farmer). |
19th v. Sitka
Icon
of the Mother of God Located at the Cathedral of St Michael the
Archangel in Sitka, Alaska; Miracles have been attributed to her gaze
One of the most revered Icons in North America: the Sitka Mother of God.
This Icon has
been attributed to a famous Iconographer, Vladimir Lukich
Borovikovsky (1758-1826), a protégé of the Empress
Catherine II who was instructed at the Academy of Arts in St
Petersburg, Russia. In addition to being a great portrait painter,
Borovikovsky also painted many of the Icons for the Cathedral of the
Kazan Icon in St Petersburg.
Painted in the style of the Kazan Mother of God
Icon, on canvas, the
Sitka Mother of God Icon is 36 x 17½ inches in size. An
exceptionally beautiful and detailed riza of silver covers the Icon of
the Theotokos and Christ child, and the Image of God the Father
blessing from above.
The Cathedral received the Icon as a gift from
the laborers of the
Russian American Company in 1850, two years after the Cathedral was
completed. Even with their meager wages, these men generously made
their contribution to the Church.
Miracles have been attributed to the Sitka
Mother of God Icon over the
years. It is believed that the gaze of the eyes of the Theotokos have
led to the restored health of those who prayed before the Icon.
Because of the peaceful gaze of the Theotokos,
the Icon has been
described as a "pearl of Russian ecclesiastical art of ineffable
gentleness, purity and harmony." And "...the most beautiful face of the
Mother of God with the Divine Child in her arms is so delicately and
artistically done that the more one looks at it the more difficult it
is to tear one’s gaze away."
Originally
part of the main Iconostasis at the Cathedral of St Michael
the Archangel in Sitka, Alaska, the Icon is now permanently located on
the far left side of the Iconostasis in a special place of honor.
|