1815 BD LEOPOLD OF GAICHE founded house to which missioners and preachers
could retire for their annual retreat and other brethren and friends of
the order could come for spiritual refreshment; numerous miracles reported at his grave
Bd LEOPOLD was born at Gaiche in the diocese of Perugia,
the son of humble parents, and was christened John. A neighbouring priest
helped him with his education and in 1751, when he was eighteen, he received
the Franciscan habit in the friary at Cibotola, taking the name Leopold.
After he became a priest in 1757 he was sent to preach Lenten courses
of sermons which soon made him famous. As the result of his eloquence and
fervour, numerous conversions took place, enemies were reconciled, and penitents
besieged his confessional. For ten years, from 1768 when he was made papal
missioner in the States of the Church, he held missions in several dioceses,
and even after he had become minister provincial he continued his apostolic
labours. Fired by the example of Bd Thomas of Con and of St Leonard of Port
Maurice he was anxious to found a house to which missioners and preachers
could retire for their annual retreat and where other brethren and friends
of the order could come for spiritual refreshment. He had, however, many
difficulties to overcome and disappointments to meet before he could realize
his desire, on the lonely hill of Monte Luco, near Spoleto.
When in 1808 Napoleon invaded Rome and imprisoned Pope Pius VII, religious houses were suppressed
and their occupants turned out. Bd Leopold, a venerable old man of seventy-seven,
was obliged to abandon his beloved convent, and with three of his brethren
to live in a miserable hut in Spoleto. While there he acted as assistant
to a parish priest, but afterwards he had charge of an entire parish whose
pastor had been driven out by the French. Then he was himself imprisoned
for refusing to take an oath which he considered unlawful. His imprisonment,
however, was of short duration, for we soon find him giving missions once
more. His fame was enhanced by his prophetical powers and by strange phenomena
which attended him: for example, when he was preaching his head often appeared
to his congregation as though it were crowned with thorns.
With the fall of Napoleon, Bd Leopold hurried back to Monte Luco,
where he set about trying to establish things as they had been before but
he only survived for a few months, dying on April 15, 1815, in his eighty-third
year. The numerous miracles reported to have taken place at his grave
caused the speedy introduction of the process of his beatification, which
reached a favourable conclusion in 1893.
Abundant information
is provided by the documents printed for the process of beatification
and there is a life by Fr M. Antonio da Vicenza. See also Kempf, Holiness of the Church in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 95—96, and Seeböck, Die Herrlichkeit der Katholischen Kirche, pp. 212—213.
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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).
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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).
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She also told him to build a
church on the site, since there had once been one there.
The Queen of Heaven also promised to help him accomplish these tasks.
Upon awakening, he crossed himself and tried to
go back to sleep, believing that his dream had been a temptation from the
devil. Before falling asleep, Michael saw the Theotokos once again, and
noticed that the room was flooded by a gentle white light. Her head was
surrounded by divine light, and her face displayed ineffable grace and
sweetness. Speaking to the old man she said,
"Why are you afraid? Your fear comes from unbelief.
Listen! I am Panagia (the all-holy one).
I want you to dig in the field of Anthony Doxaras
where my icon is buried. I ask you to do this as a favor, old man. You will
build a church there and I will help you." Then she disappeared.
The next morning, Michael went
into the village and told the priest what had happened to him during the
night. The priest also thought the dream was a temptation, so he urged Michael
to come for Confession and Communion.
The old man was not convinced that his visions were mere dreams
or demonic temptations. He told the inhabitants of the village of his experience.
Some laughed at him, but only two believed his words.
The two men went with him to the field one night and dug in
many places, but they found nothing. Then they dug in another place and
found the remains of an old wall. Finding nothing but bricks, they had to
give up their search in the morning so the Turks would not find out what
they were doing.
Anthony Doxaras,
the owner of the field, found the bricks and tried to use them to build
an oven. The mortar would not adhere to the bricks, so whenever they tried
to build one section of the oven, it collapsed. The workers were convinced
that God was showing them that the bricks from the ancient church were not
to be used for an oven.
St Pelagia (July 23),
an eighty-year-old nun, had several dreams in June of 1822 in which the Most
Holy Theotokos appeared to her.
St Pelagia was living in the
women's monastery of the Dormition on Mt. Kechrovounios, about an hour's
journey from the village. She had lived in the monastery from a young age,
and was known for her great virtue and piety. The Theotokos appeared
to her in a dream and ordered her to go to Stamatelos Kangades (a prominent
man of the village), and tell him to uncover the church of St John the Baptist
in the field of Anthony Doxaras. Terrified by the vision, Pelagia
attributed the dream to her imagination, and she began to pray. She was
afraid to tell anyone about her dream, but the following week, the Theotokos
appeared to her again, reminding her of her instructions. Still, the nun
remained silent and told no one of her vision.
The Theotokos appeared a third time, this time with a severe
manner. She chastised the nun for her unbelief, saying,
"Go and do as I told you. Be obedient."
St Pelagia woke up in fear and trembling.
As she opened her eyes, she saw the same mysterious Woman she had seen while
asleep. With a great effort she asked, "Who are you, Lady? Why are you angry
with me, and why do you order me to do these things?" The Woman raised her
hand and said, "Proclaim, O earth, glad
tidings of great joy" (Megalynarion of the Ninth Ode of the Canon for
Matins of the Annunciation).
Understanding at last, the aged nun joyfully exclaimed, "Praise, O heavens, the glory of God"
(The next line of the Megalynarion).
At once, she informed the Abbess
of her visions, and she also told Stamatelos Kangades. Mr. Kangades, who
had been designated by the Theotokos to carry out the excavation of the church,
informed Bishop Gabriel of these events. The bishop had already heard of
the dream of Michael Polyzoes, and realized that the account of the nun Pelagia
agreed with his vision.
Bishop Gabriel wrote
to all the churches on the island of Tinos, urging them to cooperate in
finding the church and the icon.
Excavations began in September
of 1822 under the supervision of Mr. Kangades. The foundations of the church
of St John, destroyed by Arabs in 1200, were uncovered. An old well was found
near the church, but not the holy icon. The money ran out, and so the effort
was abandoned.
Once again the Mother of God appeared
to St Pelagia, urging that the excavations continue.
Bishop Gabriel sent out an appeal
for donations to build a new church on the foundations of the old church
of St John the Baptist. The new church was built, and was dedicated to St
John and to the Life-Giving Fountain.
On January 30, 1823 workers were leveling the ground inside
the church in preparation for laying a new stone floor. About noon one of
the workers, Emmanuel Matsos, struck a piece of wood with his pickaxe,
splitting it down the middle. He looked at one piece of the board and saw
that it was burned on one side, while the other side showed traces of paint.
As he brushed off the dirt with his hand, he saw that it was an icon. Joining
the two pieces of wood together, he crossed himself and venerated the icon.
He called the other workers, who also came and venerated the
icon. When the icon was cleaned, it was shown to be an icon of the Annunciation.
The split was in the middle of the icon, between the Theotokos and the
Archangel Gabriel. Neither figure was damaged, and this was regarded as
a miracle.
That same day, the icon was given to Bishop Gabriel, who kissed
it and cried out, "Great art Thou, O Lord, and wondrous are Thy works."
After the finding of the icon,
the inabitants of Tinos were filled with zeal to build a magnificent church
in honor of the Theotokos. People offered their money and their own labor
to help build the church of the Evangelistria (She who received the Good
News). The new church was completed in 1823, and was consecrated by
Bishop Gabriel. St Pelagia of Tinos fell asleep in the Lord on April 28, 1834.
Her Feast Day, however, is on July 23.
The Tinos Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos continues to be
venerated as one of Greece's holiest treasures.
Innumerable miracles of healing and deliverance from danger
have not ceased since the time the icon was found.
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1836 St. Caspar del Bufalo
Various miracles many graces were obtained by his intercession
Various miracles had
been worked by Don Caspar during his lifetime, and after his death many
graces were obtained by his intercession. He was canonized in 1954.
St. Caspar del Bufalo
was the Founder of the Missioners of the Precious Blood. His feast day
is January 2nd. Caspar, who was born in Rome, the son of a chef, in 1786,
was ordained a priest in 1808. Shortly after this, Rome was taken by Napoleon's
army, and he, with most of the clergy was exiled for refusing to abjure
his allegiance to the Holy See. He returned after the fall of Napoleon
to find a wide scope for work, as Rome had for nearly five years been almost
entirely without priests and sacraments.
In 1814 he founded
the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood and in 1815, it was formally
approved. The second foundation was made in 1819 and the third shortly
afterwards at Albano. His wish was to have a house in every diocese, the
most neglected and wicked town or district being chosen. The Kingdom of
Naples in those days was a nest of crime of every kind; no one's life
or property was safe, and in 1821 the pope asked del Bufalo to found six
houses there. He joyfully responded but met with endless difficulties
before subjects and funds were collected.
Grave difficulties
arose under Pope Leo XII; but these were cleared up, and in 1824, the houses
of the congregation were opened to young clergy who wished to be trained
specially as missioners. In his lifetime, their work covered the whole
of Italy.
Del Bufalo's biographer
gives us a graphic account of a mission, describing its successive stages.
Some of his methods were distinctly dramatic, e.g. the missioners took
the discipline in the public piazza, which always resulted in many conversions.
On the last day, forbidden firearms, obscene books, and anything else
that might offend Almighty God, were publicly burnt. A cross was erected
in memoriam, a solemn Te Deum sung, and the missioners went away quietly.
His last mission was preached
in Rome at the Chiesa Nuova during the cholera outbreak of 1836. Feeling
his strength failing, he returned at once to Albano, and made every
preparation for death. He suffered terribly from cold, and at night
from parching thirst, but he would not take anything to drink, so that
he might be able to celebrate Mass. After the feast of St. Francis Xavier
he went to Rome to die. On December 19, the doctor forbade him to say
Mass; he received the last sacraments on December 28, and he died the
same day.
Various miracles had
been worked by Don Caspar during his lifetime, and after his death many
graces were obtained by his intercession. He was canonized in 1954.
In 1824, the houses
of the congregation were opened to young clergy who wished to be trained
specially as missionaries. In his lifetime, their work covered the whole
of Italy. Journeying from town to town, enduring endless hardships,
threatened often even with death, Gaspar always taking the hardest work
himself, they preached their message. One of his principles was that everybody
should be made to work. He therefore founded works of charity in Rome
for young and old, rich and poor of both sexes. He opened the night oratory,
where our Lord is worshipped all night by men, many coming to Him, like
Nicodemus, by night who would not have the courage to go to confession
by day.
1837 St Caspar Del Bufalo, Founder of The Missioners of The
Precious Blood
Caspar, who was born in Rome, the son of a chef, in 1786, received
his education at the Collegio Romano and was ordained priest in 1808.
Shortly after this Rome was taken by Napoleon’s army, and he, with most
of the clergy, was exiled for refusing to abjure his allegiance to the
Holy See. He returned after the fall of Napoleon to find a wide scope for
work, as Rome had for nearly five years been almost entirely without priests
and sacraments.
In 1814 he conducted a mission at Giano, in the diocese of Spoleto,
and there the idea of the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood first
came to him. He found a house at Giano suitable for his purpose, and with
the help of Cardinal Cristaldi, ever his kind friend, and the hearty approval
of Pope Pius VII, the new congregation was formally approved in 1815.
The house and adjoining church of San Felice in Giano were given him by
the pope. The second foundation was made in 1819 and the third shortly afterwards
at Albano. His wish was to have a house in every diocese, the most neglected
and wicked town or district being chosen. The kingdom of Naples was in
those days a nest of crime of every kind; no one’s life or property was
safe, and in 1821 the pope wrote with his own hand to del Bufalo asking
him to found six houses there. He joyfully responded, but met with endless
difficulties before subjects and funds were collected. His biographer tells
us that Providence had scherzato (played practical jokes) with him, as
over and over again one difficulty was overcome only to be replaced by a
greater; but by degrees men gathered round him, and at last he could say
he had more than all the money he wanted.
Grave difficulties arose under Pope Leo XII; but these were
cleared up, and in 1824, the houses of the congregation were opened
to young clergy who wished to be trained specially as missioners. The
ideal was high, the work arduous. A missioner, the founder said, like
a soldier or sailor, must never give in, must be ready for anything. He
required from his sons not only devotion, but also hard study. To evangelize
the whole world, which was their aim, they must learn foreign languages
besides theology and Holy Scripture. In his lifetime their work covered
the whole of Italy. Journeying from town to town, enduring endless hardships,
threatened often even with death, their founder always taking the most arduous
work himself, they preached their message.
Del Bufalo’s biographer gives us a graphic account of a mission,
describing its successive stages. Some of his methods were distinctly
dramatic, e.g. the missioners took the discipline in the public piazza,
which always resulted in many conversions. On the last day forbidden firearms,
obscene books, and anything else that might offend Almighty God were publicly
burnt. A cross was erected in memoriam, a solemn Te Deum sung, and the
missioners went away quietly. Caspar would often say at the
end of a mission, exhausted but thankful, “If it is so sweet to tire
ourselves for God, what will it be to enjoy Him!” One of his principles
was that everybody should be made to work. He therefore founded works
of charity in Rome for young and old, rich and poor of both sexes. He
opened the night oratory, where our Lord is worshipped all night by men,
many coming to Him, like Nicodemus, by night who would not have the courage
to go to confession by day.
His last mission was preached in Rome
at the Chiesa Nuova during the cholera outbreak of 1836. Feeling his
strength failing, he returned at once to Albano, and made every preparation
for death. He suffered terribly from cold, and at night from parching
thirst, but he would not take anything to drink, so that he might be able
to celebrate Mass. He asked to be left alone as much as possible, that
his prayer might be less interrupted. After the feast of St Francis Xavier
he went to Rome to die. On December 19 the doctor forbade him to say Mass;
he received the last sacraments on December 28, and he died the same day.
Various miracles had been worked by
Don Caspar during his lifetime, and after his death many graces were
obtained by his intercession. We have, in fact, a long list of cures
and other miraculous occurrences. He was canonized in 1954.
See the summarium presented to the Congregation
of Rites in the process of beatification, and Sardi, Notizie intorno alla vita
del beato Gaspare del Bufalo (1904). The English form of the
name Caspar or Gaspar is properly Jasper.
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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).
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1859 Father John
Baptiste Marie Vianney August 04 8 May 1786 – 4 August 1859
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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."
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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).
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1867 St Francis Xavier Seelos No. mission preaching
was born in Fussen, Germany,
in 1819. Expressing his desire for the priesthood since an early age,
he entered the diocesan seminary of Augsburg after completing his studies
in philosophy. Upon learning of the charism and missionary activity of
the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, he decided to join and go to
North America. He arrived in the United States on April 20, 1843, entered
the Redemptorist novitiate and completed his theological studies, being
ordained a priest on December 22, 1844. He began his pastoral ministry in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he remained nine years, working closely
as assistant pastor of his confrere St. John Neumann, while at the same time
serving as Master of Novices and dedicating himself to mission preaching.
In 1854, he returned to Baltimore, later being transferred to Cumberland
and then Annapolis, where he served in parochial ministry and in the formation
of the Redemptorist seminarians. He was considered an expert confessor,
a watchful and prudent spiritual director and a pastor always joyfully
available and attentive to the needs of the poor and the abandoned. In
1860, he was a candidate for the office of Bishop of Pittsburgh. Having
been excused from this responsibility by Pope Pius IX, from 1863 until
1866 he became a full-time itinerant missionary preacher. He preached in
English and German in the states of Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri,
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
He was named pastor of the Church of St. Mary of the Assumption in New
Orleans, Louisiana, where he died of the yellow fever epidemic caring
for the sick and the poor of New Orleans on October 4, 1867, at the age
of 48 years and nine months. The enduring renown for his holiness which
the Servant of God enjoyed occasioned his Cause for Canonization to be introduced
in 1900 with the initiation of the Processo Informativo . On January 27,
Your Holiness declared him Venerable, decreeing the heroism of his virtues.
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1868 ST PETER
JULIAN EYMARD, FOUNDER OF THE PRIESTS OF THE BLESSED
SACRAMENT; his supernatural
gifts: several times he knew the thoughts of persons absent, he read souls,
and more than once had prophetic prevision. St John-Baptist Vianney, who
knew Eymard personally, said of him, “He is a saint. The
world hinders his work, but not knowingly, and it will do great things for
the glory of God. Adoration by priests! How fine! Tell the good Father Eymard I will pray for the work every
day.”
August 3, 2009 St. Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868)
Born in La Mure d'Isère in southeastern France, Peter Julian's
faith journey drew him from being a priest in the Diocese of Grenoble (1834)
to joining the Marists (1839) to founding the Congregation of the Blessed
Sacrament (1856).
In addition to those changes, Peter Julian coped with poverty, his father's
initial opposition to Peter's vocation, serious illness, a Jansenistic striving
for inner perfection and the difficulties of getting diocesan and later papal
approval for his new religious community.
His years as a Marist, including service as a provincial leader, saw
the deepening of his eucharistic devotion, especially through his preaching
of Forty Hours in many parishes.
Inspired at first by the idea of reparation for indifference to the Eucharist,
Peter Julian was eventually attracted to a more positive spirituality of
Christ-centered love. Members of the men's community, which Peter founded,
alternated between an active apostolic life and contemplating Jesus in the
Eucharist. He and Marguerite Guillot founded the women's Congregation of the
Servants of the Blessed Sacrament.
Peter Julian Eymard was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1962, one
day after Vatican II's first session ended.
Comment:
In every century, sin has been painfully real in the life of the Church.
It is easy to give in to despair, to speak so strongly of human failings
that people may forget the immense and self-sacrificing love of Jesus, as
his death on the cross and his gift of the Eucharist make evident. Peter
Julian knew that the Eucharist was key to helping Catholics live out their
Baptism and preach by word and example the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Quote: “The Eucharist is the life of the people. The Eucharist gives
them a center of life. All can come together without the barriers of race
or language in order to celebrate the feast days of the Church. It gives
them a law of life, that of charity, of which it is the source; thus it
forges between them a common bond, a Christian kinship” (Peter Julian Eymard).
ST PETER JULIAN was born in 1811 at La Mure d’Isère, a small
town in the diocese of Grenoble. His father was a cutler, and Peter Julian
worked at his father’s trade, and in an oil-press, until he was eighteen;
in his spare hours he studied Latin and had some instruction from a priest
at Grenoble for whom he worked for a time, and in 1831 he went to the seminary
of Grenoble. He was ordained there in 1834 and for the five following years
ministered in the parishes of Chatte and Monteynard. What they thought of
him there was expressed in the words of his bishop, Mgr de Bruillard, when
the Abbé Eymard asked for permission to join the Marists: “I show
my esteem for that congregation by allowing such a priest as yourself to enter
it.”
After
his novitiate he was made spiritual director of the junior seminary at
Belley, and in 1845 provincial of his congregation at Lyons. Always the
Blessed Sacrament had been the centre round which his life revolved, “without
It I should have been lost”, and on a certain Corpus Christi Sunday, while
carrying the Host in procession, he had an overwhelming experience: “My soul
was flooded with faith and love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Those
two hours seemed but a moment. I laid at the feet of our Lord the Church
in France and throughout the world, everybody, myself. My eyes were filled
with tears: it was as though my heart were under the wine-press. I longed
at that moment for all hearts to have been within my own and to have been
fired with the zeal of St Paul.”
In 1851 Father
Eymard made a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Fourvières: One idea haunted me, and it was this: that Jesus in
the Blessed Sacrament had no religious institute to glorify His mystery of
love, whose only object was entire consecration to Its service. There ought
to be one. . . . I promised Mary to devote myself to this end. It was still
all very vague, and I had no idea of leaving the society. . . . ‘What hours
I spent there!” His superiors advised him to defer his plans till they were
more mature, and he spent four years at La Seyne. During this time he received
encouragement from Pope Pius IX and from the Ven. John Cohn, founder of
the Marists, and he determined to sacrifice his vocation with the Society
of Mary and to devote himself to a new society. In 1856, with the approval
of the Marist superior general, he submitted his scheme for an institute
of priest-adorers of the Blessed Sacrament to Mgr de Sibour, Archbishop
of Paris, and at the end of twelve anxious days it was approved. Mgr de Sibour
put a house at his disposal, wherein Father Eymard took up his residence
with one companion, and on January 6, 1857, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed
in its chapel for the first time, and Father Eymard preached to a large assembly.
The
first members of the Congregation of Priests of the Most Blessed Sacrament
were Father de Cuers and Father Champion, and they began with exposition
three times a week. Vocations were slow: many were called but few chosen;
and the difficulties were great. They had to leave their first house, and
in 1858 they obtained a small chapel in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, where
during nine years the grace of God was poured out so abundantly that Father
Eymard called it the “chapel of miracles”.
In the following year Pope Pius IX gave the congregation a laudatory brief and a second house
was opened, at Marseilles, and in 1862 a third, at Angers. By this time there
were enough members to establish a regular novitiate, and the congregation
rapidly expanded. The priests recite the Divine Office in choir and perform
all other duties of the clergy, subordinate to their chief business of maintaining
perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed, in which they are assisted
by lay-brothers.
In 1858 Father Eymard established the Servants of the Blessed
Sacrament, sisters who are also engaged in perpetual adoration and spreading
the love of our Lord; and he founded the Priests’ Eucharistic League,
whose members pledge themselves to spend so far as possible about an hour
a day in prayer before the Tabernacle.
But
Father Eymard did not confine his labours to the clergy and religious:
in his Work for Poor Adults he put before his congregation the necessity
for preparing for first communion all adults who are no longer of an age
to attend the parish catechism classes, or who are unable to go to these
classes, and he also organized the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament,
whose value is so highly regarded by the Church that by canon law a branch
should be erected in every parish; he also wrote a number of books on the
Eucharist which have been translated into several languages.
Of
the difficulties which beset St Peter Julian in making his new foundation
one of the most trying was the adverse criticism he was subjected to at its
very inception, because he had left the Society of Mary, and detractors of
the work were not wanting when it was started. He excused them: “They do
not understand it, and each one who thinks to oppose it does it a service.
For I know well it must be persecuted. Was not our Lord persecuted throughout
His life?”
There were other grave difficulties and disappointments,
but in spite of all the congregation was approved by the Holy See, as has
been said, in his lifetime, and was finally confirmed in perpetuum
in 1895. He had an engaging
spirit of pietas: whenever he visited his home at La Mure
he regularly made three “stations”: at the font at which he was baptized,
at the altar where he received his first communion, and at the tomb of his
parents; and again, in 1867, “For how long have I waited to see again the
dear country of Chatte and Saint-Romans”, scenes of his earliest ministry.
Father Eymard had been looked on as a saint even in those
days, and throughout his life the impression of his holiness was recognized
more and more, in his daily life and virtues, in his works, and in his supernatural
gifts: several times he knew the thoughts of persons absent, he read souls,
and more than once had prophetic prevision. St John-Baptist Vianney, who
knew Eymard personally, said of him, “He is a saint. The
world hinders his work, but not knowingly, and it will do great things for
the glory of God. Adoration by priests! How fine! Tell the good Father Eymard I will pray for the work every
day.”
During the last
four years of his life St Peter Julian suffered from rheumatic gout and insomnia,
and his sufferings were added to by saddening difficulties. For once he allowed his discouragement to be seen. “He opened his
heart to us”, wrote Father Mayet in 1868." ‘ This time’, he said, ‘ I am
crushed under the cross, beaten down, annihilated.’ His heart felt the need
of seeking relief from a friend, because, as he explained, ‘ I am obliged
to bear my cross alone, so as not to frighten or discourage my confreres'.” The presentiment of approaching death was strong.
“ I shall return sooner than you think”, was his reply when his sister urged
him to visit La Mure more often. This was in February, and he began to go
round visiting his penitents and others who looked to him, speaking to them
as one who spoke for the last time. In July he broke down and his doctor
ordered him to leave Paris at once. On the 21st he left Grenoble by coach
for La Mure; it was very hot and he arrived in a state of collapse and partial
paralysis. On August 1 he died. Miracles took place at his tomb before the
end of that years and in 1925 Peter Julian Eymard was beatified, and canonized
in 1962 during the Second Vatican Council.
There is a short sketch by Lady Herbert, The Priest of the Eucharist (1898); an excellent life by J.
M. Lambert in the series “Les Saints” (1925); a full biography
in French by F. Trochu (1949), and one in Italian by P. Fossati (1925). See also A. Bettinger, Pierre Julien Eymard
et sa méthode d’Adoration (1927).
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1870 St. Anthony Mary
Claret archbishop Cuba prophet miracle-worker; performed miraculous cures
and had gifts of prophecy
[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 Carthusian 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).
|
1879 St. Bernadette
Mary appeared to Bernadette 18 times and spoke with her above a rose
bush in a grotto called Massabielle dressed in blue and white with a rosary
of ivory and gold
Nivérnis,
in Gállia, sanctæ Maríæ-Bernárdæ
Soubirous, Vírginis, e Congregatióne Sorórum a
Caritáte et Institutióne Christiána, Lapúrdi,
adhuc juvénculæ, iterátis apparitiónibus
Immaculátæ Dei Genitrícis Maríæ recreátæ;
quam Pius Papa Undécimus, inter sanctas Vírgines adscrípsit.
In the city of Nevers in France, St. Mary Bernard Soubirous of the Congregation
of the Sisters of Charity, also called the Christian Institute.
She was favoured with frequent apparitions and conversations at Lourdes
with Mary Immaculate, the Mother of God. In 1933 her name was
added to the roll of holy virgins by Pope Pius XI.
St. Bernadette patron saint of shepherds
1879 ST BERNADETTE, VIRGIN
THE story of the appearings of our Blessed Lady at Lourdes has
already been told here in connection with the feast now kept throughout
the Western church on February II. But on the anniversary of the death
of the humble intermediary through whom the message of Heaven was communicated
to the world, a few words must be said regarding this chosen soul, whose
merits were known to God, but hidden for the most part from the eyes of
her fellow men.
She was born on January 7, 1844, the oldest of a family of six,
and though christened Marie Bernarde, was known to the family and neighbours
by the pet name of Bernadette. The father was by trade a miller, and
in 1844 he rented a mill of his own, but thrift and efficiency were not
the distinguishing virtues of either Francis Soubirous or his wife, Louise
Casterot, then still in her teens and eighteen years younger than husband.
Bernadette was always a most delicate girl, afflicted with asthma and her
other ailments, and the fact that she was one of the sufferers in the cholera
epidemic of 1854 cannot have helped to make her more robust.
Meanwhile the family was gradually sinking into dire poverty,
which probably had for one result that Bernadette’s education, even
in a measure her religious education, was sadly neglected. At the date
of the first apparition (February 11, 1858) the family were living in
the dark airless basement of a dilapidated building in the rue des Petits
Fosses. The child herself, though fourteen years of age, had not yet
made her first communion and was regarded as a very dull pupil, but she
was notably good, obedient and kind to her younger brothers and sisters,
in spite of the fact that she was continually ailing.
The apparitions and the popular excitement which accompanied
them did eventually have some effect in relieving the destitution of
the Soubirous family, for people interested themselves to find work for
the father but for Bernadette, apart from the spiritual consolation of
these visions, which had come to an end in less than a couple of months,
they left a heavy load of embarrassment from the ceaseless and indiscreet
questionings which allowed her no peace. People wanted to cross-examine
her about the three secrets our Lady had imparted, they wanted to press
money upon her, they wanted to interview her at all sorts of hours, they
wanted her to bless them or their sick folk, they even tried to cut pieces
from her dress.
It was a strange form of ordeal, but for a sensitive child,
and Bernadette even at eighteen was no more than a child, it was in
truth a martyrdom. As a measure of protection, she was after a while
taken to reside with the nuns at the hospice (1861— 1866), but even there
there were often visitors who could not be denied. Sister Victorine,
to whose charge she was specially confided, has recorded how “she nearly
always shrank from the task of replying to the questions of those who
came to see her, if only on account of the fatigue which these conversations
entailed. Every effort of this sort told upon her chest and was liable
to bring on a bad attack of asthma. When I took her down to the parlour,
I used to see her come to a standstill near the door, and the tears, big
heavy drops, welled up into her eyes— ‘Come’, I would say to her, ‘be brave’.
Then she wiped away the tears, came into the room, bade a pleasant welcome
to her visitors and answered everything she was asked, without a hint of
impatience at their importunate questions or showing irritation when her
word was doubted.”
Earlier than this, in 1859, the year after the apparitions,
we have a singularly interesting account left by an English non-Catholic
visitor of the impression Bernadette made upon people who had come prepared
to find nothing but hysteria or imposture. The account is taken from a
contemporary entry in a diary. The writer says
I ought before this to have
spoken more particularly of the little girl herself. She was a pretty-looking
child, 14 years of age [she was in reality 15-1/2], with large, dreamy eyes,
and a quiet, sedate demeanour, which added some years to her appearance and
seemed altogether unnatural in so small a figure. She welcomed us with the
air of one long accustomed to receive strangers, and bid us follow her into
an upper room of the humble cottage attached to her father’s mill. Two bright,
happy little urchins—her brothers—were playing about and seemed no way abashed
at our entrance. . . . The child offered us seats, while she herself stood
by the window and answered briefly the questions I put to her, but volunteered
very few remarks of her own. . . . We offered her a small donation,
which she politely refused, nor would she allow us to give anything
to her little brothers—and we were assured that neither the parents,
nor their child, although very poor, will ever receive anything from strangers.
. . . We certainly left her in the conviction that we had been talking with
a most amiable little girl, and one superior to her age and station, both
in manner and education and whatever may be the true account of the apparition,
as far as the girl herself is concerned, we feel quite convinced of the
sincerity of her faith in it.
Protestant visitors seem to have shown delicacy and consideration
by comparison with some of the Catholic ecclesiastics who came to converse
with Bernadette. Here is an example left on record by a certain curé
who spent a day at Lourdes in January 1860, and who seemed to think that
by his interest in the apparitions he was rendering a service to the poor
girl herself and to the Church at large. He summoned the child, though
he had been told she was poorly and suffering from a nasty cough, to come
to him at his hotel through howling wind and pelting rain, and after cross-questioning
her for the best part of two hours about the apparitions, the fountain,
and the Blessed Virgin’s three secrets, the interview according to his
own volunteered statement ended as follows
“My child, I must have quite worn you out with my questions.
Please accept these three louis d’or to remunerate you for your trouble.”—”
No, monsieur, I cannot take anything.”
Here Bernadette expressed herself with an energy which showed
that I had deeply wounded her self-respect. I tried to press the money
upon her, but her silence, eloquent both of the pain she felt and of
suppressed indignation, made it clear to me that I could insist no further.
So I replaced the coins in my purse, and I went on:
“My child, will you show me the medals you wear in our Lady’s
honour?”
—“ They are at home. They took them from me to lay upon some
sick people, and they cut the string from which they all hung.”
“Well, will you let me see your rosary?”
Bernadette took out her simple rosary with a medal at the end
of it.
“Now will you not let me have this rosary? I will give you the
price of it directly.”—“No, monsieur, I have no wish either to give you
my rosary, or to sell it to you.”
“Oh, but I should so much like to have some souvenir of you.
I have come such a long way to see you. You really ought to let me have
your rosary.”
In the end she surrendered it. I clutched this heavenly booty
upon which the child’s tears had fallen more than once and which had
been the instrument of so many grateful and heartfelt prayers in the
presence of Mary herself, for Bernadette had fingered this rosary again
and again when the apparition had kept count upon a rosary of her own
in the grotto of Massabielle. It seemed to me then, it seems to me now,
and it always will seem to me, that in this I possess a treasure of great
price.
“Will you permit me, my child, to refund you the cost of the
rosary Please accept this small coin.”—“No, monsieur, I will buy myself.”
But even this was not the climax. The curé’s account of the
interview continues another with my own money.”
thus:
“My child, will you let me show you my scapular? I wonder if
yours is made the same way.”—“No, monsieur, mine is a double one.”
“Show it me.” Bernadette modestly fishes up one end of her scapular,
which is, as she said, made with double strings.
“God be praised, my daughter. Now I know a very pious soul who
would esteem it such a happiness to possess half your scapular. As you
see, it can easily be divided.”—“Oh, but please —“ As a great
favour will you not give me half of it ? There will be plenty left, for
you will still have a whole scapular.” “Monsieur, would you be willing
to cut in two the rosary I have just given you?”—“No.” “Well, I cannot
divide my scapular either.”
I understood that I had to give way and must press the matter
no further. I told the child that I would give her my blessing, and
she received it, kneeling on both knees, with all the reverence of an
angel.
If Bernadette, then sixteen years old, was not tingling with
indignation all over, she must already have reached a very high stage
of virtue, or of resignation to the peculiar form of trial by which her
soul was to be purified. Everything we know of her points to the fact that
she was an exceptionally sensitive child. In 1864 she offered herself,
under advice, to the sisters of Notre-Dame de Nevers. Attacks of illness
postponed her departure from Lourdes, but in 1866 she was allowed to join
the novitiate in the mother-house of the order. Separation from her family
and from the grotto cost her much, but with her fellow-novices at Nevers
she was gay, while remaining still the humble and patient child she had
always been. Her ill-health continued, so that within four months of her
arrival she received the last sacraments and by dispensation was permitted
to take her first vows. She recovered, however, and had strength enough to
act as infirmarian and afterwards as sacristan, but the asthma from which
she suffered never lost its hold, and before the end came she! suffered grievously
from further complications.
Characteristic of Bernadette were her simplicity of a truly
child-like kind, her peasant “sanity”, and her self-effacement. She
likened herself to a broom “Our Lady used me. They have put me back in
my corner. I am happy there, and stop there.” But even at
Nevers she had sometimes to resort to little stratagems to avoid “publicity”.
Though her heart was always centred in Lourdes, she had no part in the
celebrations connected with the consecration of the basilica in 1876.
The abstention seems to have been in large measure her own voluntary choice
she preferred to efface herself. But who shall say how much the deprivation
cost her? There are few words more pathetic than the cry of Bernadette
from her cell at Nevers: “Oh! sije pouvais voir sans être vue.” “Ohl
if only I could see without being seen.” The conjecture suggests itself
strongly that one of Bernadette’s “secrets” must have been this, that
she was never of her own free will to do anything which would attract
to herself the notice of other people.
Bernadette Soubirous died on April 16, 1879; she was thirty-five
years old. In 1933 she was canonized, and she now appears in the Church’s
official records as St Mary Bernarda: but in the hearts and on the lips
of the faithful she is always St Bernadette.
Apart from the sworn testimonies of witnesses printed in the
process of beatification, the most reliable evidence we possess concerning
St Bernadette is probably that collected by Fr L. J. M.
Cros in his Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes (3
vols., 1925-1927). Numerous biographies exist in many languages. One of
the earliest was that of Henri Lasserre (very unreliable), one of the latest
that of Fr H. Petitot, The True Story of St Bernadette (1949).
Other widely-read accounts are Mgr Ricard’s La vraie Bernadette
(1896), a reply to Emile Zola; Bernadette Soubirous,
by Jean Barbet, who wrote largely from local knowledge La confidente de L’Immaculée (1921), by a nun
of Nevers (Eng. trans.); and Abbé J. Blazy’s
life (Eng. trans., 1926). A very popular novel by Franz Wend,
Song of Bernadette (1942), was criticized by Dora Bede
Lebbe in The Soul of Bernadette (1947). Other popular
biographies are those by F. Parkinson Keyes, Sublime Shepherdess
(1940), and Mrs M. C. Blanton, Bernadette of
Lourdes (1939). But for a sensitive and reliable summary Fr
C. C. Martindale’s C.T.S. booklet cannot be bettered. For further particulars
of the interviews with St Bernadette quoted above, see The
Month, June 1924, pp. 526—535, and July 1924, pp. 26—36.
On April 16, 1879, Bernadette -- or Sister Marie - Bernard,
as she was known within her order -- died in the Sainte Croix (Holy
Cross) Infirmary of the Convent of Saint-Gildard. She was thirty-five.
Born into a humble family which little by little
fell into extreme poverty, Bernadette had always been a frail child.
Quite young, she had already suffered from digestive trouble, then after
having just escaped being a victim of the cholera epidemic of 1855, she
experienced painful attacks of asthma, and her ill health almost caused
her to be cut off for ever from the religious life. When asked by Monsignor
Forcade to take Bernadette, Louise Ferrand, the Mother Superior of the
Sisters of Nevers, replied: "Monsignor, she will be a pillar of the infirmary".
At least three times during her short life-time,
she received the last Sacraments. She was gradually struck by other
illnesses as well as asthma: among them, tuberculosis of the lung and
a tubercular tumor on her right knee. On Wednesday, April 16, 1879,
her pain got much worse. Shortly after eleven she seemed to be almost
suffocating and was carried to an armchair, where she sat with her feet
on a footstool in front of a blazing fire. She died at about 3.15 in the
afternoon.
The civil authorities permitted her body to remain
on view to be venerated by the public until Saturday, April 19. Then
it was "placed in a double coffin of lead and oak which was sealed in
the presence of witnesses who signed a record of the events". Among the
witnesses were "inspector of the peace, Devraine, and constables Saget
and Moyen".
The nuns of Saint-Gildard, with the support of the
bishop of Nevers, applied to the civil authorities for permission to
bury Bernadette's body in a small chapel dedicated to Saint Joseph which
was within the
confines of the convent. The permission was granted on April
25, 1879, and on April 30, the local Prefect pronounced his approval
of the choice of the site for burial. Immediately they set to work on
preparing the vault. On May 30, 1879, Bernadette's coffin was finally
transferred to the crypt of the chapel of Saint Joseph. A very simple
ceremony was held to commemorate the event.
Additional Info:
St. Bernadette was born at Lourdes, France. Her parents were
very poor and she herself was in poor health. One Thursday, February 11,
1858, when she was sent with her younger sister and a friend to gather
firewood, a very beautiful Lady appeared to her above a rose bush in a
grotto called Massabielle.
The lovely Lady was dressed in blue and white. She smiled at
Bernadette and then made the sign of the cross with a rosary of ivory
and gold. Bernadette fell on her knees, took out her own rosary and began
to pray the rosary. The beautiful Lady was God's Mother, the Blessed Virgin
Mary. She appeared to Bernadette seventeen other times and spoke with her.
She told Bernadette that she should pray
sinners, do penance and have a chapel built there in her honor. Many
people did not believe Bernadette when she spoke of her vision. She
had to suffer much. But one day Our Lady told Bernadette to dig in the
mud. As she did, a spring of water began to flow. The next day it continued
to grow larger and larger. Many miracles happened when people began to
use this water. When Bernadette was older, she became a nun. She was always
very humble. More than anything else, she desired not to be praised. Once
a nun asked her if she had temptations of pride because she was favored
by the Blessed Mother. "How can I?" she answered quickly. "The Blessed Virgin
chose me only because I was the most ignorant." What humility!
St. Bernadette Soubirous 1879 Famed visionary of Lourdes, baptized
Mary Bernard. She was born in Lourdes, France, on January 7, 1844, the
daughter of Francis and Louise Soubirous. Bernadette, a severe asthma
sufferer, lived in abject poverty. On February 11, 1858, she was granted
a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a cave on the banks of the Gave River
near Lourdes. She was placed in consider able jeopardy when she reported
the vision, and crowds gathered when she had futher visits from the Virgin,
from February 18 of that year through March 4.The civil authorities tried
to frighten Bernadette into recanting her accounts, but she remained faithful
to the vision.
On February 25, a spring emerged from the cave and
the waters were discovered to be of a miraculous nature, capable of healing
the sick and lame. On March 25, Bernadette announced that the vision
stated that she was the Immaculate Conception, and that a church should
be erected on the site. Many authorities tried to shut down the spring
and delay the construction of the chapel, but the influence and fame of
the visions reached Empress Eugenie of France, wife of Napoleon Ill, and
construction went forward.
Crowds gathered, free of harassment from the anticlerical and
antireligious officials. In 1866, Bernadette was sent to the Sisters
of Notre Dame in Nevers. There she became a member of the community,
and faced some rather harsh treatment from the mistress of novices. This
oppression ended when it was discovered that she suffered from a painful,
incurable illness. She died in Nevers on April 16,1879, still giving
the same account of her visions. Lourdes became one of the major pilgrimage
destinations in the world, and the spring has produced 27,000 gallons
of water each week since emerging during Bernadette's visions. She was
not involved in the building of the shrine, as she remained hidden at
Nevers. Bernadette was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933 by Pope
Pius XI.
Bernadette Soubirous V (RM) (also known as Mary Bernarda
Soubirous)
Born in Lourdes, France, January 7, 1844; died in Nevers, France,
on April 16, 1879; canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933; also honored on
February 18 in France.
Marie Bernarde (called Bernadette by family and friends) Soubirous,
was the oldest of six children born to the impoverished miller François
Soubirous, and his much-younger wife, Louise Casterot. The family lived
in the basement of a damp building in the rue des Petits Fossés
after her father rented a mill of his own. Bernadette was not a strong
child; the dampness of their home and the vestiges of the cholera she contracted
in 1854 aggravated the asthma and other ailments from which the young
girl suffered.
"I am the Immaculate Conception"
At age 14, she was considered to be ailing,
undersized, of pleasant disposition, sensitive, and a slow student
-- even stupid -- but was a kind, helpful and obedient child.
On February 11, 1858, the teenaged Bernadette was collecting
scraps of wood on the bank of the River Gave when she was initially granted
a vision of the Blessed Virgin, who did not identify herself at first.
For the next six months Bernadette saw a light-enhaloed female
form of indescribable beauty, near a cave in the Massabielle cliff. In
total, Bernadette had 18 visions of the Virgin Mary at the grotto, which
principally concerned prayer and penance.
Bernadette showed people the grotto in which the BVM appeared.
Most of them mocked her but from February 18 until March 4, Bernadette
continued to see and talk with Our Lady every day. The clerical and civic
officials who subjected Bernadette to numerous interrogations found her
to be veracious and completely disinterested in self-advancement.
People followed Bernadette. The saw the girl fall into ecstasy;
they heard her speak, but they saw nothing. The unknown 'lady' said
to Bernadette: "I wish to see people here"; "Pray for sinners"; "Tell
the priests I wish to have a chapel here"; "Processions are to come
here"; "Go, drink from the spring and wash in its water."
In obedience to this last injunction, the saint dug with her
hands into the earth of the grotto, and there gushed forth a spring,
unknown until that day--February 25, that for years has yielded 27,000
gallons weekly. Cures effected by drinking of the water mobilized pilgrimages
of thousands which streamed to the grotto.
By March 4, about 200,000 people were accompanying Bernadette
to the site. When Bernadette begged the lady for a name on March 25,
she replied three times using the local dialect: "I am the Immaculate
Conception--" a name that the girl did not understand because word of the
definition had not yet reached the people of Lourdes.
The last vision occurred on July 16, the Feast of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel.
The Church met these beginnings of the Lourdes pilgrimages with
great reserve, almost with hostility. In part this was because after
the appearances ceased, there was an epidemic of copycat visionaries
and morbid religiosity in the district, which increased the reserved
attitude of the church authorities towards Bernadette's experiences.
But Lourdes became a symbol. In an age in which the existence
of or at all events the possibility of knowing a supra-mundane God was
denied, a permanent medical bureau had to be opened in Lourdes, which
has collected, with the help of thousands of physicians of all creeds,
an immense documentation of professionally attested, inexplicable cures.
Bernadette's simplicity and integrity were never questioned.
Although the publicity that accompanied her visions had helped her father
to find work, Bernadette gained little more than the spiritual consolation
of a few months. For some years she suffered greatly from the suspicious
disbelief of some and the tactless enthusiasm and insensitive attentions
of others; these trials she bore with impressive patience and dignity.
She resided with the nuns at the hospice for five years (1861-1866) in
order to escape the publicity, but people sought her out even there.
In 1866 Bernadette joined the Sister of Notre-Dame at Saint
Gildard in Nevers, France; she had wished for entrance two years earlier
but had been prevented by bad health. She was happy with the nuns. Her
health remained fragile, and she was given the last sacraments within
four months of her arrival; she was allowed to take her first vows through
a special dispensation. She recovered, however, and worked first as an
infirmarian and later as a sacristan.
Here she was more sheltered from trying publicity, but not from
the 'stuffiness' of the convent superiors nor from the tightening grip
of asthma. "I am getting on with my joy," she would say. "What is that?"
someone asked. "Being ill," was the reply.
The nuns, disappointed by the simplicity of this child of nature,
in whom they had expected to find a second Teresa of Ávila or
another Catherine of Siena, made the peasant girl feel bitterly the scant
esteem in which they held her; and even her superiors, with the aim of
protecting the visionary of Lourdes from the sin of pride, were not sparing
in humiliations.
With the excuse that she was a "stupid, good-for-nothing
little thing," her profession was continually delayed. God gave to
the despised creature, who was punished for 13 years because of her visions,
the strength to say: "You see, my story is quite simple. The Virgin made
use of me, then I was put into a corner. That is now my place. There
I am happy and there I remain."
Thus, she lived out her self-effacing life, dying at the age
of 35 as did Saint Benedict Labre. The events of 1858 resulted in Lourdes
becoming one of the most important pilgrim shrines in the history of
Christendom, ending with the consecration of the basilica in 1876. But
Saint Bernadette took no part in these developments; nor was it for her
visions that she was canonized, but for the humble simplicity and religious
trust that characterized her whole life (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley,
Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Sandhurst, Schamoni, Trochu, Walsh, White).
Saint Bernadette is the patron saint of shepherds (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
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1892 ST ANTONY PUCCI a member of a religious order,
the Servants of Mary, spent most of his life and achieved holiness
as a parish priest and
miracles of healing took place at his grave
THIS saint, though a member
of a religious order, the Servants of Mary, spent most of his life
and achieved holiness as a parish priest. He was born of peasant stock
at Poggiole, near Pistoia, in 1819; he was the second of seven children
and was christened Eustace. As a boy his kind and gentle disposition
was noticeable, as was his industry and willingness to help, especially
in his parish church, of which his father was sacristan. Nevertheless,
when Eustace’s inclination to become a Servite had been finally confirmed
during a pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady at Bocca, Pucci senior and
his wife opposed their son’s resolution (he was their eldest boy), and
it was not till he was eighteen, in 1837, that he entered the Servite
priory of the Annunciation at Florence. He took the names of Antony Mary.
During his early years as
a religious Brother Antony showed those qualities of frankness and of steadiness
in face of difficulties that were to distinguish him all his life.
Prayer and obedience were his first concern, and after them study.
He was ordained in 1843, and less than a year later was appointed curate
of St Andrew’s church in Viareggio. In 1847, when still only 28, he
became parish priest there. Viareggio is a seaside town—a fishing-port
with a ship-building yard, but chiefly a holiday resort—and here Father
Antony remained for the rest of his days.
Father Antony’s flock called
him “II curatino”, which can’t be translated into English; but it means
that he was “a grand little man”, who was equally loved and respected. It has been said of
him that he was before his time in recognizing the need for organization,
and organizations, in a parish. But he never forgot that these things
are but means to an end, and that end the life of divine charity; and
that the living example of love must come from the father of the flock.
He was the father and therefore the servant of all: the sick, the aged,
the poor, all in trouble or distress, came to him, and he served them
without stint. This selflessness was never more apparent than when Viareggio
was visited by two bad epidemics, in 1854 and in 1866; and one of
the fruits of Father Antony’s love for the young was his inauguration of
a seaside nursing-home for children—something quite new in those days.
To the religious instruction of children he devoted much thought and
work, emphasizing that what is done in church and school must be begun
and finished in the home. Nor were his concerns bounded by the limits
of his parish: in his enthusiasm for the conversion of the heathen Father
Antony was one of the pioneers in Italy of the work of the A.P.F. and
of the Holy Childhood Society.
St
Antony Pucci died on January 14,
1892 at the age of 73; his passing was greeted with an outburst
of grief in Viareggio, and miracles of healing took place at his grave.
He was beatified in 1952, and
canonized in 1962 during the Second Vatican Council. See
the decree of beatification in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis,
vol. xliv (1952) ; and Un apostolo della Carità (1920), by a Servite.
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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.
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1893 Fr. Charles of St. Andrew; the saint of Mount Argus; received by Blessed Dominic Barberi, Passionist; Due to
his poor mastery of the English language, he was never a formal preacher
and he never preached missions. Rather he very successfully dedicated
himself to spiritual direction, especially through the sacrament of Reconciliation
(Confession). The fame of his virtue was such that great crowds of people
would gather at the monastery to seek his blessing. There are also numerous
testimonies to the outstanding miraculous cures that he worked to the
extent that even during his lifetime he was known as a miracle worker.
Fr. Charles of St. Andrew, known in secular life as John Andrew
Houben, was born on 11 December 1821 in Munstergeleen, in the diocese
of Ruremond (Holland), the fourth of eleven children. He was baptized
the same day with the name John Andrew. He received his First Communion
on 26 April 1835 and the sacrament of Confirmation on 28 June in the same
year. He began his formal education in Sittard and then in Broeksittard.
In 1840 he had to interrupt his studies to enter the military. It was during
this latter period that he first heard about the Congregation of the Passion.
At the end of his military service he completed his studies and requested
to be admitted to the Congregation. He was received by Blessed Dominic
Barberi, Passionist, and he entered the novitiate in the Belgium city of
Ere, near Tournai on 5 November 1845. In December of that same year he was
vested with the Passionist religious Habit and was given the name of Charles
of St. Andrew. Having completed the canonical year of novitiate he professed
First Vows on 10 December 1850. At the conclusion of his studies he was
ordained a priest by Bishop Labis, the ordinary of Tournai.
Immediately he was sent to England where the Passionists had founded
three monasteries and it was here that, for a period of time, he undertook
the ministry of vice-master of novices in the monastery of Broadway. He
also did parochial ministry in the parish of St. Wilfred and neighboring
areas until 1856 when he was transferred to the newly established monastery
of Mount Argus, on the outskirts of Dublin.
Blessed Charles Houben lived almost the remainder of his life
in this retreat and was greatly loved by the Irish people to point that
they referred to him a native of Holland as Father Charles
of Mount Argus. He was a particularly pious priest. He was outstanding in
exercising obedience, in the practice of poverty, humility and simplicity
and to an even greater degree, to devotion to the Passion of the Lord.
Due to his poor mastery of the English language, he was never
a formal preacher and he never preached missions. Rather he very successfully
dedicated himself to spiritual direction, especially through the sacrament
of Reconciliation (Confession). The fame of his virtue was such that
great crowds of people would gather at the monastery to seek his blessing.
There are also numerous testimonies to the outstanding miraculous cures
that he worked to the extent that even during his lifetime he was known
as a miracle worker.
Precisely because of this fame that extended throughout all of
Great Britain as well as in America and Australia that in 1866, in order
to afford him some rest, he was transferred to England where he lived for
a time in the communities at Broadway, Sutton and London. There he ministered
as usual and there too, inside and outside the monastery, he was sought
by the faithful, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
He returned to Dublin in 1874
where he remained until his death that took place at dawn on 5 January
1893.
During his very solemn funeral that was attended by
people from all of Ireland there was definite proof of the popular devotion
that had surrounded him throughout his life. In a newspaper of the time
we read: "Never before has the memory of any man sparked an explosion
of religious sentiment and profound veneration as that which we observed
in the presence of the mortal remains of Father Charles." The Superior
of the monastery wrote to his family: "The people have already declared
him a saint."
The cause of his Beatification and Canonization was introduced
on 13 November 1935, and on 16 October 1988, His Holiness John Paul II
proceeded with the beatification of the one whom everyone called the saint
of Mount Argus.
The miracle that led to his canonization was obtained through
his intercession on behalf of Mr. Adolf Dormans of Munstergeleen, the
birthplace of the Blessed. The diocesan inquiry super miro was also undertaken
in the diocese of Roermond (Holland) from 6 November 2002 until 19 February
2003 at which time the validity of the miracle was recognized by a Decree
from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 7 November 2003.
The medical consulta was convoked on 24 November 2005 and following
the investigation of the matter, the members unanimously expressed that
the cure of Mr. Dormans of "perforated, gangrenous appendicitis with generalized
peritonitis that was multi-organically compromising and included extenuating
and prolonged agony" was "not scientifically explainable".
The theologian consultors, in the particular Congress of 21 February
2006 and the Ordinary Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops of 12 December
2006 also gave their unanimous approval of the supernatural aspect of
the said healing.
The Decree concerning the miracle was given in the presence of
the Holy Father, Benedict XVI on 21 December 2006.
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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).
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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).
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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.
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