Stunning…simply stunning. I love “Mysteries of the Virgin Mary: Living Our Lady’s Graces”! A beautiful and lovingly assembled collection of and meditations on the 13 principal Marian mysteries celebrated by the Church. From the sound theological foundations for our devotion to Our Lady to the reflections and teachings of the saints, Fr. Peter John Cameron, founding editor-in-chief of the monthly worship aid Magnificat, has given us a wonderful resource to deepen our walk with the Blessed Mother of God.
St. Gregory the Great…the tradition of the Church considers him one of the four great doctors of the Latin Church. Born in Rome, Italy, in AD 540, St. Gregory was the son of Gordianus, a wealthy senator, and Silvia, who later became a saint. (Saints make saints after all…).
His youth was a troubled one. In his writings he chronicles the perpetual seiges that Rome endured at the hands of the barbarians. Those nasty Lombards! Pillaging, raping, massacring, they would plague the Church and the people of the land for 200 years, you name it..by any standard, they were bad!
Saint Gregory became the Prefect of Rome at the age of thirty, and the people loved him because he was able to keep them safe. A few years later, like his parents, he gave his wealth away. He became a Benedictine monk. But the pope of the time, recalled him to Rome to serve as a deacon and to help the city, which was again attacked by the Lombards.
On the third day of September in 590, after he had first been ordained a priest, Saint Gregory was consecrated Pope and Bishop of Rome, in Saint Peter’s Basilica. He was the first monk to become Pope. The Holy Spirit didn’t waste anytime moving him to service!
Through Saint Leander and his brother, Saint Isidore of Seville, as well as the martyr Saint Hermenegild, Saint Gregory recovered Spain from the Arians. Through Queen Theodelinda, the wife of the Lombard King Agilulf, he was able to begin the conversion of the Lombard nation and the tempering of their ferocious and cruel natures. He won France back and began conversions in England. Saint Gregory was, above all else, a vigilant guardian of the Church’s doctrine, always the mark of a holy Pope. He ordained, early in his pontificate that the first four Ecumenical Councils of the Church should be treated with the respect given to the four Gospels. He worked unceasingly to stamp out heresy. He ordered that at the beginning of Lent the blessed ashes should be placed on the foreheads of the faithful, instead of only the head of the Pope — as had been the custom up to that time — and that the priest should repeat to each one, “Remember man, that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return”. excerpted in part from an article by Sister Catherine Goddard Clark, M.I.C.M.
He is known for his magnificent contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass and Office. The “Gregorian Chant” is named in honor of Saint Gregory’s patient labor in restoring the ancient chant of the Church and in setting down the rules to be followed so that Church music might more perfectly fulfill its function.
Saint Gregory the Great died on the twelfth of March, 604, at the age of sixty-four. He was canonized immediately after his death. Later, because of the volume, the extraordinary insight and the profundity of his writings, the depth and extent of his learning, and the heroic holiness of his life, the Church gratefully placed him beside Jerome and Ambrose and Augustine. Saint Gregory the Great became the fourth of the Church’s four great Doctors of the West. –
What would today be like without a little Gregorian Chant in honor of our St. Gregory?
St. Lawrence of Rome was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258.
His story is so touching (click here for a thorough telling). He models the charism of diakonia…genuine “ministry” of the gospel in the heart of the Church. He witnessed to and lived out the command of Our Lord as found in Matthew 25. Oh…to truly know modern day deacons in the order of Lawrence…
Often we see holy cards that depict Lawrence fully vested and holding what looks like a rack from a Weber kettle. But his martyrdom was actually horrific and deserving of deeper reflection. He could have avoided it, given the Roman official what he desired and spared his own life…but he didn’t. The grace he received to bear witness lives for the centuries as a tremendous testimony of faith speaking out in truth and love…no matter what. The image below is by Titian, and is the one I hold in my heart for St. Lawrence.
St. John Vianney is the subject of the a book by Fr. Frederick L. Miller, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ, is the Chairman of the Department of Systematic Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. We had a chance to speak to him about the life and times and this holy priest.
The ultimate homiliest… so much so that he is known forever after as St. Peter Chrysologus (Peter of the Golden Words). Born in 380 and died July 30 45o A.D. He was known for his short and inspired talks…make note: can be inspired AND short…wow! He spoke out against all those nasty heresies of the time (Aranism to name just one) and encouraged daily communion.
Take a listen to Mike Aquilina (speaking of Mr. Golden Words) talk to us about this time in history and all those “isms”, and how the Holy Spirit worked through the Church to battle those false teachings
“He is The Bread sown in the virgin, leavened in the Flesh, molded in His Passion, baked in the furnace of the Sepulchre, placed in the Churches, and set upon the Altars, which daily supplies Heavenly Food to the faithful.”
“Today Christ works the first of his signs from heaven by turning water into wine. But water [mixed with wine] has still to be changed into the sacrament of his blood, so that Christ may offer spiritual drink from the chalice of his body, to fulfill the psalmist’s prophecy: How excellent is my chalice, warming my spirit.”
On this faith check let’s answer the question, “why pray to a saint when you can pray straight to God?”
Of course, Catholics can and do pray straight to God. But we also pray to saints, not to worship them, but simply to ask for their prayers on our behalf, just like we ask our friends on earth to pray for us.
In the communion of saints we are spiritually connected to believers in the here and now and in the hereafter. For instance, Hebrews tells us we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,”1 who are aware of what’s going on here. We read in Revelation that the prayers of the elders and saints in heaven are ascending before the throne of God.2
The prayers of the saints are powerful because they have been perfected in God’s grace and as St. James says, “the fervent prayer of the righteous has great power.”3
Early Christian writings demonstrate that this practice was not a later corruption, but goes back to the very first centuries of Christianity. So let us join with Christians of all ages in saying “all you holy men and women, pray for us!”
I leave it to Omar F. A. Gutierrez to write so well on the life, times, and death of this great saint.
You may perhaps remember a scene from Braveheart with Robert the Bruce and his father the leper.
When his son first brings him news about the rebellion led by William Wallace, a commoner, the father instantly devises a plan by which the Bruce clan can gain favor with the Scots and with the English. You get the feeling that Robert is a bit taken aback by the so easy and cold calculation of his rotted father.
He says,
This Wallace. He doesn’t even have a knighthood. But he fights with passion, and he is clever. He inspires men.
His father replies:
You admire him. Uncompromising men are easy to admire. He has courage. So does a dog. But you must understand this: Edward Longshanks is the most ruthless king ever to sit on the throne of England, and none of us, and nothing of Scotland, will survive unless we are as ruthless, more ruthless, than he.
“Uncompromising men are easy to admire.” There is in this world, and it seems more so today, a habit of admiring the compromising fellow. With the ubiquitous dictatorship of relativism that oppresses so many minds, it only makes sense that the general public would take offense at anyone who dares stand up for something with uncompromising stolidity.
The holder of objective truth claims is – so the sages of Manhattan and Melrose Place tell us – no different than the Nazi who insists on the claim to racial purity or the Islamic bomber who literally does cling to his religion and guns.
For this reason, the figure of St. Thomas More, whose feast it is today, can be such a perplexing figure for the modern mind. And even the Catholic who consumes their breakfast whilst pouring over the latest moto proprio can miss this astonishingly great man. I have to admit having skipped over him in my studies, chalking him up with all the other saints and blesseds who gain God’s favor by losing their heads. But St. Thomas More is more than just a martyr.
He’s an example of such exquisite lack of compromise that he can teach us a great deal about the Catholic Social Doctrine we long to understand and live out.
John Fisher, born at Beverley, Yorkshire, was the son of a prosperous mercer who died in 1477. About 1482 the boy’s mother sent him to Cambridge University where he distinguished himself as a scholar. He was ordained in 1491 on the title of his Fellowship of Michaelhouse (now incorporated in Trinity College). After studying theology for ten years, he took his D.D. in 1501, and was later recognized as one of the leading theologians of Europe.
His university soon discovered his gifts as an administrator; he held in turn the offices of proctor, vice-chancellor and chancellor, and in 1514 he received the unique distinction of being elected chancellor for life. It was in the course of his university duties that, in 1494, he first met the Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. He became her confessor and advised her on the charitable uses of her great wealth. It was at his suggestion that a preachership was endowed at Cambridge and Readerships in Divinity in both universities. He was largely responsible for her decision to refound and endow Godshouse as Christ’s College, and, after her death in 1509, he carried out her wishes in founding St. John’s College, to which he transferred lands given to him by the Lady Margaret.
He was made bishop of Rochester in 1504, and he ruled that poorest of sees for thirty years; he was a truly pastoral bishop, encouraging his priests by his manner of life and by his interest in their welfare. He was a noted and assiduous preacher, and he did all he could to provide well-instructed priests who could preach to the people.
It was due to his influence that Erasmus was brought to Cambridge as lecturer in Greek. He and Sir Thomas More became close friends of John Fisher, and there is a record of the three being together at Rochester in 1516. Sir Thomas More became High Steward of Cambridge University in 1525. He and John Fisher had been drawn closer together at this period by the call to combat the Lutheran heresy. The bishop wrote his Confutatio (1523) in Latin, a book for theologians by a theologian, which had a wide circulation on the continent; the layman wrote his Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1528) in English for the common reader. It may be noted that in his sermons and writings against heretics, John Fisher never used the abusive language of contemporary controversy; he relied on reason and persuasion to bring back the prodigals.
The year 1527 was fateful to England, for it was then that Henry VIII took the first steps towards seeking the annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. She had married his elder brother Arthur in 1501; he died six months later. Catherine always maintained that the marriage had not been consummated. A papal dispensation allowed Henry VIII to marry his brother’s widow in 1509. The lack of a male heir turned his thoughts to the dissolution of his marriage; he argued that the papal dispensation had no validity. Cardinal Wosley was instructed to seek the opinion of John Fisher, whose prestige as a man of holy life and of great learning gave exceptional weight to his views. After studying the problem thoroughly he came to the conclusion that the papal dispensation was valid, and therefore that Henry and Catherine were man and wife in the eyes of the church. From that position he never moved in spite of the pressure brought to bear on him by king and cardinal. He was not content with passive opposition, but in the legatine court set up to try the issue, and from the pulpit, he defended the queen, although he knew that Henry regarded opposition to his will as a form of treason.
An attempt to implicate John Fisher in the fate of the Nun of Kent failed; she had prophesied against the king. A more certain weapon was provided by the Act of Succession of 1534. This declared the king’s marriage to Catherine void, and his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn to be lawful; the succession was settled on her children. All had to take an oath accepting the whole Act. When the oath was tendered to John Fisher he refused to take it; so did Sir Thomas More. Both were prepared to accept the succession as determined by Parliament, but not that part of the Act which implied a denial of the pope’s authority, inasmuch as it declared the papal dispensation invalid.
On April 17th, 1534 Bishop John Fisher and Sir Thomas More were committed to the Tower. They were kept apart.
John Fisher was sixty-five years of age when he was imprisoned; he was suffering from a wasting sickness and was clearly nearing his end. Nothing shows the king’s vindictiveness more than his relentless persecution of this aged man stricken by a fatal illness. On May 20th, 1535, the pope created John Fisher Cardinal-priest of the title of St. Vitalis. This so infuriated the king that he hurried forward the proceedings against the new cardinal.
In these Catecheses, we are reflecting on the great figures of the early Church. Today, we will talk about St Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, the most important of the second-century apologist Fathers.
The word “apologist” designates those ancient Christian writers who set out to defend the new religion from the weighty accusations of both pagans and Jews, and to spread the Christian doctrine in terms suited to the culture of their time.
Thus, the apologists had a twofold concern: that most properly called “apologetic”, to defend the newborn Christianity (apologhía in Greek means, precisely, “defence”), and the pro-positive, “missionary” concern, to explain the content of the faith in a language and on a wavelength comprehensible to their contemporaries.
Justin was born in about the year 100 near ancient Shechem, Samaria, in the Holy Land; he spent a long time seeking the truth, movi
Finally, as he himself recounts in the first chapters of his Dialogue with Tryphon, a mysterious figure, an old man he met on the seashore, initially leads him into a crisis by showing him that it is impossible for the human being to satisfy his aspiration to the divine solely with his own forces. He then pointed out to him the ancient prophets as the people to turn to in order to find the way to God and “true philosophy”.ng through the various schools of the Greek philosophical tradition.
In taking his leave, the old man urged him to pray that the gates of light would be opened to him.
The story foretells the crucial episode in Justin’s life: at the end of a long philosophical journey, a quest for the truth, he arrived at the Christian faith. He founded a school in Rome where, free of charge, he initiated students into the new religion, considered as the true philosophy. Indeed, in it he had found the truth, hence, the art of living virtuously.
For this reason he was reported and beheaded in about 165 during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor to whom Justin had actually addressed one of his Apologia.
These – the two Apologies and the Dialogue with the Hebrew, Tryphon – are his only surviving works. In them, Justin intends above all to illustrate the divine project of creation and salvation, which is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Logos, that is, the eternal Word, eternal Reason, creative Reason.
Dr Matthew Bunson co-wrote, with Margaret Bunson, a compelling biography of St. Damien. Dr. Bunson took time to share many more aspects of the life of this incredible saint.
St Jozef Damien De Veuster (1840-1889) – from vatican.va
St Jozef Damien De Veuster, ss.cc, was born at Tremelo, Belgium, on 3 January 1840 (see also p. 8). Jozef (“Jef”) began his novitiate with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (“Picpus Fathers”) at the beginning of 1859 and took the name Damien. He would pray every day before a picture of St Francis
Xavier, patron of missionaries, to be sent on a mission. In 1863 his brother, who was to leave for a mission in the Hawaiian Islands, fell ill. Since preparations for the voyage had already been made, Damien obtained permission from the Superior General to take his brother’s place. He landed in Honolulu on 19 March 1864. He was ordained to the priesthood on the following 21 May.
At that time, the Hawaiian Government decided on the harsh measure of quarantine aimed at preventing the spread of leprosy: the deportation to the neighbouring Island of Molokai of all those infected by what was then thought to be an incurable disease. The entire mission was concerned about the abandoned lepers and Bishop Louis Maigret, a Picpus father, felt sure they needed priests. He did not want to send anyone “in the name of obedience” because he was aware such an assignment was a potential death sentence. Of the four brothers who volunteered, Damien was the first to leave on 10 May 1873 for Kalaupapa.
At his own request and that of the lepers, he remained on Molokai. Having contracted leprosy himself, he died on 15 April 1889, at the age of 49, after serving 16 years among the lepers. He was buried in the local cemetery under the same Pandanus tree where he had first slept upon his arrival in Molokai. His remains were exhumed in 1936 at the request of the Belgian Government and translated to a crypt of the Church of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts at Louvain. Damien is universally known for having freely shared the life of the lepers in quarantine on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokai. His departure for the “cursed isle”, the announcement of his illness (leprosy) in 1884 and his subsequent death deeply impressed his contemporaries of all denominations.
Damien was above all a Catholic missionary. Fr Damien is known today as a hero of charity because he identified so closely with thevictims of leprosy.
He respected the religious convictions of others; he accepted them as people and received with joy their collaboration and their help. With a heart wide open to the most abject and wretched, he showed no difference in his approach and in his care of the lepers. In his parish ministry or in his works of charity he found a place for everyone.
He continues to inspire thousands of believers and non-believers who wish to imitate him and to discover the source of his heroism. People of all creeds and all philosophical systems recognized in him the Servant of God which he always revealed himself to be, and respect his passion for the salvation of souls.
Pope John Paul II beatified Damien de Veuster in Brussels on 4 June 1995.
Graces”! A beautiful and lovingly assembled collection of and meditations on the 13 principal Marian mysteries celebrated by the Church. From the sound theological foundations for our devotion to Our Lady to the reflections and teachings of the saints, Fr. Peter John Cameron, founding editor-in-chief of the monthly worship aid Magnificat, has given us a wonderful resource to deepen our walk with the Blessed Mother of God.
You kind find this book at www.servantbooks.org
