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Posted by on Aug 11, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

St. Clare of Assisi was born in 1194. She was one of the early followers of St. Francis of Assisi and with him co-founded the Order of Saint Clare, now commonly known as the Poor Clares.

Clare was from a wealthy family and left it all to lead a life of absolute poverty in a cloistered monastery. She and her sisters passed their days working and praying. The order has continued into our times, with monasteries of sisters in communities around the world.

In celebration of the feast of St. Clare, I invited some of her sisters to share their insights and reflections. I received these responses.

From Sr. Miriam Varney, Abbess of the Monastery of St. Clare in Chesterfield, NJ,

Saint Clare had a great devotion to the Eucharist and it was shown at the time when the town of Assisi was being attacked.  Clare’s response was to go to Jesus in the Eucharist. Here is our prayer Novena for our Feast Day:

Saint Clare, radiant light, Shining in Splendor, help us all to walk, “with swift pace and light step” in the footprints of the “Poor Crucified and His Most Holy Mother.” Through Your presence in the Blessed Sacrament, Protect all life, our homes and cities from crime and violence as you once protected your sisters and the city of Assisi.
Through your powerful intercession obtain many graces for the Church, for each of us, for our Franciscan family and for the whole world. Amen

From the Poor Clare Nuns of Belleville:

13th century St. Clare stands as a 21st century witness of Gospel hope.  She is reminder that human fulfillment is not a matter of power or prestige or possessions, but of discovering the treasure that lies hidden in the field of the world (3rd Letter of St. Clare to St. Agnes of Prague).  Clare bears shining witness that the kingdom of God is within.   She shows the world that a life full of God is a life full of hope.   She confirms this telling observation of Pope Benedict XVI:  Prayer is the language of hope — not a hope which isolates or renders indifferent to the sufferings of the human family, but a hope that gives the individual a heart for the world and thus to all that makes the world truly worthy of its divine destiny.

Each Poor Clare community is called to be an “assembly of hope.”  Hidden and apart, universal and eschatological (Poor Clare Constitutions, art. 44,1), the more deeply, fervently and faithfully we live our enclosed contemplative form of life, the more do we bear witness to Christ, the Life and Hope of the world.  Ours is a life of joy and faith, surrender and self-sacrifice which enables our monasteries to continue to offer to today’s world, with its widespread need for spirituality and prayer, the demanding proposal of a complete and authentic experience of God, One and Triune, radiating His loving and saving Presence.  (Pope John Paul II)

For more information on our community, our Poor Clare vocation and for reflections on various Franciscan/Clarian themes, you are welcome to visit our website.

From Sister Jane Marie Delevan of St. Clare Monastery in Evansville.

We appreciate your efforts to make our Mother St. Clare better known and yes you are in our prayers, God Bless you, Sr. Jane Marie,O.S.C. Happy & Blessed Feast Day!!

And now, a quick trivia question. Why is St. Clare shown with a cat in the first image? The story goes that when she was confined to bed due to illness, she continued to work. One day she dropped the roll of fabric on which she was working and it rolled away out of her reach. The monastery cat brought the fabric back to her, so she could continue working.

One of the California missions, and indeed, an entire city, is named for St. Clare of Assisi. Mission Santa Clara de Asís is located near San Jose, California and was founded in 1777 by Fr. Junipero Serra. Fray Tomás de la Peña and Fray José Murguía were the first to minister at Santa Clara. Today Santa Clara University is located on the site of the mission and the restored mission church is the university chapel.

 

My thanks to the communities who have shared their thoughts with us and to all Sisters of Saint Clare, for your dedication to serve the Lord and the Christian community through your lives of prayer and sacrifice, as well as through the many types of work you do in service to the community. Happy Feast Day.

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Posted by on Aug 9, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day: St. Edith Stein – August 9

Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Carmelite nun, was born Edith Stein in 1891in Poland and was killed in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. Edith and her sister Rosa, along with other Jews who had become Catholics, were arrested by the Nazis occupying the Netherlands in retaliation for the denunciation by the Dutch bishops of Nazi anti-Semitism.

There has often been criticism of the silence of the Church with regard to the Nazi extermination of the Jews. Before he became Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli had been the papal nuncio to Germany during the 1930’s and negotiated a treaty, or concordat, between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. Gerard Noel has published a new book, Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler, which focuses on the crushing conflict the Pope experienced within himself and the deep personal toll it took on him.

Pius XII’s fears for the Church were only increased by the Nazi extermination of Jewish converts to Catholicism in the Netherlands. A broader analysis of the Pope’s situation makes it seem almost impossible. Events were beyond the ability of any one person to change or control. Mary Doria Russell, in A Thread of Grace, portrays the complexity of the Italian resistance to the Holocaust. The sheer caprice of war annihilates and spares individuals and communities at random. Most Italian Jews were saved by their neighbors and complete strangers. Unfortunately, this was not the pattern in the rest of Europe.

St. Edith Stein could not justify the horrendous evil that was to be visited on her people in any theological sense but that of the cross. In her final few days at Auschwitz, Edith and her sister Rosa made an indelible impression on some of the children. As the survivors tell it, many mothers were so traumatized that they collapsed emotionally. Edith and Rosa comforted and held the children and did what they could to meet their needs. Edith Stein’s contribution to the philosophy of experience was the notion that our identity is created not through an Ego that apprehends others. Rather, the Ego arises out of our identification with the needs, desires, and feelings of others. We come to be, as self-conscious beings, through compassion.

In her final days, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross showed that her philosophy of compassion was not just an intellectual construct but the framework of her life and legacy to us.

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Posted by on Aug 8, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day – St. Dominic – August 8

For the feast of St. Dominic, I asked several Dominicans what they would like people to know about the founder of their order, the Order of Preachers. These were responses I received in the order received.

From Timothy Radcliffe, OP, Blackfriars, Oxford: 

I would say that one of the things that struck people about St Dominic was his joy. One has the impression that he delighted in talking to people, whoever they were. He had an immediate empathy with people, with their sorrows and joys. It was said that he laughed during the day with his brethren, and wept at night with God. This joy is the beginning of all preaching. The early Dominicans all compared the gospel to new wine, which makes you drunk!

From Thomas McDermott, OP, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri

Here’s something that you might be able to use:

“Two distinctive features of Dominican spirituality are study and preaching.  St. Dominic situated his religious communities not in the countryside, as in the case of monks, but in the center of university cities.  Manual labor was replaced by study and the friars could be dispensed from attending parts of the Liturgy of the Hours for purposes of study.  What were they to study?  Truth–sacred truth.  The motto of the Order is Veritas.  Study was to inform the contemplative life of the Dominican friar and preaching, in all its forms, was the overflow.  Another motto is, “To preach, and to share with others the fruits of one’s contemplation.”  The official name of Dominican order is the Order of Preachers.  Democracy has always been a hallmark of the Dominicans. Major and local superiors are elected by the friars themselves.  General chapters of the Order take place every three years to respond to current needs and keep the Order’s legislation up to date.”

Here’s a good source for biographies of St. Dominic and other OP saints, http://www.domcentral.org/trad/

From Michael Fones, OP, Co-director, Catherine of Siena Institute

I would want people to know that he was in such love with God that it was said of him that “he was always either talking to God or talking about God.”  I say this is a sign of his great love of God because we naturally want to be in conversation with our beloved, and he or she is always so much on our mind that we inevitably talk to others about them.

 From Sr. Barbara Long, OP, Holy Cross Parish, Santa Cruz

St. Dominic’s ministry is as contemporary today as it was in the 13th century. Dominic realized that we need to meet people where they are at. He didn’t wait for people to come to him, but encountered them in the every day activities of their lives and shared the Gospel message.

My thanks to these and other dedicated brothers and sisters of St. Dominic for sharing your gifts and insights.

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Posted by on Aug 5, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day – St. John Vianney: August 4


St. Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney (1786-1859) was the parish priest of the village of Ars and is known primarily by that title even in English, “The Cure d’Ars”. Canonized in 1925 St. John Vianney is the patron of parish priests. In many respects he is a thoroughly modern saint.

He was born into the midst of the French Revolution and into a devout rural family who worshiped in secret with outlaw priests who refused to become state functionaries. The upheaval of the revolution closed schools, hospitals, and other institutions. For the first time in human history, the state asserted itself without religion as it destroyed the old Catholic order – the Ancien Regime. The “Goddess of Reason” was enthroned in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Priests, nuns, and the Catholic nobility were killed, forced into hiding or exiled.

After the revolution subsided, Napoleon attempted to gain complete control of the Church in France and even took control of the Papal States, removing the Pope from Rome and bringing most of the Cardinals to Paris. In 1812 Napoleon’s fall began with the disastrous retreat from Russia in winter. The Industrial Revolution would follow, ending forever the cultural matrix of European Christianity.

St. John Vianney’s 73 years of life would span the trauma of the ending of the Divine Right of Kings to the rise of the rights of the common man. He would become emblematic of a Catholicism redefining itself, as it was torn from the 1,500 years of prerogatives and burdens of its affiliation with the state dating from the reign of the Emperor Constantine.

St. John Vianney began by re-asserting the centrality of God in his own life and supporting those in the parish who still practiced the faith. It is important to note that his vocation was in itself something of a miracle. Due to the upheaval of the times, he had no formal education until he was 20 and had great difficulty with Latin. To make matters worse, he got drafted by Napoleon and ended up as a deserter in hiding. An unlikely amnesty made it possible for him to return to his studies. If there hadn’t been such a severe shortage of priests, it is possible that he would never have been ordained.

His personal example of holiness in terms of his prayer and his charity to all made a deep impression. Sunday had become just another workday. Taverns were places of dissolution and much of the social order had broken down. “Dances” were part of a wild party scene involving promiscuity and adultery. Orphans and the disabled were exploited and left to fend for themselves. Over several decades, he led a movement to remedy these problems and to encourage religious devotion, while promoting service to others.

When the bishop attempted to assign St. John Vianney to other parishes, the community protested until the bishop relented. By our standards, his personal acts of penance and mortification, his meager diet, and short hours of sleep, appear to be excessive and even harsh. Reports that he was assaulted by the Devil at night strike us as bizarre, maybe even pathological. Yet they were witnessed by men in the parish who came when they heard the commotion.

Interestingly, he was not severe with his parishoners or penitents in the confessional. In fact, he was known for having won over a prominent woman who was a Jansenist and led her from a severe and demanding conception of God.

Not all of his fellow priests agreed with his approach or pastoral style. In fact, we might say that his special gifts in his historical circumstances may have created the ideal of the parish priest as a solitary super hero, like the desert fathers or the anchorites of the early Church. This calling is something one can respond to, but it cannot be fabricated and put on like a suit. Fr. John Cihak, in “St. John Vianney’s Pastoral Plan”, helps us understand how his example can guide parish priests today.

There is one major factor that is alluded to in the wonder of St. John Vianney’s life and ministry, but it is especially important for all of us who are parishioners today. God worked extensively in the life and ministry of St. John Vianney through his family, those who sheltered him as a deserter, and the people of Ars. Whether the pastor is single or married, the position is one of the most exposed and the most lonely. In denominations with a married clergy, and in the case of Eastern Rite Catholic priests and Latin Rite Catholic deacons, the spouses and children of clergy have a special opportunity and burden that only we can support by our prayers, understanding, and kindness toward them.

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Posted by on Jul 25, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint James the Apostle – July 25 – Big Jim Learns About the Kingdom

James, son of Zebedee and Salome, was one of the first disciples of Jesus. He was a fisherman, son of a fisherman, and was called by Jesus, along with his brother John, from his boat on the Sea of Galilee. He followed immediately, being a man who acted decisively and sometimes brashly all his life. Jesus called James and John the “Sons of Thunder.” They were two of his closest disciples, present throughout his ministry, including private experiences such as the Transfiguration and the Agony in the Garden.

Two men named James were among the twelve Apostles. James, son of Zebedee, and James, son of Alphaeus. James, son of Zebedee, is known as James the Greater. James, son of Alphaeus, is called James the Lesser. The use of “Greater” and “Lesser” was always puzzling to me. But what I have learned is that the terms probably referred more to the relative size of the men than to any sense of being greater or lesser in zeal, holiness, intelligence, or any of the many other qualities we treasure in people. It was probably like we find today among young men. I’m thinking particularly about two friends of one of my sons. Both are named Dan. But one is taller. So he’s called “Big Dan.” I suspect that James the Greater today might be called “Big Jim.”

One of the stories told about Big Jim was the day his mother approached Jesus and asked if her sons, Jim and John, could sit at His right and left hands in the Kingdom. Jesus told her that she didn’t know what she was asking. Could they drink of the same chalice from which he would drink? They confidently assured Him that they could. He confirmed that they would indeed share in the same chalice, but that it was not His to give a place at his right or left hand. He went on to explain that unlike earthly kingdoms, where leaders were the powerful who lorded it over all the rest, among his followers, the leaders were to be the servants, those who took care of those less able to help themselves. (Mt 20:20-28)

Big Jim learned that lesson well. Following the Resurrection, he enthusiastically spread the Good News of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Some say he went as far as Spain, preaching the Good News, though we have no proof of that. We know that he he was one of the leaders of the community in Jerusalem and died there in 44 AD, the first of the Apostles to die as witnesses (martyrs) for the Good News.

And what of this kingdom where service to the least of the least is the hallmark of greatness? It grew and continues to grow. We look around us and see all of the pain and suffering of the poor. We get disheartened by the wars that rage and the senseless killings. But we also need to look at the good things that have developed. Think of doctors, hospitals and clinics that serve the poor as well as the rich. Think of schools for children of all social classes. Think of public funds that help provide food for mothers and children who otherwise might have none. These and many more good things have come about because followers of Jesus, sometimes one lonely person at a time, saw a need and set about to serve those who had nothing and no one who cared enough to help them. We still have a long ways to go, but the Kingdom of Jesus is growing, slowly though it may seem, and changes continue to come even in our days. The lesson Big Jim learned on that day so many years ago is one for us today. “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” (Mt 20:26-27)

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Posted by on Jul 22, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day: St. Mary of Magdala – July 22

Icon of St. Mary Magdalene with a red egg.

One of the most striking sayings of Jesus is perhaps His simplest. It is one word, “Mary.” He is not referring to His mother or Mary of Bethany or any of the several other Marys of the Gospels.

Mary of Magdala is utterly distraught. She has come with other women to anoint the body of Jesus. The stone has been rolled away. The tomb is empty. She sees a man whom she mistakes as a gardener or caretaker and wants to know where the body of Jesus has been taken. (John: 20). Jesus utters her name, and through her, the Apostles and all of us learn of the unthinkable. Christ is risen.

This is Mary of Magdala, a woman that many of us don’t recognize because of a movement set in motion by Pope St. Gregory the Great, making Mary into the repentant prostitute whom Jesus forgives. In fairness to Gregory the Great, he was probably voicing a earlier tradition confusing Mary of Magdala with the penitent who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair.

The restoration of the historical position of Mary of Magdala is recent. In 1969 the Vatican officially corrected the traditional misconception of her as a prostitute. This also coincided with the rise of the women’s movement. More recent scholarship on the gnostic Gospel of Mary shows that Mary of Magdala appeared to have played a more central role in the immediate circle of the Apostles. This is also part of a trend in historical scholarship of the early church indicating that women played a more prominent role in leadership and teaching and were supplanted by men as the church became established under the emperor Constantine.

Mary the Apostle? Mary the penitent prostitute? These questions are an uncomfortable reminder that male dominated societies place women on a pedestal while also exploiting them at the same time. This is not only a tragic double bind; it also contradicts what Jesus was about in His relations with women.

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Posted by on Jul 18, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

St. Camillus de Lellis – July 18 – “The Original Red Cross”

St. Camillus de Lellis is one of those saints that remain quietly in the background of our Catholic lives, despite having sown seeds that continue to bear fruit into our present day. He was born in Italy in the mid-1500s and lived to the age of 64. His mother died when he was thirteen and his father was in the military, so he did not receive as much attention and loving care as he should have as an adolescent. He grew up to be an agressive, hot-headed, compulsive gambler. He worked as a mercenary soldier, selling his services to whichever ruler’s army would pay him. Between stints as a soldier, he spent time working in a hospital for the incurably ill. But his gambling and agressive behavior cut short that employment and he returned to being a soldier, serving in the war against the Turks in 1569.

Following the war, when he was working in construction on a building at Manfredonia for the Capuchins, he was touched by a talk from the guardian of the community there and at the age of 25, his life changed. His legs had been injured when he was younger and they never really healed completely. He spent time in hospitals both receiving treatment and helping with the care of other patients. Following his conversion, he dedicated the rest of his life to caring for the ill and injured. He eventually became a priest and founded a religious order, the Fathers of a Good Death, in 1584. Wearing a red cross on their black cassocks, they cared for the sick, including victims of the plague, in hospitals, in the homes of their patients and on the battlefields. The order continued to grow through the years, and today they are known as Camillians (Clerks Regular Ministers to the Sick). Camillians work all over the world.

St. Camillus de Lellis was called the “Founder of a new school of charity” when he was canonized by Pope Benedict XIV in 1726. He taught that God is present in people confined to hospitals and sick beds, reminding his followers, “The poor and the sick are the heart of God.  In serving them, we serve Jesus the Christ.”

A Camillian priest visited our parish last year, raising money for their work in the missions. He spoke compellingly about the people he had served and their stories. It was quite inspiring. When he introduced himself and his order, he told us that Camillians were the “original Red Cross” because of the color of the cross on their habits. Their work through the centuries in hospitals, battlefields and sick rooms would seem to bear that out.

Once again it seems that “God writes straight with crooked lines.” A mercenary, who is a compulsive gambler and brawler, with injured legs, becomes the founder of a group of men who spend their lives working to heal the sick and care for the dying – the patron saint of gamblers and nurses. Truly a life story to be told more widely.

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Posted by on Jul 11, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint Benedict – July 11 – Solitude and Community

Benedict of Nursia is called the founder of Western Monasticism. He was born at Nursia around 480 AD to a noble family. According to tradition, his had a twin sister, Scholastica, who became the founder of a similar form of monasticism for women. As the son of a noble family, he was educated well and lived a comfortable life. The world and all its opportunities were open to him. Presumably he sampled some of its treats as a young man.

Around 500 AD, he decided to leave Rome for a quieter life in the country. He took his childhood nurse along as a servant and moved to a smaller town about 40 miles away. According to St. Gregory, who wrote the first biography of Benedict, his intention was to live a life more in tune with the Gospel than that of a typical young noble in Rome. He didn’t plan to become a hermit or to organize groups of men to live in religious communities or to develop a “Rule” for monastic orders. He simply wanted to have time for prayer and work and a life with a friends who shared the goal of living a Gospel centered life.

From a distance of hundreds of years, we see choices like the one he made as signs of holiness. Up close in our own lives, we often see them as somehow irresponsible or “crazy” – a judgement generally shared by the families of those, including Benedict, who made those choices in the past.

It’s easy to forget/overlook the fact that Benedict never set out to start a religious community. The rules he eventually developed and wrote down were ones that developed out of his experiences in living with other men and by himself. They were developed for lay people. Only later did his followers become priests.

So what were these rules about? They were about how to live a holy life in the world, as a person sharing life with other people. They were written not just for those who left family and jobs to live a life of prayer, but for anyone seeking holiness. They assumed that people would work. That a life of prayer without work is not healthy. And both work and prayer need to be undertaken with the support of other people in a community. We need friends and family to keep us going and to challenge us to continue when it would be easy to cut corners or take the easy way out of a tough situation. And – surprise – there must be time for fun and play in life!

For Benedict, balance was important. Work, prayer, play — all within the framework of a community/family. 

There is a saying from Buddhist tradition, “Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”  Benedict’s example and the rule he developed are very much in alignment with this wisdom. Prayer includes deep awareness of the presence of God in all things. So as we work, we pray if we are “present”  in what we are doing and aware of God’s presence in it. When we come together in community to pray, as monks do at regular times in the day and night, or as families do over meals or at bedtime, we pray most deeply when we are again “present” in the moment of prayer. When we have time by ourselves for personal, quiet prayer, and we find ourselves in the presence of God, we are to stay rooted in that experience too. The trick is to stay aware and present to the reality of what we are doing. “Chop wood, carry water.” And when we play, we are to play wholeheartedly as well – like happy children. Not worrying about how we look or who will win or what else we should be doing that would be “holier.”

Benedict’s life was not easy. The lessons he learned came through many twists and turns. He spent time living alone and time living in communities. He started some communities. Lived within others. Was rejected by some. One community even tried to poison him! But through it all he kept his eyes and ears open to God’s presence and call. And the witness of his life drew other people, men and women, who passed on what he learned down through the generations to us. How to find holiness in the balance of a life of work, prayer and play as individuals and as members of families and communities.

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Posted by on Jul 1, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day: Blessed Father Junipero Serra, the comic book and in real life

Somewhere, lost in the depths of a bookcase, my family has a comic book about Junipero Serra. It is set in the year 20something, still in the future from now, on board a space craft. The story is about a priest telling a friend of his about Serra. I first picked up the book, (actually I found it), in fourth grade, the time when all California kids study the California missions. That was the first real intro I had to Serra and the founding of the missions, because I found the book just before we started studying the missions in school. His story fascinated me, but soon I forgot about him and the book, until today when I started doing research for this post. Some might say that comic books never tell the truth, but they would be wrong about this one. The research I did showed me that the comic book is actually rather accurate at portraying his life.

Blessed Father Junipero Serra was born Miguel Jose Serra on November 24th, 1713 in Petra, Majorca, Kingdom of Spain. Later, he took the name “Junipero” in honor of Saint Juniper. He entered the Order of Friars Minor on September 14th, 1730.  Because he was so good with his studies, Serra was appointed Lector of Philosophy (some sort of professor) before he was ordained a priest. Later on he also received his doctorate from Lullian University in Palma De Mallorca.

In 1749, Serra travelled to Mexico City. On the way from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, he was bitten in the leg by an insect. The bite never got better, and that leg bothered him for the rest of his life. He never wanted any help with it though, and preferred to walk whenever he could.

From Mexico City, Serra requested transfer to the Sierra Gorda Indian Mission. He spent nine years there, learning the language of the Pame Indians, and translating the Catechism into their language. He was soon recalled to Mexico City and gained fame as being the most fervent and most effective preacher, because he would do ridiculous stuff in order to get people to repent. It is said that he used to pound his breast with rocks at the pulpit, scourge himself and hold a lit torch to his chest. Whether or not he actually did any of that is debated.

The years went by, and in 1769, Serra acompanied Govenor Gaspar de Portola to Nueva California. On July 1st, 1769, the exedition landed in San Diego, where Fr. Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first of 21 California missions. After founding Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Montery, Serra relocated his head quarters to Carmel. Under his rule as “Father Presidente of Alta California”, the missions expanded to include: Mission San Antonio de Padua, Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Mission San Juan Capistrano, Mission San Francisco de Asis, Mission Santa Clara de Asis and Mission San Buenaventura. Each of the California missions is located within one day’s walk of each other. He also pressed for laws to protect the Natives from the abuses of the military.

Around 1778, Serra was given dispensation to give the sacrament of Confirmation. He went around confirming people for a year until Felipe de Neve told him to stop until he could present a Papal Brief. Serra waited for two years, until the Viceroy Majorga gave instructions to the effect that Serra was within his rights. Over the next three years, Serra traveled from San Fransico to San Diego, over 600 miles, and confirmed 5,309 people. 600 miles may not seem like a lot now days, but it was a lot then, on foot, with a bad leg.

Blessed Father Junipero Serra died of a snake bite on August 28th, 1784. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25th 1988. He is buried in the Carmel Mission.

P.S This is not actually Kathy writing. I am Rosie her 15 year old daughter. Gotcha!

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Posted by on Jun 30, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

The Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul – June 29

It’s the time of year when we remember and celebrate the witness of two men who played foundational roles in the community of believers that has grown to include well over 1 billion people – St. Peter and St. Paul.

Peter was a fisherman from Galilee. He was known as Simon. He was brash and decisive and protective of his friends. He didn’t hesitate to argue if he thought a request was unreasonable (but we’ve been fishing all night and haven’t caught anything!) or a plan was unwise (they want to kill you in Jerusalem!). Yet when Jesus came into his life, he was open enough to the Spirit that he left everything and followed when he was called. Jesus named him Peter, calling him the Rock on which the community would be built. (Jn 1:42)

Peter became the leader of Jesus’ followers, at least in part because he spoke his mind and looked out for the safety of them all. He was the one who answered Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” with the profession of faith, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Mt 16:15-16)

Peter was not perfect. He expressed his doubts about Jesus’ plans to go to Jerusalem, trying to dissuade him from that plan, and was rebuked as “Satan” for his efforts. He walked on water towards the Lord, and sank into the waves when he stopped to think about what he was doing. He promised undying support for Jesus at the Last Supper, and denied him 3 times before the sun came up.

No, Peter was not perfect. But he was a perfect leader for the new community because he knew he was imperfect and still loved, chosen, and trusted to do his best. It was a big job for a big person. Figuring out who this Jesus was and is, how to live as a community who follow His ways, how it all fit into the faith in which he was born and raised, what to do about all those non-Jews who also received the Spirit and wanted to be part of the community. A big job.

Paul was from Tarsus, a Roman city. So he was a Roman citizen. He had been trained as a tent maker, but he had also been educated. He was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and a student of the great teacher Gamaliel. He was not a follower of Jesus before the Crucifixion and Resurrection. In fact, he was one of those who saw the new Way of living as a huge threat to the larger Jewish community and to their faith. The Romans were not gentle with those who opposed them or to those who upset the day-to-day routine of life in the provinces. And certainly, the Jews had seen time after time through history what happened to the whole people if groups of them stopped worshipping according to the traditional ways of their people. War, exile, persecution by conquerors. It was not something to risk.

The first time we hear of Paul is at the trial and stoning of St. Stephen, the first martyr. He was called Saul at the time and he consented to Stephen’s death. Saul was an enthusiatic participant in the persecution of Jesus’ followers that followed. He saw that the new teachings were doctrinally quite different from those of traditional Jewish Law and worship at the temple. He was determined to crush the new movement. (Acts 8:3)

When the persecution began in Jerusalem, followers of the Way (as Christians called themselves at that time) had scattered throughout the surrounding area. So Saul got letters from the authorities and traveled north to Damascus, to arrest them there too and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. It was on the road to Damascus that he met the Lord. A bright light flashed around him. He fell down. A voice called to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He asked who was speaking and was told, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. …” Acts 9:1-30 tells the story of his conversion, his first preaching, the reactions of his fellow Christians and of his fellow Jews, and his return to Tarsus (where he would be safe from those who wanted to kill him). And then in Acts 9:31 we read, “The church throughout all Judea, Galilee and Samaria was at peace.”

Peace. A lovely thought. But peace is a state that seems never to last very long – perhaps because growth so often brings unexpected changes, stresses, and strains in its wake. Perhaps because some growth can’t happen except in times of difficulty, when new ideas and new solutions must be discovered. Perhaps because God is too unlimited, too expansive, too inclusive, TOO BIG to be kept in any of our human boxes.

And so the Fisherman baptized a Gentile, Cornelius, and his family. And the community adjusted its thinking about who could be called to the new Way. (Acts 10:1-49, 11:1-18)

Those who had been scattered from Jerusalem shared their faith in new communities in Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. They spoke not just to Jews, but also to Greeks and many believed. The community in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to meet them. Barnabas was so impressed that he went down to Tarsus, collected Saul, and went back to Antioch for a year, teaching the growing community there – where followers of Jesus were first called Christians.

Saul and Barnabas were sent forth from the community at Antioch, to proclaim the word of God in Cyprus. It was the first of Saul’s many missionary trips. (From this point on, he is called Paul in the Acts of the Apostles.)

And things would never again be the same. The Fisherman and the Pharisee didn’t always see eye to eye. They argued. They tussled. They sent letters and messengers back and forth to each other. They had meetings. And through it all, they (and the community) worked things out. And the Christian community became more and more a separate community and faith from the Jewish one into which they had been born.

It was not a time of perpetual peace and smiles. But at the end of their lives, both Peter and Paul, in Rome, died as witnesses to their faith in the Lord – Peter upside down on a cross and Paul, the Roman citizen, by the sword. And the tensions and struggles within the growing community, as well as the growth in understanding of the Good News, and of who Jesus was/is, and of how we are to relate to the Father, and of many, many other things, continued.

In future posts, I’ll talk about some of those “other things” that came along, and use some of the tools of anthropology to look at them. For now, it’s enough to say that Peter and Paul can be seen as representing two essential roles within our community of faith. Their passion and courage in hearing the Lord’s call and stepping out faithfully to spread the Good News is a gift to us all.

 

 

 

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Posted by on Jun 24, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day: St. John the Baptist – June 24

 

St. John the Baptist is the last of the prophets and the first of those to approach the Kingdom. He occupies a place of transition. Christ acknowledges him in a strange way in Luke 7:24-28:

When the messengers of John had left, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John. “What did you go out to the desert to see – a reed swayed by the wind?
Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine garments? Those who dress luxuriously and live sumptuously are found in royal palaces.
Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom scripture says: ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, he will prepare your way before you.’
I tell you, among those born of women, no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

Somehow the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than John. The least are greater than this courageous prophet who spoke truth to power and was beheaded for his efforts. Aren’t those of the Kingdom not born of women? Isn’t John’s courage and faithfulness a model for all Christians? Christians are born again of water and the Holy Spirit. John announces the coming of the Lord and for all of the wonder and importance of this role, it is not as privileged as the least in the Kingdom of God.

The feast of St. John the Baptist is a time to reflect on the privilege and grace of our invitation to the Kindgom. In the earlier verses of this chapter, Jesus tells the the messengers of St. John to report to him what the signs of the Kingdom are: the blind see, the lame walk, the sick are cured.

Maybe it’s time to see where we are in the Kingdom.

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Posted by on Jun 21, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

St. Aloysius Gonzaga – June 21

St. Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591) is often portrayed as a weak dreamy sort of figure. Worse, he has been presented to young people as a patron and role model who rejected all of the fun, adventure, and rebellion of youth. The real story is far more compelling.

How St. Luigi Gonzaga became St. Aloysius in English is not clear. The Latin for Luigi would be Ludovicus. Alois would be the German equivalent.

The “spin” of 17th and 18th century writers on his life was more a pietist anti-intellectual critique of the secularist Enlightenment. To be impolitic, he comes across as some sort of bloodless, lily toting wimp with upward cast eyes. Although it is not uncommon for saints to be “martyred” posthumously and their lives used to advance a contemporary cause, the Renaissance Luigi Gonzaga, Marquis of Castiglione is more relevant to us as post-modern Christians.

The overall sketch of his life is a simple as it is dramatic. Luigi was the oldest son of Ferrante, the Marquis of Castiglione, and named for the founder of the Gonzaga family Luigi, Lord of Mantua (1328). He was a pious youth, despised the things of this world, joined the Jesuits, and died of the plague after contracting it from nursing its abandoned victims in the streets of Rome when he was barely 23.

The context of his life and his status as an imperial prince give us a fuller understanding of who he was. According to John Coulson, the editor of The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary:

It is impossible to estimate Aloysius’ (Luigi’s) career without some idea of his appalling heredity and environment. The Gonzaga tyrants rank with the Visconti, the Sforza, and the D’Este. They entered history about 1100; the first Gonzaga, lord of Mantua, was Luigi (1328), whose third marriage took place on the same day as his son’s and grandson’s: the three brides entered Mantua together in triumph. Already their cliff-like fortress was looming over the city. These despots displayed an amazing mixture of qualities. The Gonzaga clan survived one assassination after another and became allied to most of the reigning houses; but Luigi Gonzaga (141), grimly surnamed ‘The Turk,’ kept up three printing-presses and had for clients men like Platina, or Mantegna, who painted the scenery–now at Hampton Court–for the plays to which the Gonzaga were devoted. The French Parliament petitioned against the introduction of these plays into France–they were a ‘high school of adultery’–and no one would now dare paint the pictures with which some of the Gonzaga palaces were adorned. Yet these princes could care for agriculture, irrigation, checks on usury; and their insane debaucheries alternated with explosions of a genuine underlying faith. Their subjects, bled white by taxation, thrilled by their exotic pageantries, worshipped them till they broke into bloody but useless revolution.

The life of a Renaissance prince was far from any story book. St. Aloysius’ primary schooling was at the Medici Court in Florence. While he received the best academic training of the day, there was a bigger focus on swordsmanship, riding, and intrigue. He also spent significant time at the Spanish Court of King Philip II. His mother was a Valois and a relative of the Queen and his father had turned down a position of Master of the Horse in the English Court of Henry VIII in favor of Spain. At the time, the Spanish Empire was at its height of power and global dominance. Philip II also became king of Portugal as Philip I and ruled the Portuguese Empire as well.

As the oldest son, Luigi was trained to fulfill the duties of a prince and to prepare to succeed his father in the wealth, power, and literal back stabbing of the Gonzagas. As a child, though, he was appalled at what he saw and experienced, including the murder of close relatives. Fortunately, he came under the influence of St. Robert Bellarmine, who gave him his First Communion as a teenager. His rebellion was to reject it all and to enter the Church. His mother was not opposed to the idea, since it was not uncommon for powerful families to place prominent younger sons in key church positions that controlled considerable wealth and property. Luigi’s desire to join the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) was another matter. It would mean that he would forgo any type of service that could make him a powerful or wealthy cleric. Ironically, it was a wealthy and powerful churchman – Luigi’s cousin Cardinal Scipione Gonzaga – who prevailed on Ferrante to permit his son to join the Jesuits.

However, even as a Jesuit scholastic (student for the priesthood), he was still a celebrity who received celebrity treatment by those outside the order. Luigi probably over-compensated for this and his spiritual director and personal mentor, St. Robert Bellarmine, told him to ease up on prayer and penance and live a more moderate life. If we look between the lines, fitting a Renaissance prince into a religious house was not the easiest task for Luigi or his fellow religious. In fact, St. Ignatius’ famous letter on obedience was motivated in part to try to redirect the religious enthusiasm of these men to the ultimate in penance – to do what you are told whether you like it or not.

One can only imagine what it was to see a Gonzaga nursing victims of the plague on the streets of Rome.

There is a wonderful statue of St. Luigi outside St. Aloysius parish on the grounds of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington which shows a vital, caring, young man tending to a plague victim.

For some time when Gonzaga University was at the height of its fame as a basketball champion, there was a slogan which the University ran on national TV – Gonzaga: a Way of Life. The possibility of taking a brand like “Gonzaga” and making it stand for an impassioned life of faith inspired service is due to a young man caught up in grace. Isn’t that what we want for all young men and women?

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Posted by on Jun 19, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day – St. Romuald, Abbot – June 19

St. Romuald the Abbot was born around 950 into a powerful, wealthy family. He entered a Benedictine monastery at the age of 20. He had lived the life of a powerful, wealthy young man until the day he had to serve as his father’s “second” in a duel with a relative over a piece of land. His father killed the opponent, but Romuald was so horrified by the experience that he turned away from the life he had been living.

Once in the monastery, he found that he was attracted by the life of a hermit, more than to the communal life of the monastery as he was experiencing it at Sant’ Apollinare in Classe. He spent most of his life moving back and forth between monastic life and the life of the hermit, traveling from monastery to monastery and leading reforms. He eventually founded a new community who combined those two forms of religious life, the Camaldolese order.

St. Romuald developed a “Brief Rule” of how to live in openness to God.

Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish.

The path you must follow is in the Psalms: never leave it. If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, then take every opportunity to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them in your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up: hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God’s presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother gives him.

St. Romuald’s rule may seem like it has no relationship whatsoever to the lives of most of us – those called to life as men and women, married and single, in the contemporary world – earning our living, raising our families, trying to do our little bit to make the world a better place for everyone. Yet there are elements of his rule that are applicable to all of our lives. We’re called both to a relationship with God and to engagement with the world.

A challenge many of us face is finding a place where we won’t be observed or disturbed by anyone. I remember the amusement of a group of my parents’ friends who discovered a Bible in the bathroom of mutual friends. It was the only place in that home where a parent could have a few minutes of privacy to read the word of God. I remember the religious magazines and books kept for reading in the same room in the homes of my grandparents and other relatives. These people knew that time for the Lord is precious and is to be snatched wherever possible.

Today, we have so many means of communication and response is expected so quickly, that even walking by the beach without having a telephone along can be seen as selfish and/or anti-social. We forget that paradise begins here when we open to the Lord. Our alone place may have to be the bathroom. It may be standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. It may be driving home from work. The essential thing is to find a few quiet moments somewhere each day.

St. Romuald recommends praying with the Psalms. That’s really good advice and easier than it might seem. Many of the songs we use in liturgy are taken directly from the Psalms. Let the songs from Church run through your head during the day. There are songs/Psalms for all occasions. Then as now, they help turn our focus to the Lord.

“Realize above all that you are in God’s presence…” There’s not much to add to that. The trick is to remember and be open to see and experience that reality. Then all we need will be provided, just as the chick who receives food from its mother. We still have to work. But the work we do takes on a bigger, broader meaning when it is tied to God’s presence in the world and to our call to make that presence visible through our lives.

May peace and joy be yours.

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Posted by on Jun 13, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Saint of the Day: St Anthony of Padua – June 13

Doctor Evangelicus

FRIAR MINOR
MINISTER PROVINCIAL OF ROMAGNA
CANON REGULAR OF ST. AUGUSTINE
DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
PATRON OF PREACHERS

St. Anthony has always been a special family patron. I suppose my paternal grandfather, Doroteo Pozos, is to blame. My father was born on August 26 and, according to custom, was supposed to have been named Seferino after the Saint of the Day, Pope St. Zephyrinus (pontificate 198 -217). My grandfather didn’t like the name and instead named his only son Antonio. This started a chain of Antonian events. My oldest brother was name Anthony, and my sister Antoinette. To drive the point home, Providence sent my brother Arnold to us on June 13. Kathy and I did not help things either by naming our second son Antonio.

So who was St. Anthony / San Antonio? Actually St. Anthony (ca. 1195 – 1231) was Portuguese and is sometimes referred to as St. Anthony of Lisbon, where he was born and baptized Fernando Martin de Bulhoes. His parents were wealthy and powerful nobles. How his life took him from Lisbon as a member of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine to become the Franciscan St. Anthony of Padua in northern Italy is a story with many twists and turns.

When he was 15, the young Fernando entered St. Vincent, the monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. This group served as pastors and were not monks. After a couple of years Fernando asked to be transferred to the group’s Abbey of the Holy Cross in Coimbra, which was the capital of Portugal at the time. Apparently, he had not been happy with the visits and interruptions of family and friends in Lisbon and felt that his studies and his vocation were suffering as a result.

After he completed his studies and was ordained in Coimbra, Fr. Fernando was placed in charge of hospitality for the abbey, which meant that he was responsible for taking care of guests. A group of Franciscans, who were a new an dynamic movement at the time, were his guests as they traveled to Islamic Spain and Morocco as missionaries. They moved him deeply and when their martyred remains returned to Coimbra, Fr. Fernando managed to get the permission of his superiors to join the Franciscans. He received the Franciscan habit, took the name Antonio, and was intent on going to Morocco to die for the faith.

When St. Anthony landed in Morocco, along with another Franciscan, he was so ill that he had to return to Portugal. On his premature return trip, his ship was blown off course by a huge storm which swept him all the way to Sicily. He made his way to Assisi and was in very poor health. He ended up in a small hospice in the countryside, where he lived as a hermit and helped out in the kitchen.

St. Anthony’s marvelous gifts as a preacher and scriptural theologian were discovered when he was asked to preach at an ordination. Although it is unlikely that St. Anthony ever met St. Francis, the Poverello appointed St. Anthony to teach theology to his brothers. This was an unusual endorsement, since St. Francis had many reservations about the ego of scholars and theologians. He did not want to foster this type of unfortunate self-centeredness in his own group.

St. Anthony not only spent time as a teacher but also traveled extensively, preaching in the countryside and serving in administrative offices of the order. He took on various groups which had deviated from orthodoxy. Although St. Anthony is called the “Hammer of the Heretics,” he has a more pastoral legacy which underscores his genuine concern for people. There are many stories of miracles which seem to strain our post-modern credulity. Although many may be legends or devotional fabrications, St. Anthony was known to have transformed many lives and had a definite impact on a long line of Franciscan scholars and saints who would come after him.

He was to set an ideal for Franciscan intellectuals, who were great preachers, mystics, ascetics, and competent administrators. St. Bonaventure is one of the more famous examples of this cluster of gifts, as is Blessed Junipero Serra the Apostle of California.

Most often, St. Anthony is depicted holding the Christ Child. Except for the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, no other saint is presented this way. Apparently, this depiction began in the 17th century, based on a legend from the saint’s life. Symbolically though, this image presents much of Franciscan spirituality in terms of encountering, modeling and presenting Christ – poor, vulnerable, and welcoming.

St. Anthony died near Padua at the age of 36. This was not an unusual lifespan for the 13th century and yet it is amazing what he gave to us in such a brief span of years.

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Posted by on May 24, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Clare of Assisi – August 11

Corpus Christi: The Body of Christ

Stephen’s bright blue eyes smiled as we said, “Lamb of God, Give us Peace.” According to the rubrics we were now to show each other a sign of peace. Yet with Stephen’s attention deficit disorder, which had already taken him in and out the brief service at least twice, it seemed that a little catechesis might help him be a little more aware of what we were about to do. Stephen is not a little boy. He is a handsome man in his early 30s, with a number of tattoos poking out of the v-neck and short sleeves of his starched jail issued smock.

The readings had been those of Pentecost. The second reading was from First Corinthians 12. “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the power of the Holy Spirit.” This had struck all four of the men, but had made a special impression on Stephen. “Does that mean that when I pray the Holy Spirit moves my heart?” Stephen had asked. When I answered “Yes” his eyes got wide and he said that since his attention came and went and his thoughts were often jumbled, he thought his prayers were more bothersome and must be irritating. The notion that he is a temple of the Holy Spirit was as novel to him as it was consoling.

Stephen was back now and I shared a few words on the Lamb of God, recounting the Last Supper and the passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord. We do this in His memory as He requested of us. We are invited to the Lord’s table. Stephen and his companions were not new to the faith, but this brief memorial of our Great Memorial brought a renewed awareness to the others and a slack jaw from Stephen. He did not doubt, but could not help but marvel at the wonder of it.

As we shared the wonder of the Blessed Sacrament, our communion was truly a sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ. Bread blessed and broken at the Eucharist, celebrated in the parish, given to all, shared with all, and sent to those in need and to those in prison. The Body of Christ – Corpus Christi – saving us all from our prison of loneliness, our hunger for love, and admitting us to the feast of heaven here and now.

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