Recently in saints & blesseds Category

After reading the article We must 'cultivate knowledge and devotion to the saints,' Holy Father exhorts, I knew Brian would appreciate the Holy Father's message. He loves studying the lives of saints and other holy men and women. He find many lessons about living your Catholic faith in the small and big ways. Here's one lesson Brian wrote about this month.

Blessed Marie Celine: Enduring the Cross (1878 - 1897)

Recently I read a book entitled, "Blessed Marie Celine of the Presentation," published by TAN books. After reading the phenomenal story of this Poor Clare nun who died at the age of nineteen, I could think of only one word to describe her life - "faithfulness." Blessed Marie Celine, whose real name was Germaine Castang, was not a mystic nor someone who performed miracles, rather, she was a simple, humble girl, whose life was a litany of suffering.

From an early age, Christ asked Blessed Marie Celine to pick up her cross and follow Him. She carried five major crosses during her brief life. Her first cross came in the form of a disease she contracted at the age of four. It deformed her foot and made it both difficult and painful to walk. Her second cross came in the form of poverty when her family lost their home and possessions due to her father's poor business dealings. The third cross was being separated from her family and placed in an orphanage. The fourth cross she had to bear was the passing of her mother and beloved brother, Louis. The fifth and final cross came when she was a novice in the Poor Clare monastery of "Ave Maria of Talence." She contracted tuberculosis, which took her life.

From what I read, Bl. Marie Celine never uttered the words, "Why me?" or "This isn't fair." Nor did I come across anything that would suggest that she turned her back on Jesus or became self absorbed. Rather, when faced with these crosses, Bl. Marie Celine turned her heart and soul toward Christ and His Mother, clinging to them with all her strength.

Throughout her life, Bl. Marie Celine's faithfulness radiated the light of Christ, while giving her the strength to carry her crosses and dispel the darkness and suffering that surrounded her. Her faithfulness never wavered even during the worst of times. Instead, it remained constant and steady.

Bl. Marie Celine's faithfulness was not kept only within the interior of her soul, but it spilled over into her daily life. For instance, while at the orphanage she was often seen going on day pilgrimages to Marian shrines. In the Poor Clare monastery during the last months of her life fellow religious saw her carrying a small crucifix in the palm of her hand. These are just two examples, among many, which show how Bl. Marie Celine's faithfulness manifested itself under the shadow of the cross.

The life of Bl. Marie Celine should be a constant reminder to us that we are not only called to bear our crosses, but that in bearing them, we should turn our hearts and souls outward, toward Jesus and Mary. If we do this, we will be led to greater faithfulness, which in turn will become a pipeline into the grace and mercy of God.

God bless,
Brian

Here is a cool little video piece about the life of Nicola D'Onofrio.

Here's an RoL article from Brian.

St Angela Merici: Apostle of Education

When a twenty-something year old woman moved to Brescia Italy, she slowly began to recognize how the children of the town were uneducated in the simple truths of the Catholic religion. She knew something had to done to correct this! Through spiritual inspirations from God, she formed an association of women who started apostolates to care for and educate children, within their homes, in the faith. This association eventually grew into a religious congregation, the Ursulines.

The young woman I am referring to is St. Angela Merici, whose feast day is celebrated on January 27. Like St. Alphonsus Ligouri, who brought the Gospel to the poor of Naples, and Bl. Jeanne Jugan, who assisted the elderly, and St. Albert Chmielowski who cared for the homeless, St. Angela helped God's little children by instructing them in the Catholic faith.

Born in 1474, Angela lived with her family in Venice, Italy until the age of ten when God called her parents to their eternal reward. She was sent off to live with a wealthy uncle who loved her very much and provided her with a solid education. At the age of fifteen, she was admitted into the religious family of St. Francis by becoming a Franciscan Tertiary.

Her spiritual life was filled with intense prayer, austere practices and devotions. With a heart zeroed in on God, St. Angela was blessed with the gift of contemplative prayer. She even received a heavenly vision in which she saw herself founding a religious order dedicated to charitable works.

Through a series of events that included pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Rome, Angela discovered her true vocation while living in Brescia, Italy. It did not take Angela long to recognize how grossly ignorant the town children were in the basic tenants of the Catholic faith. To combat the ignorance she gathered around her like-minded women who supported one another in Christian living - they were dedicated to performing the spiritual works of mercy, most especially, "instructing the ignorant." Although not an official religious order at the time, the Ursulines would become the first teaching order of women as well as the first group of women religious to minister outside the cloister.

Angela was not only blessed with the gift of mystical prayer, but also the gift of wisdom. Through the movements of the Holy Spirit, Angela could see how the family was the basic cell/unit of society. She knew that if children were ignorant of their faith and did not know how to live the Christian life, both the family and society would suffer. By recognizing this fundamental truth, Angela was not only strengthening the family, but also helping society.

What can St. Angela Merici teach us? I believe her life can help us see the importance of putting our faith and talents into practice. In other words, by virtue of our Baptism, God invites us to serve Him, by serving others, especially those who are most in need.

God bless.

John Paul Miracles Hasten Sainthood

Canonization cause opened for Marine chaplain who died in Vietnam.

With the permission of the Vatican, the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services has begun an inquiry that could lead to the canonization of Maryknoll Father Vincent R. Capodanno, a U.S. Navy chaplain who died in 1967 while serving with the Marines in Vietnam. (Continue...)

You can read about Fr. Vincent in the book The Grunt Padre.

A blessed feast day of St. Joseph!

Prayer for John Paul II's Intercession
Published by Rome Diocese

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 23, 2005 (Zenit.org) - The Diocese of Rome published the written prayer to implore favors through the intercession of the late Pope John Paul II.

The prayer is being disseminated by the postulator of the cause of his beatification, Monsignor Slawomir Oder, of the Diocese of Torun, Poland. The monsignor is currently judicial vicar of the Court of Appeals of the Diocese of Rome.

In the last phase of the process of beatification, proof will be required of a miracle attributed to Karol Wojtyla's intercession. The process of beatification will officially begin June 28. Here is the text of the prayer:

O Blessed Trinity,
We thank you for having graced the Church with Pope John Paul II and for allowing the tenderness of your Fatherly care, the glory of the cross of Christ, and the splendor of the Holy Spirit, to shine through him.

Grant us, by his intercession, and according to Your will, the graces we implore, hoping that he will soon be numbered among your saints. Amen.

On Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, eight Spanish martyrs moved one step closer to Sainthood. One of the new blesseds was Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio, a 14 year-old Mexican who died during the persecution of the Cristeros.

Sanchez del Rio was born on March 28, 1913, and died on February 10, 1928.

His martyrdom was witnessed by two boyhood friends. One of them, Father Marcial Maciel, who went on to found the Legionnaires of Christ, revealed in his book, My Life is Christ, that Sanchez del Rio was “captured by government forces,� who demanded he “renounce his faith in Christ, under threat of death. Jose refused to accept apostasy.�

“Consequently they cut the bottom of his feet and obliged him to walk around the town toward the cemetery,� Father Macial wrote. “He cried and moaned with pain, but he did not give in. At times they stopped him and said, ‘if you shout ‘Death to Christ the King’ we will spare your life.’ Jose Luis finally died shouting ‘Long live Christ the King’ while his assassins fired upon him.�

Likewise, the founder of the Priestly Confraternity of the Workers of the Kingdom of Christ, Father Enrique Amescua Medina, recalled that as they were accompanying him in his martyrdom, Sanchez del Rio told him to flee saying, “You will do things I will not be able to do.�

The remains of Jose Luis lie at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Sahuayo, Mexico. (From CNA)

To purchase the GLORY STORIES coloring book with the story of Luis (in English and Spanish) go to the Catholic World Mission Online Store.

Here are two interesting articles about the mystic Fr. Magin Catala who arrived here in Monterey 210 years ago. He is now up for beatification and his story may interest those in CA (particularly San Jose) and pregnant women, as he was known to interceed for them. You can read more here - California "Holy Man" up for Sainthood and here - Did Father Magin see the future of California?

Steven at Flos Carmeli always has some great posts, I just never have time to get over there. Although today I visited and I love this piece! It reminds me of when my spiritual director told me that God is able to use our faults and weaknesses as means to reaching greater virtue and sanctity. For example, St. Francis de Sales had a fiery temper yet he became known as the "gentle saint".

Steven also makes an excellent point in reminding us that we need to stop trying to be someone else and be the saint that God has called us to be. It is one thing to admire and receive encouragement through the example of historical saints but it is important to draw from it a lesson that we can use in our own life. Not to duplicate their life but to draw inspiration on how to strive for holiness in our own unique life and circumstances. But Steven says it better than I could so read on.

...Too often, it seems, we may do the same with Saint's lives. We look upon their extraordinary accomplishments and then embellish them so that they become not so much role models as distant figures of impossible faith and piety. We neglect their ordinariness. We admire them, but we can come up with an extraordinary plexus of reasons why we couldn't possible emulate them in any way. How often have I heard, "Oh, I couldn't be like St. Th�r�se, she was so holy from such a young age." So who is asking you to be like St. Th�r�se? We already have one of those, and there are those in the world who would maintain that one is more than enough. (I used to be among them--no longer). Continued...