Saints

St. Therese of Lisieux and the Little Way

VATICAN CITY, 6 APR 2011 (VIS) – In his general audience in St. Peter’s Square today, attended by more than 10,000 people, Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis to St. Therese of Lisieux, or St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, “who lived in this world for only twenty-four years at the end of the nineteenth century, leading a very simple and hidden life, but who, after her death and the publication of her writings, became one of the best-known and loved saints”.

“Little Therese“, the Pope continued, “never failed to help the most simple souls, the little ones, the poor and the suffering who prayed to her, but also illuminated all the Church with her profound spiritual doctrine, to the point that the Venerable John Paul II, in 1997, granted her the title of Doctor of the Church … and described her as an ‘expert in scientia amoris’. Therese expressed this science, in which all the truth of the faith is revealed in love, in her autobiography ‘The Story of a Soul’, published a year after her death”.

Therese was born in 1873 in Alencon, France. She was the youngest of the nine children of Louis and Zelie Martin, and was beatified in 2008. Her mother died when she was four years old, and Therese later suffered from a serious nervous disorder from which she recovered in 1886 thanks to what she later described as “the smile of the Virgin”. In 1887 she made a pilgrimage to Rome with her father and sister, where she asked Leo XIII for permission to enter Carmel of Lisieux, at just fifteen years of age. Her wish was granted a year later; however, at the same time her father began to suffer from a serious mental illness, which led Therese to the contemplation of the Holy Face of Christ in his Passion. In 1890 she took her vows. 1896 marked the beginning of a period of great physical and spiritual suffering, which accompanied her until her death.

In those moments, “she lived the faith at its most heroic, as the light in the shadows that invade the soul” the Pope said. In this context of suffering, living the greatest love in the littlest things of daily life, the Saint realised her vocation of becoming the love at the heart of the Church”.

She died in the afternoon of 30 September, 1897, uttering the simple words, “My Lord, I love You!”. “These last words are the key to all her doctrine, to her interpretation of the Gospel”, the Pope emphasised. “The act of love, expressed in her final breath, was like the continued breathing of the soul … The words ‘Jesus, I love You’ are at the centre of all her writings”.

St. Therese is “one of the ‘little ones’ of the Gospel who allow themselves to be guided by God, in the depth of His mystery. A guide for all, especially for… theologians. With humility and faith, Therese continually entered the heart of the Scriptures which contain the Mystery of Christ. This reading of the Bible, enriched by the science of love, does not oppose academic science. The ‘science of the saints’, to which she refers on the final page of ‘The Story of a Soul’, is the highest form of science”.

“In the Gospel, Therese discovers above all the Mercy of Jesus … and ‘Trust and Love’ are therefore the end point of her account of her life, two words that, like beacons, illuminated her saintly path, in order to guide others along the same ‘little way of trust and love’, of spiritual childhood. Her trust is like that of a child, entrusting herself to the hands of God, and inseparable from her strong, radical commitment to the true love that is the full giving of oneself”, the Holy Father concluded.

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More on St. Therese can be found here

Also click here for a Novena to St. Therese

The Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino Saint – Discerning Hearts

A Prayer to St. Lorenzo Ruiz

Beloved Lorenzo Ruiz, confronted with death, you proclaimed your readiness to die a thousand times for your Christian faith. Today the whole world admires your courage. We feel particularly proud of you as our brother. And we pray: You, a family man, protect our families. Keep them united in love. You, who bore your sufferings with patience and resignation, intercede for the sick of mind and body; help them to receive the grace of God’s miraculous healing. You, who died in a foreign country, take care of Filipinos living and working in this country and in other parts of the world. You, an example of Christian fortitude, sustain our faith and make it spread and grow strong all around us. You, the Philippines’ first saint, be the country’s special protector. Unite us as one people; help us to work in harmony for development and progress; and give us peace. Amen.(State your intentions). San Lorenzo Ruiz, pray for us.   Amen.

The Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino Saint

A Prayer to St. Lorenzo Ruiz

Beloved Lorenzo Ruiz, confronted with death, you proclaimed your readiness to die a thousand times for your Christian faith. Today the whole world admires your courage. We feel particularly proud of you as our brother. And we pray: You, a family man, protect our families. Keep them united in love. You, who bore your sufferings with patience and resignation, intercede for the sick of mind and body; help them to receive the grace of God’s miraculous healing. You, who died in a foreign country, take care of Filipinos living and working in this country and in other parts of the world. You, an example of Christian fortitude, sustain our faith and make it spread and grow strong all around us. You, the Philippines’ first saint, be the country’s special protector. Unite us as one people; help us to work in harmony for development and progress; and give us peace. Amen.(State your intentions). San Lorenzo Ruiz, pray for us.   Amen.

St. Vincent de Paul – “a great hero of charity”

The French priest St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) organized works of charity, founded hospitals, and started two Roman Catholic religious orders.

Vincent de Paul was born into a peasant family on April 24, 1581, in the village of Pouy in southwestern France.  He became a priest at the age of 19, and would go on to found hospitals, charitable organizations and many other ministries and works that would serve the needs of the poor.  With Louise de Marillac, a talented and sensitive friend, he started the first religious group of women dedicated entirely to works of charity outside the cloister, a group called the Daughters of Charity.

Vincent was a man of action rather than of theory. The religious spirit he communicated was simple, practical and straightforward. He looked to Christ as his leader and tried to translate the Gospel message into concrete results. He died on Sept. 27, 1660, and was canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church in 1737.

Words of Wisdom

from St. Vincent de Paul

“No matter what others say or do, even if the wicked succeed, do not be troubled: commit everything to God and put your trust in him.”

“The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.”

“But do you know what it is to labor in charity? It is to labor in God, for God is charity, and it is to labor for God purely and entirely; it is to do so in the grace of God.”

A “Great Hero of Charity”

As reported by Zenit, the Holy Father spoke of St. Vincent de Paul:
The Pope reflected on the Gospel reading from today’s Mass, which recounts the story of the rich man suffering torment, and the poor man Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham.

The message of the parable, the Holy Father said, “points out that while we are in this world we must listen to the Lord who speaks to us through the Scriptures and live according to his will, because, after death, it will be too late to make amends.”

“So,” he explained, “this parable tells us two things: The first is that [God] loves the poor and lifts them up from their humiliation; the second is that our eternal destiny is

 conditioned by our attitude; it is up to us to follow the road to life that God has shown us, and this is the road of love, not understood as sentiment but as service to others in the charity of Christ.”

The Bishop of Rome called it a “happy coincidence” that Monday marks the feast of one of the Church’s great heroes of charity, St. Vincent de Paul, patron of Catholic charitable organizations.

“In the France of the 1600s, he touched with his own hand the great contrast between the richest and the poorest,” the Pope said. “[…] Driven by the love of Christ, Vincent de Paul knew how to organize stable forms of service to marginalized persons.”

In fact, the saint founded the first women’s congregation to live their consecration “‘in the world,’ in the midst of the people, with the sick and the needy,” he noted.

The Pontiff added, “Dear friends, only Love with a capital ‘L’ makes for true happiness!” – Zenit

Blessed Herman the Cripple – author of one of the most heartbreakenly beautiful prayers of all time – Discerning Hearts

Everytime we pray the rosary, we pray with Blessed Herman the Cripple.  He’s the author of one of the most heartbreakenly beautiful prayers of all time….the Salve Regina.

Blessed Herman (1013-1054) was born with many medical problems: cleft palate, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida. During his lifetime he was known as Blessed Herman the Cripple. Father Robert F. McNamara on his website, Saints Alive, calls him Blessed Herman the Disabled.

He was a remarkable man. Despite his daunting physical limitations he studied and wrote on astronomy, theology, math, history, poetry, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. He also built musical and astronomical equipment. He was considered a genius in his time. He wrote prayers and hymns – the most notable being the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen).

Father McNamara in his article on Blessed Herman the Disabled comments on the great meaning of Herman’s life with this closing insight:

“In his own day, the heroic cripple who achieved learning and holiness was called ‘The Wonder of His Age’.

In our day, many voices say that people with disabilities should be phased out of existence. Which were the Dark Ages, then or now!”

Let us pray with Blessed Herman, and ask him to help us to receive the graces for the virtues we lack…humility, patience, kindness,  and all the others which allow the love of Christ to shine in the world through us.

Prayers        

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The Hail Holy Queen (The Salve Regina)

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve! To thee do we send up our sighs; mourning and weeping in this vale of tears! Turn, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this, our exile, show to us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus! O Clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us O Holy Mother of God…That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.  Amen. – Blessed Herman

The poem below is from Father Benedict J Groeschel’s book,
Stumbling Blocks or Stepping Stones.

Herman The Cripple
by
William Hart Hurlbut, M.D.

I am least among the low,
I am weak and I am slow;
I can neither walk nor stand,
Nor hold a spoon in my own hand.

Like a body bound in chain,
I am on a rack of pain,
But He is God who made me so,
that His mercy I should know.

Brothers do not weep for me!
Christ, the Lord, has set me free.
All my sorrows he will bless;
Pain is not unhappiness.

From my window I look down
To the streets of yonder town,
Where the people come and go,
Reap the harvest that they sow.

Like a field of wheat and tares,
Some are lost in worldly cares;
There are hearts as black as coal,
There are cripples of the soul.

Brothers do not weep for me!
In his mercy I am free.
I can neither sow nor spin,
Yet, I am fed and clothed in Him.

I have been the donkey’s tail,
Slower than a slug or snail;
You my brothers have been kind,
Never let me lag behind.

I have been most rich in friends,
You have been my feet and hands;
All the good that I could do,
I have done because of you.

Oh my brothers, can’t you see?
You have been as Christ for me.
And in my need I know I, too,
Have become as Christ for you!

I have lived for forty years
In this wilderness of tears;
But these trials can’t compare
With the glory we will share.

I have had a voice to sing,
To rejoice in everything;
Now Love’s sweet eternal song
Breaks the darkness with the dawn.

Brother’s do not weep for me!
Christ, the Lord, has set me free.
Oh my friends, remember this:
Pain is not unhappiness.

St. Matthew, the tax collector, the apostle, the martyr for Christ….

St. Matthew, one of the twelve Apostles, is the author of the first Gospel.Son of Alphaeus, he lived at Capenaum on Lake Genesareth. He was a Roman tax collector, a position equated with collaboration with the enemy by those from whom he collected taxes. Jesus’ contemporaries were surprised to see the Christ with a traitor, but Jesus explained that he had come “not to call the just, but sinners.” Matthew’s Gospel is given pride of place in the canon of the New Testament, and was written to convince Jewish readers that their anticipated Messiah had come in the person of Jesus. He preached among the Jews for 15 years; his audiences may have included the Jewish enclave in Ethiopia, and places in the East.

Listen to none other than Mark Hart the Bible Geek about the great work of St. Matthew…of course, the Gospel according to St. Matthew

Personal note, my favorite Matthew passage (from Chapter 25): “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.‘ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

“…and the virgin’s name was Mary”….The feast of the Holy Name of Mary

Ave Maria…the invocation of the name of Mary is a powerful prayer…Ave Maria…every time we say it we cry out to our Mother.  What mother doesn’t rush to the aid of her child when he or she cries out her name?  Hail Mary. Not just a name, but a supreme gift of grace to us all…the gift of a mother who loves unconditionally, who loves always, who loves each and every one of her children given to her by God.  Hail Mary, when we say it we unlatch the door and allow our mother in, when we say it we pick up the phone and converse with the greatest of human counselors, when we say it  we acknowledge the reality of the presence of the “Woman” clothed with the Sun, with the moon under her feet, crowned with the stars who labors to see all of her children “birthed” into heaven.  Mary….Mary….Mary.   The Holy Name of….Mary.

This has become for me a very precious feast day.  Once, when I was traveling on a personal pilgrimage alone, I was feeling achingly isolated, rejected and lost, literally thousands of miles from home.  A terrible darkness had shrouded over me emotionally and spiritually.  In a very poignant and unexpected way, Our Lady made her presence  known to me on this date.  It would involve an encounter with a little woman from Africa who looked like my grandmother and spoke no English, and a long plane ride home..this coming together would grow into a gentle, loving exchange  between strangers…I didn’t realize it, but it was what my broken “pierced” heart had been aching for.  Without fanfare or expectation, out of nowhere came the name of Mary, literally…a moment which illuminated for me the bright light of the Blessed Mother’s presence, and not just at that particular moment in time.  Like the brightest star in the night sky, it became clear to me that she had been there truly, truly guiding me all along, even in the darkest moments of doubt and pain.  That she had not, and would never, “leave me alone”.  That I was indeed responding to HER call and in turn she had responded to mine.  Mary.  It was she who traveled with me on that journey and who would continue to do so in the days and years ahead.  Mary.

Well, the entirety of this story is really for another time, I just wanted to share with those who may read this, that I, unqualified and without hesitation,  with my whole unworthy heart, love Our Blessed Mother…I love “Mary”.  I hope and pray you do too.  If not, listen today for her name…call out to the one who is waiting…she WILL race to your aid.  Mary.  She is your mother, a gift to us all from her Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.  A precious, precious gift.  Do not toss her aside.   She will never, ever leave you alone.

Father, in the video below, talks about the orgin of this feast day… it’s really quite a lovely homily.