-Pope Sixte II, Sandro Botticelli, ~1480, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican

Adult convert to Catholic Christianity and Pope from Aug 30, 257 to Aug 6, 258, Sixtus, who was Greek by birth, is shared with you primarily because he points to another saint, Lawrence, whom, much to your dismay :), I am sure, I will share with you in three days time.

Sixtus dealt with the controversy concerning Baptism by heretics. He believed that anyone who was baptized with a desire to be a Christian, even if the Baptism was performed by a heretic, was truly baptized into the Faith, and that the validity of that faith was based on the person’s own desire and actions to be a Christian, not the errors of the person who performed the sacrament.

While celebrating Mass at the tomb of Saint Callistus, he was arrested as part of the persecutions of Valerian. He was beheaded with six deacons and sub-deacons, and was buried in the same catacomb where he had been celebrating Mass when he was arrested.

“Where are you going, my dear father, without your son? Where are you hurrying off to, holy priest, without your deacon? Before you never mounted the altar of sacrifice without your servant, and now you wish to do it without me?”

–St Lawrence, Archdeacon of Rome, to Pope St Sixtus II, 258A D, calling out to the soon to be martyred Successor of St Peter, as the Pope was being led to his execution.

The tomb of Sixtus was enscribed thus, by Pope St Damasus I, whom we shall also hear about again later this month:

“At the time when the sword pierced the bowels of the Mother, I, buried here, taught as Pastor the Word of God; when suddenly the soldiers rushed in and dragged me from the chair. The faithful offered their necks to the sword, but as soon as the Pastor saw the ones who wished to rob him of the palm (of martyrdom) he was the first to offer himself and his own head, not tolerating that the (pagan) frenzy should harm the others. Christ, who gives recompense, made manifest the Pastor’s merit, preserving unharmed the flock.”

Love,
Matthew

We know very little about his life. He is one of those whose martyrdom made a deep and lasting impression on the early Church. Celebration of his feast day spread rapidly.

He was a Roman deacon under Pope St. Sixtus II, whose demise we learned about a few days ago (Aug 7). Three days after this pope was put to death, Lawrence and four more clerics also suffered martyrdom, during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian.

A well-known legend has persisted from earliest times. As a deacon in Rome, and as you may recall from Sts Timothy & Maura, deacons, in addition to their liturgical role, also typically each were assigned some practical matter to attend to:  the discipline of the assembled congregation, keeping of books/scriptures (Timothy), or acting as treasurer for the local Church, etc..

Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church in Rome, and the distribution of alms to the poor. When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, and that the Emperor sought to extort, most likely by means of torture, the wealth of the Church.  While he still had time, Lawrence gathered the wealth, liquidated it and then he sought out the poor, widows and orphans of Rome and gave them all the Church money he could get his hands on, selling even the sacred vessels with which the Mass is said to increase the sum.

The prefect of Rome imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure. He sent for Lawrence and said, “You Christians say we are cruel to you, but that is not what I have in mind. I am told that your priests offer in gold, that the sacred blood is received in silver cups, that you have golden candlesticks at your evening services. Now, your doctrine says you must render to Caesar what is his. Bring these treasures—the emperor needs them to maintain his forces. God does not cause money to be counted: He brought none of it into the world with him—only words. Give me the money, therefore, and be rich in words.”

Lawrence replied that the Church was indeed rich. “I will show you a great treasure. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory.” Lawrence did take three days to liquidate the treasures of the church and give them to the poor.  In the same three days Lawrence gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned and widowed persons and put them in rows. When the prefect of Rome arrived, Lawrence simply said, “These are the treasure of the Church.”

The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would indeed have his wish to die—but it would be by inches. He had a great gridiron prepared, with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it. After the martyr had suffered in agony for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, “I am well done on this side. Turn me over!”

-Lawrence before Valerianus, fresco, 1447-1450, Fra Angelico, (1395-1455), Pinacoteca Vaticana

-The shrine in Rome containing the gridiron said to have been used to grill Saint Lawrence to death

Lawrence’s remains were buried in the cemetery of Saint Cyriaca on the road to Tivoli, Italy; tomb was opened by Pelagius to inter the body of Saint Stephen the Martyr; his mummified head removed to the Quirinal Chapel; the gridiron believed to have been his deathbed is in San Lorenzo in Lucina; garments in Our Lady’s Chapel in the Lateran Palace.

According to Christian legend, the Holy Grail is a relic that was sent by St. Lawrence to his parents in Spain as part of his dispersal of the Church’s treasure. While the Holy Chalice’s exact journey through the centuries is disputed, it is generally accepted by Catholics that the Chalice was sent by his family to a monastery for preservation and veneration. Historical records indicate that this chalice has been venerated and preserved by a number of monks and monasteries through the ages. Today the Holy Grail is venerated in a special chapel in the Catholic Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, in the region of St. Lawrence’s birth and early life.

“Sheltered under the name of Jesus Christ, I do not fear these pains, for they do not last long.”
-St. Lawrence

With the robe of joyfulness, alleluia,
Our Lord has this day clothed His soldier, Lawrence.
May Your faithfuls’ joyous assembly clap their hands
More cheerfully than they have before.
Today the noble martyr offered pleasing sacrifice to God,
Today he, being cruelly tested,
Endured unto the end the torment of fire;
And shrank not from offering his limbs to punishments most cruel.
Before the ruler he is summoned,
And settlement is made upon the Church’s hidden holdings.
But he is unmoved by enticing words, and is unshaken
By the torments of the ruler’s avarice.
Valerian is laughed to scorn,
And the deacon’s liberal hand,
When he is asked for payments,
Gave the gathered poor.
For he was their minister of charity,
Giving them abundance from his means.
Therefore the prefect is enraged,
And a glowing bed made ready.
The torment-bearing instrument,
The gridiron of his suffering,
Roasted his very flesh,
But he laughed it to scorn.
The martyr sweats in his agony,
In hopes of crown and recompense
Which is allotted those with faith,
Who struggle for the sake of Christ.
The court of heaven rejoices
For his warfare-waging,
For he has prevailed this day
Against the lackeys of wickedness.
That we, then, may attain the gift of life,
By this our patron, be glad, O our choir,
Singing in the church upon his feast-day
A joyful alleluia.

–from the Mass of Saint Lawrence, Old Sarum Rite Missal, 1998, Saint Hilarion Press

“The fire that burned outside was less keen than that which blazed within.” – Pope St Leo the Great

Love,
Matthew

Recently, there have been several news stories involving the disrespect and desecration of the Eucharist.  Earlier this year, on July 7, 2008, a student at the University of Central Florida, Webster Cook, a student senator, took a Eucharistic host hostage after receiving communion in the student chapel on campus in protest of student fees used for religious services.  He was confronted by ushers as he attempted to leave the chapel with the Host.  He was finally convinced to return the Host.  He was censured by the entire student senate for his actions.

On July 10, 2008, a professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris, Paul Zachary Myers, pledged to desecrate the Eucharistic and asked online if someone would please send him “a frackin’ cracker!  Can anyone score me some?  I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly…and treat it with profound disrespect and cracker abuse” on his faculty page of the University’s website.

These are both truly ironic, as well as being sad, since it was the Catholic Church which invented the university system.

We speak a lot about and give high praise and regard in this country regarding tolerance of all types of differences among us, as an educated and enlightened view.  Apparently, in reality, we haven’t come that far.  On July 24, 2008, Myers made good on his pledge.  His university blog recorded “I pierced it with a rusty nail and then threw it in the trash.”  He also tore pages from the Koran. He also stated online “Nothing must be held sacred.”

As most of you know and all of you can guess, these acts are most serious and most offensive to Catholic sensibilities.  They incur excommunication “latae sententiae”, or, automatically, w/o the necessity of any judgment by an ecclesiastical court, assuming, of course, the person was Roman Catholic to begin with.  These acts are taken with the same seriousness by the Church as the following:

• abortion
• using violent force against the pope
• committing a sacrilege such as throwing away a consecrated host
• absolving a person with whom one has committed a sin against the sixth commandment (sins against chastity)
• consecrating a bishop without a pontifical mandate
• directly violating the seal of confession, and
• formal apostasy, heresy or schism

Before the 1983 Code of Canon Law, there were two degrees of excommunication: vitandus (shunned, literally “to be avoided”, where the person had to be avoided by other Catholics, and in some respects the Christian commandment for faithful Catholics to “love one’s enemies, and pray for one’s persecutors” was also transcended in regards to this person, since they had known the mercy of the Lord, and by conscious act of their will, had separated themselves from the Body of Christ, rejecting it, as opposed to one who had never been baptized, never come to accept the Lord’s mercy), and toleratus (tolerated, which permitted Catholics to continue to have business and social relationships with the excommunicant).

This distinction no longer applies today, and excommunicated Catholics are still under obligation to attend Mass, even though they are barred from receiving the Eucharist or even taking active part in the liturgy (reading, bringing the offerings, etc.).  Indeed, the excommunicant is encouraged to retain some relationship with the Church, as the goal is to encourage them to repent and return to active participation in its life.

In the Middle Ages, formal acts of public excommunication were accompanied by a ceremony wherein a bell was tolled (as for the dead), the Book of the Gospels was closed, and a candle snuffed out – hence the idiom “to condemn with bell, book and candle.” Such public ceremonies are never held today, but exactly the same principles apply. Only in cases where a person’s excommunicable offense is very public and likely to confuse people – as in an apostate bishop ordaining new bishops in public defiance of the Church – is a person’s excommunicated status even announced, and that usually by a simple statement from a church official.

These news stories immediately brought to my mind the story of St Tarcisius, which has always been one of my favorites since I was a boy, as would be natural for a young person, given the youth of St Tarcisius.  Kelly and I facilitate pre-cana at St Tarcissus (a spelling variation) Parish here in Chicago.

Pope Damasus I (305-383 AD) wrote the following poem in the 4th century AD in praise of Tarcisius.  During the persecution of the Emporer Valerian,  (253-260 AD), whom we heard about recently as the cause of Sixtus’ & Lawrence’s demise, and whom himself, according to some accounts, met a most inauspicious fate, but that is a story for another time when you buy me a drink; but, suffice to say it became too dangerous for priests during his reign to take the Blessed Sacrament to Christian prisoners in Rome.  So, boys who served the priests during Mass at the altar volunteered for the dangerous duty, it was believed the pagans were less aware of who they were.

Par meritum, quicumque legis, cognosce duorum,
quis Damasus rector titulos post praemia reddit.
Iudaicus populus Stephanum meliora monentem
perculerat saxis, tulerat qui ex hoste tropaeum,
martyrium primus rapuit leuita fidelis.
Tarsicium sanctum Christi sacramenta gerentem
cum male sana manus premeret uulgare profanis,
ipse animam potius uoluit dimittere caesus
prodere quam canibus rabidis caelestia membra.

-Damasi Epigrammata, Maximilian Ihm, 1895, n. 14

“You who read (this), know the equal worth of the two men
For whom the leader Damasus restored the glories after the rewards.
The Jewish people beat down Stephen, teaching better things, with stones,
He who bore the victory away from the enemy first seized martyrdom, a faithful deacon.
When a crowd badly forced holy Tarsicius, carrying the healthful sacraments of Christ,
To spread (them) to  wicked people,
He wished to lose his life, murdered,
Rather than to display heavenly portions to mad dogs.”

“At Rome, on the Appian way, the passion of St. Tarcisius the acolyte,
whom pagans met carrying the sacrament of the Body of Christ
and asked him what it was he was carrying.
He deemed it a shameful thing to cast pearls before the swine,
and so was assaulted by them for a long time with clubs and stones
until he gave up the ghost.
When they turned over his body, the sacrilegious assailants could find no trace
of Christ’s Sacrament either in his hands or in his clothing.
The Christians took up the body of the martyr and buried it with honor in the cemetery of Callistus.”

-Alexandre Falguière, (1831–1900), Tarcisius, Christian martyr, 1868, Musée d’Orsay, marble

He was originally buried in the Catacombs of San Callisto, but today his relics rest in the San Silvestro in Capite church in Rome. His feast day is celebrated on 15 August, but, since that day is occupied by the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, he is not mentioned in the General Roman Calendar, but only in the Roman Martyrology.

-St Tarcisius  statue over his tomb.

Love,
Matthew

I first encountered St Joseph Calasanz in my hagiography in 2007.  I discovered him at a time I most needed him.  Truly, it was (like) an answered prayer, a healing balm to faith.  I understood and could accept.

I wanted to see if I could find a St Joseph Calasanz medal.  I googled the order he founded, the Piarists, and they do exist in this country, mostly in the east, in about a half dozen places.  I contacted one of their main houses in this country in Pennsylvania, and the kind Father their informed me they did not keep a stock of such things here in this country and that no Catholic religious goods store was likely to carry them.  He suggested I contact the mother house in Rome, which I did.

I don’t speak Italian, but I haggled, it felt like, with one of the Scolopi at the mother house in Rome for about ten minutes.  We didn’t get far, I feel.  He only spoke Italian.  I did send an email via the website, but it went unanswered for a long time, granted it was Summer in Europe where not much gets done, particularly in August.  I even asked a friend who had recently returned from Rome and had some fresh contacts if they could help.  Eventually, lo and behold, a package arrived from Rome containing many St Joseph Calasanz holy cards and two medals.

One medal I put on the rosary I never use, but was given me by the young, attractive, blonde Dominican sister whose classroom I was the “mascot” of when I was a novice.  It is the most beautiful, yet masculine, rosary I have ever received.  It was made in France.  I have left instructions with Kelly I wish to be buried, if possible, holding that rosary.  The other I added to my Beloved cross I possess as a member of the Old St Patrick’s Beloved Community.  I wear these medals concealed when I most need external strength and confidence in the challenge or uncomfortable moment I am about to face.

From Aragon, in Spain, where he was born in 1556, to Rome, where he died 92 years later, fortune alternately smiled and frowned on the work of Joseph Calasanz.

A priest with university training in canon law and theology, respected for his wisdom and administrative expertise, he put aside his career because he was deeply concerned with the need for education of poor children.

When he was unable to get other institutes to undertake this apostolate at Rome, he and several companions personally provided a free school for deprived children. So overwhelming was the response that there was a constant need for larger facilities to house their effort. Soon Pope Clement VIII gave support to the school, and this aid continued under Pope Paul V. Other schools were opened; other men were attracted to the work and in 1621 the community (for so the teachers lived) was recognized as a religious community, the Clerks Regular of Religious Schools (Piarists or Scolopi). Not long after, Joseph was appointed superior for life.

A combination of various prejudices and political ambition and maneuvering caused the institute much turmoil. Some did not favor educating the poor, for education would leave the poor dissatisfied with their lowly tasks for society! Others were shocked that some of the Piarists were sent for instruction to Galileo (a friend of Joseph) as superior, thus dividing the members into opposite camps. Repeatedly investigated by papal commissions, Joseph was demoted; when the struggle within the institute persisted, the Piarists were suppressed. Only after Joseph’s death were they formally recognized as a religious community.

Meditation:

No one knew better than Joseph the need for the work he was doing; no one knew better than he how baseless were the charges brought against him. Yet if he were to work within the Church, he realized that he must submit to its authority, that he must accept a setback if he was unable to convince authorized investigators.

While the prejudice, the scheming, and the ignorance of human beings often keep the truth from emerging for a long period of time, Joseph was convinced, even under suppression, that his institute would again be recognized and authorized. With this trust he joined exceptional patience and a genuine spirit of forgiveness.

Even in the days after his own demotion, Joseph protected his persecutors against his enraged partisans; and when the community was suppressed, he stated with Job, to whom he was often compared: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21b).

“Everyone knows the great merit and dignity attached to that holy ministry in which young people, especially the poor, receive instruction for the purpose of attaining eternal life. This ministry is directed to the well-being of body and soul; at the same time, that it shapes behavior it also fosters devotion and Christian doctrine.

Moreover the strongest support is provided not only to protect the young from evil, but also to rouse them and attract them more easily and gently to the performance of good works. Like the twigs of plants, the young are easily influenced, as long as someone works to change their souls. But if they are allowed to grow hard, we know well that the possibility of one day bending them diminishes a great deal and is sometimes utterly lost.

All who undertake to teach must be endowed with deep love, the greatest of patience, and, most of all, profound humility. They must perform their work with earnest zeal. Then, through their humble prayers, the Lord will find them worthy to become fellow workers with Him in the cause of Truth. He will console them in the fulfillment of this most noble duty, and finally, will enrich them with the gift of heaven.

As Scripture says, ‘But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, And those who lead the many to justice shall shine like the stars forever.’ (Dan 12:3) They will attain this more easily if they make a covenant of perpetual obedience and strive to cling to Christ and please Him alone, because, in His words, ‘What you did to one of the least of my brethren, you did to me.’(Mt 25:40)”
– from the writings of Saint Joseph Calasanz

“Lord, You blessed Saint Joseph Calasanz with such charity and patience that he dedicated himself to the formation of Christian youth. As we honor this teacher of wisdom may we follow his example in working for the Truth.   Amen.”
– opening prayer for the Mass for Saint Joseph Calasanz

-last Holy Communion of St Joseph Calasanz,, 1819, by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), oil on canvas, 43 x 33 cm, Gallery: Musee Bonn at, Bayonne, France

Love,
Matthew

–Cardinal John Henry Newman, CO, DD, by Sir John Everett Millais, 1881.

Catholic education.  Those words in many minds and places are synonymous.  Deo gratias.  The Church created the university system in medieval Europe, emerging from the training of monks and clerics, at the turn of the first millenia of Christianity to the second.  Fides et ratio, faith and reason; there is no conflict in the Catholic mind, or at least there should not be.  The intellect is a gift from God.  Catholics believe its use is proper, expected by God, a form of praise of its Creator, and the proper formation of conscience is essential to the assent to Faith.  The fundamental purpose of a university education is to seek and discover truth. Through this discovery, man comes to an understanding of God, himself, and the created order.  Gaudium et veritate – the joy of truth.

Credo ut intelligam – I believe that I may understand.  Intellego ut credam – I understand that I may believe.  Fides quaerens intellectum – faith seeking understanding.  (St Anselm, ora pro nobis.)  I often say to people, “I am a man of faith, not superstition.”  I am also a professional and professionally trained applied scientist.  Nothing I have ever studied as an engineer or computer scientist has ever contradicted my Catholic beliefs, quite the contrary.  How marvelous is the creation of the Almighty.  How inscrutable His designs. (cf Romans 11:33)

A much bandied about term these days in Catholic higher education is “Catholic identity”.  Very, very, over simply put it “means” if you attended a Catholic institution of learning, could you tell?  Really?  How different is it attending Catholic U vs State U?  Really.  How and to what degree is debatable.  And, IT IS!  Trust me.

I keep trying to remind others who want more uniformity in the Church, Catholic means “universal”, not “uniform”.  At the same time, overly shielding others who have chosen to voluntarily attend a Catholic university is, at least, intellectually dishonest, IMHO, and possibly an immoral omission.  This in some not quite understandable, on my part, assent to “diversity”, mea culpa, as if “diversity” were a greater good than the Gospel?  (cf Rom 1:16)  I don’t understand.  I just think of all the Catholic martyrs who embraced their passion rather than equivocate, and I understand even less.  Would the Lord understand?  Would the canonized founder understand, if modern members of the family he/she founded tried to explain “how the world works now” and convince them?  I am incredulous.  Love is unreasonable, literally.  Love is terrifying in what it may and does ask. (cf Mt 10:34-36)

The dean of Catholic studies of a major Catholic institution, a dear friend, said to me, as I recall the conversation, mea culpa if I misquote, the President of the university had given this person the assignment to conduct a dialogue with the faculty, “Who owns the Catholic identity of the university?”  This question was posed to me as we walked together.  I thought for a moment, and said,”Jesus.”  “You’re right,” I was told.  “Now, just convince the faculty of that!”

———————————————————————————-

John Henry Newman was born on 21st February, 1801, in London, the eldest son of a London banker. His family were ordinary church-going members of the established Anglican Church, without any strong religious tendencies, though the young John Henry did learn at an early age to take a great delight in the Bible. He was sent to Ealing School in 1808, and it was there, eight years later, that he underwent a profound religious conversion, which was to determine the rest of his life as a quest for spiritual perfection. In 1817 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, where he was a very successful student. Five years later he was elected to a coveted Fellowship of leading Oriel College. He was ordained and worked, first as a curate in the poor Oxford Parish of Saint Clement’s, and then, from 1828, as Vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. There, his spiritual influence on parishioners and members of the University was truly enormous, particularly through his preaching, embodied in the Parochial and Plain Sermons. He worked as a College Tutor, and a little later began to research the first of his many theological works, “The Arians of the Fourth Century”. Newman was to be one of the foremost religious writers of his century.

In 1833 he went on a tour of the Mediterranean with a friend who was in very poor health. While in Sicily Newman himself fell desperately ill with fever. On his recovery it struck him that God had spared him to perform a special task in England. On his return home he eagerly set about organizing what was to become known as the Oxford Movement. The Movement, which spread rapidly, was intended to combat three evils threatening the Church of England – spiritual stagnation, interference from the state, and doctrinal unorthodoxy.

When studying the history of the early Christian Fathers in 1839, Newman received an unexpected shock, for it appeared that the position of his own Church bore a close resemblance to that of the early heretics. He was also worried when many of the Anglican Bishops denounced one of his works a few years later – some not just denouncing him, but also espousing erroneous positions themselves. He decided to retire partly from Oxford, and, joined by a few others a little later, he moved to quarters at the nearby hamlet of Littlemore. For three years he lived a strict religious life, praying for light and guidance. By 1845, as he was writing his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, he saw his way clear, and on 9th October he was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Father, now Blessed, Dominic Barberi. He had at last found ‘the One True Fold of the Redeemer’.

Conversion meant ostracism by friends and relatives. Undaunted, Newman set out for Rome to study for the priesthood. While there he became attracted by the idea of the Oratory – a Congregation of priests founded by Saint Philip Neri in the sixteenth century. He founded the first English Oratory at Maryvale, near Birmingham, in 1848, moving soon afterwards to Alcester Street, close to the town centre, where he converted a disused gin distillery into a chapel. They moved to a new and more permanent base in nearby Edgbaston three years later, and were engulfed by work among the poor Catholics of Birmingham, which was soon to become one of the new cities of the English Industrial Revolution.

In 1851 the Bishops of Ireland decided that a separate University should be established for Catholics, and invited Newman to become its founder and first Rector. It was a demanding task for an older man, but despite the strain of fifty six crossings to and from Ireland in seven years, he succeeded in establishing what is known today as University College, Dublin. From this period dates the important work “The Idea of a University” on the nature and scope of education, and the role of the Church in the context of a university.

When he returned to England, Newman faced a life of trials, as he was suspected and even resented by some in authority. Several projects which he took up, including a magazine for educated Catholics, a mission at Oxford, and a new translation of the Bible, met with rejection or failure. On the other hand, many of his publications in this period were well-received: the “Apologia pro Vita Sua” (1864), a biographical account of Newman’s conversion; the “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk” (1875), which considered the relationship between conscience and the authority of the Church; and the “Grammar of Assent” (1870), on human reasoning and the act of faith, which although not always well understood by his contemporaries, would become generally acknowledged as a major contribution to both philosophy and theology.

During old age, Newman continued in Birmingham, quietly writing, preaching and counseling (from the age of twenty three he had been above all a pastor – ‘a father of souls’) until, when seventy eight, a big surprise came. As a tribute to his extraordinary work and devotion, Pope Leo XIII made the unprecedented gesture of naming Newman, an ordinary priest, a Cardinal. After a life of trials the news came as a joyful relief and Newman declared ‘the cloud is lifted for ever’. Cardinal Newman died on 11th August 1890 and received a universal tribute of praise. The Times wrote: ‘whether Rome canonizes him or not he will be canonized in the thoughts of pious people of many creeds in England.’ The Cork Examiner affirmed that, ‘Cardinal Newman goes to his grave with the singular honor of being by all creeds and classes acknowledged as the just man made perfect.’

I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man,
God knows me and calls me by my name.
God has created me to do Him some definite service.
He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission–I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
Somehow I am necessary for His purposes,
as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his
–if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham.
Yet I have a part in this great work;
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.
He has not created me for naught.
I shall do good, I shall do His work;
I shall be an angel of peace,
a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it,
if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him.
Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him;
in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him;
if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end,
which is quite beyond us.
He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it;
He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends,
He may throw me among strangers,
He may make me feel desolate,
make my spirits sink, hide the future from me
–still He knows what He is about.
– Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, Meditations on Christian Doctrine

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7459867

“Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to heaven.” -Bl. John Henry Newman

“With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event.” -Bl. John Henry Newman

“Jesus wept, not merely from the deep thoughts of his understanding but from spontaneous tenderness, from the goodness and mercy, the encompassing loving-kindness and exuberant affection of the Son of God for his own work, the race of man.”
-St. John Henry Newman

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
-St. John Henry Newman

“My God, you know infinitely better than I how little I love you. I would not love you at all except for your grace. It is your grace that has opened the eyes of my mind and enabled them to see your glory. It is your grace that has touched my heart and brought upon it the influence of what is so wonderfully beautiful and fair . . . O my God, whatever is nearer to me than you, things of this earth, and things more naturally pleasing to me, will be sure to interrupt the sight of you, unless your grace interferes. Keep my eyes, my ears, my heart from any such miserable tyranny. Break my bonds—raise my heart. Keep my whole being fixed on you. Let me never lose sight of you; and, while I gaze on you, let my love of you grow more and more everyday.”
—St. John Henry Cardinal Newman

“My Lord, I offer you myself in turn as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. You have died for me, and I in turn make myself over to You. I am not my own. You have bought me; I will by my own act and deed complete the purchase. My wish is to be separated from everything of this world; to cleanse myself simply from sin; to put away from me even what is innocent, if used for its own sake, and not for Yours. I put away reputation and honor, and influence, and power, for my praise and strength shall be in You. Enable me to carry out what I profess.”
—St. John Henry Newman

“O my God, you and you alone are all wise and all knowing! You know, you have determined everything that will happen to us from first to last. You have ordered things in the wisest way, and you know what will be my lot year by year until I die. You know how long I have to live. You know how I shall die. You have precisely ordained everything, sin excepted. Every event of my life is the best for me that it could be, for it comes from you. You bring me on year by year, by your wonderful Providence, from youth to age, with the most perfect wisdom, and with the most perfect love.”
—St. John Henry Cardinal Newman

“Realize it, my brethren; —every one who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random; . . . God sees every one of us; He creates every soul, He lodges it in the body, one by one, for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for Him. As Christ has His work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also.”
–St. John Henry Newman

“But as great as was St. Paul’s devotion to our Lord, much greater was that of the Blessed Virgin: because she was his mother, and because she had him and all his sufferings actually before her eyes, and because she had the long intimacy of thirty years with him, and because she was from her special sanctity so unspeakably near him in spirit. When, then, he was mocked, bruised, scourged, and nailed to the Cross, she felt as keenly as if every indignity and torture inflicted on him was struck at herself. She could have cried out in agony at every pang of his. This is called her compassion, or her suffering with her Son, and it arose from this that she was the ‘Vessel of Devotion’ unlike any other.”
— St John Henry Newman, p. 155, excerpt from Year with Mary

“Each of us must come to the evening of life. Each of us must enter on eternity. Each of us must come to that quiet, awful time, when we will appear before the Lord of the vineyard, and answer for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. That, my dear brethren, you will have to undergo. … It will be the dread moment of expectation when your fate for eternity is in the balance, and when you are about to be sent forth as the companion of either saints or devils, without possibility of change. There can be no change; there can be no reversal. As that judgment decides it, so it will be for ever and ever. Such is the particular judgment. … when we find ourselves by ourselves, one by one, in His presence, and have brought before us most vividly all the thoughts, words, and deeds of this past life. Who will be able to bear the sight of himself? And yet we shall be obliged steadily to confront ourselves and to see ourselves. In this life we shrink from knowing our real selves. We do not like to know how sinful we are. We love those who prophecy smooth things to us, and we are angry with those who tell us of our faults. But on that day, not one fault only, but all the secret, as well as evident, defects of our character will be clearly brought out. We shall see what we feared to see here, and much more. And then, when the full sight of ourselves comes to us, who will not wish that he had known more of himself here, rather than leaving it for the inevitable day to reveal it all to him!”
—Saint John Henry Newman

“The world is sweet to the lips, but bitter to the taste. It pleases at first, but not at last. It looks gay on the outside, but evil and misery lie concealed within. When a man has passed a certain number of years in it, he cries out with the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Nay, if he has not religion for his guide, he will be forced to go further, and say, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit;” all is disappointment; all is sorrow; all is pain. The sore judgments of God upon sin are concealed within it, and force a man to grieve whether he will or no. Therefore the doctrine of the Cross of Christ does but anticipate for us our experience of the world. It is true, it bids us grieve for our sins in the midst of all that smiles {88} and glitters around us; but if we will not heed it, we shall at length be forced to grieve for them from undergoing their fearful punishment. If we will not acknowledge that this world has been made miserable by sin, from the sight of Him on Whom our sins were laid, we shall experience it to be miserable by the recoil of those sins upon ourselves.” – St John Henry Newman (1801-1890), Sermon 7, The Doctrine of the Cross, Parochial & Plane Sermons, Vol 6

“My great God, you know all that is in the universe, because You Yourself have made it. It is the very work of Your hands. You are omniscient, because You are omnicreative. You know each part, however minute, as perfectly as you know the whole. You know mind as perfectly as you know matter. You know the thoughts and purposes of every soul as perfectly as if there were no other soul in the whole of your creation. You know me through and through; all my present, past, and future are before you as one whole. You see all those delicate and evanescent motions of my thought which altogether escape myself. You can trace every act, whether deed or thought, to its origin and can follow it into its whole growth and consequences. You know how it will be with me at the end; you have before you that hour when I shall come to you to be judged. How awful is the prospect of finding myself in the presence of my judge! Yet, O Lord, I would not that You should not know me. It is my greatest stay to know that You read my heart. Oh, give me more of that openhearted sincerity which I have desired. Keep me ever from being afraid of Your eye, from the inward consciousness that I am not honestly trying to please You. Teach me to love You more, and then I shall be at peace, without any fear of You at all.”
—St. John Henry Newman

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: ‘Go down again — I dwell among the people.'”
– St. John Henry Newman

“Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.”
-St. John Henry Newman

Love,
Matthew

I love reading about people like Edith Stein.  I find I need a little inspiration every day and the example of a life well-lived to encourage me.  I hope you find the story of the life of Edith Stein inspiring, too.

Edith Stein (October 12, 1891 – August 9, 1942) was a German philosopher, a Carmelite nun, martyr, and saint of the Catholic Church, who died at Auschwitz. In 1922, she converted to Christianity, was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church and was received into the Discalced Carmelite Order in 1934. She was canonized as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (her Carmelite monastic name) by Pope John Paul II in 1998; however, she is still often referred to, and churches named for her as, “Saint Edith Stein”.

Stein was born in Breslau, in the German Empire’s Prussian Province of Silesia, into an Orthodox Jewish family.  She stopped believing in God at 14.

At the University of Göttingen, she became a student of Edmund Husserl, whom she followed to the University of Freiburg as his assistant. She became fascinated with Phenomenology, an approach to Philosophy.  In 1916, she received her doctorate of philosophy there with a dissertation under Husserl, “On The Problem of Empathy.” She then became a member of the faculty in Freiburg.

As a graduate student of the philosopher Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein decided to write her dissertation on empathy, the ability to become aware of what others are experiencing. At the outbreak of World War I, however, Edith Stein deferred her philosophical studies and volunteered as a nurse’s aide at a military hospital in Moravia.

Far from distracting her from her philosophical pursuits, this time of service was a providential opportunity to learn more deeply the meaning of empathy. Each day, she assisted patients who were difficult to communicate with because of barriers of language and debilitation, trying to understand how and why they were suffering so as to be able to assist them or to communicate their symptoms to a doctor. According to Alasdair MacIntyre, this constant exposure to suffering and death helped Stein to later articulate in philosophical terms “what it is to be with and to be there for others, when they are confronting the possibility of imminent death.”

Several years later, while visiting the recently widowed Anna Reinach, Stein was astounded to find that though she had come to comfort her friend, it was in fact Reinach who comforted Stein. Years later, Stein was able to understand that this visit with Reinach, who had been baptized with her husband shortly before his death, was her “first encounter with the cross and the divine power that it bestows on those who carry it. For the first time I was seeing with my very eyes the church, born from its Redeemer’s sufferings, triumphant over the sting of death.”

While Stein had earlier contacts with Catholicism, it was her reading the autobiography of the mystic St. Teresa of Ávila on a holiday in Göttingen in 1921 that caused her conversion. Baptized on January 1, 1922, she gave up her assistantship with Husserl to teach at a Dominican girls’ school in Speyer from 1922 to 1932. While there she translated Thomas Aquinas’ De Veritate (On Truth) into German and familiarized herself with Catholic philosophy in general. In 1932 she became a lecturer at the Institute for Pedagogy at Münster, but anti-Semitic legislation passed by the Nazi government forced her to resign the post in 1933. In a letter to Pope Pius XI, she denounced the Nazi regime and asked the Pope to openly denounce the regime “to put a stop to this abuse of Christ’s name.”

She entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery at Cologne in 1934 and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. There she wrote her metaphysical book “Endliches und Ewiges Sein,” which tries to combine the philosophies of Aquinas and Husserl.

To avoid the growing Nazi threat, her order transferred Stein to the Carmelite monastery at Echt in the Netherlands. There she wrote Studie über Joannes a Cruce: Kreuzeswissenschaft (“The Science of the Cross: Studies on John of the Cross”).

However, Stein was not safe in the Netherlands—the Dutch Bishops’ Conference had a public statement read in all the churches of the country on July 20, 1942, condemning Nazi racism. In a retaliatory response on July 26, 1942, the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts, who had previously been spared. Stein and her sister Rosa, also a convert, were captured and shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chambers on August 9, 1942.

The writings of Edith Stein fill 17 volumes, many of which have been translated into English.  Sister Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D., translator of several of Edith’s books, sums up this saint with the phrase, “Learn to live at God’s hands.”

In his homily at the canonization Mass, Pope John Paul II said: “…A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: ‘Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed.’”

Addressing himself to the young people gathered for the canonization, the Pope said: “Your life is not an endless series of open doors! Listen to your heart! Do not stay on the surface but go to the heart of things! And when the time is right, have the courage to decide! The Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in His good hands.”

“God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him — really rest — and start the next day as a new life.” – St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.” – St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“Learn from St. Thérèse to depend on God alone and serve Him with a wholly pure and detached heart. Then, like her, you will be able to say ‘I do not regret that I have given myself up to Love’.” – St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“One cannot desire freedom from the Cross when one is especially chosen for the Cross.” -St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross 

“The nation doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs who we are.” -St. Teresa Benedicta

“And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him.”
― St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

“Whoever is near us and needing us must be our ‘neighbor’; it does not matter whether he is related to us or not, whether he is morally worthy of our help or not. The love of Christ knows no limits. It never ends; it does not shrink from ugliness and filth.” -St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will.”
–St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

“The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer.”
–St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

“O Prince of Peace, to all who receive You, You bright light and peace. Help me to live in daily contact with You, listening to the words You have spoken and obeying them. O Divine Child, I place my hands in Yours; I shall follow You. Oh, let Your divine life flow into me.

I will go unto the altar of God. It is not myself and my tiny little affairs that matter here, but the great sacrifice of atonement. I surrender myself entirely to Your divine will, O Lord. Make my heart grow greater and wider, out of itself into the Divine Life.

O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me and I shall met with peace.

How wondrous are the marvels of Your love. We are amazed, we stammer and grow dumb, for word and spirit fail us.”
–St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

“…Bless all the hearts, the clouded ones, Lord above all, Bring healing to the sick. To those in torture, peace. Teach those who had to carry their beloved to the grave, to forget. Leave none agony of guilt on all the earth. Bless the joyous one, O Lord, and keep them under your wing. My mourning clothes You never yet removed. At times my tired shoulders bear a heavy burden. But give me strength, and I’ll bear it In penitence to the grave. Then bless my sleep, the sleep of all the dead. Remember what Your son suffered for me in agony of death. Your great mercy for all human needs gives rest to all the dead in Your eternal peace.” -St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Love,
Matthew

I find I need REAL sinners in my relating towards my own sinfulness and redemption.  I love Jesus, and He is my constant inspiration, dare I say companion, but it can be a little hard to relate to an infinitely transcendant God, at least for me, on a constant basis.  Maybe you get it, but I struggle.

My fellow mortals, on the other hand, I seem to relate to readily.  And, I am inspired by how they responded, in faith, to a very real world, each of their own time.  I hope and trust you may sense method to my madness.

Maximilian Kolbe’s proximity to our own time certainly makes him more tangible, and some of our beloved elders still hold that terrible time in living memory.

“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers…For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.”
– Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Auschwitz prisoner #16670, Franciscan priest, missionary, martyr of charity.

He took the place of Francis Gajowniczek who was married with young children who had been condemned to die along with nine others by order of SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl Fritzsch, the Lagerfuhrer (i.e., the camp commander), as punishment for the escape of a prisoner from the camp in late July, 1941.  (The man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine.)

When selecting the prisoners to die, the Nazi guards selected one man from each line at random, including Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek, when the sergeant cried out, “My wife and children.  I shall never see them again!”.  A man stepped out from the rows and offered to take his place.  It was prisoner #16670, Maximilian Kolbe.

A Nazi officer asked Kolbe who he was.  Kolbe responded, “I am a Catholic priest.  I wish to die for that man.  I am old.  He has a wife and children.”  Remember, Auschwitz was a work camp first and an extermination camp later and had the horrific deception cast in iron above the main entrance, “Arbeit Macht Frei!” – Work Makes You Free!  So, a younger prisoner was more valuable to the Nazis than someone passing middle-age.

So it was that Maximilian Kolbe and the nine others were taken to the death chamber of Block 11, notorious for torture.  Kolbe was placed in cell 18.   In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked, and their slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming. During the time in the cell, Fr. Kolbe led the other condemned men in songs and prayer.

Francis Gajowniczek was set eventually set free from Auschwitz when it was liberated by the Allies. Pope John Paul II canonized Maximillian Kolbe on 10 October 1982, in the presence of Gajowniczek.

During the first two weeks of August, 1941 the condemned prisoners were deprived of any food or water.  One after the other died, until only four were left including Maximilian.

The Nazis felt that death by starvation was taking too long for the remaining four and the cells were needed for newly condemned.  So, each prisoner in turn was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid (phenol) in the vein of his left arm.  Maximilian, with a prayer on his lips gave his arm to his executioner.  Maximilian Kolbe was 47 years old when he was executed.  His remains were cremated in the ovens at Auschwitz and his ashes dumped, like so much trash, along with the rest, near the camp, as had and would so many others.

As a child, he was known to be mischievous and sometimes considered wild, and a trial to his parents. However, in 1906 at Pabianice, Poland, at age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, Raymond, his baptismal name, Maximilian was his religious name, reports he received a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life:

“I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”

“Courage, my sons. Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.” -Maximilian Mary Kolbe, when first arrested.

“Love without penance, without sacrifice, is not love. There are souls who would like to possess the love of God, but they avoid and fear to do penance. Without the spirit of penance and self-abnegation, there can be no love.” –St. Maximilian Kolbe

“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.” -St. Maximilian Kolbe 

St Maximilian Kolbe is the patron of addicts.

Prayer – St Maximillian Kolbe:

O Lord Jesus Christ, You who said, “greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13), through the intercession of St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose life illustrated such love, we beseech you to grant us our petitions . . .

(here mention the requests you have).

Through the Militia Immaculata movement, which Maximilian founded, he spread a fervent devotion to Our Lady throughout the world. He gave up his life for a total stranger and loved his persecutors, giving us an example of unselfish love for all men – a love that was inspired by true devotion to You, in imitation of Mary.

Grant, O Lord Jesus, that we too may give ourselves entirely, without reserve, to the love and service of You in our lives, in imitation of our Heavenly Queen, and in so doing, better love and serve our neighbor, in imitation of Your humble servant, Maximilian. Amen.

“Be a man, be a Catholic, don’t blush for your convictions. Be a man.” – Saint Maximilian Kolbe

“Let us remember that love lives through the sacrifice & is nourished by giving.” – St M. Kolbe

“God sends us friends to be our firm support in the whirlpool of struggle. In the company of friends, we will find strength to attain our sublime ideal.”
-St. Maximilian Kolbe

Love,
Matthew