Podcast
Catholic Saints & Feasts
Hosted by Fr. Michael Black · EN
"Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black.
These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.
These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.
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Sacred Heart of Jesus
2d ago00:06:05Tap to summarizeSacred Heart of Jesus Friday following the Second Sunday after Pentecost Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White Behold the heart which drips red for love of man It’s always the tissue of male heart muscle when the molecular structure of a Eucharistic miracle is examined under a microscope. Jesus had “heart” but, more importantly, He had a heart. The word “heart” is synonymous with grit, soul, intuition, love, strength, generosity, and, in its most total sense, the very center of man. Today’s feast embraces all of those meanings. Christ’s Sacred Heart teaches us that God loves us as a friend loves a friend, as a parent loves a child, or as a sibling loves his closest brother or sister. That is, Christ loves us in the same way as a person loves us, only more intensely. Our God doesn’t shift the planetary order, redirect the rays of the sun, or create a parallel gravitational field to magnetize His love for mankind. Science fiction requires a fluid imagination. Understanding God’s love should not, and does not, demand such mental contortionism. Understanding God’s love should be as simple as recalling your little hand in your father’s big hand as you walked next to him at night as a little girl. It requires remembering running into your mother’s soft embrace, cheek to cheek, after skinning your knee. Jesus Christ’s love for man is as human and as clear as a beating heart. Simply put, Jesus loves us from just above His solar plexus, where His heart pulsates with emotion for every sacred creature who harbors a human soul. The widely loved devotion to the Sacred Heart is not rooted in a feast of ancient pedigree similar to those of Holy Week. No Christian of the first millenium ever gazed into the haunting eyes of Christ as He stared out from a Sacred Heart image enthroned on the family-room wall. It was only in 1856 that Pope Pius IX placed this feast on the Church’s universal calendar. The Pope acted after almost two centuries of devotion to the Sacred Heart, which had grown out of the thinking, preaching, and prayer of the indefatigable Saint John Eudes and out of the visions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Both of these saints were indebted, in turn, to the medieval revelations of the Sacred Heart granted to Saint Gertrude the Great. We love the Heart of Christ because His heart loved us first. We adore the adorer, love the lover, and worship the worshiper. Because God comes first, all of our love for Him is the repayment of a debt. We are not doing God a favor by loving him any more than a hammer does a carpenter a favor by slamming nails into wood. Religion is about raw justice, not doing God favors. That God loves us is not readily apparent from creation itself or from the history of mankind. The gods were many things to many races throughout the ages, but love was not one of them. Christianity had to tell the world that God was love. And Jesus had to attach His arms to a cross and die for that message to be convincing. The visions of Saint Margaret Mary made God’s love concrete and comprehensible, while the visions of Saint Faustina Kowolska deepened the meaning of this feast still more. In these challenging visions, Christ rips open His heart to Sister Faustina and shows her a calm and deep ocean of mercy waiting to bathe repentant sinners in its saving waters. Three strands—the Sacred Heart, love, and mercy—are now braided in a tight belt of spiritual truth. True heart is not proven by waving to the crowds from a car in a victory parade or by luxuriating on the beach with friends. Real heart is in the last stretch of the neck over the finish line, in climbing the stage to receive a diploma after years of academic struggle, or in pulling yourself out of bed to go to nocturnal adoration. True heart is synonymous with long suffering, perseverance, and conquering through adversity. True heart is dying on the cross when you didn’t deserve it. A true heart is a Sacred Heart. That’s the heart of our God. No athlete goes to the Olympics to compete for the silver. Jesus reached for the gold from the dais of the cross, slick with his own blood. There’s no need for us to keep on searching for a heart of gold in this world. We know in exactly whose body that heart beats. It’s all gold, it’s all sacredness, and it loves us like Himself. Sacred Heart of Jesus, You told us to ask and we shall receive, to seek and we shall find, to knock and the door shall be opened. Today, we ask, we seek, and we knock, in the sure and certain hope that you will hear us and answer us.
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June 11: St. Barnabas, Apostle
3d ago00:06:10Tap to summarizeJune 11: Saint Barnabas, Apostle Early First Century–c. 62 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Cyprus A multi-talented disciple recruits Saint Paul Today’s saint was an Apostle in the exact same sense in which St. Paul was an Apostle. Saint Barnabas was not one of the Twelve original followers of Christ nor a replacement for one of the Twelve, like Saint Matthias. But the term “The Twelve” quickly disappeared after the Gospel events, because “The Twelve” themselves propagated into dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of successor Apostles, known alternatively as Episcopoi or Prebyteroi: Overseers or Elders. Saint Barnabas is among that generation of Christian leaders whose name first surfaces immediately after the Resurrection. So although he was not in the circle of “The Twelve,” he stood in the next outer ring.The earliest name for the movement initiated by Jesus of Nazareth was “The Way.” This term is used in the Acts of the Apostles and in the ancient catechetical document known as the Didache. But “The Way” was replaced early on by another term. The Acts of the Apostles explains: “Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’” (Ac 11:25–26). We owe Saint Barnabas, then, the credit for the word “Christian” as the standard description of the followers of Jesus Christ. The persecution and martyrdom of Saint Stephen forced many Christian leaders to flee Jerusalem. The unforeseen effect of Stephen’s assassination and the subsequent persecution of Christians was the spread of the Gospel into greater Syria, the Greek Islands, and North Africa. This expansion led to contact with Greek and Roman Gentiles, or non-Jews, a growth presaging the transformation of Christianity from a localized Jewish sect into a multiethnic worldwide Church. When some converts from North Africa and Cyprus went to Antioch, the capital of the Roman province of Syria, they converted a great number of Greek speakers. And when “news of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem...they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Ac 11: 22–24a). Saint Barnabas played a crucial role in the first unfurling of the Gospel message beyond Palestine. Acting as a kind of talent scout, he lassoed Saul from his hometown of Tarsus to begin the extraordinary missionary efforts which would forever change the Church and the world. Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas are repeatedly mentioned together in the Acts of the Apostles as they traverse the port cities, the waters, and the dusty highways of the Eastern Mediterranean world. Together, they call down the Holy Spirit, commission new Apostles, confront Jews and Roman citizens alike, challenge a magician, speak to governors, and, of utmost consequence for the Church’s future, convince the other Apostles not to force new converts to become Jews first and Christians later. Saint Barnabas was a dynamic force of nature who spun like a tornado from town to town in the early Church. He was a giant of that first generation of risk-taking, manly, apostolic leaders. The citizens of Lystra in Asia Minor compared him to the Greek God Zeus. They were so impressed that they tried to crown him with garlands and to sacrifice the blood of oxen to both him and Saint Paul (Ac 14:12–18). After numerous adventures in tandem, Paul, the better preacher, writer, and organizer, ultimately sails off on his own. The last we hear of Barnabas, he is returning to the Island of Cyprus, his native land. When Saint Paul writes from his Roman prison in about 62 A.D., he mentions that Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, is with him (Col 4:10). Barnabas’ absence at Paul’s side in his hour of need is a clue that Barnabas is likely dead by the year 62. Tradition tells us that Barnabas was martyred on Cyprus, perhaps by a Jewish mob angered at his successful preaching in the synagogue of Salamis. His relics and memory are particularly honored on Cyprus to this day. Saint Barnabas, you gathered infant Christianity from its cradle and carried it into the world beyond. You poured the message of salvation into new wineskins without any guile. May all Christians be so confident, so convincing, and so successful through your intercession.
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June 9: Saint Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor
5d ago00:05:56Tap to summarizeJune 9: Saint Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor Early Fourth Century–373 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of spiritual directors The Harp of the Holy Spirit The Councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451 ended a centuries-long scorpion dance. Bishops, theologians, and scholars from Egypt to Syria had long circled one another with suspicion, stinging their enemies with sharp words and pointed tongues. Did Jesus Christ have one or two natures? If two natures, were they joined in His will or in His person? If united in His person, at conception? Was He one person or was He two? Smart, educated men defended every shade of every subtlety of every complex question with all of their considerable skill. The answers hacked out at Ephesus and Chalcedon, whose hurly-burly political intrigues were less than inspiring, answered the relevant questions definitively, establishing orthodox teaching for all time. The theological language coined during those fifth century debates is still familiar to the Church today: hypostatic union, monophysitism, Theotokos, etc. Today’s saint, Ephrem, was active a century prior to the great conclusions and clarifications of the fifth-century Councils. Although Ephrem did not deviate from what later Councils would explicitly teach, he used far different language to communicate the same truths, anticipating later teachings through poetry. Saint Ephrem was a poet and a musician first and foremost. His language is more beautiful, compelling, and memorable because it is metaphorical. Exactness in words risks dryness. You can say that the average density of the air in the ship’s hull eventually equaled the average density of the surrounding water. Or you can say that the ship sank like a stone to the ocean floor. You can write that a day’s high dew point caused the air’s water vapor content to slow evaporation. Or you can write that it was so hot and humid that people melted like candles. The Church can teach that we eat Christ’s body and blood in the Holy Eucharist. Or we can speak directly to Christ with the poet Ephrem and say, “In your bread hides the Spirit who cannot be consumed; in your wine is the fire that cannot be swallowed. The Spirit in your bread, fire in your wine: behold a wonder heard from our lips.” The Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon taught that the one person of Jesus Christ united in Himself a fully divine nature and a fully human nature from the moment of His conception. Saint Ephrem wrote “The Lord entered (Mary) and became a servant; the Word entered her, and became silent within her; thunder entered her and his voice was still; the Shepherd of all entered her and became a Lamb…” Poetry, metaphor, paradox, images, song, and symbols. These were tools in Saint Ephrem’s nimble hands. Theology for him was liturgy, music, and prayer. He was called the Harp of the Holy Spirit, the Sun of the Syrians, and the Column of the Church by his admirers, who included luminaries such as Saints Jerome and Basil. Saint Ephrem was a deacon who declined ordination to the priesthood. He lived radical poverty, wearing a patched and dirty tunic. He had a cave for his home and a rock for his pillow. Ephrem founded a theological school and was deeply involved in catechesis through preaching, liturgy, and music. He died after contracting a disease from a patient he was caring for. Saint Ephrem is the Church’s greatest Syriac language writer, proof that Christianity is not synonymous with the West or European culture. Ephrem’s world thrived for centuries with its own unique Semitic identity in today’s Syria, Iraq, Iran, and India. Saint Ephrem’s Syria was not the “Near East,” as Europeans later called the region. To him, it was just home, the deep cradle of the new way of loving God that was, and is, Christianity. Saint Ephrem was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. Saint Ephrem, you wrote tenderly and lovingly about the truths of our faith. Help all Christian artists to stay true to the Truth and to communicate Jesus Christ to the world through beauty, music, and images that raise the mind and lift the heart to God Himself.
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The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)
1w ago00:05:53Tap to summarizeThe Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) Thursday after Holy Trinity unless otherwise indicated. In the U.S, the solemnity is transferred to the Sunday after the Holy Trinity Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White The gift of all gifts Standing at the crowded table in the dim candle light of the Upper Room during the Last Supper, Jesus Christ did not hand out Bibles to the Twelve Apostles and solemnly tell them, “Take this, all of you, and read it. This is my book, written for you.” Jesus gives us Himself, not a book. On today’s Feast, we commemorate God’s greatest gift to mankind, the person of Jesus Christ. God gives us His Son, and then Christ gives us Himself, body and blood, soul and divinity, under the accidents of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist. Gift, gift-giver, and receiver meld into one in this sacrament of sacraments. In the era of the early Church, it was customary for an excess of bread to be consecrated at Mass so that the Eucharist could be carried to the sick who had been unable to attend the Holy Sacrifice. This practice led to the adoption of the pyx as the first sacred vessel for reservation of the Eucharist. Some modern churches pay homage to these Eucharistic origins by hanging an oversized pyx on their wall to use as a tabernacle, imitating the early Church custom. Permanent reservation of the Eucharist led, over the centuries, to enthroning the Lord amidst the greatest splendor in churches. By the early medieval period, the time had long passed when the Eucharist was reserved merely to be brought to the sick. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, street processions, chants, confraternities, songs, flowers, and all the splendid trappings of a feast day covered this dogma in glory by the High Middle Ages, and continue to wrap it in honor today. Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that the most necessary sacrament was Baptism but that the most excellent was the Holy Eucharist. This most excellent sacrament has been, for some, too excellent. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus tells His disciples that they must eat His body and drink His blood, many are incredulous and walk away. But Jesus does not compromise or say He was misunderstood. He lets them keep on walking. This initially hard teaching for the few was destined, over time, to be lovingly welcomed by the many. The Old Covenant of the Old Testament was gory. In a kind of primitive liturgy, Moses had goats and sheep slaughtered on an altar and their blood gathered into buckets. He then splashed this blood over the people, sealing their acceptance of the written law. Flying droplets of animal blood splattered against people’s skin to remind them of their promise to God. No such bloody drama breaks out at Sunday Mass. We each bless our head and torso with holy water and receive a pure white host on the tongue. The New Covenant is based not on the blood of goats, bull calves, or on the ashes of a heifer. It is rooted in the generosity of the Son of God, who “offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit.” Christ’s Covenant with his people is established verbally and liturgically at the Last Supper and physically on the cross the following day. The consecration of the Sacred Species at Mass continues Christ’s physical presence among us, while adoration of the Blessed Sacrament suspends the consecration of the Mass, stretching it out into hours, days, months, and years. We naturally desire to leave a part of ourselves to our loved ones. We send photos, solemnly pass on a cherished memento, or give a baby a family name. Soldiers used to carry a locket holding a few strands of their wife’s or girlfriend’s hair. We need to be close, physically close, to those we love in concrete, tangible ways. Jesus desired the same, and, not being constrained by the limitations of human nature, He did the same, and more. He has left us Himself! That dogma processing down the street is a person! And that dogma behind the golden doors of the parish’s tabernacle is the same person! So bend that body low and set that heart on fire, for the Saving Victim opens wide the gate of heaven to all below. We stand as close to Christ in the Holy Eucharist as the Apostles ever did on Mount Tabor. Lord of the Eucharist, we venerate You with heads bowed, as the old form of worship gives way to the new. With faith providing for what fails the senses, we honor the Begetter and the Begotten, loving back at what loved us first, apprentices in the school of love.
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June 6: Saint Norbert, Bishop
1w ago00:05:57Tap to summarizeJune 6: Saint Norbert, Bishop c. 1080–1134 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Bohemia and of expectant mothers Thrown down like Saint Paul, he stood up a changed man Today’s saint was born into an elite Central European family with connections to imperial dynasties and the nobility of his time. He received an excellent sacred and secular education in keeping with his high status. And as a young man he received tonsure, the particular shaving of the hair on the scalp denoting one a cleric. He was then appointed a canon, a member of a bishop’s inner circle who prayed the liturgical hours in common with other canons. As a young adult, Saint Norbert was well on his way to a career as an ecclesiastic typical of his era: well connected, intelligent, politically aware, committed to the Church, an adviser to princes and bishops, and materially comfortable. His life was almost indistinguishable from those of the laymen whose company he mostly kept. Norbert avoided priestly ordination and turned down a chance to become a bishop. In a one-Church world where civil power and church power were intertwined, canons lived comfortably and held a quasi-civil office which dispensed prayers, graces, and spiritual favors for which the populace paid handsomely. If not for a near-death experience when he was thirty-five years old, Saint Norbert would be known as just Norbert, and he would be resting, forgotten, under the stone floor of a German cathedral. But one day in 1115, Norbert was riding his horse when a lightning bolt struck nearby. He was thrown hard to the ground and was unconscious for a long time but survived. It was jarring, both physically and spiritually. Norbert was changed. He was penitent. He would abandon his life of frivolity. He would take his religious commitment seriously. This powerful experience of the fleetingness of life and its pleasures compelled Norbert to deviate from the wide, crowded road he was traveling, in order to walk, instead, a narrower, stonier, less-traveled path. And as Norbert walked, he shed his past step by step until over many years Saint Norbert emerged, miter on his head, bishop’s crozier in one hand, and a monstrance in the other. One moment changed his life. It ceased to be just a moment, in fact, but was converted into a permanent event. God broke through, touched his deepest core, and created a new man. Soon after this near-death experience, Norbert was ordained a priest, went on a month-long retreat, founded a monastery with his own wealth, and began to preach about the transitory nature of the world. He had the fervor of a convert, the ardor of one for whom all things were new. Life was a permanent Spring day. He sold all that he had except what was necessary to say Mass, divested himself of all his properties, and gave everything to the poor. He wore a simple habit, went barefoot, and begged for food. He started to preach throughout France and Germany and became well known. At the instigation of the Pope, he founded a religious Order, which quickly expanded. He was so well respected in Germany that, despite being the founder of an Order, he was named bishop of a large see. Saint Norbert became involved in various ecclesiastical arguments of his day of both a political and theological nature. Saint Norbert’s efforts to reform the clergy of his day were not always well received. He was spat upon and rejected. But he persevered. No one outdid him in devotion to the Holy Eucharist, which he preached about constantly. Centuries after his death his body was transferred to near Prague after the German city where he had been buried turned Lutheran. Saint Norbert is most often depicted as a bishop holding either a monstrance or a ciborium, both of which hold the Holy Eucharist. The Norbertine Order continues to thrive, nine hundred years after it was founded. Would that anyone would speak just our name nine hundred years after we die! The Church remembers her saints, preserves their memories, and ensures that the heroes of our faith are held up for emulation long after their earthly work is done. Saint Norbert, your conversion led to your life of total dedication to Christ and the Church. This change was nourished by reception of and devotion to the Holy Eucharist. May we be continually nourished with and converted by the same food from heaven.
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June 5: Saint Boniface, Bishop & Martyr
1w ago00:05:31Tap to summarizeJune 5: Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr c. 675–754 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Germany Pagans cut down a man of action in his grey hairs In the treasury of the Cathedral of Fulda, Germany, there is a medieval Codex, a large, bound book of prayers and theological documents, which very likely belonged to Saint Boniface. The rough cover of the Codex is deeply sliced with cuts from a sword. A tradition dating back to the generations just after Saint Boniface’s own time attests that he wielded this very book like a shield to ward off the blows of robbers who attacked him and a large band of missionaries in Northern Germany in 754. Our saint tried to protect himself, both metaphorically and literally, with the written truths of our faith. It was to no avail. Saint Boniface and fifty-two of his companions were slaughtered. Ransacking the baggage of the missionaries for treasure, the band of thieves found no gold vessels or silver plates but only sacred texts the unlettered men couldn’t read. Thinking them worthless, they left these books on the forest floor, to be recovered later by local Christians. The Codex eventually made it into the Treasury at Fulda where it is found today. One of the earliest images of Saint Boniface, from a Sacramentary dating to 975, depicts the saint deflecting the blows of a sword with a large, thick book. The Codex is a second-class relic, giving silent witness to the final moments of a martyr. Saint Boniface is known as the “Apostle of the Germans” and is buried in the crypt of Fulda Cathedral. However, his baptismal name was Winfrid, and he was born and raised in Anglo-Saxon England. He was from an educated family, entered a local monastery as a youth, and was ordained a priest at the age of thirty. In 716 Winfrid sailed to the continent to become a missionary to the peoples on the Baltic coast of today’s Northern Germany. He was able to communicate with them because his Anglo-Saxon tongue was similar to the languages of the native Saxon and Teutonic tribes. Winfrid was among the first waves of those many Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks who saved what could be saved of Roman and Christian culture in Europe after the Roman Empire collapsed. Large migrations of Gothic peoples, mostly Arian Christians, pagans, or a confusing mix of the two, filled the vacuum created after Roman order disintegrated, and they needed to be inculcated in the faith to rebuild a superior version of the culture they had helped decimate. Winfrid traveled to Rome the year after first arriving on the continent, where the pope renamed him Boniface and appointed him missionary Bishop of Germany. After this, he never returned to his home country. He set out to the north and proceeded to dig and lay the foundations of Europe as we know it. He organized dioceses, helped found monasteries, baptized thousands, pacified tribes, challenged tree-worshipping pagans, taught, preached, held at least one large Church Council, convinced more Anglo-Saxon monks to follow his lead, ordained priests, appointed bishops, stayed in regular contact with his superiors in Rome, and pushed the boundaries of Christianity to their northernmost limit. Boniface was indefatigable. He was in his late seventies, and still pushing to convert the unconverted, when he was surprised and slain in a remote wilderness. Saint Boniface was well educated, and many of his letters and related correspondence survive. But he was, above all, a man of action. He was daring and fearless. He was a pathbreaker. His faith moved mountains and tossed them into the sea. His labors, combined with his great faith, are the stuff of legend. More incredibly, though, they are the stuff of truth. Saint Boniface, through your powerful intercession, help all those who labor for the faith to be as intrepid as you were in challenging those who reject Christ. May your example of tireless witness inspire all missionaries, both at home and abroad, to persevere.
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June 3: Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
2w ago00:05:11Tap to summarizeJune 3: Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs 1860–1886 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of African youth Young African Christians die like the martyrs of old Many of the faces of the saints in heaven that shine with the light of God are dark faces. North Africa was one of the first regions to be evangelized and was home to a vibrant, diverse, and orthodox Church for over six hundred years. North Africa had over four hundred bishoprics and enriched the universal Church with a wealth of theologians, martyrs, and saints. That Catholic culture drowned under the crushing waves of Arab Muslim armies that inundated North Africa in the seventh century, altering its cultural and religious landscape. Small pockets of Christianity continued to exist in isolation for a few centuries more. But by 1830, when French colonists and missionaries settled in Tunisia and Algeria, local Christianity had totally disappeared. The Christian light had gone out in North Africa centuries before. Yet today’s saints are nineteenth-century African martyrs. While North Africa has remained in the tight grip of Islam, sub-Saharan Africa has lived a contrary reality. It has embraced Christianity. Throughout the nineteenth century, daring missionary priests and religious from various European countries penetrated deep into the towns, savannas, jungles, and river deltas of the “dark continent,” carrying the light of Christ. For the most part, they were well received and initiated the long and complex process of evangelization, inculturation, and education that has turned today’s sub-Saharan Africa into a largely Christian region.Charles Lwanga and his companions were all very young men, in their teens and twenties, when they were martyred. They ran afoul of their local ruler for one reason and one reason only—they were Christians and adhered to Christian morality. The ruler did not otherwise question their loyalty, devotion, or service to him. He was suspicious of the European priests who had brought the faith, wary of outside interference in his kingdom, and also eager to impress his subjects with a display of ruthlessness and power. He was also a sodomite who wanted these young men to engage in unholy sexual acts with him. For refusing to satisfy his disordered and abusive lust, they became victims of homsexual violence. The ruler and his court questioned the young males who served as their pages and assistants to discover if they were catechumens, had been baptized, or knew how to pray. Those who answered “Yes” were killed for it. One was stabbed through the neck with a spear and another’s arm was cut off before he was beheaded. But most were marched miles to an execution site, cruelly treated for a week, then wrapped in reed matts and placed over a fire until their feet were singed. They were then given one last chance to abjure their faith. None did. These tightly wrapped human candles were then thrown onto a huge pyre and reverted to the dust from whence they came. One of the executioners even killed his own son. The executioners and onlookers knew their victims had succumbed to the flames when they no longer heard them praying. The site where these Ugandan martyrs died is now a popular shrine and a source of pride dear to the heart of African Catholics. Charles Lwanga and his companions, though new to the faith, acted with the maturity of the wise and the aged, choosing to sacrifice lives full of promise rather than surrender the pearl of greatest price—their Catholic faith. Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, help us to be courageous in the face of threats, to stand tall for our beliefs, and to suffer ridicule and hatred rather than renounce or minimize our relationship with Christ and His truth.
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June 2: Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs
2w ago00:06:24Tap to summarizeJune 2: Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs Mid-third Century–c. 304 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Their memory was preserved by their very executioner Saint Helen went to the Holy Land and returned to Rome with remnants of the true cross of Christ. This same Helen was the mother of Constantine, the Roman Emperor who legalized Christianity in 313 and who called the Council of Nicea in 325. When Saint Helen died around 328, her Emperor-Son placed her body in a monumental, sumptuous sarcophagus of rare, porphyry marble from Egypt. The deeply carved red stone shows Roman soldiers on horseback conquering barbarians. These are not scenes likely to adorn a pious woman’s tomb. It was probably meant to be Constantine’s own sarcophagus, but when his mother died, he used it for her. And Constantine did one more thing for his mother. He built a large church on the outskirts of Rome over the catacombs, or burial place, of today’s saints, Marcellinus and Peter, and placed his mother and her giant tomb inside of the church. That one so famous and powerful as Constantine would build a church over the catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, and honor this church still more with his mother’s tomb, testifies to these martyrs’ importance to the early Christians of Rome. And since they were martyred in approximately 304, only a decade before Constantine conquered the eternal city, their memory must still have been fresh when Christianity was legalized. Until this time, Christians worshipped in dark, hidden places. As they first stepped into the public light to build the ancient churches whose walls, pillars, and foundations are still visible today, these Christians honored those who came before them. They honored those whose deaths were all the sadder because they perished so close to the day of Christian liberation. They honored Saints Marcellinus and Peter. Little is known with certainty about Saint Marcellinus and Saint Peter. Tradition tells us that Marcellinus was a priest and Peter an exorcist and that they were beheaded on the outskirts of Rome. A few years after the bloody event, a little boy from Rome heard about their deaths from the mouth of their very executioner, who later became a Christian. That little boy was named Damasus, and he went on to became Pope from 366–384. Decades later, remembering the story he had heard as a child, Pope Damasus honored Marcellinus and Peter by adorning their tomb with a marble inscription recounting the details of their martyrdom as he had heard them so long ago. Unfortunately, the inscription is lost.The circumstances of Marcellinus’ and Peter’s deaths were likely similar to those of other, better-documented martyrdoms: some public declaration of faith, arrest, perfunctory trial, a chance to offer sacrifice to a Roman god, a refusal, a last chance to be an idolater, a last refusal, and then a swift, businesslike beheading. It was over quickly. Then came the calm. Then came the night. And out of that darkness emerged a candle-lit procession of humble Christians, walking slowly and silently toward the place of execution. The headless corpses were placed on white sheets and carried solemnly to an underground burial niche. A small marble plaque etched with the martyrs’ names was placed nearby. An oil lamp was lit and left burning. Thus the veneration began. Thus it continues today. Marcellinus and Peter were important enough to be included in the official list of Roman martyrs and to have their names remembered in the liturgy of Rome. As the Mass celebrated in Rome became standard throughout the Catholic world, the names of Marcellinus and Peter were embedded into the Roman Canon, the First Eucharistic Prayer. And there they are read at Mass until today, more than one thousand seven hundred years after they died. The Body of Christ forgets nothing, retains everything, and purifies its memory to honor those who deserve honoring. The catacombs and the first Basilica of Marcellinus and Peter fell into ruins at the hands of two enemies—time and the Goths. A “new” church was built nearby to replace it and is still a parish. Saint Helen’s bones were removed from her imperial tomb in the twelfth century and swapped with the body of a Pope. The tomb was later emptied again and, in 1777, moved to the Vatican museums. Hundreds of thousands of tourists walk right by the tomb every year, seeing perhaps just a huge chunk of marble, oblivious to the rich history connecting the monumental tomb to ancient Christianity and the martyrs we commemorate today. Saints Marcellinus and Peter, help all those who seek your intercession to face persecution and intimidation of any kind, via words, or arms, or threats, with bravery and heroic resistance.
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June 1: Saint Justin Martyr
2w ago00:06:23Tap to summarizeJune 1: Saint Justin Martyr c. 100–c. 165 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of philosophers The cut and thrust of philosophical debate led him to Truth On one of his first missionary journeys, Saint Paul found himself in Syria. He was at a crossroads and needed to decide where he would travel to preach the Gospel. Do I head east and bring the Gospel to the gentiles of Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and China? Or do I travel west, to the Greeks, Romans, Franks, and the people on the rim of the Roman Sea (the Mediterranean)? The Acts of the Apostles relates the mystical event that happened next: “During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them” (Ac 16: 9–10). Macedonia is in Greece. So Saint Paul’s sails opened and he tacked west. The rest is history. In the person of Saint Paul, the Church herself turned toward Greece and her philosophical tradition. It was the plan of God that His Church would decisively encounter philosophical truth, not myth and custom, as its partner in dialogue. This intellectual engagement began the long process of melding philosophical truth with theological revelation, which transformed early, Jewish-based Christianity into something new—the powerful synthesis of theology, philosophy, spirituality, and structure known as Catholicism. Today’s saint was a philosopher in the Greek tradition, born around 100 A.D. in Samaria to Greek parents. Saint Justin wrapped himself in the white, toga-style cloak of a Greek philosopher even after his conversion. He is the most well-known apologist of the second century, the only true Christian thinker known between the time of Saint John the Evangelist and Origen in the first half of the third century. Justin mercilessly criticized the intellectual dead end of the ancient paganism in which he was raised, seeing it as not merely neutral but as an obstacle to discovering the truth. Justin loved the idea that Christ the Logos was the same in substance but different in person from the Father. Theological truth expressed in the concepts of Greek philosophy was very satisfying to him, because it was very true. Justin also provided some of the very first words on the Holy Eucharist outside of the New Testament itself: “And this food is called among us the Eucharist...we (have) been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” What a clear and remarkable testament to Christianity’s early belief in the Eucharist! Justin moved to Rome to teach philosophy and spent decades there writing and interacting with the higher echelons of Roman society. But even a thoughtful intellectual was not immune from persecution for being a Christian. Sometime between 162 and 168 A.D., Justin and six companions were called to answer for their beliefs before the Prefect of Rome. The record of the trial has been preserved and shows the Prefect demanding that Justin sacrifice to the gods of Rome. Justin and his friends refuse and are threatened with torture and death. They respond: “Do as you wish; for we are Christians, and we do not sacrifice to idols.” What bravado! They sternly refused to be idolaters. They were duly led away, scourged, and beheaded. Justin chose, as the Church chose, the God of the philosophers over the false gods of paganism. This was a choice for truth over illusion. As Tertullian would later write: “Christ has said that he is truth, not custom" (De Virgin. Vel. 1, 1). The Christian God is both Father and the Prime Mover; the God of Jesus Christ and the Uncaused Causer; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and thought thinking itself. He is Father and He is Almighty. He is everywhere, because He is nowhere. He is paternal and close at hand but forever mysterious and inaccessible. He gives a name, “I am Who am,” which is a riddle. We take this complex understanding of God for granted today. But the labor of early Christians like Saint Justin Martyr dug the deep intellectual foundations into which were later driven the piers of sound doctrine. It takes very smart people to make simple points. Saint Justin, you surrendered your life rather than worship an idol. Your refusal to abjure your faith gives an example to all Christian intellectuals and teachers that the deepest truths are not found only on a page but must be lived, and sacrificed for, even unto death.
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The Most Holy Trinity
2w ago00:06:47Tap to summarizeFirst Sunday after Pentecost: The Most Holy Trinity Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White God is more like a family than a monk We pray in the “name” of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not in their “names.” God must logically be only one. To hold that there is a vast government of gods is to hold that two mountains are the tallest in the world, that three oceans are the deepest, and that on four days the sun shone the brightest. Another way to say “God” is to say “the best.” God is the best. And there can only be one “best,” “tallest,” “deepest,” and “brightest.” God is the ultimate superlative adjective whose nature admits of no competing god. Christian monotheism stops us from approaching different gods for different things. We believe in one God with one will, one mind, and one plan for mankind. The Holy Trinity, the God of Christianity, is complex. Clear language must be used and clear thinking deployed to grasp the Christian God. There are no backyard garden statues of the Holy Trinity like there are of Saint Francis of Assisi, because the Trinity is cerebral in a way that Saint Francis is not. On this solemnity, we celebrate the dogma of all dogmas because dogma matters. We sing songs to dogma, put flowers on the altar to dogma, and wear our best clothes for dogma. The Church’s thinking about God is not child’s play. Once we accept thoughts, they own us. At some point we no longer choose our thoughts, they choose us. So we must get God right so that we get everything else right—marriage, family, work, love, war, money, philosophy, humor, religion, fun, sports, etc. Bad people can be forgiven, but bad ideas less so. And bad ideas about God are dangerous. They caused skyscrapers to crumble to the ground. The Church believes that God is one in His nature and three in His persons. This means that if you were in a pitch-black room and sensed a presence nearby, your first question would be “What is that?” “Is it the dog or the cat, my spouse, or the wind?” If it were God in the darkness, He would answer the question of “what” by saying “I am God.” Satisfied that the presence was a person and not an animal or the wind, the next question would be “Who are you?” And to that question, God would reply in three successive voices: “I am the Father. I am the Son. I am the Holy Spirit.” A nature is the source of operations, but a person does them. A statue has eyes but it is not its nature to see. It is not man’s nature to lay eggs or to breathe under water, but it is the nature of a bird or of a fish to do so. Our nature sets the parameters for what actions are possible for us. The daughter of a lion is a lioness and does what lions do. The son of a man is a man and does what men do. And the Son of God is God and knows, loves, and acts as God does, perfectly. Our Trinitarian supernova is both a unity and a plurality, both one and many at the same time. This means that God does not exist alone but in a community of love. God is not narcissistic, admiring his own beauty and perfection. Instead, the love of the Father is directed toward the Son for all eternity. And the love of the Holy Spirit animates, and passes between, the Father and the Son. The Trinity’s three persons do not share portions of the divine nature, they each possess it totally. This theology means, by extension, that because man is made in the image and likeness of God, every person is created in order to model the Trinity by living with, and for, another, just as God does in His inner life. Because God is a Trinity of persons, His perfection is more fully embodied by an earthly community, such as a family, rather than by a lone monk. The Trinity is not just scaffolding which obscures the true face of God. Nor are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit three masks which conceal the one face of God. The one God exists as a Trinity. The Church’s belief in God and the Church’s belief in the Trinity stand and fall together. The Trinity is not just the summit of our faith, something we work toward understanding, but also our faith’s foundation. The truth of the Holy Trinity is learned early and often. Our God, distinct in His persons, one in His essence, and equal in His majesty, is solemnly invoked as the water spills on our heads at Baptism and as the oil is traced on our palms at our anointing. God, in all of His complexity and in all of His simplicity, is with us always in this world and, hopefully, in the world to come. Most Holy Trinity, we look to Your three persons as a model of true love, knowledge, and community life. Help all marriages and families strive for the high ideal of perfection You set before the world, no matter the discouragement resulting from our sins and imperfections.
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