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Catholic Saints
Saint Peter Canisius
00:20:32
After joining the Jesuits in the mid-16th century, St. Peter Canicius is sent to Germany and Austria to combat the rising tide of Lutheranism. St. Peter sees tremendous success by balancing intellectual teaching, writing, and formation with simple acts of charity. Join Dr. Scott Hefelfinger and Taylor Kemp as they discuss the life and impact of this great saint and Doctor of the Church.
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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Taylor Kemp. I am the vice president of content here at the Augusta Institute, and with me today is Dr. Scott Heffelfinger.
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B
Scott, welcome. Thank you much.
- [00:30]
A
And friends, before we jump in today, I wanted to give a call out if any of you out there love theology, are interested in theology, or know someone who would be interested in theology, right now is the perfect time to apply to our Graduate School of Theology, particularly on our on campus program. This is when we're doing a lot of work of vetting applications, assessing scholarships. There's a big kind of, you know, January 20th deadline for that first wave, and that is, is a big date for people as they're looking for school. So if you're out there and you love theology or you know someone who is, check us out. I went through the graduate school. I really loved it. Scott teaches in the graduate school.
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B
I think you love it. I love it. It's a great, great, great program.
- [01:13]
A
But really, check it out where we are. We have lots of scholarships available. We recently moved, the Augustine institute moved to St. Louis, and we have a beautiful campus. There's a beautiful liturgical community and just kind of spiritual, communal life there. There is housing on campus. It's a gorgeous place to study. It's a very contemplative environment. So if you're, if you are interested or know someone, please check it out. You can just Google Augustine Institute, Graduate School of Theology and apply anything you want to add. Scott.
- [01:42]
B
Oh, and just, you know, we're talking about Catholic saints, and we do that because of how important the saints are to us in the Graduate School of Theology. And for the whole Augustine Institute, we, we are, you know, completely convinced that to be a Christian is incredibly enriched by befriending the saints. And so this podcast is about getting to know and to love the saints and to walk with them and to befriend them. And so that's, that's why we do this.
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A
It is. And one of my favorite lines, it's pretty explicit in Jesus of Nazareth, which is a great book written on the life of Christ by, at the time, Pope Benedict. But then it's also kind of enshrined in Verbum Domini, but it says that, I'm paraphrasing here, that the saints are the authentic interpreters of scripture in every age, which is just a fascinating line that scripture, as we know it always needs to be interpreted. But how Scripture is interpreted and applied can change in a sense, according to context, according to the day and age. And so we all want to live. We all want to follow the supreme master and teacher, Jesus Christ. But Jesus wasn't married. So Scott and I are married. And so there are certain questions that come up of how do I live as a true disciple of Jesus as a married man today? And sometimes it's like, well, there's certain things where it's hard to know, like, Christ wasn't married, but there's been married saints. And so these are men and women who have been transformed by the grace of God to live as a faithful disciple. And they can give, like, a broader example of holiness according to different ages. And so that's.
- [03:29]
B
Yeah, for my wife and myself, this has been so key for us in our marriages to look to the married saints in addition to, you know, the other beautiful saints who are out there. And there's a line that I use when I teach in the graduate school. You know, there was a time when this phrase, what would Jesus do? Was really popular. And the answer to that question, because of so many ways that we are different from Christ and our time is different from his time and all this, it's not always so straightforward. And so what I try to impress upon my students is when we ask, what would Jesus do? In a way, the best answer is he would do what the saints do. You know, to look to the saints to sort of refract the light of Christ because they're closer to us in certain ways, to kind of model and authentically interpret scripture, as you mentioned. So that's a lot on the saints. Maybe we should talk about one in particular.
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A
We should. St. Peter Canisius. So who is he? What do we know about him?
- [04:27]
B
Yeah, so St. Peter Canisius is a doctor of the church. Doctors of the church are saints, but they're even amongst the saints. They're sort of outstanding in their holiness and in a particular way, they show a kind of eminence in doctrine, in. In their teaching, and often, very often in their writing. They typically have a lot of writing. And St. Peter Kious definitely fulfills all of these. His Feast Day is the 21st of December, so kind of early 16th century, in 1521. He's born in. In Holland, and he's born into a lovely family. He's raised well, and he's kind of in the model of these saints who gets a good education, has promising sort of prospects, you know, in the world. But he ends up sort of turning away from that to commit his life in a special way to Christ. And for St. Peter Canisius, this happens in a particular way when he encounters a jesuit preacher named St. Peter Faber. And St. Peter Faber is preaching a retreat, and he is the first disciple, actually, of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. So he goes to preach this retreat, and St. Peter Canisius hears it, and he decides that he wants to join the Jesuits.
- [05:53]
A
That's it.
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B
That's it. Sign me up.
- [05:56]
A
I love those stories where it's like one line, and probably for. For all of us out there that are following God, there's been certain moments where, like, a line of scripture or a line of a homily just like, yeah, really hits. I've loved our patron here, St. Augustine. Here's the line in the garden. St. Francis of Assisi hears the line about poverty, like, kind of happenstance, stepping into a Mass. And so I love that. I love how God can use just a line, and it can just have, like, the way that his providence has worked in our lives, that it just hits, like it just lands within us, and it moves the heart in a powerful way that changes our life. It's the best.
- [06:38]
B
No, totally. And I love the reminder of God's providence, you know, that there, from God's point of view, there are no accidents, you know, and he is orchestrating these things so that we meet a person, we hear a line, we show up at a retreat, you know, whatever it is. And you never know when it's gonna be, like, a new direction and a new horizon. And that's so hopeful, you know, and so beautiful. So that's what happens. And he ends up through Jesuit formation. And early on, he's. He. He. He's writing. He's. He's writing things. He's doing things with the works of the saints. And this is a time when Lutheranism is kind of growing to prominence in Germany. And so a young Peter Canisius is sent to the city of Ingolstadt to combat this heresy, Right? To correct the errors of Protestantism, specifically of Lutheranism, as it's growing into prominence in Germany. He does a great job there. And so a few Years later, in 1552, he's sent to an even worse situation in the city of Vienna. Now, as you know, Taylor, and maybe some of our listeners know, I spent a good amount of time in Austria. I was studying out there. My wife is Austrian. I was married out there. Love the city of Vienna. So this was, like, this hurt to hear like what poor, you know, what a poor state Vienna was in. And it's kind of crazy. There were some problems there that will sound familiar to us. For example, apparently they hadn't had any priestly ordinations in like a decade or two or something. Crazy. And 90% of Catholics had fallen away from their faith. 90%, you know, and so he goes in and he preaches, he teaches, he serves the poor, he tends the sick, and through that he wins people over. Now when I read this, you know, and learning about this, sometimes this is just sort of like a refrain in the life, in the lives of the saints where it's like, preach the gospel, teach the faith, serve the poor, you know, and not that you can reduce it to simple formulas, but like, but can't you? That kind of is the formula.
- [08:58]
A
No. And it's like, you know, God is ultimately simple. I think that human beings, myself certainly have a tendency to over complicate. Right. It is simple. Doesn't mean it's easy, but it is simple. So yeah, I agree. Sometimes you can read the lives of saints and you're like, where's the silver bullet? You know, where's the, like the trick? And it's like, it's very straightforward. What did Jesus do? He preached the kingdom, he taught the faith, he loved the poor, and he spent himself. Yeah.
- [09:30]
B
So yeah, I think when we look for the silver bullet, we often we're looking for like the quick fix, like the easy thing, the microwave version. The microwave version. Because in a way there is something kind of silver bullet like, or simple and almost formulaic. But it's not easy. Like it will take all that you have and so much more because it also requires God's grace, you know, so he models that, you know, in a beautiful way. At the same time he's called the father of Catholic press. And it's not that he started like, you know, a printing shop or something, but he did write fairly prolifically. And what he started in 1555 was a summary of Christian doctrine, a little catechism. And this ended up being a three volume work. And it's kind of interesting. So he starts writing the first one and he's targeting children at an early age. And then in the second volume that he writes, he sort of seems to almost have the same children in mind who are now older. So it targets a little older age, those who have a little bit more formation. And then the third volume is older still, like young adult. Ish. And this is a beautiful model of kind of allowing the teaching of the Faith to track with the ages of children as they grow and to track their intellectual development. I actually thought of, you know, a slogan we like to use at least internally, within the content area here and on formed Forming Catholics for Life. St. Peter Canisius is a great model of this. Starting early, forming them all through life. Because, you know, how many of us, until. Until we learn something else, Right. How many of us just have a kind of like third grade catechism sort of level of instruction and you try to bring that into an adult world, it doesn't work. And St. Peter Canisius knew that.
- [11:30]
A
That's awesome. Yep.
- [11:32]
B
So he's so kind of successful in this catechetical work that his, his summary of Christian doctrine, his little catechism, it lives on in sort of the life of the Church in Germany. So. So that when Pope Benedict XVI gave one of his Wednesday audiences on St. Peter Canisius, he mentions. I didn't know this. He mentions that up until a couple of generations ago, another term for the catechism was the Canis.
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A
No way.
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B
They just called it the Canis because of the long enduring kind of use of these little catechisms that he wrote, which is just incredible. We're talking hundreds of years here, you know, so. Amazing, right?
- [12:18]
A
Amazing. If we didn't have such a devotion to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, he would have been a great patron for us. Yeah, that's awesome.
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B
After this, I mean, he goes on, he's very active. I mean, there's a. We're in a period of his life here around 1555 to 1558, where he's supposed to have traveled like 6,000 miles on foot or on horseback within these three years. He goes to Prague and he establishes a college there. He taught, he had an administrative role in founding that. He also wins that city back from Protestantism. He goes somewhere else to I think start like another college after that in Worms or something like this. And he's kind of moving from place to place, just doing his thing until in 1580, he goes to Fribourg in Switzerland. He founds a college there that becomes the University of Fribourg, which is a very well known and well reputed university still today. And he spends the rest of his life there. He dies in 1597 and then it's in 1925, I think, that he is canonized and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. So he's very active throughout his life, which is. Which is quite remarkable.
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A
Yeah, it is, yeah. Extremely remarkable. So what, what you Know, as we're thinking about today, what. What are some things that we can learn from him or integrate within our own life of discipleship?
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B
Yeah, no, I mean, I think as sort of like a legacy for the Church, you know, he brings honor to the Jesuits, you know, and in the greatest tradition of the greatest Jesuits. What an amazing. What an amazing saint. He has a legacy of establishing these colleges and universities that continue today. Remarkable contribution. And then his particular catechetical approach, which, again, Pope Benedict XVI highlights integrating Scriptures with the Fathers and the tradition of the Church and the Magisterium. This kind of integrated catechetical approach is, you know, a big takeaway. But I think, you know, for me personally, one of the things that I hear loud and clear in his life is a. Is a lesson of unity. And it's this unity where he is a very learned man. He's a professor, he is a writer, he's a theologian, a catechist. But this learning for him remains, like, fundamentally tied to evangelization, to love and service of neighbor, and also to prayer in the interior life. You know, and this is sort of how we think about it in the graduate school here at the Augustine Institute is this integration of study with prayer and then also service through internship opportunities, through serving in parishes, whatever it might be, you know, in this sort of triad, this unity of. Is really the key to kind of being fruitful in one's studies, but even more importantly in one's Christian life. So there's a beautiful lesson, I think, of unity in his life.
- [15:35]
A
Yep. Yeah. I really love that. And I love, you know, in his catechetical approach, how he's kind of serving different audiences or people or ages that there's such a charity there. Like, it's easier to, you know, learn something. And then if one is, like, writing or teaching about it, to kind of keep it within, you know, arrange. That is similar to the context that we are in. Right. Because it's like what we know. So it'd be easier for me to teach to people that are my age or in a similar state of life as me, because it's what I know. But that often charity kind of demands, like the work of trying to put. Put yourself in the place of the other. And then how. How would this work for this age or this type of person? These saints do that all the time.
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B
Yeah.
- [16:17]
A
When they're going to different peoples who maybe have different languages or different ways of living, and you have to. They almost have to, like, you know, put on the jacket of that. Other people figure out how could the faith be transmitted for them? And that, that's always a mark of charity. Like, I really, I really love that. And then another thing I love, you know, as you said, he's founding these academic institutions. And I love again, in the, the lies of the saints, they're kind of always, you know, I recently watched the Cabrini movie and how she founded all these orphanages and schools. And you hear that about the saints. They're always builders. They're always builders. And what I love about that is, so God, God is the Creator very, you know, that's one of the absolute fundamental actions of God, is he creates. And even for us, we co create with him, right? We, we, we take the things that he's given us and we can fashion them. That's part of what he's enabled us to do. But ultimately, God is the creator. You know, one of the, you know, contrary to God or the antithesis of that is Satan can only destroy. God can only create. Satan, Satan destroys. But that you see in the saints, they participate in this. They're always building, and it's so much harder to build than to destroy. And that they're always building, establishing, creating these things with God to expand kind of the goodness of the human race, whether that's their education or hospitals or orphanages. And so I really love that about the constant refrain of the saints is there's this element of creation or building that I always think is. And that always takes courage to pay attention to.
- [18:01]
B
There's a line in Dante's Divine Comedy, I think, where he writes, work is the grandchild of God. And this is kind of exactly, I think the point you're making where God is our Father, our Creator, and then we are the ones who generate our work. We're the fathers of our work, which makes our work, it sort of stands in the divine lineage, if you will. We are extending God's work to build up, as you said. And you know, I think we tend to think of academics as being, I mean, rightly or wrongly, right, like kind of abstract, a little out of touch. And I think in the witness of the saints, and in particular St. Peter Canisius, we see that it doesn't have to be that way. And in fact, it probably shouldn't be that way. That this learning in this life is always in the service of building up and being concretely in touch with the needs of the church. And that happens through charity, which, you know, is a great, a great lesson for us. And this combination, in a way of the contemplation both prayerful and then also just intellectual learning with the active life, bringing those two together to be fruitful in the service of the Lord.
- [19:21]
A
Yep. I love it. Scott, anything else before we close?
- [19:27]
B
You know, maybe just I think I find it really convicting and I'll just, you know, speak personally. It can be very easy to want to kind of like, box ourselves in. Like I teach in the graduate school. It's an intellectual labor. And I feel like, you know, that's kind of my thing, my charism. That's what I'll do. And it can be easy for me to put too little emphasis on the concrete works of charity, serving the poor, ministering to the sick. Now, it's perfectly fine, right, that there are charisms and sort of points of emphasis in the church and in different states of life, but we can't ever let ourselves get too far away from the real kind of concrete demands of charity. And so just to, you know, keep that in view, I think is a great lesson that we can take away from St. Peter Canisius today.
- [20:12]
A
I agree. Alrighty, Scott, thanks for joining me today. And it's such a joy for us to be able to talk about lives of saints. Thank you to everyone out there for listening. We hope these episodes are edifying. They highlight the grace of God working in different ages through different people. And we will see you next time on Catholic Saints.