Catholic Saints & Feasts

October 16: Saint Hedwig, Religiousc.1174–1243Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of brides, widows, and SilesiaA wife and mother spreads the faith like a bishopOn every limb of the tangled branches of Saint Hedwig’s family tree sits a duke, landgrave, prince, king, queen, and count. The roots of Hedwig’s aristocratic tree likewise spread up and down the hills and valleys of Europe’s heartland. Her uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews occupied duchies, governed dioceses, sat on thrones, ran monasteries, and reigned over realms large and small in the medieval core of Christendom. Hedwig was born in a castle to a duke. At the age of twelve, she married a duke, Henry the Bearded of Silesia, a region straddling present day Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Hedwig lived when the mortar in the walls of Europe’s castles was still wet, and their moats still freshly dug. She and her kind, the early nobility of Europe, correctly understood that culture and Catholicism were synonymous. To bring the Church to a people just stepping out of the darkness of paganism was to bring hospitals, monogamy, the Mass, literacy, knowledge, schools, law, monasteries, farms, care for the poor and widows, and the hope of the Gospel. Hedwig understood this perfectly. She unapologetically promoted the faith of Jesus Christ because it was as good for the people as it was for God.Hedwig bore her husband seven children. She and Henry were a generous couple who personally cared for the sick, founded and patronized hospitals, and who promoted Catholicism through the establishment and endowment of religious houses. They established Cistercian, Augustinian, Premonstratensian, Dominican, and even very early Franciscan foundations. After their last child was born, Duke Henry and Hedwig took a mutual vow of chastity before their bishop and lived mostly apart. Henry received the tonsure and let his beard grow long. Hedwig moved close to the convent of Trebnitz, in present day Wrocław, Poland, which she and Henry had previously founded. It was the first women’s religious house in Silesia and part of Henry and Hedwig’s broader effort to develop Christian life and German culture throughout Central Europe.After Henry died in 1238, the widow Hedwig took the grey habit of the Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz Abbey, where her daughter Gertrude was abbess. It was likely not easy for Hedwig, the mother, to live in obedience to her very own daughter. Hedwig did not, however, take formal religious vows, because her wealth was still needed to support the monastery. But Hedwig otherwise lived the austere life of prayer, mortification, fasting, and poverty, which the monastic community itself lived. Early biographies relate that Hedwig also performed miracles, saw into the future, and had the gift of prophecy, even foretelling her own date of death.Saint Hedwig did not kiss the chains of her captivity, bleed to death as a martyr in the arena, or boycott her womb as a vowed and perpetual virgin. She was the wife of a powerful man and the mother of a large family. She walked the wide and well-traveled road of marriage and family domesticity. And it was along that path that she found holiness, carried the burdens of the Church’s mission on her shoulders, and left a legacy of church building normally associated with an indefatigable bishop. This wife and mother was canonized in 1267 and is buried near her husband in the abbey church at Trebnitz, where she last closed her eyes in 1243.Saint Hedwig, your missionary fervor helped build the church in your native land. May your tireless work be an example to all the faithful to use whatever station in life they occupy as a platform to better know love, and serve God and His Church.

October 16: Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin1647–1690Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of those with polio, devotees of the Sacred Heart, loss of parentsA cloistered nun’s visions of the Sacred Heart impact the Church like a meteorToday’s saint, in the eyes of the world, was nothing special. She grew up in a medium-sized town, never traveled, received a standard education, was not wealthy, had normal intelligence, and died at the age of forty-three. But she had visions. Powerful, thought-provoking, descriptive visions. If she were not a nun, people would probably have whispered that Margaret was eccentric and then politely ignored her. But Margaret’s austere life as a cloistered nun buttressed her credibility. And when a holy Jesuit priest, Saint Claude de la Colombière, disseminated the content of her visions, it sparked broader interest, which eventually spread like wildfire around the globe. The innumerable cells in the body of Christ carried Margaret Mary’s visions one to the other, until devotion to the Sacred Heart became so common as to be prototypically Catholic. But it was not always so. It was today’s saint who made devotion to the Sacred Heart commonplace.Saint Margaret Mary grew up in a large, pious, middle-class family in France in the middle of its great century of Catholic revival. She was a daughter, so to speak, of Saints Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal. The latter founded the Order of the Visitation after being inspired by the life and writings of Francis de Sales. Margaret joined her local Visitandine convent in 1671 in Paray-le-Monial, just ten years after Jane had died. Margaret suffered from serious physical ailments and so was not outstanding for her practical service to the convent. But she was especially devout and dedicated to mental prayer.From her childhood she had experienced a closeness to Jesus Christ so unique that she thought everyone experienced it. In the convent Jesus visited her often, speaking to her as if they were old friends. And like an old friend, He opened His heart to her and told her things He told no one else. He said He was sad. He said He was disappointed in the laxity of so many of the faithful, especially the laxity of those consecrated to Him. And then one day He did something extraordinary—He showed Margaret His human heart, red as a ruby.These were not visions of the exalted, seated Christ as King of the Universe, nor of Jesus the High Priest consecrating the world to the Father surrounded by saints and angels. This was the humble, slightly sad and discouraged Jesus wondering where all His friends had gone: “I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love….” It was all about the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus wanted more devotion to Him in the tabernacle, and He wanted it at specific times. He asked Margaret to come before Him for one hour at 11 p.m. every first Thursday of the month. He made promises to those who received Holy Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays. This was the seventeenth-century version of the twentieth-century Divine Mercy devotion.Saint Margaret Mary was not the first person, nor the first saint, to talk about the Sacred Heart. But she was the first dedicated ambassador of this message of mercy. And God used her effectively. As part of her canonization process, her tomb was opened in 1830 and she worked a miracle of healing. Images of the Sacred Heart were commonly enthroned in Catholic homes with its promises described in detail. In 1919 in Paris, an enormous Basilica on Montmartre was dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Saint Margaret Mary was canonized in 1920. Her body can be seen under an altar in the chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart at Paray-le-Monial.Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, your life of prayer and devotion to Jesus was that of a prolonged discussion with an intimate friend. Help us to dialogue with Jesus like you, knowing Him and loving Him in the hiddenness of the tabernacle.

October 15: Saint Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor1515–1582Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of headache sufferers and lacemakersA rich, fiery personality purifies herself and the CarmelitesThe call for reform of the Church has rung out through the centuries down to today. However, it is largely misplaced. Reform of Church structures is required periodically for her internal well-running. But purification is needed more than reform. The constant purification in holiness of the baptized is harder, more efficacious, and more enduring than the reform of Church organs of governance. Today’s saint was a reformer, yes, but she was first a purifier. She purified herself, her religious sisters, and then the Carmelite Order. Structural reform came last, after she had died. Saint Teresa of Jesus, commonly known as Saint Teresa of Ávila, was the inspiration for the great Teresas who followed her: Saints Thérèse of Lisieux, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.Saint Teresa was born behind the high and thick walls of Ávila in Central Spain, amidst that country’s greatest century. She was from a large, middle-class and pious family. As a girl, Teresa dreamed of being a martyr, or a hermit, and loved to repeat the words “forever and ever and ever.” When she decided to become a religious, she entered Ávila’s Carmelite convent mostly because it was there. The convent was large and the nuns serious. But it was a bit too comfortable. Many nuns brought their social status into the cloister and had private kitchens, oratories, and guest rooms. Teresa was one of these. Visitors came and went at will. While the convent caused no scandal, it produced no saints either. Even so, Teresa remained faithful—she prayed, observed the rule, and endured the normal fasts and mortifications. But by the mid-1500s, the wave of Church reform, even spiritual reform, which had been rising in Central Europe for decades, finally broke on the shores of Catholic Spain.Teresa suffered various health scares, read some seminal works on mental prayer, had mystical experiences, and slowly became convinced that her convent was too lax. The Church and Christ demanded more. She had developed the practice in examining her conscience to not just weigh her virtues and vices but to consider all the graces, all the good, and all the holiness God desired of her which she had impeded. Inspired by the great reformers of her century, many of them fellow Spaniards, Teresa decided to found a new Carmelite convent. There was fierce opposition from within her own convent and from the Carmelite Order more generally. Her odyssey of reform, begun in the mid-1550s, bore fruit when her first convent opened in Ávila in 1562. Her sisters wore no shoes (the meaning of the word “Discalced”), were limited to thirteen per convent, and would accept neither dowries nor endowments. The Discalced Carmelites were to be utterly poor, to fast, to mortify, and to pray intensely. But Teresa also wanted no gloomy saints. She practiced, and expected her nuns to emulate, being ever more sociable as she progressed in holiness. Everyone liked Teresa, and she liked to be liked.Teresa spent her last twenty years founding new convents as she traveled throughout Spain, all the while living in the most primitive conditions. By middle age she had earned a reputation for holiness, for legitimate mysticism, for affability, and for total obedience to the Church. She lived what she demanded of others. She led by example. And she did it all with a cheerful disposition and a rich personality that overcame deep-seated opposition. The Discalced Carmelites were given their own Spanish province in 1580 and were recognized as a distinct Order in 1594, twelve years after Teresa’s death. On a banner day in 1622, Teresa was canonized with Saints Philip Neri, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier. Teresa was the first female non-martyr to have her feast day extended to the universal Church, and due to the profundity of her mystical writings, she was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1970.Saint Teresa of Jesus, your colorful character and recollected soul merged into a powerful personality that brought about needed change. Through your intercession in heaven, assist all religious to purify themselves and their orders in accord with God’s will for the Church.

October 14: Saint Callistus I, Pope and Martyrc. Late Second Century–222Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: RedPatron Saint of cemetery workersA slave takes charge of a catacomb and rises to the papacyPopes owned slaves for centuries to row their boats, cook their meals, and care for their horses and carriages. Kings, nobles, and middle-class families owned slaves. Slavery was a ubiquitous institution not necessarily rooted in racism, which was a latecomer as a rationale for enslavement. Rather, prisoners of war and criminals of every skin color were enslaved as alternatives to capital punishment. Others were born into slavery from slave mothers, and still others in desperate circumstances sold themselves into slavery in exchange for food, shelter, and security. Today’s saint, according to ancient sources, served as a slave in a Roman home for many years and thus was part of that massive social reality of slavery that not even Saint Paul explicitly condemned in his letter to Philemon. Since he was an intelligent and resourceful servant, Callistus’ master put him in charge of his personal bank. But when Callistus lost its deposits, he was blamed and was eventually exiled to the mines of Sardinia. At some point he was released from this hard labor and earned freedom from his slave status.Pope Zephyrinus, elected in 199, placed the capable Callistus in charge of the most important underground Christian cemetery in Rome. Under Callistus it eventually grew into a sprawling, thirteen-mile warren of dark, narrow tunnels lined with tombs chiseled out of the soft tufa stone. 500,000 bodies were encased in its walls! Callistus was so successful in managing the cemetery that it came to bear his name, and bears it still—the Catacombs of Saint Callistus. Besides numerous martyrs, it also houses a famous chapel for nine third-century popes. The Catacombs were ground zero for early Christian devotion in Rome. They were not hiding places from persecution but sacred ground on which to kneel beside a martyr’s lifeless body. Saint Jerome himself writes about his regular visits to pray at the martyrs’ tombs in the catacombs a century and a half after Callistus expanded them. There were no Viking funerals, Hindu pyres, or urns on the mantle for these early Christians. They believed in the resurrection of the body, as the Church still does. They knew, instinctively, that it was more fitting to bury a body, to keep watch with the dead, than to casually bake a body like a pie.The same Pope Zephyrinus ordained Callistus as a deacon. Deacons have a tighter bond, theologically, with bishops than with priests. Since the Acts of the Apostles, they were ordained specifically to assist the first bishops, the Apostles. The first three centuries of the Church resound with the names of deacons, such as Saints Lawrence and Vincent, who were martyred alongside the popes and bishops they served. Pope Saint Sixtus II was killed, in fact, along with his coterie of deacons after they were all arrested in the Catacombs of Callistus in 258. In approximately 217, Deacon Callistus was elected the Bishop of Rome, crowning his long and arduous path from slavery to a more exalted form of service to the Divine Master as head of the entire Church.Pope Callistus encountered resistance over the perennial third-century theological-pastoral issue of how to reintegrate into the Body of Christ Catholics who had been forced to engage in emperor worship. Callistus held that if God could forgive murder and adultery he could forgive idolatry too. No sin was unforgivable. His bitter enemies, including the first antipope, Hippolytus, considered Callistus too lax and committed their calumnies to writing. This damaged Callistus’ reputation into modern times, when scholarship finally called into question the veracity of his enemies’ accounts. Saint Callistus’ life is not richly detailed, but he died in 222, most likely by martyrdom and, ironically, was not buried in his eponymous Catacomb. His original tomb was rediscovered in 1960. His remains had been transferred in the ninth century to Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which tradition holds was built over, or next to, an earlier church of which Callistus was the patron.Saint Callistus, you served an earthly master as a slave and a heavenly master as a deacon and pope. You made Christian burial and praying for the dead a defining feature of the Church of Rome. May we honor you in death just as you honored so well your own forebearers in the faith.

October 11: Saint John XXIII, Pope1881–1963Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of papal delegatesA smart, fatherly priest becomes a warm-hearted popeThe first Pope John XXIII was an amoral antipope. He was one of three competing popes between 1409–1417, the confusing, final chapter of the Western Schism whose power struggles and political intrigues tore at the fabric of the Church between 1378–1417. When today’s saint was elected Bishop of Rome in 1958, being well versed in church history, he chose the name John XXIII to put to rest forever and always any lingering confusions about the historical status of the first John XXIII.Pope Saint John XXIII was born Angelo Roncalli into a large, humble, rural family in a mountainous region of Northern Italy. He entered the local minor seminary at the age of eleven and persevered in his philosophical and theological studies, both locally and in Rome, until his ordination in 1904. Angelo had the good fortune to know, serve, and study under a succession of well-educated, charitable, and holy pastors. Both his formal and informal Church-sponsored education created in him the winning combination of rustic common sense, broad historical vision, and cultural openness that would mark his entire life. His simple, but not simplistic, farm background, stellar education, profound life of prayer, and total immersion in the rich Catholic life and history of his native region formed and molded him into a great man.After his ordination, Father Angelo Roncalli became secretary to his bishop, a saintly and pastoral prelate whose total dedication left a deep impression on the young priest who was at his side for everything for almost ten years. Father Roncalli also edited a monthly journal, taught theology and history in the seminary, gave priestly guidance to various groups, and served as an army medic and military chaplain during World War I. His engaging personality and deep wisdom left a deep impression. He was, simply, an outstanding priest. In 1921 the Pope called him to Rome to serve the universal church in various roles, including as the Vatican representative in Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, and then as the Apostolic Nuncio to Paris near the end of WWII and beyond. In 1953 he was made a Cardinal and the Patriarch of Venice, and thus returned to some of the direct pastoral duties he loved so much and which had been so reduced during his long administrative service to the Church.In October 1958 his accumulated knowledge and experience were placed at the service of the universal Church, when at the age of seventy-six he was elected pope. He surprised the world soon afterward by calling for an Ecumenical Council, the meeting of all the world’s bishops that became known as Vatican II. As pope, he published some important social encyclicals, waded into the dawning theological debates of the Council, and then died in 1963, after reigning for only four and a half years.From the age of fourteen, John XXIII had kept a spiritual journal he allowed to be posthumously published as Journal of a Soul. It reveals a trusting soul with a deep love of Jesus Christ and the Church, a man aware of all the major currents of culture, and a man of refined spirituality and profound humility. It reveals a saint. Pope John had said that he wanted to be like Pope Saint Pius X—to be born poor and to die poor. In his last will and testament he left $20 to each of the surviving members of his family. It was all he had. John XXIII was canonized on the same day as Pope Saint John Paul II on April 27, 2014. His feast day is not his date of birth, death, or ordination but the date of the opening session of Vatican II in 1962. His largely incorrupt body is visible to the faithful in a glass coffin in Saint Peter’s Basilica.Pope Saint John XXIII, may your long life of dedicated and selfless service to the Church and to her faithful be an example for all priests and bishops. May they see in you an example of the Good Shepherd who cares for his flock with wisdom and tenderness.

October 9: Saint Denis, Bishop, and CompanionsThird CenturyOptional Memorial; Liturgical Color: RedPatron Saint of ParisA missionary bishop is beheaded and the Church’s eldest daughter thrivesTherapod, Spinosaurus, Ornithopod, Ceratopsid, Triceratops. Creatures with strange names from long ago with three toes, sharp protruding vertebrae, duck heads, three horns and jaws that crushed like the serrated walls of a trash compactor. A cephalophore? A theological neologism for another creature from long ago—a martyr who carries his own head after being decapitated. Today’s saint, Denis, is the most well-known cephalophore. He cradled his own head in his arms as proof of his sacrifice, much like a soldier might point to his battle scars to prove his valor. An early medieval tradition states that Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris, after being beheaded, preached a sermon on forgiving his assassins from the mouth of his own severed head while walking seven miles from his execution site to his grave. This legend is, historically, as flimsy as tissue paper, but theologically as solid as granite.Saint Denis was a missionary bishop sent to Gaul in the mid-third century, perhaps by the martyr Pope Saint Fabian. By that time, Gaul had been evangelized only in pockets. Blanket conversion of its numerous tribes was destined for a later century, when a unified kingdom imposed a unified faith. Even great movements must have modest beginnings. So the bishop Denis, the priest Rusticus, and the deacon Eleutherius made their way north to a small Roman city called Lutetia, on the banks of the Seine River, where they served both native Romans and the Parisii, the local Gallic tribe. Denis and his companions settled on an island next to Lutetia called, today, Île de la Cité. It is the heart of Paris, the site of Notre Dame Cathedral, and the zero point from which all distances are measured in France. Denis and his companions, embodying the three Holy Orders, were successful enough to provoke the envy of pagan priests who convinced the local governor to imprison and torture them.Tradition relates that around 275 A.D., the martyrs were led to a pagan height overlooking Lutetia for their ritual beheading, thus lending the hill its name, Montmartre, or martyrs’ hill. After the sword dropped and Denis’ head separated from his torso, legend relates that he chose his own place of burial by walking, head in his arms, from Montmartre to the present day site of the Basilica for which he is the eponym. This church became the burial place of the kings of France, who strove to surpass each other in devotion to Paris’ patron.The form of capital punishment speaks, consciously or unconsciously, to the crime being punished. The heretic is burned, like his books, his flesh melting in the fires which replicate on earth those waiting for him in eternal damnation for having led the faithful astray. Every false clause, sentence, and paragraph of the heretic’s books must float into the air as cinders, never to mislead again. Death by drowning during the Reformation killed those who rejected or taught falsehoods concerning the saving waters of baptism. Hanging, a firing squad, lethal injection, suicide by jumping, the electric chair: all convey subtle meaning via the manner in which they extinguish life.Decapitation is the purest form of capital punishment, caput being Latin for “head.” The decapitation of a bishop, in particular, was meant to separate the head of the Church from its body, leaving the ship without its pilot. Saint John the Baptist, Saint Paul, Saint Cyprian, Pope Saint Sixtus II, were all Christian leaders and were all beheaded. The legend of Saint Denis is fanciful but profound. The story captures the meaning of decapitation and responds to it. Bishop Denis’ head is cleaved from his body but still united to it. Christ’s head can never be separated from His body the Church. Christ is one, head and body, and every bishop stands in Christ’s stead to exercise the fullness of Christ’s priestly ministry to teach, govern, and sanctify the people of God. A shepherd always pastors a flock, a pilot always helms a ship, and a bishop is always united to a diocese, even if that diocese is long dormant. The bishop images Christ the head to the earthly members of Christ’s body.Saint Denis and companions, you died in the mission fields of the Church’s eldest daughter, France. Your blood spilled long ago so that our blood would not spill today. We thank you for your witness and ask your intercession to make us fearless like you.

October 9: Saint John Leonardi, Priest1541–1609Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of pharmacists“Either Christ or nothing!” was his cure for every illToday’s saint was among that first wave of post-Council of Trent priests and founders whose purification of the Church started with themselves. Saint John Leonardi was a man ardently in love with Christ and Mary and the sacred field of the Catholic Church, where theological truths grow tall and dense in the richest soil. Because that sacred field was so in need of clearing, pruning, and weeding in his era, Saint John stripped from himself every single personal interest, desire, or goal and merged his life totally with that of Christ. John was like a small twig grafted onto the verdant root-stem of Christ. John, Christ, and the Church all grew and thrived together as one living thing.Like so many saints, John Leonardi was born into a large family. The hum and whistle of daily life, work, meals, conversation and prayer in large families is a small school where children learn generosity naturally. The large family’s numerous siblings serve as proxies for the diverse personalities found in the broader culture, better preparing the children for life outside the home. John’s parents won the battle for his soul early. He was a religiously inclined boy from the start. As a teenager, John studied to be a pharmacist under a local mentor for many years, leading to a life-long interest in medicine. But mature reflection eventually took him down another path. He would not apply essences, compounds, or poultices to patients’ bodies but rather feed the sacraments to people’s souls. John studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572.Father John served among the youth at parishes in his native city of Lucca, Italy, and was active in visiting hospitals and prisons. His ardour attracted a loyal following of laymen with whom he lived and worked and prayed. John’s life and priesthood flowed effortlessly into the great river of reforms that gushed from the Council of Trent, which had concluded just a few years before John was ordained. John was intensely focused on implementing the Council’s teachings. His local bishop tasked John with preaching in all of Lucca’s churches to straighten the crooked lines sketched by some theologically confused priests. Father John’s experience of orthodox preaching, and of the fierce resistance it generated, convinced him that only an impeccable moral and spiritual life could draw people to self reform and conversion. John thus sought to mirror every virtue, to be a lighthouse on the rugged cliff, drawing all people safely into the harbor of Christ.John’s small band of brothers were eventually recognized as a Congregation by successive popes, but due to local resistance, John had to move his work to Rome. He befriended Saint Philip Neri, was entrusted with reforming several monasteries, and was instrumental in founding the seminary for the future Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, a successful Vatican entity which formed priests for service in the foreign missions. John advocated the Forty Hours Devotion, frequent reception of Holy Communion, and the Christian formation of children at as early an age as possible. By 1600 Father John Leonardi was a well-known Counter-Reformation force in Italy not due to his books, new ideas, or charisma, but due to his virtue and zeal for the house of the Lord. In 1609 our saint died well but too soon. He was infected with the plague while visiting the sick. The small Congregation he founded, the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca, continues until today, purposely small and focused on their important work. Father John Leonardo was canonized in 1938 and is buried in a handsome baroque church near the Roman Forum.Saint John Leonardi, may your generous example of priestly service inspire a holy jealousy among priests so that they burn with the same desire that consumed you in service to Christ and Mary in the heart of the Church.

October 9: Saint John Henry Newman (England and Wales)1801–1890Memorial; Liturgical color: WhiteAs mellow as a breeze, as elegant as a swan, he walked alone the path to RomePope Benedict XVI, a professional theologian, did not typically perform beatification ceremonies, instead entrusting them to his Cardinals. But such was Benedict’s immense respect for Cardinal John Henry Newman’s life and thought that the Pope not only personally celebrated Newman’s beatification Mass but even traveled to England, Newman’s homeland, to do so in September 2010.Cardinal Newman is known to most American Catholics as the namesake of the Newman Centers, which are found on the campuses of many secular universities in the United States. Yet Newman’s profile casts a much broader shadow than these university centers alone. John Henry Newman was a man of vast learning culled from a life of prodigious reading. He was a one-man library who mastered both Greek and Latin, had a comprehensive knowledge of Scripture, and was conversant with the theological nuances of every great theologian of the first five centuries of the Church. In addition, Newman elucidated complex theological material in a prose so elegant that the words of his many essays and books seem to glide across the page.It was precisely in his writing where Newman’s gifts sparkled. He had that elusive gift called style. Newman’s swan-like gracefulness can be favorably compared with any other man or woman who has ever put pen to paper in the English language. Newman’s ability to express lyrically and precisely his every thought would have counted for little if he had had nothing to say. But, of course, Newman did have something to say. He had much to say, in fact. The silken threads of Newman’s words weave like a loom. His intricate sentences thread over and under and around each other, creating a taut and beautiful garment of masterful theology, original insight, and deep historical awareness. When a foe pulled at this or that thread of his theological fabric, Newman would unsheath his pen from its inkwell and wield it like a rapier to slice into shreds his opponent’s arguments, but never his character. Newman did not make personal attacks. Newman’s exquisite works make for compelling reading, provided the reader concurs. If not, Newman was, and is, a gigantic problem who must be confronted.John Henry Newman was a convert to Catholicism. He was raised as an Anglican and was somewhat evangelical in his youthful love of the Lord Jesus. As his head sunk deeper and deeper into books in adulthood, however, he concluded that to be immersed in history was to cease to be a Protestant. His conversion to Catholicism shook the English academic world and led to decades of adversarial letters, books, and essays arguing disputed theological points between Newman and his colleagues. But Newman’s ability to express his ideas on the page was so superior, his arguments so unassailable, and the personal cost he paid for converting so agonizing, that the totality of his witness ultimately carried the day. Yet Newman was more than just a brain in a jar. His bravery in converting to Catholicism manifested steely resolve and deep virtue not otherwise apparent in his genteel and sensitive personality. His conversion cost him almost everything—status, friendship, income, prestige, academic positions—and on and on. Yet his example emboldened numerous others in subsequent decades to walk the same path to Rome which Newman had first trod alone. A whole generation of English academic converts to Catholicism trace their theological lineage to Cardinal Newman.In the last few years of his life, Newman lived like a monk without a desert. Though he was never ordained a Bishop, Father Newman was named a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. It was a wreath of laurel crowning a great man’s quiet holiness, brave perseverance, immense erudition, and unequalled polish in composing from within the most dramatic work he ever authored—the story of his own holy life.Saint John Henry Newman, from your place in heaven, we ask that your virtues of serenity amid controversy, of erudition amid confusion, and of steadfastness amid attacks provide a holy example to all Christians to persevere in seeking the truth.

October 7: Our Lady of the RosaryMemorial; Liturgical color: WhitePatroness of Malaga, Spain, and the Archdiocese of VancouverMary comes to the rescue, and the Catholic West avoids the fate of the Orthodox EastIn 1204 Venetian Crusaders traveling to the Holy Land sacked Constantinople. Debts were not being paid, so something had to be done. Relics were packed up and shipped back to Italy, as well as gold, silver, precious stones, art, vestments, and booty. The city was stripped clean. The conquered have much longer memories than the conquerors, and Constantinople, the New Rome, never forgot 1204. So, in the first half of the 1400s, when Ottoman Turks ringed the walls of Constantinople, making it a tiny Christian island in a vast Islamic sea, unifying with Rome for common defense was not an option for the Orthodox.As the Muslim noose tightened around the city’s neck, little by little, year after year, Constantinople struggled for air. Emperor and Patriarch were desperate, so they finally approached the Pope and Western princes. Help us! A deal was struck. The Orthodox would unify with Rome, just in time to save Constantinople! But the memories of 1204 were too much to overcome. The Orthodox faithful rejected the rapprochement. Westerners were hated; their help unwelcome. A Byzantine official, when asked about unifying with Rome, made the sad comment that “I would rather see the Muslim turban in the midst of the city than the Latin mitre.” And so in 1453 the high, thick walls of Constantinople were breached. The Turks let loose on the city, slaves were taken, churches desecrated, the Hagia Sophia turned into a mosque, and the last Roman Byzantine Emperor, ironically named Constantine like the first Byzantine Emperor, was killed. New Rome having been taken, Old Rome was next. All of Europe now lay before the Turks like an empty table. No one and nothing stopped the Ottoman Turks until Our Lady did. The naval battle of Lepanto was the “September 11, 2001” moment of its generation. On the first Sunday of October, 1571, the ships of a Holy League of Catholic Kingdoms and the Papal States defeated the Ottoman navydecisively in the seas off of Greece. Islam was stopped in its tracks. There would be no repeat of 1453 in Old Rome. No desecration or pillaging, no murder of the Pope. A line had been drawn which has still not been crossed.Pope Saint Pius V, a Dominican, animated and organized the Holy League. He implored the faithful throughout Europe to pray the rosary, and himself led a rosary procession in the Eternal City, for Christian triumph. The ships of the Holy League were outmatched and outnumbered and needed all the divine assistance prayer could muster. These prayers were answered. The doors to the Mediterranean, and to the Atlantic beyond, were shut on the Turks. In thanksgiving for this miraculous victory, Pius V instituted the “Feast of Our Lady of Victory,” later changed to “Feast of the Holy Rosary” and finally “Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.” Pope Leo XIII added the title "Queen of the Most Holy Rosary" to the Litany of Loreto in honor of Mary’s intercession through the rosary.It may seem redundant to give Mary the title “Our Lady of the Rosary.” It sounds a bit like saying “Jesus of the Cross.” Of course she is Our Lady of the Rosary and of course He is Jesus of the Cross! Yet Mary and Jesus are multi-faceted, like diamonds whose angles and cuts play and sparkle as we admire their flawless symmetry. One mystery, then a doctrine, and then a truth, flash and blink as they rotate before us. The title “Our Lady of the Rosary” is like a facet. One aspect of the mystery of Mary shines in that title, deepening our love of the whole gem. Reflecting on one specific truth also helps the believer absorb the otherwise unfathomable greatness of God. Today our eye trains itself on the crown, the face, or just the cool elegance of our one-hundred carat Lady. Today we focus on Saint Mary, who loves to hear us call her by name, over and over and over again as our fingers run up and down the beads.Our Lady of the Rosary, we implore your intercession day in and day out, in the morning and in the evening, because we love to say your name and you love to hear us invoke you. You defeated vast armies seeking to destroy the Church. Help us to conquer our sins.

October 6: Saint Bruno, Priestc. 1030–1101Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of Calabria, Italy, and of GermanySolitary confinement is not a punishment when it is voluntary and shared with GodToday’s saint was born in an unknown year. He left his native Cologne to study in Rheims, France, as a young man and was ordained a priest around 1055. Aware of Bruno’s obvious talents, the Bishop of Rheims demanded that the young priest remain in his diocese, where Bruno became the head of Rheims’ most illustrious school for almost two decades and then Chancellor of the diocese. Bruno’s trajectory was, at this point in his life, typical of talented, educated, and well-connected priests of his era. He was destined to become a good, scholarly, and politically aware medieval bishop, the kind whose graves fill the floors and stuff the side chapels of many Gothic cathedrals. But a bad bishop altered the arc of Bruno’s trajectory.Bruno’s bishop-patron died and was succeeded by a corrupt aristocrat who had bought his office. This ecclesiastic had little concern for the Church except as a well of money and power from which he could freely drink. Revolt, sharp tensions, recriminations, and violence ensued. Everyone was damaged. Bruno withdrew from the scene, partly to avoid being named a bishop himself and partly to reevaluate what prize he was truly seeking in life. Bruno and some companions then sought out a well-known hermit in Southern France who, a few years later, would go on to found the Monastery of Citeaux, the mother foundation of the Cistercian Order. Citeaux was the very same monastery which had such an influence on Bruno’s contemporary Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. But Bruno was not meant to be a Cistercian. Still searching, Bruno and six companions approached the Bishop of Grenoble, France, who was favorable to their plan and granted them a remote location in the French Alps called Chartreuse. It was 1085. Saint Bruno’s successors reside at the Grande Chartreuse to this day, living the part hermit, part community of prayer, part work, part study, all poor, and all silent existence of Carthusian monks that Bruno envisioned.Though Bruno founded the Grande Chartreuse, he did not remain there for long. A former pupil of Bruno’s had become Pope, and he needed Bruno’s hand on the rudder to help him navigate the ship of the Church in the rough seas of medieval ecclesiastical politics. So Bruno moved to Rome and lived in a cell amidst the crumbled arches and half walls of the Baths of Diocletian. His every intention of returning to the GrandeChartreuse was frustrated. The Pope compelled Bruno to remain in Italy in case his services were needed, even as the Pope and his court were on the run from determined enemies. Resigned to his exile, and refusing an appointment as bishop in Southern Italy, in about 1094 Bruno and some followers spawned a mini-Chartreuse in Calabria, Italy, called La Torre, although this second foundation was later to be absorbed into the Cistercian Order. Bruno died there, living in silence as a monk. He was never formally canonized and left no rule for his Order, leaving that task to a successor.Saint Bruno had a burning love for the Holy Eucharist and for the Virgin Mary. Silence was also his muse. God speaks beautifully through His creation, but one must “hear” God’s silence to understand Him. Silence is a powerful form of speech, a negative word which God, as the Father of a large family, often uses to communicate. The internal word is not less of a word because it remains unspoken. A word is an internal mental tool for organizing thought before it is a means of communication. God’s own internal Word was so powerful that it became flesh and blood, a living Word more powerful than mere spoken language. Words are a form of action, but they can also limit meaning. God speaks most deeply in the action of creation, through His Son and in silence.As lovers know, a glance, a touch, a smile, a thought is sufficient. Words may add to these things, but they can also subtract from them. It has been said that even if a marble statue of Saint Bruno could stretch open its mouth, he would still keep his vow and remain silent, for “When words are many, transgression is not lacking” (Prv 10:19).Saint Bruno, your life of generous and active service to the Church was curtailed, and you chose the better portion, seeking God in silence, poverty, study, and prayer. Help all who are in the world to emulate your quiet dedication, focus, and endurance.

October 6: Blessed Rose Marie Durocher, Virgin (U.S.A.)1811–1849Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhiteInvoked against the loss of parentsWhen the call came, she was prepared to say “Yes”The story of today’s Blessed is largely one of waiting for the hammer to strike. Years of quiet, humble, and faithful generosity to family, the Church, and students prepared Eulalie (her baptismal name) for the moment when she was asked to sacrifice her entire life, eliciting from her a full throated “Yes.”Eulalie was born into a successful Quebecois family of eleven children, where sharing, sacrifice, and service were not extraordinary but simply the way things were. Three of her brothers became priests, and a sister became a nun. At the age of twelve, Eulalie entered the convent boarding school where her sister was a novice. But poor health impeded her acceptance into Montreal’s Congregation of Notre Dame. Her boarding school classmates noted Eulalie’s sterling character, charm, meekness, and delicate attentiveness to the will of God.When her mother died prematurely in 1830, Eulalie took on a maternal role, caring for her siblings and making the family’s house a home. A year later she, her father, and the family moved onto the premises of a parish where her brother was the priest. For twelve years, Eulalie served as the parish secretary and housekeeper, all the while keenly noting the desperate need for a religious congregation to educate the mass of rich and poor children of Quebec who remained ignorant for lack of schools.In 1841, the great Bishop Eugene de Mazenod of Marseilles, France, the founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, was coordinating with a Canadian priest to send a teaching order of sisters to Quebec. Eulalie learned of the effort and committed herself in advance. But it was not God’s will and the plan failed. Along with her earlier non-acceptance by the convent, this was the second great disappointment of Eulalie’s life. The Church was not yet ready to accept her “Yes.” Her long engagement with Christwould again be delayed before the two could be permanently bonded at the altar.When he realized his French-based missionary plan would fail, Bishop Mazenod recommended to the Bishop of Montreal that he start his own local congregation of teaching sisters. After the usual steps had been completed, in 1843 Eulalie’s dream came true. When the hammer finally struck and she was asked to become a sister, Eulalie’s powder was dry, her aim true, and her life ready to hit its target. The Bishop of Montreal, moreover, not only asked her to join the new Congregation but to lead it! Two other women trained with Eulalie under the guidance of an Oblate priest. In 1844 the three took vows and received the religious habit, with Eulalie taking the religious name Marie-Rose. The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary were born, with Sister Marie-Rose Durocher as the Mother Superior.The services of the new Congregation were in intense demand, and the sisters responded with due generosity. The number of students exploded, new convents were established, and vocations flourished. In just five years, by 1849, there were four convents of the Holy Names’ Sisters educating hundreds of boys and girls in both French and English. Our Blessed, though, had never conquered her poor health, and the non-stop work of the new Congregation weakened her already fragile frame. Sister Marie-Rose died in 1849 at the age of thirty-eight. Her marriage to Christ was late but not long.In 1927 the local effort to investigate her heroic virtue commenced, leading to her beatification by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1982. With one more verified miracle, our Blessed will be canonized a saint. Blessed Marie-Rose lived a mostly quiet life of service to others, observing and absorbing where her spiritual and practical skills could most fruitfully be utilized. She was ready through long practice when the call to generosity finally came.Blessed Marie-Rose, inspire all educators to dedicate themselves fully to the needs of the young so in need of religious instruction. May your example lead Catholic teachers to see their work as a vocation in service to Christ more than a mere profession in service to the world.

October 5: Saint Faustina Kowalska, Virgin1905-1938Optional Memorial: Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of MercyHer humble sail caught a powerful theological windThe martyr Saint Faustino was killed in the second decade of the second century in northern Italy under the emperor Hadrian. Nothing else is known of him. Today’s saint was baptized Helen and, for unknown reasons, was given the martyr’s name when making her first religious vows. Saint Faustino must be honored, and grateful, to share his name with so holy and consequential a nun as Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, who was canonized in 2000, and whose optional memorial was added to the Church’s universal calendar in 2020.Saint Faustina was a peasant in the best sense of the word. She could read and write but otherwise attended school for only a few years in her rural village in central Poland. Her large and pious family needed her hand on the plow, financially speaking, and so at the age of sixteen young Helen Kowalska obtained work as a housekeeper in nearby towns. She was expert in the domestic arts of sewing, cleaning, cooking, and the related skills which convert a house into a home. These skills served her well, but not long, in the convents where she resided throughout her short life.While she felt called to be a religious sister as a child, Helen’s parents were reluctant to let her enter a convent at too tender an age. But then, in her late teens, Christ appeared and spoke to Helen in mysterious and deeply personal encounters, demanding that she not keep Him waiting much longer. These visions propelled the pious teen to seek acceptance in a big-city convent. She moved to Warsaw at nineteen, received advice from a sympathetic priest, and knocked on the doors of various convents hoping that one of them, just one, would accept her. One finally did. After proving herself in its novitiate, she took solemn vows and spent the rest of her life as a faithful nun doing humble chores alongside her religious sisters in convents in Poland and present-day Lithuania.Like so many saints, the unseen vigils, prayers, mortifications, fasts, and sufferings were Faustina’s real life, while the visible realities seen by her fellow religious and the occasional visitor were of lesser importance. And what went unseen in Saint Faustina’s life was astounding! This humble nun experienced remarkably vivid, high-octane, technicolor, 3-D visions of Jesus Christ in the chapel, behind the door, in her cell, and around every corner for many years. Jesus’ strong voice spoke to her in a direct and unmistakably clear manner about His desires for her life. He commanded her, repeatedly, to spread the message of Divine Mercy. So Faustina had an artist paint a famous image of Christ with two rays emanating from his chest, promoted a liturgical feast day in honor of the Divine Mercy on the Sunday after Easter, and kept an exhaustive diary chronicling the content of her vivid spiritual experiences.Saint Faustina’s message is not really Saint Faustina’s message. It is God’s message. God wants mankind to know, and to feel, the Divine Mercy oozing out of the heart of Christ. This mercy, unlike human or judicial mercy, can wash away even the most wretched sins. God’s mercy is not in competition with his justice but is an over abundance of justice. God knows all things and forgives all things when His mercy is freely requested. The modern western world is very focused on questions of justice – racial justice, economic justice, environmental justice, etc… But it is, at the same time, opposed to judging. This dichotomy of favoring justice but abhorring judging is incongruous. The modern west suffers from similar tensions regarding the virtue of mercy.An American Cardinal noted years ago that modern secular culture permits, even promotes, practically everything. It seems that no moral aberration, sin, or dysfunctional behavior is not smiled upon as a rightful expression of personal freedom. And yet…modern secular culture forgives almost nothing. “Just Do it!” But, beware, when you do do it, you might never be forgiven for having done it. The message of Divine Mercy is that because all can be forgiven, all relationships can be restored. Relationships precede our rights and even our choices. We are more than our choices! We are more than our rights! And when we receive mercy, or extend mercy to others, our relationships with ourselves, with friends, family, nature, and God are restored.Every expression or reception of mercy is like a mini jubilee-year. Every traveler returns home, every field lies fallow, and every debt is forgiven. Mercy is the father waiting on the ridge. He sees the ragged figure on the horizon limping home in the evening light. The petition for mercy. The granting of mercy. The tight embrace. The relationship restored. The ring on his finger. The robe on his back. The calf on the spit. The feast begins. Divine Mercy conquers all.Saint Faustina, your humble and generous service to the Church included sharing your visions and the message of Divine Mercy. Help all who seek your intercession to be blessed with your same virtue and your same docility to God’s will.

October 5: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, Priest (U.S.A.)1819–1867Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhiteInvoked against cancerA good man becomes a great priest serving immigrants in the young United StatesShip after ship, riding low in the water with the weight of thousands of European immigrants, docked in the harbors of the great coastal cities of the United States in the nineteenth century. Transatlantic ship passage was by then routine and relatively safe. These immigrants traveled to America’s open prairies and virgin forests to carve out farms, charter towns, and establish schools where none had ever existed before. These daring men and women came to build new lives, lives often of deep faith. So priests and nuns came with them, planting the seeds of an ancient religion into fresh soil.Today’s Blessed was one of those immigrants. Francis Seelos was born into a large family in Bavaria, a land thick with medieval castles, crusader tombs, and timeless traditions. Francis left that rich culture for a new life on the American frontier. He exhausted himself riding horseback, walking, and traveling by ferries and trains up and down and across the wide flowing rivers and narrow dirt roads of the young United States, serving new citizens but age-old Catholics.Blessed Francis felt the call to the Priesthood from a young age. He had the support of his family and local clergy and duly studiedphilosophy and theology from some distinguished professors in his native land. One of his Benedictine teachers was the pioneer who later brought the Benedictine Order to America. By accidents of history, the Redemptorist Order, though founded in Italy by an Italian, had become more prominent in Germany. Francis met Redemptorist priests during his education and became intrigued with their work among the immigrants who had emptied out swathes of Germany to go to America. So Francis joined the Redemptorists with the specific intention of serving the many priest-less German Catholics across the ocean.It was not easy for Francis to leave his close-knit family. Only his father knew his secret plan. Only his father knew that Francis’ departure for the seminary would be the last time he would ever leave home. Francis embraced his mother and siblings and said goodbye. He then came to his father, who, wordless, tearfully gestured with his finger toward the sky. Son and father knew. They would meet again in heaven. Francis never saw his family again.Francis arrived in New York in 1843 and was ordained a priest in 1844 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was first assigned to a parish in Pittsburg, and then was assigned to serve alongside Saint John Neumann, a fellow Redemptorist. They carried out ordinary parish duties and gave parish missions. Father Francis quickly gained a reputation as holy, always available, amiable, and wise. Like Neumann, he became well known as a sage confessor who exercised this ministry of mercy in multiple languages.Father Francis’ apostolic zeal, prudence, kindness, and doctrinal integrity thrust him into positions of leadership in his order. He was so skilled a priest, and so admired for his virtue, that he was proposed to be the Bishop of Pittsburgh. Francis only narrowly avoided this exalted burden by personally writing to Pope Pius IX arguing for his own inadequacy. After years of priestly service in America’s eastern portion, Francis became an itinerant German and English preacher in the nation’s middle, crisscrossing Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri.In 1866 Father Francis was assigned to New Orleans, where he continued his tireless, uncomplaining priestly service, and where his prayers were considered unusually efficacious. But in New Orleanshis service came to an end. He contracted yellow fever while visiting some of its victims. He died at 48 years old, but not before at least one miracle of healing was attributed to his intercession while he lay dying. His cause was opened in 1900, and Francis Seelos was beatified in 2000 by Pope Saint John Paul II. This priest par excellence stands shoulder to shoulder with Saints Marianne Cope, Damian de Veuster, John Neumann, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, and thousands of non-saint clergy and nuns, all nineteenth-century European immigrant missionaries to America. They each left things comfortable and known for their opposites. They each made immense personal sacrifices to pass on the faith, to give a new church new heroes.Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, your zeal, intelligence, and innate goodness was plain for all to see. You were an ideal priest loved by all you encountered. Through your intercession, help all missionaries to persevere in their difficult vocations in unfamiliar lands.

October 4: Saint Francis of Assisic. 1182–1226Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of animals, ecology, and merchants. Co-patron of ItalyA merchant’s son of eccentric sensibilities goes radicalThough originally baptized by his mother as Giovanni (John) in honor of Saint John the Baptist, today’s saint was renamed Francesco, or “Frenchy,” by his father Pietro de Bernardone after Pietro returned home from trading in France. Pietro loved France, and his son’s romantic, troubadour spirit likely flowed from that same cultural source.Francesco grew up in a middle-class home that engaged in the sale of fine cloth. Francis was a skilled merchant in the family business, but he enjoyed spending money more than earning it. He was a man about town, a leader among his friends, and well liked for his concern for others. He was also a failed knight. When he was twenty, Francis joined a civic-minded Assisi militia in a battle against a neighboring city. When the militia was routed, Francis was spared death and instead held for ransom due to his fine livery. He was held prisoner in a rank dungeon for a year before the ransom was paid. He returned to Assisi a more reflective man. Subsequent military service for the Papal States ended abruptly when Francis heard a voice tell him, “Follow the master rather than the man.” He sold his expensive armor and horse, returned home, and began to spend hours in prayer.Shortly after this turning point, Francis met a leper on the outskirts of Assisi. He initially recoiled, but then dismounted, gave the man some money, and kissed his putrid hand. This was the start of his frequent visits to leper houses and hospitals. When Francis heard a voice from the cross say to him, “Francis, go and repair my church, which as you can see is in ruins,” he sold a large amount of cloth and his father’s horse at a neighboring market town. Coming back to Assisi, he donated the proceeds to a priest at the church of San Damiano on the outskirts of Assisi. Francis’ father was irate. His son had sold cloth from the family store, and a horse, and had thengiven away money that was not his. This was stealing, and Francis was put in prison. A dramatic scene then unfolds between Francis and his father in a church square, in the presence of Bishop Guido of Assisi and his court. Pietro demands the return of his money. The Bishop supports him and says the Church cannot accept stolen money. Francis returns the coins. But then Francis goes further. Piece by piece, he removes his clothing until he is naked before everyone’s eyes. He then says, “From now on I will not say ‘My Father, Pietro Bernardone’ but ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’” There is not a single reference in any contemporary Franciscan document to Pietro after this dramatic incident. Francis was now cut off, disinherited, and on his own.Francis eventually begins to wear a rough smock which he ties around his waist with a cord. He lives alone in absolute poverty, prays, helps the sick, rebuilds nearby run-down chapels, and preaches and begs in Assisi. Men begin to follow his lead, and the first fire of the worldwide Franciscan order ignites. The “Lesser Brothers of Assisi” is recognized by the Pope, Francis is ordained a deacon, and the Order’s explosive growth can only be called miraculous. Saint Francis is the first great founder of a religious order since Saint Benedict in the 500s. By sheer allure of personality, holiness, and vision, not intellect or organizational skill, he imparted a mysteriously powerful charism to his followers. He was ardent in his love for the Holy Eucharist and insisted that churches be well kept in honor of the Lord’s physical presence.Francis died in his forty-fourth year and was canonized just two years later, in 1228. Saint Francis may be the most well-known person of the second millennium. A measure of his massive impact can be gauged by observing that it is not uncommon for Saint Francis to be seen as the ideal of Christian virtue and poverty, even over and above the religion’s very founder.Saint Francis of Assisi, you held the Holy Eucharist in such holy reverence you dared not be ordained a priest. Your love of the Word of God complimented your love of His creation. Help all Christians to have your same balance of love for God, the Sacraments, and all God’s creation.

October 2: The Holy Guardian AngelsMemorial; Liturgical Color: WhiteA personal spiritual bodyguard watches your backIntuition is a fully formed way of thinking. It is more than just the occasional hunch or subtle perception. Native instinct, or “gut,” is used to calculate, discern, and decide on matters big and small throughout daily life. We think we are dryly logical about a decision to trust one accountant and not another, to frequent this store over that, or to confide in this new friend rather than that old one. But in reality it may just be a small mustard stain on the accountant’s shirt collar that convinces us that he is not the right man for the job. Squinty eyes, a weak handshake, a laugh, or just the way someone holds open the door or sips their coffee. We pay very close attention to the slightest nuances of facial gestures, body language, and tone of voice to draw immediate conclusions about people. We are not as coldly rational as we like to think.So when an atheist, for example, walks alone down a remote country road in the dark of night and hears a long lost voice in the whistling wind, or sees tree branches twist themselves into a bony finger, he grows frightened. If he were to feel the breathy presence of someone hovering just over his shoulder at that same moment, the atheist’s sober rationality would be worth nothing. His valves of feeling and intuition would be fully open, the pores of his mind would be absorbing every ounce of strange reality, and a shiver of fright would run up his spine like an electrical charge. He would be in full contact with a reality as elusive to describe, yet as normal to experience, as intuition itself.The holy guardian angels are created spirits, whereas God is an uncreated spirit. A man, however, is more than a spirit. He is an enfleshed soul procreated by parents who participate in God’s creative act. Though we are part spirit and part matter, we can nonetheless imagine what it would be like to be a pure spirit, like an angel. We close our eyes and imagine standing at the pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and suddenly we are there, gazing over the City of Lights. The mind travels, the imagination soars, the soulreflects. It’s our body that keeps our feet planted in one place and time. But if mind, soul, and imagination were not so tethered, then we would zip around the universe like an angel, a spirit unleashed, held back by nothing. God created the angels like He created us, out of nothing. God’s will is creative in the strict sense of that word. “Let there be light,” He said, and there was light. His will brings worlds into creation and maintains them there. God willed the angels into creation to communicate His messages, to protect mankind, and to engage in spiritual battle with fallen demon angels.The age-old tradition of the Church is that every Christian, and perhaps every human being, has an angel guardian protecting him from physical and spiritual harm. Christ warned, “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:10). An angel was at Christ’s side in the Garden of Gethsemane, and an angel delivered Saint Peter from prison. The Fathers of the early Church wrote prolifically about the dense realm of the spirit inhabited by angels. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that the angels belong to Christ. “They are his angels” (CCC #331). The Catechism also quotes Saint Basil, “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” (CCC #336).We intuit that the world was made for more than just us, whether those “others” are lit with holiness or obscured by darkness. Some people scan the skies for alien ships in Low-Earth Orbit. Others listen for strange patterns of speech transmitted like radio signals through the cosmos. Is there life on Mars? Are there colonies behind the sun? There is no need to search so far, to seek life in the cold blackness of space. There are spirits all around us. Some need to walk down a dark country road to finally touch the realm of the spirit. Others are more fortunate and know from childhood that our guardian angels are present and accounted for, standing right over our shoulder, at God’s constant command to serve and protect.Holy Guardian Angels, we implore your continued vigilance over our lives. Keep us from physical and spiritual harm, increase our trust in your presence, and remind us to turn to you when our well-being is threatened in any way.

October 1: Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor1873–1897Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of florists, missions, and aviatorsA sensitive country girl wades into the deepThérèse Martin was a weepy child, as emotionally brittle as porcelain. She was easily offended and easily pleased. A furled brow or a sideways glance from her father would dissolve her into tears. A beautiful flower or a kind word and she would beam a smile. She grew up in a brotherless home. Her father, an uncle, and priests were the men in her life. Her parents were canonized in 2015, the only married couple ever raised to the altars. Thérèse and her four sisters all became nuns, with the cause for beatification and canonization of her sister Léonie being opened in 2015. The Martin home was totally absorbed in the mysteries of God, prayer, saints, the Sacraments, and the Church.Thérèse grew up in Normandy, a region of Northern France. She left only once, to go on a month-long pilgrimage to Italy, where she met Pope Leo XIII at a public audience and begged his special permission to enter the Carmelites before the required age. On this trip she was also the object of some tender male glances. Conscious of her delicate emotions and eager to flee the world’s “poisonous breath,” upon returning from Italy Thérèse pulled every lever to enter her local Carmel. She finally entered at the age of fifteen in 1888. She was given the religious name “of the Child Jesus” and received permission to adopt a second name too, “of the Holy Face.” Once the door of the convent shut behind her, it never reopened. Her short life ended there just nine years later. Thérèse was a dedicated nun who strictly followed the demanding Carmelite rule. She kept silence when required, avoided seeking out her blood sisters, fasted, ingratiated herself with nuns she did not naturally find sympathetic, and spent long hours in prayer and work.In the convent, Thérèse’s childish sweetness matured into a more durable spirituality. Her sensitivity mellowed. She was able to accept criticism. Her youthful presumption that all priests were as perfectas diamonds became more realistic, and she prayed and sacrificed ardently for priests. The hard realities of convent life narrowed Thérèse’s spiritual goals. She no longer desired to be a great soul like Saint Joan of Arc. But with this narrowing came a deepening, a concentrated focus. She decided she would be God’s heart, not His hands or feet or mind. She decided that the only way she could fly close to the blazing sun of the Holy Trinity would be to become small.Her petite voie (“little way” or “by small means”) was to spiritually reduce herself to a tiny creature carried in the claws of the divine eagle, Jesus Christ. As Christ soared in the heavens, she would be in His grasp, going only where He could go, until she was burned up in the Father-Son-Spirit love of the fireball of the Trinity. This was no broad path or wide way but a little way for a great soul. The goal was to reduce oneself to nothing so the Lord could transport you. The goal was to remove the “self” from “oneself.”When Thérèse’s sister Céline entered the convent in 1894, she was given permission to bring her camera. Céline's pictures of Thérèse would be among the first ever taken of a saint. They complimented Thérèse’s letters and spiritual writings perfectly, heightening interest in Thérèse after she died. The intriguing photos and profound writings hinted at the secret depths concealed behind a convent’s four walls. Saint Thérèse suffered intensely from tuberculosis and died at an age when many lives are just beginning to flower. She was canonized in 1925, declared co-patron of France in 1944, and named the thirty-third Doctor of the Church by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1997, the youngest Doctor to date and probably the youngest the Church will ever recognize.Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, you discovered deep truths in a confined space. Your soul was fertile ground for the mysteries of our faith. Lend heavenly assistance to all who try to emulate your example of suffering, prayer, and tender dedication to God.

September 30: Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctorc. 345–420Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of archeologists, Biblical scholars, and librariansA prickly scholar translates the Bible into Latin forever and alwaysToday’s saint was living in Antioch in the 370s when he had a vision. Jerome was standing in the presence of the seated Christ, who asked him who he was. “I am a Christian,” Jerome responded. “LIAR!” Jesus yelled. “You are a Ciceronian, not a Christian, for where your treasure is, there also is your heart.” Jerome indeed loved Cicero and other Latin stylists. The fine prose in their works gave him the greatest pleasure. But Jerome had also been reared in a Christian home, been baptized as an adult in Rome, and had frequently descended into the darkened catacombs to pray at the tombs of the martyrs and saints. His double identity as a scholar of Latin and Greek rhetoric on the one hand, and as a committed Christian on the other hand, dueled within him. Jerome fervently loved God and the Catholic religion with all his soul, but it was a troubled soul. Jerome was full of spit and vinegar. He was a complex man and a complex saint.Saint Jerome was born in an unknown year in a region northeast of Venice, Italy. His father sent him as a young man to Rome to perfect his education under a famous tutor. Jerome was a superb student and mastered Latin and Greek. At about the age of thirty, he decided to become a monk and traveled to the desert of Syria. For four years he lived a life of austerity, penance, and isolation. He fasted from the classics he loved so much and instead studied Hebrew from a Jewish convert. When he finally came out of the desert, he was ordained a priest in Antioch but never truly exercised any priestly ministry. He studied under the great Saint Gregory Nazianzen in Constantinople and began to publish some translations and biblical commentaries. Around 382 Jerome went to Rome with his bishop to serve as an interpreter and aide. Jerome so impressed Pope Saint Damasus that the Pope then invited the young Jerome to be his secretary. At this point, in his forties and while living in Rome, Jerome began the monumental task of translating the entire Bible into Latin from original Greek and Hebrew texts. It would take him years. The existing Old Latin Bible was not cohesive but a jumble of texts stitched together under one cover. Various scholars had generated divergent translations for purely local use. So the Gospel of John in a Jerusalem-based manuscript differed from the same Gospel in a manuscript in Gaul. The one Church, spread throughout the known world, needed one Bible to match its broad scope and theological unity. Jerome was the man for the job. After just a few years in Rome, after the death of his patron Pope Damasus, and due to the enemies his blunt words and fiery temper always seemed to create, Saint Jerome left Rome for the Holy Land. He lived in a cave near Bethlehem and focused on translating. Some holy and pious women from Rome followed him there and formed a quasi-monastic community around him.Jerome’s translation, known as the Vulgate, became the standard Latin version of the Bible over time, pushing the Old Latin version into oblivion. The Council of Trent formally stated that the Vulgate was the official Bible of the Catholic Church. So Catholicism has a “The Bible,” a claim which no other church can make. No “The Bible” ever floated down from heaven on a golden pillow. Except for Jerome’s, a “The Bible” doesn’t exist. There are thousands of ancient scraps of Scripture from hundreds of ancient texts from scores of libraries and monasteries in dozens of countries, but a publisher and its consultants ultimately choose which texts to include in any published Bible and which to exclude. Catholicism has no such flimsy process. Its sacred word is not dependent on scholarly fashion and whim. It has a baseline. The Vulgate is like a dropped anchor resting on the ocean floor. It keeps the ship of the Church from drifting. Catholicism is a religion of the Word more than of the Book, but it has a definitive book, nonetheless. The fiery Saint Jerome died peacefully in 420, exhausted from his scholarly labors and life of penance. His remains can be found directly below the high altar of Saint Mary Major Basilica in Rome in a handsome porphyry sarcophagus.Saint Jerome, you lived a life dedicated to studying the Word of God, to penance, and to prayer. You placed your knowledge and scholarly gifts at the service of the Church which used them wisely. Help all the faithful to serve the Church as much as the Church serves them.

September 29: Saints Michael, Gabriel, & Raphael, ArchangelsFeast; Liturgical Color: WhitePatrons of soldiers (Michael); mailmen (Gabriel); travelers and the blind (Raphael)The air between God and man is thick with mystical beingsIt is a principle of Catholic theology that salvation is mediated, that individual man does not go to God alone, and that God does not come to man alone. This means that there are layers of words, symbols, art, priests, nuns, catechists, music, books, churches, shrines, and endless other things and places and people that channel God to us. Even using the name “God” or “Father” or “Jesus Christ” presupposes the mediation of language. So although someone may say they want to “cut out the middleman”of the Church and go directly to God, they can’t. At some point in their youth, they absorbed who God was from others, so even the most basic, apparently innate knowledge we have of God is mediated, if only by nature itself. Today’s feast is about the created spiritual beings known as angels who fill the space between God and man, communicating His message, protecting man from harm, and battling against the armies of Satan. The Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael transmit some of God’s most important messages.Michael leads the war cry in a mysterious, metaphysical battle against the Devil and his minions in the Book of Daniel. "There is no one with me who contends against these princes except Michael, your prince” (Dn 10:21), and "At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise” (Dn 12:1). Michael means “Who is like God.”Gabriel is an essential figure in the events surrounding the Incarnation. We first meet him in the Jerusalem Temple, announcing the birth of Saint John the Baptist to his father, Zachary: "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news" (Lk 1:19). He later conveys the message of all messages to the Virgin Mary, eliciting her “Yes” to God’s sublime invitation. Gabriel means “the strength of God.”Raphael appears in the disguise of a man in the Book of Tobit, guiding the young Tobiah along his journey. "…God sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord" (Tb 12:14–15). Raphael means “God heals.”The Old Testament description of the angels worshipping before the throne of God is one of fierce power: “...each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Is 6:2–3)These beings are far from the pudgy, pillow-soft, fat-cheeked baby angels so often depicted in art. Today’s feast is for the mighty six-winged angels, the deadly serious ministers of God’s messages. These Archangels engage in consequential spiritual battle, know that God and His Word are not frivolous, and carry out their missions as emissaries of the Most-High. We invoke them now just as Saint Patrick did in the fifth century: “I arise today through the strength of the love of cherubim, in the obedience of angels, in the service of archangels, in the hope of resurrection to meet with reward.” Amen.Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, we invoke your powerful intercession before the throne of God in heaven. By your spiritual assistance, protect us from harm, heal us of our infirmities, and convey to us God’s will for our lives.

September 28: Saint Wenceslaus, Martyrc. 907–929Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: RedPatron Saint of the Czech Republic and SlovakiaA young duke is killed by a jealous brother and becomes a Czech iconWhen the famous die young, their unwrinkled faces, dark hair, and youthful vigor are frozen in time, forever vital, forever attractive, forever fresh. Time is not given its chance to run over their skin like water over rocks. No shaping, cracking, molding or shifting of the surfaces. Before the modern cult of celebrity held up athletes, movie stars, and musicians for supreme adulation, most cultures revered their royalty, soldiers, or holy men and women. Kings and princes, bishops and saints, chiefs and warriors served the common good by governing, praying for, and protecting the people. No class of entertainers distracted a populace from the leadership that mattered. Today’s saint, Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia, was felled in a fateful encounter with his brother Boleslaus the Cruel. Wenceslaus was already famous when he died young and dramatically. All the ingredients needed to guarantee a lasting legacy were present, and his memory endured. He was recognized by the Church as a martyr, posthumously given the title of King, and quickly became an iconic figure to the Bohemian people such that his Feast Day, September 28, is a national holiday in the modern Czech Republic.Wenceslaus lived as Christianity was still dawning in Central Europe. German missionaries had been laboring among pagan tribes for a few generations with success, but the visible layer of a Christian culture rested on a rock-hard pagan substrata. Central and Eastern Europe were passing through the normal stages of evangelization, as an age-old culture with all of its customs and traditions was slowly pushed back by a greater force moving across the landscape like a glacier. Catholicism had moved into Bohemia by the 900s, but the religious environment was not yet monolithic. As our martyr’s death attests, religious and political divisions still ran through the culture.The grandfather of Wenceslaus may have been converted by no less than Saints Cyril and Methodius themselves. His grandmother Ludmila was an ardent Catholic and oversaw Wenceslaus’ excellent education in which he learned to read and write both Slavonic and Latin. Wenceslaus’ mother, Drahomira, clung to the old ways, though she was nominally a Christian. When Drahomira thought Ludmila was encouraging Wenceslaus to assume power as a teen, Drahomira had her mother-in-law strangled to death with her own veil. Once he did take power, Wenceslaus banished his own mother, solidified control of Western Bohemia, and became an honorable ruler. He followed the law, favored education, and promoted the form of Christianity practiced in Germany, not in the East. This was a fateful decision. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are Slavic peoples of the Latin Rite, unlike their Byzantine Rite Slavic cousins to the east of the Orthodox curtain. Wenceslaus was pro-Western theologically and liturgically, while retaining his Slavic identity and independence in other essential matters. This double allegiance endures and lends Slavic Catholicism its unique features.But for all of Wenceslaus’ brief successes, in the shadows lurked Boleslaus, creating a power center in Eastern Bohemia. When Wenceslaus’ wife gave birth to a son, Boleslaus knew he would not succeed his brother, so he plotted his murder. Boleslaus and his henchman struck down the young Duke Wenceslaus in 929 on the Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian and on the Vigil of Saint Michael the Archangel. “Brother, may God forgive you” were our martyr’s last words.Saint Wenceslaus, you were the model of a just ruler in your brief reign. You saw it as your sacred duty to promote the true God and His religion. Help all rulers and leaders to see morality, liturgy, prayer, and catechesis as the bedrock of a just society.

September 28: Saint Lawrence Ruiz & Companions, Martyrsc. 1600–1637Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: RedPatron Saints of the PhilippinesA married father remains unbroken under the cruelest tortureMany lesser-known faces in the deep audience of saints bask in the soft glow of sanctity emanating from the more prominent “marquee” saints standing on stage. In the Church’s calendar of saints, these more obscure observers of the principle action are often classified as “companions.” They can encompass dozens, or even hundreds, of men and women on a given feast day. Today’s saint, Lawrence Ruiz, is commemorated along with fifteen just such “companions,” in this case mostly missionary priests. Interestingly, Saint Lawrence is not the companion to the priests he died with. The priests, instead, are listed as Lawrence’s companions. The married Lawrence is on stage while his companion priest martyrs are in the audience.Saint Lawrence was born of a Chinese father and a Philipino mother, both of whom were Catholic. Growing up in the Philippines, he served as an altar boy, was educated by Dominican priests, and belonged to a fraternal society dedicated to the Holy Rosary. Because he was an educated and careful writer in a largely illiterate culture, he became a clerk and a calligrapher. He married a woman named Rosario, and they had three children. He and his family lived an ordinary, secure, peaceful life of faith. As 1636 dawned, there was no reason to guess that Lawrence would continue living anything other than a quiet life focused on home and work. But then everything suddenly and drastically changed.Lawrence was implicated, falsely, in the death of a Spaniard. It was a charge so serious he had to flee the Archipelago. Through his friendships with priests, he was invited to board a ship with three Dominicans, a Japanese priest, and a layman. In June of 1636, the small vessel sailed for Japan, a hornet’s nest buzzing with anti-Catholic persecution. The ship intended to land in a peaceful region devoid of persecution, but instead errantly docked in Okinawa at the worst possible moment. Feudal Japanese Shoguns were out for the blood of Catholics, and the missionaries walked right into their tight grip. They spent over a year in prison before, along with still more Catholic prisoners, they were marched to Nagasaki for the inevitable slur against their deepest beliefs.The Japanese had devised torture techniques carefully calibrated to elicit maximum agony and the renunciation of the faith. On September 27, 1637, the prisoners had huge amounts of water poured down their throats, were covered with boards, and then stepped on by guards, forcing the water to spurt out of their mouths, noses, and ears. Then they were tightly bound, with one hand free in case they wanted to signal renunciation of the faith, and hung upside down over a pit. Heavy stones were tied to their bodies to draw blood more quickly down into their torsos and skulls. As the red liquid painfully pressurized their cranial sacs, the torturers strategically cut the victim’s heads to release the collected blood. This prevented the loss of consciousness and prolonged the throbbing pain. Amidst this anguish, no one broke. No one renounced their faith. No one cried out for relief. Mental images of mother and father, of smiling wife and children, of home, the fireplace, and warm embraces, did not prevail. It was God or death. Lawrence’s reputed last words were “I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly accept death for God; Had I a thousand lives, all these I would offer to God.”As their chest cavities filled with blood, the victims hearts could pump no more. Lawrence suffocated to death within a day or two. Some of the priests did not succumb as quickly and were beheaded. Lawrence’s fifteen companions were Japanese, Spanish, French, and Italian priests; a few consecrated women; and laymen, almost all Dominicans. Their bodies were burned and their ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. Lawrence was beatified in 1981 in Manila, the first beatification performed outside the city of Rome. After a Philippina baby with hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, was cured through his intercession, Saint Lawrence was canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1987. He is the protomartyr of the only Catholic nation in Asia, the Philippines.Saint Lawrence, you were a married father yet forsook return to your earthly home to win a more glorious home in heaven. Help all fathers to be generous in quiet and in tumultuous times, to persevere in small things so they are able to display fortitude in great things.