She helped resolve the Avignon papacy ordeal; is declared a Doctor of the Church

 

St. Catherine of Siena

St. Catherine of Siena was born during the outbreak of the plague in Siena, Italy on March 25, 1347. She was the 25th child born to her mother, although half of her brothers and sisters did not survive childhood. Catherine herself was a twin, but her sister did not survive infancy. Her mother was 40 when she was born. Her father was a cloth dyer.

At the age of 16, Catherine's sister, Bonaventura, died, leaving her husband as a widower. Catherine's parents proposed that he marry Catherine as a replacement, but Catherine opposed this. She began fasting and cut her hair short to mar her appearance.

Her parents attempted to resist this move, to avoid marriage, but they were unsuccessful. Her fasting and her devotion to her family, convinced them to relent and allow her to live as she pleased. Catherine once explained that she regarded her father as a representation of Jesus and her mother as Our Lady, and her brothers as the apostles, which helped her to serve them with humility.

Despite Catherine's religious nature, she did not choose to enter a convent and instead she joined the Third Order of St. Dominic, which allowed her to associate with a religious society while living at home.

Fellow Dominican sisters taught St. Catherine how to read. Meanwhile, she lived quietly, isolated within her family home.

St. Catherine developed a habit of giving things away and she continually gave away her family's food and clothing to people in need. She never asked permission to give these things away, and she quietly put up with their criticisms.

Something changed her when she was 21. She described an experience she referred to as her "mystical marriage to Christ." There are debates over whether or not St. Catherine was given a ring with some claiming she was given a bejeweled ring, and other claiming the ring was made of Jesus's skin. St. Catherine herself started the rumor of the latter in her writings, but she was known to often claim the ring itself was invisible.

Such mystical experiences change people, and St. Catherine was no exception. In her vision, she was told to reenter public life and to help the poor and sick. She immediately rejoined her family and went into public to help people in need.

She often visited hospitals and homes where the poor and sick were found. Her activities quickly attracted followers who helped her in her mission to serve the poor and sick.

St. Catherine was drawn further into the world as she worked, and eventually she began to travel, calling for reform of the Church and for people to confess and to love God totally. She became involved in politics, and was key in working to keep city states loyal to the Pope. She was also credited with helping to start a crusade to the Holy Land. On one occasion, she visited a condemned political prisoner and was credited with saving his soul, which she saw being taken up to heaven at the moment of his death.

St. Catherine allegedly was given the stigmata, but like her ring, it was visible only to herself. She took Bl. Raymond of Capua has her confessor and spiritual director.

From 1375 onwards, St. Catherine began dictating letters to scribes. She petitioned for peace and was instrumental in persuading the Pope in Avignon to return to Rome.

She became involved in the fractured politics of her time, but was instrumental in restoring the Papacy to Rome and in brokering peace deals during a time of factional conflict and war between the Italian city states.

She also established a monastery for women in 1377 outside of Siena. She is credited with composing over 400 letters, her Dialogue, which is her definitive work, and her prayers. These works are so influential that St. Catherine would later be declared a Doctor of the Church. She is one of the most influential and popular saints in the Church.

By 1380, the 33-year-old mystic had become ill, possibly because of her habit of extreme fasting. Her confessor, Raymond, ordered her to eat, but she replied that she found it difficult to do so, and that possibly she was ill.

In January of 1380, her illness accelerated her inability to eat and drink. Within weeks, she was unable to use her legs. She died on April 29, following a stroke just a week prior.

St. Catherine's feast day is April 29, she is the patroness against fire, illness, the United States, Italy, miscarriages, people ridiculed for their faith, sexual temptation, and nurses.

Continue reading about St. Catherine of Siena

Once again the Biden team (he a Catholic) comes out against the USCCB and for more reasons to kill babies

 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday dismissed Catholic bishops’ concerns about the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions for scientific research.

Asked how the White House would respond to comments from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that it is “deeply offense to millions of Americans for our tax dollars to be used for research that collaborates with an industry built on the taking of innocent lives,” Psaki said that the administration “respectfully disagrees.”

“We believe that it’s important to invest in science and look for opportunities to cure diseases and I think that’s what this is hopeful to do,” Psaki said of the administration’s decision to reverse a Trump-era ban on researchers’ use of fetal tissues from elective abortions.

The National Institutes of Health announced it would lift the ban in a post on its website on April 16. The NIH and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will also no longer convene the Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board, according to Catholic Philly.

The board was convened under Trump to review research applications for NIH grants, cooperative agreements, and research and development contracts that proposed using fetal tissue from elective abortions.

The Trump administration also severed contracts with outside institutions that used fetal stem cells for research.

The reversal comes after 26 House Democrats called on HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to change the policy, according to Roll Call.

The chairman of the U.S. bishop’s pro-life committee last week called on the Biden administration to fund research “that does not rely upon body parts taken from innocent children killed through abortion.”

“The bodies of children killed by abortion deserve the same respect as that of any other person,” Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann said. “Our government has no right to treat innocent abortion victims as a commodity that can be scavenged for body parts to be used in research.”

“It is unethical to promote and subsidize research that can lead to legitimizing the violence of abortion,” he added. “Researchers have demonstrated that we can do effective scientific research and develop efficacious clinical treatments without harvesting tissue from aborted babies.”

Papal General Audience 04.28.2021

 

Pope at Audience: Meditating is a way of encountering Jesus

Continuing his catechesis on Christian prayer during the weekly General Audience, Pope Francis explains the importance of meditation, highlighting that it is a means of prayer that helps us encounter Jesus and find ourselves.

By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ

For a Christian, Pope Francis said at the General Audience, "to 'meditate' is to seek meaning: it implies placing oneself before the great page of Revelation in order to try to make it our own, taking it in completely.”

Therefore, having welcomed the Word of God, a Christian does not keep it closed up inside, because that Word must meet with “another book,” which the Catechism calls “the book of life.” This, the Pope affirmed, “is what we attempt to do every time we meditate on the Word.”

The Holy Father dedicated his catechesis on Wednesday to meditation as a form of prayer.

Meditation is a need for everyone

The Pope highlighted that the practice of meditation has received great attention in recent times by almost all the religions of the world, including Christianity, and is even widespread among people who do not have a religious vision of life.

“We all need to meditate, to reflect, to find ourselves,” he said. “Especially in the voracious Western world, people seek meditation because it represents a high barrier against the daily stress and emptiness that is everywhere.”

He further added that it is a phenomenon to be welcomed, because we possess an interior life that cannot always be neglected .

Prayer is an encounter

The Word, "once accepted in a Christian context, takes on a specificity that must not be erased,” the Pope explained. Here, Jesus Christ is “the great door through which the prayer of a baptized person passes" and the practice of meditation also follows this path.

When a Christian prays, Pope Francis explained, they do not aspire to full self-transparency nor seek the deepest core of their ego. Rather, the prayer of a Christian is, first of all, an encounter with the ‘Other.’

Therefore, “if an experience of prayer gives us inner peace, or self-mastery, or clarity about the path to take, these results are, one might say, side effects of the grace of Christian prayer which is the encounter with Jesus,” he said.

Methods of Christian meditation

Pope Francis went on to note that the term “meditation” has had different meanings throughout history, including within Christianity where it refers to different spiritual experiences. However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church helps to trace some common lines by highlighting that “there are as many and varied methods of meditation as there are spiritual masters… But a method is only a guide; the important thing is to advance, with the Holy Spirit, along the one way of prayer: Christ Jesus.” 

In this regard, he highlighted the many methods of Christian meditation: “some are very sober, others more articulate; some accentuate the intellectual dimension of the person, others rather the affective and emotional,” he pointed out.

However, “all of them important and worthy of practice, inasmuch as they can help the experience of faith to become a total act of the person" because people do not only pray with their minds or their feelings. 

The method is a road, not a goal

Further illustrating his message, Pope Francis recalled that the ancients used to say that “the organ of prayer is the heart” to explain that it is the whole person, starting from his or her center – not only some of their faculties - who enters into a relationship with God.

At the same time, “we must always remember that the method is a road, not a goal,” he stressed. “Any method of prayer, if it is to be Christian, is part of that sequela Christi [following Christ] which is the essence of our faith.”

Citing the Catechism of the Church, Pope Francis noted that “meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ.” 

Christ is not far away

The grace of Christian prayer is that “Christ is not far away but is always in relationship with us,” Pope Francis affirmed.

This is because “there is no aspect of the divine-human person that cannot become for us, a place of salvation and happiness," he said. Thus, “every moment of Jesus’ earthly life, through the grace of prayer, can become contemporary with us" and there is no page in the Gospels in which there is no place for us.

In this manner, thanks to the Holy Spirit, we too are present at the river Jordan when Jesus is baptized, we are diners at the wedding feast of Cana when Jesus gives the best wine for the happiness of the couple,  we too witness in amazement the thousands of healings performed by Our Lord. At the same time, “we are the cleansed leper, the blind Bartimaeus who regains his sight and Lazarus who comes out of the tomb.”

For us Christians, the Pope concluded, “meditating is a way of encountering Jesus. And in this way, only in this way, can we find ourselves.”

3rd and final Saint for Wednesday

 

St. Peter Chanel

In St. Peter Chanel, Priest and Martyr (Feast day - April 28) The protomartyr of the South Seas, St. Peter Chanel was born in 1803 at Clet in the diocese of Belley, France. His intelligence and simple piety brought him to the attention of the local priest, Father Trompier, who saw to his elementary education. Entering the diocesan Seminary, Peter won the affection and the esteem of both students and professors. After his ordination he found himself in a rundown country parish and completely revitalized it in the three year span that he remained there. However, his mind was set on missionary work; so, in 1831, he joined the newly formed Society of Mary (Marists) which concentrated on missionary work at home and abroad. To his dismay, he was appointed to teach at the seminary at Belley and remained there for the next five years, diligently performing his duties.

In 1836, the Society was given the New Hebrides in the Pacific as a field for evangelization, and the jubilant St. Peter was appointed Superior of a little band of missionaries sent to proclaim the Faith to its inhabitants. On reaching their destination after an arduous ten month journey, the band split up and St. Peter went to the Island of Futuna accompanied by a laybrother and an English layman, Thomas Boog. They were at first well received by the pagans and their king Niuliki who had only recently forbidden canabalism. However, the kings jealousy and fear were aroused when the missionaries learned the language and gained the people's confidence; he realized the adoption of the Christian Faith would lead to the abolition of some of the prerogatives he enjoyed as both highpriest and sovereign.

Finally, when his own son expressed a desire to be baptized, the king's hatred erupted and he dispatched a group of his warriors to set upon the saintly head of the missionaries. Thus, on April 28, 1841, three years after his arrival, St. Peter was seized and clubbed to death by those he had come to save. And his death brought his work to completion - within five months the entire island was converted to Christianity.

Continue reading about St. Peter Chanel

By her selfless act of love she is a Saint for mothers and unborn children; the pro-life doctor

 

St. Gianna Beretta Molla

Feastday: April 28
Patron: of mothers, physicians, and unborn children
Birth: October 4, 1922
Death: April 28, 1962
Beatified: April 24, 1994 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: May 16, 2004 by Pope John Paul II

St. Gianna Beretta Molla was an Italian pediatrician born in Magenta in the Kingdom of Italy on October 4, 1922. She was the tenth of thirteen children in her family.

At three-years-old, Gianna and her family moved to Bergamo, and she grew up in the Lombardy region of Italy.

As a young girl, Gianna openly accepted her faith and the Catholic-Christian education provided to her from her loving parents. She grew up viewing life as God's beautiful gift and found the greatest necessity and effectiveness in prayer.

In 1942, Gianna began her study of medicine in Milan. She was a diligent and hardworking student, both at the university and in her faith.

As a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Gianna applied her faith in an apostolic service for the elderly and needy.

She received degrees in both medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949, and in 1950 she opened a medical office in Mesero, near her hometown of Magenta.

In 1952, Gianna specialized in pediatrics at the University of Milan and from there on, she was especially drawn toward mothers, babies, the elderly and the poor.

Gianna considered the field of medicine to be her mission, and treated it as such. She increased her generous service to Catholic Action, a movement of lay Catholics dedicated to living and spreading the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church in the broader culture. The Catholic Action movement is still at work today, throughout the world.

Gianna hoped to join her brother, a missionary priest in Brazil, where she intended to offer her medical expertise in gynecology to poor women.

However, her chronic ill health made this impractical, and she continued her practice in Italy.

She chose the vocation of marriage and considered this to be a gift from God. Gianna embraced this gift with all her being and completely dedicated herself to "forming a truly Christian family."

In December 1954, Gianna met Pietro Molla, an engineer who worked in her office. They were officially engaged the following April, and married in September 1955, making Gianna a happy wife.

Gianna wrote to Pietro, "Love is the most beautiful sentiment that the Lord has put into the soul of men and women."

In November 1956, Gianna became a mother to her first child, Pierluigi. Their second child, Maria Zita, in December 1957, and their third, Laura, in July 1959.

Gianna handled motherhood with grace and was able to harmonize all aspects of her demanding life.

In 1961, Gianna became pregnant with her fourth child. Toward the end of her second month of pregnancy, Gianna was struck with an unimaginable pain.

Her doctors discovered she had developed a fibroma in her uterus, meaning she was carrying both a baby and a tumor.

After examination, the doctors gave her three choices: an abortion, which would save her life and allow her to continue to have children, but take the life of the child she carried; a complete hysterectomy, which would preserve her life, but take the unborn child's life, and prevent further pregnancy; or removal of only the fibroma, with the potential of further complications, which could save the life of her baby.

Catholic teaching affirms what medical science, the Natural Law, the Bible and unbroken Christian tradition affirm, the child in the womb has a fundamental Human Right to Life. Wanting to preserve her child's life, Gianna opted for the removal of only the fibroma.

In fact, she was willing to give her own life to save the life of her child.

Gianna pleaded with the surgeons to save her child's life over her own. She sought comfort in her prayers and her living faith.

The child's life was saved, for which Gianna graciously thanked the Lord.

After the operation, complications continued throughout her pregnancy, but Gianna spent the remainder of her pregnancy with an unparalleled strength and insistent dedication for her tasks as a mother and a doctor.

A few days before the baby was to be born, Gianna prayed the Lord take any pain away from the child. She recognized she may lose her life during delivery, but she was ready.

Gianna was quite clear about her wishes, expressing to her family, "If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child?I insist on it. Save the baby."

On April 21, 1962, Gianna Emanuela Molla successfully delivered by Caesarean section.

The doctors tried many different treatments and procedures to ensure both lives would be saved. However, on April 28, 1962, a week after the baby was born, Gianna passed away from septic peritonitis. She is buried in Mesero.

Gianna was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 24, 1994, and officially canonized as a saint on May 16, 2004. Her husband and their children, including Gianna Emanuela, attended her canonization ceremony, making this the first time a husband witnessed his wife's canonization.

In 2003, mother-to-be Elizabeth Comparini experienced a tear in her placenta when she was 16-weeks pregnant. Her womb was drained of all amniotic fluid. She was told the chances of her baby's survival was little to none. Elizabeth is said to have prayed to Gianna Molla and asked for her intercession. Elizabeth was able to give birth to a healthy baby.

During Gianna's canonization ceremony, John Paul II described her as, "a simple, but more than ever, significant messenger of divine love."

St. Gianna is the inspiration behind the first pro-life Catholic healthcare center for women in New York, the Gianna Center.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla is the patron saint of mothers, physicians, and unborn children. Her feast day is celebrated on April 28.

Continue reading about St. Gianna Beretta Molla

One of three powerhouse Saints for Wednesday

 

St. Louis Mary Grignion

Louis Mary Grignion was born to a poor family on January 31, 1673 at Montfort, France. He was educated at the Jesuit college in Rennes and was ordained there in 1700. He was assigned as chaplain to a hospital at Poitiers, and his much needed reorganization of the hospital staff caused great resentment, leading to his resignation. However, during his stay there he organized a group of women into the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Wisdom.

Eventually Louis went to Rome where Pope Clement XI appointed him missionary apostolic, and he began to preach in Brittany. His emotional style caused much reaction, but he was successful, especially in furthering devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin through the Rosary. He also wrote a very popular book, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. In 1715, Louis organized several priests and formed the Missionaries of the Company of Mary. He died in 1716 at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sever, France, and was canonized in 1947 by Pope Pius XII.

St. Louis de Montfort was a very able preacher, yet his emotional style along with his appeal to the poor caused much opposition. Undaunted by his critics, he continued his preaching. In addition, he expended great effort in spreading devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin, both through preaching and by the written word. Eventually he founded the clerical institute known more popularly today as the Montfort Fathers who carry on the work of preaching the Word and spreading devotion to Mary. Louis' perseverance in the face of opposition benefits the Church today in its faith struggle. His feast day is April 28.

Indian Bishops bemoan the Covid19 crisis sweeping that nation

 

A banquet hall temporarily convered into a Covid-19 ward in New Delhi, India.   (AFP or licensors)

CHURCH

• INDIA
• BISHOPS
• CORONAVIRUS
• HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT

Indian bishops blame government, people for pandemic surge

India’s Health Ministry registered 323,144 fresh Covid-19 infections Tuesday morning, slightly below Monday’s record of 352,991 cases. Meanwhile, 2,771 new deaths took the toll to 197,894, closing in on the 200,000th mark.

By Vatican News

With India swamped by a massive wave of Covid-19 infections and deaths, and the health system almost on the verge of collapse, the country’s Catholic bishops have expressed their closeness with the suffering people while blaming the government and the people for lack of foresight and negligence.

Government and public negligence

"It can be said that the main cause of this tragic situation is the complacency of the government and the lack of a conscientious public," Archbishop Prakash Mallavarapu of Visakhapatnam said.  He pointed out that the country has exported more than 60 million Covid vaccines to 84 countries when it had a vaccine shortage.  "Certainly, there has been a great error of evaluation by the government and the general public,” the archbishop who is chairman of the Health Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) told Fides news agency.  “Little attention has been paid to the rules on social distancing, while the state machine has ignored the application of the rules."

Bishop Chacko Thottumarickal of Indore also expressed shock at the loss of life, especially in his diocese.  “I know an entire Christian family that was infected and died,” he said, noting a young bishop is hospitalized in critical condition.  The bishop, former chairman of the Office of Social Communication of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), said all 60 beds of the hospital in his diocese are full as it continues to receive at least 200 requests for hospitalization a day.

Unnecessary crowding

Jesuit priest Father Cedric Prakash, a human rights activist, also blamed the government for “its inability to limit unnecessary public gatherings” such as at cricket matches, election campaigns, weddings and Hindu religious rites and assemblies.  "Time is running out for everyone,” he warned, saying, “the federal and state governments must act quickly to save the country from the pandemic."  Father Prakash, who belongs to the Gujarat Jesuit province, reported that at least five Jesuits died of Covid-19 last week and many other priests and nuns from other parts of India are affected by the virus or are in critical condition.

Oxygen a basic human right

Meanwhile, Cardinal George Alencherry, the head of the eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, has urged the Indian government to consider medical oxygen as a basic human right, as an alarming shortage of the life-saving gas is causing the death of hundreds of Covid-19 patients.  “Take all necessary measures immediately to make it available to the people who are struggling hard to hang on to their lives in hospitals and healthcare centers,” he said in an April 25 appeal to the federal government.

Both government and private hospitals in the capital New Delhi and other states are turning away critically ill Covid-19 patients because of an acute shortage in the supply of oxygen. Cardinal Alencherry, who is also president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC,) said medical oxygen “should be treated on a par with food, clothing and shelter.”  He pointed out that many cannot afford oxygen in the open market because of exorbitant prices. “The availability of medical oxygen should be seen as a basic need made available free of cost to the citizens of India. In an economy that is emerging to become fast developing, medical oxygen should not be left to become a commodity for making profits,” he stressed. 

Cardinal Alencherry as well as other Church leaders also criticized the government’s toll figures saying they are low, as many, who are dying at home, in private hospitals and in villages, go unreported.  (Source: FIDES, UCA News)

Saint for Tuesday

 

St. Zita

Zita (1218-1272) + Servant and miracle worker. Born at Monte Sagrati, Italy, she entered into the service of the Fratinelli family, wool dealers in Lucca, at the age of twelve. Immediately disliked by the other servants for her hard work and obvious goodness, she earned their special enmity because of her habit of giving away food and clothing to the poor including those of her employers. In time, she won over the members of the household. According to one tradition, the other servants were convinced when one day they found an angel taking Zita's place in baking and cleaning. Throughout her life she labored on behalf of the poor and suffering as well as criminals languishing in prisons. She was also credited with a variety of miracles. Canonized in 1696, she is the patroness of servants and is depicted in art with a bag and keys, or loaves of bread and a rosary. Feast day: April 27.

Continue reading about St. Zita

A brand new Bishop is attacked and shot in his home; in South Sudan

 

South Sudan’s new bishop shot two months after appointment

ROME – Nearly two months after being tapped as the new leader of the Diocese of Rumbek in South Sudan, Bishop Christian Carlassare was attacked and shot by unidentified gunmen Sunday night, and is recovering.

According to Nigrizia, the official magazine of the Comboni Missionary Order to which Carlassare belongs, the assault happened the night between April 25 and 26, just after midnight, when two armed men broke into the bishop’s house and shot him in the legs.

Carlassare is alive and is being treated at a hospital in Rumbek, but due to the significant blood loss, he will soon be transferred to Juba and then to Nairobi, Kenya, where he will undergo a transfusion.

He telephoned family himself to tell them about the incident and to assure them of his safety. In a conversation with the head of the Italian branch of the Comboni Missionaries, Carlassare told his order to pray “not so much for me but for the people of Rumbek, who are suffering more than me.”

Bishop Christian Carlassare is recovering at a hospital in Rumbek April 26 after being shot by unidentified gunmen the night before. (Credit: Nigrizia.)

This attack comes just two months after Carlassare was appointed to Rumbek, and less than a month since he was formally welcomed to the diocese in an April 16 ceremony.

At 43, Carlassare is one of the Catholic Church’s youngest bishops whose entire priesthood has been spent serving in one of the world’s most difficult and dangerous areas.

Born in Schio in the Italian province of Vicenza in 1977, Carlassare was appointed the new bishop for the Diocese of Rumbek, South Sudan in March – a post which has been vacant for the past 10 years, after its former leader, the late Bishop Cesare Mazzolari, died in 2011.

Both Carlassare, 43, and Mazzolari belong to the Comboni Missionary order.

Carlassare made his profession with the order in 2003, after completing a bachelor’s degree in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and one in missiology from the Pontifical Urban University in Rome.

A year after his ordination as a priest in 2004, he moved to South Sudan, where he has served as a pastor in various places and held a number of leadership roles within the Comboni Missionary order. After Mazzolari’s death in 2011, he was appointed as diocesan coordinator in Rumbek, a post he held until being named bishop of the diocese.

South Sudan has long been a priority for Pope Francis, who has promised to visit the country if its leaders are able to implement a peace agreement which has been delayed, and which would end a years-long violent conflict that has caused one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world.

Speaking to Nigrizia in a previous interview about his appointment, Carlassare said his hope for the future of South Sudan was the country’s youth.

“I dream that young people in South Sudan can realize their dreams, that they will not be forced to take up arms or leave the country, that they can study and find a job that builds the future and which gives stability to the country,” he said in the interview.

He also spoke of the need to empower women in the country, saying, “I dream that the young girls of South Sudan can emancipate themselves and not be totally dependent on the heads of their families, and that they can make their own choices in freedom.”

Follow Elise Ann Allen on Twitter: @eliseannallen