Every year on or near October 1st I take to these pages and hope/pray for an onslaught of cool weather, cold weather, autumn traditions, the end of daylight savings time, the start of the best half of the year. Quite frankly I love October thru March much more so than the other half of the year.
This year I feel the same excitement as we begin October in spite of the challenges I face; a very ill wife, the 120+ day illness and struggles of a mother-in-law, the soon to be decided what do we even do with Wendy's mom.
But it is the beginning of these great months and I'm determined to enjoy them as best I can despite these realities.
I hope to blog often as we enter October more fully.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
First Saint of the Day for October is a very popular one; patron of missions
Saint Therese of Lisieux
Generations of Catholics have admired this young saint, called her the "Little
Flower", and found in her short life more inspiration for their own lives than in volumes
by theologians.
Yet Therese died when she was 24, after having lived as
cloistered Carmelite for less than ten years. She never went on missions, never
founded a religious order, never performed great works. The only book of hers,
published after her death, was an brief edited version of her journal called "Story
of a Soul." (Collections of her letters and restored versions of her journals
have been published recently.) But within 28 years of her death, the public demand
was so great that she was canonized.
Over the years, some modern Catholics
have turned away from her because they associate her with over- sentimentalized
piety and yet the message she has for us is still as compelling and simple as
it was almost a century ago.
Therese was born in France in 1873, the pampered
daughter of a mother who had wanted to be a saint and a father who had wanted
to be monk. The two had gotten married but determined they would be celibate until
a priest told them that was not how God wanted a marriage to work! They must have
followed his advice very well because they had nine children. The five children
who lived were all daughters who were close all their lives.
Tragedy and
loss came quickly to Therese when her mother died of breast cancer when she was
four and a half years old. Her sixteen year old sister Pauline became her second
mother -- which made the second loss even worse when Pauline entered the Carmelite
convent five years later. A few months later, Therese became so ill with a fever
that people thought she was dying.
The worst part of it for Therese was
all the people sitting around her bed staring at her like, she said, "a string
of onions." When Therese saw her sisters praying to statue of Mary in her room,
Therese also prayed. She saw Mary smile at her and suddenly she was cured. She
tried to keep the grace of the cure secret but people found out and badgered her
with questions about what Mary was wearing, what she looked like. When she refused
to give in to their curiosity, they passed the story that she had made the whole
thing up.
Without realizing it, by the time she was eleven years old she
had developed the habit of mental prayer. She would find a place between her bed
and the wall and in that solitude think about God, life, eternity.
When
her other sisters, Marie and Leonie, left to join religious orders (the Carmelites
and Poor Clares, respectively), Therese was left alone with her last sister Celine
and her father. Therese tells us that she wanted to be good but that she had an
odd way of going about. This spoiled little Queen of her father's wouldn't do
housework. She thought if she made the beds she was doing a great favor!
Every
time Therese even imagined that someone was criticizing her or didn't appreciate
her, she burst into tears. Then she would cry because she had cried! Any inner
wall she built to contain her wild emotions crumpled immediately before the tiniest
comment.
Therese wanted to enter the Carmelite convent to join Pauline
and Marie but how could she convince others that she could handle the rigors of
Carmelite life, if she couldn't handle her own emotional outbursts? She had prayed
that Jesus would help her but there was no sign of an answer.
On Christmas
day in 1886, the fourteen-year-old hurried home from church. In France, young
children left their shoes by the hearth at Christmas, and then parents would fill
them with gifts. By fourteen, most children outgrew this custom. But her sister
Celine didn't want Therese to grow up. So they continued to leave presents in
"baby" Therese's shoes.
As she and Celine climbed the stairs to take off
their hats, their father's voice rose up from the parlor below. Standing over
the shoes, he sighed, "Thank goodness that's the last time we shall have this
kind of thing!"
Therese froze, and her sister looked at her helplessly.
Celine knew that in a few minutes Therese would be in tears over what her father
had said.
But the tantrum never came. Something incredible had happened
to Therese. Jesus had come into her heart and done what she could not do herself.
He had made her more sensitive to her father's feelings than her own.
She
swallowed her tears, walked slowly down the stairs, and exclaimed over the gifts
in the shoes, as if she had never heard a word her father said. The following
year she entered the convent. In her autobiography she referred to this Christmas
as her "conversion."
Therese be known as the Little Flower but she had
a will of steel. When the superior of the Carmelite convent refused to take Therese
because she was so young, the formerly shy little girl went to the bishop. When
the bishop also said no, she decided to go over his head, as well.
Her
father and sister took her on a pilgrimage to Rome to try to get her mind off
this crazy idea. Therese loved it. It was the one time when being little worked
to her advantage! Because she was young and small she could run everywhere, touch
relics and tombs without being yelled at. Finally they went for an audience with
the Pope. They had been forbidden to speak to him but that didn't stop Therese.
As soon as she got near him, she begged that he let her enter the Carmelite convent.
She had to be carried out by two of the guards!
But the Vicar General who
had seen her courage was impressed and soon Therese was admitted to the Carmelite
convent that her sisters Pauline and Marie had already joined. Her romantic ideas
of convent life and suffering soon met up with reality in a way she had never
expected. Her father suffered a series of strokes that left him affected not only
physically but mentally. When he began hallucinating and grabbed for a gun as
if going into battle, he was taken to an asylum for the insane. Horrified, Therese
learned of the humiliation of the father she adored and admired and of the gossip
and pity of their so-called friends. As a cloistered nun she couldn't even visit
her father.
This began a horrible time of suffering when she experienced
such dryness in prayer that she stated "Jesus isn't doing much to keep the conversation
going." She was so grief-stricken that she often fell asleep in prayer. She consoled
herself by saying that mothers loved children when they lie asleep in their arms
so that God must love her when she slept during prayer.
She knew as a Carmelite
nun she would never be able to perform great deeds. " Love proves itself by deeds,
so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can
prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice,
every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love." She took
every chance to sacrifice, no matter how small it would seem. She smiled at the
sisters she didn't like. She ate everything she was given without complaining
-- so that she was often given the worst leftovers. One time she was accused of
breaking a vase when she was not at fault. Instead of arguing she sank to her
knees and begged forgiveness. These little sacrifices cost her more than bigger
ones, for these went unrecognized by others. No one told her how wonderful she
was for these little secret humiliations and good deeds.
When Pauline was
elected prioress, she asked Therese for the ultimate sacrifice. Because of politics
in the convent, many of the sisters feared that the family Martin would taken
over the convent. Therefore Pauline asked Therese to remain a novice, in order
to allay the fears of the others that the three sisters would push everyone else
around. This meant she would never be a fully professed nun, that she would always
have to ask permission for everything she did. This sacrifice was made a little
sweeter when Celine entered the convent after her father's death. Four of the
sisters were now together again.
Therese continued to worry about how she
could achieve holiness in the life she led. She didn't want to just be good, she
wanted to be a saint. She thought there must be a way for people living hidden,
little lives like hers. " I have always wanted to become a saint. Unfortunately
when I have compared myself with the saints, I have always found that there is
the same difference between the saints and me as there is between a mountain whose
summit is lost in the clouds and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passers-by.
Instead of being discouraged, I told myself: God would not make me wish for something
impossible and so, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at being a saint. It is
impossible for me to grow bigger, so I put up with myself as I am, with all my
countless faults. But I will look for some means of going to heaven by a little
way which is very short and very straight, a little way that is quite new.
"
We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb laboriously up flights
of stairs; in well-to-do houses there are lifts. And I was determined to find
a lift to carry me to Jesus, for I was far too small to climb the steep stairs
of perfection. So I sought in holy Scripture some idea of what this life I wanted
would be, and I read these words: "Whosoever is a little one, come to me." It
is your arms, Jesus, that are the lift to carry me to heaven. And so there is
no need for me to grow up: I must stay little and become less and less."
She
worried about her vocation: " I feel in me the vocation of the Priest. I have
the vocation of the Apostle. Martyrdom was the dream of my youth and this dream
has grown with me. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I desired to see
myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that
the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood
that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced
all times and places...in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my
delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found
it...My vocation is Love!"
When an antagonist was elected prioress, new
political suspicions and plottings sprang up. The concern over the Martin sisters
perhaps was not exaggerated. In this small convent they now made up one-fifth
of the population. Despite this and the fact that Therese was a permanent novice
they put her in charge of the other novices.
Then in 1896, she coughed
up blood. She kept working without telling anyone until she became so sick a year
later everyone knew it. Worst of all she had lost her joy and confidence and felt
she would die young without leaving anything behind. Pauline had already had her
writing down her memories for journal and now she wanted her to continue -- so
they would have something to circulate on her life after her death.
Her
pain was so great that she said that if she had not had faith she would have taken
her own life without hesitation. But she tried to remain smiling and cheerful
-- and succeeded so well that some thought she was only pretending to be ill.
Her one dream as the work she would do after her death, helping those on earth.
"I will return," she said. "My heaven will be spent on earth." She died on September
30, 1897 at the age of 24 years old. She herself felt it was a blessing God allowed
her to die at exactly that age. she had always felt that she had a vocation to
be a priest and felt God let her die at the age she would have been ordained if
she had been a man so that she wouldn't have to suffer.
After she died,
everything at the convent went back to normal. One nun commented that there was
nothing to say about Therese. But Pauline put together Therese's writings (and
heavily edited them, unfortunately) and sent 2000 copies to other convents. But
Therese's "little way" of trusting in Jesus to make her holy and relying on small
daily sacrifices instead of great deeds appealed to the thousands of Catholics
and others who were trying to find holiness in ordinary lives. Within two years,
the Martin family had to move because her notoriety was so great and by 1925 she
had been canonized.
Therese of Lisieux is one of the patron saints of the
missions, not because she ever went anywhere, but because of her special love
of the missions, and the prayers and letters she gave in support of missionaries.
This is reminder to all of us who feel we can do nothing, that it is the little
things that keep God's kingdom growing.
The October 2018 prayer intention of Pope Francis
October prayer intention - pope francis
Evangelization – The Mission of Religious
That consecrated religious men and women may bestir themselves, and be present among the poor, the marginalized, and those who have no voice.
A different kind of Sunday
Back at the hospital on this Sunday as Wendy’s long recovery is slow. I went to mass by myself and simply sat in the back and prayed for her, her mom, her sister. They all battling stuff. I visited her mom she is doing as best as possible.
Thank you to my priests and brother Deacons for allowing me to not worry about assignments so I can focus on my wife and hopefully her recovery!
In the meantime here is my hope: my help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth (and all of us too)
Thank you to my priests and brother Deacons for allowing me to not worry about assignments so I can focus on my wife and hopefully her recovery!
In the meantime here is my hope: my help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth (and all of us too)
Papal Angelus Address for 09.30.2018
Vatican Media Screenshot
Pope’s Angelus Address: On the Need for Openness & Freedom in Proclaiming the Gospel
“God’s Great Freedom in Giving Himself to Us Is a Challenge and an Exhortation to Change Our Attitudes and Our Relationships”
Here is a ZENIT translation of the address Pope Francis gave today, before and after praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
* * *
Before the Angelus:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!
This Sunday’s Gospel (Cf. Mark 9:38-43.45.47.-48) presents to us one of those very instructive particulars of Jesus’ life with His disciples. They had seen a man, who wasn’t part of the group of Jesus’ followers, casting out devils in Jesus’ name, and so they wanted to forbid him. With the typical zealous enthusiasm of young people, John referred the incident to the Master seeking His support. However, Jesus answers on the contrary: “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us” (vv. 39-40).
John and the other disciples reflect an attitude of closure in face of an event that doesn’t fit in their schemes, in this case the action, though good, of a person “outside” the circle of followers. Instead, Jesus seems very free, fully open to the freedom of the Spirit of God, who isn’t limited in His action by some border or enclosure. Jesus wishes to educate His disciples, also us today, to this interior freedom.
It does us good to reflect on this episode, and to make an examination of conscience.
The attitude of Jesus’ disciples is very human, very common, and we can find it in the Christian communities of all times, probably also in ourselves. Rather, in good faith, with zeal one would want to protect the authenticity of a certain experience, especially charismatic, protecting the founder or leader from false imitators. However, at the same time there is sort of fear of a “concurrence” – and this is awful: the fear of a concurrence –, that someone can draw new followers, and then one is unable to appreciate the good that others do: it’s not right because “he’s not one of ours,” it’s said. It’s a form of self-reference. Here, rather, is the root of proselytism. And the Church — Pope Benedict said — doesn’t grow by proselytism; it grows by attraction, namely, it grows by the witness given to others with the strength of the Holy Spirit.
God’s great freedom in giving Himself to us is a challenge and an exhortation to change our attitudes and our relationships. It’s the invitation that Jesus addresses to us today. He calls us not to think according to the categories of “friend/enemy,” “we/them.” Who is inside? Who is outside,” “mine/yours,” but to go beyond, to open our heart to be able to recognize God’s presence and action also in unusual and unforeseen realms, and in persons that are not part of our circle. It’s about being more attentive to the genuineness of the good, of the beautiful and of the true that is done, not about the name and provenance of the one who does it. And — as the remaining part of today’s Gospel suggests — instead of judging others, we must examine ourselves, and “cut” without compromises all that can scandalize the persons weakest in the faith.
May the Virgin Mary, model of docile reception of God’s surprises, help us to recognize the signs of the Lord’s presence in our midst, discovering Him wherever He manifests Himself, also in the most unthinkable and unusual situations. May she teach us to love our community without jealousies and closures, always open to the vast horizon of the action of the Holy Spirit.
[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]
After the Angelus:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I express my closeness to the populations of the Island of Sulawesi, in Indonesia, affected by a strong tsunami. I pray for the deceased — unfortunately numerous –, for the wounded for all those that have lost their home and work. May the Lord console them and support the efforts of all those that are involved in bringing help. Let us pray together for our brothers of the Island of Sulawesi: Hail Mary . . .
Proclaimed Blessed today at Marseilles is Jean-Baptiste Fouque, diocesan priest, who was an assistant parish priest his whole life — a good example for status seekers –. Living between the 19th and 20th centuries, he promoted numerous welfare and social works in favor of young people, the elderly, the poor and the sick. May the example and intercession of this apostle of charity sustain us in our commitment to welcome and share with the weakest and most disadvantage people: applaud the new Blessed Jean-Baptiste!
I greet you all affectionately, Romans and pilgrims from different countries. In particular, I greet the faithful of Calpe (Spain), the groups of Mayors and Administrators of the Salzburg region, and the international delegation of the deaf on the occasion of the World Day of the Deaf.
I greet the members of Sant’Egidio Community of Campania, the young people of the Shalom Movement of Fucecchio, the faithful of Foggia and those of Rapallo.
I wish you all a happy Sunday. And, please, don’t forget to pray for me. Enjoy your lunch and goodbye!
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Saturday night update on Wendy
Things appear better tonight yet the battle is far from over. Wendy had a busy day and surprised us with enough strength to take a shower and a walk with one of the PT guys (who, by the way, I witnessed his marriage and baptized his babies). She seems to have dished the fever and the bacteria infection is reacting in a positive way to the antibiotics.
She still has some sickening side effects and still needs some treatments before we can discuss discharge and recovery.
For now I will again thank so many for prayers, help and the so many phone calls I cannot possibly return until next week.
Special thanks to my friends, who know who they are, who cut my grass and cleaned my house today.
Thanks everyone!
She still has some sickening side effects and still needs some treatments before we can discuss discharge and recovery.
For now I will again thank so many for prayers, help and the so many phone calls I cannot possibly return until next week.
Special thanks to my friends, who know who they are, who cut my grass and cleaned my house today.
Thanks everyone!
Devotedley translates Bible to Latin among a Saintly life
St Jerome
Before he was known as Saint Jerome, he was named Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus. He was born around 342 AD, in Stridon, Dalmatia. Today, the town, which ceased to exist in Jerome's time, would likely be in Croatia or Slovenia.
The young Jerome was educated by Aelius Donatus, who was a famous Roman grammarian. From him, the young Jerome learned Latin and Greek. Little else is known of his childhood other than his parents were probably well-to-do and Christian. Despite their efforts to raise Jerome properly, the young man behaved as he chose.
Around the age of 12 or so, Jerome traveled to Rome to study grammar, philosophy and rhetoric. It is likely that due to his training in rhetoric, he may have considered a career in law. By his own admission, he quickly forgot his morals. While he was not studying, Jerome pursued pleasure. In particular, he pursued women, even though he knew his behavior was wrong.
To alleviate the feelings of guilt he often felt afterwards, Jerome would visit the crypts in Rome and imagine himself in hell. He did so every Sunday, even though he was not a Christian. Jerome succeeded in frightening himself, but not in changing his ways.
Fortunately, Jerome had as a companion, Bonosus, who was a Christian influence. His influence is part of what persuaded Jerome to become a Christian and change his ways for the better.
In or around the year 366, Jerome decided to become a Christian and was baptized by Pope Liberius.
Now interested in theological matters, Jerome set aside secular matters to pursue matters of the faith. He traveled with Bonosus to Trier where there were schools for him to gain ecclesiastical training.
In 370, he traveled close to home, ending up in a monastery at Aquileia. The monastery was overseen by Bishop St. Valerian, who had attracted some of the greatest minds in Christendom. While in Aquileia, Jerome met Rufinus and the two men became friends. Rufinis was a monk who became renown for his translations of Greek works into Latin. Jerome himself was developing his skills as a translator, a skill he developed during his time in the Roman catacombs, translating the inscriptions on the tombs.
Following his time in Aquileia, Jerome traveled next to Treves, Gaul where he began to translate books for his own use. His goal was to build a personal library.
After a time in Gaul, he returned to Aquileia in 373. While there, Jerome and his friend Bonosus had a falling out and decided to part ways. Bonosus departed for an island in the Adriatic where he would live as a hermit for a time.
Jerome traveled to the east, bound for Antioch by way of Athens.
In 374, Jerome finally reached Antioch, after making several lengthy stops along the way. While in that city, Jerome began writing his first work, "Concerning the Seven Beatings."
During that same year, disease made Jerome ill while taking the lives of some of his companions. It is unclear what disease was responsible, or if different illnesses had taken his friends. During his illness, Jerome had visions which made him even more religious.
Jerome went into the desert to live for four years, living as a hermit southwest of Antioch. He was frequently ill during this time.
After he emerged from his hermitage, Jerome was quickly embroiled in conflicts within the Church at Antioch. This was not something Jerome wanted to be associated with. Jerome made clear that he did not want to become a priest, preferring instead to be a monk or a hermit. But Church officials in Antioch as well as Pope Damasus wanted him to be ordained. Jerome relented on the condition he would not be expected to serve in any ministry and would still be allowed to pursue his monastic life. He was subsequently ordained.
Making the most of his freedom as a priest, Jerome traveled to Constantinople where he studied under St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who was renown as a great theologian.
After St. Gregory left Constantinople in 382, Jerome traveled to Rome for a council of the Church and met Pope Damasus. Following the council, Pope Damsus kept Jerome in Rome and made him his secretary.
While serving as secretary to the pope, Jerome also promoted the ideal of aestheticism to everyone around him. Included in this group were women of the city of Rome who wanted to live saintly lives.
Pope Damasus died in 384, and this exposed Jerome to criticism and controversy. Jerome was a sarcastic man of great wit. He became unpopular because of his attitude and made a number of enemies. While Pope Damasus was alive, he could shield Jerome from criticism, but now Jerome faced the vengeance of the enemies he made. Both prominent pagans who resented his promotion of the faith and fellow Christians who lacked his wit attacked him with vicious rumors. Among the rumors were accusations that he was behaving inappropriately with the woman we now know as Paula. At that time, she was one of his students in aestheticism.
Paula was a widow with four children who deeply mourned the loss of her husband. Jerome provided counseling and instruction to her and she became a lifelong friend and follower of Jerome, assisting him in his work.
Eventually, Jerome decided to return to the Holy Land to escape the calumny in Rome. He headed east and arrived in Antioch in 386. Shortly after, Jerome was met by Paula, her daughter, and several other followers. The group went first to Jerusalem, then on to Alexandria, Egypt. They settled in Bethlehem and had a monastery built there which included dormitories for women.
Jerome was a hard worker and he wrote extensively defending the virginity of Mary, which some clerics dared to question. He also engaged in several debates against various other heresies including a lengthy battle with his old friend Rufinus. Jerome was easily upset, and even the venerable St. Augustine exchanged words with him. Eventually, Jerome and Augustine repaired their relationship and were able to correspond as friends and colleagues.
Of all the things that made Jerome famous, nothing was so legendary as his translation of the Bible. Jerome began work while he was still in Rome under Pope Damasus. He spent his entire life translating the scriptures from Hebrew and Old Latin.
In the year 404 Paula died, later to become a saint of the Church. Rome was sacked by Alarc the Barbarian in 410. These events distressed Jerome greatly. Violence eventually found its way to Bethlehem disrupting Jerome's work in his final years.
Jerome died on September 30, 420. His death was peaceful and he was laid to rest under the Church of the Nativity. His remains were later transferred to Rome.
Saint Jerome is the patron saint of archaeologists, Biblical scholars, librarians, students and translators.
His feast day is September 30.