Monday, September 30, 2019

The Little Flower, the Little Way, died at 24, patron of missions

St. Therese of Lisieux

Image of St. 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.

Pope Francis monthly prayer intention for October

October



A Missionary "Spring" in the Church



That the breath of the Holy Spirit engender a new missionary "spring" in the Church.

Using Baseball to send a great message to Catholics

This pastoral letter by Bishop John Barres from the Diocese of Rockville Center is brilliant.  He wrote this letter with the 1969 New York Mets, World Series winning New York Mets, in mind.  This fall it is the 50th anniversary of the Mets beating the highly-favored Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1 in that famous 1969 World Series.

The Bishop made lots of important points about evangelization, bringing the young and the lost back to the Church all from the perspective of how the Mets 1969 championship brings joy and excitement to even those fans who were not even born yet.  It is a great read and one I hope you will take the time to actually read this.  It is extremely well written and drives home several points in way anybody can relate to; enjoy:

https://www.drvc.org/wp-content/uploads/Pastoral_Letter_Ya_Gotta_Believe_2019_Final.pdf

Monday Morning Papal Homily

© Vatican Media

Holy Father Urges Care for Young and Old

‘When there is respect, care, and love for life, this is a sign of God’s presence in our communities’

Pope Francis had much good to say about the first Mass reading for September 30, 2019, from the 8th Chapter of Zechariah:
Thus says the LORD of hosts:  Old men and old women,
each with staff in hand because of old age,
shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem.
The city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.
Thus says the LORD of hosts:
Even if this should seem impossible
in the eyes of the remnant of this people,
shall it in those days be impossible in my eyes also,
says the LORD of hosts?
In this First Reading, the Pope noted, the “signs of the presence of the Lord” with his people are clear. They are made evident by an abundance of life in families and in society: old men and women sitting in the streets, boys and girls playing, reported Vatican News.
When there is respect, care, and love for life, the Pope explained, this is a sign of God’s presence in our communities.
The presence of the elderly, he continued, is a sign of maturity. This is beautiful: “Old men and old women, each with staff in hand because of old age, shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem.”
And so many children too, he continued, who bring with them a swarm of activity.
“The abundance of elderly people and children. This is the sign that when a people care for the old and for the young and consider them a treasure, there is the presence of God, a promise of future,” he said.
The Pope also warned against a culture of waste that fails to value the young and the old. He mentioned a story his grandmother told about a family in which the father decided to move the grandfather to the kitchen during meal times because he would spill his soup and soil his clothes.
“One day,” the Pope said, “the father came home to find his son building himself a little table because he assumed that sooner or later he too would be a victim of that same kind of isolation.”
When you neglect children and the elderly, he said, you end up being part of those modern societies who have given life to a demographic winter.
“When a country grows old and there are no children, when you don’t see children’s prams on the streets and you don’t see pregnant women (…), when you read that in that country there are more pensioners than workers, it’s tragic!” he said.
It’s tragic also to lose the traditions passed down by the elder generations, the Pope said, describing traditions “not as museums,” but as lessons for the future:  “the lymph of the roots that make the tree grow and bear flowers and fruits”

Breaking today: A new Motu Proprio from Pope Francis

Pope Francis during the general audience in the Saint Peter Square - 26 August 2015
Copyright: Vatican Media

Pope Institutes the ‘Sunday of the Word of God’ in New Motu Proprio ‘Aperuit illis’

“May the Sunday of the Word of God help his people to grow in religious and intimate familiarity with the sacred Scriptures”

“May the Sunday of the Word of God help his people to grow in religious and intimate familiarity with the sacred Scriptures.”
This is Pope Francis’ hope for this day he instituted in his Apostolic Letter published today, Sept. 30, in the form of a Motu Proprio of the Holy Father Francis, “Aperuit illis”, instituting the Sunday of the Word of God.
Stressing how essential it is for Catholics to familiarize themselves with Christ’s written word, Francis highlights “a day devoted to the Bible should not be seen as a yearly event but rather a year-long event.”
The Jesuit Pontiff underscores how we “urgently need to grow in our knowledge and love of the Scriptures and of the risen Lord, who continues to speak his word and to break bread in the community of believers.”
“For this reason,” he says, “we need to develop a closer relationship with sacred Scripture; otherwise, our hearts will remain cold and our eyes shut, struck as we are by so many forms of blindness.”
The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers and Sacred Scripture, Pope Francis stated, “is essential” to our identity as Christians.
“Without the Lord who opens our minds to them, it is impossible to understand the Scriptures in depth. Yet the contrary is equally true: without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible. Hence,” the Jesuit Pontiff noted, “Saint Jerome could rightly claim: ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’”
Francis expressed that with this Apostolic Letter, he wished to respond to many requests he received from the people of God that the entire Church celebrate, in unity of purpose, a Sunday of the Word of God.
In point three of the letter, Pope Francis declares the day to be on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“I hereby declare that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God,” Francis said, noting: “This Sunday of the Word of God will thus be a fitting part of that time of the year when we are encouraged to strengthen our bonds with the Jewish people and to pray for Christian unity. This is more than a temporal coincidence: the celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God has ecumenical value, since the Scriptures point out, for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity.
Francis called on the various communities to find their own ways to mark this Sunday with a certain solemnity.
“It is important, however,” he pointed out, “that in the Eucharistic celebration the sacred text be enthroned, in order to focus the attention of the assembly on the normative value of God’s word. On this Sunday, it would be particularly appropriate to highlight the proclamation of the Word of the Lord and to emphasize in the homily the honor that it is due. Bishops could celebrate the Rite of Installation of Lectors or a similar commissioning of readers, in order to bring out the importance of the proclamation of God’s word in the liturgy.”
“In this regard,” the Holy Father continued, “renewed efforts should be made to provide members of the faithful with the training needed to be genuine proclaimers of the word, as is already the practice in the case of acolytes or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.”
Francis went on to suggest that “pastors can also find ways of giving a Bible, or one of its books, to the entire assembly as a way of showing the importance of learning how to read, appreciate and pray daily with sacred Scripture, especially through the practice of lectio divina.”


Sunday, September 29, 2019

Saints beat the COWGIRLS of Dallas without Drew and without TD; thank-you DEFENSE!!!!

Here are my observations from tonight's huge win over the highly overrated COWGIRLS:

1.  I believe this to be the best overall defensive effort by the Saints during the Sean Payton reign.
2.  Best performance by the defensive backs in a long, long time.
3.  Lattimore, #23, played his best game tonight in 2019.
4.  We won the turnover battle, that's outstanding.
5.  Defensive line came alive at the right time.
6.  Glad to see the return of Sheldon Rankins.
7.  I still think the price we paid for Davenport is still no bargain.  Be tougher man!
8.  Special teams was also stout.
9.  Not sure what happened tonight but Saint offensive line was awful.
10.  Armstead, #72, one of your worst games as a Saint.
11.  Our rookie center McCoy sure learned a lot tonight, maybe it will make him even better in the future.
12.  Teddy Bridgewater did enough but the way the OL played, he mostly gets a pass.
13.  But Teddy, you cannot take that sack.
14.  Michael Thomas is a beast.
15.  Alvin Kamara is a beast squared!
16.  Again, consistent here: Jared Cook, TE, so far a bust.  Terrible.
17.  IMPORTANT: Saints are 2-0 without Drew Brees.
18.  ALSO IMPORTANT:  Saints in 1st place in NFC South
19. MOST IMPORTANT: we hung a loss on those GIRLS from Dallas.
20.  Again, hat's off to that DEFENSE!
21.  Too many penalties; clean that up.
22.  Thank goodness Lutz was on tonight; 4-4.
23.  Saints better get ready for Tampa; they hung 50+ on the Rams (never thought I'd ever say that)
24.  Dallas fans, go ahead and spend lots of money on Bourbon St.  No problems.
25.  I still miss Mark Ingram (again, never thought I'd ever say that).
26.  Like the way the Saints have rallied around each other since the Brees injury.
27.  Who is Zeke Elliott or Amari Cooper.
28.  Dennis Allen and the defensive coaches = great job!
29.  Saints fans did their job; by the way Dallas did not have anywhere near the fans predicted by several sources.
30.  Saints 2, the entire state of Texas 0.  Louisiana over Texas any day, every day.

This Saint gave us the Bible through his work on translations; taught us that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ

St. Jerome



Image of 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.