A STRANGER HELPS

 

"He is laboring under His cross.  It is too much for Him to carry alone.  Everyone can see that, but no one offers to help Him.  Someone, then, must be forced.  The soldiers seize upon Simon of Cyrene.  It has, or he thinks it has, nothing to do with him.  He was simply about his own business in Jerusalem.  It seems to him mere chance that he met this tragic procession – an unlucky chance for him, but there it is!  He is made to take up the load and help this man, a stranger to him, and whom he supposes to be a criminal on the way to his execution.

Really there is no chance in the incident.  It is something planned by God from eternity to show men the way of Christ’s love: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  It means that no one is meant to suffer alone.  No one is meant to carry his own cross without some other human being to help him.

Again Christ is proving to the world that He has come to live the life of all ordinary men on the simplest human terms.  Now as He accepts the reluctant help of Simon – accept it because He perforce must, and yet in His humility gratefully – He is showing each one of us whom He will indwell, what He asks of us and what He wants us to give to one another. 

Simon of Cyrene saw only three criminals (of whom Christ was one) on the way to die.  He could not know, until he had taken up that stranger’s cross, that in it was the secret of his own salvation.  Simon thought at first that Christ was no business of his.  He did not even know him; he did not seem to be worth helping; his own interrupted business in Jerusalem that day seemed much more important to him.  Why should he put his own business aside, why give his strength, his time, and even his suffering for this man?  (He must have suffered.  The hard, heavy wood would have torn and blistered his hands.  Or if one end of the cross was laid on his shoulder, it would have bruised it as it bruised Christ’s.  The way to Calvary must have been exhausting, and have sapped the energy he wanted for his own affairs.  Again, he must have suffered mentally: the frustration of his own plans, perhaps those on which very much depended; and the humiliation of being ordered to do this thing by the hated Roman soldiers – bits of boys anyway, who found it amusing to inconvenience and make mock of a Jew!)

We must be ready to carry the burden of anyone whom we meet on our way and who clearly needs help, not only those who “deserve,” or seem to “deserve,” help.  Everyone is our “business,” and Christ in everyone, potentially or actually, has a first claim on us, a claim that comes before all else.

We are here on Earth to help to carry the cross of Christ, the Christ hidden in other men, and to help in whatever way we can.  We may, like Simon, have literally a strong arm to give, we may help to do hard work; we may have material goods to give; we may have time, which we desperately want for ourselves but which we must sacrifice for Christ in man.  We may have only suffering.  Suffering is the most precious coin of all.  Suffering of body, suffering of mind, paid down willingly for Christ in man, enables Him to carry His redeeming cross through the world to the end of time. 

Suffering contains in itself that Simon gave: our mind and body, frustration, and identification with someone else.  That last is the germ of our own salvation, that way to transform the self-pity that is the danger in all suffering into the love of other people which reaches out a hand to Christ, and saves us.

We do not look for Christ only in saints; we look for Him, perceive Him by faith, and try to help Him, most of all in sinners.  It is in sinners that Christ suffers most today, in them that His need is most urgent.” (Caryll Houselander) 

                Art: Ang Kiukok- Philippines

PATRONESS OF DIABETICS

 

 

Our next saint, who suffered greatly in her lifetime was ST. PAULINE of the AGONIZING HEART of JESUS, C.I.I.C. She was born Amabile Lucia Visintainer on December 16, 1865, the second daughter of Antonio Napoleone Visintainer and Anna Pianezzer in the town of Vigolo Vattaro, then in the County of Tyrol, part of Austro-Hungary, now in Italy. Her ancestors were Germanic, who had settled in the region of Vigolo Vattaro as early as 1491, their surname being originally spelled Wiesenteiner.

Like many others in the area, the Visintainers  were very poor  practicing Catholics. In September 1875, the family, along with a hundred other people of the town, about a fifth of its population, emigrated to the State of Santa Catarina in Brazil, where they founded the village of Vigolo, now part of Nova Trento.

Amabile was known even at a youthful age for her piety and charity. From an early age she spoke of giving her life to God. While she had very little education, she had a great love for the Catholic faith and for the suffering and poor. After receiving her First Communion at about age 12, she began to participate in the life of the local parish, teaching catechism to children, visiting the sick and cleaning the local chapel.

On 12 July 1890, Amabile  and her friend, Virginia Rosa Nicolodi, under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit priest, Luigi Rossi, committed their lives to religious service, under Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. They began by caring for a woman suffering from terminal cancer, in a small house which was donated to the small community and the young girls began a schedule of religious living. After the woman's death the following year, they were joined by a third friend, Teresa Anna Maule.

In 1895, seeing the need for a more formal and secure organization of the young women coming to them, it was decided they should  establish a religious congregation called the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by José de Camargo Barros, Bishop of Curitiba.

 In December of that same year, the founding trio took religious vows. Amabile took the religious name by which she is now known. The congregation, Brazil's first locally founded, grew quickly throughout the state, and in 1903  Sister Pauline was elected their Superior General for life. She moved from Nova Trento to Ipiranga, São Paulo, where she opened a convent of the congregation in order to take care of orphans, the children of former slaves.  Slavery having been ended by the Empire of Brazil only in 1888, the aged slaves were left to die because they could no longer work.

In 1909 Sistere Pauline was removed from her position as Superior General by Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, Archbishop of São Paulo, following a series of disputes within the congregation. She was sent to work with the sick at the Santa Casa and the elderly of the Hospice of St. Vincent de Paul at Bragança Paulista, without being able to assume an active role in her own congregation. She spent her spare time praying in support of the congregation. 

In 1918, with the permission of Archbishop Duarte, she was brought back by the Superior General, Vicência Teodora, to live at the General Motherhouse of the congregation at Ipiranga, where she would remain until her death. 

Sister Pauline's health began a long, slow decline in 1938, as she fought a losing battle with diabetes. In two operations, first her middle finger and then her right arm were amputated. She spent the last months of her life totally blind. On 9 July 1942 she died with the last words, "God's will be done".

Sister Pauline was acknowledged as the "Venerable Mother Foundress", when the Decree of Praise was granted by Pope Pius XI on 19 May 1933 to the Congregation of the Little Sisters, establishing it as one of pontifical right.

 She was the first Brazilian to be proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church when she was canonized on May 19, 2002, by Pope St. John Paul II. She is the  patroness of diabetics.  Her feast day is July 9. 

Shrine of St. Paulina, Nova Trento, Brazil

HIS MOTHER

 

“Jesus is on His feet again, once more he starts on His way.  As He lifts his bowed head and looks at the road He is to tread, He comes face to face with His mother.

It is not by chance that she meets Him at this  moment, just as He falls and struggles to His feet again.  She sees that which no one else in that crowd sees, the tiny child taking His first unsteady steps and falling on the garden path in Nazareth.  She is there beside Him, holding her breath, longing to put out her hands to hold Him, to prevent the fall, but she lets Him go alone, the little child whose independence she must respect, her Son who must learn to walk on His own feet, and to walk away from her.

For His mother, those first steps of the baby learning to walk were the first steps on the road to Calvary.  The “Word was made flesh,” her flesh.  God had taken

human nature, her human nature.  The way of the Cross had begun.  Already His face was set steadfastly toward Jerusalem.  It was for this journey that she had fashioned those blameless feet from her own flesh and blood.  

Seeing the first fall on the Via Crucis, His mother sees the first fall on the path in Nazareth.  Now as then she is silent; she holds back her hands as she did then.  His will is her will.  It was for this hour that she gave Him to the world, for this that He grew from the infant to the child, from the child to the man.

He goes on His way.  He passes her by.  This is something at the very heart of His suffering: that it must afflict her whom He loves; that because they both love, neither can spare the other.  He goes on His way to do His Father’s will."

Mary has given Him the precious blood that is to be shed.  It is to be shed in order that it may become the blood stream that is the life of every man who lives in Christ, the blood stream of the mystical body of Christ on Earth through all time, the lifeblood of the world flowing through the heart of humanity.  When Mary uttered her Fiat – “Be it done to me according to thy word” – when she conceived Christ and gave Him her own humanity, she made every mother to become a potential mother of Christ; every child who would come into this world, one who was to come to be a Christ to it.  “If anyone does the will of my Father who is in Heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

 Every woman who sees her child suffer, every woman who is separated from her child, every woman who must stand by helpless and see her child die, every woman who echoes the old cry, “Why, why, why my child?” has the answer from the mother of Christ.  She can look at the child through Mary’s eyes, she can know the answer with Mary’s mind, she can accept the suffering with Mary’s will, she can love Christ in her child with Mary’s heart – because Mary had made her a mother of Christ.  It is Christ who suffers in her child; it is His innocence redeeming the world, His love saving the world.  He too is about His Father’s business, the business of love."  (Caryll Houselander)

Art: Ang Kiukok- Philippines

A STAMP FOR UKRAINE

 

On February 27, 2026, the Vatican unveiled a new postage stamp honoring Ukraine's Catholics, with the design showing their cathedral in Kyiv during a blackout in an unusually pointed reference to the daily struggles of Ukrainians in wartime. The war is now in its fourth year.

 While the Vatican Postal Service frequently issues stamps to mark Catholic holidays or honor national Churches, it usually avoids any political references in its designs, preferring depictions of religious figures such as local saints.

The new stamp, issued in the week that marks the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion, depicts Kyiv's Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ darkened by a lack of electricity but illuminated from behind with the orange glow of an evening sky.

 Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, leader of Ukraine's four million Eastern-rite Catholics, said at a Vatican event for the unveiling that the release of the stamp represented "a great moment of consolation".

 "We really feel embraced by the Holy See for this particular attention to our history, to our life in this tragic moment of war," Shevchuk said, speaking Italian.

 The Vatican stamp was released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the restoration of Kyiv's Catholic diocese after the fall of the Soviet Union and the 12th anniversary of the cathedral's construction.

 Pope Leo made an impassioned appeal on Sunday for peace in Ukraine, saying an end to the war with Russia "cannot be postponed".  “In my heart there remains the dramatic situation that is before everyone’s eyes. How many victims, how many lives and families shattered, how much destruction, how many indescribable sufferings!”

HIS DEATHBED

 

“He comes to it gladly!  This is a strange thing, for the cross is a symbol of shame, and it is to be His deathbed.  Already He sees the very shape of His death in the wide-spread arms.  From this moment He will be inseparable from it, until He dies on it.  He will labor and struggle under the weight of it until the end comes.  Yet Christ welcomes the cross.  He embraces it, He takes it into His arms, as a man takes that which he loves into his arms.  He lays His beautiful hands on it tenderly, those strong hands of a carpenter that are so familiar with the touch of wood.

This is not the first time that Christ has welcomed the wood of the cross.  It is only the first time that He has embraced it publicly before the crowds.  It is a tremendous gesture showing men His love for them openly, because this cross which He is receiving is their cross, not His; He is making it His own for love of them, taking their cross and lifting the dead weight of it from the back of mankind.  That is why Christ receives the cross with joy and lays it to His heart.  “Bear one another’s burdens,” He told men.  Now He takes the burden of the whole world upon himself.” 

"Look at this cross, so much bigger than the man whose body will be stretched to fit it.  So much higher than the height of the man who will be lifted up above the Earth on it and who, being lifted up, will draw all men to himself.  Christ receives it with joy because he knows that this is the dead weight that must have crushed mankind had he not lifted it from their backs.  This is the dead wood which at his touch is transformed to a living tree.  At his touch the hewn tree takes root again and the roots thrust down into the Earth, and the tree breaks into flower."

“Because Christ has changed death to life, and suffering to redemption, the suffering of those who love Him will be a communion between them.  All that hidden daily suffering that seems insignificant will be redeeming the world, it will be healing the wounds of the world.  The acceptance of pain, of old age, of the fear of death, and of death will be our gift of Christ’s love to one another; our gift of Christ’s life to one another.

No man’s cross is laid upon him for himself alone, but for the healing of the whole world, for the mutual comforting and sweetening of sorrow, for the giving of joy and supernatural life to one another.  For Christ receives our cross that we may receive His.  Receiving this cross, the cross of the whole world made His, we receive Him.  He gives us His hands to take hold of, His power to make it a redeeming thing, a blessed thing, His life to cause it to flower, His heart to enable us to rejoice in accepting our own and one another’s burdens.  “If any man has a mind to come my way, let him renounce self, and take up his cross, and follow me.  The man who tries to save his life shall lose it; it is the man who loses his life for My sake that will secure it,” (Matthew 16:24-26).”

Art: "Christ Bearing the Cross" Niccolo Frangipane - 1574,   Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, Spain

                                       

DOWN ON HIS KNEES

 

The Passion of Jesus was an experience which included every experience, except sin, of every member of the human race. The fourteen Stations of the Cross show not only the suffering but the psychology of Christ.  Above all they show His way of transforming suffering by love.  He shows us, step by step, how that plan of love can be carried out by all of us today, both in the loneliness of our lives and together in union with one another. In this day, when we all seem to be so separated, it is crucial that we see the suffering of our Savior as a way of placing our own sorrows in a context of salvation history. 

"At the very first step of the way to Calvary, Jesus stumbles and falls.  He is down on His knees in the dirt!   

What has happened to this man?  This man who had just now declared Himself to be king of a spiritual world with legions of angels at His command, who has been known to hold back the overwhelming force of the storm and still the raging seas by an act of His will, who by a mere touch of His hand caused a living fig tree to wither, and has fallen now under the purely material weight of the cross He so lately welcomed!

Only a few moments ago He held out His arms to receive it, seemingly with joy.  Now, at the very first shock of its weight on His shoulder, He has fallen!

The crowd thronging outside the judgment hall are laughing derisively.  Some of them remember Him say that – that any man who wanted to follow Him could only do so, carrying his cross.  Now it seems that He can’t even take the first step on the way to be marked out by His footprints without falling!"

"Yes, Christ is living through the experience of ordinary men, of each and every ordinary man in whom He will abide through all the ages to come.  He has not come into the world to indwell only exceptional men, or supermen.  He is not here and suffering His Passion in order to be glorified in those who succeed where others fail, or to make Himself an exception to ordinary men.  He has come to live out the life of every man, of any man who has any love for Him at all and tries to keep His word.  “If a man has any love for He, He will be true to my word; and then He will win My Father’s love, and we will both come to Him, and make our continual abode with Him,” (John 16:23)…

Because Christ identified Himself with us, because He suffers the humiliation of the first fall in us, His love transforms it.  The very wound can heal us.

The first fall is the first real self-knowledge.  Now we know our weakness, we know our helplessness before the difficulties of life, our total inability to shoulder our responsibilities.  We know that we cannot get up by ourselves, we cannot shoulder the burden for the second time by ourselves, we cannot face our own self-contempt or the derision of others, by ourselves.  We realize now that we are wholly dependent on Christ, dependent on Him to act in us, to lift Himself up in us and to lift us up in Him.  His weakness is our strength.

In the light of this new self-knowledge, in the realization and acceptance of our utter dependence on Him, the second start, look as it may before men, is infinitely better in the eyes of God than the first.  No longer do we seek to carry the burden with our own hands, but with His.  No longer do we try to walk in His footsteps, we tread the way with his feet."   (Caryll Houselander)

Art: Ang Kiukok- (1931-2005)  Philippines

YOUNG PATRON OF LAWYERS

 

We continue our theme of saints or saints to be who suffered from serius illness and died young. Our next young man could become a patron of young lawyers, helping them to make the right decisions in their own lives as they start out in their practice of law.

SERVANT of GOD MARCELO HENRIQUE CAMARA born in 1979 was a Brazilian lawyer , public prosecutor, and university professor who died at the age of 28 with a reputation for holiness. He was a supernumerary member of Opus Dei .

A devout Catholic, during his university years he actively participated in the Emmaus Movement and later applied for admission to Opus Dei as a supernumerary.  After a four-year battle with lymphoblastic lymphoma ( non-Hodgkin lymphoma ), he died in 2008. 

He was the eldest son of Julio Carlos Richard Câmara and Leatrice Pavan, from whom he received an excellent education. His father, being the son of a military man, instilled in him rules of good behavior and order. His mother, a teacher, had a direct influence on her son's upbringing. 

From a very young age he was interested in matters related to the common good (city government, the well-being of others), expressing idealistic thoughts and practicing small virtuous actions.

Marcelo lived with his parents until he was 10 years old, when they separated. The end of his parents' marriage in 1989 caused a major change in his personality. Marcelo, just 10 years old, went to live with his mother and his only brother, Murilo Eduardo, and began to act like a true adult in managing the family and feeling responsible for their future. 

 Despite the couple's separation, the father maintained frequent contact with his children, following their growth and encouraging their education. With the help of Marcelo's godmother, he tried to maintain in his children, at least, the commitment of attending Sunday Mass.

 Gifted with unparalleled intelligence and rare eloquence, striking characteristics of his personality, Marcelo's dedication to his studies earned him a remarkable education. He was considered an exemplary student in both primary and secondary school, even committing to being the class valedictorian at his 1st-grade graduation in 1993 at Alferes Tiradentes school, an obligation he only failed to fulfill because he fractured his leg playing soccer on graduation day.

 He passed the highly competitive entrance exam for the Federal University of Santa Catarina  on his first attempt, enrolling in the Law course in March 1997. He completed his studies in December 2001 and obtained his Bachelor's degree in February 2002, when he was again nominated to be the class speaker at the graduation ceremony.

 During his undergraduate studies, in 2000 and 2001, he interned at the Public Prosecutor's Office in the State of Santa Catarina, through a competitive examination. At the end of 2002, he participated in the selection process for the Master's program in Law at  Federal University of Santa Catarina, once again obtaining an excellent ranking. He began his studies in March 2003 and defended his dissertation within a short time frame, in July 2004.In 2003 and 2004, he worked as a substitute professor at UFSC in the Law and Economics courses. In 2004, he was hired by the Law course at the Instituto de Ensino Superior da Grande Florianópolis (IES) and Faculdade de Santa Catarina (FASC).

 A passion for knowledge and a pursuit of intense intellectual development were catalyzed by Marcelo's profound inner conversion process, which began in the second semester of college. At that time, at the invitation of Monsignor Francisco de Sales Bianchini (then spiritual director of the Emmaus Movement in Florianópolis), he participated in the Emmaus Course on Human and Christian Values.

 Thus, the 50th Emmaus Men's Course, held from August 28 to 31, 1997, provided him with a calling to give new meaning to his existence and his intellectual pursuit. During this encounter, he received the sacrament of Confirmation, with Monsignor Bianchini as his sponsor.

 In the year 2000, he was invited by Father Márcio Alexandre Vignoli to exercise the Extraordinary Ministry of Holy Communion at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Ingleses, where he resided. He assisted in catechesis work with young people and adults, and in the organization of liturgical events such as vigils to the Blessed Sacrament, the Jericho Siege, Christmas and Passion of Christ celebrations, acting as coordinator of the ministers until his departure due to illness.

 He considered a possible priestly vocation during his college years, but decided to pursue a career as a Public Prosecutor, along with his great passion, teaching.

 In 1998, he was invited by a friend from the Emmaus Movement to attend a lecture given by a member of Opus Dei. He began participating in the formation meetings offered. Marcelo began seeking spiritual and doctrinal formation in Opus Dei , and the lectures, which were previously held monthly in São José, began to take place in Florianópolis, in the hall of his paternal grandmother's building, Dona Mary.

Thus, while continuing his steadfast apostolate with the Emmaus Movement and assisting with pastoral work at the English Parish, he came to know the life of Saint Josemaría Escrivá and the spirit of Opus Dei through talks, formation sessions, spiritual retreats, and spiritual direction.

Marcelo deeply impacted the people who knew him, not only because of his uncommon knowledge, but also because he didn't mind "spending" time with family, colleagues, students, and friends. Thus, in addition to his complete dedication to his professional and religious work, his characteristic qualities included a welcoming word, an enchanting smile, companionship, a willingness to help, a richness of feelings in his heart, not to mention his living and unwavering faith, and his intense love for God.

He faced a difficult ordeal starting in September 2004, when he suddenly lost the use of his legs and needed to be hospitalized. At that time, he was diagnosed with lymphoblastic lymphoma (non-Hodgkin lymphoma), a type of cancer that originates in the lymphatic system , spreading tumors that develop mainly in the chest (a region called the mediastinum).

With the help of family and friends, and with  trust in Divine Providence, he faced the long struggle for life with surprising and contagious serenity. This struggle lasted about four years, involving numerous tests and blood draws, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, trying different medications and treatments, undergoing prolonged hospitalizations, and even an autologous bone marrow transplant in November 2007, when the disease had already spread to his bloodstream.

Between bouts of illness and improvements, whether in the hospital or at home, he was attended to weekly by a priest and a numerary member of Opus Dei. Marcelo did not allow himself to be shaken by the suffering and physical and emotional pain of seeing his loved ones suffer, transforming them, like everything in his life, into a place of profound encounter with the Lord. He never complained about anything during the long process of facing the illness.

He offered his illness and the suffering it brought him to God, uniting them to the Cross of Christ, for the conversion of relatives and friends, as well as for all vocations in the Church: priests, religious and lay people, fathers and mothers. He accepted the illness as a mysterious expression of God's will for his good and for the good of all.

Marcelo Câmara was already battling the disease in 2006, when he passed the XXXII Public Entrance Examination for the Career of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Santa Catarina. He took office at the Institution in March 2007. 

However, due to his deteriorating health, Marcelo was only able to serve as a Public Prosecutor for about 90 days, enough time to demonstrate his keen professional awareness (often working overtime to cope with the excessive workload), the optimism that kept him calm and confident in the face of the challenges and arduous daily routine of the São José Criminal Court (considered one of the busiest in the State), and, above all, his profound love for humanity, in whom he saw the image of the Lord.

In February 2008, Marcelinho was hospitalized for the last time. In his final days, while still conscious, he offered the sacrifice of excruciating pain by refusing doses of analgesic medication. On March 20, 2008, Holy Thursday, exactly one year after his appointment as Public Prosecutor, he passed away, being buried on Good Friday at the São Francisco de Assis Cemetery.

At the seventh-day Mass, Monsignor Francisco de Sales Bianchini (1925-2010) advised those present not to pray for Marcelo, but rather to ask for his intercession with God, because he was truly a saint. He is an example to all young people, of the holiness which can come to even youth. And he joins the ranks of Sts. Carlos and Pier Giorgio.