NEW SAINT FOR AUSTRALIA ?

 

 

Perhaps like our own country, Australia is relatively new, so has fewer saints than Europe. So far there is only one canonized saint for Australia, Mary Ellen MacKillop (Mary of the Cross), the foundress of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (New South Wales) She died in 1909.

On the rostrum there are so far no Blesseds or Venerables, and only four Servants of God- all women, two of whom are from the laity. (Twenty others are being considered).

SERVANT of GOD EILEEN (Eily Rosaline) O'CONNER was born in 1892 in Richmond, Melbourne, Australia the oldest of four children of devout Catholic Irish parents, Charles Fergus O'Connor, clerk, and his wife Annie Kilgallim. Eileen, as she was known, when 3 fell from her pram, severely damaging her spine. Despite several operations nothing could be done to alleviate the terrible pain she endured. Later, radiologists discovered that her spine was at an angle of eighty degrees which should have prevented her from walking.

In 1902 the family moved to Sydney. When Charles died in 1911 , his widow faced great financial difficulty and sought help from a friend, a priest who introduced her to the parish priest of Coogee, Father Edward McGrath, a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. He found accommodation for the family and witnessed the courage with which Eileen met her disability. In Father McGrath's opinion she came close to death when lapsing into unconsciousness during periods of particularly intense pain.

Eileen claimed to have received a visitation from Mary, the Mother of Christ, who encouraged her to accept her suffering for the good of others. She told only Father McGrath of this and he shared with her his hope of establishing a congregation of nurses to serve the poor. Eileen entered into his scheme with enthusiasm and on 15 April 1913 moved into a rented house at Coogee which, known as Our Lady's Home, would serve as a convent for the new congregation.

She lived her short life in constant nerve pain from what was later diagnosed as transverse myelitis and underwent countless operations with little success. With limited education and no formal theological formation, Eileen embodied a distinctive spirituality marked by an unwavering devotion to Our Lady and her own willingness to endure a lifetime of suffering.

 Around this time, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor were fortunate to secure important financial support from benefactors. However the nurses still faced unexpected opposition from church authorities in the early years.

 Allegations of an improper relationship between Eileen O’Connor and Father McGrath caused great suffering. All who knew both Eileen and Father McGrath considered the allegations rediculous.

Father McGrath was ordered to end his involvement with Eileen and Our Lady’s Nurses under threat of expulsion from his order. Eileen was threatened with excommunication if she proceeded with legal action for defamation by church authorities.

 Eileen and Father McGrath travelled to Rome in 1915 where Father McGrath’s case was successfully appealed in the Vatican Congregation for Religious.

Granted an audience with Pope Benedict XV, Eileen spoke with the Holy Father about Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor and their mission in Australia. Eileen influenced the decision to reinstate Father McGrath as a Missionary of the Sacred Heart, but he could not return to Australia for close to 30 years.

Father McGrath joined the British Army and served as a military chaplain during the First World War and was awarded a Military Cross, and recommended for the Victoria Cross, for repeated acts of gallantry under enemy fire.

 Eileen's case against church authorities was quashed and after several months travelling in Europe and Britain, she returned to Australia.The growth of the congregation was now very much in Eileen’s hands and she provided strong leadership and direction.

She earned the affectionate nickname, The Little Mother, reflecting her short stature since her childhood injury had halted her growth.

Eileen died on 10 January 1921 of tubercular transverse myelitis (chronic tuberculosis) of the spine and exhaustion. She was 28.

In December 1936, 16 years after her death, Eileen’s coffin was moved from Randwick Cemetery to the chapel at Our Lady’s Home in Coogee. At the time, her body was found to be incorrupt. 

Photos:  Above-  Father Edward McGrath

            Left: Eileen with Theresa McLaughlin-                             1st superior of Our Lady's Nurses for the Poor.

MYSTIC BENEDICTINE

 

One of the reasons I like to explore the lives of modern holy people is, due to our information technology of the past 30 + years, we have so much that is documented.  When dealing with the lives of saints that lived centuries ago, one is never certain what is fact and what may be myth.  One such saint I recently found is a BENEDICTINE nun, BLESSED GIOVANNA MARIA BONOMO.

She was born in 1606 in  Asiago, Italy, of a wealthy and noble family at her family’s country estate, the first of four children born to John, a wealthy merchant, and Virginia Ceschi di Santa Croce, who hailed from the nobility.

Her mother, Virgina, died from a malignant fever when Giovanna was six. Knowing she was to soon die, she urged her husband to give their daughter “every convenience so she can consecrate herself to God.”

 Even in her early childhood, Giovanna was already achieving a high degree of holiness. God was always in her thoughts and actions.

When she was 10 months old, it is said that she could already talk. At age five, she could speak Latin without ever studying it and was able to understand the Eucharistic mystery and predict future events.

It was no surprise, then, that at age 12 she informed her father, Giovanni, of her desire to become a nun.

Three years after Virginia’s death, her father, unable to give Giovanna a suitable education,  took her to the Poor Clare monastery of Santa Chiara in Trent. The Sisters provided her with a fitting education due her rank, according to customs of the time. She studied religion, literature, music, embroidery works, and dancing.

 At night she would kneel in front of the altar rail before the chapel’s sanctuary, ignoring sleep or the cold. In this way she discovered her vocation to the contemplative and penitent life.

Because of her piety, her confessor discerned she should receive her First Holy Communion, despite her being only nine, an age that was exceptionally young at the time for reception of the sacrament. On that occasion, Bl. Giovanna Maria later recalled, she felt like she was in heaven, and pronounced a vow of virginity to Our Lady .

When Giovanna told her father of her desire to enter religious life, he did everything he could to thwart her intentions. When he saw that Giovanna was determined to enter the religious life, he gave in. Finally, at age 15, on June 21, 1621, she entered the Benedictine monastery of San Girolamo in Bassano del Grappa (in the region of Veneto, in northern Italy). Her father chose this place because the family had several relatives who were already here.

During her profession, she was so immersed in God that she fell into ecstasy for the first time. There, she intensified her prayers and mortifications, fasting and whipping herself with a knotted rope.

 God granted Giovanna many mystical gifts, including visions, bilocation, and the Stigmata. The Blessed Virgin and numerous saints appeared to give her consolation and inspiration. In one vision, Jesus put a ring around her finger in a mystical marriage.

 These did not sit well with her ill-informed spiritual director and fellow nuns in the community (shades of St. Fustina). They branded her visions as anti-church teachings and ways to attract attention. She was even forbidden from receiving Communion. Thus, an angel appeared and gave her the Eucharist.

 Bl. Giovanna bore all these accusations with silence and humility. She prayed intensely until she was granted the grace that the stigmata disappeared. Also from that point on, the ecstasies and experience of the passion happened only at night. Thus she could lead a normal life in the monastery.

 Eventually she became novice mistress and was elected abbess three times. She taught her nuns that holiness did not consist in great things, but in doing small things perfectly, with love.  During her time in office, she reformed the abbey’s spiritual practices, making them much more in line with the Rule of St. Benedict, and she increased the Sisters’ charitable works. 

What is interesting about this is that she inherited a large debt, which kept the abbey from making even necessary repairs to its crumbling infrastructure. But the more she had the monastery give, the less it lacked for anything.

 When she died of natural causes in 1670, she left behind writings, including the “Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

She was beatified by Pope Pius VI in 1783. Her feast is celebrated March 1.  Amazingly,  during the First World War, when, despite the furious bombardment that destroyed all of Asiago, the statue dedicated to her in 1908 and which stood in front of her birthplace, inexplicably remained intact.

THEOLOGIAN FOR OUR TIME

 

Considered to be one of the most important churchmen, and perhaps one of the most important theologians, of our time, SERVANT OF GOD LUIGI GIOVANNI GIUSSANI was born on October 15, 1922, in Desio, a small town in Brianza, north of Milan, Italy. His parents were Beniamino, an artist and a carpenter, and Angelina, who worked in a textile factory. He was a Socialist; she, a devout Catholic.

Luigi entered the seminary at the age of eleven, and was ordained a priest on May 26, 1945, by Bl. Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, OSB.  His ordination had been accelerated by the authorities in the Milan archdiocese as they feared that his serious respiratory health problems (which would plague him his entire life) would lead to his death before becoming a priest.

After ordination, he taught for a while, and discovered a remarkable talent for communicating with the young. In 1954, he went to teach at a Milan secondary school, and that same year founded a movement called Student Youth, which grew into Communion and Liberation.

In the early 1950s, he requested of his superiors to be allowed to leave seminary teaching to work in high schools. He was driven by a desire to bring the Christian experience to the school environment in response to the questions of young people living in a context that he perceived to be increasingly hostile to both the Christian faith and the Catholic Church. He perceived a need to help young people to discover that real faith was relevant to one's life.

In 1964 Father Giussani began teaching introductory theology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, a position he occupied until 1990. In obedience to a request of his Archbishop, Giovanni Colombo, he devoted himself to theological studies. In the late 1960s his superiors sent him on several periods of study in the USA. During this time he wrote “ An Outline of American Protestant Theology. An Historic Profile from the Origins to the 50s”.

One of Father Giussani's central themes is that Christian faith is, in its most primary and central form, a relationship. He emphasized that Christianity began as a relationship with a particular individual, Jesus of Nazareth, and that the morals and theology of the Church are an outgrowth of this relationship.

He believed that one of the central problems for faith in the modern world is that it has been subject to various reductions. Some people experience faith as merely an empty formalism completely focused on following moral rules. There is no longer a living relationship with the person of God, but instead a ritualistic attempt to meet standards. Similarly, faith is sometimes reduced to intellectualism or an attempt to rationally defend certain doctrinal positions. Although morals and doctrine are both important they are not the central event of faith. The central reality of faith is a relationship with Christ as He becomes visible within reality.

In 1983 he was given the title of Monsignor by Pope St. John Paul II. He outlined his views on politics in an address to an assembly of the Italian Christian Democratic party at Assago on 6 February 1987.

He was a friend of Andrea Aziani (see Blog Jan. 3, 2019) a missionary to Peru.

He died on 22 February 2005 at the age of eighty-three and was interred in Milan's Cimitero Monumentale.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, (later Pope Benedict XVI), delivered the homily at his funeral, where he said of Msgr.Giussani: "He understood that Christianity is not an intellectual system, a packet of dogmas, a moralism; Christianity is rather an encounter, a love story; it is an event".

On 17 January 2006, the Holy See officially recognized Servant of God Giussani as the co-founder, along with Fr. Étienne Pernet, A.A, of the Sisters of Charity of the Assumption, a community of religious women.

BLESSED LAY WOMAN- MOTHER TO MANY

 

 More and more women, who have raised a family, are seeking religious life.  Most orders do not take women past 40.  My mantra is:  the Church needs holy lay women.  A good example of a new blessed is RAFAELA YBARRA.  She was born in Bilbao in, 1843, of a well-off family who provided her with a broad education.

 She was known to have a lively, sweet and affable character. Her Catholic education and natural kindness fostered the growth of her piety and compassion for the needy

 At the age of 18 she married José Vilallonga, a Catalan engineer who would later become one of the main driving forces behind the Altos Hornos de Vizcaya (a Spanish metallurgy manufacturing company. It was the largest company in Spain for much of the 20th century). 

The couple settled in Bilbao, on a farm called La Cava.

 It was a happy and fruitful marriage. They had seven children, two of whom died at an early age. After the death of one of Rafaela's sisters, they took charge of five nephews whom she loved and raised as her own children.

 In the first years of her marriage, Rafaela lived according to the customs of her social status: walks, dinners, theatres, social relations.  In spite of this, she was able to maintain her prayer life. She soon found the meaning of her life, as the social life became superficial and lacking in interest.

 Rafaela's love for Jesus Christ and her intimate relationship with Him, especially in prayer and the Eucharist, became more and more intense. In 1890, with the approval of her husband, she pronounced vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In order to assist abandoned girls, she founded the Holy Guardian Angels  in1894 with three other women. Although her duties as the mother of seven children prevented her from living in community, Rafaela directed the formation of the first nuns, organized the community, built its first residential school in Bilbao at her own expense and wrote its first Rule. The institute provides moral and economic support for disadvantaged youth.

 She devoted herself to caring for the needs of many people who came to her.  Her patience and concern for the sick was proverbial.

 In her numerous Spiritual Writings, which she began at the request of her Directors, she narrated her experiences of God  expressing how she reconciled this intimacy with her dedication to her large family and to the needs of the poor.

 Her charity was intelligent, not content with remedying immediate needs, but she also promoted numerous social initiatives aimed at alleviating the lack of assistance in her time. She said: “People pass away but the Works remain.”

She the Maternity Hospital in Bilbao, the establishment in the capital of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate to care for young domestic workers, and of the RR. Adoratrices; she participated in the creation of the University of Deusto, and, among other activities, belonged to an Association called Junta de Obras de zeal dedicated to helping young women in need of work and guidance, in which she participated actively. It was in this apostolate and visiting prisons and hospitals, where she observed the hardships and difficulties that poor young women had to safeguard their dignity and get ahead in the harsh industrial society of Bilbao.

 Rafaela developed a special vocation for these young women. She devoted all her efforts and energy to creating the conditions so that those who were at greater risk of social exclusion would always find love, shelter and protection until they settled down or found a decent job. She rented several apartments, set up workshops and organised the young women's lives, alternating work and training. With the help of some volunteers and other employees, she began to guide and accompany these girls.

Her love for young girls, reflected in her natural interest, sweetness and friendliness, won the trust of these girls who were quick to call her “mother” in  recognition of her care, affection and special treatment.

Bl. Rafaela died on February 23, 1900, after a serious illness amid the love of her family, nuns and young people. She was 57 years old. Her death caused great consternation among all those who knew her and was a sad event in the city of Bilbao.

The Foundation continued to move forward with God's help and encouraged by Rafaela's spirit. Many other young women followed in her footsteps and today this Congregation extends throughout Spain and Latin America.

On September 29, 1984, she was proclaimed Blessed by Pope John Paul II.  Her feast day is February 23.

NO MEDIOCRE CATHOLIC

 

Jesus said that it is as hard for a rich person to get to heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and yet we have seen quite a few people of noble or high birth become saints.

 One recently declared Blessed is ARMIDA BARELLI, the founder of the first women’s youth circles of Catholic Action as well as the Secular Institute of the Missionaries of the Kingship of Christ in Assisi and co-founder in 1921, together with Father Agostino Gemelli, of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.

She was born in Milan in 1882, into the upper class to Napoleon Barelli and Savina Candiani. She had two brothers and three sisters.

 She studied in a Swiss boarding school under the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Cross from 1895 to 1900. It was during her time with the Franciscans that she discovered her religious vocation and the Franciscan charism as well as a desire to deepen her relationship with God and to devote herself to His work. She received proposals to wed but despite this she decided to devote herself to others and in particular the needs of the poor and the orphaned.

 In 1910 she met the Franciscan Agostino Gemelli, with whom she organized the consecration of Italian soldiers to the Sacred Heart in the Great War. In 1917 Cardinal Andrea Ferrari, Archbishop of Milan, invited her to take care of the women’s movement, and she founded the first circles of the future Women’s Youth of Catholic Action, which in September 1918, on behalf of Pope Benedict XV, were extended into all Italy.

 In 1949 she began to suffer the effects of a progressive and an incurable disease and on 8 January 1952 suffered paralysis in her right hand. On 15 August 1952 she was visited by Gemelli, only to die mere hours later.

She is buried in the crypt of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, in Milan.

 Cardinal Tomas Spidlik attributed to her “a wonderful contemplative vision of everything that surrounds her, and a great human sensitivity.” Blessed Armida is a key figure in the twentieth century church and the seeds sown then, with the spiritual and also vocational movement started by her work are still visible today.

 Without the experience of the female youth, everything that the Second Vatican Council subsequently acknowledged, with respect to the role of the laity, women and movements in the Church, would have been different. Her apostolic and missionary zeal led her to give birth to an initiative of sisters still active in China, but her commitment was above all aimed at giving awareness to the right and duty of women to participate in the life of civil society and that of the Church. 

The goal was to ensure that women could bring their personal experience into reflection on the dimension of the sacred. As for the more demanding pastoral challenges, she used to repeat that “Catholics have no right to be mediocre as witnesses to the royal priesthood of Christ.”

She was beatified  April 30, 2022 and her feast is November 19.

BENEDICTINE MYSTIC POET

 

 

 

Benedictines have a new saint to add to the rostrum of holy men. VENERABLE BERNARDO VAZ LOBO TEIXEIRA  VASCONCELOS was a Benedictine monk, mystic, poet, and writer.  He was born in São Romão Corgo (Celorico de Basto), Portugal, on July 7, 1902. His father, Doctor Manuel Joaquim da Cunha Maia Teixeira de Vasconcelos, lord of Casa do Marvão, was Delegate of the Royal Prosecutor's Office in Cabeceiras de Basto. He was the seventh of eight children. Even as a child, he was docile, gentle, intelligent, and pious, a friend to everyone and with a very strong sensitivity towards the poor.

He studied at the University of Coimbra, thinking perhaps of joining the Navy, and was part of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society which did works of evangelization and charity especially with the poor. He had a great devotion to the Eucharist and was often found in adoration.

Having fallen ill, he interrupted his studies and took a job at a bank in the city of Porto.

Professionally, he was an editor of the journal which studied democracy. Bernardo had only one concern in everything he did: that God be known and loved. Saving souls was the ideal that moved his physical, spiritual and intellectual energies.

 He discerned a call to the monastic life and entered the Monastery of Singeverga on 16 August 1924 and professing vows in September 29, 1925. His name in religion was Brother Bernardo of the Annunciation. The Abbot sent him to the Abbey of Mont-César in Belgium to study theology, but he was back home in a year’s time due a diagnosis of Pott’s disease or spinal tuberculosis.

He offered his sufferings for the Church in general and for the reform of the Benedictine Order.  Fra Bernardo never intended to be a writer but his life of recollection led him to put his reflections and knowledge in writing. He wrote eight books: “Of the Christian Ideal” - 1924; “Life in Peace” 1927 -translation of a work by D. Idesbald; “The Life of S. Bento Told to Simple Souls” – 1930; “Cântico de Amor” – 1932, a work that had just been printed days before his death. He had hoped to have it  in his hands but it was mailed on the day he passed away.

The "Canticle of Love" is his best-known literary work and one that reveals Bernardo as a mystical poet. It is a work composed of 32 poems written between 1920-1932. Two years after his death, 1934, “Vida de Amor” appears, a kind of autobiography since its content is taken from the several hundred letters he wrote.

 “As Nossas Festas” (1934), which is a compilation of articles that were published in the “Opus Dei” Magazine; “Poesias Dispersas” (1935) which is a collection of other poems that Bernardo  wrote and that Fr Luís Cabral, SJ  carried out; “The Mass and the Inner Life” (1936) collection of articles  on the Eucharist and published in the “Opus Dei” Magazine.

 Bl. Bernardo’s illness weakened his body, yet he was peaceful and trusting in Divine Providence. In a letter to a fellow patient Bernardo wrote:

“Don’t get delivered to sadness that only serves to disable our best energies … it expands your heart and let him the life-giving Sun of joy. Joy, but with so many ordeals? I’m telling you: who did you see still no cross? The cross follows us wherever we go and we have to take; and, if we don’t want to raise our arms and generously to hugs, I mean: with all the ardor of our hearts-what do we have to take a challenge behind us, the drags.”

He experienced a six-year ordeal while he continued his studies in Theology in Porto, since his great aspiration was the priesthood. When he was already admitted to Major Orders, illness prevented him from achieving this goal. He was then subdeacon.

Brother Bernardo died in the early hours of July 4, 1932, after a long suffering caused by TB. He is buried in the parish church of São Romão do Corgo.  

May his short life, dedicted to the Lord, be an example to other young men.

 

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BIRD OF PARADISE

 

For those who are in the scorching sun, I offer this photo from my God-daughter, Amie Hood.

Taken at Yellowstone, Summer 2024.