ADVENT SAINTS

 

Last Advent, we focused on SAINTS- the main topic of the Blog. Our future is even less uncertain than it was last year.  Wars have not ceased, our climate is even more unstable with hurricanes, fires, floods, etc., and our political leaders are crazier than ever!  We certainly cannot count on them for leadership, and pop stars, sports heroes are turning out to have clay feet, so they are not examples to look up to.  This is why, more than ever, we need our spiritual friends to show us the way. They have been through what we experience in our suffering, our pain and our joys.

St. Josemaría Escrivá is called the saint of the ordinary” for emphasizing what our lives as Christians today is about: making ordinary everyday life something extraordinary.

 “God doesn’t pull you out of your environment, He doesn’t remove you from the world, nor from your state in life, nor from your noble human ambitions, nor from your professional work... but, there, He wants you to be holy!” 

We are all inspired by people we admire who have admirable qualities, be it members of our own family, friends or even just people we read about. We admire their strength of character, their faithfulness to what they believe, and their courage to forge ahead in difficulties. So should it be for our saints, which the Church has placed before us as examples to learn from- their gifts as well as their frailties. 

Friendship with them gives us a sense of human comfort, self worth, connection with others and meaning in our lives. May we this Advent, as we prepare for the birth of our Savior, ask them to intercede for us, that we too may one day reach the "heavenly homeland".

Art:  John Nava, Ojai, California - Los Angeles Cathedral Tapestries

FALLING IN LOVE WITH GOD

 

Fall in Love

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

— Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Those who read my Blog, know I have a special love for the Jesuits, having been educated by them. One man in particular has always caught my attention due to his being Jesuit, but also Basque.  One of my grammar school friends was 100% Basque. I was the only one of her friends who loved going to the annual Basque festival. Some of the shepherds could not even speak English, but that did not stop us from enjoying the festivities.  It would start with Mass, a picnic and then dance. From Rita and her parents, I learned to love the culture.

 Last week it was announced that the canonization process for PEDRO ARRUPE, S.J. was going ahead, so he is now Servant of God.

 He was born in Bilbao, Spain in 1907. After receiving his bachelor’s degree with the Piarists, he began his studies of medicine in Madrid for four years. At the same time, he visited the poor quarters of the city, getting to know firsthand situations of the need and misery.

 After a profound spiritual experience in Lourdes, France, he came to understand that the best way for him to respond to these realities was to abandon his earlier plans and to enter the Society of Jesus, which he did in 1927. These were difficult times for him, as the Order was expelled from Spain, necessitating his continuing formation in Belgium, Holland, and the United States at St. Louis University. He was ordained in 1936, and two year later sent to Japan, where he lived for 27 years as a missionary. 

When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, it was  December 8 in Japan. Father Arrupe was celebrating the Eucharist for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception when he was arrested and imprisoned for a time, being suspected of espionage. On Christmas Eve,  he heard people gathering outside his cell door and presumed that the time for him to be executed had arrived. 

However, to his utter surprise, he discovered that some fellow Catholics, ignoring all danger, had come to sing Christmas carols to him. Upon this realization, Father Arrupe recalled that he burst into tears. His attitude of profound prayer and his lack of offensive behaviour gained him the respect of his jailers and judges, and he was set free within a month.

Father Arrupe was appointed Jesuit superior and novice master in Japan in 1942, and was living in suburban Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell in August 1945. He was one of eight Jesuits who were within the blast zone of the bomb, and all eight survived the destruction, protected by a hillock which separated the novitiate from the center of Hiroshima. He later described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."

 He used his medical skills to help those who were wounded or dying. The Jesuit novitiate was converted into a makeshift hospital where between 150 and 200 people received care. He recalled, "The chapel, half destroyed, was overflowing with the wounded, who were lying on the floor very near to one another, suffering terribly, twisted with pain." In 1958, Father Arrupe was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan, a position he held until being elected Father General in 1965.

 After World War II,  as Superior of the Jesuits in Japan, he traveled all over the world inviting Jesuits from about thirty countries to join this mission. He became well-known because of his sympathetic personality, and his direct concern for each person, and his humility and his dynamism.

 In 1965 the Jesuits elected him Superior General of the order. They saw in him a man of God who was able to understand and face the difficult situation that the Church and civil society were passing through. He was known to be a man profoundly united to Jesus Christ. Father Arrupe spent long hours in prayer every day. When he was asked where he found the time to do so, he usually replied that “it’s simply a matter of priorities.”

He was praised for his efforts to put the Second Vatican Council into practice as well as his profound obedience and fidelity to the Church and the popes.

He also highlighted his evangelizing mission and his “preferential option” for the poor and needy, resulting in the Jesuit Refugee Service that he founded in 1980.

He encouraged and proposed modes of moving forward to a Church that was seeking to live out the teachings of Vatican II. He was a pioneer who entered heretofore unexplored terrain, such as that of secularized and pluralist society and the plight of refugees. He led former students of Jesuits schools to follow these paths, and he invited intellectuals to study the causes of injustice and lack of faith. 

During those years, a good number of Jesuits experienced martyrdom, especially in Central and South America, as a consequence of attitudes promoted by Father Arrupe: serving without distinguishing race or class; living with those who were suffering, to the point of giving one’s life and defending their rights to the very end. As a good friend and guide, he accompanied others in their journey.

Seeing Father Arrupe as "the right man for our time", he was elected five times as the Superior of the Jesuits.

In 1981, during a trip from Asia, he suffered a stroke as a result of cerebral thrombosis. In the midst of his illness, which continued to worsen, he experienced an even greater surrender of himself to God, until his death in Rome on February 5, 1991, the anniversary of the 26 Martyrs of Japan. His final words had been: "For the present, Amen; for the future, Alleluia

"More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in God's hands.

1,000 DAYS OF WAR

 

Tuesday, the Holy Father Pope Francis wrote a letter to Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, marking the 1,000th day since the Russian invasion.

 “I am well aware that no human words can protect their lives from daily bombings, console those mourning their dead, heal the wounded, bring children back home, free prisoners, or restore justice and peace.

 May the Lord comfort our hearts and strengthen the hope that, while gathering every tear shed and holding all accountable, He remains close to us even when human efforts seem fruitless and actions inadequate.”

                                                      Ilya Yarovy- Ukraine

On Wednesday, the Holy Father, visibly moved, read a letter a Ukrainian student had sent to him. The student, whose name was not announced,  expressed the desire for the Pope and all pilgrims at the Wednesday audience to know of the faith, and not just the sufferings of the people of Ukraine.

 “I thank God because, through this pain, I am learning greater love. Pain is not only a road to anger and despair; if based on faith, it is a good teacher of love.

 When you speak of our pain, when you remember our thousand days of suffering, speak of our thousand days of love, too, because only love, faith, and hope give a real meaning to our wounds.”

BELOVED YOUTH- NEW SAINTS

Pope Francis announced today that Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, two of our favorite young Catholics beloved for their vibrant faith and witness to holiness, will be canonized during two major jubilee celebrations dedicated to young people 2025.

Blessed Carlos will be canonized during the Jubilee of Teenagers, from April 25 to 27, and Blessed Pier will be canonized during the Jubilee of Youth, taking place from July 28 to August 3. 

ANGEL OF MERCY

 

BL. MALGORZATA LUCJA  (Margaret Lucy) SZEWCZYK was born in 1828 in Szeptówka in Volyn, Ukraine  (now Poland) to a noble family. Orphaned at an early age, she was cared for by her half-sister.   In the difficult situation of partitions and persecution of the Church at the age of 20, she made her tertiary profession in the Third Order of St Francis.

In 1870-1873 she served sick pilgrims in Jerusalem. Afterwards, she went to Zakroczym. Having participated in a retreat led by Bl Honoratus Koźmiński, she rented a flat and began gathering poor and sick elderly women whom she took care of devotedly in her own apartment, as the Russian Tsar , who ruled Poland at the time, banned the Catholic Church from public activity. Gradually, other women joined her work. However, the capacity of the apartment was not enough and she was forced to relocate to a larger house.

With the aid of her confessor Bl Honoratus (Capuchin priest), she founded the Congregation, which with time came to be known as the Daughters of the Sorrowful Mother of God – Seraphic Sisters.

After 10 years, she moved to Galicia. She built a convent in Oświęcim  (Auschwitz) which became the General House of the congregation whose aim is to bring help to the deserted and sick, as well as to educate the children of orphanages and shelters. She died on 5 June 1905.

She was then beatified together with another religious and founder of the congregation, Zofia Czeska-Maciejowska, on June 9, 2013, in the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Krakow. Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the ceremony on behalf of Pope Francis .

Her feast day is June 5.  

TWO TO INSPIRE US

 

The main theme of this Blog is sanctity- that of others, as well as our own. How you may ask can we ever hope to be like someone who reached perfection in this life? We tend to forget that they were human with all the negative traits we possess. Some knew sin before a conversion, some experienced depression, discouragement, hopelessness. Others dealt with hatred, lack of care of others, selfishness. For every problem we experience in our own life, there is a saint who experienced the same suffering in their life.

In April 2019, we considered the life of a young nun who died in an earthquake in Ecuador. She, along with an American Benedictine nun, is now being considered for canonization.  In her short life she knew sin, hated in her Irish town, and had a major conversion, even though she thought she wanted to be “famous”.

SISTER CLARE CROCKETT’s early life was like so many teenagers today – caught up in the fast pace, fun loving world, oblivious of where they were being led.

 At a retreat in Spain (she thought she was going for the “entertainment”), she found her true calling.

 “I don’t know how to explain exactly what happened. I didn’t see the choirs of angels or a white dove come down from the ceiling and descend on me, but I was certain that the Lord was on the cross, for me.”

For more on her life, I highly recommend the 90 minute movie  "All or Nothng"  which can be viewed on Youtube.The postulator of the cause  of Sister Clare is Sister Kristen Gardner, a member Sister Clare’s order,  the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother.  In 2020 she wrote a biography about Sister Clare titled "Sister Clare Crockett: Alone with Christ Alone". 

 Father Gerard Mongan, parish priest of Sr. Clare’s native parish of St. Columba’s, in Derry, said she is already credited with bringing many back to the faith through her conversion story.

 “The people of Derry and beyond are overwhelmed by the possibility that one day, they will have their own saint. In particular, she has been an inspiration to many young people who have been inspired by her life, especially her infectious joy.She has already brought countless people back to the practice of their faith. We all look forward to the official opening of her cause when she will become (a) servant of God. Exciting times ahead!”

Perhaps a less typical, hopefully soon to be saint, is the Benedictine nun, SERVANT OF GOD SISTER ANNELLA ZERVAS (see Blog June 24, 2017) from Moorhead, Minnesota., She was born in 1900, the second of six children into a devoutly Catholic family.

 At age 15 (not too young in those days), she entered the convent of the Benedictine Sisters in St. Joseph, Minnesota. She was given the name Annella, to which her mother said:  there is no saint with this name. The young nun answered: “Then I shall have to be the first one.” She made her final vows in 1922.

 A year later, Sister Annella began experiencing a chronic and debilitating skin disease that caused extreme itching and other serious discomforts.  It was diagnosed as pityriasis rubra pilaris.

 I have always said that itch is worse than pain, and yet this young nun, who was musically inclined, taught music in Bismarck, North Dakota. She  was known for her good humor,  offering up her suffering in union with the suffering of Jesus, finding in the Eucharist her “greatest consolation.”

 Her body began to swell from head to toe, her skin turning a deep red and burning with an insatiable itch.  She developed sores and her skin sloughed off in chunks and strips, with "thornlike stickers" developing within her pores, which had to be painfully removed. At the time, there was no significant treatment or cure.

 She died at age 26 in 1926 on the eve of the solemnity of the Assumption, which was fitting since she had a great devotion to Our Lady. 

After her death, people began to report receiving favors and miracles through her intercession.

Patrick Norton, a Minnesota man, born in 1962 in India, was rescued from the streets of Mumbai by sisters from the Missionaries of Charity, the congregation of (St.) Mother Teresa. He was adopted by a wealthy couple from Fairfield, Connecticut, and raised Catholic along with 13 adopted siblings.

He claims to have had a vision in 2010 while working at Sister Annella’s grave and was inspired to spread devotion to her. A father of three from Avon, he has dedicated his life to sharing her story by reprinting and distributing booklets about her life as well as giving talks.

 "I'm a nobody, I'm just a painter. All I know is paint brushes and drop cloths; I've never promoted a saint. But I am promoting her. I said to the Lord, 'Let me promote her through my deafness, my uselessness, my nobody. Let me live each day for you, and I will tell the people (of her) through my nothingness. " 

She certainly is one to pray to for any skin ailment.

Sister Clare and Sister Annella’s short lives can be an inspiration on how each of us can pursue holiness in our own life, reminding us that God calls each of us to sanctity in a unique way- no two saints are alike!  

FRIEND TO SAINTS, POPES AND THE POOR

 

 

In the previous Blog, we mentioned ST. LUIGI ORIONE, who was instrumental in Bl. Teresa Grillo Michel’s work in South America.

St Luigi was born in Piedmont, Northern Italy, at Pontecurone, a village near Tortona in 1872. His father was a road digger and his mother was a woman of deep faith and well-educated. 

The young Luigi felt he wanted to be a priest and joined the Franciscans, but had to leave due to ill health. He was welcomed by St. John Bosco, but left the Salesians after a few years to become a seminarian in his own Diocese of Tortona.

While still a student, he started his lifelong work for those he loved most, namely the poor. He catechized a small group of boys who readily followed him. Dom Orione drew people to himself throughout his life. They came to be with him; some to help him, others to be helped.

Dom Orione loved everybody but the poor, the young, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities were his special friends.

At just 20 years of age, he had great insight into the problems and needs of his age. “There is a supreme need and a supreme remedy for healing the wounds of this poor country that is so beautiful but so unfortunate! Take hold of the hearts and affections of the people and enlighten the youth: pour into everyone the great idea of Catholic redemption with and for the Pope. Souls! Souls!"

At his first Mass in 1895, he prayed that those who came to him would always be granted “bread, peace and paradise”.

He established a number of religious and lay groups, each with a different charism. The Hermits of Divine Providence followed the motto of St. Benedict Ora et Labora, staffing agricultural schools in rural areas.

After the December 1908 earthquake that left 90,000 dead among the ruins, Dom Orione went to Reggio Calabria and Messina to help, especially the orphaned children and became a promoter of civil and religious works of reconstruction.  At the express wish of Pope Pius X he was appointed Vicar General of Messina diocese.

Three years later he left Sicily, dedicating himself to the formation and development of the Congregation. In December 1913, he sent the first expedition of missionaries to Brazil. He again carried out heroic activity aiding those affected by the earthquake of January 1915 that shook Marsica and left almost 30,000 victims. 

During the early years of the First world War, Dom Orione travelled the length and breadth of Italy many times to support various charitable activities, to give spiritual and material aid to people at all levels of society, and to support and nurture priestly and religious vocations. 

He had the personal esteem of Popes Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII and authorities at the Holy See who entrusted him with many delicate tasks for resolving problems and healing wounds both within the Church and in its relationship with civil society. 

He worked with prudence and charity on issues of modernism, promotion of Conciliation between Church and State in Italy, and taking in and rehabilitating “lapsed” priests in the Italian Church. He was a preacher, confessor and tireless organizer of pilgrimages, missions, processions, ‘live’ Christmas nativity scenes and other popular manifestations of faith.

 He had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother and the ideal of his life was to live and to die for the spiritual welfare of people, serving Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Mother Church and its head, the Pope. His motto was, “Do good always, to all, evil to none”.

 He travelled far and wide, started new foundations at home and abroad and followed their progress. He died in San Remo (one of my favorite places in Italy)  March 12, 1940 after sending a loving message to the Holy Father. His last words were, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus". His body is incorrupt and can be venerated in Tortona.

 At his canonization on May 16, 2004, Pope (St.) John Paul II said of him,

Passion for Christ was the soul of his bold life, the interior thrust of an altruism without reservations, the always fresh source of an indestructible hope. This humble son of a man who repaired roads proclaimed that only charity will save the world, and to everyone he would also say that perfect joy can only be found in perfect dedication of oneself to God and man, and to all mankind.

His feast is March 12.

WIDOW-NUN

 

They say we are known by the company we keep.  The next two Blogs show us once again, how saints influenced one another in the same time frame. Unlike so many of our modern-day “heroes” whom we admire from afar, the saints challenge us and in many cases they show us how they influenced  one another, showing them the way to holiness.

BLESSED TERESA GRILLO MICHEL was born in Spinetta Marengo, (Sardinia) Italy, in 1855. She was the fifth and last child of Giuseppe, the head physician at the Civil Hospital of Alessandria, and of Maria Antonietta Parvopassau, a descendent of an illustrious family of Alessandria. At Baptism she was given the name of Maddalena.

After the death of her father, the family moved to Turin, where Maddalena attended elementary school and her mother supervised the university studies of Francesco, her elder brother. When Maddalena finished elementary school, she was sent to a boarding school run by the Ladies of Loretto in Lodi, where she passed her final exams at the age of 18.

After leaving school, she returned to Alessandria, where under her mother's guidance, she was introduced to society. It was here that she met her future husband, Giovanni Michel, a cultured and brilliant captain of the Bersaglieri. After their wedding on 2 August 1877, they moved first to Caserta, then to Acireale, Catania, Portici and, lastly, Naples.

 After her husband died of sunstroke during a Naples parade in 1891, Teresa sank into a depression which bordered on total despair. Her sudden, almost unexpected recovery, due to reading the life of the Ven. Cottolengo and the help of her cousin, Monsignor Prelli, led her to aiding the poor and needy.

Teresa began to open the doors of her family home to poor children and people in need. At the end of 1893, seeing that the numbers of the poor continued to grow, she sold the Michel family home and purchased an old building on Via Faa di Bruno. Here she began her work of rebuilding, adding an upper floor and buying some modest dwellings nearby. Thus began the "Little Shelter of Divine Providence". The work Teresa had begun was had many difficulties, which came not only from the authorities but  from friends and relatives.

Nevertheless, the solidarity and affection of the poor, of generous persons and of the women who worked with her were evident. Following many requests to the ecclesiastical authorities, in 1899 Teresa Grillo was clothed with the religious habit in the small chapel at the Little Shelter, together with eight of her co-workers, founding the Congregation of the Little Sisters of Divine Providence.

In her remaining 45 years, her primary concern was to spread and build up the institute. In fact, immediately after its foundation, her community opened houses at various places in Piedmont, and soon spread to the Veneto, Lombardy, Liguria, Apulia and Lucania.

In 1900 the institute was extended to Brazil, and in 1927, at the request of St. Luigi Orione, she established houses in Argentina. Our blessed also knew and befriended Bl.Clelia Merloni (see Blog Nov. 2018), supporting her initiatives and encouraging Bl. Clelia after she was ousted from her own religios order. The two would meet whenever Bl. Teresa was in Rome.

Sparing no effort, Bl. Teresa inspired and encouraged her sisters with her caring and charismatic presence in the community. As many as eight times she crossed the ocean to visit Latin America, where at her request numerous foundations sprang up with nurseries, orphanages, schools, hospitals and homes for the elderly. She made her eighth voyage in 1928, at the age of 73.

On 8 June 1942 the Holy See granted the Congregation of the Little Sisters of Divine Providence apostolic approval. Hard to imagine in the middle of a world war!

She died two years later in Alessandria, at the age of 89. By then her institute had 25 houses in Italy, 19 in Brazil and 7 in Argentina. At her beatification in 1998, Pope John Paul noted: The Eucharist was the heart of her spiritual life...and she wanted its image to be seen on her religious habit".

Her feast is celebrated January 25.