PUERTO RICO'S LAY SAINT

 

BL. CARLOS MANUEL CECILIO RODRIGUEZ SANTIAGO  is the first Puerto Rican, the first Caribbean-born layperson to be beatified.

He was born in 1963,  the second of five brothers and sisters. Two of his sisters married, while another became a Carmelite nun. His brother, José (Pepe) Rodriguez became a Benedictine monk and the first Puerto Rican to become abbot of his monastery. 

(Abbot Jose Rodriguez was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, on March 19, 1922, was professed on July 11, 1959, was ordained to the priesthood on June 1, 1963, and was elected first abbot of San Antonio Abad on July 12, 1984.)

 After graduating the Catholic elementary school, Bl. Carlos began to attend José Gautier Benítez High School. His desire to become a priest was undermined by ill health.  At that point, he began to develop ulcerative colitis. After two years at the local public high school, he transferred to the Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in San Juan. His medical problems, however, caused him to leave before graduation. He returned to the family home and continued his high school studies as best he could while working as a clerk, finally receiving his diploma in May 1939.

While Bl. Carlos was working as an office clerk in various towns of the region, he dedicated his resources to promote a greater knowledge of the Catholic faith by promoting a greater understanding of the Catholic liturgy. Using articles on liturgical subjects he had translated and edited, he began publishing ”Liturgy and Christian Culture”, to which he dedicated innumerable hours. He  organized discussion groups in towns across the entire island and worked with Catholic social organizations to disseminate his ideas. He also taught catechism to high school students whose study aids he supplied out of his pocket,  and he was a Knight of Columbus.

In 1946,  Bl. Carlos enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras  to pursue higher studies, where his brother José and sister Haydée were already UPR faculty members. As his disciples grew in number, he moved into nearby Catholic University Center and organized another Liturgy Circle (later called the Círculo de Cultura Cristiana). Despite excellent grades and his love for studies, however, illness prevented him from completing his second year.

 Nonetheless, he was a voracious reader and, with only a year's study, was able to master both the piano and the church organ. In 1948, he assembled along with Father McGlone, the parroquial chorus "Te Deum Laudamus".

 He zealously promoted a renewal of the Catholic liturgy among bishops, clergy, and laypeople. He professed extreme devotion to the liturgy and worked to repair the loss of liturgical customs that had been abandoned over generations. He advocated for active participation of the laity in prayer, the use of the vernacular, and the observance of his much loved Paschal Vigil in its proper nighttime setting, after centuries of having this service celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday.

One of his favorite sayings about this feast was Vivimos para esa noche (We live for that night). This is now the motto on his tomb, which is located in the Cathedral of Caguas.

Bl. Carlos  was diagnosed with rectal cancer following an operation in 1963 and died on July 13, 1963, at the age of 44.  His feast is celebrated July 13. In these days when there is so much talk of reform of the Liturgy, he is a good one to pray to.

LITURGICAL VISION

 

ISABEL PICZEK was an important Los Angeles artist. Many of her works are in public places, such as the exceptionally beautiful mosaic at the Catholic Cemetery in the Mission San Fernando, which was done in 1961. But she is best known for her study of the Shroud of Turin. Her sister, Edith Piczek, was also a noted religious artist. Isabel was still a young student when she began to visualize the possibilities of a new sacred art form - a new liturgical vision.                          

Over the years, Isabel and Edith described their “aesthetic partnership” in terms of a “mystical realism” which they looked upon as part of the modern visual and spiritual revolution in ecclesial art. The unassuming sisters saw their vocation as a “cultural and religious mission.” Their partnership blossomed and matured through the years. Edith was a frequent collaborator and Isabel’s lifetime companion until her death in 2012.

 Isabel, born in 1927, and her sister were born in Hungary, where  their father was a noted artist and art professor.  She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Just after the end of World War II, Isabel and her sister fled the Communist regime in Hungary and escaped across the border into Austria. It was a difficult and often dangerous journey but they soon found their way to freedom. After a brief stay in Vienna, they literally “painted” their way across Europe, traveling from one monastery to another, enduring struggles and challenges along the journey. At one point they wandered in the snow of the Alps for three days until finally finding their way across the Italian border. They continued on to Rome which would become their home for the next three years.

By 1955 they were in Canada and shortly after arrived in Los Angeles to pursue their combined talents.  They soon established their Studio, the Construction Art Center, in Echo Park close to downtown Los Angeles. It is here that Isabel  continued to live and create art for over 50 years. Her body of work is nothing short of astonishing and includes colossal size murals, mosaics, paintings, stained glass windows and tile works for over 400 buildings, churches and cathedrals in seven countries and on three continents.

In Las Vegas, Edith designed the 2,000 square-foot mosaic on the façade of Guardian Angel Cathedral that illustrated the roles of the Guardian Angel.

 Isabel created the Stained glass windows that portray the Stations of the Cross for the same church. The two also collaborated on mosaics and the windows for Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, California and artwork in St Thomas Aquinas Cathedral in Reno, Nevada.

Isabel created a 300 square foot figurative stained glass entrance for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

In 1992, Isabel, along with her sister Edith, was honored by Pope  St. John Paul II in recognition of her prolific artistic achievements, examples of which can be found in nearly 500 different cathedrals, churches and other buildings across the world.

She became one of only 70 Knights and Dames throughout the world to hold the title Dame of Saint Gregory when she was admitted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great.

In addition to being a world class artist, she  also became an internationally known Physicist.  Isabel died on September 29, 2016 at the age of 88.

Images:  

Jesus Meets His Mother - St. Bonaventure Church, Huntington Beach, CA

Woman Clothed with the Sun- St Norbert Church, Orange, CA

Jesus the Divine Healer- Heart of Jesus Retreat Center, Santa Ana, CA

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ASSUMPTION

 

Assumuption - Bartolomeo della Gatta 

 

Prayer to Our Lady Of The Assumption

by Pope St. Pius X

O immaculate virgin, Mother of God and Mother of humanity, we believe with all the fervor of our faith in your triumphal assumption both in body and in soul into heaven where you are acclaimed as queen by all the choirs of angels and all the legions of saints; we unite with them to praise and bless the Lord who has exalted you above all other pure creatures and to offer you the tribute of our devotion and our love. 

We know that your gaze, which on earth watched over the humble and suffering humanity of Jesus, in heaven is filled with the vision of that humanity glorified and with the vision of uncreated wisdom, and that the joy of your soul in the direct contemplation of the adorable trinity causes your heart to throb with overwhelming tenderness; and we, poor sinners whose body weights down the flight of the soul, beg you to purify our hearts so that, while we remain below, we may learn to see God and God alone in the beauties of his creatures.

We trust that your merciful eyes may deign to gaze down upon our miseries and anguish, upon our struggles and our weaknesses; that your countenance may smile upon our joys and our victories; that you may hear the voice of Jesus saying to you of each one of us, as he once said to you of his beloved disciple:

"Behold you son," and we who call upon you as our mother, we, like John, take you as the guide, strength and consolation of our mortal life.

We are inspired by the certainty that your eyes, which wept over the earth crimsoned by the blood of Jesus, are yet turned toward this world racked by wars and persecutions, the oppression of the just and the weak. From the shadows of this vale of tears, we seek in your heavenly assistance, tender mercy, comfort for our aching hearts, and help in the trials of Church and country.

We believe finally that in the glory where you reign, clothed with the sun and crowned with stars, you are, after Jesus, the joy and gladness of all the angels and the saints, and from this earth, over which we tread as pilgrims, comforted by our faith in the future resurrection, we look to you our life, our sweetness, our hope; draw us onward with the sweetness of your voice, so that one day, after our exile, you may show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb.

O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.

Amen.

DIFFERENT MARTYRS

 

Recently, we wrote of some Franciscans being considered for sainthood. Here are two more, both Americans, both martyrs, but with a difference.  One died quickly, the other a long endurance of suffering.

FRIAR WOJCIECH TOPOLINSKI was a Polish-American born in 1885.  I found no  details of his early life, but know he was a  member of the St. Anthony of Padua  (Franciscans) Province in America.  He had a doctorate in theology and held many prestigious responsibilities throughout his life; friar of St Anthony province in USA (from 1903), Professor at the Order's Theological Seminary in Rome; Apostolic Confessor at the Basilica of Loreto and St. Peter's Basilica;  and finally the Postulator General of the Order.

He was  postulator for the beatifications of Queen Hedwig, Card. Stanislaus Hozjusz’s and Fr Raphael Chyliński, and Bl. Kinga’s canonization.

He was also rector of St Francis High School in Athol Springs NY USA (1927),  and served as pastor  in  Shamokin PA,Lawrence,  MA, Trenton NJ, Milwaukee WI, and Buffallo NY.  

After researching and promoting the cause for Beatification of Friar Didák Kelemen in Hungary in 1939, he stopped to visit his homeland of Poland.  

While there the Second World War broke out and he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the Sztum Prison Camp. on the 19th April, 1940, Fr. Topolinski was told he would be released, with the proviso that he return to the USA but instead was lead to the bathhouse and drowned in a tub by the guards. 

Having a priest in our own Archdiocese, whom we pray for daily, with the dreaded ALS, we have a clue how debilitating it can be.

FRIAR CAMILIUS DELUDE,an American born Franciscan, was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) in 1993 and given only a few years to live.  Brother Camillus defied the odds and went on to live with this cross for more than two decades.

Br. Camillus was part of the founding Friars at Marytown at Kenosha, Wisconsin, and was part of the original crew to publish the Immaculata Magazine. After Marytown, he moved to Libertyville, Il,  and continued to work on the press apostolate.

He was always prayerful and never a complaint was heard, even as he slowly began to lose the ability to move. He was a dedicated member of the Militia Immaculata as a 'Knight at the Foot of the Cross', offering up his suffering and praying for the intentions of the MI, the Order, and the Church. He died in 2014.

THE COURAGE TO DIE

 “ On the Way to Auschwitz” ( Ignatius Press, 2010) by Father Paul Hamans writes:

“On the same summer day in 1942, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and hundreds of other Catholic Jews were arrested in Holland by the occupying Nazis. Of those arrested, 113 (several of them priests and nuns) perished at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. They were murdered in retaliation for the anti-Nazi pastoral letter written by the Dutch Catholic bishops.”

“While St. Teresa Benedicta, canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1998, is the most famous member of this group, all of them deserve the title of martyr. They were killed not only because they were Jews but also because of the faith of the Church, which had compelled the Dutch bishops to protest the Nazi regime.

 Among them were those who, like St. Teresa Benedicta, perceived the cross they were being asked to bear and accepted it willingly for the salvation of the world.” [From the cover]

One Jewish convert to Catholicism was  LISAMARIA MEIROWSKY ( MARIA MAGDALENA DOMINIKA), born in 1904 in Graudenz,  the daughter of the dermatologist Emil Meirowsky , who opened a practice in Cologne-Lindenthal in 1908 . After graduating from high school in Cologne, she began studying medicine at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in 1923. In 1925 she went to Munich for two years to continue her medical studies.

 She also received her doctorate in 1933 from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. The title of the dissertation in the field of dermatology was “On the clinical picture of Erythema palmoplantare symmetricum hereditarium”. 

She then went to Rome, specializing  in the field of pediatrics. There she  met  the Dominican Franziskus Maria Stratmann.  She converted on the feast  St. Teresa of Avila, 15 October  to Catholicism and took the name Maria Magdalena Dominika .

In 1938, persecuted as a “ non-Aryan ”, she went to Utrecht in the Netherlands together with Father Stratmann . In October 1941 she went into hiding in the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Koningsoord near Tilburg , where she worked as a doctor and porter. 

On July 26, 1942, the Archbishop of Utrecht, Jan de Jong, had a pastoral letter read out against the actions of the Germans against the Jews. In response to this, on August 2, 1942, 244 former Jews who had converted to Catholicism, including Lisamaria and the siblings Edith  (St. Benedicta of the Cross) and Rosa Stein, were arrested by the Gestapo and deported.

 They were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp on August 7, 1942 and murdered on August 9.  One last letter, in which she accepted martyrdom as a granted grace from God, she addressed to her Father Stratmann.

 The Catholic Church accepted Lisamaria Meirowsky as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century. 

In May 2014, in front of her last place of residence in Cologne-Lindenthal at Fürst-Pückler-Strasse 42, a memorial  was laid by students from a high school in Cologne.

 The April issue of Magnificat featured the  letter by Sister M. Magdalena Dominica on Thursday the 22nd (pp. 284-285). 

 

The April issue of Magnificat featured a letter by Sister M. Magdalena Dominica on Thursday the 22nd (pp. 284-285).

 You probably know that we are here and awaiting deportation to Poland. Tomorrow morning we move on. With me are two Trappists and two Fathers and a lay brother of the abbey. I want to tell you that I am full of confidence and completely resigned to God’s holy will. More than that, I consider it a blessing and a privilege to have to leave under such circumstances and in this way defend the word of our Fathers and shepherds in Christ.

If our suffering has become a little greater, our blessing is likewise doubly great, and a glorious crown awaits us in heaven. Rejoice with me. I go with courage and confidence and joy, as do also the sisters who are here with me; we are being allowed to bear witness for Jesus and to testify with our bishops on behalf of the truth. We go as children of our mother, the holy Church; we want to join our sufferings to the sufferings of our King, Savior, and Bridegroom, and to offer them in sacrifice for the conversion of many souls and thus before all else for the peace and the Kingdom of Christ.

In case I do not survive, you will no doubt have the kindness to write afterward to my beloved parents and brothers and to tell them that the sacrifice of my life was in their behalf. Convey to all of them my love and gratitude, and tell them that I ask forgiveness for every wrong and for the suffering that I have perhaps inflicted on them. Tell them also that my mother’s sister and my father’s twin sister went to the camps of Poland full of faith, trust, and resignation.

Tell Father Stratmann that he must not feel sad, but on the contrary join me in giving thanks to God for having chosen me, and sing a jubilant Magnificat. The work for peace we began together will come to consummation when, where, and as God wills it, and I shall collaborate as zealously and effectively as possible. Either through my insignificant suffering—and it is indeed nothing as compared with the eternity of joy that awaits us—or from beyond I shall always help him and stand beside him.

And now, sincere thanks for all the good you have at any time done for me, for all your merciful Christian charity. You have given me courage so often. Jesus lives in my heart and walks with us and gives me strength—he is my strength and my peace. May Mary protect you and may the love of God sanctify you always. Once again I humbly ask for your prayers and your priestly blessing.

In Jesus and Mary, Your sister M. Magdalena Dominica

Artist- Roman Halter (d. 2012) a Polish painter, sculptor, writer, architect and Holocaust survivor. He managed to escape from a cart while on a transport to Chełmno extermination camp. His mother, sister and her family died in Chełmno.

VISIBLE BEAUTY TO SEE GOD'S GLORY

“Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God — the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature,” in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.”  CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, NO. 2502

An artist who embodies this is GWYNETH THOMPSON-BRIGGS, whom a friend recently clued me in on  because of her  very fine works of St. Benedict and his twin Scholastica.

So often we see Benedict as an old wise man, but  this very Catholic artist has painted him as in the prime of life. She chose to depict the saints at about thirty-three, the age of Christ at the end of His life on earth. Reading St. Gregory the Great’s Life of Benedict in preparation for the project introduced her to the vigor of Benedict, “renouncing the world in the prime of his life for a life of manful asceticism, laying down monastic rules that have endured to our day,” she says. “I wanted to impart that vigor to the portrait.”

 Charlton Heston was suggested as the model  from his role in "The Ten Commandments" as a visual reference point. For St. Scholastica, Gwyneth  chose a cross between Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren, and Julia Child.  Obviously, she well researches her subjects, before painting.  Some of her saints are brilliant.  I love St. Joseph, who again she has portrayed in the prime of his life. I hate these St. Josephs that look as old as Methuselah!

During high school, Gwyneth studied under Tony Ortega at the Art Students League of Denver. She went on to earn a BFA at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. She also holds advanced degrees in Physics and Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. She taught college-level math for eight years, including two at the Colorado School of Mines, while continuing to study drawing and painting independently.

 In 2014, Gwyneth moved to New England to study the Boston School technique under Paul Ingbretson, and began to dedicate herself full-time to art and design. She was Visiting Fellow and Artist-in-Residence at The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, NH, where she and her husband developed a year-long core course in the perception, practice, and theory of sacred art.

In 2017 Gwyneth  launched a new Catholic Artists Directory, featuring a careful selection of Catholic art in sacred music and visual arts.  This new Catholic Artists Directory has two big purposes: First, pastors, church committees, Catholic schools and institutions, and private patrons of the arts now have a one-stop forum to find artists of the highest caliber to adorn their churches, chapels and homes. Second, the Catholic Artists Directors provides an online home for artists and art-lovers to network and discover and learn from each other’s work.

“Christ sacrifices Himself to the Father in the Spirit through the action of His priest, but everything else on and around the altar is at once offered up with Christ as the first fruits of human effort. We have the duty and the privilege to offer the very best to God our Father. At the same time, sacred art — the chalice, the vestments, the altarpiece — expresses the reality and the sublimity of Christ’s sacrifice to those present, helping the doubter to believe, and helping the believer to pray. We are all    poor sinners, half-blinded by original and actual sin; we need visible and audible beauty to help us see the glory of God.”

Gwyneth now lives in St. Louis with her husband, Andrew, and their three children.

 There is a wonderful interview  in Benedict  XVI Institute for the Sacred Music and Divine Worship.            https://www.benedictinstitute.org/  and more articles online.

 

 

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE PAINTER

 MAXO (Maximilian)  VANKA was born in 1889 in Croatia,  the illegitimate son of Austrian nobility. He spent his first eight years working as part of a peasant family. When his maternal grandmother discovered his existence, she gave him an aristocratic life living in a castle and his education included  art.

He studied at the art academy in Zagreb and then the Academie Royale des Beaux Arts in Brussels. As a 25-year-old student, he won the gold medal of King Albert. He continued to exhibit throughout Europe, winning many honors. He taught art in Zagreb. 

 He served with the Belgian Red Cross, because he was a pacifist and would not serve in the regular army.

Though he found success in Croatia, the growing threat to his Jewish family fueled his immigration to America in 1934.  He won the heart of the daughter of an American doctor, Margaret Stetten. Thanks to a Father Zagar, he arrived in Millvale PA in 1937

 He is known for the Vanka Murals at St. Nicholas Church, a small Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, set atop the hillside across the Allegheny River from the bustling city of Pittsburgh.  This was the first Croatian Catholic parish in the United States.  (Our area has many Croatian families and we are close to several Croatian priests).

Father Albert Zagar, the parish priest, longed for color on his church’s plain walls  and specifically “not average Church murals”– so, he invited Maxo Vanka to come and paint inside the small Romanesque church, which had recently been rebuilt after a destructive fire.

Maxo accepted and came to Millvale, collaborating with the priest to create one of the most spectacular collections of murals in the world. The artist painted a portion of the murals in 1937 and, in 1941, returned to the church to paint the remainder of the scenes.

 The murals depict Christ and Mary in images of war and offer social commentary on world events like fascism,  war and poverty. They depict Croatian immigrants coming to America to seek a better life, grateful to have escaped the slaughter taking place in their homeland.

 This was Maxo’s "Mothers offer up their sons for labor" theme, a tribute to all those who worked diligently in the mills and mines in and around Pittsburgh. One mural depicts the fire and collapse of one of the coal burning mills and as a Croatian mother cradles her dead son, her other three sons rush into the mill to save their fellow workers and are killed.

 A committed pacifist, the intensity of Vanka's beliefs are depicted clearly in post-war murals. One is of the Virgin Mary coming between two warring soldiers. Another depicts two soldiers battling each other, yet this time it is Jesus who attempts to intercede and one of the soldiers accidentally thrusts his bayonet into Jesus' heart.

 His Millvale murals fueled Vanka to continue his work shining a light on the story of immigrants in America, social justice, and the quietude of rural life. Now living in Eastern Pennsylvania, he founded the art department at Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture in New Britain and continued to create art.  

His themes of social justice are just as relevant today as they were sixty years ago. Immigrants to America see that Maxo’s story is that of all of us, what it’s like to create a new life in a new land.

On his philosophy of painting, he declared: “I painted so that Divinity in becoming human, would make humanity divine.”

I

mages:

~ Immigrant Mother Gives Her Sons for American Industry

~ Croatian Mother Raises Her Son for War

~Mary on the Battlefield