NEW AMERICAN VENERABLE

On May 19, Pope Francis issued a decree that recognized the heroic virtues of BR. NORBERT McAULIFFE, an American missionary in Africa.

Venerable Norbert McAuliffe was born in 1886 in Manhattan, New York, and eventually joined the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, a relatively new religious congregation at the time. The congregation was founded by in 1821 by Fr. André Coindre in France and by the time of his death was beginning to spread around the world. The community of brothers are trained to work with the poor through the establishment of schools.

According to their Rule of Life: “Our love for our brothers and the young people in our care radiates from the love Jesus has for us. Our dedication to others, marked by respect, kindness, and concern, will be a sign to them of the compassion of Christ.”

The congregation is primarily made up of religious brothers, with only a few members being ordained priests.

Initially Bro. McAuliffe served as a director of their house in Metuchen, New Jersey, for about six years before being sent as a missionary to Africa. He was sent to Gulu, Uganda, where he established the congregation’s first mission there. The country at the time was under British rule and the people were receptive to Brother

Norbert’s missionary activities. He remained there for 20 years until his death on July 3, 1959 at the age of 72.

His legacy lives on in Uganda and his life was an inspiration to the African people he ministered to in the region.

OASIS OF BEAUTY AND JOY

Chartres Cathedral

His Eminence Robert Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke  May 21 in the cathedral of Chartres to the pilgrims present. Towards the end of his homily, His Eminence, a great friend of the monastic life and the author of the best selling  The Power of Silence, said:

Dear people of France, it is the monasteries that made the civilization of your country! It is men and women who have accepted to follow Jesus to the end, radically, who have built Christian Europe. Because they have sought God alone, they have built a beautiful and peaceful civilization, like this cathedral.

People of France, peoples of the West, you will find peace and joy only by seeking God alone! Return to the Source! Return to the monasteries! Yes, all of you, dare to spend a few days in a monastery! In this world of tumult, ugliness and sadness, monasteries are oases of beauty and joy. You will experience that it is possible to put concretely God in the center of his whole life. You will experience the only joy that will not pass.

DANCING WITH THE LORD

Another lay woman of note  is BL. ANGELA SALAWA  a Pole  who served in hospitals in World War I.  Born in  the village of Siepraw near Kraków, Poland in 1881 she was the eleventh of twelve children.  Her father Bartłomiej was a blacksmith. Angela was baptized four days after her birth. 

Because she was weak and sickly, Angela was not as able help with chores as much as her more physically robust siblings. Yet she was an obedient child who tried to do her best to help her family.

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At the age of 16, Angela left home to work as a maid in Kraków. While there, she became caught up in worldly pursuits and her religious fervor waned. She was much affected by the death of her sister Teresa, who had appealed to Angela to reconsider her worldly values. 

While dancing at a wedding reception, Angela perceived Christ standing nearby, asking her how she could prefer dancing to following Him. The experience was a turning-point in her life. She immediately went to a church to pray and became devoted to adoration of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Angela considered a religious vocation, but her weak physical health was an impediment. She decided to remain in the world, taking private vows of chastity and virtue in 1900. She continued to work as a maid, but suffered due to a breach between herself and her family.

In 1912, Angela became a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. She felt an affinity with St Francis of Assisi, who, like Angela herself, had broken with his family.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Angela remained in Kraków, nursing soldiers. Her own health was deteriorating, but no one noticed her suffering. In 1916 her employer accused her of stealing, and she lost her employment. She was homeless, in pain and ill, but she was discharged from the hospital because she appeared to be well. Eventually she was alone in the world, living in a basement room, abandoned by family, friends and neighbors.  She died on 12 March 1922. She was only 42 years old.

The first miracle towards her canonization 1990 in Nowy Targ in Poland was a young boy who suffered a severe brain injury. The intercession of Angela Salawa was asked to help the boy, and he made a full recovery. (St.) John Paul II approved the miracle on 6 July 1991 and beatified her on 13 August 1991. 

MOTHER OF ORPHANS

Everyone who knows me knows that I am always interested in anyone who has spent their lives dedicated to children. Recently, I had an older woman email regarding entrance into the monastery.  She was beyond our acceptance age so I told her the Church needs good holy lay people. That many have been made saints in the past 25 years, thanks especially to St. John Paul.  She did not want to hear this and said sanctity in the world is impossible! One such holy woman has recently been named Venerable, but I could find very little about her, even in Italian news, even though she died in 1978.

VENERABLE MARIA  ANTONELLA BORDONI,  of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, was the founder of the Lay Fraternity of the Little Daughters of the Mother of God, now Little Daughters of the Mother of God.  She was born on 13 October 1916 in Arezzo, Italy, and died in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on 16 January 1978.

 

She is considered the apostle of orphans, who responded to the tragedy of children without families in the post-war period.  She was considered a kind, patient woman.  She had opened a house in Castelgandolfo where she worked full time. 

NEW FEAST FOR OUR MOTHER

Pope Francis celebrated the first feast of Mary, Mother of the Church saying that without the emphasis placed on motherhood, the Church would be isolated, composed of no more than “old bachelors.”

“Without this dimension, it sadly becomes a church of old bachelors, who live in this isolation, incapable of love, incapable of fecundity. Without the woman, the Church does not advance – because she is a woman. And this attitude of woman comes from Mary, because Jesus willed it so.”

In his homily Pope Francis said “the Church is feminine, because it is 'church' and 'bride,'” both of which are grammatically feminine in the Italian language.

The Church is also a mother, “she gives life,” he said, adding that only a feminine Church would be able to have a truly “fruitful attitude” in accordance with the will of God, who chose “to be born of a woman in order to teach us the path of woman.”

“The important thing is that the Church be a woman, that it has this attitude of a bride and of a mother, when we forget this, it is a masculine Church.”

Mary's motherhood is emphasized throughout the Gospels, from the Annunciation to the foot of the cross, he said, explaining that the fathers of the Church realized this attention to motherhood is not just applied to Mary, but can be applied to the entire Church.

The Church itself is feminine, he said, noting that the Fathers of the Church say, “even your soul is the bride of Christ and mother.”

“It is with this attitude that comes from Mary, who is Mother of the Church, with this attitude we can understand this feminine dimension of the Church,” the pope said, adding that if this aspect is lost, “the Church loses its identity and becomes a charitable organization or a football team, but not the Church.”

Francis said the primary distinctive quality of a woman is tenderness, which can be seen in Mary's act of wrapping her newborn son “in swaddling clothing” and laying him in the manger in Bethlehem.

In this action, Mary cared for Christ with meekness and humility, the strongest virtues mothers possess, he said, explaining that “a Church that is a mother goes along the path of tenderness.”

“It knows the language of such wisdom of caresses, of silence, of the gaze that knows compassion,” he said, explaining that this attitude is also representative of those people who live as part of the Church, knowing that they are “[like] a mother [and] must go along the same path: a person [who is] gentle, tender, smiling, full of love.”

A RENEWED EARTH

"Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your SPIRIT and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth."

We pray this prayer to the Ho;ly Spirit often in the monastery, certainly before every important gathering in which a decision must be made.

I have always  thought that we need to add that the earth will be renewed only by us, with  His help, as we are the instruments through which He performs His miracles. And only by accepting  the seven gifts of His Spirit will we make the changes in our own life that in turn can effect change in our world.

“O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.”

Sadao Watanabe

SERVANT TO THE POOR

In our last Blog we spoke of SERVANT of GOD ORESTE BENZI the spiritual director of Ven. Sandra Sabattini.  He was an Italian priest and the founder of the  "Community of Pope John XXIII". Father Benzi championed the rights of the individual and founded his association to aid teenagers in their lives and their path to Jesus Christ while also striving to evangelize to those including the destitute.

Oreste Benzi was born in San Clemente, Italy in 1925 the seventh of nine children to the poor Achille Benzi and Rosa Silvagni, who instilled a sense of great piousness in her children.

His second grade teacher Olga Baldani spoke of a priest and of a scientist and explorer in a tale meant to challenge the students as to what would seem the better profession. This had a profound impact on the child who returned home and told his mother that he wanted to become a priest.

He began his studies for the priesthood in 1937 first at Urbino and then at Rimini. He transferred his studies to Bologna due to Allied bombings during World War II around Rimini. After ordination in 1949 he was appointed as the chaplain for the parish of San Nicolò in Rimini.

In 1953 Father Benzi was made  the spiritual director of students in Rimini and he later oversaw the establishment of an Alpine vacation home for teenagers in Alba di Canazei (built between 1958 and 1961) that saw him make several visits to the USA in order to raise funds.

In 1968 he founded the "Community of Pope John XXIII". The priest opened the first home for families at Coriano in 1973. The Italian government recognized the movement, while it received diocesan recognition in 1983. The Pontifical Council for the Laity recognized the movement as an "association of the faithful" in 1998.

Father Benzi was known for his action in defense of those who were marginalized and his battle against prostitution and homosexual unions. His work bought him into contact several times with Pope John Paul II. From 1969 until 2000 he served as a parish priest at the Resurrection parish in the Grotta Rossa neighborhood of Rimini. St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. Maximilian Kolbe inspired him as well as spiritual writers such as Cardinal Henri de Lubac and Bl. Antoine Chevrier.

Father Benzi died in 2007 after suffering a heart attack. More than 10 000 mourners attended his funeral and it included several of the prostitutes that he had rescued. His movement is now present in a total of 27 European countries as well as in Asia and Africa and Latin America and Australia.

When Father Benzi  died, Pope Benedict XVI sent his heartfelt condolences, recalling Father Benzi’s early enthusiasm for pastoral work as a parish priest and his later role as an indefatigable apostle for charity in favor of the least and the defenseless, shouldering the burden of so many of the serious social problems afflicting our modern world.