Saint Pius V established this feast in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the Turks at Lepanto—a victory attributed to the praying of the rosary. Clement XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716.
The development of the rosary has a long history. First a practice developed of praying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms. Then there was a parallel practice of praying 150 Hail Marys. Soon a mystery of Jesus’ life was attached to each Hail Mary. Though Mary’s giving of the rosary to Saint Dominic is recognized as a legend, the development of this prayer form owes much to the followers of Saint Dominic. One of them, Alan de la Roche, was known as “the apostle of the rosary.” He founded the first Confraternity of the Rosary in the 15th century. In the 16th century, the rosary was developed to its present form—with the 15 mysteries: joyful, sorrowful and glorious. In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the five Mysteries of Light to this devotion.
Reflection
The purpose of the rosary is to help us meditate on the great mysteries of our salvation. Pius XII called it a compendium of the gospel. The main focus is on Jesus—his birth, life, death, and resurrection. The Our Fathers remind us that Jesus’ Father is the initiator of salvation. The Hail Marys remind us to join with Mary in contemplating these mysteries. They also make us aware that Mary was and is intimately joined with her Son in all the mysteries of his earthly and heavenly existence. The Glory Bes remind us that the purpose of all life is the glory of the Trinity.
The rosary appeals to many. It is simple. The constant repetition of words helps create an atmosphere in which to contemplate the mysteries of God. We sense that Jesus and Mary are with us in the joys and sorrows of life. We grow in hope that God will bring us to share in the glory of Jesus and Mary forever.
This saint has the honor of having founded a religious order which, as the saying goes, has never had to be reformed because it was never deformed. No doubt both the founder and the members would reject such high praise, but it is an indication of the saint’s intense love of a penitential life in solitude.
Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, became a famous teacher at Rheims, and was appointed chancellor of the archdiocese at the age of 45. He supported Pope Gregory VII in his fight against the decadence of the clergy, and took part in the removal of his own scandalous archbishop, Manasses. Bruno suffered the plundering of his house for his pains.
He had a dream of living in solitude and prayer, and persuaded a few friends to join him in a hermitage. After a while he felt the place unsuitable and through a friend, was given some land which was to become famous for his foundation “in the Chartreuse”—from which comes the word Carthusians. The climate, desert, mountainous terrain, and inaccessibility guaranteed silence, poverty, and small numbers.
Bruno and his friends built an oratory with small individual cells at a distance from each other. They met for Matins and Vespers each day and spent the rest of the time in solitude, eating together only on great feasts. Their chief work was copying manuscripts.
Hearing of Bruno’s holiness, the pope called for his assistance in Rome. When the pope had to flee Rome, Bruno pulled up stakes again, and after refusing a bishopric, spent his last years in the wilderness of Calabria.
Bruno was never formally canonized, because the Carthusians were averse to all occasions of publicity. However, Pope Clement X extended his feast to the whole Church in 1674.
Reflection
If there is always a certain uneasy questioning of the contemplative life, there is an even greater puzzlement about the extremely penitential combination of community and hermit life lived by the Carthusians. May we mirror Bruno’s quest for holiness and unity with God.
Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska’s Story (August 25, 1905 – October 5, 1938)
Saint Faustina’s name is forever linked to the annual feast of the Divine Mercy, the Divine Mercy chaplet, and the Divine Mercy prayer recited each day at 3 p.m. by many people.
Born in what is now west-central Poland, Helena Kowalska was the third of 10 children. She worked as a housekeeper in three cities before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925. She worked as a cook, gardener and porter in three of their houses.
In addition to carrying out her work faithfully, generously serving the needs of the sisters and the local people, Sister Faustina also had a deep interior life. This included receiving revelations from the Lord Jesus, messages that she recorded in her diary at the request of Christ and of her confessors.
At a time when some Catholics had an image of God as such a strict judge that they might be tempted to despair about the possibility of being forgiven, Jesus chose to emphasize his mercy and forgiveness for sins acknowledged and confessed. “I do not want to punish aching mankind,” he once told Saint Faustina, “but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my merciful heart.” The two rays emanating from Christ’s heart, she said, represent the blood and water poured out after Jesus’ death.
Because Sister Maria Faustina knew that the revelations she had already received did not constitute holiness itself, she wrote in her diary: “Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God.”
Sister Maria Faustina died of tuberculosis in Krakow, Poland, on October 5, 1938. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993, and canonized her seven years later.
Reflection
Devotion to God’s Divine Mercy bears some resemblance to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In both cases, sinners are encouraged not to despair, not to doubt God’s willingness to forgive them if they repent. As Psalm 136 says in each of its 26 verses, “God’s love [mercy] endures forever.”
Saint Francis of Assisi’s Story (1181 or 1182 – October 3, 1226)
The patron saint of Italy, Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit, and without a sense of self-importance.
Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi’s youth. Prayer—lengthy and difficult—led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”
From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.
He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house.” But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor “nothing” man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up all his possessions, piling even his clothes before his earthly father—who was demanding restitution for Francis’ “gifts” to the poor—so that he would be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.” He was, for a time, considered to be a religious fanatic, begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, evoking sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from the unthinking.
New call-to-action But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: “Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff” (Luke 9:1-3).
Francis’ first rule for his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no intention of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time when various movements of reform tended to break the Church’s unity.
Francis was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News. He decided in favor of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade.
During the last years of his relatively short life, he died at 44, Francis was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.
On his deathbed, Francis said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death.” He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked his superior’s permission to have his clothes removed when the last hour came in order that he could expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his Lord.
Reflection
Francis of Assisi was poor only that he might be Christ-like. He recognized creation as another manifestation of the beauty of God. In 1979, he was named patron of ecology. He did great penance—apologizing to “Brother Body” later in life—that he might be totally disciplined for the will of God. Francis’ poverty had a sister, Humility, by which he meant total dependence on the good God. But all this was, as it were, preliminary to the heart of his spirituality: living the gospel life, summed up in the charity of Jesus and perfectly expressed in the Eucharist.
Saint Francis of Assisi is the Patron Saint of:
Animals Archaeologists Ecology Italy Merchants Messengers Metal Workers
We begin our examination of the second commandment, to not take the Lord’s name in vain. Fr. Mike emphasizes that God has revealed his sacred name to us, and it is our duty to treat that name with reverence. He also emphasizes just how easy it is for us to take the Lord’s name in vain in our day and age, and how vitally important it is for us to treat his holy name with respect. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2142-2149.
As we reach the conclusion of the section on the first commandment, we end by taking a closer look at agnosticism and graven images. Fr. Mike unpacks the different forms that agnosticism can take. He also examines the veneration of images, and its relation to the first commandment. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2127-2141.
28“What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. 30 The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. 31 Which of the two did his father’s will?” They answered, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. 32 When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.
I heard you had a rather long and interesting sermon last week. Mine may not be as long, but I’ll give it a shot.
Love is an action. It is not an emotion. Our good Lord calls us to respond to His love by living a life of charity and self-sacrifice. Some will say, “Father, I went to Catholic school, and I’ve always gone to church.” Now, the lawyer in me says, “I don’t care that you have been to church. But did you go into the church?” There’s a difference. I’ve been to the hospital, but that doesn’t make me a doctor. “But, Father, I’ve been to church all my life.” That’s great. I’ve been going to the bathroom all my life, but that doesn’t make me a toilet!
How have you responded to the love God offered you, all the classes you took, all the Masses you participated in and the Sacraments you received? How did you put all of that into action? That is what our good Lord will ask us. “You have My love. What did you do with it?” If you read further along in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Jesus gives us the final exam questions. Go read it. They are all about how we responded to His love. “Lord, You know I love You.” That’s fine, but Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Matthew 14:15). That is an action. It’s an act of both positivity and negativity. Avoid sin and do good works. I’ll give you one of the 25 exam questions from the Gospel of Matthew. The others you can study on your own: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36). Those are the final exam questions, and they are all actions.
So, love is an action. It is not an attendance record. Yes, it’s the part of love that has nothing to do with attendance. It’s a little more than that considering the amount of love God offers us as well as to prostitutes and tax collectors. We are all sinners, and all our sins are vile. Now a Canon lawyer might say, “There’s a difference between mortal and venial sin.” No, no, no. You can play a lot of theological games with that. Basically, when you say “no” to God it is “no” to God. Period. Finito. That’s like comparing the difference between slapping a guy and slapping a baby. Why is slapping a baby worse? Because the baby is pure innocence. The guy may have deserved it…the baby did not. However, it is still a slap.
Love is an action and that is what our Lord asks of us. “I’ve given you My love. Are you giving your love back to Me?” We come here for the Sacraments and for prayer. We need God’s grace so that we have the energy, will, and ability to give those acts of love. His great act of love sustains us. Now He wants our acts of love in return.
[Father, looking at his watch] . . . Well, that was less than 30 minutes.
Father’s Reflections. . .
People ask me, “Father, did you have a good vacation?” Well, I’m still working on the after-action report. Now, I don’t know if this is an up or a down, but I had to let my belt out a notch because I ate like a pig. The food was wonderful. I was having lunch with a friend, a nurse, who I’ve known for 30 years. The restaurant is on the water and is a really nice place. I had seasoned blackened salmon, and I was going to order some fruit for dessert, but I got ice cream instead. My friend said, “You’re a cardiac patient,” which prompted my inner Italian to almost show itself. The next day, she had a birthday party with a huge pumpkin spice cake made with four eggs and butter that I shouldn’t eat. Thanks a lot! I’ll tell you one other story about my trip. I was sitting in the diner [see a pattern here?] where food was being served with a huge side of sarcasm which is always available. I had seen these men in the diner before, and they were talking about this woman whose husband would beat her. So, the woman’s three brothers visited her husband and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Afterward, he moved to Virginia. Rhode Island has a huge bay, and everybody has a boat.
How will you apply this message to your life? _________________________________________
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