Before we can see outward changes for the good in society, there must be inward conversion in the hearts of its members, so says the Catechism. Fr. Mike highlights the fact that societies are made up of people with both body and soul—and the soul is often overlooked. Because we are broken, there is a “permanent need” for our conversion, and any society that fails to take this into account is doomed to do violence to human dignity. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1886-1896.
Man is made for communion. God created man in his triune image, making us naturally social and communal beings. We learn that various societies weave us together: the family, the state, our professions, and recreational activities, among others. Fr. Mike explains how the Church promotes the principle of subsidiarity to protect the goodness of the various levels of society as each level pursues the common good. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1877-1885.
Blessed Claudio Granzotto’s Story (August 23, 1900 – August 15, 1947)
Born in Santa Lucia del Piave near Venice, Claudio was the youngest of nine children and was accustomed to hard work in the fields. At the age of 9, he lost his father. Six years later, he was drafted into the Italian army, where he served more than three years.
His artistic abilities, especially in sculpture, led to studies at Venice’s Academy of Fine Arts, which awarded him a diploma with the highest marks in 1929. Even then he was especially interested in religious art. When Claudio entered the Friars Minor four years later, his parish priest wrote, “The Order is receiving not only an artist but a saint.” Prayer, charity to the poor, and artistic work characterized his life which was cut short by a brain tumor. He died on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1947, and was beatified in 1994. His liturgical feast is celebrated on March 23.
Reflection
Claudio developed into such an excellent sculptor that his work still turns people toward God. No stranger to adversity, he met every obstacle courageously, reflecting the generosity, faith, and joy that he learned from Francis of Assisi.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s Story (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997)
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the order she founded in 1950, as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers, and an order of priests.
Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia, Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children who survived. For a time, the family lived comfortably, and her father’s construction business thrived. But life changed overnight following his unexpected death.
During her years in public school, Agnes participated in a Catholic sodality and showed a strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18, she entered the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her mother for the final time and made her way to a new land and a new life. The following year she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling, India. There she chose the name Teresa and prepared for a life of service. She was assigned to a high school for girls in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to the daughters of the wealthy. But she could not escape the realities around her—the poverty, the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people.
In 1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa heard what she later explained as “a call within a call. The message was clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.” She also heard a call to give up her life with the Sisters of Loreto and instead, to “follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.”
After receiving permission to leave Loreto, establish a new religious community, and undertake her new work, Sister Teresa took a nursing course for several months. She returned to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children. Dressed in a white sari and sandals–the ordinary dress of an Indian woman–she soon began getting to know her neighbors—especially the poor and sick—and getting to know their needs through visits.
The work was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of the Missionaries of Charity. Others helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, and the use of buildings. In 1952, the city of Calcutta gave Mother Teresa a former hostel, which became a home for the dying and the destitute. As the order expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging, and street people.
For the next four decades, Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she crisscrossed the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home. Blessed Teresa was canonized by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016.
Reflection
Mother Teresa’s beatification, just over six years after her death, was part of an expedited process put into effect by Pope John Paul II. Like so many others around the world, he found her love for the Eucharist, for prayer, and for the poor a model for all to emulate.
Saint Rose of Viterbo’s Story (1233 – March 6, 1251)
Even as a child, Rose had a great desire to pray and to aid the poor. While still very young, she began a life of penance in her parents’ house. She was as generous to the poor as she was strict with herself. At the age of 10, she became a Secular Franciscan and soon began preaching in the streets about sin and the sufferings of Jesus.
Viterbo, her native city, was then in revolt against the pope. When Rose took the pope’s side against the emperor, she and her family were exiled from the city. When the pope’s side won in Viterbo, Rose was allowed to return. Her attempt at age 15 to found a religious community failed, and she returned to a life of prayer and penance in her father’s home, where she died in 1251. Rose was canonized in 1457.
Reflection
The list of Franciscan saints seems to have quite a few men and women who accomplished nothing very extraordinary. Rose is one of them. She did not influence popes and kings, did not multiply bread for the hungry, and never established the religious order of her dreams. But she made a place in her life for God’s grace, and like Saint Francis before her, saw death as the gateway to new life.
Saint Gregory the Great’s Story (c. 540 – March 12, 604)
Gregory was the prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in office he resigned, founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estate, and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome.
Ordained a priest, Gregory became one of the pope’s seven deacons, and also served six years in the East as papal representative in Constantinople. He was recalled to become abbot, but at the age of 50 was elected pope by the clergy and people of Rome.
Gregory was direct and firm. He removed unworthy priests from office, forbade taking money for many services, emptied the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the Lombards and to care for persecuted Jews and the victims of plague and famine. He was very concerned about the conversion of England, sending 40 monks from his own monastery. He is known for his reform of the liturgy, and for strengthening respect for doctrine. Whether he was largely responsible for the revision of “Gregorian” chant is disputed.
Gregory lived in a time of perpetual strife with invading Lombards and difficult relations with the East. When Rome itself was under attack, he interviewed the Lombard king.
His book, Pastoral Care, on the duties and qualities of a bishop, was read for centuries after his death. He described bishops mainly as physicians whose main duties were preaching and the enforcement of discipline. In his own down-to-earth preaching, Gregory was skilled at applying the daily Gospel to the needs of his listeners. Called “the Great,” Gregory has been given a place with Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, as one of the four key doctors of the Western Church.
An Anglican historian has written: “It is impossible to conceive what would have been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the Middle Ages without the medieval papacy; and of the medieval papacy, the real father is Gregory the Great.”
Reflection
Gregory was content to be a monk, but he willingly served the Church in other ways when asked. He sacrificed his own preferences in many ways, especially when he was called to be Bishop of Rome. Once he was called to public service, Gregory gave his considerable energies completely to this work. Gregory’s description of bishops as physicians fits in well with Pope Francis’ description of the Church as a “field hospital.”
From that time on, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. 22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” 23 He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to Me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? 27 For the Son of Man will come with His angels in His Father’s glory, and then He will repay everyone according to his conduct.
Last Friday night I had dinner at Blue Bay, and I had a love/hate relationship with my dinner. Guess what I had . . . fish. Did I tell you I hate fish? But my doctor said if I eat fish at least twice a week, I might live longer. I guess that is so I can die of something else. Thanks a lot, Doc! Appreciate it! I was thinking about a time when I liked fish. I’d had a cardiac procedure and when I came back, one of the ladies in the parish brought me a salmon dinner. I didn’t mind it. Of course, I was still on medication at the time, and I felt much better! Perhaps that’s the secret to liking fish. But that’s just a little cross of mine.
Whether you love Jesus or not, you will get a cross. We both love and hate our crosses. They are meant to help us, so embrace them. When we carry our crosses, we are fulfilling the command of our Savior. But we struggle with them, and that is good because it means you love God. We also hate our crosses. Nobody likes them. Some crosses come and some go in accordance with the time of life. Some we have from the beginning until the end. And sometimes, we even get extra ones. We all have our share, and they are heavy enough for us to carry. We cannot refuse our crosses. None of them. Nor can we, like the Protestant churches, remove some of the Commandments because, you know . . . they’re hard. Jesus called those people satan. They take away the redemptive nature of suffering that we are all called to endure like Christ to achieve Heaven.
Our crosses, like all the Commandments, are not that difficult. They are not pleasant . . . I’ll give you that. That’s why God made French dressing. When I get a slab of Moby Dick on my plate, out comes the French dressing. Mary Poppins was right . . . a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I have tasted better stuff in the military. That’s how much I hate fish. By the way, monkey still tastes like monkey. Yuck! One of our crosses is to conform our lives to Christ. It’s a gift. How many of you think of their crosses as a gift? Not many, just as I thought. But our crosses are like a celestial choke chain so that we don’t wander too far off the reservation. My evil twin brother, Paul, was very gifted and he had many crosses. He had two doctorates and a file cabinet full of certifications he had earned. Saint Teresa of Lisieux said, “Our crosses help keep us small, humble, and reliant on our Savior for there is power in His mercy.”
Our crosses are redemptive. As Saint Paul said, “I make up with my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” Now a final thought . . . Our crosses are abrasive and a beauty treatment for our soul. Because I do all sorts of reading (I’m an eclectic reader), I once read about how to remove water marks from furniture. You take some cigar ash, mix it with water, and rub the mixture onto the water stain. Because cigar ash is abrasive, it will remove the water stain and bring back the richness and luster of the furniture. And that’s what our crosses do. They are abrasive to our souls. They remove the stain of venial sin. They also remove the remains of the stain of mortal sin on our souls. And what do our crosses reveal especially when we are standing before God at our Particular Judgment? They reveal the true beauty of our soul. What is the true beauty of our soul? The image and likeness of God from which we were created. He will look at us and seek the image of His Son.
How will you apply this message to your life? ______________________________________
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Blessed John Francis Burté’s and Companions’ Stories (d. September 2, 1792 and January 21, 1794)
These priests were victims of the French Revolution. Though their martyrdom spans a period of several years, they stand together in the Church’s memory because they all gave their lives for the same principle. In 1791, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy required all priests to take an oath which amounted to a denial of the faith. Each of these men refused and was executed.
John Francis Burté became a Franciscan at 16 and after ordination taught theology to the young friars. Later he was guardian of the large Conventual friary in Paris until he was arrested and held in the convent of the Carmelites.
Appolinaris of Posat was born in 1739 in Switzerland. He joined the Capuchins and acquired a reputation as an excellent preacher, confessor, and instructor of clerics. Preparing for his assignment to the East as a missionary, he was in Paris studying Oriental languages when the French Revolution began. Refusing the oath, he was swiftly arrested and detained in the Carmelite convent.
Severin Girault, a member of the Third Order Regular, was a chaplain for a group of sisters in Paris. Imprisoned with the others, he was the first to die in the slaughter at the convent.
These three plus 182 others—including several bishops and many religious and diocesan priests—were massacred at the Carmelite house in Paris on September 2, 1792. They were beatified in 1926.
Born in 1737, John Baptist Triquerie became a Conventual Franciscan. He was the chaplain and confessor of Poor Clare monasteries in three cities before he was arrested for refusing to take the oath. He and 13 diocesan priests were martyred in Laval on January 21, 1794. He was beatified in 1955.
Reflection
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was the motto of the French Revolution. If individuals have “inalienable rights,” as the Declaration of Independence states, these must come not from the agreement of society—which can be very fragile—but directly from God. Do we believe that? Do we act on it?
