Saint Gilbert of Sempringham’s Story (c. 1083 – February 4, 1189)
Gilbert was born in Sempringham, England, into a wealthy family, but he followed a path quite different from that expected of him as the son of a Norman knight. Sent to France for his higher education, he decided to pursue seminary studies.
He returned to England not yet ordained a priest, and inherited several estates from his father. But Gilbert avoided the easy life he could have led under the circumstances. Instead he lived a simple life at a parish, sharing as much as possible with the poor. Following his ordination to the priesthood he served as parish priest at Sempringham.
Among the congregation were seven young women who had expressed to him their desire to live in religious life. In response, Gilbert had a house built for them adjacent to the Church. There they lived an austere life, but one which attracted ever more numbers; eventually lay sisters and lay brothers were added to work the land. The religious order formed eventually became known as the Gilbertines, though Gilbert had hoped the Cistercians or some other existing order would take on the responsibility of establishing a rule of life for the new order. The Gilbertines, the only religious order of English origin founded during the Middle Ages, continued to thrive.l But the order came to an end when King Henry VIII suppressed all Catholic monasteries.
Over the years a special custom grew up in the houses of the order called “the plate of the Lord Jesus.” The best portions of the dinner were put on a special plate and shared with the poor, reflecting Gilbert’s lifelong concern for less fortunate people.
Throughout his life, Gilbert lived simply, consumed little food, and spent a good portion of many nights in prayer. Despite the rigors of such a life he died at well over age 100.
Reflection
When he came into his father’s wealth, Gilbert could have lived a life of luxury, as many of his fellow priests did at the time. Instead, he chose to share his wealth with the poor. The charming habit of filling “the plate of the Lord Jesus” in the monasteries he established reflected his concern. Today’s Operation Rice Bowl echoes that habit: eating a simpler meal and letting the difference in the grocery bill help feed the hungry.
Saint Claude de la Colombière’s Story (February 2, 1641 – February 15, 1682)
This is a special day for the Jesuits, who claim today’s saint as one of their own. It’s also a special day for people who have a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—a devotion Claude de la Colombière promoted along with his friend and spiritual companion, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. The emphasis on God’s love for all was an antidote to the rigorous moralism of the Jansenists, who were popular at the time.
Claude showed remarkable preaching skills long before his ordination in 1675. Two months later, he was made superior of a small Jesuit residence in Burgundy. It was there he first encountered Margaret Mary Alacoque. For many years after he served as her confessor.
He was next sent to England to serve as confessor to the Duchess of York. He preached by both words and by the example of his holy life, converting a number of Protestants. Tensions arose against Catholics and Claude, rumored to be part of a plot against the king, was imprisoned. He was ultimately banished, but by then his health had been ruined.
He died in 1682. Pope John Paul II canonized Claude de la Colombière in 1992.
Reflection
As a fellow Jesuit and as a promoter of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Saint Claude must be very special to Pope Francis who has so beautifully emphasized the mercy of Jesus. The emphasis on God’s love and mercy are characteristic of both men.
Saint Valentine is the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travelers, and young people. Legend states that St. Valentine of Rome, along with St. Marius, aided the Christian martyrs during the Claudian persecution. In addition to his other edicts against helping Christians, Claudius had also issued a decree forbidding marriage. In order to increase troops for his army, he forbade young men to marry, believing that single men made better soldiers than married men. Valentine defied this decree and urged young lovers to come to him in secret so that he could join them in the sacrament of matrimony.
I have known you all for a long time, and I am willing to bet that I could ask anyone in this congregation to stand and recite all Ten Commandments. I believe you could do that. However, memorizing them is easy but keeping them is quite another matter. The Ten Commandments are like the “I will obeys.” But they are more than just ten sentences. As our Lord tells us in the Gospels, they go a little deeper than that. If you look at the Baltimore Catechism which is the one I used growing up in Catholic school, the Commandments are more than “Thou shall not” do this and “Thou shall not” do that. Our Lord expanded on this in the Gospels. There are things you shouldn’t do but there are also things you should do. We use the Commandments as a yardstick to measure our sanctity and how close we are drawing to our Lord. And that’s a very good beginning. But it’s not the end in the walk of sanctity.
Ash Wednesday is next week. If you say, “I’m going to eat better,” well eating better is not a penance . . . except for me, but anyway. It’s actually part of the Fifth Commandment. If something is covered by a Commandment, it’s not a penance. Sometimes we think those are the standards we have to live by. A priest who I’m familiar with said, “I said the Divine Office and also the Rosary. Oh my God, I’ve done so much!” Really Father? You need a break and a raise! Come down from the cross, Father; we need the wood. Priests have been given much and therefore are responsible for more. You’ve done what you were supposed to do. “Father, I’ve been a good Catholic – I haven’t robbed a bank.” You are not supposed to! I didn’t see that anywhere in the Commandments! We tend to maximize the minimum. We say, “Hey, I’m a good person.” By the way, that statement is not found in Scripture. “I keep the Commandments.” What does scripture tell us? Saint Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 17, Verse 10 says: “I am a useless servant. I have only done what I’ve been told to do.” We are no better than the servants because we’ve done only what we’ve been told to do.
This is not to denigrate the Commandments. The Commandments are good because they are directions from our Lord. They teach us how to love. They are like the New Jersey barriers on the highway. Jesus said that they are not works of justice. People get upset and say, “Oh, the Commandments are about judgement!” No, they’re not. What’s wrong with you? What have you done? When people start yelling at the Church, I always wonder what they have done. If you’ve done something really wrong and your conscience is hurting, come see me. I can fix that. Keeping the Commandments are works of love. That’s what our Lord said: “If you love Me, keep my Commandments.” Don’t rewrite them. And don’t say they need to be updated. “Keep My Commandments through works of love. Renounce your very self and follow Me in whatever way I need you, in whatever vocation I need you, in whatever path I need you, and in whatever cross I ask you to carry. Resign yourself to My will and become with Me a co-redeemer for the salvation of souls”.
Our Lord said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” There are more than ten by the way. They not only teach us but help us to prepare our souls to go further in God’s love. Remember our Lord and the rich young man? He approached the Lord and asked, “Lord, what must I do to inherit everlasting life?” Our Lord said, “Keep My Commandments.” The young man said, “I have kept Commandments since my youth.” And our Lord looked at him with great love and said, “Sell everything you have or give it to the poor and follow Me.” The young man went away saddened because he had many possessions. The greatest possession he had and was unwilling to give was himself.
That’s what the Commandments train us to do. They ask us to renounce ourselves. So that, as Saint Paul says, “we can become co-redemptorists for the salvation of souls.” To accept from His hand, lovingly and not always happily, whatever vocation He has asked to us to do in a time or place. To accept any cross He asks us to carry for ourselves or those others have imposed upon us. To be like Him for the salvation of souls. This is what the Commandments train us to do. The works of love He asks us to do lead us to the renunciation of self. “You know better what is good for my salvation, the salvation of those I love, and the salvation of the world, so I resign myself to You.” When you resign yourself to the good Lord, a couple of things are important to know. First, you don’t have to understand everything. Who knows the mind of the Lord or His counsellor? We don’t know. And the most important part for us because of our fallen intellect and will is that we don’t have to like it. When I was sick that month with Covid, I tried to come over to the church to walk while saying my prayers. That didn’t work out so well. I may have made it around the church once or twice and decided to sit down for a while. I felt worse than I looked. When I finally went back to work at the VA, one of the nurses in hospice said, “Father, you don’t look good.” You ought to be inside! Some friends of mine wouldn’t bring the drug cart down when I needed it. Come on! I’m hurting here! Did I like the suffering I was going through? No. Did I enjoy it? No. Did anyone around me enjoy it? Heck no! I was only spreading the joy. Did I accept it for the suffering of souls? Yes. I offered it up to Christ for my sins and for the salvation of souls. I did not like it but it was necessary. It was a good lesson in the virtue of humility.
Keeping the Commandments is only the first phase of love, but they lead us to the last one which is renunciation of self. Know what the hardest thing to do in the religious life of priests? “The vow of poverty?” No, not really. That’s nothing. It is doing the will of another rather than your own. The hardest vow I took at ordination is obedience. And that’s true not only for me but for all of us. Anyone who has been in the service will tell you that we put people through arduous tasks. “I cannot do it First Sergeant!” You will with proper boot therapy. Boot or Kiwi therapy is a great motivator. We know you can do it. Our doctors are not stupid. You don’t want to do it. We are just checking your heart.
The only thing hard about the spiritual life is what sits on top of our shoulders. It’s the greatest source for temptation. Our Lord does not give us impossible tasks. He checks our hearts for how much we love Him. That’s what He asks: ”How much do you love Me?” Say to any hero or heroine, “You did great!” And they will say, “No. I’m just one of the herd. This is what I do.” They do it out of love. That is what our Lord is asking from us. Keep the Commandments. Keep these works of love. They are guides and training aids so that we may come to fuller and greater love, renounce ourselves, and accept our crosses and our ordinations. They help us become what we were meant to become . . . co-redeemers with Christ. And when God asks us to do something, if we love Him we will say, “Whatever Your will Lord. Let Your will be done rather than mine.”
Father’s Reflections . . .
A part of my past life comes back to haunt me from time to time. When you are listening to newscasters and so-called experts about international events like our latest balloon festival…I don’t believe them. The military commentators should begin with “Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away.” I went to the same charm school as the military commentators. They tell you nothing because they can’t. Everything they would tell you is classified, and classifications have at least a 50-year life span. So, everything you hear is basically fertilizer. They aren’t telling you anything that’s not public knowledge.
How will you apply this message to your life? ________________________________________
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If God is a good Father and creates a good world, why does evil exist? The Catechism addresses this profound and often painful question. Fr. Mike helps us understand how to reconcile sin, evil, and suffering with God’s loving Providence. He assures us that while God does not remove evil, he does redeem it, offering himself as the solution. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 309-314.
Saint Giles Mary of Saint Joseph’s Story (November 16, 1729 – February 7, 1812)
In the same year that a power-hungry Napoleon Bonaparte led his army into Russia, Giles Mary of Saint Joseph ended a life of humble service to his Franciscan community and to the citizens of Naples.
Francesco was born in Taranto to very poor parents. His father’s death left the 18-year-old Francesco to care for the family. Having secured their future, he entered the Friars Minor at Galatone in 1754. For 53 years, he served at St. Paschal’s Hospice in Naples in various roles, such as cook, porter, or most often as official beggar for that community.
“Love God, love God” was his characteristic phrase as he gathered food for the friars and shared some of his bounty with the poor—all the while consoling the troubled and urging everyone to repent. The charity which he reflected on the streets of Naples was born in prayer and nurtured in the common life of the friars. The people whom Giles Mary met on his begging rounds nicknamed him the “Consoler of Naples.” He was canonized in 1996.
Reflection
People often become arrogant and power hungry when they forget their own sinfulness and ignore the gifts God has given to other people. Giles Mary had a healthy sense of his own sinfulness—not paralyzing but not superficial either. He invited men and women to recognize their own gifts and to live out their dignity as people made in God’s divine image. Knowing someone like Giles Mary can help us on our own spiritual journey.
How does God create? We read today about the reality that God creates an ordered and good world. Moreover, he is continually present in his creation, upholding and sustaining it. We also learn that God grants human beings the dignity of being causes, giving us the incredible power to share in his Divine Providence freely. Finally, Fr. Mike reminds us that because we can participate in God’s plan, our suffering is not meaningless. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 299-308.
St. Julian the Hospitaller, or “the Poor Man,” came from a wealthy, noble family in the early 4th century and is a popular saint in Western Europe.
According to a legend, while Julian was a baby, he was cursed to one-day kill his own parents. His father wanted him killed, but his mother kept him alive. When he was old enough to learn of the curse, he left his family to preserve their safety.
While he was hunting, his mother and father made an unexpected visit to his castle. His wife gave them one of the best rooms. He received a vision from the devil that his wife was in his bed with another man, and he returned home to kill whoever was in his bed. When Julian returned from his hunt and saw the two figures in bed, he assumed it was his wife with a lover. In a jealous rage, Julian killed his mother and father.
Julian was so horrified upon learning the truth that he swore to devote the remainder of his life to good works. He and his wife then undertook a pilgrimage to a distant country where he established a hospital.
The hospital was near a river that was frequently crossed by people prompted to travel by the Holy Crusades. People frequently drowned crossing this river so Julian took responsibility of ferrying travelers across and tending to the sick.
One night, the devil vandalized his house, and blaming it on those he helped, Julian said that he would never house anyone else ever again. God showed up at his door, asking for help, and he denied Him. After recognizing him, he retracted his statement and decided to help all those who needed it once again.
One night, thieves came into their hospital and killed Julian and his wife in the same way Julian had killed his mother and father. “There were great miracles without end in that place and land,” recounts the legend. “So many that, as it pleased God, their bodies were brought to Brioude (France).”
St. Julian is considered the patron of ferrymen, innkeepers and circus performers.
The persecution of Christians began in Alexandria during the reign of the Emperor Philip. The first victim of the pagan mob was an old man named Metrius, who was tortured and then stoned to death. The second person who refused to worship their false idols was a Christian woman named Quinta. Her words infuriated the mob and she was scourged and stoned.
While most of the Christians were fleeing the city, abandoning all their worldly possessions, an old deaconess, Apollonia, was seized. The crowds beat her, knocking out all of her teeth. Then they lit a large fire and threatened to throw her in it if she did not curse her God. She begged them to wait a moment, acting as if she was considering their requests. Instead, she jumped willingly into the flames and so suffered martyrdom.
There were many churches and altars dedicated to her. Apollonia is the patroness of dentists, and people suffering from toothache and other dental diseases often ask her intercession. She is pictured with a pair of pincers holding a tooth or with a golden tooth suspended from her necklace. Saint Augustine explained her voluntary martyrdom as a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, since no one is allowed to cause his or her own death.
Reflection
The Church has quite a sense of humor! Apollonia is honored as the patron saint of dentists, but this woman who had her teeth extracted without anesthetic surely ought to be the patron of those who dread the chair. She might also be the patron of the aging, for she attained glory in her old age, standing firm before her persecutors even as her fellow Christians fled the city. However we choose to honor her, she remains a model of courage for us.
