St. Sebastian

Month of Saints - Day 2

At our All Souls Day Mass this evening, Father spoke in the Homily about all the people who are praying tonight for their team to win the World Series, so I was inspired today to write about the Patron Saint of Athletes.

Little is known of St. Sebastian's early life except that he is believed to have been from Southern France.  He was educated in Milan and joined the Roman Army in 283 AD. He distinguished himself and was promoted to the Praetorian Guard to protect Emperor Diocletian. During his service in the Guard, twin brothers and deacons of the Christian Church, Marcus and Marcellian, were imprisoned for refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods. When their parents attempted to get the brothers to renounce their faith, Sebastian ended up converting them to Christianity as well.  This led to the discovery of his faith and he was reported to the Emperor as a Christian. The Emperor ordered him to be killed by having him tied to a stake on a training field and used as target practice.

Archers riddled his body with arrows and, believing him to be dead, left his body for retrieval and burial. He was retrieved by Irene of Rome, who discovered that he was still alive and nursed him back to health. Once he recovered, Sebastian returned to surprise Emperor Diocletian and to criticize him loudly and publically for his persecution of the Christians. Diocletian then had his former guard beaten to death with clubs and his body thrown into the sewer.

Sebastian is the patron of athletes, soldiers and those who desire a saintly death (or maybe those with a death-wish?).  His feast day is January 20.

St. Mary the Slave

Happy Feast of All Saints.  On All Saints Day, the Catholic Church commemorates all those who have gone before us in faith and achieved their place in Heaven - those that are well known, little known or not known to us at all.

For those who have been my friends on FB for a year or more, you know that I am a Saint-ophile and celebrate All Saints Day for the whole month by memorializing a different Canonized Saint (or Blessed) each day.  Today, I have chosen one of the lesser known Saints.

I always feel a bit sorry for all the St. Marys who get overlooked because they share their name with the Blessed Mother who kind of out ranks them all (I'm sure they are each too humble to think much of it themselves).  So today I will introduce you to St. Mary the Slave.  Mary lived in the late 3rd century and was the slave of a Roman patrician named Tertullus.  She was charged with the crime of being a Christian. Despite her master's efforts to save her, she was subjected to terrible tortures.  Spectators demanded her release, and the prefect turned her over to the custody of a soldier who then aided her in her escape. She ended up dying a natural death, but is considered a martyr due to her intense sufferings for her faith.  Her feast day is November 1.

St. Basil the Elder & St. Emmelia

Since my tulips have not yet bloomed for Dad's birthday (his favorite flower), today I will share a story of one of his name-Saints as my gift for him.

Many of you may have heard of - and even know a little about - St. Basil the Great.  But did you know that St. Basil the Great's father is also a Saint?  He is known as St. Basil the Elder (for obvious reasons).  The elder St. Basil, the son of wealthy Christians from Caesarea in Cappadocia, was born around the year 270.  He was a lawyer and professor of rhetoric.  His wife is also a Saint, St. Emmelia.  She lost her parents at an early age and married Basil to avoid the many dangers of the world.

The reputation of this exemplary Christian couple spread quickly throughout the region.  They were especially known for their corporal works of mercy for the poor and pilgrims. They were also the parents of ten children, whom they brought up to know and treasure the Word of God in Sacred Scripture.  The best known of their children are the afore-mentioned St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Macrina the Younger and St. Peter of Sebaste.

St. Basil the Elder died shortly after the birth of his youngest son (Peter), around 349.  His wife, after providing for the care of all the children, withdrew to a cloister, where she lived to a ripe old age, dying around the year 372. 

St. Basil' the Elders feast day is May 30 (St. Emmelia is also honored on that day).

St.Humility

As my friends know, I enjoy writing about Saints - but I usually do a marathon of posts in November.  But I recently read about this Saint for the first time and I feel the need some of her namesake virtue -- and I also want to dedicate this to my Godmother, Roseanne Meyer.

St. Humility was born about 1226 to a noble family in Feanza, Italy, and was baptized Rosana.  At the age of 15 she lost her father and at 16 she was married to patrician Ugoletto of Caccianemici.  The couple had two children in quick succession, but both babies died shortly after being baptized.  At the age of 24, Rosana and her husband of 9 years chose to turn their lives over to God and entered the double monastery of St. Perpetua in Feanza.  Rosana took the religious name of Sister Humility.

Sister Humility was soon struck with a serious illness, but she was miraculously cured in 1254.  She withdrew to a private cell where she lived the rest of her life as a strictly cloistered recluse.  Through contact with Sister Humility there, young women from Feanza came to acquire a taste for consecrated life. In 1266, these young women, under the direction of Sr. Humility, formed a convent where Humility could be a mother again, this time to spiritual daughters. A few conferences of hers have been handed down, talks that are stylistically quite modest, but which have been compared by experts to the writings of St. Catherine of Sienna.

(source:  Married Saints and Blesseds Through the Centuries by Ferdinand Holbock)

What do I deserve?

I have been contemplating the word "deserve" lately.  In the last week, a couple of friends have congratulated me on my new car and said, "you deserve this."  While I am grateful to know that my friends think so well of me, I would never have thought of it in terms of deserving  anything.  Yes, I work hard for my money and I have tried to be frugal, pay off bills and save money so that I could afford a new car.  But does it then follow that I DESERVE it?  Yes, I totally needed a new car -- my old car was in sad shape and was getting to the point of being almost dangerous (and somewhat scary) to drive.  Does this mean that I DESERVE a new car?  Yes, I absolutely love my new car and am very thrilled that I bought it when I did -- I know this has nothing to do with DESERVING it.

So, what does it mean to deserve something? I have heard it said that GRACE (the free, unmerited gift of God) is getting what you don't deserve and MERCY (Jubilee Year of Mercy, folks!) is NOT getting what you do deserve.  I have received innumerable gifts, blessings, graces in my life that I in no way earned or deserved.  And I don't like to think of what I do deserve for all my failings (thoughtlessness, anger, pride, vanity -- just to name a few).  My heart is just overflowing to think of how much Grace and Mercy I have already received in my life.

This absolutely is not meant to dis the friends who made the comments.  I am so filled with gratitude and LOVE just knowing that I have such wonderful people in my life.  I absolutely DO NOT deserve to have friends who think so well of me that they are happy for me to have something that they do not and that they actually think that I DESERVE to have it!!  That is what I call real LOVE, folks -- and I honestly say that is worth way more than my pretty new car.

St. Juan Diego

For our final Saint of November 2015, I will feature one whose feast day is coming up shortly, St. Juan Diego. 

Juan Diego was a native born Mexican.  He and his wife were among the first to be baptized after the arrival of the main group of Franciscan Missionaries in Mexico in 1524. Sources say that his wife died two years before the apparitions.

On Dec. 9, 1531, while making his way to the Franciscan Mission station for religious instruction, Juan Diego passed by the hill at Tepeyac and he encountered the Virgin Mary who revealed herself as the ever-virgin Mother of God and instructed him to request the bishop to erect a chapel in her honor.  Juan delivered the message, but the bishop told him to come back another day after he had time to reflect on the request. Juan Diego encountered the Blessed Virgin again on his return trip and told her of the failure of his mission.  He suggested that she needed to recruit someone of greater importance, but she insisted that it was he that she wanted for the task. Juan agreed to repeat the request, which he did the following day. The bishop asked for a sign to prove that the apparition was truly from heaven.  Juan Diego returned immediately to Tepeyac and, encountering the Virgin Mary reported the bishop's request for a sign; she condescended to provide one on the following day (December 11).

By December 11, Juan Diego's uncle had fallen ill and Juan was obliged to attend him. Early the next day he set out to get a priest to hear his uncle's confession and minister to him on his death bed. In order to avoid being delayed by the Virgin, Juan Diego took another route around the hill. The Virgin intercepted him and asked where he was going.  Juan Diego explained his mission, and the Virgin gently chided him for not having had recourse to her. In the words which have become the most famous phrase of the Guadalupe event and are inscribed over the main entrance to the Basilica of Guadalupe, she asked: "No estoy yo aqui que soy tu madre?" (Am I not here, I who am your mother?). She assured him that his uncle had recovered and told him to go to the top of the hill and collect the flowers growing there as the sign requested by the bishop.  Juan Diego did as he was told. On gaining admission to the bishop in Mexico City later that day, Juan Diego opened his mantle, the flowers poured to the floor, and the bishop saw they had left on the mantle an imprint of the Virgin's image which he immediately venerated.

The image is still venerated to this day in the Basilica that was built on the sight.  Juan Diego's feast day is Dec. 9.

St. Don John Bosco

In the Columbus Diocese, we celebrate today's Saint by holding a youth rally for middle-school students in the middle of Winter -- I have had the great pleasure of attending Bosco Bash and had a great time!

St. John Bosco lived in Italy in the 19th century.  Born of poor parents, his father died when he was two years old, leaving his mother to raise her two boys.  He was a smart boy and enjoyed his studies, but the poverty of his family meant that he often had to abandon his books to work in the fields. His desire for study did not leave him and he was eventually able to enter seminary and become a priest ("Don" is an honorific title used for priests in Italy, similar to us calling a priest "Reverend").
Early in his priesthood, Don John Bosco witnessed the plight of young boys confined in prisons or roaming the streets, exposed to evil influences, with little to anticipate from life except the gallows.  His heart went out to these street urchins and he started an Oratory for them.  The primary focus of the Oratory was prayer, but he also took the boys on outings, started a band and night schools for the boys who worked in the factories.

Unfortunately, Don Bosco had to give up the rooms he had procured for his Oratory and his efforts to help the youth were plagued with petty annoyances and obstacles.  Complaints were lodged that his community was a nuisance owing to the character of the boys he befriended.  His perseverance in the face of difficulty led some to believe that he was insane and efforts were made to put him in an asylum.

The Oratory moved several times before finding a permanent location where the night schools resumed.  Some of the boys desired to live at the Oratory, and dormitories were built, becoming the first Salesian Home.  The municipal authorities came to realize the importance of Don John Bosco's work and he began a fund for the erection of technical schools and workshops without much difficulty. In 1869, fifty priests and teachers who had been assisting him formed a society under a common rule -the Salesian Society.  At the time of Don Bosco's death in 1888 there were 250 houses of the Salesian Society in all parts of the world, containing 130,000 children, and from which there annually went out 18,000 finished apprentices. (Info courtesy of NewAdvent.org)

John Bosco's feast day is January 31 (which is why we have Bosco Bash in mid-winter).