These saints know firsthand about surviving pandemics

But even more, they know about how a pandemic can become a way to serve God and neighbor..

Meg Hunter-Kilmer

Finding a saint who worked with victims of plagues and other epidemics can be a struggle—because there are too many to count!

During the 3rd-century Plague of Cyprian (famous for killing upwards of 5,000 people a day in Rome), Christians were reported running toward sufferers, eager to nurse them whatever the cost. In Alexandria (where two thirds of the population was lost to this plague) St. Dionysius wrote of the Christians, “Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains.” 

In fact, so many Christians died nursing the sick in Alexandria, the group of unnamed heroes was awarded a feast day (February 28) and venerated as martyrs.

As coronavirus spreads around the globe, leaving many sick and many more frightened, we would do well to ask the intercession of those who fought plagues and epidemics and won halos in the process.

St. Godeberta of Noyon (c. 700) cared for the sick in a less direct way that many others. An abbess with great influence over the people who lived near her abbey, Godeberta encouraged them to pray for the end of a plague. After they spent three days fasting in sackcloth and ashes, the plague ended quite suddenly.

St. Roch (1295-1327) embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome when he was 20, begging all the way. When he arrived in Italy, he discovered a country ravaged by the plague. Roch set about caring for the sick strangers he came upon (often curing them miraculously) until he himself contracted the disease. Knowing nobody, Roch dragged himself to the forest to die, but a local dog brought him food and licked his wounds until Roch recovered.

St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) was a cardinal when famine and plague struck Milan. Though most nobles fled the city, Cardinal Borromeo organized the religious who remained to feed and care for the hungry and sick. They fed over 60,000 people a day, the bill largely footed by the Cardinal, who went into personal debt to feed the hungry. He also personally visited those suffering from plague and bathed their sores, having first written his will and prepared himself for death. But the good Cardinal was spared, living another six years after what would eventually be called “the Plague of St. Charles.”

St. Henry Morse (1595-1645) was born an English Protestant but became a Jesuit priest and returned to England to serve covertly. Much of his work consisted in serving victims of the plague, both in the 1624 outbreak and again (after he had been banished from England but secretly returned) in 1635. In 1635-1636, Morse contracted the plague three times but recovered each time. When he was later captured, his work with plague victims was considered and he was released. The next time he was captured, there was no such clemency, and Morse was martyred.

St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli (1587-1651) was a wealthy widow when a plague broke out in Genoa. She housed many of the sick in her home; running out of space, she rented a vacant convent, then built more housing. Though the plague ended, Virginia’s hospital continued serving hundreds of sick people, and the religious order Virginia founded in the midst of all this continues to this day.

Bl. Peter Donders (1809-1887) was a Dutch Redemptorist priest who served in Suriname for 45 years. He fought for the rights of enslaved people, evangelized indigenous people, and nursed the sick during an epidemic (to which he briefly succumbed). He spent his last three decades serving in a leper colony and advocating with the authorities to obtain better care for his people. 

St. Jose Brochero (1840-1914) was an Argentinean priest. Immediately after his ordination, Fr. Jose nursed the sick through a cholera epidemic and emerged unscathed. Then, to serve his parishioners, he built 125 miles of roads and connected his parish with mail and telegraph services and a railway line. Eventually, he contracted leprosy and began to go blind, after which he retired both from active ministry and from single-handedly building the infrastructure of the region. He had spent over 40 years serving as priest, nurse, lobbyist, carpenter, and construction worker.

St. Marianne Cope (1838-1918) answered the call of the king of Hawaii to bring her Sisters to Hawaii and serve the lepers alongside St. Damien of Molokai. Though many feared the disease then thought to be extremely contagious, Marianne assured her Sisters that not one of them would contract it. Through strict hygiene practices and a good amount of grace, the Sisters worked with the lepers of Molokai for nearly a century without one of them contracting the terrible disease.

https://aleteia.org/2020/03/12/these-saints-know-firsthand-about-surviving-pandemics/

The Many Miracles of Solanus Casey

Patricia Treece

Detroit, Michigan, 1957

Thirty-eight-year-old Gladys Feighan is overjoyed, on a visit to St. John Hospital from her home in Utica, New York, to learn that Fr. Solanus Casey, “the best-loved man in Detroit,” is a patient there. It has been a dream of hers for years to get to Fr. Solanus, revered by so many as a living saint; but for some time his Capuchin Franciscan superiors at St. Bonaventure’s Monastery have made it hard for anyone to see the ailing eighty-six-year-old priest.

Before that, when he was “retired” to a Capuchin house in Huntington, Indiana, she had actually prepared to make a trip there, but both her physician and her pastor advised against travel because of her pregnancy.

Terrified to lose another baby, she had listened to them. And lost another child, she reflects sorrowfully.

Mrs. Feighan is a sufferer from the Rh blood factor. Like most women with this problem, her first pregnancy was normal. But since her first child, she has had one miscarriage and two babies born dead.

An acquaintance with a similar history made that trip to Indiana and has three more living children to show for it.

Now Gladys sees the brown hooded robe of a Capuchin in the corridor. Running after it, she begs the brother who is looking out for Fr. Solanus if she can please see the ill man “for just a few minutes.” Br. Gabriel can make no promises. Frail old Fr. Solanus has been brought in by ambulance, very sick with a skin infection, maybe dying. And people have no consideration. A woman who asked to see him for a minute stayed over half an hour. . . . The more Brother talks, the lower Gladys’s face falls. But in the end, he says he’ll go ask.

What he doesn’t tell Mrs. Feighan is that to ask is an empty formal­ity with Fr. Solanus: in his fifty-three years as a Capuchin priest, he has never said no to seeing anyone, whether it was the middle of the night, the middle of his meal, or the 150th person of a day. The man has abso­lutely no instinct for self-preservation. Because of his great devotion to his vow of obedience, he accepts the restrictions placed on him by supe­riors who know the mobs coming, phoning, and writing for his prayers day after day, year after year, have taken the last drops of the holy old friar’s strength. But he has been heard to groan to himself, “Oh, why must they keep me from seeing the people?” To give himself to God by giving himself to others until there is nothing left is the one desire of his Christlike heart.

Soon Gladys is in his room. Let her tell it as she related the experi­ence for the book The Porter of Saint Bonaventure’s:

When I entered . . . Father Solanus was sitting at a little table. He welcomed me, asking me to sit down. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Mrs. Feighan.”

“No — your given name?”

“Gladys.”

“What, Gladys, do you want from God?”

“I want a baby. Another baby.”

“A baby! For a woman to want a baby — how blessed. To hold God’s own creation in your own hands.”

I told him about my Rh factor; that I was well toward my middle thirties; that I feared it wouldn’t be long before I might be too old to bear children.

“I do so want another child,” I told him. “Perhaps I am selfish.”

“No,” he answered me, “you are not selfish. For a woman to want children is normal and blessed. Motherhood entails so many responsibilities — bringing up a child as it should be brought up is doing God’s work. One doesn’t always meet women who want children.”

[Gladys expressed concern about her children who had died before they could be baptized.]

“That’s not for you to concern yourself about,” he answered. “Just have confidence in our dear Lord’s infinite love.”

Father Solanus’s mind seemed above earthly things. He was ecstatic — so much so that I could hardly ask him a question. Af­ter answering my first few questions, he did nearly all the talking. His words to me were of God’s infinite love for us, and of how we should place all our confidence in that divine, all-embracing love. As he spoke, he was trembling with emotion. Finally he said, “Kneel down, and I will bless you, and your husband and all your family.”

The other Capuchin was there, and a Sister of St. Joseph [who was] one of the hospital sisters, and they knelt too.

Then he said to me, “You will have another child, Gladys. Your Blessed Mother will give you another child. You must be­lieve this with all your heart and soul. You must believe this so strongly that before your baby is born you will get down on your knees and thank the Blessed Mother [for her intercession]. Be­cause once you ask her, and thank her, there’s nothing she can do but go to her own Son and ask Him to grant your prayer that you have a baby.”

Tears were in his eyes.

When I reached home, I was shaken for a couple of days but uplifted. I felt confident, happy.

Not long after, on July 31, 1957, the mystic Franciscan, conscious to the last, died peacefully. He was buried in the small Franciscan graveyard next to St. Bonaventure’s. There, several years later, Gladys came with her children. She had become pregnant in 1962. Her doctors feared another dead child. But she was jubilant and confident. That confidence was rewarded — with twins.

Others had similar tales of graces received. The mother of Capuchin missionary Bishop Cuthbert Gumbinger told her son in 1959 that she attributed her recovery from a heart attack to the intercession of Solanus. Bishop Gumbinger was no doubter: Fr. Solanus had appeared to him in a dream and immediately afterward obtained several things the missionary needed.

Gladys Redfern was another grateful individual. In 1964 three examinations and x-rays showing a tumor in her breast, she entered High­land Park General Hospital in Detroit for surgery May 22, the following morning. In her prayers she was asking Father Solanus’s intercession that the lump might prove benign. That night the doctor stopped by her room and made his last examination before the operation. The lump was gone.

The Wonderworker of the Soup Kitchen

This article is from “Nothing Short of a Miracle.” Click image to learn about how other modern saints have brought miracles to many.

Because of his special love for the poor, Fr. Solanus loved to help out at the Capuchins’ soup kitchen whenever his callers gave him a free hour. Capuchin author Michael H. Crosby reports the two following incidents: Ray McDonough was a soup kitchen volunteer whose daughter Rita gave birth to a little girl with a clubfoot. Ray asked Fr. Solanus to visit the baby. The Franciscan did. Holding the little foot in one hand, he blessed it in the name of the Trinity. On the next viewing, the same doctor who had pointed out the clubfoot to the mother scratched his head and said that the foot was perfect. Baby Carol grew up to become a mother herself without ever having any foot trouble.

Arthur Rutledge, who worked for the fire department, was another soup kitchen volunteer. He was being rolled into the operating room in a Detroit hospital one day when Fr. Solanus happened by.

“Hey, Art, what’s up?”

Art explained he had a tumor.

“Where is it?”

“In my abdomen — my stomach.”

Solanus put his hand on the area.

“Have the doctors give you a last check before they operate,” he said a minute later before continuing down the hall.

Art did. The tumor was gone.

Restoring Sight

When he was “retired” to Indiana, Fr. Solanus also gave a helping hand to Fr. Elmer Stoffel, with whom he helped care for the Capuchins’ beehives. One day around 1950 Fr. Elmer was stung by several bees. When Solanus saw his confrere on the ground rolling in pain, he immediately blessed him. Elmer at that time was blind to Solanus’s holiness and, in fact, disliked him so much that he sent many a barbed comment the healer’s way. Yet, to his chagrin, he had to admit that the second he was blessed, the pain vanished.

William King of Detroit, the son of a Protestant clergyman, had se­rious eye trouble. His Catholic boss at the Grand Trunk Railway sug­gested he see Fr. Solanus. King demurred until his doctor said one of his eyes would have to be removed to try to save the sight in the other one. So dim was his vision that his wife had to lead him into the porter’s of­fice. Fr. Solanus urged the couple, since they wanted a favor from God, to do something for Him in return. He suggested they begin attending their Protestant church every Sunday instead of just whenever they felt like it. King’s eyes were cured.

So were many other sick or weak eyes — like those of John J. Regan of the Detroit News. In 1929 hot casting lead (used in newspaper pro­duction) blew up in his face. When Mrs. Regan got to Harper Hospital, she saw her husband’s chart and the diagnosis “permanently blinded.” She passed out. Coming to, she rushed to Fr. Solanus, who promised her John would see. Back she ran to the physician who had just operated on her husband. He assured her gravely that was impossible: the best her husband could hope for would be to tell light from dark. Two weeks later, when John Regan’s eyes were unbandaged and he said, “I see you,” to the physician, the man declared it a miracle. Regan’s vision tested excellent.

Leonard

As the 1940s opened, real-estate man Luke Leonard saw himself as “an alcoholic bum.” Living in a seedy hotel, he decided one day he was getting nowhere “tapering off.” Without any hope of success, he mustered the courage to quit cold turkey.

At once he plunged into the nightmare of delirium tremens, hallucinating monsters and trembling uncontrollably. Walking the streets hour after hour, he bought a soft drink, only to find he shook too badly to get it to his mouth unaided.

Low-voiced Fr. Solanus usually saw everyone in one room, but he took Leonard behind closed doors and let him pour out his fear, self-loathing, and near despair. Two or three times another friar peered in, saying, “Fr. Solanus, others are waiting, some from out of town.”

“Ask them to wait a little longer,” and the white-bearded priest went on listening.

Finally Leonard ran down. Fr. Solanus leaned toward him. “When did you get over your sickness?”

“You mean my drunk, Father?” Leonard replied, doubly astounded. In that era alcoholism was not considered an illness, nor could anyone consider Luke Leonard free of addiction. Then Fr. Solanus laughed, a laugh Leonard says was “gentle and encouraging.”

A few minutes later the drinker was back on the street, but now he felt, he says, “strengthened and with a free, elevated spirit.”

He never took another drink.

Fr. Solanus Casey Continues His Work

After Fr. Solanus’s death, some of his lay friends got the Capuchin’s’ permission to form the Father Solanus Guild. To them, Fr. Solanus’s life was a model for followers of Christ. To make that life known and promote his Cause, they collected both his writings — mainly letters — and testimonies about him from those he converted, counseled, and / or healed. In the twenty-first century, the Guild stocks biographies and other materials to help others know Fr. Solanus. It also continues to accept prayer requests for his intercession. The Guild’s own publication, like a visit with him, gives spiritual inspiration through Fr. Solanus’s words and reports healings and favors people are still ascribing to the humble Capuchin’s prayers.

As early as 1966, reports of twenty-four important cures after his death were sent to Rome, although his Cause was not formally opened until 1982. His heroic virtues have been recognized by the title Venerable since 1995.

The following sampling of reported cures testifies that Fr. Solanus after death is still as compassionate and willing to bring others’ needs to God as he was when he gently greeted the troubled and sick in places like New York and Detroit.

An Illinois woman writes: “When I was five months pregnant, I was hospitalized for an undiagnosed illness. For two to three weeks I had bouts of fever with extremely elevated heart rates. When no cure could be found, my aunt enrolled me in the Father Solanus Guild without my knowing it. The fever suddenly broke that very same day and did not return.” The letter next tells how the baby she bore was healed from the undeveloped-lungs syndrome that can menace infant lives.

Someone’s son, who has had a heart attack five years earlier, suffers cardiac arrest. His mother begs Fr. Solanus’s prayers. Twenty-four days later, the son is back at work. Best, tests show no damage to the heart.

A December 2008 report from England is another heart healing. “You [The Capuchins] kindly promised prayers for my heart . . . [They] were heard in a most unexpected way. When I saw the cardiology sur­geon before Christmas, I was told that my enlarged heart was now nor­mal size. It was hard to take in as I had never been told that this was possible.”

In 2009 Fr. Solanus’s prayers are sought that no one be hurt during work on a rickety old barn. The eighteen-year-old helper of the person praying suddenly plunges eight feet through an upper floor to land on rocks, just laughs, and walks away!

A person disabled for over twenty years but able to function independently becomes ashamed to go out because of drooling from a shaking mouth / chin. To the doctor’s surprise, after a month’s persistent prayers for Fr. Solanus’s intercession, the unsightly symptom vanishes.

A young husband sends his thanks. His wife had been in a Connecti­cut hospital where extensive tests reviewed by three doctors revealed lymphoma tumors in the kidney and pelvis. The man added his wife to those seeking the dead Capuchin’s intercessory prayers. Exploratory sur­gery found no malignancy — and no tumors. The letter ends, “I honestly think that Fr. Solanus’s intercession resulted in a clean bill of health.”

From New York, a 2006 report: “A chest x-ray revealed something suspicious on one lung. A CT scan was ordered. Cancer was suspected so a PET scan followed. Turning to Solanus’ prayers, the patient four days later received good news: all negative, probably just a scar from childhood pneumonia.”

From New England, the grateful parent of a fifteen-year-old boy writes:

My son, age 15, was diagnosed as having lymphoma [cancer of the lymph-node system]. Two biopsies were done. The surgeon told us that he was quite sure the biopsies would be malignant and that we should not even consider that they would be benign. We were devastated, but we told the surgeon that we believed in miracles. We asked for the intercession of Fr. Solanus.

Praise be to God, the biopsies were benign and the surgeon was amazed. My son had further testing with an oncologist and all was fine. I thank Fr. Solanus for his intercession and I praise the Holy Name of God. Fr. Solanus’s intercession must be so powerful before the throne of God.

Amen.

http://catholicexchange.com/many-miracles-solanus-casey

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a chapter in Patricia Treece’s Nothing Short of a Miracle: God’s Healing Power in Modern Saints, which is available through Sophia Institute Press. 

image: By Mahatma Gandhi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Will We Know Each Other in Heaven?

François René Blot, S.J.

All the blessed, admitted into heaven, know each other perfectly, even before the general resurrection. This is proved by Scripture as well as by tradition.

I shall confine myself to quoting the New Testament to you; I shall content myself, too, with the parable of the rich man, and with some words that have reference to the Last Judgment.

This parable is so fine that I cannot resist the pleasure of placing some of its leading points before you.

There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day; and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus who lay at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table — but none were given to him; moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died, and he was buried in hell. And, when he was in torments, lifting up his eyes, he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said: “Father, Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.”

And Abraham said to him: “Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. . . .

And the rich man said: “Father, I beseech thee that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they come also in this place of torment.” (Luke 16:19-31)

In the eighth century, the Venerable Bede put this question to himself: “Do the good know each other in the kingdom of heaven, and do the bad know the bad in hell?” He answered in the affirmative:

This article is from the book “In Heaven We’ll Meet Again.” Click image to preview or order.

I see a proof of it, clearer than day, in the parable of the bad rich man. Does not our Lord there openly declare that the good know each other, and the wicked also? For if Abraham did not know Lazarus, how could he speak of his past misfortunes to the bad rich man who is in the midst of torments? And how could this rich man not know those who are present, since he is mindful to pray for those who are absent? We see, besides, that the good know the wicked, and the wicked the good. In fact, the rich man is known to Abraham; and Lazarus, in the ranks of the elect, is recognized by the rich man, who is among the number of the reprobate.

This knowledge fills up the measure of what each shall receive; it causes the just to rejoice the more, because they see those they have loved rejoice with them; it makes the wicked suffer not only their own pains, but also in some sort the pains of others, since they are tormented in company with those whom they loved in this world to the exclusion of God. There is, even for the blessed, something more admirable still. Beyond the recognition of those whom they have known in this world they recognize also, as if they had seen them and previously known them, the good whom they never saw. For of what can they be ignorant in heaven, since all there behold, in the plenitude of light, the God who knows all?

On the Last Judgment, we have these words of Jesus Christ to his disciples: “Amen, I say to you, that you who have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28). We have these words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: “Know you not that the saints shall judge this world? Know you not that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:2, 3).

Such is the basis of the argument of St. Theodore Studites (d. 826), in a discourse that he composed at the end of the eighth or the commencement of the ninth century, to refute the error that we are here combating. He said:

Some deceive their hearers by maintaining that the men who rise again will not recognize each other when the Son of God comes to judge us all. How, they exclaim, when from perishable we become incorruptible and immortal — when there will no longer be Greek or Jew, barbarian or Scythian, slave or freeman, husband or wife — when we shall all be as spirits, how could we recognize each other?

Let us, in the first place, reply that that which is impossible to man is possible to God; otherwise, blinded by human reasons, we should even disbelieve the resurrection. How, in fact, can a body already in a state of corruption — perhaps devoured by wild beasts, by birds, or by fishes, themselves devoured by others — and that in several ways and at various times successively, be reunited or gathered together on the last day? It will be thus, however, and the hidden power of God will reunite all its scattered parts and raise it up. Then each soul will recognize the body in which it lived.

But will every soul recognize also the body of its neighbor? We cannot doubt it, unless, at the same time, we doubt the general judgment. For no one can be summoned to judgment without being known, and a person must be known to be judged, according to this expression of Scripture: “I will reprove thee and set [thy own transgressions] before thy face” (Ps. 49:21 [RSV = Ps. 50:21]).

The value of this reasoning depends upon the following distinction: in the private judgment, we are judged by God alone, but in the general judgment we shall be, in some measure, judged by one another. Whilst the former will manifest the justice of God only to the soul that is judged, the latter will make it evident to every creature. Therefore, all await that great day for “the revelation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19), which will alter all the estimations of men.

The saint continues in these terms:

This is why, if we do not recognize one another, we shall not be judged; if we are not judged, we shall not be rewarded or punished for that which we shall have done and suffered while we were of the number of the living. If the apostles are not to recognize those whom they will judge, will they see the accomplishment of this promise of the Lord: “You shall sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28)? If he is not to recognize them in the kingdom of heaven, will the blessed Job be able to receive twice as many children (Job 42:10-13)? For here below he received only a part, and in order that the promise made to him may be fully accomplished, is it not a necessity that he should receive the remainder in the life to come? Besides, from these words: “No brother can redeem, nor shall man redeem” (Ps. 48:8 [RSV = Ps. 49:7]), does not the holy king David suppose a brother to know his brother? 

From all quarters we can collect arguments and authorities against those who assert that we do not recognize one another in heaven — a senseless assertion, whose impiety may be compared to the fables of Origen. For us, my brethren, let us believe still and ever that we shall rise again, we shall be incorruptible, and that we shall know one another, as our first parents knew each other in the earthly paradise, before the existence of sin, when they were yet exempt from all corruption. Yes, it must be believed — the brother will know his brother, the father his children, the wife her husband, the friend his friend. I will even add, the religious will know the religious, the confessor will know the confessor, the martyr his fellow soldier, the apostle his colleague in the apostleship — we shall all know one another, in order that the habitation of all in God may be rendered more joyous by this blessing, added to so many others — the blessing of mutual recognition!

The light thrown by Catholic tradition upon this sub­ject is so vivid and constant that it dissipates all the clouds of sophistry and prejudice.

The testimonies from tradition may be divided into two classes — those that simply affirm the fact and those that draw consolation from it.

Among the works commonly attributed to St. Athanasius (c. 297-373), that pure glory of the fourth century, is one that has for its title Necessary Questions of Which No Christian Should Be Ignorant. Now, in reply to the twenty-second question we read, “To the souls of the just in heaven God grants a great gift, which is mutual recognition.”

In the seventh century Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), after having related that a religious saw, when dying, the prophets come toward him, and that he addressed them by their names, added: “This example makes us clearly understand how great will be the knowledge which we shall have of one another in the incorruptible life of heaven, since this religious, though still in a corruptible flesh, seemed to recognize the holy prophets, whom, however, he had never seen.”

The most illustrious of the abbots of Clairvaux, St. Bernard (1090-1153), also said in the twelfth century: “The blessed are united among themselves by a charity which is so much the greater as they are the nearer to God, who is charity. No envy can throw suspicion into their ranks, for there is nothing in one which is concealed from the other; the all-pervading light of truth permits it not.”

Have you lost a brother or a sister? Console yourself, then, as St. Ambrose (c. 340-397) did:

Brother, since you have preceded me thither, prepare for me a place in that common abode of all, which is for me henceforward the most desirable; and as, here below, everything was in common between us, so in heaven let us remain ignorant of any law of division. I conjure you, keep me not waiting long, so pressing is the desire I experience of rejoining you, help me who am hastening forward, and if I seem to you still to tarry, make me advance; we have never been long separated, but it is you who were in the habit of returning to me. Now that you can no longer return, I will go to you. O my brother! What comfort remains to me but the hope of soon meeting you again? Yes, I comfort myself with the hope that the separation that your departure has caused will not be of long duration, and that by your prayers you will obtain the grace to hasten the coming of him whose regrets for you are so bitter.

Have you lost a son or a daughter? Receive the consolations of a patriarch of Constantinople addressed to a bereft father. This patriarch, Photius, can no more be counted among great men than among saints, as he was the author of the cruel schism that separates the East and the West. Nevertheless, his opinions only prove the better that, on this point, the Greeks and the Latins entertain the same views. Photius says:

If your daughter were to appear to you, and, placing her face, resplendent with glory, against your face and her hand within yours, thus were to speak to you, would it not be to describe the joys of heaven? Then she would add: “Why do you grieve, father? I am in paradise, where felicity is unbounded. You will come someday with my beloved mother, and then you will find that I have not exaggerated the delights of this place, so far will the reality exceed my description. O dearly beloved father, detain me no longer in your arms, but be pleased to permit me to return whither the intensity of my love attracts me.” Let us then banish sorrow, for now your daughter is happy in Abraham’s bosom. Let us banish sorrow; for it is there that, after a very little time, we shall see her in the ecstasy of joy and delight.

Have you lost your husband? Alas! The mourning gar­ments you so constantly wear show plainly the misfortune that you have sustained; they show, also, how affection has survived the tie broken by death. Seek aid, then, in the consolations so frequently presented by the Church to Christian widows.

St. Jerome (c. 347-420) wrote to a widow:

Regret your Lucinius as a brother; but rejoice that he reigns with Christ. Victorious and secure of his glory, he looks down upon you from the heights of heaven; he is your support in your works and woes, and he prepares for you a place by his side, ever preserving for you the same love and charity that, making him forget the names of husband and of wife, compelled him, during his life, to love you as his sister, and to live with you as a brother. For, in the pure union that chastity forms between two hearts, the difference of sex that constitutes marriage is unknown.

St. John Chrysostom (c. 349-407), in a homily on St. Matthew, said, as if to each of his hearers individually:

Do you wish to behold him whom death has snatched from you? Lead, then, the same life as he in the path of virtue, and you will soon enjoy that blessed sight. But you would wish to see him even here. Ah! Who prevents you? It is both easy and allowable, if you are virtuous; for the hope of future goods is clearer than the possession itself.

This sublime orator found, in his own history, all that could make him sympathize with the sorrows of the wife who has lost her husband. The only son of a young woman, weak alike from her age and her sex, and early left a widow to struggle with the world, he had been the confidant of her tears and of her grief, when he made her as though a second time a widow, by escaping from her love to plunge into solitude. He has himself related to us that the pagan rhetorician Libanius, learning that his mother had been bereft of her husband from the age of twenty, and would never be induced to contract another marriage, exclaimed, turning toward his idolatrous hearers: “O ye gods of Greece! What women there are among those Christians!”

Divine Providence found means to supply Chrysostom with an opportunity of exercising the compassionate feelings of his heart toward the widowed, by consoling another young woman who had passed only five years of her life with her husband, Therasius, one of the principal personages of his time. He wrote two treatises for her, and they are among his most remarkable productions. He says to her, among other comforting things:

If you desire to see your husband, if you wish to enjoy each other’s presence, let your life shine with purity like his, and be assured that you will thus enter into the same angelic choir that he has already reached. You will abide with him, not only during five years, as on earth — not only during twenty, a hundred, a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand, or many more years, but during ages without end. Then you will once more find your husband, no longer with that corporal beauty with which he was gifted when he departed, but with a different splendor — beauty of another sort, which will surpass in brilliancy the rays of the sun.

If it had been promised to you that the empire of the whole earth should be given to your husband, on condition that during twenty years you should be separated from him, and if, in addition, you had received a pledge that after those twenty years, your Therasius should be restored to you, adorned with the diadem and the purple, and you yourself placed in the same rank of honor as he, would you not have resigned yourself to this separation, and easily have preserved continence? You would even have seen in this offer a signal favor, and something worthy of all your desires. Now, therefore, bear with patience the separation which gives your husband the kingdom, not of earth, but of heaven; bear it, that you may find him among the blessed inhabitants of paradise, clad, not with a vesture of gold, but with one of glory and immortality.

This is why, in thinking of the honors that Therasius enjoys in heaven, you must cease to weep and lament. Live as he lived, and even with more perfection. By this means, after having practiced the same virtues, you will be received into the same tabernacles, and you can once more be united to him in the eternal ages, not by the tie of marriage, but by another and a better tie. The first unites bod­ies only, while the second, more pure, more blissful, and more holy, unites soul to soul.

http://catholicexchange.com/will-know-heaven

image: © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / , via Wikimedia Commons

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a chapter from In Heaven We’ll Meet Again: The Saints and Scripture on our Heavenly Reunion, which is available through Sophia Institute Press.

Saints of suffering and genius: Bl. Herman and St. Pacificus

Threecharlie | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Public Domain

These two holy men with great physical challenges stand as powerful witnesses to the truth that every life has dignity.

We live in a society that looks at suffering and disabilities as curses, circumstances to be avoided at all costs. If an unborn baby is imperfect, she should be aborted. If an adult becomes infirm, he should be able to end his own life. In the name of compassion, we eliminate the flawed and congratulate ourselves on being good enough.

The Church stands strongly in opposition to this inclination, fighting for the unborn, the elderly, and the handicapped, for their dignity and their very lives. People with disabilities have something to offer the world, not only when they happen to have some particular talent. Human beings are a gift simply because they exist.

This week, Mother Church offers us two saints with disabilities to contemplate. September 25 is the feast of Blessed Herman of Reichenau (also called Blessed Herman the Cripple). Blessed Herman was born in the 11th century with cerebral palsy and a cleft palate. He also suffered from spina bifida or spinal muscular atrophy, all of which combined to make moving and even speaking very difficult for him.

By all worldly measures, Herman was a burden. He could contribute nothing to his noble family and caring for him was extremely difficult. Then as now, however, the Church valued every life. Herman was entrusted to a Benedictine monastery when he was seven, there to be cared for in obscurity.

But Herman was no ordinary man. He was a genius. Though his body was weak, making both speaking and writing a terrible chore, his mind was brilliant beyond all telling. As the monks began to care for him, they realized that his disability was only a small obstacle between Herman and greatness.

Herman’s education began, but soon he outstripped his tutors. He was a musicologist, an astronomer, and a mathematician. As a historian, he wrote a detailed history of the Western world in the first millennium after Christ. He read Arabic, Greek, and Latin. He wrote theology and poetry. He built musical instruments and astronomical equipment. He was called “The Wonder of His Age,” and all this before turning 40! Towards the end of his short life, Bl. Herman went blind. No longer able to study as he had, he turned his unparalleled mind to composition, writing the Salve Regina and the Alma Redemptoris Mater before dying at age 40.

Saint Pacificus of San Severino (1653-1721), on the other hand, lived a golden life. Born into a noble family, his body was perfect and his mind along with it. He entered the Franciscan order and became a priest and a professor of philosophy.

Respected as he was, Fr. Pacificus was well aware that his salvation wouldn’t come from learning or the esteem of the world. His task was the salvation of souls, and he begged to be sent out as a preacher, encountering sinners in their struggles and leading them back to the embrace of Christ. For five years he wandered the Italian countryside preaching, until his feet began to develop crippling, untreatable sores.

Pacificus accepted this cross, giving up his successful preaching ministry to sit for hours each day in the confessional. There, too, he was useful. But Pacificus’ goodness didn’t lie in his usefulness, and as his disease progressed God was teaching him (and us) just that.

Next, Pacificus lost his hearing. Sign language was very limited at the time but he got by with crude gestures. Still, Fr. Pacificus submitted, rejoicing to carry the Cross with Christ in some small way.

He could no longer teach or preach or hear confessions, but he could still celebrate Mass. Until his sight, too, was taken. The great orator was now blind, deaf, and crippled. And in this lay his great gift to the world. He was holy in his usefulness, but he became a saint not by accomplishing but by being. Pacificus suffered joyfully, even when abused by his nurse. His peaceful acceptance of God’s will so conformed him to the heart of Christ that he experienced ecstasies and was eventually elected superior of his community, his holiness being far more important than his worldly abilities. For nearly 30 years, he lived in pain and isolation, dying at age 68 on September 24, which became his feast day.

Blessed Herman and Saint Pacificus stand as powerful w

itnesses to the truth that every life has dignity. Blessed Herman was counted useless but offered great gifts of beauty, truth, and goodness to the world. Saint Pacificus became useless in the eyes of the world so that God could show what a gift his life was. Let’s ask their intercession for all people with disabilities, for all who suffer from chronic pain, and for our culture, that it may once again become a culture of life. Blessed Herman of Reichenau and Saint Pacificus of San Severino, pray for us!

Fifty years after St. Pacificus’ death, Charles Michel de l’Épée, a French Catholic priest, created the first systematic sign language and became known as the “Father of the Deaf.”

https://aleteia.org/2017/09/21/saints-of-suffering-and-genius-bl-herman-and-st-pacificus/

A mystic from Poland,Alicia Lenczewska and her conversations with Jesus

A mystic from Poland and her conversations with Jesus

Alicja Lenczewska received an unusual gift from Jesus — she spoke with him not in the usual way of prayer, but in mystical conversations. Now, the bishop of Szczecin, Poland, has authorised the publication of the notes from these conversations.

Such an account, and from Poland, might bring to mind the great saint of Divine Mercy, St Faustina. But Lenczewska was born only on Dec. 5, 1934, in Warsaw and died less than 15 years ago.

Raised in suffering

Alicja’s father passed away in 1939 and so, along with her elder brother, Alicja was raised by her mother. When the Nazis invaded Poland and took control of Warsaw, the family moved in with relatives near the city of Rzeszów.

With the War ended in 1946, they moved to Szczecin, where Alicja completed primary and high school. Despite the hard times, her mother ensured the religious upbringing of the children, making sure they always attended Sunday Mass and prayed together daily.

When Alicja graduated from high school, she started to work as a teacher in the village of Bana. Before long, she was promoted to the position of school inspector in Gryfino. Around this time, she became a member of the Communist party. As she later admitted, at that time her life was at variance with the teaching of the Church. 

Lenczewska earned an MA in Pedagogy in Gdańsk and between 1966 and 1975 she worked as a high school teacher of Home Economics and Mechanics in Szczecin.

When Alicja’s mother fell ill, she became her caretaker, attending to her until her death in 1984. Losing her mother was traumatic for Alicja, but her sorrow led her, along with her brother, to become involved with the Renewal in the Holy Spirit. She began to discover Jesus and soon realized she wished to dedicate herself to Him. 

A retreat in Gostyń in 1985 marked the beginning of an astonishing series of graces: During Communion, she was granted the gift of conversations and mystical meetings with Jesus. This gift continued from 1985 to 2012, until her death.

She recorded the spiritual advice received and the contents of her conversations with Jesus in two texts, Testimony [Świadectwo] and A Word of Instruction [Słowo pouczenia]. 

She wrote of the “magnitude of the great, unique love” of God, which could only make one “cry over one’s ingratitude.” She spoke to Jesus about the role of a confessor in the sacrament; Jesus replied that he is: “My lips, my hands and my heart beating amongst you.”

“Everything you have and everything you are is my gift of Love,” Jesus told Alicja. He stressed the significance of the Eucharist, reminding her that He wants to be invited to every person’s life. Moreover, He warned against abusive reception of Holy Communion and its desecration.

Alicja’s relationship with Our Lord came to define her whole life. Nothing but his presence and love mattered to her any more; her money and time were spent in service. A spiritual director supported and guided her during these years. 

Journal entries provide the words of Jesus asking people to pray and have trust. He taught her to work on patience and compassion, so as to react with love to others. As she wrote down in her notebook, “The greatest love is to accept part of My suffering by participating in it.”

The conversations with Jesus, as accounted for in the notes, are marked by the simplicity of the message and love.

Alicja dedicated herself completely to Jesus and to helping other people. She did voluntary work in the office of the Corpus Christi Parish and was a member of the Family of the Heart of Crucified Love, where in 2005 she took perpetual vows. Gradually, her “meetings” with Jesus became less and less frequent, and eventually ended completely. On Dec. 7, 2011, Alicja learned that she had cancer and was admitted to a hospice. She died in Szczecin on Jan. 5, 2012.

In her notes, Lenczewska continuously urges conversion. Each person is called to sanctity, she explains, in recounting Christ’s teachings, yet one needs love and trust in order to walk in holiness. “We should love Jesus in other people, as He wants to be loved there. We should not seek love in abstractions …. The fullness of evil will come, as it happened to Me two millennia ago … This will be followed by the miracle of the resurrection of faith and love …”

https://aleteia.org/2017/05/31/a-mystic-from-poland-and-her-conversations-with-jesus/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en

[This article was originally published by Aleteia’s Polish edition]

Da Mihi Animas: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos

Da Mihi Animas: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos  go to for short video

The following comes from the Seelos.org site:

Francis Xavier Seelos was born on January 11, 1819 in Fussen, Bavaria, Germany. He was baptized on the same day in the parish church of St. Mang. Having expressed a desire for the priesthood since childhood, he entered the diocesan seminary in 1842 after having completed his studies in philosophy. Soon after meeting the missionaries of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists), founded for the evangelization of the most abandoned, he decided to enter the Congregation and to minister to the German speaking immigrants in the United States. He was accepted by the Congregation on November 22, 1842, and sailed the following year from Le Havre, France arriving in New York on April 20, 1843. On December 22, 1844, after having completed his novitiate and theological studies, Seelos was ordained a priest in the Redemptorist Church of St. James in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

After being ordained, he worked for nine years in the parish of St. Philomena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, first as assistant pastor with St. John Neumann, the superior of the Religious Community, and later as Superior himself and for the last three years as pastor. During this time, he was also the Redemptorist Novice Master. With Neumann he also dedicated himself to preaching missions. Regarding their relationship, Seelos said: “He has introduced me to the active life” and, “he has guided me as a spiritual director and confessor.”

His availability and innate kindness in understanding and responding to the needs of the faithful, quickly made him well known as an expert confessor and spiritual director, so much so that people came to him even from neighboring towns. Faithful to the Redemptorist charism, he practiced a simple lifestyle and a simple manner of expressing himself. The themes of his preaching, rich in biblical content, were always heard and understood even by everyone, regardless of education, culture, or background. A constant endeavor in this pastoral activity was instructing the little children in the faith. He not only favored this ministry, he held it as fundamental for the growth of the Christian community in the parish. In 1854, he was transferred from Pittsburgh, to Baltimore, then Cumberland in 1857, and to Annapolis (1862), all the while engaged in parish ministry and serving in the formation of future Redemptorists as Prefect of Students. Even in this post, he was true to his character remaining always the kind and happy pastor, prudently attentive to the needs of his students and conscientious of their doctrinal formation. Above all, he strove to instill in these future Redemptorist missionaries the enthusiasm, the spirit of sacrifice and apostolic zeal for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the people.

In 1860 he was proposed as a candidate for the office of Bishop of Pittsburgh. Having been excused from this responsibility by Pope Pius IX, from 1863 until 1866 he dedicated himself to the life of an itinerant missionary preaching in English and German in the states of Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

After a brief period of parish ministry in Detroit, Michigan, he was assigned in 1866 to the Redemptorist community in New Orleans, Louisiana. Here also, as pastor of the Church of St. Mary of the Assumption, he was known as a pastor who was joyously available to his faithful and singularly concerned for the poorest and the most abandoned. In God’s plan, however, his ministry in New Orleans was destined to be brief. In the month of September, exhausted from visiting and caring for the victims of yellow fever, he contracted the dreaded disease. After several weeks of patiently enduring his illness, he passed on to eternal life on October 4, 1867, at the age of 48 years and 9 months.

His Holiness Pope John Paul II, proclaimed Father Seelos Blessed in St. Peter's Square on April 9th of the Solemn Jubilee Year 2000. His Feast Day is October 5.

ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA

St. Catherine being carried to Mt. Sinai by Henri Lehmann

When I was a teen picking out my Confirmation saint, I searched long and hard for someone who was least likely to change my image… meaning someone like me!

But while I was drowning myself Googling saints, I stumbled across a loud-mouthed girl around my age who converted almost every pagan she encountered. Although I hadn’t converted anyone from my knowledge, I knew that I loved reasoning with people and speaking openly about my faith; I knew I wanted to be more like her.

I learned that she had studied many faiths before she became Christian. At 18, she was converted by a vision of the Our Lady and the Holy Child.  After that, she was B.O.L.D.

Brave

This young woman went straight to the emperor Maxentius after she heard that he was persecuting Christians and rebuked him. Not only did she stand up for injustice, she fought for change. She reasoned with Maxentius, and when he could not answer her arguments against his pagan gods, he summoned fifty philosophers to “set her straight.”

Out of the Ordinary

Not only did she convert all his philosophers who were then burned to death, she converted many more people. The emperor’s wife and a high official visited Catherine when he was away. They found enough truth in her words to fearlessly accept Christ within an unrelenting society, and they lost their lives after Maxentius returned. Catherine was sentenced to death.

Not only is converting the wife of your persecutor out of the ordinary, converting almost everyone you speak with is unique. She had the fire of the Holy Spirit on her lips. Sometimes I wish her words were preserved in a capsule to be proclaimed to the lost sheep of today.

Loved

It may be hard to see a saint martyred so early in her ministry, but God loved her. He loved her so much that God gave her the gift of His voice to proclaim truth, and she used it. After her death, it is said her body was carried away by angels up to Mount Sinai, where a church was later built in her honor.

Though her words were not preserved, her bold actions are remembered as many churches in Western Europe are named after her.

Determined

St. Catherine was a beautiful woman and Maxentius gladly offered her a royal marriage if she would denounce her faith. She refused. We can learn a lot from her faith. So often our world gives us temptations to distract us from God. We must step out of that routine and be okay with being uncomfortable to make a change for the better.

I am not telling you to run around trying to convert everyone. I am not telling you to run off to a country where Christians are persecuted (news flash – you’re already in one). I am asking you to consider the inspiration and message this beautiful woman of God left with us. Our faith is special and worth sharing… and worth sacrificing for.

Today, let us remember a B.O.L.D. woman, a patroness of young women, philosophers and preachers.

She announced to her parents that she would only marry someone who surpassed her in beauty, intelligence, wealth, and social status. This was an early foreshadowing of her eventual discovery of Christ. "His beauty was more radiant than the shining of the sun, His wisdom governed all creation, His riches were spread throughout all the world."

According to Christian tradition, angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where, in the 6th century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian established Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, the church being built between 548 and 565 in Saint Catherine, Egypt, on the Sinai peninsula. Saint Catherine's Monastery survives, a famous repository of early Christian art, architecture and illuminated manuscripts that is still open to visiting scholars.

St. Catherine of Alexandria by Carl Van Blaas 1860

St. Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us!
SOURCE - http://www.lifeteen.com/blog/holy-boldness-st-catherine-of-alexandria