Saints

Feast Day- July 31st

July 31 is the feast day of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus, who passed away on this day in the year 1556. Born in 1491, Ignatius was a different kind of saint. As the noted Jesuit historian Fr. John O’Malley, SJ, observed, “Ignatius redefined the traditional basis of saintliness,” which usually involved a degree of unworldliness. In contrast, Fr. O’Malley refers to Ignatius as a “worldly saint.” Ignatius made sure that the early Jesuits were spending most of their time in relatively secular spaces such as classrooms — teaching less directly about the Bible and Church doctrine than about literature and the ancient classics. He sent letters to his missionaries asking that they write back not just about their ministries but also about the local customs, the plants and wildlife — “anything that seems extraordinary.” Most of all, Ignatius wanted Jesuits to go out and “find God in all things.”

Bet you didn't know THAT about St. Ignatius of Loyola!

1. He once allowed the donkey on which he was riding to determine whether he should follow and murder someone he thought had insulted the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Fortunately, the donkey chose the path that led away from the insulter.)
2. He thought that his leg had been set poorly after the cannonball incident and that, as a result, he would not look good in his courtier’s tights. So he had a doctor rebreak his leg and start over!
3. He may be the only canonized saint to have a notarized police record—for nighttime brawling with intent to inflict serious harm.
4. He was hauled before the Spanish Inquisition on a number of occasions.
5. At age 33, he joined a class of young children so he could learn Latin.
6. He sometimes cried with so much devotion at Mass that he couldn’t continue, and he feared he would lose his eyesight.
7. He penned over 6,800 letters in his lifetime, making him one of the most prolific letter writers of his time—or any time, for that matter.

Feast day: July 3
Patron Saint of: Architects

St. Thomas was born a Jew and was called to be one of the twelve Apostles. His birth and death dates are unknown, but his feast day is celebrated July 3. He lived before the formal establishment of the Catholic Church but is recognized as the patron saint of architects.

He was a dedicated but impetuous follower of Christ. When Jesus said He was returning to Judea to visit His sick friend Lazarus, Thomas immediately exhorted the other Apostles to accompany Him on the trip which involved certain danger and possible death because of the mounting hostility of the authorities.

At the Last Supper, when Christ told His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them to which they also might come because they knew both the place and the way, Thomas pleaded that they did not understand and received the beautiful assurance that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

St. Thomas is best known for his role in verifying the Resurrection of his Master. Thomas' unwillingness to believe that the other Apostles had seen their risen Lord on the first Easter Sunday earned him the title of "doubting Thomas."

Eight days later, on Christ's second apparition, Thomas was gently rebuked for his skepticism and furnished with the evidence he had demanded - seeing in Christ's hands the point of the nails. Thomas even put his fingers in the nail holes and his hand into Christ's side. After verifying the wounds were true, St. Thomas became convinced of the reality of the Resurrection and exclaimed, "My Lord and My God," thus making a public Profession of Faith in the Divinity of Jesus.

Feast Day--May 26

Philip Neri was a sign of contradiction, combining popularity with piety against the background of a corrupt Rome and a disinterested clergy: the whole post-Renaissance malaise.

At an early age, Philip abandoned the chance to become a businessman, moved to Rome from Florence, and devoted his life and individuality to God. After three years of philosophy and theology studies, he gave up any thought of ordination. The next 13 years were spent in a vocation unusual at the time—that of a layperson actively engaged in prayer and the apostolate.

As the Council of Trent (1545-63) was reforming the Church on a doctrinal level, Philip’s appealing personality was winning him friends from all levels of society, from beggars to cardinals. He rapidly gathered around himself a group of laypersons won over by his audacious spirituality. Initially, they met as an informal prayer and discussion group, and also served poor people in Rome.

At the urging of his confessor, Philip was ordained a priest and soon became an outstanding confessor himself, gifted with the knack of piercing the pretenses and illusions of others, though always in a charitable manner and often with a joke. He arranged talks, discussions, and prayers for his penitents in a room above the church. He sometimes led “excursions” to other churches, often with music and a picnic on the way.

Some of Philip’s followers became priests and lived together in community. This was the beginning of the Oratory, the religious institute he founded. A feature of their life was a daily afternoon service of four informal talks, with vernacular hymns and prayers. Giovanni Palestrina was one of Philip’s followers, and composed music for the services. The Oratory was finally approved after suffering through a period of accusations of being an assembly of heretics, where laypersons preached and sang vernacular hymns!

Philip’s advice was sought by many of the prominent figures of his day. He is one of the influential figures of the Counter-Reformation, mainly for converting to personal holiness many of the influential people within the Church itself. His characteristic virtues were humility and gaiety.

After spending a day hearing confessions and receiving visitors, Philip Neri suffered a hemorrhage and died on the feast of Corpus Christi in 1595. He was beatified in 1615 and canonized in 1622. Three centuries later, Cardinal John Henry Newman founded the first English-speaking house of the Oratory in London.

From https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-philip-neri

Feast Day—January 4

Raised Episcopalian in colonial New York City, Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, a merchant. The couple had five children. William died in 1803 in Italy, where

Elizabeth learned about Catholicism from the family who gave her hospitality. Wars had bankrupted the family’s shipping business. After becoming a Catholic in New York in 1805, the now-poor Elizabeth was  abandoned by old friends, but accepted the offer of a Baltimore priest to open a school for girls there. In 1809 she founded the U.S. Sisters of Charity, whose schools and orphanages grew in number. She became the first
native-born U.S. saint in 1975 and is the patron of converts.
(www.usccb.org)

Feast Day October 4

Francis was born in 1181 to a very wealthy family. His father was a successful cloth merchant throughout Europe. Growing up, Francis was a very popular boy and got along with nearly everyone he met. As a teen and young man, he spent lots of time partying and getting into trouble with his friends. Later, he would say himself that he “lived in every kind of sin” during his youth.

As the years passed, Francis wanted to do more than just have good times. He wanted to be a soldier. After one battle around 1202, he was captured and held in a dungeon for over a year before being released and going back to his wild life.

Three years later, Francis tried to join the Crusades and fight in the Holy Land, but at a retreat in Rome before leaving, he felt a call to visit a broken-down chapel in San Damiano in Italy. While there, he had a vision of God telling him to “rebuild my house…now falling into ruin”. Thinking God meant the chapel he was praying at, he stole some cloth from his father to sell for money for building materials. His father was so angry he disowned him as his son.

Francis hid for a while in caves near San Damiano, and then started to beg, gathering stones and using them to rebuild that chapel and others as well. He cared for lepers and others in need. Later, he would form a group of his followers who would become the Franciscan Orders of Friars, Priests, and later women religious as well.

Legend tells us that Francis loved all animals and living things and would often preach to the creatures of the forest when people wouldn’t listen to him. He also is credited with creating the first creche, or Nativity, scene to help explain Jesus’ humble birth to his listeners.

In his later years, Francis would develop the Stigmata, or actual wounds of Christ on his hands and feet as if he himself had been crucified. In 1226, he died because of these wounds and respiratory problems. He was named a saint in 1228 by Pope Gregory IX. He is known as the patron saint of animals, merchants, and the environment.

Resources: “St. Francis of Assisi”, www.catholic.org, https://catholicresources.education/search? q=Saint+Francis, https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-francis-of-assisi, https:// www.thecatholickid.com/saint-francis-coloring-page/

WHAT IS THE ASSUMPTION?
The first name of this solemnity was the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. Later, its name in the East carried over, the Dormition (or Falling Asleep) of Mary. In the West, it became known as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This solemnity celebrates the fact that Mary’s Assumption is “a pledge of the future participation of the members of the mystical Body of Christ in the paschal glory of the Risen Christ.” It shows that the Lord “reserves a munificent reward for his humble Servant because of her faithful cooperation with the divine plan, which is a destiny of fullness, happiness, glorification of her immaculate soul, her virginal body, perfect configuration to her Risen Son” (Directory, no. 180). The Mass has a proper vigil, and the solemnity replaces the Mass of the day when it occurs on a Sunday in Ordinary Time.

What does this all mean?

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which the Church celebrates every year on August 15. Simply put, the dogma of the Assumption states that at the end of her life, the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken, body and soul, into Heaven.

While this event isn’t reflected in Sacred Scripture, it is clearly part of the Church’s earliest observance. In the sixth century, St. John Damascene wrote in one of his sermons, “Your sacred and happy soul, as nature will have it, was separated in death from your most blessed and immaculate body, and although the body was duly interred, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay; your most pure and sinless body was not left on earth, but you were transferred to your heavenly throne.”

Theologically speaking, death is often understood to be a consequence of original sin. Since Mary was conceived without Original Sin, some theologians have wondered if Mary died or if perhaps she was taken into Heaven without experiencing death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church doesn’t answer this question but simply states, “The most blessed Virgin Mary, when the course of her earthly life was completed, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven” (no. 974)

The Solemnity of the Assumption reminds us of the unique role that Mary served in the process of our salvation. Although she was without sin, we have the possibility of receiving God’s forgiveness for our sins through Christ. Her entry into Heaven prefigures our own hope of experiencing the same eternal life.

Ordinarily, the celebration of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a holy day of obligation for Catholics, but when it falls on a Saturday or a Monday, that obligation to attend Mass is lifted.

What is the Assumption? is an excerpt from the Essential Guide to Seasons and Saints, copyright © 2013, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved. What does this all mean? was written by Fr. Larry Rice, former vocations director for the Paulist Fathers. Copyright © 2018, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington DC. All rights reserved

Feast Day:  July 31, 2021
By Mary Kovacs Foy

 
(This is the first of an occasional series on the lives of different saints and important people in the Church, both yesterday and today.)
Ignatius was born in 1491 in Basque Province of Northern Spain. He was the youngest of 13 children in his family.  His father was an important person in the royal court, and Ignatius grew up with a taste for a wealthy lifestyle.  He enjoyed gambling, swordplay, and never backed down from a fight.

Ignatius’ heart was set on a career as a officer in the army. In 1521, at age 30, he fought with the Spanish army against the French, and was struck by a cannonball. He suffered serious injury to both his legs, with one being broken in numerous places.  This leg had to be re-broken to be set correctly, and it was believed he would not survive this procedure.  His legs did eventually heal, but not well, and he always walked with a limp afterwards and was unable to return to service in the army.

While he was recovering in the castle at Loyola, Ignatius was terribly bored. There was nothing he could do but read, so he asked for some books, particularly romance novels, to pass the time.  But the only books to be found at the castle were two religious texts:  one of the life of Christ and one on the lives of the saints.  So, Ignatius read those, and his life was changed forever.

After his recovery, he began to spend time away in prayer and helping the poor and sick.  He even returned to school at 33 to learn Latin with much younger children to further be able to read the writings of the Church. Others would later join him in this work, and thus began the Order of Religious known as the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.

One of the major teaching of the Jesuits is that God may be found in all things, good or bad.  This was a novel idea for the time because it was previously thought that if evil was present, God would remove himself from the situation.  Another new idea was the removal of the obligation of his brothers to recite the Daily Office as a group, a prayer which all other religious prayed together many times a day.  Ignatius would rather see his followers spending time with those in need or teaching others instead of organizing prayer time.

After years of helping the Society of Jesus grow and spread throughout the known world, Ignatius became ill and died on July 31, 1609.  He was beatified on July 27, 1609, and canonized by Pope Gregory XV on March 12, 1622.

ASK YOURSELF: How can I try to “see God in all things”, even those things, and people, I may not necessarily like?

On July 26 the Roman Catholic Church commemorates the parents of the Virgin Mary, Saints Joachim and Anne. The couple's faith and perseverance brought them through the sorrow of childlessness, to the joy of conceiving and raising the immaculate and sinless woman who would give birth to Christ.

The New Testament contains no specific information about the lives of the Virgin Mary's parents, but other documents outside of the Biblical canon do provide some details. Although these writings are not considered authoritative in the same manner as the Bible, they outline some of the Church's traditional beliefs about Joachim, Anne and their daughter. 

The “Protoevangelium of James,” which was probably put into its final written form in the early second century, describes Mary's father Joachim as a wealthy member of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joachim was deeply grieved, along with his wife Anne, by their childlessness. “He called to mind Abraham,” the early Christian writing says, “that in the last day God gave him a son Isaac.” 

Joachim and Anne began to devote themselves to rigorous prayer and fasting, in isolation from one another and from society. They regarded their inability to conceive a child as a surpassing misfortune, and a sign of shame among the tribes of Israel. 

As it turned out, however, the couple were to be blessed even more abundantly than Abraham and Sarah. An angel revealed this to Anne when he appeared to her and prophesied that all generations would honor their future child: “The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.” 

After Mary's birth, according to the Protoevangelium of James, Anne “made a sanctuary” in the infant girl's room, and “allowed nothing common or unclean” on account of the special holiness of the child. The same writing records that when she was one year old, her father “made a great feast, and invited the priests, and the scribes, and the elders, and all the people of Israel.”

“And Joachim brought the child to the priests,” the account continues, “and they blessed her, saying: 'O God of our fathers, bless this child, and give her an everlasting name to be named in all generations' … And he brought her to the chief priests; and they blessed her, saying: 'O God most high, look upon this child, and bless her with the utmost blessing, which shall be forever.'”

The protoevangelium goes on to describe how Mary's parents, along with the temple priests, subsequently decided that she would be offered to God as a consecrated Virgin for the rest of her life, and enter a chaste marriage with the carpenter Joseph.

St. Joachim and St. Anne have been a part of the Church's liturgical calendar for many centuries. Devotion to their memory is particularly strong in the Eastern Catholic churches, where their intercession is invoked by the priest at the end of each Divine Liturgy. The Eastern churches, however, celebrate Sts. Joachim and Anne on a different date, Sept. 9.

Catholic News Agency

Novena Prayer 
 

The month of October each year is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. This is primarily due to the fact that the liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is celebrated annually on October 7th. The feast day was instituted by Pope Pius V in thanksgiving for the great naval victory over the Turks at the battle of Lepanto on this day in 1570, a favor believed to be due to the recitation of the Rosary. Each morning after the 9:00am Mass, our Rosary Group prays together this special devotion to our Lady. Consider joining them, and making this prayer part of your life.

“Continue to pray the Rosary every day.”
~ Our Lady of Fatima to Sister Lucia

 

October - Month of the Holy Rosary October 1st — (New calendar); October 3rd (Traditional calendar) — Saint Therese of Lisieux (Doctor of the Church) October 2nd — Feast of the Guardian Angels October 2nd & 3rd — First Friday and First Saturday devotions October 4th — Saint Francis of Assisi LAST DAY TO ORDER A ROSARY RALLY BANNER October 7th — Feast of the Holy Rosary October 10th — NOON — October Public Square Rosary Rallies October 13th — 6th & Final Fatima Apparition — Miracle of the Sun October 15th — Saint Teresa of Avila (Doctor of the Church) October 16th — Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque October 20th — Saint Paul of the Cross October 28th — Saints Simon and Jude October 31st — All Halos Eve vs Halloween