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Catholic Saints & Feasts

Catholic Saints & Feasts

De: Fr. Michael Black
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 "Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black.

These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.Copyright Fr. Michael Black Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • June 26: Saint Josemaria Escriva, Priest

    June 26: Saint Josemaria Escriva, Priest
    Jun 25 2024
    June 26: Saint Josemaria Escriva, Priest
    1902–1975
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Saint Josemaria is not on the Church’s universal calendar but is included here)
    Patron Saint of diabetics

    Work is our sacrifice and the earth is our altar

    When today’s saint was a young priest, he was a rather well-known speaker in Madrid, Spain. Besides being an excellent homilist, he also preached retreats, gave parish missions, and taught classes. A young woman heard that Father Josemaria was scheduled to give some lectures nearby and, in light of his reputation, was eager to hear him. But first she went to one of his Masses. After that, the woman had no interest in hearing him lecture; instead she wanted to discover God’s will for her life. Saint Josemaria’s example of intense devotion and prayerfulness in saying Mass made her rethink her entire vocation. A good priest disappears into his vocation, submerges himself in Christ, and communicates a divine, not a personal, message. He makes people think of God, not him. At Mass the priest is not himself, yet is fully himself. He performs a sacrament because he is a sacrament. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is hidden behind the aspects of a man, similar to how the Holy Eucharist is hidden behind the aspects of bread and wine.

    It is the theology of the Church that every sacrament validly performed is efficacious, that it transmits sanctifying grace to the soul. But the fruitfulness of a sacrament for its recipient, either psychologically or spiritually, fluctuates. It can hinge on any number of factors, from the beauty of a Church, the quality of a homily, the sacredness of the music, or the intellectual preparation and ardor of the one receiving the sacrament. A holy, charitable, and educated priest infuses every sacrament he celebrates with a theological meaning that yields spiritual fruit that goes beyond efficaciousness. Saint Josemaria’s writings, preaching, lectures, and talks were so rich, so chock-full of practical purpose and high meaning, that a great international family gathered around him, harvesting from his sustained example and insights an abundant banquet for their spiritual table.

    Josemaria Escriva was born in a small town in rural Spain. He attended diocesan seminaries in the nearby city of Zaragoza and was ordained a priest in 1925. In 1928 he experienced a vision which spurred him to found Opus Dei, an institution that quickly spread to all the major Christian countries. Opus Dei consists primarily of married lay men and women, while some members are unmarried and consecrated celibates. A few members are priests.  After two thousand years of Catholic spirituality, it might be asked what new insight warranted the foundation of a new Church institution? It is a sign of the Church’s theological and spiritual fecundity that Saint Josemaria did offer a new, innovative approach to living as a disciple of Christ nineteen hundred years after Christ returned to the Father.

    In a homily from 1967, Josemaria states his spirituality in clear terms: "...God is calling you to serve Him ‘in and from’ the ordinary, material, and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day in the laboratory, in the operating room, in the army barracks, in the university, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it."

    In other words, there is no need for a serious lay Catholic to abandon his work and routine, his family life, or his everyday relationships to fulfill God’s will. God is found in and through ordinary life. Cardinal Albino Luciani, later Pope John Paul I, perceptively noted that Saint Josemaria was not teaching a ‘spirituality for lay people,’ as Francis de Sales taught, but a 'lay spirituality.' It is not a question of praying the rosary while sweeping the floor, or contemplating scripture while driving. It is about “materializing” holiness by converting ordinary, well-done work into a sacrifice and prayer to God. Ordinary work, then, is not just the context, but the raw material, for lay holiness. All jobs are important. Daily life is not a distraction from God’s will for us. Daily life is God’s will for us. When we get to work, we get to God.

    Saint Josemaria, may your intercession help us to follow your teachings in making our daily labors divine labors. May our work, well done, mingle with Christ’s work and sacrifice to form one perfect offering of praise and thanksgiving to God the Father.
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    6 m
  • June 24: Birth of Saint John the Baptist

    June 24: Birth of Saint John the Baptist
    Jun 23 2024
    June 24: Birth of Saint John the Baptist
    First Century
    Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White or Gold
    Patron Saint of converts and epileptics

    A rugged forerunner cuts a path for his cousin

    “Dies natalis” means “birthday” or “anniversary” in Latin. But for early Christians, “dies natalis” referred to a martyr’s date of death and its subsequent commemoration in the Church’s liturgy, most typically through the assigning of a feast day. Most saints, martyrs or otherwise, are commemorated on, or near, the date of their death, the date their body was transferred to its final resting place, or on another significant date in their lives—date of ordination, coronation as pope, consecration as nun, etc. Besides Christ Himself, only two saints’ birthdays are commemorated liturgically: The Virgin Mary’s on September 8, exactly nine months after the Feast of her Immaculate Conception; and Saint John the Baptist’s on June 24, today’s feast. Saint Mary and Saint John were both sanctified, or made holy, before they first opened their eyes to the light or ever gulped a mouthful of fresh air. A long span of years did not turn them into saints. God made them holy from the start. So we commemorate their lives from the start, from their birthdays.

    Only the Gospel of Saint Luke tells us the details of John’s birth. John’s mother and father were Elizabeth and Zechariah. They were beyond the age for having children. But Zechariah, a priest who served in the Temple in Jerusalem, was told one night by the Archangel Gabriel that Elizabeth would give birth to a boy they must name John. Zechariah was dumbfounded. Literally, when he disbelieved this annunciation, he was rendered speechless until the child’s birth. When his speech was finally restored, a torrent of praise gushed out in the canticle known as the Benedictus. It is prayed as part of the Breviary every single day at morning prayer by hundreds of thousands of priests and nuns the world over. Zechariah’s prayer of praise lives on.

    The celebration of the nativity of John the Baptist is perhaps the oldest liturgical feast day in all Christendom, much older than the Feast of Christmas itself. It was at one time celebrated with three distinct Masses—vigil, dawn, and daytime—just like Christmas still is. The beheading of John, celebrated on August 29, is of equally ancient origin. The oldest liturgical books even, incredibly, indicate that there was once a liturgical commemoration of the conception of John the Baptist celebrated nine months prior to his birth, on September 24.

    Today’s feast is placed three months after the Annunciation, on March 25, because that gospel scene tells us that Elizabeth, John’s mother, was pregnant for six months at the time. Three more months take us to June 24. (The one-day discrepancy between March 25 and June 24 is an accident of counting. If December and June each had thirty-one days, there would be no discrepancy.) Three related feast days line up beautifully: March 25, the Annunciation; June 24, the birth of John the Baptist; December 25, the birth of Christ. John’s birth foretells Christ’s birth. Although the historical chronology may not be exact, the dates show the theological interconnection among the three feasts.

    All parents are naturally curious to discover the sex of their child in utero. Some allow themselves to be told the sex. Others wait in high suspense. Elizabeth and her spouse Zechariah were told by a winged messenger of God Himself that they would have a boy. That little boy grew to be a man, a great man among men who accepted death rather than swallow his words criticizing the powerful Herod Antipas. John ran ahead of Christ, clearing the ground so that the Lord’s pathway would be clear. This forerunner baptized the Christ, preached and prophesied like the Christ, fasted and prayed like the Christ, and died for the truth like the Christ. But he did not rise from the dead like the Christ. There is only one Easter. We rejoice at Saint John the Baptist’s birth, because what followed merits rejoicing. We rejoice at his birth, because of the generous God who intervenes in our lives, who discovers us before we discover Him.

    May the birth of Saint John the Baptist deepen our love for all unborn babies, who must be given the chance to grow, to live, and to become the great men and women God invites them to be. God respected the laws of human biology when intervening in history. May we follow His example of seeing every child, every life, as a gift.
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    6 m
  • June 22: Saints John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr, and Thomas More, Martyr

    June 22: Saints John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr, and Thomas More, Martyr
    Jun 22 2025
    June 22: Saints John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr, and Thomas More, Martyr John Fisher: 1469–1535; Thomas More: 1478–1535 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of the Diocese of Rochester (Fisher) and of lawyers and politicians (More)  They would not bend to the marriage  In 1526 a German painter named Hans Holbein could not find work in Basel, Switzerland. The Reformation had come to town. It shattered the stained glass, burned the wooden statues, and sliced up the oil paintings. Protestants don’t “do” great art. There were no more commissions. So Holbein went north, to Catholic England, in search of wealthy patrons for his craft. On his way, he passed through the Netherlands to procure letters of introduction from the great humanist Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus was a friend of Sir Thomas More, an English humanist of the highest caliber. And thus it came to pass that one fine day, in England in 1527, Thomas More sat patiently while Holbein’s brush worked its magic. Holbein’s extraordinary portrait of Thomas More captures the man for all seasons, as one contemporary called More, at the pinnacle of his powers. More’s head and torso fill the frame. There is no need for context, landscape, or a complex backdrop. More’s mind is what matters. He is what matters. Nothing else. The shimmering velvet of his robes, the weighty gold chain of office resting on his shoulders, the detailed rose badge of the House of Tudor lying on his chest, all tell the viewer something important—this is not a frivolous man. He serves the King. His work is consequential. He also wears a ring. He is married and has children. He dons a cap. It is England, and he is cold. His stubble is visible. He is tired from overwork and did not have time to shave. He holds a small slip of paper—perhaps a bribe he rejected. His gaze, slightly off center, is earnest, serious, and calm. It is almost as if he is searching the room, attentive to any threat lurking behind the painter. He is watchful. The entirety of the work conveys that elusive quality that denotes great art—interior movement. The gears of More’s brain are rotating. His personality has force. The viewer feels it. Saint Thomas More was the greatest Englishman of his generation. In a land with a highly educated aristocratic class, his erudition was unequalled. He was a devoted family man who carried out an extensive correspondence with his children and ensured that his daughters were as well educated as his sons. He served the English crown faithfully both at home and abroad. He charmed his many friends with a rich and engaging personality. He published scholarly works and communicated with other humanists of his era. Yet despite all of these accomplishments, the fraught times he lived in eventually overwhelmed him. He could not save his own head. More was a thoughtful and serious Catholic. He refused to bend to the will of King Henry VIII regarding divorce and Henry’s self-appointment as head of the Church in England. For his silence, or lack of explicit support for Henry, More was brought to court, where a perjurer’s words knifed him in the heart. More was condemned to death by beheading. This was a favor from the King, who admired More but could not brook his dissent. More had originally been sentenced to a far crueler form of capital punishment, but Henry decreed that his life end with one blow of the axe. So the unconquered Thomas More climbed a shaky scaffold on July 6, 1535, and had his head lopped off. His head was stuck on a pole on London bridge for one month afterward, a trophy to barbarity. More died a martyr to the indissolubility of marriage. Saint John Fisher was an academic who held various high positions at the University of Cambridge, one of the two universities in all of England, eventually becoming its Chancellor for life. He was a Renaissance humanist, like Thomas More, who encouraged the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Fisher was the personal tutor of Henry VIII when Henry was a boy, and he preached the funeral homily of Henry’s father, Henry VII. John Fisher lived a life of extreme personal austerity and even placed a human skull on the table during meals to remind himself of his eventual end. He had many of the same qualities as More—great learning, personal uprightness, and academic accomplishments. But easy times don’t make martyrs. When King Henry wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Fisher became her most ardent supporter. He openly stated in court that he would die for the indissolubility of marriage, thus incurring the lasting wrath of his former pupil Henry. All the bishops of England, save Fisher and two others, lost their courage and acquiesced, without a fight, to Henry VIII’s takeover of the Catholic Church in England. Their weakness brought to a sudden, crashing end a thousand years of Catholicism in England. The faith endured in some form, of course, but would never be the ...
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    8 m
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I enjoy the episodes… Just wish it was possible to reflect on tomorrow’s episode the evening before…

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