benefan
00venerdì 27 agosto 2010 03:36
BECOMING MOTHER TERESA'S COLLABORATOR (PART 1)
Interview With Close Ally of the Calcutta Nun
By Irene Lagan
WASHINGTON, D.C., AUG. 26, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Today marks the 100th birthday of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Thirteen years after her death, Mother Teresa’s influence and voice -- like her contemporary Pope John Paul II -- continue to resound throughout the globe.
Her life spanned a remarkable period of history. Born Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Albania, Gonxha’s beginnings were obscure, likened in a recent special issue of Time Magazine, to Jesus’ inauspicious beginnings in Nazareth.
By the time she died on Sept. 5, 1997, modernity’s greatest triumphs were dashed by wars, genocides, the rise and fall of totalitarian regimes, modernism and finally, the rise of the culture of death.
To mark the anniversary of the nun's birth, ZENIT spoke with one of Mother Teresa's close collaborators and allies, Jim Twoey. Twoey is a former White House correspondent and was recently the president of St. Vincent's, a small Catholic college in Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Mary, have recently relocated back to the Washington D.C. area.
Part 2 of this interview will be published Friday.
ZENIT: How did you first come to know Mother Teresa?
Twoey: I was working for U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield, who was a real advocate of strong refugee policy for the country. He sent me overseas to do some fieldwork in Thailand at the Cambodia border. At the time, I was a lukewarm Catholic and saw this figure of Mother Teresa who seemed to be living the Gospel, so I wanted to meet her. Senator Hatfield had a friendship with her, so I thought I’d try meet her in Calcutta with a letter of introduction on my way back from Thailand.
The only problem was that I did not want to be around the poor, which is impossible in Calcutta. But I talked myself into it by deciding I’d go to Calcutta for one day, meet Mother, then go back to the U.S. through Hawaii and spend five days there. So that’s what I planned.
On Aug. 20, 1985, I walked into the motherhouse for their 5:30 A.M. Mass, and met Mother afterward. She was a delightful, tiny little woman with big, soft hands and incredible focus. It was the week she turned 75 years old, yet she bounded out to meet me with the energy and enthusiasm of a school girl.
After I met Mother, she asked, “Have you been to my home for the dying?” I said that I hadn’t, so she sent me over there to see Sister Luke. I thought I was going to get a tour, but Sister Luke thought I was there to volunteer. So when I introduced myself, Sr. Luke told me to “go clean that fellow in bed 46 who has scabies” and handed me the medicine and the cotton. I was too proud to admit to her that I did not want to touch the poor, and only wanted a tour of the house. So, I found myself cleaning the dying man, then feeding some other dying men.
While I was very happy to get out of Calcutta the next day, I was uncomfortable in Hawaii because the pineapples were healthier than the people I’d just left. And, the hotel’s lawn was being watered while I had just left these people that were fighting to find potable water. So, I was really plunged into this confusion that challenged my understanding of the world and my responsibilities to my brothers and sisters in places like Calcutta.
One of the immediate changes was that I began to work with the poor in the U.S. every Saturday. I did this for years. I was also among the first group of volunteers to work in the AIDS home and ultimately lived in that house. In fact, in the 1980s it was hard to find people to work with those suffering from AIDS, and it was a real joy to accompany so many men and women as they died. It was a real grace.
ZENIT: How did your relationship with Mother Teresa develop?
Twoey: I can only say it was the mercy of God that allowed me to have the relationship with her that I had. It was also just providence of God that I would be on the scene when they needed a lawyer to help with the opening of AIDS homes, with immigration issues and with protecting Mother’s name from those who wanted to fundraise with it. I was available and free; I was single; Mother trusted me, and so off that went.
Then, I was two years full time with the Missionaries from 1989-90. During that time, I had the opportunity to travel some with Mother, to live in her AIDS home, and to live with her priests in Tijuana, Mexico, where Mother was opening four homes. It was a privilege to watch her and to observe her sanctity and loveliness.
ZENIT: What was it like for you to be in Mother Teresa’s presence?
Twoey: Being in Mother Teresa’s presence was a very stark judgment that she was everything that I was not. She was focused; she was prayerful; her life had such clear purpose. Even though I was a successful lawyer and legislative director of the chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, and had more money and influence than I’d ever had in my life, it was empty. Meeting Mother made me realize that. So, at first I was reintroduced to Catholic practice, which I had lost interest in. I rediscovered praying, adoration, and most of all a beautiful rediscovery of the riches of the Eucharist.
Really if you look at the Missionaries of Charity, their entire life is centered around the Eucharist. They receive the broken body of Christ in the Eucharist and then go and touch the broken body of Christ in the poor. Their entire prayer life is an effort to maintain that connection and consciousness.
ZENIT: Now it seems that the Missionaries in the U.S. are almost overrun with young people wanting to volunteer. What about Mother Teresa’s message is drawing so many people even today?
Twoey: What’s happened over time is that many young people are discovering that they’ve been sold a bill of goods by the culture. And they are in search of something that is authentic and true. And many have come to find authentic and true experiences working alongside the sisters caring for the sick and suffering.
One time I was driving Mother through one of the poorest areas of Washington D.C.. She was looking out the window and remarked, "It’s so hard to reach your poor here." I think she was recognizing that while the material poverty here is vastly different than that in India, the spiritual poverty is much worse. It’s the sense that so many people in America feel unloved, unwanted, unwelcome. It is hard to reach that.
She often said in India we can give them a bowl of rice and they eat that day, and that addresses their hunger. But here, in America, the bread of friendship is harder for the poor to digest since they are so broken, so poor and so wounded. That is why that is the focus of so much of the Missionaries’ efforts in the U.S.. They are dealing with AIDS, and the homeless and unwed mothers, but they are really trying to rehabilitate individuals to help them see that they truly are children of God, and they are made to love and be loved. The Missionaries of Charity help them to restore their dignity by helping them know they are welcome in the world and needed in the world. I saw that over and over in the AIDS home and with the homeless: Each one would discover that he or she is a gift and not a burden.
ZENIT: What lasting lessons do you continue to draw on from your experience?
Twoey: With Mother it all began with prayer. So, for me, it first of all began with developing a prayer life. By the grace of God I need daily Mass to survive. I just try to imitate what Mother did. So, there is Mass, the rosary and adoration, along with spiritual reading. Once you have the prayer life, you try to open your eyes to see where the will of God is leading you and who you are engaged with.
For the past 15 years, my life is engaged with my family. My wife, Mary, and I have been engaged in the lives of our children, who for me, are the poorest of the poor. And we’ve gone as a family on mission trips to work with the poor. We’ve gone to Ecuador, Tijuana, and Mexico, as well as worked in soup kitchens and shelters here in America. You certainly want to have an ongoing relationship with the poor, and a recognition of our responsibility to them on both the material and spiritual levels of poverty. So, I’ve tried to follow where the Lord has led. And, he’s taken me to the White House as well as to academia. Now we are back in D.C. and happy to be back with the sisters. My 17-year-old son plays the piano for the sisters’ choir practice. It’s nice to see a second generation involved with the sisters.
benefan
00venerdì 27 agosto 2010 03:40
Cardinal Comastri recounts how Mother Teresa saved his priesthood
Rome, Italy, Aug 26, 2010 / 05:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica remembered at Mass on Thursday how a promise he made to Mother Teresa 40 years ago preserved his vocation. She taught him that without prayer, charity cannot exist.
Cardinal Comastri presided over the Eucharistic celebration at Rome's San Lorenzo in Damaso Church, which had a very welcoming feel with the presence of more than 100 Missionaries of Charity sisters, over 20 concelebrating priests, local government leaders and a very diverse collection of faithful.
Church-goers were pleasantly surprised by the presence of newly-arrived prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who also concelebrated and read a message from the Pope at the beginning of Mass.
In a homily which emphasized that love is the foundation of our existence, Cardinal Comastri remembered a personal encounter he had with the Missionaries of Charity's founder when he was just a young priest.
His first contact with Mother Teresa came when he mailed her a letter just after he was ordained a priest. Her "unexpected" response was especially striking, he recalled, because it was written on "very poor paper, in a very poor envelope."
At a later date, Cardinal Comastri sought her out when she was visiting Rome to thank her for the answer. When he found her, she asked him a question that left him "a little embarrassed."
"How many hours do you pray a day?" she asked.
Then, in 1969-70, he recalled, the Church was in a time of "dispute," so thinking that it was "near heroism, then-Father Comastri explained to her that he said daily Mass in addition to praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rosary.”
To this, she responded flatly, "That's not enough.”
"Love cannot be lived minimally," she said, and then asked him to promise to do half an hour of adoration every day.
"I promised," said Cardinal Comastri, "and today I can say that this saved my priesthood."
Trying to defend his case at the time, he told Mother Teresa that he thought she was going to ask him how much charity he did. She answered him, "And do you think if I didn't pray I would be able to love the poor? It's Jesus that puts love in my heart when I pray."
She helped the poor, but it was "always Jesus' love," the saintly sister told him.
Then, he said, Mother told him something that he would never forget: to read Scripture.
Through Jesus' teachings, she said, we are reminded that "without God we're too poor to help the poor.” This, she explained, "is why so much assistance falls into the void. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't contribute anything because it doesn't bring love and it isn't born of prayer."
Concluding, Cardinal Comastri said, "Through this little woman ... we are reminded that charity is the apostolate of the Church and that charity is only born if we pray."
benefan
00venerdì 27 agosto 2010 03:45
‘Do ordinary things with extraordinary love’
The Things that Made Mother Teresa Tick
BY JOHN BURGER
National Catholic Register
Posted 8/25/10 at 11:00 PM
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk never expected to become a priest in Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity Fathers.
Now he is superior of the congregation — as well as postulator of the cause of canonization of Mother Teresa.
He first met her when his sister entered the Missionaries of Charity. Along the way, he had ample time and opportunity to get to know the “saint of the gutters.”
In this third and last part of Register news editor John Burger’s interview with him, Father Kolodiejchuk discusses what he discovered.
What led you to the Missionaries of Charity and how did you come to know Mother Teresa?
I was born in Winnipeg in Canada. I was raised in the Ukrainian Catholic Church. My parents were first-generation (Canadians). Each of my parents had one parent born in Canada, the other born in Europe. I have one sister, who is an MC also. Right now she happens to be in Bridgeport (Connecticut), in charge of the house of prayer they have there.
She joined the MCs first, in 1976. My parents and I went to Rome the next year to visit her. So that year, ’77, Mother Teresa was beginning the first group of contemplative brothers, and at the opening, Mother Teresa, who knew I was the brother of one of her sisters, said, “Oh, I would like to pin a cross on you,” because that was the ceremony, beginning with one priest and five Italian lay people. The MCs wear a cross on their shoulder.
My first reaction was to say nothing. Only the next day, she was in the convent, and she was alone, so I just went up and asked her, and she invited me to come and join the brothers, which I did in the fall. I was there two years, and I still wanted to be a priest, so I went home to continue philosophy for two years.
You had already been thinking of the priesthood.
I was with the Ukrainian-rite Redemptorists, in the minor seminary and three years in Toronto in their pre-novitiate program.
So then I came back and went back to the brothers. They had opened to having priest candidates, but after a couple years more, it still wasn’t my place. So then I left, and a few weeks later, Mother said Yes to having MC fathers, or the group of priests, so then we started in ’83, but as a secular institute the first year; then in ’84 we became MC fathers. I was ordained in ’85 in Newark, in the Ukrainian church there, in the Eastern rite. I have permission to serve and minister in the Latin rite, without giving up the rite, because they don’t allow you to change rites now, especially going from Eastern rite to Latin rite. Depending on the circumstances, you may serve in the Latin rite, but they don’t want you to change rites. I wouldn’t want to anyway.
Do you still celebrate Divine Liturgy in the Eastern rite?
Recently, not so much, but I do occasionally, and earlier, I did much more often, even with the seminarians, and they learned how to sing, in English, the Divine Liturgy from beginning to end. It was very nice, actually.
So then I happened to be the superior of the formation house in Rome at the time, in ’97, when Mother died. And I was already working on my Ph.D., near finishing, so I had a certain academic background. Mother died Sept. 6, 1997, and in October, the archbishop of Calcutta went to the Congregation for Saints and asked, “What about beginning the cause?” Because the law is waiting for five years. They didn’t give an answer until the following year, Dec. 12, 1998. But they said, “In the meantime you can do some preliminary work and start to get things in order.”
So, the archbishop appointed two sisters and myself as a little committee for gathering documentation and things so they wouldn’t be lost, especially people who could be witnesses, and if we had to wait for five years, as it turned out, we wouldn’t have had their testimony.
I took the four-month course the congregation offers every year for people involved in causes, and during that course, we were told they were going to make an exception to the five-year rule. Then the question was: “Who’s going to be the postulator?” Initially, we were kind of wondering, well maybe other people, and then we went to the Jesuits — Father Molinari was the Jesuit postulator general, and Father [Peter] Gumpel — and they said, “No, we won’t take it. It actually should be one of you, because if you’re presenting a person and a charism, it’s like a Dominican being a postulator for a Jesuit, which of course would never happen.”
So, they said, “We’ll help you,” and as a matter of fact, they were very generous in helping if I had a question.
We had Msgr. Sarno in the Congregation for Saints, who’s an American, who was also very helpful.
So, even though I was a greenhorn, we proceeded, and as it turned out without any major mistakes.
You had some experiences getting to know Mother Teresa, working with her.
Since 1977 until 1997, I had personal contact for 20 years, and, thankfully, I was always in a place where she would come quite often because she would be traveling two or three times a year through Rome, initially, then in New York she would come; later on, when we moved to Tijuana, she also came. So I had a chance: Being one of the first members, you had more contact [with her]; just being in a position of responsibility also.
What were some of the things that surprised you about her?
One of the impressive things was — before learning anything from the documentation afterwards —that she really was motherly, that personal attention and care. She was very observant. You couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes if you wanted to. Some people think saints are in the clouds, but normally saints are very down-to-earth, and Mother was very down-to-earth and very practical.
The second thing was how very ordinary she was in the way she acted. Sometimes, for example, if you didn’t know what she looked like, and you went to the convent and saw a bunch of nuns, you might not pick her out in the beginning. But if you paid attention and watched closely, you would start picking up little things that were very ordinary but done specially. For example, how she would make a genuflection or, say, taking the holy water when entering the chapel.
How was it?
You can genuflect almost automatically. It can be more a prayer than really a prayer, a devotion, just because it’s routine. But those little simple things, she would do them attentively. I remember, along those lines, just in the last months she was in Rome, in May and July, one of the sisters remarked to me how edified she was — by that time Mother needed help getting dressed, and she was in the wheelchair — and yet, first thing in the morning, when they were helping her get dressed, she would put in the sari the little safety pins, and she was impressed just how attentively or devotedly she would put in those pins. How many hundreds or maybe thousands of times did she do that over 50 years? And even though she was old, sick, forgetful at times, and yet those things, completely routine in one sense, that she would do that with that devotion. In the MC prayer book, they have little prayers for when you’re putting on the habit, each part of the habit. They’re little things in themselves, but that’s what makes the difference between, say, a regular religious and a holy religious. You don’t have to do extraordinary things. Before, one of the criteria for holiness was extraordinary deeds, and Pope Benedict XV changed it. What did he do? And the answer was, roughly, if you do what you have to do when you have to do it — God’s will according to your state in life — out of love, with fidelity and constancy, that’s canonizable already. It sounds easy, but it’s not so easy. For religious, priests, laypeople, it’s the same thing, same principle.
And that may be one of the things that comes out of her canonization that will help people live a Christian life.
Yes, because sometimes they made a distinction between saints who are admirable and others who are admirable and imitable. So, say, Simeon the Stylite you wouldn’t imitate … being on a pole. But other saints — St. Thérèse, Mother Teresa and others — we can imitate them. I know Mother Teresa often would say — a good disciple of St. Thérèse — “Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.” Or she would say, “For God nothing is small; for us they’re small.” But what gives them value is the love with which you do them. And that’s for anybody and everybody. The most simple, ordinary thing: in the house, at work, wherever you go.
PapaBear84
00venerdì 27 agosto 2010 16:09
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2010
Quote of the Day
“Today there is so much suffering - and I feel that the passion of Christ is being relived all over again - are we there to share that passion, to share that suffering of people?
Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable and so much, and I find that very difficult....
You must come to know the poor, maybe our people here have material things, everything, but I think that if we all look into our own homes, how difficult we find it sometimes to smile at each, other, and that the smile is the beginning of love. And so let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love, and once we begin to love each other naturally we want to do something....
This is something that you and I - it is a gift of God to us to be able to share our love with others. And let it be as it was for Jesus. Let us love one another as he loved us. Let us love Him with undivided love. And the joy of loving Him and each other - let us give now... Let us keep that joy of loving Jesus in our hearts. And share that joy with all that we come in touch with. And that radiating joy is real, for we have no reason not to be happy because we have Christ with us. Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor that we meet, Christ in the smile that we give and the smile that we receive. Let us make that one point: That no child will be unwanted, and also that we meet each other always with a smile, especially when it is difficult to smile.”
--Mother Teresa, MC
Lecture for the Nobel Peace Prize
Oslo, Norway
11 December 1979
Beginning with a Mass at this hour in Calcutta, and from there across the globe, tonight sees the start of a yearlong centenary celebration marking the life of Blessed Teresa -- Mother Teresa -- born a hundred years ago tomorrow.
While just this first day's worldwide roster of liturgies includes high-profile rites everywhere from Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu's native Albania to New York and beyond, the principal Stateside celebration of the milestone comes instead on Bl Teresa's 5th September feast at Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception with an afternoon Mass, followed by the formal presentation and first-issue of a US Postal Service first-class stamp (which is already available for pre-order).
The feast-day novena to the "Saint of the Gutters" coincidentally begins today... and lest anyone else's up to join in, here are the prayers; and here, her liturgical "collect" (opening prayer) -- which, given the restriction of the beatified to a "local" cult -- technically isn't supposed to be used outside India and the Missionaries of Charity... but still:
O God,
who called blessed Teresa, virgin
to respond to the love of your Son thirsting on the cross
with outstanding charity to the poorest of the poor,
grant us, we beseech you, by her intercession,
to minister to Christ in his suffering brothers.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
-30-
POSTED BY ROCCO PALMO AT 20:33
benefan
00sabato 28 agosto 2010 07:22
Part I of this interview is posted above.
BECOMING MOTHER TERESA'S COLLABORATOR (PART 2)
Interview With Close Ally of the Calcutta Nun
By Irene Lagan
WASHINGTON, D.C., AUG. 27, 2010 (Zenit.org).- As the world marked on Thursday the 100th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, it was clear that her legacy is far from fading away.
Following her namesake, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whose doctrine of the “little way” provided direction to people daunted by the austerity of the great spiritual masters and made sanctity seem possible, Mother Teresa taught us how to love the seemingly unlovable, the poorest of the poor.
To mark the anniversary of the nun's birth, ZENIT spoke with one of Mother Teresa's close collaborators and allies, Jim Twoey. Twoey is a former White House correspondent and was recently the president of St. Vincent's, a small Catholic college in Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Mary, have recently relocated back to the Washington D.C. area.
ZENIT: Do you think Mother Teresa’s life and work will have a lasting impact on society?
Twoey: I think she will have a greater influence in the 21st century than she had in the 20th century. As the age wave sweeps across America, and you see our elderly and disabled exiled to the margins of society, they will discover in Mother Teresa that she too knew the darkness and the desolation that they are living, and that she can be a guide in finding hope in what would otherwise be a hopeless situation.
Mother was asked once what the worst disease is: leprosy, or AIDS. She said it was neither, that loneliness was worse. That’s going to be the disease of the 21st century. In America alone there are some 78 million baby boomers. And, as that cohort, which did not have a lot of children, ages and retires, many will find themselves alone. Plus, they have been so heavily influenced by the culture of death. So, Mother’s pronouncements of the culture of life will be a source of hope and encouragement, along with her reminder that the poor are a gift to us and not a burden. We need them and they need us.
Also, she had the ability in her own life to find God when she could not feel his presence, and to seek him and love him. These are lasting examples that will heavily influence how people in the 21st century survive loneliness and poverty.
The revelation of her darkness and inner solitude -- a surprise to all of us who knew her -- will bear a lot of fruit in this next century. I think she will come to be seen as a mystic because of the experience she had with Christ early on in 1947, and having conversations with Christ. All of this is knowledge about Mother's life that is going to be very rich for years and years to come.
I remember what Mother said, "If Jesus puts you in the palace, be all for Jesus in the palace, and if he takes your life and cuts it up into 1,000 pieces, they are all his." There’s eternal wisdom in what she says.
ZENIT: Along with teaching us how to love the poor and those in our midst, Mother Teresa was a strong voice for the culture of life. What lasting impact will this aspect of her message have?
Twoey: I think her fearless witness of the sanctity of life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death has buttressed the conviction of many Church officials and politicians. I think they’ve received great consolation and courage from her words. For those who heard them [her teachings] and did not respond to the unmistakable truth of her words, it reminds you of the seed that was sown on the footpath: They had the opportunity and chose not to accept it.
I think her words will have the same lasting influence that you find in the writings of Augustine and Aquinas in their understanding of theology, or St. Francis De Sales on marriage and family life, and Blessed John Henry Newman on university life. She will join with Francis of Assisi and others regarding the poor and our obligation to the poor and the beauty and liberation of poverty in the consecrated life.
But I think she will be a great influence to all those who have great interior aridity and dryness. And I think for those who met Mother and didn’t respond, it is like the parable of the rich man who went away sad because his possessions were many. She made an urgent appeal to them and they went away sad.
ZENIT: In working so closely with her, you never knew how much she was suffering interiorly?
Twoey: We had a gathering at St. Vincent’s College a few years ago with many of her closest companions. Her successor, Sister Nirmala was there, her niece Aggi, Sandi McMurtrie who traveled with her, and others. All said the same thing: None of them knew of her inner darkness. We all knew Mother lived a mortified life. Her body was in a state of disrepair: It was a race to see which would give out first, her heart or her lungs. She’d had heart attacks, malaria dozens of times; she was breaking bones year after year.
We knew her life was mortified and all of us assumed she was getting all the sweet consolations the saints get. And when we found out after her life the exact opposite was true -- that after her conversations with Jesus in 1947 she was led into a desert she never left, it was a shocking revelation to all of us. It made us all rethink her life, and in the process, to love her even more. We realized that despite the darkness and emptiness inside, she was so cheerful, joyful, energetic. She really was given a share of the poor’s suffering because inside they often feel that same darkness and hopelessness. It characterizes the lives of so many poor today. We knew that her life was hard, but we had no idea that interiorly it was worse. I was in her hospital room in 1996. She had a tabernacle in the room and an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There was no question where her faith was.
If you read "Come Be My Light" and her letters, it is remarkable that through the rest of her life, she learned how to befriend the darkness: how to seek and find and love Christ in the darkness.
ZENIT: What challenges do the Missionaries of Charity face now, and have they remained faithful to her vision?
Twoey: There’s been no change in the Missionaries’ fidelity to Mother’s vision. In fact, I’ve seen it deepen. These are women and men who knew Mother so closely and have such a personal attachment to her that it is for them a matter of obligation to carry forward the vision and the mission.
Over the years, the Missionaries have fed the poor, treated the sick and suffering, worked with the homeless. Their vow of wholehearted and free service means that they do this for free, and have never charged anyone, including the government, a cent. That’s why Mother was so adamant at the end of her life that the U.S. waive fees for visas. She felt it was an issue of justice. It didn’t happen in her lifetime but Congress passed the religious worker [legislation] after her death. The reality is that America has tremendous debt to Mother Teresa and to the Missionaries.
That doesn’t mean the order is not facing new challenges. For example, when Mother started the order many of the first sisters were girls she taught at the school as a Loreto sister. Now many of the nuns are sick and elderly, so the younger sisters are learning to care for the sick and elderly among them. Many of them can’t go out and do all the work they once did, so they become much more contemplative. That’s an example of an emerging challenge.
benefan
00venerdì 3 settembre 2010 05:33
MOTHER TERESA'S POWERFUL MESSAGE
Interview With Missionary of Charity Father Joseph Langford
By Karna Swanson
TIJUANA, Mexico, SEPT. 2, 2010 (Zenit.org).- If Blessed Teresa of Calcutta could leave the world with one last message, she would most likely encourage all who would listen to embrace suffering, especially that of the poor, says Father Joseph Langford.
Father Langford is co-founder with Mother Teresa (1910-1997) of the priestly branch of the Missionaries of Charity, as well as the author of "Mother Teresa's Secret Fire" (Our Sunday Visitor), which reveals the inspiration behind Mother Teresa's work and the details of the call she received from God in 1946 to found the Missionaries of Charity.
As the world prepares to mark the 13th anniversary of Mother Teresa's death (Sept. 5), Father Langford reflects in this interview with ZENIT about what Mother Teresa meant to him personally, as well as the power of the message that the nun transmitted with her life of service to the poor and suffering.
ZENIT: There are thousands of missionaries around the world who work to help the poor and sick. What sets Mother Teresa's call, her mission, and her life apart from others who have given their entire lives to serve the poor?
Father Langford: This has been entirely God's doing; not ours, not hers. It has not been her qualities, nor even of her holiness, since many generous and holy missionaries have gone before her. Not in a thousand years, however, not since St. Francis of Assisi, has God sought to guide us through dark times by so universally raising up a saint -- before the Church, the world, other religions, even nonbelievers, and before rich and poor alike.
There are elements of her own life, however, that do set her apart. She lived a tremendous love for God and neighbor, in darkness, for 50 years. Her apostolate -- to work alone in the streets of Calcutta, as a religious, outside of her convent -- was entirely new in the 1950s and 1960s. But this was entirely God's plan, in every detail. She only did what was asked of her by God. He directed her in all, even in what she was to wear. For his own greater purposes, some of which we might surmise, as with Francis, it has been God who set her on the world stage, and holds her there, as her stature only continues to grow.
ZENIT: For those who never met Mother, could you describe what it was like to talk to her, to be around her, to watch her?
Father Langford: To encounter Mother was to feel the warmth of God, the love, the acceptance of God. People felt God's presence around her … often to the point of tears. When you were with her, even in a crowd, there was an easy and instant intimacy, as though you were the only person in her world. You felt drawn to God, embraced and cherished by God, not unlike what people must have felt around Jesus.
ZENIT: When most people think of Mother Teresa, they think of the nun that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. What do you think of when you remember her?
Father Langford: A mystic with her sleeves rolled up. But she was first of all a mother, always there for you, always ready to support you, ready to see the good in you, to overlook your faults, to encourage you. She never seemed to tire of hearing from you, or speaking with you.
She was someone who always reserved a special place in her heart for all those who came near to her. That is how she changed my life, without even trying, and set me on a completely different course; and joyfully, I never looked back.
She radiated both the presence of Our Lady, with whom she had a deep, unique, relationship -- as I outline in my first book, "Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady," (OSV Press) -- as well as the presence of her Son, who had sent her to "be his light." She was a doorway into God's heart -- from us to him, and from him to us -- a pathway that was accessible and observable and inviting to all.
But what comes to mind most in remembering her is not her -- but the One who sent her: What does God want to tell us in sending her, in raising her up -- about himself, about the way he sees us, loves us? What could be so important for us to know about him that he would anoint the carrier of his message so abundantly, and so publicly? If Mother Teresa was, as she described herself, "a pencil in God's hand, to write his love letter to the world," my constant question was what was the content of that letter written on the pages of her life, if not that first revealed to her on her train ride to Darjeeling, Sept. 10, 1946?
ZENIT: You wrote in your book "Mother Teresa's Secret Fire" about Sept. 10, 1946, the day she would refer to as "Inspiration Day." Mother rarely spoke of that event, but she revealed more about it as she neared the end of her life. What happened on that day?
Father Langford: The grace of Sept. 10 was Mother Teresa's overwhelming encounter with the unimagined depth of God's love. This fire in the heart of God, pointed to throughout Scripture (Our God is a consuming fire), but often forgotten. This was the source of her magnetism, and of all the initiative and the good she did around the world.
She herself gave a name to the secret of Sept. 10: It was the mystery of God's infinite thirst for us. "The strong grace of Divine Light and Love … received on the train journey to Darjeeling on Sept. 10, 1946, is where the Missionaries of Charity [her world-wide work of charity] begins -- in the depths of God's infinite longing to love and to be loved."
Speaking of all of us, but especially of the very poor, Jesus had lamented to Mother Teresa, "They don't know me, so they don't want me." In Jesus' plan, then, she was sent first to the thousands who are born, live, and draw their last breath on Calcutta's sidewalks. The poverty and pain of their surroundings -- ordained by man, not by the Creator -- and the indifference of those who pass them by every day, give no hint, leave no clue that they could be so loved by anyone, much less by the Supreme Being. God, in his wisdom, sent Mother Teresa to show them, in deeds more than words, the immensity of his tenderness and longing for them. And by witnessing Mother Teresa's service to the poorest, the rest of us as well come to understand God's tender longing, not just for the most disadvantaged, but for us all.
"Try to deepen your understanding of these two words, 'Thirst of God'" (cf. John 19:28). The symbol of divine thirst is simple and universal, spanning every time and culture; though it has lost much of its urgency and power in our first world where all is ready at hand to satisfy our needs. But stop and think. As a thirsty man longs for water, so God longs for us. As a thirsty man seeks out the water, so does God seek for us. As a thirsty man thinks only of water, so God's entire being is focused on us. As a thirsty man in the desert will give anything in exchange for water, so God has gladly given all he has, and all he is, in exchange for us. This is the divine symbol entrusted to Mother Teresa on Sept. 10 -- so that in an age grown cold she might both remind us of God's yearning, and reawaken our own.
ZENIT: You were the one who Mother Teresa asked to tell others about the events of that day. What have you done to spread that message? What can others do to help in the task?
Father Langford: As soon as her Nobel Prize was announced, I began traveling with the BBC film, "Something Beautiful for God," showing it to audiences of all kinds. Soon, I discovered that people had difficulty connecting the poverty and the radical charity they saw on the screen with their own more comfortable Christian lives. And so I began giving a talk after each screening, explaining that every place was a Calcutta in miniature, and that Mother Teresa was called to carry her message not only to the slums of the Third World, but to the threshold of every hurting heart. That she had brought God's yearning for us to the doorsteps of the whole world.
I explained that there was no need to go to India, nor even across town. There were hidden "Calcuttas" all around them -- in their own homes and families, in the blind man down the street, in the unforgiven aunt behind the walls of the retirement home. Nor was it necessary to send a check -- to compensate for not serving in foreign lands. God had not sent us a check in our need, but his Son. He gave of himself, without measure -- as any of us can, anytime, anywhere. There we are all called to be. There we are sent, as surely as was Mother Teresa. She would tell us to take some step, no matter how small, to serve those around us in their daily struggles. We need nothing special in the way of talent or resources; "we need only begin," as Mother Teresa would say -- even in the smallest, most insignificant ways.
Mother's message is both word and deed. People need to understand why Mother Teresa did what she did, and in whose name. We have been trying to produce pamphlets and books to help lift the veil beyond this mystery of charity. In addition to the books, the Missionary of Charity Fathers have prepared a pamphlet with a guided meditation ("I Thirst for You") to help encounter the thirst of Christ for you, and understand its meaning on a deeper level. The mediation is available by writing: webmaster@mcpriests.com for only the price of shipping. A high quality, four color version is also available for purchase from OSV Press. Readers can request the Missionary of Charity Fathers for any number of pamphlets to distribute in parishes, among friends and families, in nursing homes, hospitals, prisons, etc., and wherever God leads them and needs them.
Of course, the most direct way to share Mother Teresa's message, and carry God's presence into a barren world as she did, will always be to share even the smallest acts of love with Jesus in his crucified mystical body in the poor and suffering, for "Every work of love brings a person face to face with God."
ZENIT: If Mother Teresa could leave the world with one last message, what would that be?
Father Langford: Be the light of God's love to the world in its present darkness. People cannot resist love. Bring Jesus and his message ("I Thirst for You") to others. Be holy for the God who made you is holy.
Don't be afraid of suffering. Don't turn away from the suffering of the poor because Jesus is there. He is always with them and within them ("Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do it to me").
Don't let your own pain and suffering isolate you, rather let it become a bridge into the pain of others, and even into the pain of the One whose heart was pierced for you on Calvary.
Mother Teresa's message has never been more important, as we face our own personal Calcutta in the economic and political upheavals that face us. In the midst of global uncertainty, people are searching for something more -- more lasting, more valuable, more fulfilling, for a greater security, a deeper purpose -- for a way to not only survive but to contribute, as did Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta; in a word, to leave a legacy, the legacy of Christ's love alive in my life.
PapaBear84
00venerdì 10 settembre 2010 19:40
From Whispers in the Loggia
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 08, 2010
On Women... and Renewal
For the second Wednesday running in his "Great Saints" series of catecheses, B16 turned at today's General Audience to the figure of Hildegard of Bingen, the visionary 12th century mystic, musician and theologian.
Here, via AsiaNews, a sum-up of today's talk:
An authentic renewal of the Church "is not achieved by change in structures rather from a sincere spirit of penance and active path of conversion". This lesson of St. Hildegard of Bingen "is a message that we should never forget," said Benedict XVI, as he dedicated a second week of general audience reflections to the twelfth-century mystic nun. Again during his Wednesday meeting with pilgrims he expressed the hope that "the Holy Spirit will inspire in the Church holy and courageous women like Hildegard, who give their valuable contribution to the spiritual growth of the Church of our time."
Hildegard, whom the Pope described as a “founder of monasteries, preacher, and counsellor to the personalities of her time, a naturalist, musician and painter", is also an example of how" even theology can receive content peculiar to women, because they are able to speak of God and faith with their special sensitivity".
Hildegard, a Benedictine nun who "distinguished herself for her spiritual wisdom and holy life" in her writings that describe her mystical visions "interpreted the Holy Scriptures in the light of God, applying them to the various circumstances of life." "Rich in theological content, her writings refer to the main events of salvation history" and "those who heard her felt bound to live a Christian life."
In her work, "with the characteristic traits of feminine sensibility, she develops the theme of mystical marriage between God and humanity, consummated on the cross". Furthermore, in her "vision of God who animates the cosmos, she highlights the deep relationship between man and God and reminds us that the whole creation of which man is the summit, receives life from the Trinity."
Hildegard illustrates the "cultural vitality of the female monasteries of the Middle Ages, contrary to the prejudices that are still present regarding that era". Her popularity pushed many people to write, there are numerous letters addressed to the monastic community from men and women, bishops and abbots. They contain considerations that are still valid today, such as for example " spiritual life must be nurtured and cared for with great dedication: at the beginning it is a bitter fatigue" because it forces us to sacrifice, but one must be open to the search for holiness, to find true happiness in God.
Over recent weeks, the Pope's "Great Saints" thread of Wednesday talks has focused on Pius X, Duns Scotus, and St Joseph Cafasso, a relatively obscure 19th century Turinese whose depth of faith was expressed both in contagious devotion and concrete action... and whose ministry birthed the mission of the famous "friend of youth," St John Bosco.
-30-
POSTED BY ROCCO PALMO AT 17:15
benefan
00martedì 28 settembre 2010 02:59
Pope asks young people to learn from beatified teen
By Catholic News Service
Sept. 27, 2010
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Blessed Chiara Badano, an Italian who died of bone cancer just before her 19th birthday, witnessed to the world the fact that God's love is stronger than suffering and death, Pope Benedict XVI said.
"Only Love with a capital L gives true happiness," and that's what Blessed Badano showed her family, her friends and her fellow members of the Focolare Movement, the pope said Sept. 26 during his midday Angelus address.
At Rome's Shrine of Divine Love Sept. 25, Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, presided over the beatification of the young Italian who died in 1990.
Pope Benedict said young people can find in Blessed Badano "an example of Christian consistency," because she was certain of God's love and trusted in that love even as she was dying.
"We give praise to God because his love is stronger than evil and death; and we give thanks to the Virgin Mary who leads young people, even in the midst of difficulty and suffering, to fall in love with Jesus and discover the beauty of life," the pope said.
At the beatification Mass, Archbishop Amato called Blessed Badano a missionary of Jesus, "who invites us to rediscover the freshness and enthusiasm of the faith."
Even as she lost the use of her legs and was dying, she shared her faith and God's love with the dozens of people who would visit her each day, he said.
"Her last gift was her corneas, the only organs that were still transplantable" because they were not damaged by the cancer that had spread throughout her body, the archbishop said. "They were given to two young people who can see today thanks to her."
Blessed Badano's parents, Teresa and Ruggero, attended the beatification Mass.
Her mother told Vatican Radio that Chiara's religiosity grew gradually and normally.
When Chiara got sick, she said, "She taught us how to do God's will, like she did, because you don't just say 'yes' when everything is going well."
After the beatification, about 8,000 young members of the Focolare Movement gathered in the Vatican audience hall for a nighttime celebration of Blessed Badano's life with readings and singing.
maryjos
00martedì 28 settembre 2010 23:44
The story of Chiara is very moving. Thank you for reporting it, benefan.
benefan
00giovedì 30 settembre 2010 15:13
Here's an update on that story, Mary.
Pope Benedict personally thanks parents of teenage blessed
Vatican City, Sep 29, 2010 / 04:49 pm (CNA).- Expecting to offer their appreciation to the Holy Father for the beatification of their daughter, the parents of Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano were thanked instead by the Pontiff himself. They expressed their surprise to be chosen to participate in their daughter's "contagious Christian experience."
L'Osservatore Romano (LOR) reported on the encounter between the blessed's parents and Pope Benedict XVI which followed Wednesday's audience in St. Peter's Square.
Greeting the Pope after a line of prelates had done so, Maria Teresa and Ruggero Badano were visibly pleased to meet the Holy Father. They meant to thank Pope Benedict for their daughter's beatification last Saturday, but, reported LOR, it was the Holy Father who thanked them.
The parents remarked that they were "surprised that two poor people like ourselves were chosen to participate in the contagious Christian experience of our only daughter."
Recalling the years they waited hopefully before their baby was born and then remembering their suffering during her illness and death, they said, "now we are more than ever with her in the joy for her beatification."
During the brief audience in the square, they gave the Pope a card signed by Chiara in which she entrusts herself to the Virgin Mary to have "the strength necessary to never give in."
After a bout with bone cancer, the blessed died in 1990 at the age of 18, but is remembered for her constant joy and close relationship with Christ. She was beatified by Archbishop Angelo Amato last Saturday in a celebration at Rome's Divine Love shrine.
Among others present who had also attended her beatification included: fellow Focolare Movement members from 42 countries, the movement’s president Maria Voce, Chiara's former bishop who began her cause and the postulators who continue to promote her cause for canonization.
benefan
00giovedì 14 ottobre 2010 03:02
PRINCESS TURNED POOR CLARE NUN TO BE CANONIZED
Blessed Camilla Battista da Varano Answered Vocational Call
By Carmen Elena Villa
ROME, OCT. 13, 2010 (Zenit.org).- On Sunday, Benedict XVI will canonize Camilla da Varano, who left the life of a princess and multiple marriage proposals to become a Poor Clare nun at age 23.
The Pope will canonize her in St. Peter's Square together with five others.
Camilla was born in 1458 in a small city in central Italy, which today has around 40,000 inhabitants. Her father, Giulio Cesare de Varano, was the prince of Camerino. Thus she was introduced to, and educated in, the splendor of the court.
The postulator for her cause of canonization, Franciscan Father Giovangiuseppe Califano, explained to ZENIT that "in the Renaissance period lordly palaces were the center of politics, also of culture and mercantilism," and thus Camilla spent her youth in celebrations, dances and social life. She studied Latin, law, painting, dancing, and horseback riding.
Almost five centuries have gone by since her death. In fact, Camilla's cause for canonization was halted for 100 years because of problems related to the choice of her postulator.
Father Califano noted, however, that "these years of apparent silence were very fruitful for the systematic investigation and critical publication of the blessed's writings."
On Good Friday, when she was 9 years old, Camilla heard a homily in which Brother Domenico da Leonessa asked those present to shed at least one tear every Friday out of love for Jesus. The young girl accepted his suggestion, which she followed every subsequent Friday for the rest of her life.
"Through the gift of these tears, shed with a child's commitment, contemplation of the Lord's Passion became the agreeable and spontaneous means that oriented her whole spiritual life," said her postulator.
Following Christ
As a youth she felt strongly attracted to what the court offered her, but at the same time she felt the call to give it all up to follow Christ.
Mother Chiara Laura Seroboli, abbess of the convent of St. Clare of Camerino, which was founded by Camilla later in her life, said, "Initially, as many of us, she was unable to choose and did not hesitate to lead a double life."
The abbess explained: "On one hand were the dances, songs and distractions that the court offered her. On the other, recollection and the struggle in which God drew her absorbed her wholly."
It was during Lent of 1479, while the princess listened to the preaching of Brother Francesco de Urbino, that she perceived the interior light to understand the gift of consecrated virginity.
Her postulator said, "It was faithfulness to her commitment to prayer and spiritual direction that opened a gap for the spirit."
Camilla entered the monastery of St. Clare of Urbino in 1481. "Lord, with my life make me always praise, bless and glorify you and edify my brothers," she said in one of her writings.
She made her religious professions two years later and took the name Sister Battista.
Spiritual battle
Camilla faced a strong spiritual battle. For five years she lived through a dark night of the spirit.
Mother Seroboli said, "From the intensity of spiritual graces that had accompanied her in the first phase of her falling in love, Camilla now seemed abandoned in a sacrificing and raw essentialness."
Yet she did not let herself be defeated by this event. The abbess noted, "Emerging with greater frequency in her writings is recourse to the images of the Song of Songs, to the teaching of her Beloved on the part of the loved one, subject of understandable anguish due to the perceived abandonment."
In 1502 Sister Battista's father and brothers were killed and her family attacked, events which "'crucified' her with Christ and enabled her to be silent "where words do not suffice to explain the injustice of Calvary," said Mother Seroboli.
Sister Battista was forced to seek refuge in the city of Atri, a small locality in Abruzzi, the southern region of Italy.
Another event that caused her great sorrow and many hours of prayer was when she found out in 1517 that in Germany, the Augustinian monk Martin Luther announced his separation from the Roman Church.
The future saint had various mystical experiences, which are reflected in her numerous writings. In these writing she also reveals her love of the crucified Christ.
Mother Seroboli described them as "a precious and very narrow way," that enabled her to reread "her own life in the light of the Paschal Mystery."
Sister Battista died on May 31, 1524 during the plague. She wrote, "You have resurrected me in You, true life who gives life to every living being."
benefan
00martedì 19 ottobre 2010 22:56
A new film out about Hildegard von Bingen. The trailer looks good and well acted but I haven't read any reviews of it.
Vision
www.zeitgeistfilms.com/vision/
benefan
00domenica 13 febbraio 2011 22:43
I wonder if PapaBear was at this Mass.
Diocese celebrates Bl. Marianne feast, priest incardinations
By Patrick Downes
Honolulu, Hawaii, Feb 13, 2011 / 01:24 pm (CNA).- At the mid-afternoon Mass for the feast of Blessed Marianne of Molokai Jan. 23 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Bishop Larry Silva blended a handful of themes and events into a single message – “Christ’s love takes what is degraded and makes it glorious.”
In addition to commemorating Hawaii’s second candidate for sainthood, the bishop chose the occasion to incardinate two Filipino priests into the Diocese of Honolulu.
Bishop Silva started his homily on a harsh note, followed by a hopeful tone.
“I don’t know of any time in Catholic history when there was more bad publicity about Catholic priests,” he said, using the example of the recent clergy sex-abuse crisis.
“But in spite of that, the enrollment in seminaries is rising,” he said.
He spoke of how Blessed Marianne Cope, in answering the call to serve Hawaii’s sick, faced a disease that degraded the human body and responded with a love that glorified the human spirit.
The bishop tied the Franciscan sister’s unconditional response to the day’s Gospel story about the shoreline recruitment of the first Apostles.
“She too was smitten by the same love of Jesus that caused Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave all they had,” Bishop Silva said.
Bishop Silva continued his comparisons.
“There are a lot of things causing anxiety,” he said, going down a list of troubles that included “a very beloved priest who suddenly leaves the priesthood.”
“We are degraded in so many ways, but the Lord can make us glorious,” he said.
“We have so many challenges to face and yet we can get through them,” he said. “We can take what is degrading and make it glorious because we have the light that is Christ himself.”
The homily was followed by the incardination of Father Pascual Abaya and Father Mario Raquepo, both formerly of the Philippine Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia. Each stepped up to the altar, placed his right hand on the gold-covered book of the Gospels and pledged his allegiance to his new diocese and bishop.
The priests and bishop then signed papers on the altar to make it official. Father Raquepo has been in Hawaii for 21 years, Father Abaya for five.
The bishop compared the two priests’ 5,000-mile relocation to Hawaii from their Philippine homeland to Mother Marianne’s permanent move here from Syracuse, N.Y., which is 5,000 miles to the east.
Wearing shiny gold fabric leis, several dozen Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, the new name for the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse following their recent merger with other east coast communities, sat in pews on either side of the altar.
The church was packed for the music-rich liturgy. Twenty priests and a half-dozen deacons participated. Among the laity present were two relatives of Blessed Marianne, her great, great grandniece Margaret Burnett and great, great grandnephew Dr. Paul DeMare.
Near the end of Mass, the bishop announced that the Sisters of St. Francis would be donating in May a first class relic of Blessed Marianne to the Diocese of Honolulu. The relic will be carried to each island for veneration before it is housed in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
Tentative plans have the diocese “officially” receiving it in Honolulu on May 6. It would be taken for celebrations that evening to Topside Molokai and the next day to Kalaupapa. It would then be carried to the rest of the neighbor islands, arriving back in Honolulu for a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace the evening of May 13, in anticipation of the sixth anniversary of Mother Marianne’s beatification on May 14.
It will remain permanently enshrined in the cathedral, which is already the home for a relic of St. Damien.
The bishop also brought to the Mass a packet of material about Blessed Marianne he is mailing to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the hope it will persuade the bishops to put Blessed Marianne’s Jan. 23 feast day on the nation’s liturgical calendar.
He asked the cathedral congregation to pray for the success of the appeal.
The American bishops narrowly voted down an earlier request.
benefan
00domenica 6 marzo 2011 18:15
Mother Teresa as mystic and apostle of the ordinary
By John L Allen J.
National Catholic Reporter
Created Mar 05, 2011
ROME -- In the court of popular opinion, Mother Teresa – now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, after her beatification in 2003 – is regarded as a heroic Saint of the Poor, perhaps the 20th century’s most compelling example of a radical option for the world’s most vulnerable and forgotten people.
While that’s undeniably right, two of the world’s leading experts on Mother Teresa say, it also risks being reductive.
In a March 5 symposium at Rome’s Dominican-run Angelicum University, Missionaries of Charity Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk argued that Mother Teresa was also a great apostle of the ordinary, offering an approach to love focused not on grand events or geopolitical movements but one-to-one human relationships, beginning with those closest to her.
In that sense, Kolodiejchuk argued, her life is not only “admirable” but highly “imitable.”
A Canadian-born priest and General Superior of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, Kolodiejchuk is the postulator for Mother Teresa’s sainthood cause, meaning the official responsible for overseeing the effort.
Dominican Fr. Paul Murrary, meanwhile, argued that on the basis of Mother Teresa’s private writings, published only after her death, she now ranks not only as a friend of the poor, but as one of the great mystics of the Catholic tradition, with an interior life “comparable in depth and intensity to St. John of the Cross.”
Those private writings were collected as part of the beatification process, and had previously been known only to a handful of spiritual directors and church authorities. They spoke not only of mystical visions and revelations in the 1940s, but an inner darkness stretching over most of the rest of her life and which led her even to question the existence of God.
We now know that Mother Teresa’s spiritual journey, Murray said, “was not one long unbroken experience of bliss, with roses of consolation strewn along the way.” Instead, she lived with a sense of “bewildering rejection and even complete abandonment,” as “her prayers were not heard and God remained silent.”
The day on the Christian calendar that best captures Mother Teresa’s inner life, Murray said, is Good Saturday, the day of the “great silence” of God in the tomb.
Both men spoke as part of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s birth on August 26, 2010. This spring, both the Angelicum and the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome are hosting a series of lectures dedicated to various aspects of her life and thought.
In response to an NCR query, Kolodiejchuk said that the process for the canonization of Mother Teresa, meaning a formal declaration that she was a saint, is presently in a holding pattern awaiting a miracle claim sufficiently strong to submit to Vatican scrutiny.
Rules require one miracle for beatification, and another for canonization. Kolodiejchuk said reports of miracles “constantly” arrive at his office, and usually there are two or three sufficiently credible to investigate. Yet to date, he said, none has passed muster.
“We have not received any case that has the clarity of what is exactly [is] the miraculous element, proofs before and after the intercession, and the intercession – when was the prayer made, and to Mother Teresa only,” he said.
In his presentation at the Angelicum, Kolodiejchuk said Mother Teresa insisted that love has to begin with those closest to you. Changing the world, in that optic, is fundamentally about changing human hearts one by one.
“She believed the world has never needed peace more than today, but she addressed it at a different level,” Kolodiejchuk said. Her approach, he said, was based on “love and respect for each human being.”
Social disorder, in her view, was a result of a lack of respect for individual persons, Kolodiejchuk said.
You don’t have to go to slums of Calcutta, Kolodiejchuk suggested, to embrace Mother Teresa’s model of charity. Instead, he said, it’s “within the reach of every Christian in every walk of life” – beginning with those closest, including one’s spouse, children, friends, and neighbors.
“We don’t have to imitate what she did,” he said, “but we can do the ordinary things with love.”
Murray noted that a core theme in Mother Teresa’s writings, including the constitution she put together for the Missionaries of Charity, was “silence.”
Among other things, Mother Teresa once captured the value of silence in a way that many politicians, pundits, and even church leaders might do well to recall: “Silence can never be corrected.”
He recalled that half in jest, Mother Teresa used to give a “business card” to the people she met. It didn’t contain her title and contact information, however, but the core principles of her spirituality. It began, Murray noted, with the line, “The fruit of silence is prayer.”
The card went on to refer to faith, love and service, but the core practice – the one which lays the foundation for the others – is silence. In the wake of the revelation of Mother Teresa’s writings, Murray said, that reference to “silence” takes on a whole new meaning.
It’s astounding, Murray said, that Mother Teresa “never spoke, not even once,” even to those closest to her, about her inner agony. As a result, her inner spiritual drama was hidden during her lifetime.
Murray said that Mother Teresa talked about “five silences”:
Silence of the eyes
Silence of the ears
Silence of the mouth
Silence of the mind
Silence of the heart
Those five silences, Murray said, “are not limited to charity workers, those living with the poorest of the poor.” Instead, it’s a mystical path open to all.
maryjos
00lunedì 7 marzo 2011 13:54
Benefan: Thank you for this extremely interesting article. I'd never have found it elsewhere. I haven't been on the computer much during the past week, as I'm trying to go out with friends and have a change of scnerey - I'm sure you understand.
Love to all on the forum, Mary x
PapaBear84
00domenica 13 marzo 2011 23:55
From 'Why I Am Catholic' web page
Friday, March 11, 2011
Because St. Francis of Assisi Spent Lent Like This Once
Posted by Frank
-Feast of St. Aengus
A few days ago, I shared some stories on Christian saints who survived for long periods of time on the the Eucharist alone. Below is a similar story on how St. Francis of Assisi spent Lent one year, eating only a small portion of his provisions.
This story comes to us from The Little Flowers of St. Francis. Who wrote these stories? Who compiled them? Are they literally true? I don't know the answers to any of those questions. But I do know this: there is great freedom in poverty, to be able to drop everything and become a hermit for 40 days. And great blessings for the faithful penitent.
I have no trouble believing that St. Francis could go so long without food. Because miracles always defy the conventional wisdom. Always.
How St Francis kept Lent on an island in the Lake of Perugia,
The true servant of Christ, St. Francis, was in some sense as another Christ, given to the world for the salvation of the people; therefore God the Father willed to make him in many of his actions conformable to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. This was shown in the venerable company of his twelve companions, and in the admirable mystery of the sacred stigmata, and in his continuous fast during the holy Lent, which took place in this manner.
Once on a time, St Francis on the day of the carnival went to the Lake of Perugia, to the house of one of his disciples, where he was entertained for the night, and there he was inspired by God to pass this Lent on an island in the lake. Wherefore St Francis prayed his disciple, that for the love of Christ he would carry him across in his little boat to an island in the lake where no one inhabited, and that he would do this on the night of Ash Wednesday, so that no one might know of it. Then the other, for the great love and devotion he bore to St Francis, solicitous to grant his request, carried him to the said island, and St Francis took nothing with him but two little loaves.
And when they had arrived at the island, and his friend was about to return to his home, St Francis earnestly besought him not to reveal to any one what he should do, and not to come again till Holy Thursday. So his friend departed, and Sc Francis remained alone; and there being no habitation into which he could retire, he entered into a thicket, where many trees and shrubs had formed a hiding-place, resembling a little hut: and in this shelter he disposed himself to prayer and to the contemplation of heavenly things.
And he remained there the whole of Lent, without eating or drinking, except the half of one of those little loaves, as was witnessed by his disciple when he returned to him on Holy Thursday, who found, of the two loaves, one entire, and the half of the other. It is believed that St Francis so refrained from eating out of reverence for the fasting of the blessed Christ, who fasted forty days and forty nights without taking any material food; and thus with that half loaf he kept from himself the poison of vainglory, and after the example of Christ he fasted forty days and forty nights.
And afterwards, in this spot, where St Francis had sustained this marvellous abstinence, God granted many miracles through his merits; for which cause men began to build houses there, arid to inhabit them; and in a short time there was built a large and prosperous village, and the house for the brothers, which is still called the House of the Island. And to this day the men and women of the village have great reverence and devotion for the spot where St Francis made this Lent.
PapaBear84
00martedì 22 marzo 2011 04:34
From the NC Register
Time to 'Go to Joseph'
Recalling Jesus’ earthly father’s commitment to God’s will and his intercession on his feast day.
Share BY JOSEPH PRONECHEN 03/19/2011 Comments (11)
St. Joseph is so quiet, so humble — and often so forgotten. But, while instituting a new feast for him in 1955, Pius XII advised, “Thus, if you wish to be close to Christ, we again today repeat, ‘Go to Joseph!’”
The Pope echoed what God prefigured way back in Genesis (41:55, 57) with the patriarch when “Pharaoh directed all the Egyptians to go to Joseph and do whatever he told them. ... In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain.”
Devotion to St. Joseph was rare in the early Church but increased by the Middle Ages. The Holy Fathers from Leo XIII to Pope Benedict XVI have repeatedly called our attention to Jesus’ earthly father.
What better time to answer the call to “Go to Joseph” than on his solemnity, March 19?
Father Larry Toschi of the Oblates of St. Joseph explains the Old-New Testament parallel: Patriarch Joseph was in charge of the grain of Pharaoh, but St. Joseph was in charge of the Bread of Life: Jesus. “And the Church is the body of Christ. So he watches over all of us here,” says Father Toschi, author of St. Joseph in the New Testament (Guardian of the Redeemer Books, 1991), just as he did with Jesus.
He gives good reasons why St. Joseph is a go-to saint for our needs. “It makes sense. He’s the most powerful after Mary; he had the highest responsibility after Mary — even more than the apostles.
He was chosen by God to be the husband of the Mother of God and raise Jesus as his son. He is most intimately connected to the Incarnation. So when we want a favor, we go to him.”
Well-known saints did. Teresa of Avila declared: “I took St. Joseph for my patron and advocate, and I recommend myself unceasingly to his protection. I do not remember ever to have asked anything of him that I did not obtain.” She realized any request denied was only for her greater good.
St. Bernardine of Siena reasoned: “The Lord, who on earth honored St. Joseph as a father, will certainly not refuse him anything he asks in heaven.”
In his landmark 1889 encyclical Quamquam Pluries (On Devotion to St. Joseph), Leo XIII taught that “as Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures. … Hence it came about that the Word of God was humbly subject to Joseph.”
In St. Joseph & Daily Christian Living (Macmillan, 1961), Jesuit Father Francis Filas commented on Leo’s teaching: “Devotion to Joseph is ultimately devotion to Our Lady, because Joseph is all he is because of and through Mary. For that matter, devotion to Our Lady ultimately is devotion to Our Lord, because Mary is all she is because of and through Jesus. It is no original comment to add that ‘What God has joined together’ — Jesus, Mary and Joseph — ‘man should not tear asunder.’”
And like his wife, Joseph was first obedient to God’s will. We should Go to Joseph to help us do the same.
”Nothing was more important to him than to follow the will of God — which means he was always at the service of Jesus and Mary,” says Rick Sarkisian, Ph.D., author of Not Your Average Joe (LifeWork Press, 2004). For instance, he willingly — and at once — embarked on the flight to Egypt.
“We’re asked the same way to find God’s will, follow God’s will and fulfill God’s will,” Sarkisian points out.
Sarkisian reminds us that God often reveals his will in our daily lives: “That’s what Joseph did: not just in the giant events like the betrothal to Mary and Nativity of Jesus, but in everyday events.”
Father Toschi adds that Joseph went through many trials with faith. “So St. Joseph, who went through all these trials trusting in divine Providence, is one who can accompany us in our trials and suffering and trust in divine Providence,” he says. When we do, “God makes everything work together for the good.” We Go to Joseph to lead the way.
Father Toschi often tells fathers to Go to Joseph when they need help as a parent, with the same advice for people out of work or who are worried or upset.
In Chicago, Michael Wick has learned through devotion to St. Joseph to follow that route. Wick considers Joseph a great role model of doing God’s work in a simple way by just doing what you’re called to do.
“For me, he epitomizes someone who is attentive to God’s will and open to God’s way, because God’s ways are not always our ways,” Wick says.
Joseph can give us willingness to put aside our own agenda and fine tune it to what God reveals in the daily grind of the ordinary. That includes following the Church’s teachings, having openness to life, trying to provide for the family in these difficult economic times, and responding to the needs of spouse and children.
Wick also looks to Joseph as a protector because he protected the Holy Family at every turn.
“He’s a great example of trust in duty and as a husband and father,” Wick finds. “I turn to him seeking his inspiration and intercession.” Wick, who works for the Institute for Religious Life, an apostolate entrusted to St. Joseph by its founder, Servant of God Father John Hardon, goes to Joseph for that help as he raises his family of four children, 8 to 16, with wife Bianca.
When he makes decisions, he asks: Is that God’s will for me? Is this going to draw me closer or distract me from mission in life as husband and father? Is it going to draw the kids away from the purpose in life of getting closer to God? “I entrust to Joseph to help discern and guide me in these decisions.”
He adds, “My wife and I had to make some limits on the children’s activities so God always comes first,” as they look to model the Holy Family praying, doing things together and being together.
Benedict XVI’s patron saint is Joseph. “For the sake of Christ he experienced persecution, exile and the poverty which this entails,” noted the Pope during an address preceding St. Joseph’s feast in 2009. “He had to settle far from his native town. His only reward was to be with Christ.”
In this and every event, Joseph was the first head of the domestic church, as John Paul II would later call the family. In fact, in his 1989 encyclical Redemptoris Custos (On the Person and Mission of St. Joseph in the Life of Christ and of the Church), he stated, “It is in the Holy Family, the original ‘Church in miniature,’ that every Christian family must be reflected.”
As fathers and mothers Go to Joseph, he will give them what they need to be that Church in miniature.
Asking for his intercession should go without saying.
Father Toschi points out that one really important prayer that’s neglected is the prayer to St. Joseph after the Rosary composed by Leo XIII. Added to Quamquam Pluries, it was also recommended by John Paul II in his encyclical on St. Joseph. There’s also the Litany of St. Joseph.
Wick also suggests the Prayer of Entrustment to St. Joseph (contact IRLstaff@religiouslife.com for free copies).
And Sarkisian recommends the nine- and 30-day novenas to Joseph. By praying we “constantly remind Joseph of how much we love him and how much we trust him,” he explains. “We’re asking him to take our greatest burdens, fears, worries and present them before the throne of God as the greatest saint in heaven next to Mary. He has immense power to cover us with his cloak and surround our lives with it in a profound way.”
All we have to do is Go to Joseph.
PapaBear84
00mercoledì 11 maggio 2011 06:35
Our Damien
St. Damien of Molokai's life of sacrifice remembered May 10
By Benjamin Mann
5 Comments
St. Damien of Molokai
Catholic Church
CNA STAFF, May 8, 2011 / 07:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church will remember St. Damien of Molokai on May 10. The Belgian priest sacrificed his life and health to become a spiritual father to the victims of leprosy quarantined on a Hawaiian island.
Joseph de Veuser, who later took the name Damien in religious life, was born into a farming family in the Belgian town of Tremlo in 1840. During his youth he felt a calling to become a Catholic missionary, an urge that prompted him to join the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Damien's final vows to the congregation involved a dramatic ceremony in which his superiors draped him in the cloth that would be used to cover his coffin after death. The custom was meant to symbolize the young man's solemn commitment, and his identification with Christ's own death. For Damien, the event would become more significant, as he would go on to lay down his life for the lepers of Molokai.
His superiors originally intended to send Damien's brother, a member of the same congregation, to Hawaii. But he became sick, and Damien arranged to take his place. Damien arrived in Honolulu in 1864, less than a century after Europeans had begun to establish a presence in Hawaii. He was ordained a priest the same year.
During his ninth year of the priesthood, Father Damien responded to his bishop's call for priests to serve on the leper colony of Molokai. A lack of previous exposure to leprosy, which had no treatment at the time, made the Hawaiian natives especially susceptible to the infection. Molokai became a quarantine center for the victims, who became disfigured and debilitated as the disease progressed.
The island had become a wasteland in human terms, despite its natural beauty. The leprosy victims of Molokai faced hopeless conditions and extreme deprivation, sometimes lacking not only basic palliative care but even the means of survival.
Inwardly, Fr. Damien was terrified by the prospect of contracting leprosy himself. However, he knew that he would have to set aside this fear in order to convey God's love to the lepers in the most authentic way. Other missionaries had kept the lepers at arms' length, but Fr. Damien chose to immerse himself in their common life and leave the outcome to God.
The inhabitants of Molokai saw the difference in the new priest's approach, and embraced his efforts to improve their living conditions. A strong man, accustomed to physical labor, he performed the Church's traditional works of mercy – such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and giving proper burial to the dead – in the face of suffering that others could hardly even bear to see.
Fr. Damien's work helped to raise the lepers up from their physical sufferings, while also making them aware of their worth as beloved children of God. Although he could not take away the constant presence of death in the leper colony, he could change its meaning and inspire hope. The death-sentence of leprosy could, and often did, become a painful yet redemptive path toward eternal life.
The priest's devotion to his people, and his activism on their behalf, sometimes alienated him from officials of the Hawaiian kingdom and from his religious superiors in Europe. His mission was not only fateful, but also lonely. He drew strength from Eucharistic adoration and the celebration of the Mass, but longed for another priest to arrive so that he could receive the sacrament of confession regularly.
In December of 1884, Fr. Damien discovered that he had lost all feeling in his feet. It was an early, but unmistakable sign that he had contracted leprosy. The priest knew that his time was short. He undertook to finish whatever accomplishments he could, on behalf of his fellow colony residents, before the diseased robbed him of his eyesight, speech and mobility.
Fr. Damien suffered humiliations and personal trials during his final years. An American Protestant minister accused him of scandalous behavior, based on the contemporary belief that leprosy was a sexually transmitted disease. He ran into disagreements with his religious superiors, and felt psychologically tormented by the notion that his work had been a failure.
In the end, priests of his congregation arrived to administer the last sacraments to the dying priest. During the Spring of 1889, Fr. Damien told his friends that he believed it was God's will for him to spend the upcoming Easter not on Molokai, but in heaven. He died of leprosy during Holy Week, on April 15, 1889.
St. Damien of Molokai was beatified in 1995. Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in 2009.
maryjos
00lunedì 13 giugno 2011 20:24
HAPPY FEAST OF SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA!!!!!!
HE HAS HELPED ME SO MUCH TO FIND THINGS I HAVE MISLAID...BUT OF COURSE HE'S MUCH GREATER THAN JUST THIS SORT OF THING!
benefan
00sabato 2 luglio 2011 06:39
US nun's cause moves forward with initial ruling on second miracle
By Patrick Downes
Catholic News Service
July 1, 2011
HONOLULU (CNS) -- The sainthood cause of Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai has taken a significant step forward with a Vatican medical board ruling in favor of a miracle attributed to her intercession.
According to a news release from her religious community, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Syracuse, N.Y., the seven physicians at the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes declared there is no medical explanation for the cure of a woman who had been suffering from an allegedly irreversible fatal condition.
"The board concluded the woman's healing was inexplicable according to available medical knowledge. The doctors on the case expected her to die and were amazed scientifically at her survival," the release said.
No other details about the case have been released.
The Sisters of St. Francis received the news from Msgr. Robert J. Sarno, an American priest at the congregation who has been working with the postulator of Mother Marianne's cause, Father Ernesto Piacentini, in the written presentation of the miracle case at the Vatican.
The miracle, approved June 16 by the medical board, still must pass two more Vatican examinations before it is presented to the pope for final approval for canonization. The first is by a board of theologians who will determine if the healing was the result of prayer for Mother Marianne's intercession, and then by a committee of cardinals and bishops who will examine the entire case and give a final verdict.
Sister Patricia Burkard, general minister of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, said that the medical board's decision is a "reason to rejoice" for her religious order, for her devotees, and for "all who unselfishly care for others and do acts of charity known only to God."
"Mother Marianne was the human face of the Gospel's mandate to care for the hungry, the sick and the impoverished," Sister Patricia said. "We pray for success in the case so that her inspirational life will be better known throughout the world. She is a model for us all."
Sister Francis Regis Hadano, regional administrator for the Sisters of St. Francis in Hawaii, said her community is "delighted" with the Vatican ruling.
"We Franciscan Sisters are very pleased and certainly excited about the advancement in the miracle case," she said in an email to the Hawaii Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Honolulu Diocese. "We are hopeful the theologians will meet sometime later this year. There is much work to be done in preparation for this session so prayer is needed."
"We thank all who pray specially for Blessed Marianne to be canonized," she said.
This is the second miracle attributed to Blessed Marianne's intercession to go through the Vatican approval process.
The first miracle, required for her beatification, was the medically unexplainable recovery of a New York girl dying from multiple organ failure after prayers were said to Mother Marianne. It was approved by the medical board Jan. 29, 2004. The board of theologians gave its approval six months later, on July 15. On Dec. 20, Pope John Paul II affirmed the case, making Mother Marianne eligible for beatification. She was beatified in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 14, 2005.
Mother Marianne, as the head of her religious community in Syracuse, led the first group of Franciscan sisters to the Hawaiian Islands in 1883 to establish a system of nursing care for leprosy patients. She was the only one of 50 religious superiors in the United States, Canada and Europe who were asked for help to accept the challenge.
Once in Hawaii, she relinquished her leadership position in Syracuse to lead her mission for 35 years, five in Honolulu and the remainder on Molokai.
When she died in Kalaupapa in 1918, a Honolulu newspaper wrote: "Seldom has the opportunity come to a woman to devote every hour of 30 years to the mothering of people isolated by law from the rest of the world. She risked her own life in all that time, faced everything with unflinching courage and smiled sweetly through it all."
PapaBear84
00mercoledì 5 ottobre 2011 20:42
From Whispers in the Loggia
Rebuild My Church... and Bless the Animals
On this feast of the beloved Poverello of Assisi, the following passage from Bonaventure's Life of Francis is worth recalling:
“One day when Francis went out to meditate in the fields he was passing by the church of San Damiano which was threatening to collapse because of extreme age. Inspired by the Spirit, he went inside to pray.
Kneeling before an image of the Crucified, he was filled with great fervor and consolation as he prayed. While his tear-filled eyes were gazing at the Lord's cross, he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times: 'Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.'
Trembling with fear, Francis was amazed at the sound of this astonishing voice, since he was alone in the church; and as he received in his heart the power of the divine words, he fell into a state of ecstasy. Returning finally to his senses, he prepared to put his whole heart into obeying the command he had received.
He began zealously to repair the church materially, although the principle intention of the words referred to that Church which Christ purchased with his own blood, as the Holy Spirit afterward made him realize....”
For the record, the moment recounted above took place in 1204... yet then as now, the call of the Cross remains the challenge of our time. So as the work continues, on another St Francis' Day and always, may we all ever just keep on, keep trying and -- flaws, faults, warts and all -- keep building.
Most High, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me true faith,
certain hope and perfect charity,
sense and knowledge,
that I may carry out, Lord,
Your holy and true command.
* * *
Meanwhile, lest anyone here likes their 4 October a bit, er, furrier, while this feast is already beyond popular for the customary Blessings of Animals -- and, out in Southern California, another year of a Catholic-led "Blessing of the Waves" (because, hey, they're creation, too) -- did you know that, back in 1931, St Francis' Day was formally adopted as World Animal Day?
Either way, lest anyone hasn't had a nearby Pet Blessing and would like taking part, the formal Rite for the Blessing of Animals can be done by anyone, anywhere... here are the core prayers:
[Option 1] O God, the author and giver of every gift, animals also are part of the way you provide help for our needs and labors. We pray (through the intercession of Saint Francis) that you will make available for our use the things we need to maintain a decent human life. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
[Option 2] O God, you have done all things wisely; in your goodness you have made us in your image and given us care over other living things. Reach out with your right hand and grant that these animals may serve our needs and that your bounty in the resources of this life may move us to seek more confidently the goal of eternal life. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
The text likewise features this sweet dismissal: "May God, who created the animals of this earth as a help to us, continue to protect and sustain us with the grace his blessing brings, now and for ever."
maryjos
00martedì 11 ottobre 2011 00:12
Thank you, Papabear!!! I'm asking Saint Francis to intercede for my beloved cat, Sixpence and my Guardian Angel too. Although she is suffering from irreversible kidney failure, Sixpence is doing well on her medication and special diet and had a good report from the vet last week. Thank you, Saint Francis!
benefan
00martedì 20 dicembre 2011 14:33
Pope approves miracles of Blesseds Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha
Vatican City, Dec 19, 2011 / 07:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI formally recognized miracles attributed to Bl. Marianne Cope and Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha on Dec. 19, clearing the way for both women to be canonized.
The two women, who both lived in the United States, were among numerous individuals whose sainthood causes were advanced by decrees authorized by Pope Benedict XVI on Monday.
Sister Grace Anne Dillenschneider, vice postulator for the Cause for the Diocese of Syracuse, told CNA on Dec. 19 that the date for Bl. Cope’s canonization has not yet been confirmed.
The Congregation for the Causes of Saints had already approved Bl. Cope’s second official miracle, which involved the medical recovery of a woman in Syracuse who was cured of a fatal and irreversible health condition.
Born in western Germany in 1838, Bl. Marianne Cope entered religious life in Syracuse, N.Y., where she served as a teacher and principal and established two hospitals before traveling to Hawaii, where she spent several years caring for lepers.
She died in 1918 and was beatified in 2005.
Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha, known as "the Lily of the Mohawks," was born in 1656 in upstate New York.
Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother was an Algonquin who was raised Catholic.
A smallpox epidemic killed both of her parents and left her with poor eyesight and a badly disfigured face at a young age.
Despite objections from her relatives, she was baptized at age 20, after meeting several Catholic priests.
An outcast from her community, Bl. Tekakwitha lived a life of deep prayer, with a strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
She died in 1680 at the age of 24. Witnesses said that the scars on her face disappeared after her death.
Bl. Tekakwitha was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980, the first Native American to be declared blessed.
On Dec. 19, Pope Benedict also authorized promulgations recognizing miracles attributed to the intercession of 10 other individuals, allowing them to move forward towards beatification or canonization.
In addition, he recognized the martyrdom of more than 60 individuals, including priests, religious and laymen, who can now move forward in the process towards beatification.
The Pope also approved decrees recognizing seven individuals as having lived out heroic virtue and being venerable. These individuals will each need a miracle attributed to their intercession before they can be beatified.
benefan
00sabato 10 marzo 2012 14:55
Case of Boys Town founder shows long road to making a saint
By Jen Christensen,
CNN
March 9, 2012
Surrounded by TV cameras and an excited crowd, the archbishop of Omaha, Nebraska, taped a notice to the doors of St. Cecilia’s Church last week announcing to the world that his archdiocese was launching a formal process to try to elevate one of its most famous members to Catholicism’s highest honor.
Archbishop George Lucas wants the Vatican to recognize Father Edward J. Flanagan as a saint.
As the founder of Boys Town – the famous Nebraska community for at-risk kids – Flanagan radically transformed how people handle troubled youth. He is known for the saying, “There are no bad boys. There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.”
But just because someone does good doesn’t entitle that person to be a saint, at least in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Many faiths have their saints, but attaining sainthood may be hardest in the Catholic Church.
By posting a notice about Flanagan, the Omaha archdiocese is embarking on a complicated legal, scientific and surprisingly expensive journey that could take over 100 years to accomplish – if sainthood is achieved at all.
“To be recognized as a saint these days, it may cost upwards of $1 million,” said Steven Wolf, the lead volunteer and president of the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion. “You essentially need it to pay for a good lawyer and an expensive multi-media campaign.”
Wolf’s organization grew out of a Boys Town alumni group that that came together some 13 years ago to make Flanagan’s case. The group has held monthly prayer meetings at Flanagan's tomb and leads pilgrimages to Boys Town to speak about his life and accomplishments.
“You need splashy videos, a social media blitz, a website, prayer cards and podcasts, not to mention we need to find a couple of miracles,” Wolf said about the sainthood process. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
In the early days of the church, achieving sainthood was easier.
“Until the 13th century, beatification is a local matter and the devotion is the most significant part of the process,” said church historian Alberto Melloni.
If enough people thought you were a saint and prayed to you after your death, you became a saint. But that informal process left room for less-than-holy politicking and bribery on behalf of wannabe saints.
Without much vetting, even some fictional characters became saints, including St. Christopher, who for centuries was revered as the patron saint of travelers. In 1969, the Catholic Church removed his saint day from its calendar because it couldn’t prove he ever existed.
To avoid more St. Christophers, the church has over the years set down much more rigid rules for sainthood.
Flanagan, who died in 1948, easily met the first criterion for sainthood: being dead for at least five years.
The next steps are more challenging. There needs to be spontaneous public support for someone to be placed in the canon of saints – a step known as canonization. Wolf says Flanagan’s candidacy has support in spades.
“Right now, we can’t really get our arms around how many people are involved in praying for Father Flanagan’s intercession,” he said. “It’s not like you get a membership card.”
But since launching a website in 2004 dedicated to making Flanagan a saint, Wolf’s group has heard from people in 36 states and nine countries seeking Flanagan’s help in finding a job, curing a relative’s cancer or saving an aunt who suffered an aneurysm.
After spontaneous public support for a sainthood candidate is demonstrated, the bishop of the diocese where the candidate died needs to open a formal investigation.
But Flanagan didn’t die in Omaha, where he did most of his work. He died of a heart attack while on a mission to Berlin on behalf of President Harry Truman, who had sent Flanagan to address the orphan crisis caused by World War II.
Because Flanagan’s main base of support is in Omaha, advocates for his cause had to petition the Vatican to make an exception to the rule to allow them to lead the sainthood effort.
The Vatican granted the rule change, clearing the way for the next step: The Omaha archdiocese must assemble a tribunal to gather evidence that Flanagan was truly holy.
At a Mass at the Immaculate Conception Church at Boys Town this month, Flanagan will be named a “servant of God” and Lucas will set up the tribunal, which will interview witnesses about Flanagan’s virtue.
If the tribunal rules in his favor, it will pass witness testimony – along with every piece of material written by Flanagan it can collect – to the Vatican. There, a lawyer called a postulator organizes the evidence and presents it in what the church calls a positio to the Congregation for the Cause of Saints.
Flanagan’s group has already hired its postulator, a Rome-based lawyer who has become known in the Italian press as “the saint maker.” The lawyer, Andrea Ambrosi, says that 400 current saints have him to thank – in part, at least – for the honor. And he has a caseload of 30 more aspiring saints.
Wolf hired Ambrosi to give Flanagan his best shot at sainthood. “We know of a cause in Michigan that’s been stuck for 60 years, and they’ve been through seven postulators,” Wolf said. “There are not a lot of people doing this sort of thing effectively. If you have any misstep you could be stuck forever.”
Once Ambrosi assembles Flanagan’s positio, nine Catholic theologians examine the dossier. A majority vote among them advances the cause to Pope Benedict XVI, who can designate Flanagan as “venerable.”
But the church also requires two miracles from the prospective saint after his or her death. Peter Gumpel, who scrutinized hundreds of cases of saints in his nearly 50 years as a “devil’s advocate,” fact-checking positios, explains that miracles essentially seal the deal.
“A miracle is some extraordinary fact, especially in the medical field – a cure that nobody expected and suddenly against all expectations this person is cured,” he said. “Miracles are still required because the church has to be absolutely sure what we are doing in canonizing someone conforms to the will of God. To do this, we ask for a sign from God.”
The public campaign for Flanagan has only just started, but Wolf says six people have contacted him to say they believe they’ve experienced a miracle by praying for Flanagan’s intercession.
Wolf hopes at least one of the reported miracles will stand up to church scrutiny. Several local doctors will have to testify that there is no medical explanation for someone’s cure. The person who has been cured will have to testify, too.
That testimony is scrutinized by top doctors and scientists hired by the Vatican – and examined by the pope – before it can be considered a miracle. At that point, a sainthood candidate is beatified. That’s what happened to Pope John Paul II last year, after the Vatican ruled that the case of a French nun who prayed to him and was cured of her Parkinson’s disease was a bona fide miracle.
Then the whole miracle confirmation process begins again, with a second miracle that has transpired since beatification.
“Yes, it is a lot of work. Yes, it is expensive, but it is worth it,” Wolf said. The tribunal, the lawyer in Rome, and the travel required to press Flanagan’s case all cost money.
But Wolf argues that the more people who know about Flanagan’s life and work, the more who will be helped by the priest, as he was.
Wolf didn’t know Flanagan personally, but he is a 1980 graduate of Boys Town. Going there, he says, changed his life.
“Before Boys Town, I spent time in runaway shelters,” he said. “I was locked up in juvenile detention. I didn’t have the best environment growing up,” he said. “But when I got to Boys Town, things changed.”
Today, Wolf helps run a public affairs consulting firm and has five daughters.
“Father Flanagan gave a damn about people like me – kids most people were ready to write off as losers – and it matters,” he said. “That man is a saint. I’ve been won over. I know others will be, too.”