For All the Saints: The Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne

July 17, 2010 By Webster Bull

Guest post by William “Mac” McCarthy

Blogging makes surprising connections. Back in the day when I was a lapsed Episcopalian and he was the rare Catholic at our New England school, Mac lived down the hall from me. Forty years later, now an attorney in Bakersfield, California, he read YIM Catholic and quickly promised me a write-up on an extraordinary group of Catholic martyrs, whom we honor on July 17.

“Permission to die, Mother?”
“Go, my daughter!”

During the French Revolution’s Reign of terror, on the evening of July 17, 1794, in Paris’s Place de la Nation, a hardened crowd waited at the guillotine for the carts carrying that day’s “batch” from the Palais de Justice. A heavy stench from the putrefying blood in the pit below the scaffold hung over the plaza. During the five weeks the guillotine had stood in the Place de la Nation, a thousand severed heads had fallen into the blood-stiffened leather bag of Sanson, the Paris executioner. The blood pit had been enlarged once already but had quickly filled up again.

Usually, raucous jeers from where Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine emptied into the plaza would signal the approach of the tumbrels carrying the condemned. Not this night. A strange hush spread into the plaza. Then there was something else. Singing. Serene, female voices intoning a cool, effortless chant of verse after verse of the Te Deum.

When the tumbrels rolled up to the scaffold, the crowd grew silent. The singers were sixteen sisters from the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Compiegne. They wore long white choir mantles (cloaks) over brown robes similar to nuns’ habits. Such attire had long since been outlawed in the new order. But these women were not of the new order. Their religious clothing and singing in Latin embodied the lost time before the storming of the Bastille and the start of the revolution on July 14, 1789. Also, while plenty of priests and some nuns had been executed individually, never had an entire religious community been carted up to the guillotine. Their radiant, happy faces were wrong for this place. They should have looked sad. They were about to die. They looked joyous. The other twenty-four condemned prisoners with them looked unhappy.

The reason for the Carmelites’ happiness was their belief that the guillotine was the answer to their prayers. Every day for almost two years, since about the time of the September 1792 massacres, the sisters had made a daily act of consecration in which they offered their own lives to God as a sacrifice to restore peace, help France, and stop the killing. For Christ, their heavenly Spouse, to actually accept their offer of themselves in holocaust and grant them their martyrdom gave them great joy.

Three hours earlier at the Palais de Justice, the sisters had been condemned to death. A show trial proved them “enemies of the people.” The blatantly false charges included “hiding weapons in your convent.” In answer, the 41-year old prioress, Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, lifted her crucifix from her bosom and held it up to the presiding judge saying, “The only weapon we’ve ever had in our convent is this. You cannot prove we have ever had any others.” They had no convent anyway. The revolutionary government had confiscated it and ejected them in September 1792. Carmel Compiegne and everything in it had been sold to finance the revolution.

A fellow prisoner who saw them return from hearing their death sentences reported their faces were “beaming with joy.” A Parisian working class woman who watched the Carmelites pass by on the tumbrels had shouted, “What good souls! Just look at them! Tell me if you don’t think they look just like angels! I tell you, if these women don’t go straight to paradise, then we’ll just have to believe it doesn’t exist!”

At the scaffold, the sisters performed devotions normal for dying Carmelites. The nuns renewed their monastic vows of poverty chastity and obedience. They sang the Veni Creator Spiritus:

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
and in our hearts take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heav’nly aid,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made. …

One sister, was heard to cry out, “Only too happy, O my God, if this little sacrifice can calm your wrath and reduce the number of victims.”

Then Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine walked over to the foot of the scaffold steps and turned to face her spiritual daughters. In the palm of her hand, the prioress held a tiny terracotta image of the Virgin and Child, a last relic saved from Carmel Compiegne. She summoned Sister Constance, the youngest sister, who approached.

This was 29-year-old Sister Contance’s first act of obedience as a professed Carmelite. Moments before, as her sisters were renewing their vows, she was pronouncing her vows for the first time. In 1789, at the start of the Revolution, just before she completed her novice year, the revolutionary government prohibited the taking of religious vows. So, after six years as a novice, she finally made her profession in extremis. Previously, she had expressed a terrible fear of the guillotine. She would show no fear this night.

At the steps, Sister Constance knelt at her prioress’s feet and received a blessing. She kissed the clay Madonna and Child cupped in her prioress’ hand. Finally, bowing her head, she asked:

“Permission to die, Mother?”
“Go, my daughter!”

Sister Constance rose from her knees. A witness described her as radiant as “a queen going to her receive her diadem.“ As she began her climb up to the scaffold, she spontaneously intoned the Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, the 117th Psalm. That psalm was sung by the Discalced Carmelite Order’s mother-foundress, St. Teresa of Avila, at the foundation of every new Carmel in 16th-century Spain. Hearing Sister Constance, her sisters immediately took up the chant:

Praise the Lord, all ye nations!
Praise Him all ye people!
For his mercy is confirmed upon us,
And the truth of the Lord endureth forever!
Praise the Lord!

At the top of scaffold steps, still joined in chant with her sisters, Sister Constance waved aside the executioner and his valet. She walked on her own to the vertical balance-plank; was strapped to it; and then lowered into horizontal position. With a swoosh and a thud, the guillotine had cut the number of voices to 15. The remaining voices rose in defiance. Even before her falling head reached Sanson’s leather bag, Sister Constance was in the arms of her heavenly Spouse in the Kingdom of the Lamb.

The exact order in which the other 15 sisters climbed the scaffold has not come down to us. We know only the last two sisters. What is known is that the guillotine mob remained silent the whole time, an almost impossible–or one could say miraculous–occurrence. The bumps, clicks, swooshes and thuds of the death apparatus told of the deadly business. But the calm, austere chant of the Laudate Dominum never stopped.

About every two minutes, one voice would fall away from the others, to be heard no more by mortal ears. Each sister, when her time came, went to her Mother and knelt; received a blessing; and kissed the Madonna and Child statuette.

“Permission to die, Mother?”
“Go, my daughter!”

Here are the names of the other sisters:

Sister Jesus Crucified, choir sister, age 78. She and Sister Charlotte had celebrated their jubilee of 50 years of profession.

Sister Charlotte of the Resurrection, choir sister, age 78. The martyrs arrived at the Paris Concierge (jail) from Compiegne on July 13 after a two-day journey in open carts. Sister Charlotte was unable to rise and step out of the cart with her sisters. She could only walk with a crutch, but her hands were tied behind her back. Exhausted, she sat alone in the tumbrel in the soiled straw. An angry guard jumped up and tossed her out onto the cobblestones. After lying still for a while, Sister Charlotte lifted her bloodied head and gently thanked the brutal guard for not killing her. She wanted to live long enough to make her witness with her sisters.

Sister Euphrasia of the Immaculate Conception, choir sister, age 58

Sister Julie Louise of Jesus, choir sister, age 52. Sister Julie Louise of Jesus entered Carmel as an aristocratic young widow. Well educated and musically talented, she composed a song or poem every year for the community’s July 16 patronal festival, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. This year, at the Concierge in Paris, since writing materials were forbidden in jail, she managed to obtain scraps of charcoal. She composed a long five stanza song about a happy martyrdom and set it to the tune of the bloodthirsty La Marseillaise. One line went, “Let’s climb, let’s climb, the scaffold high!” The day before they went to the guillotine, all the sisters gaily sang Sister Julie Louise’s feast day song. Their only disappointment was they would not die on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Sister Teresa of the Heart of Mary, choir sister, age 52

Sister Saint Martha, lay sister, age 52

Sister Catherine, extern, age 52

Sister Marie of the Holy Spirit, lay sister, age 51

Sister Teresa of Saint Ignatius, choir sister, age 51

Mother Henriette of Jesus, past prioress and novice mistress, choir sister, age 49

Sister Teresa, extern, age 46

Sister Saint Louis, subprioress, choir sister, age 42

Sister Saint Francis Xavier, lay sister, age 30

Sister Henriette of the Divine Providence, choir sister, age 34. This sister was the second to last to die. She was a fiery beauty, whose nine adult bothers and sisters included two priests and five nuns. Fearing her natural beauty would be a distraction, she had withdrawn from the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, a public nursing order and sought out the hidden life in the cloister at Carmel. One of her sisters became the Superior General of all the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. (This was the order of St Bernadette of Lourdes.)

In the courtroom at the Revolutionary Tribunal on the day of her martyrdom, she boldly challenged the Tribunal’s notorious public prosecutor, Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, to define what he meant by calling her community “fanatic.” In response to her repeated demands that he stop avoiding her question and answer it, the prosecutor finally said their “attachment to their religion” made them criminals and dangers to public freedom. At the guillotine, since she was the Carmel’s infirmarian, she took a place by the steps and helped her older, weaker sisters up the scaffold steps.

The psalm chant stopped only when the last Carmelite, the prioress—Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine, age 41, had climbed the scaffold steps and followed her daughters. She was the only child of an employee of the Paris Observatory. Since she was not from a wealthy family, the generous young Dauphine of France, Marie Antoinette, had paid her dowry for Carmel. The prioress was well educated and artistic. Some of her paintings still hang on the walls of French Carmels. She was only 34 when she was first elected prioress. She is believed to be the first nun to have felt the call to community martyrdom.

Before beginning her walk up the steps, the prioress made the sign of the cross and paused. A pious woman in the crowd, who saw the hesitation, understood and moved up to discreetly take the tiny terracotta Virgin and Child statuette from the hand of the great prioress of Carmel Compiegne. The statuette was kept safe and has come down to us.

Ten days after the Carmelites of Compiegne fulfilled their vow and offered themselves up in sacrifice to stop the bloodshed, Robespierre fell from power. A bloody revolutionary, he was a key architect of the Reign of Terror. The next day, July 28, 1794, he was guillotined and the Reign of Terror soon faded.

That the martyrs were able to wear parts of their forbidden habits at the guillotine, like their white choir mantles, was due to unusual coincidences or, more likely, the hand of God. After their expulsion from Carmel Compiegne, they had been forbidden to wear their habits. With no money to buy clothes, they had to accept worn out, cast-off, immodest clothing. They draped scarves over their shoulders and necks to protect their modesty.

But, on July 12, 1794, in the jail in Compiegne (a confiscated convent) they had donned what remained of their habits in order to wash their single outfits of civilian clothing. At the same time, the mayor received an order from the Paris Committee of Public Safety ordering the martyrs’ immediate transport to Paris for “trial.” The secular clothes were soaking in wash tubs. Delaying the execution of the Paris order was unthinkable (and too risky) for the Compiegne officials. Therefore, the martyrs went to Paris in what they had left of their forbidden habits. Perhaps, when their Lord decided to accept their offer of martyrdom, He also granted the martyrs the tender mercy of dying in their beloved, long, white choir mantles.

The worn-out, immodest civilian clothes left soaking in the tubs at Compiegne had yet another role in God’s plan. Confined in the Compiegne jail with the Carmelites had been 17 English Benedictine sisters. Four others had already died in jail. They had been arrested as foreigners in 1792 at their monastery in Cambrai. A granddaughter of St. Thomas More had founded the monastery when Catholic religious orders were forbidden in England. Though kept apart, Benedictines learned of the Carmelites’ daily consecration to sacrifice themselves to restore peace and free prisoners.

After the Carmelites were taken to Paris, the Compiegne jailers made the Benedictines wear the Carmelites’ abandoned civilian clothes. The Benedictines were still wearing them when they were finally allowed to sail for England in 1795. That community eventually founded England’s famous Stanbrook Abbey. Today, Benedictines at Stanbrook still honor the Carmelites as martyrs whose deaths somehow stopped the killing and saved the jailed Benedictine sisters from the guillotine. In 1895, Stanbrook Abbey returned many of the “wash tub” clothes as venerated relics to the newly reestablished Carmel Compiegne.

The martyrs were beatified by St. Pius X on May 13, 1906. Their memory is celebrated on July 17 by both branches of the Carmelites and the archdiocese of Paris.

Several successful literary and artistic works have helped spread the martyrs’ story around the world. They include Gertrude von De Fort’s famous 1931 novella, Song at the Scaffold, which in turn inspired Georges Bernanos’ Les Dialogues des Carmelites (1949), as well as Francis Poulenc’s opera (1957) and an Italian-French film (1959), both also named Les Dialogues des Carmelites.

Almost all the historical facts used in this post come from William Bush’s outstanding book, To Quell the Terror: The Mystery of the Vocation of the Sixteen Carmelites of Compiegne Guillotined July 17, 1794, ICS Publications (1999). The same goes for a lot of the wording and observations in this posting. Bush has spent many years studying the martyrs. His book has a picture of the terracotta statuette and photos of art work by the martyrs, including a beautiful pastel of Christ on the Cross by Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine. Any errors, misstatements, or unclear writing here in this post are this writer’s fault.

For a short, brilliant essay on the martyrs, Catholicism, and modern times, read “The Mantle of Elijah: The Martyrs of Compiegne as Prophets of the Modern Age” by Terrye Newkirk, OCDS. It is only 11 pages and easily downloaded from the ICS website.

“Permission to die, Mother?”
“Go, my daughter!”

For All the Saints, Cyril of Alexandria

June 27, 2010 By Frank Weathers

Today we celebrate the feast day of Cyril of Alexandria, a Doctor of the Church. Like Athanatius before him, he defended the dogma of the Incarnation of Our Lord against the heretical ideas of Nestorius, who had gained a substantial following with his beliefs that denied that Jesus was both fully man and fully God.

As we have discovered while reading Belloc’s The Great Heresies, we have been realizing that attacking the mystery of Our Lord’s Incarnation is a generally accepted principle among heresiarchs who attack the teachings of the Church. That God became a Man is mind-blowing when you think about it. If it isn’t, maybe you haven’t spent enough time thinking this through.

Thankfully, Cyril thought it through and wasn’t about to let Nestorius have his way. The result of these controversies was the Council of Ephesus, held in the summer of the year 431. You can read more about this important meeting at the Catholic Encyclopedia. Below is an example of Cyril’s rhetorical ability as he explains why Our Lord must have been both fully human and fully God.

Surely it is quite obvious and unmistakable that the Only-begotten became like us, became, that is, a complete man, that he might free our earthly body from the alien corruptions which had been brought into it. He descended to become identical with us, in respect of the conditions of life, accommodating himself through the unity of Word and flesh: he made the human soul his own, thus making it victorious over sin, coloring it, as it were, with the dye of his steadfastness and immutability of his own nature. By becoming the flesh of the Word, who gives life to all things, this flesh triumphs over the power of death and destruction. He is, so to speak, the root and the first fruits of those who are restored in the Spirit to newness of life, to immortality of the body, to certainty and security of divinity, so that he may transmit this condition to the whole of humanity by participation, and as an act of grace.

Cyril also was clear in his argument that the Blessed Mother is the Theotokos or Mother of God as he so clearly and reasonably argues below. Note the high regard he has for Athanatius, who had successfully fought against a similar heretical threat presented by the followers of Arius.

That anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be called the mother of God fills me with astonishment. Surely she must be the Mother of God if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and she gave birth to him! Our Lord’s disciples may not have used those exact words, but they delivered to us the belief those words enshrine, and this has also been taught us by the holy fathers.

In the third book of his work on the holy and consubstantial Trinity, our father Athanasius, of glorious memory, several times refers to the holy Virgin as “Mother of God.” I cannot resist quoting his own words: “As I have often told you, the distinctive mark of holy Scripture is that it was written to make a twofold declaration concerning our Savior; namely, that he is and has always been God, since he is the Word, Radiance and Wisdom of the Father; and that for our sake in these latter days he took flesh from the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and became man.”

Again further on he says: “There have been many holy men, free from all sin. Jeremiah was sanctified in his mother’s womb, and John while still in the womb leaped for joy at the voice of Mary, the Mother of God.” Athanasius is a man we can trust, one who deserves our complete confidence, for he taught nothing contrary to the sacred books.

The divinely inspired Scriptures affirm that the Word of God was made flesh, that is to say, he was united to a human body endowed with a rational soul. He undertook to help the descendants of Abraham, fashioning a body for himself from a woman and sharing our flesh and blood, to enable us to see in him not only God, but also, by reason of this union, a man like ourselves.

It is held, therefore, that there are in Emmanuel two entities, divinity and humanity. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ is nonetheless one, the one true Son, both God and man; not a deified man on the same footing as those who share the divine nature by grace, but true God who for our sake appeared in human form. We are assured of this by Saint Paul’s declaration: When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law and to enable us to be adopted as sons.

As Venerable Cardinal John Henry Newman would say of him,

Cyril was a clear-headed, constructive theologian. He saw what Theodoret did not see. He was not content with anathematizing Nestorius; he laid down a positive view of the Incarnation, which the Universal Church accepted and holds to this day as the very truth of Revelation. It is this insight into, and grasp of the Adorable Mystery, which constitutes his claim to take his seat among the Doctors of Holy Church. And he traced the evil, which he denounced, higher up, and beyond the person and the age of Nestorius. He fixed the blame upon Theodore of the foregoing generation, “the great commentator,” the luminary and pride of the Antiochene school, the master of Theodoret; and he was right, for the exegetical principles of that school, as developed by Theodore, became little less than a system of rationalism.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us.

For All the Saints: Paulinus of Nola

June 20, 2010 By Allison Salerno

St. Paulinus was born to an aristocratic Roman family in the fourth century after Christ but his saintly life is revered to this day, particularly in southern Italy, where he is remembered for his devotion to the poor.

(Pictured here is La Festa dei Gigli in Nola, where several large statues in honor of the saint, placed on towers, are carried upon the shoulders of the faithful around the city.)

Two aspects of Paulinus’ life intrigue me. First, the writer’s correspondents are a who’s who of fourth century saints : Martin of Tours. Jerome, Ambrose and, most notably Augustine. Second, my paternal grandparents grew up a stone’s throw from Nola, in a region beset by wrenching poverty and natural disasters. Nola sits outside Naples on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Appennines.

It’s a place that for centuries has been overrun by invaders and victimized by natural disasters. Archeological evidence indicates of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Nola between 1700 and 1600 B.C. The list of foreign occupiers is long: Oscans, Samnites and Romans. Residents defended themselves against Hannibal and Spartacus. Add to the mix destructive earthquakes and you get a sense of what it meant to live in Nola. Tragically, the city now is under the control of the Camorra, the largest and oldest criminal organization in Italy.

Against this backgroup, Paulinus emerges as a regional folk hero. One story about Paulinus was that in 409 A.D. when the Huns of North African overran the Italian Peninsula, Paulinus fled the city with its children, preventing them from being taken as slaves. A widow whose only son had been captured by the Huns asked Paulinus to find him in North Africa and bring him home. St. Paulinus embarked on the expedition, and when he found the widow’s son, tried to barter with the king for his safe return. The king refused to be swayed until Paulinus offered himself in place of the child. The king accepted, and Paulinus became his personal slave.”

“Known for his ability to portend the future, Paulinus warned the king of impending danger to his kingdom. The king was so grateful that he granted him his freedom. Paulinus accepted with one caveat: he wanted to bring home all of the Nolese men who had been enslaved during the raids. The king acquiesced, and sent Paulinus and the men back to Nola on the boat of a Turkish sultan who had heard about Paulinus’ virtues.”

Upon his return after two years, the people of Nola greeted him with lilies (gigli) in their hands. After his death, they brought boquets of gigli to the church. This grew into the tradition of a towering spire of lilies.

While the historic truth of this particular story is unclear, we know Paulinus began his life wealthy and his wealth doubled when he married a Spanish woman named Theresia. He became governor of Campania in southern Italy. While there, he was impressed by the devotion to St. Felix of Nola, who had been martyred a century earlier. Paulinus built a hospice for the poor near St. Felix’ shrine and built a road for pilgrims travelling to it. He converted to Christianity at age 35. “The man without Christ is dust and shadow, ” he wrote upon his conversion. He and his wife moved to estates they owned Spain After much difficulty conceiving children, Theresia finally bore a son, who died within a week of birth. Paulinus was 36 years old.

Two years later, both Paulinus and Theresia decided to consecrate themselves to God. They gave away all their land and riches. Paulinus became a monk. At age 56, he became a Bishop. His poet’s heart shifted focus “To my mind the only art is the faith, and Christ is my poetry,” he wrote.

Pope Benedict XVI tells us “Paulinus’ poems are songs of faith and love in which the daily history of small and great events is seen as a history of salvation, a history of God with us.” His devotion to the poor was deep. He offered a portion of his monestary so the poor would have homes.

This passage from a letter to Augustine makes me want to read a book of Paulinus’ letters and poetry. “It is not surprising if, despite being far apart, we are present to each other and, without being acquainted, know each other, because we are members of one body, we have one head, we are steeped in one grace, we live on one loaf, we walk on one road and we dwell in the same house”

The kinship Nolans feel for this man continues. Immigrants from this region of Italy carried their traditions with them when they came to the United States. Below is a clip from the Festa dei Gigli in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, in which men hoist a five-ton spire and process through the city streets, mirroring the festivities in St. Paulinus’ adopted hometown of Nola. Columbia University student Taylor Napolitano, whose account of St. Paulinus’ life I earlier quoted, gives a captivating account of this tradition in Brooklyn, when “against all odds and perhaps their better judgment, that Heaven touches Brooklyn.”

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/YMABcdzlsSQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

For All the Saints: Anthony of Padua

June 13, 2010 By Allison Salerno

British expressionist Stephen B. Whatley painted this tribute to St. Anthony of Padua on June 13, 2007. “I awoke and on reading my prayers for strengthening I found that not only was it the Feast Day of St Anthony of Padua, 13 June, but also a Friday, the day the Saint died. 777 years ago,” he writes.

Nearly every American who grew up Catholic learned a prayer to St. Anthony like this one for times when we couldn’t find our homework or shoes or lunch box. ” St. Anthony, St. Anthony. Please come down. Something is lost and can’t be found.”

What Whatley knows, however, is that the life of St. Anthony was replete with spiritual and emotional loss. Thus, we may ask this heavenly companion to pray for us when we experience loss, including loss in our knowledge of the reality of the Resurrection. “Saint Anthony has felt like a friend,” Whatley emailed me when I wrote to ask about his devotion to the saint. “I have felt his intercession in the simplest things- finding lost things, finding my way – and more profoundly on St Anthony’s Feast Day 2009 I was praying near his statue in church – and exhausted at the time, praying for strength, I felt the most peaceful calm come over me for a few moments; it felt like the Holy Spirit.”

I grew up thinking that St. Anthony was an Italian because of my Italian grandparents’ devotion to this saint. In fact, St. Anthony is Portugese. Fernando Bouillon was born in 1195, 13 years after St. Francis of Assisi. He grew up in a very wealthy Portugese family and, to the great disapointment of his parents, entered the religious order of St. Augustine at age 15. At one point, he was put in charge of hospitality at his monastery. In that role he encountered five Franciscan friars on their way to Morocco to preach the Good News to Muslims.

The men were subsequently tortured and beheaded in Morocco. The bodies of these first five Franciscan martyrs were returned to the monastary in a solemn procession that included the Queen of Portugal.

Fernando decided then to become a Franciscan and to be a witness for Christ in Morocco. He took the name Anthony, after Saint Anthony the Great. But his plan to be a missionary in Morocco did not pan out; several months into his Moroccan sojourn he became severely ill and had to return to Portugal. God intervened in this plan too; his ship encountered heavy winds during sea storms and ended up on the east coast of Sicily.

So then, Anthony planned to join a Franciscan monestary in Sicily, conceal his past and live out his days in quiet contemplation. God had other ideas. St. Anthony attended an ordination and was asked to give the homily. His preaching so impressed those gathered that he was sent to northern Italy to preach. He was a gifted orator, so gifted he became known as the “Hammer of the Heretics,” preaching an orthodoxy of faith to crowds in northern Italy and southern France that became so big he took to preaching in open fields and piazzas.

He died at age 36, and was recognized as a saint within the year because of the dozens of miracles attributed to him. “The saints are like the stars,” St. Anthony once preached. “In his providence Christ conceals them in a hidden place that they may not shine before others when they might wish to do so. Yet they are always ready to exchange the quiet of contemplation for the works of mercy as soon as they perceive in their heart the invitation of Christ.”

How comforting to have the companionship of such a saint, who learned through his own earthly journey what it means to live with loss. May St. Anthony assist us in surrendering our will to the Almighty’s.

For All the Saints: Christopher Magallanes and Companions, Martyrs

May 21, 2010 By Allison Salerno

Today the Church commemorates the lives and deaths of 22 parish priests, along with three lay Catholics, who were killed between 1915 and 1937 in Mexico because they professed the Catholic faith. These martyrs were all active members of the Cristeros Movement, which rose up against the Mexican government’s persecution of Catholics. The Church has confirmed these men as saints: Pope John Paul II canonized them in 2000.

It is humbling to reflect on these men and to wonder whether we would be willing to give our lives for our faith.

St. Christopher Magellenes, pictured above, built a seminary in his parish of Totiache at a time when the Mexican government banned foreign clergy and the celebration of Mass in some regions. When the anti-Church government closed his seminary, he opened another and still another. Eventually, the seminarians were forced to learn in private homes.

He wrote and preached against armed rebellion. But he was falsely accused of promoting the Cristeros guerillas. While heading to a farm to celebrate Mass, St. Christopher Magellenes was arrested on May 21, 1927. Three days later, without a trial, he was shot to death. Before he died, he gave his executioners his remaining possessions and offered them absolution. He was 48.

The last words heard from him were shouts from his cell. “I am innocent and I die innocent. I forgive with all my heart those responsible for my death, and I ask God that the shedding of my blood serve the peace of our divided Mexico.”

How did this remarkable life begin? St. Christopher Magallanes was born in 1869 in the Archdiocese of Guadalajara. His parents, Rafael Magallanes and Clara Jara, were poor farmers and devout Catholics. He worked as a shepherd and entered the Conciliar Seminary of San Jose, pictured here, at the age of 19. He was ordained at age 30 and took a special interest in evangelizing to the local indigenous Huichos people.

Like many in the United States, I learned nothing of the history of Mexico during my years in public schools. Only a few years ago, because a friend recommended I read Graham Greene’s 1940 masterpiece The Power and the Glory, did I begin to comprehend the magnitude of the supression of the Catholic faith in Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s. This powerful novel, which is on the YIM Catholic bookshelf (preview only), tells the story of a priest in a region where Catholicism is outlawed. Throughout the novel, this brave yet flawed “whiskey priest” is on the run, trying to perform the sacraments and minister to believers. He is haunted by the knowledge that if authorities catch him, they will kill him.

The novel reflects historic realities. The seminary where St. Christopher Magallanes studied, for example, was closed by the Mexican government in 1914 and turned into a regional art museum.

The Cristeros Movement, of which these martyrs were affiliated, was a reaction to the severely anti-clerical Constitution of 1917. According to the website www.traditioninaction.org, Cristeros of Jalisco recited this prayer at the end of the Rosary.

My Jesus Mercy! My sins are more numerous than the drops of blood that Thou did shed for me. I do not deserve to belong to the army that defends the rights of Thy Church and that fights for her. I desire never to sin again so that my life might be an offering pleasing to Thy eyes. Wash away my iniquities and cleanse me of my sins. By Thy Holy Cross, by my Holy Mother of Guadalupe, pardon me.

Since I do not know how to make penance for my sins, I desire to receive death as a chastisement merited by them. I do not wish to fight, live or die except for Thee and for Thy Church. Blessed Mother of Guadalupe, be at my side in the agony of this poor sinner. Grant that my last shout on earth and my first canticle in Heaven should be Viva Cristo Rey! Amen.

Here in the United States I fear we Catholics have become lazy and indifferent in the practice of our faith, taking our freedom to worship for granted. I pray more of us will accept the offer of sanctifying grace that comes through the sacraments. What can we learn from our Mexican brothers and sisters in Christ? Let us thank God for the brave souls who gave their lives in defending the faith.

For All the Saints: Joseph the Worker

May 1, 2010 By Webster Bull

Writing is not physically demanding, but try doing it every day for three or four hours. The first thing you have to accomplish is to put your body in the chair. (There are other saltier words for body.) Then you have to move your fingers, despite interference from your brain. One of my remedies for this laziness (which some glorify as “writer’s block”) is to read a prayer to St. Joseph each morning before I begin. It hangs over my writing desk.

The beautiful thing about the saints is, they are so connected to the practicalities of daily life. Lose something? Pray to St. Anthony. Have a particularly thorny problem? Think it’s hopeless? Call on St. Jude. Can’t write? Ring up St. Joseph the Worker, whose feast we celebrate today.

Many things link me to St. Joseph, beginning with my own father (long story). Two Catholic links are St. Teresa of Avila, who had a particular devotion to him; and Dorothy Day, who distributed the first edition of the Catholic Worker newspaper on May 1, 1933, just as the Communists were making their greatest inroads among a depressed working class in America. She intended to show workers that the Catholic Church has a program for them as well. Pope Pius XII followed suit by making this a feast day, beginning in 1955.

Here is the prayer to St. Joseph. I hope you find it as helpful as I do in getting over writer’s block or garden-variety laziness:

O glorious St. Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace:

To work in a spirit of penance, for the expiation of my many sins;

To work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my inclinations;

To work with gratitude and joy, considering it an honour to employ and develop by means of labour, the gifts received from God;

To work with order, peace, moderation, and patience, never shrinking from weariness and trials;

To work, above all, with purity of intention, and with detachment from self, having ever before my eyes the hour of death and the account I must give of time poorly spent, talents unused, good omitted, and vain complacency in success.

All for Jesus, all through Mary; all after thy example, O Patriarch Joseph; such shall be my watchword in life and in death. Amen.

For All the Saints: Popes Cletus and Marcellinus

April 26, 2010 By Allison Salerno

Two Popes of the early Church sit on opposite corners of the portico ceiling of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Today, we celebrate their feast days. The two men served as Popes two centuries apart. What they share is that their pontificates occurred during times of great torture and persecution for professing Christians under Roman rule. Reflecting on the lives of Popes Cletus and Marcellinus puts into perspective the trials the faithful now are facing.

To be a Pope in the first three centuries after Christ was to face the prospect of death by Roman authorities. Pope Cletus was the third pope and reigned from 76 to 88. Marcellinus was Pope from 296 to 304. Cletus, like St. Peter before him, was martyred. Marcellinus himself was not martyred; instead he died a natural death in an era when scores of Christians, including St. George, were murdered for their faith. Thanks be to God, we live in a world where, with a few notable exceptions, Christians are not being killed for their beliefs. But the Church still faces enemies, both in the secular world, as well as from sinners within our own ranks.

The first persecutions of Christians happened in Rome, a generation after Christ, under the reign of Nero. This was several years before Cletus became Pope. The tyrant, who killed his own mother and eventually committed suicide, arrested and tortured Christians in Rome. Some were crucified. Others were burned alive. Their bodies were eaten by dogs. It is stunning to consider that just six years before Cletus became pope, a new Emperor, Titus, destroyed the City of Jerusalem, then the hub of Christianity. Until then, Christians were considered a sect of the Jews. Cletus was a Greek ordained by St. Peter. As Pope, St. Cletus ordained at least 25 priests. Here was a man of great faith who knew the dangers he faced by leading the Church.

As for St. Marcellinus, he died in 304, one year after St. George was martyred during the great Diocletian persecution. During this persecution, Roman authorities confiscated the Callistus Catacomb, which for 100 years had been the official cemetery of the Church of Rome. Martyrs and Popes had been buried there. Christians blocked the main entrances to the catacomb to protect the tombs. It is hard to imagine living and dying in such a time.

Sts. Cletus and Marcellinus’s lives tell us that, as improbable as it seems, the Church is indestructible, no matter the filth within the Church or the attacks from outside Her. We must continue to pray for Pope Benedict XVI, for the children damaged by priest-criminals, and, yes, for the souls of their predators, too.

May your continual pity, O Lord, cleanse and defend Your Church; and, because without you she cannot endure in safety, may she ever be governed by Your bounty. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.

For All the Saints: George

April 23, 2010 By Allison Salerno

I live in a time and a country where many Christians take their faith for granted. If it hadn’t been for brave souls such as St. George throughout history, however, despots might have destroyed that faith.

When I was a child, my parents had a small print in their study of Saint George slaying a dragon whose tail wrapped around the edges of the print. In deep blues and greens, the print hung on a corner wall near my parents’ dictionary stand and our set of World Book encyclopedias. I knew, of course, that St. George was the stuff of British folklore and no more real than Robin Hood. I was wrong.

The real St. George, depicted above in this bronze sculpture by early Renaissance artist Donatello, lived in the fourth century after Christ. He was born in Turkey to Christian parents. When his father died, he and his mother moved to her ancestral home in Palestine. When he was 17, George joined the Roman army and became known for his bravery.

He served under pagan Emperor Diocletian. For much of his reign, Diocletian allowed Christians to prosper. When the Emporer started persecuting Christians, however, George protested. But in 302, edicts were issued to suppress Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.

George was imprisoned and tortured. He did not back down. He stayed true to his beliefs and for this, he was beheaded in Palestine on April 23, 303. The Church of St. George in Lod, just outside Tel Aviv, contains his tomb. The church is an Eastern Orthodox Shrine. The Greek Orthodox Church calls George “the Great Martyr” and his feast day is a Holy Day of Obligation. Most interestingly, many Muslims venerate Saint George as well.

The year George was martyred, 303, began the “Great Persecution,” against Christians. Diocletian issued a series of decrees to force Christians to pledge allegiance to an imperial cult. An edict was issued “to tear down the churches to the foundations and to destroy the Sacred Scriptures by fire; and commanding also that those who were in honourable stations should be degraded if they persevered in their adherence to Christianity.” Can you imagine living under such conditions? Do you think you would be bold enough to risk your life for your faith?

It got worse. “Three further edicts (303-304) marked successive stages in the severity of the persecution: the first ordering that the bishops, presbyters, and deacons should be imprisoned; the second that they should be tortured and compelled by every means to sacrifice; the third including the laity as well as the clergy. The atrocious cruelty with which these edicts were enforced, and the vast numbers of those who suffered for the Faith are attested by Eusebius and the Acts of the Martyrs.”

About 10 years after George’s death, the Christian emperor Constantine came to power and George, along with other martyrs, was revered as a saint. From there, legend about St. George developed. During the First Crusades, the story was he slayed a dragon. At that time, dragons symbolized the Devil. George is said to have appeared to the crusading armies at the Battle of Dorylaeum, in 1097, and the Siege of Antioch, in 1198. Both were great crusading victories, and so St George came to be seen as a protector of Christian soldiery.

Saint George, who is the patron saint of England, found his way into British literature. He is mentioned in Spencer’s Faerie Queene, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Shakespeare’s Henry V.

I do love good stories, and the ones about George are fanciful and fun. But they also do a grave injustice to this saint who, after all, was an ordinary man of faith living in a tumultuous times. The real story of St. George is powerful without embellishment: Once upon a time, George, a brave Roman soldier, endured torture and death so generations to come might be blessed with the gift of Christian faith.

O God, who didst grant to Saint George strength and constancy in the various torments which he sustained for our holy faith; we beseech Thee to preserve, through his intercession, our faith from wavering and doubt, so that we may serve Thee with a sincere heart faithfully unto death. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For All the Saints: Isidore of Seville

April 5, 2010 By Allison Salerno

Not until I read Julie Cragon’s blog Hand Me Down Heaven Sunday afternoon did I realize Easter Sunday was also the feast day of Saint Isidore of Seville. The twinning of Saint Isidore’s feast day, April 4, and Easter Sunday this year is fortuitous. This learned archbishop, who died on April 4, 656, succeeded his brother Leander as Metropolitan See of Seville at a time when Spain was in disarray and awash in heresies. His life story lets us know that for centuries Christian witnesses have helped to restore the Church by synthesizing contemplation and action.

Ironically, my son Gabriel and I had been talking about Saint Isidore when we went out to lunch after the 11 a.m. Mass before heading home. Saint Isidore is Gabriel’s patron saint; he chose Isidore as his confirmation name after a family friend introduced him to this “indefatigible compiler of all existing knowledge.” His most important work, the 20-volume Etymologaie, is considered the world’s first encyclopedia. It was widely used for 1,000 years. Since Gabriel, too, has a deep thirst for knowledge, he was drawn to learn more about Saint Isidore. The fact this Doctor of the Church, also known as the last scholar of the ancient world, is the proposed patron saint of the internet didn’t hurt, either.

In addition to his obvious scholarly brilliance, St. Isidore also oversaw the Second Synod of Seville (619) and the Fourth National Council of Toledo (633). The Second Synod of Seville was important because it clarified the Church’s teachings on Christ’s nature and the nature of a Triune God. This was at a time when Spain was split between believing Christians and Arians, who claimed that Christ was not “of God.” The Fourth National Council, which all the bishops of Spain attended, decreed that every diocese establish seminaries in their cathedral cities. This, along with St. Isidore’s establishment of schools to study every area of learning, not insignificantly, made Spain a center of culture and learning. St. Isidore was holy and he thirsted for truth. He wrote: “Those who seek to attain repose in contemplation must first train in the stadium of active life; and then, free from the dross of sin, they will be able to display that pure heart which alone makes the vision of God possible.”

Because of the Litany of the Saints

April 5, 2010 By Allison Salerno

At the Great Vigil of Easter this year, I teared up during the Litany of the Saints. Standing in the choir loft, I could see the entire parish, many of whom are dear friends, as we all pleaded with our heavenly companions to pray for us. At this time of immense crisis in our beloved Church, never has this plea for heavenly help felt more powerful and necessary.

Some of my non-Catholic friends think we Catholics pray to the saints. We don’t. During the Litany of the Saints, we ask the saints in heaven to pray for us. The Litany of the Saints begins by invoking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We also ask more than 50 saints, by name, to pray for us. Of course, these men and women are not the only saints. The Catholic Church has confirmed the existence of thousands of saints, men and women who have died and now are in union with God in heaven. Millions of other saints inhabit heaven, people whose lives were less notable. Faithful friends and family who have gone before us are also part of this great Communion of Saints. In great humility, we beg this cosmic communion to pray for us. We are a hurting Church. We need their prayers.

Throughout my life, in years and Masses past, I have merely endured this Litany of the Saints, which lasts for four or five minutes. To me, it was a monotonous listing of out-of-date names. Saints to me, I am sad to say, had no more meaning than two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Now, I understand that these flawed, vulnerable, and brave men and women are still alive, in the “cloud of witnesses.” They are part of the Communion of Saints that exists here on earth, among the faithful souls on their way to heaven, and in heaven with those now united with God.

Thanks to my careful reading since Christmas, including the magnificent book My Life with The Saints, which sparked Webster’s own conversion, I now feel familiar with many of those names. These saints are my friends. The early church, Father James Martin, SJ, writes, focused more on the “companionship model, those who have gone ahead of us and are now cheering us on, brothers and sisters in the community of faith.” Here are the parishioners at Our Lady of Mercy, chanting the litany at their Great Vigil of Easter last year.

This year in my New Jersey parish as the cantors sang each name at the Great Vigil, I could imagine the person, in all his or her quirky and holy individuality, behind the name. We Catholics need this Communion of Saints as never before. The credibility of our Church leaders is being questioned, and for good reason. I welcome this questioning. I share the disgust at the sexual abuse of children and subsequent cover-ups. Only 1 percent of the Roman Catholic Church are priests and bishops, and a tiny proportion of them are the abusers and their enablers. The Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs all of us to make right choices in accordance with reason and the divine law. This means we faithful must speak out for the good of the Church when the Church is in crisis. She is now.

The church scandals hit my family directly. We discovered years later, that a pedophilic priest served at the parish of my childhood, as did another priest who went on to move disturbed men from parish to parish. Reflecting on this now, my parents are deeply grateful that my brother never served as an altar boy or spent a moment alone with a priest or anyone on staff. Decades ago, one troubling incident my brother found out about from friends prompted my mom to call our pastor. He shrugged off the probability boys were being sexually abused by one of his subordinates. “We were so trusting,” my mom says. ” I should have called the police.”

As a result of this history, I was resistant to the idea of my own sons becoming altar servers, not because of the wonderful parish priest at our current parish, but because of that childhood experience that haunted, angered, and terrified me when my parents and the news media reported it years later. And I embrace rules that now prevent priests from spending tine alone with any parishioner—just as teachers are instructed not to spend time alone with one student. These rules both protect parishioners from sexual or other abuse and protect priests from the possibility of false allegations.

Trust, once broken, can be impossible to repair. Scores of Catholics of my generation and acquaintance have left the Church because of these scandals, either because they were abused as young boys or because they were repelled by learning of the abuse. But the truth remains that the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests are wonderful, trustworthy men, who are as pained and disheartened and disgusted as the laity about child sexual abuse and the subsequent denials and cover-ups by bishops.

And the truth is that in its Bible-based traditions and sacramental life, the Catholic Church holds the fullness of faith. Bad people never will destroy the Church’s truth. Consider what Doctor of the Church St. Thomas of Aquinas said nearly seven centuries ago about priests, who daily bring us a foretaste of heaven through the Eucharist. “The priest consecrates the sacraments not by his own power, but as the minister of Christ, in whose person he consecrates this sacrament. But from the fact of being wicked he does not cease to be Christ’s minister because our Lord has good and wicked ministers or servants.” And so, in this crisis, we Catholics in the pews need to speak out from the depths of our consciences about the sins of the Church leaders. And as part of the Communion of Saints, we need to ask even more fervently for the prayers of those who have gone before us, marked with the signs of our indestructible faith.