Reflecting on the Saints

Of the various Saints and Feast Days celebrated this week: Aug. 19 -- Saint John Eudes, Priest Aug. 20 -- Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church   Aug. 21 -- Saint Pius X, Pope   Aug. 22 -- T he Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary   Aug. 23 -- Saint Philip Benizi, OSM, Priest and Religious Aug. 23 -- Saint Rose of Lima, Virgin and Religious Aug. 24 -- TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Year C) I’ve chosen to write about Saint Philip Benizi, OSM , who also is the Patron Saint of the Parish where I am stationed, and I’ve increasingly come to appreciate that he’s a Saint who truly could have been “a parishioner” here: His parents had difficulty having him.  They prayed finally to Mary, and St. Philip was conceived.  He then became the precocious and perhaps a little bit spoiled child of parents who had difficulty getting pregnant.  At three, he is remembered as giving the Servites their name, calling out to them “Look, the Servants of Mary!” (and th...

Of the various Saints and Feast Days being commemorated this week: Aug 11th – Saint Clare, Virgin and Religious   Aug 12th – Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, Religiou s Aug 13th – Saints Pontian, Pope, and Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs Aug 14th – Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr Aug 15th – THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Aug 16th – Saint Stephen of Hungary Aug 17th – TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Year C) I’ve decided to write about the Assumption of the B.V. Mary . The “Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heavenly glory” defined as dogma in the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XII in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (Nov 1, 1950 ) remains as one of only two times that a Pope spoken Ex Cathedra , that is, invoked papal infalibility , since that doctrine itself was formally defined at the First Vatican Council in the document Pastor Aeternus (1870) .  (The only other time that  papal infalibility was invoked was by...

Of the various Saints and Feast Days that we celebrate this week: August 4th -- St. John Vianney, Priest August 5th – The Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major August 6th -- The Transfiguration of the Lord .   August 8th -- St. Dominic, Priest and Religious [2024] August 9th -- St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), Virgin and Martyr   August 10th -- NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (Year C) August 10th -- St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr I’ve chosen to write about St. Edith Stein (her religious name St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) . St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross began her life as Edith Stein , born to an observant Jewish family in Breslau, Germany (today Wrocław in Poland) in 1891.  As a teenager and in the face of the sufferings of war ( World War I was raging at the time), she became for a while an agnostic.   At the university, she studied philosophy.  At the time, the rage in German philosophy was Phenomenology , whi...