Reflecting on the Saints

  Of the three Saints recalled this week, Aug 27 - Saint Monica Aug 28 – Saint Augustine Aug 29 – St. John the Baptist (passion of) I’ve decided to write about St. Monica , who was St. Augustine’s mother. She’s a reminder to us that everyone, including people like St. Augustine about whom entire library shelves of books have been written over the centuries, had a mother. And indeed, as a mother, St. Monica did not disappoint.  Born in the 300s in North Africa, by tradition she was thought to be a Berber , a Saharan ethnicity that has existed from Roman times until today.  Her biography on an Augustinian website says that she was born into an already Christian family of some means.  For reasons unclear, she was married then to a local Roman landowner named Patricius. St. Monica came to be revered as an exemplary Christian woman in both her devotion and almsgiving even if she lived in somewhat challenging domestic circumstances. Her husband is remembered as havin...

Of the various liturgical feasts and memorials  celebrated this week (a list is given at the end of this article), I’ve decided to devote this post to: Aug 22 nd  -- the  Coronation of the B.V. Mary as Queen of Heaven The  Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary , rounds out an octave of celebration and reflection on Mary, the mother of Jesus, which begins with the  Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary  celebrated on August 15 th . Many / most Catholics will also know well that the  Coronation of the B.V. Mary  constitutes the  final Mystery  of the  Dominican   Rosary . But what are we celebrating in this Feast Day? Well, in the final chapter of   The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church , the  Second Vatican Council , delineated the role of Mary in both the Mystery of Christ, and in the Mystery of the Church. In the first case, in the Mystery of Christ, Mary is revered as the human person, who said “Yes” to God’s...

 Once again this week has been filled with a wide number of very interesting saints: Aug 11 th – St Clare of Assisi , foundress of the Poor Clares or the feminine expression of the Franciscan Order .    Though once she entered into the convent, she became a cloistered nun, she seemed to communicate with everyone, from popes to kindred spirits across the alps and a few more mountain ranges in Prague .     Thus she has come to be taken as the “Patron Saint of Telecommunication,” and even served as the inspiration to Mother Angelica’s founding of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) , which in its origins operated out of the mother house of Mother Angelica’s community, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration .   Aug 12 th – St Jane Frances Chantal was a noble woman then widow who lived in the 16 th -17 th century in France who became then a nun and founded a religious order, the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary for women whom other religio...

 This week is another fairly busy one in terms of special feast days or commemorations. On August 5 th , we celebrate the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major , one of the four major basilicas of Rome, the others being St. Peter’s , St. Paul’s Outside the Walls , and St. John Lateran , all associated with Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome . On August 6 th , we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord .  This is a feast which along with the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (celebrated on Oct 7 th ) entered into the Liturgical Calendar somewhat oddly in commemoration of a couple of (at the time) significant Christian military victories against the (Muslim) Turks in the 15 th -16 th centuries – the Hungarian lifting of the Turkish Siege of Belgrade (1456) in the first case and victory in the Naval Battle of Lepanto (1571) a century later in the second.   Over the course of the centuries, memory of the martial origins of the...

This week has been a busy one with regards to the Saints. On July 29, we remembered St. Martha , to whom in recent years, the Church also added her sister Mary and brother Lazarus.  Poor "busy bee" St. Martha, she's never gotten the respect that she really deserves ;-).  On July 30th, we remembered St. Peter Chrysologus , a Church father who lived in the 5th Century, a time of a good deal of confusion with the first and then repeated sacking of Rome.  He functioned as the Bishop of Ravenna which became the capital of the region for a time. On July 31st, we remembered St. Ignatius of Loyola , a favorite saint of mine, the founder of the Jesuits, a religious congregation that became famous for its learning, missionary work and spiritual direction all finding root in a man, the future St. Ignatius, who began life hoping to find "glory on the battlefield" as a soldier.  An excellent recent movie about him was Ignatio de Loyola (produced in English by the Jesuits of...

I've been trying for some time to find a way to work around my schedule, to offer some sort of "a class" at the parish. Evenings have proven difficult because:  Monday evenings are devoted to our bigger committee meetings:      1st Monday - Liturgy Committee     2nd Monday - Consejo Hispano     3rd Monday - Pastoral Leadership Council     4th Monday - Finance Board Tuesday evenings - Spanish Mass followed by Exposition / Benedication and Confessions Wednesday evenings - My one evening / week to meet with Marriage Prep Couples and Families for Quinceaneras Thursday evenings - Spanish Mass followed by Confessions (generally but not always taken by Fr. David) Friday evenings - Outside of Lent are generally my day off. Further, while the mornings can work, they necessarily eliminate participation of our working-age population. So ... meeting as a group, we decided to ask our two English language Deacons to offer a class either in the during ...