Catholic Saints & Feasts

By: Fr. Michael Black
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  • Summary

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

    These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.
    Copyright Fr. Michael Black
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Episodes
  • October 5: Saint Faustina Kowalska, Virgin

    October 5: Saint Faustina Kowalska, Virgin
    Oct 4 2024
    October 5: Saint Faustina Kowalska, Virgin1905-1938Optional Memorial: Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of MercyHer humble sail caught a powerful theological windThe martyr Saint Faustino was killed in the second decade of the second century in northern Italy under the emperor Hadrian. Nothing else is known of him. Today’s saint was baptized Helen and, for unknown reasons, was given the martyr’s name when making her first religious vows. Saint Faustino must be honored, and grateful, to share his name with so holy and consequential a nun as Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, who was canonized in 2000, and whose optional memorial was added to the Church’s universal calendar in 2020.Saint Faustina was a peasant in the best sense of the word. She could read and write but otherwise attended school for only a few years in her rural village in central Poland. Her large and pious family needed her hand on the plow, financially speaking, and so at the age of sixteen young Helen Kowalska obtained work as a housekeeper in nearby towns. She was expert in the domestic arts of sewing, cleaning, cooking, and the related skills which convert a house into a home. These skills served her well, but not long, in the convents where she resided throughout her short life.While she felt called to be a religious sister as a child, Helen’s parents were reluctant to let her enter a convent at too tender an age. But then, in her late teens, Christ appeared and spoke to Helen in mysterious and deeply personal encounters, demanding that she not keep Him waiting much longer. These visions propelled the pious teen to seek acceptance in a big-city convent. She moved to Warsaw at nineteen, received advice from a sympathetic priest, and knocked on the doors of various convents hoping that one of them, just one, would accept her. One finally did. After proving herself in its novitiate, she took solemn vows and spent the rest of her life as a faithful nun doing humble chores alongside her religious sisters in convents in Poland and present-day Lithuania.Like so many saints, the unseen vigils, prayers, mortifications, fasts, and sufferings were Faustina’s real life, while the visible realities seen by her fellow religious and the occasional visitor were of lesser importance. And what went unseen in Saint Faustina’s life was astounding! This humble nun experienced remarkably vivid, high-octane, technicolor, 3-D visions of Jesus Christ in the chapel, behind the door, in her cell, and around every corner for many years. Jesus’ strong voice spoke to her in a direct and unmistakably clear manner about His desires for her life. He commanded her, repeatedly, to spread the message of Divine Mercy. So Faustina had an artist paint a famous image of Christ with two rays emanating from his chest, promoted a liturgical feast day in honor of the Divine Mercy on the Sunday after Easter, and kept an exhaustive diary chronicling the content of her vivid spiritual experiences.Saint Faustina’s message is not really Saint Faustina’s message. It is God’s message. God wants mankind to know, and to feel, the Divine Mercy oozing out of the heart of Christ. This mercy, unlike human or judicial mercy, can wash away even the most wretched sins. God’s mercy is not in competition with his justice but is an over abundance of justice. God knows all things and forgives all things when His mercy is freely requested. The modern western world is very focused on questions of justice – racial justice, economic justice, environmental justice, etc… But it is, at the same time, opposed to judging. This dichotomy of favoring justice but abhorring judging is incongruous. The modern west suffers from similar tensions regarding the virtue of mercy.An American Cardinal noted years ago that modern secular culture permits, even promotes, practically everything. It seems that no moral aberration, sin, or dysfunctional behavior is not smiled upon as a rightful expression of personal freedom. And yet…modern secular culture forgives almost nothing. “Just Do it!” But, beware, when you do do it, you might never be forgiven for having done it. The message of Divine Mercy is that because all can be forgiven, all relationships can be restored. Relationships precede our rights and even our choices. We are more than our choices! We are more than our rights! And when we receive mercy, or extend mercy to others, our relationships with ourselves, with friends, family, nature, and God are restored.Every expression or reception of mercy is like a mini jubilee-year. Every traveler returns home, every field lies fallow, and every debt is forgiven. Mercy is the father waiting on the ridge. He sees the ragged figure on the horizon limping home in the evening light. The petition for mercy. The granting of mercy. The tight embrace. The relationship restored. The ring on his finger. The robe on his back. The calf on the spit. The feast begins. Divine Mercy conquers all.Saint ...
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    7 mins
  • October 5: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, Priest (U.S.A.)

    October 5: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, Priest (U.S.A.)
    Oct 4 2024
    October 5: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, Priest (U.S.A.)
    1819–1867
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Invoked against cancer

    A good man becomes a great priest serving immigrants in the young United States

    Ship after ship, riding low in the water with the weight of thousands of European immigrants, docked in the harbors of the great coastal cities of the United States in the nineteenth century. Transatlantic ship passage was by then routine and relatively safe. These immigrants traveled to America’s open prairies and virgin forests to carve out farms, charter towns, and establish schools where none had ever existed before. These daring men and women came to build new lives, lives often of deep faith. So priests and nuns came with them, planting the seeds of an ancient religion into fresh soil.

    Today’s Blessed was one of those immigrants. Francis Seelos was born into a large family in Bavaria, a land thick with medieval castles, crusader tombs, and timeless traditions. Francis left that rich culture for a new life on the American frontier. He exhausted himself riding horseback, walking, and traveling by ferries and trains up and down and across the wide flowing rivers and narrow dirt roads of the young United States, serving new citizens but age-old Catholics.

    Blessed Francis felt the call to the Priesthood from a young age. He had the support of his family and local clergy and duly studied

    philosophy and theology from some distinguished professors in his native land. One of his Benedictine teachers was the pioneer who later brought the Benedictine Order to America. By accidents of history, the Redemptorist Order, though founded in Italy by an Italian, had become more prominent in Germany. Francis met Redemptorist priests during his education and became intrigued with their work among the immigrants who had emptied out swathes of Germany to go to America. So Francis joined the Redemptorists with the specific intention of serving the many priest-less German Catholics across the ocean.

    It was not easy for Francis to leave his close-knit family. Only his father knew his secret plan. Only his father knew that Francis’ departure for the seminary would be the last time he would ever leave home. Francis embraced his mother and siblings and said goodbye. He then came to his father, who, wordless, tearfully gestured with his finger toward the sky. Son and father knew. They would meet again in heaven. Francis never saw his family again.

    Francis arrived in New York in 1843 and was ordained a priest in 1844 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was first assigned to a parish in Pittsburg, and then was assigned to serve alongside Saint John Neumann, a fellow Redemptorist. They carried out ordinary parish duties and gave parish missions. Father Francis quickly gained a reputation as holy, always available, amiable, and wise. Like Neumann, he became well known as a sage confessor who exercised this ministry of mercy in multiple languages.

    Father Francis’ apostolic zeal, prudence, kindness, and doctrinal integrity thrust him into positions of leadership in his order. He was so skilled a priest, and so admired for his virtue, that he was proposed to be the Bishop of Pittsburgh. Francis only narrowly avoided this exalted burden by personally writing to Pope Pius IX arguing for his own inadequacy. After years of priestly service in America’s eastern portion, Francis became an itinerant German and English preacher in the nation’s middle, crisscrossing Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

    In 1866 Father Francis was assigned to New Orleans, where he continued his tireless, uncomplaining priestly service, and where his prayers were considered unusually efficacious. But in New Orleans

    his service came to an end. He contracted yellow fever while visiting some of its victims. He died at 48 years old, but not before at least one miracle of healing was attributed to his intercession while he lay dying. His cause was opened in 1900, and Francis Seelos was beatified in 2000 by Pope Saint John Paul II. This priest par excellence stands shoulder to shoulder with Saints Marianne Cope, Damian de Veuster, John Neumann, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, and thousands of non-saint clergy and nuns, all nineteenth-century European immigrant missionaries to America. They each left things comfortable and known for their opposites. They each made immense personal sacrifices to pass on the faith, to give a new church new heroes.

    Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, your zeal, intelligence, and innate goodness was plain for all to see. You were an ideal priest loved by all you encountered. Through your intercession, help all missionaries to persevere in their difficult vocations in unfamiliar lands.
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    6 mins
  • October 4: Saint Francis of Assisi

    October 4: Saint Francis of Assisi
    Oct 2 2023
    October 4: Saint Francis of Assisi
    c. 1182–1226
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of animals, ecology, and merchants. Co-patron of Italy

    A merchant’s son of eccentric sensibilities goes radical

    Though originally baptized by his mother as Giovanni (John) in honor of Saint John the Baptist, today’s saint was renamed Francesco, or “Frenchy,” by his father Pietro de Bernardone after Pietro returned home from trading in France. Pietro loved France, and his son’s romantic, troubadour spirit likely flowed from that same cultural source.

    Francesco grew up in a middle-class home that engaged in the sale of fine cloth. Francis was a skilled merchant in the family business, but he enjoyed spending money more than earning it. He was a man about town, a leader among his friends, and well liked for his concern for others. He was also a failed knight. When he was twenty, Francis joined a civic-minded Assisi militia in a battle against a neighboring city. When the militia was routed, Francis was spared death and instead held for ransom due to his fine livery. He was held prisoner in a rank dungeon for a year before the ransom was paid. He returned to Assisi a more reflective man. Subsequent military service for the Papal States ended abruptly when Francis heard a voice tell him, “Follow the master rather than the man.” He sold his expensive armor and horse, returned home, and began to spend hours in prayer.

    Shortly after this turning point, Francis met a leper on the outskirts of Assisi. He initially recoiled, but then dismounted, gave the man some money, and kissed his putrid hand. This was the start of his frequent visits to leper houses and hospitals. When Francis heard a voice from the cross say to him, “Francis, go and repair my church, which as you can see is in ruins,” he sold a large amount of cloth and his father’s horse at a neighboring market town. Coming back to Assisi, he donated the proceeds to a priest at the church of San Damiano on the outskirts of Assisi. Francis’ father was irate. His son had sold cloth from the family store, and a horse, and had then

    given away money that was not his. This was stealing, and Francis was put in prison. A dramatic scene then unfolds between Francis and his father in a church square, in the presence of Bishop Guido of Assisi and his court. Pietro demands the return of his money. The Bishop supports him and says the Church cannot accept stolen money. Francis returns the coins. But then Francis goes further. Piece by piece, he removes his clothing until he is naked before everyone’s eyes. He then says, “From now on I will not say ‘My Father, Pietro Bernardone’ but ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’” There is not a single reference in any contemporary Franciscan document to Pietro after this dramatic incident. Francis was now cut off, disinherited, and on his own.

    Francis eventually begins to wear a rough smock which he ties around his waist with a cord. He lives alone in absolute poverty, prays, helps the sick, rebuilds nearby run-down chapels, and preaches and begs in Assisi. Men begin to follow his lead, and the first fire of the worldwide Franciscan order ignites. The “Lesser Brothers of Assisi” is recognized by the Pope, Francis is ordained a deacon, and the Order’s explosive growth can only be called miraculous. Saint Francis is the first great founder of a religious order since Saint Benedict in the 500s. By sheer allure of personality, holiness, and vision, not intellect or organizational skill, he imparted a mysteriously powerful charism to his followers. He was ardent in his love for the Holy Eucharist and insisted that churches be well kept in honor of the Lord’s physical presence.

    Francis died in his forty-fourth year and was canonized just two years later, in 1228. Saint Francis may be the most well-known person of the second millennium. A measure of his massive impact can be gauged by observing that it is not uncommon for Saint Francis to be seen as the ideal of Christian virtue and poverty, even over and above the religion’s very founder.

    Saint Francis of Assisi, you held the Holy Eucharist in such holy reverence you dared not be ordained a priest. Your love of the Word of God complimented your love of His creation. Help all Christians to have your same balance of love for God, the Sacraments, and all God’s creation.
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    6 mins
Ministry & Evangelism Spirituality
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Fabulous find

I enjoy the episodes… Just wish it was possible to reflect on tomorrow’s episode the evening before…

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