BIG C CATHOLICS

October 9th, is the optional memorial of Saint Denis, a 3rd century apostle of Gaul, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers who was invoked particularly in the Middle Ages against the Black Plague. He served as the first bishop of Paris, suffering martyrdom there, together with his priest Rusticus and his deacon Eleutherius. What little we know about his life and holy death come from pious tradition. He was sent from Rome to Gaul as a missionary by Pope Clement I. Once in France, St. Denis built the first cathedral in the city and began converting its citizens to Christianity. He and his companions (Rusticus and Eleutherius) were executed under Emperor Valerius at Montmartre due to their Christian faith. Legend holds after his execution, St. Denis picked up his head, taking it to where he is buried today, thus choosing the place for his followers to build a basilica. Historians differ on how Denis’ remains came to rest where they did. Some say that Denis and his followers’ remains wer

Memorial - October 1st Imagine for a moment that you are in a dimly lit chapel. Candles light the altar as you are engulfed by soft voices praying the Rosary. You promise to focus completely on the prayers. You lift up your heart and… fall asleep. It is just another day in the life of Saint Therese of Lisieux, better known as the “Little Flower.” More than any other saint, Theresa understood and explained the mystery of divine filiation of living as a child of God. She loved the Blessed Virgin Mary but did not enjoy the Rosary. She was a mystic but did enjoy retreats. St. Therese, however, never became upset or discouraged about falling asleep because she was confident that God, like a good parent, loved his children even when they were sleeping. Commenting on the mystery of her vocation St. Therese wrote, “Jesus does not call those who are worthy, but those he wants to call.” For her, this vocation began as a call to Carmel, a cloistered convent, and ultimately led to her b

September 20th, the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Andrew Kim Taegon, Saint Paul Chong Hasang and companions, courageous 19th century Korean martyrs. The beginning of the Catholic Church in Korea was unusual. Rather than resulting from the efforts of ordained missionaries, the faith was established in that country by the work — and martyrdom — of lay converts. For most of its history, Korea was an isolated place, rejecting contact with much of the outside world. The one exception was China, and even that was limited to the paying of taxes once a year to Beijing. However, in other ways, particularly culturally, Korea was strongly influenced by this larger and stronger neighbor to its North. Some of that influence included the introduction of Christianity. The Jesuits, who had already established a foothold in China, managed to get some Christian literature into Korea, and the more educated members of the society began to study the faith on their own. Through their effort

Memorial - September 9th There are not many who would willingly make themselves slaves, but Saint Peter Claver, the 17th century Jesuit priest and missionary did. What is particularly noteworthy about this young Spaniard’s servitude in the New World is that he took it upon himself willingly, declaring himself , "the slave of the slave." Popular piety holds, in addition to his prodigious efforts, he worked tremendous miracles like raising people from the dead and prophesying the future deaths of others. Peter Claver was born in Verdu, Spain, in 1581. Although the family line was one of the oldest and most distinguished in that country, by the time Claver was born, his own family consisted of impoverished farmers. Nevertheless, he entered the Jesuit college of Barcelona and soon entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1602. It was while studying philosophy that he was inspired by the college’s doorkeeper, the future saint Alphonsus Rodriguez to become a missionary in the New W

September 5th, is the feast of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, (1910-1997) the Catholic religious, missionary and foundress of the Missionaries of Charity who experienced a “call within a call” to devote herself to caring for the sick and the poor. She was born, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, in the Ottoman Empire (now the Republic of Macedonia), in the city of Skopje. By the age of 12 she resolved to commit herself to a religious life and to go to India to care of the poverty-stricken. At 18, Agnes left home to enter the Sisters of Loreto Abbey in Ireland as a missionary. She took her first religious vows on May 24, 1931. Six years later, she took her solemn vows on May 14, 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Calcutta. Teresa would serve there for almost twenty years. On September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" to help the suffering and the marginalized. From her Vatican biography: "On that day, i

August 24th, is the feast of Saint Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles. He is mentioned in all four Gospel accounts. While little is known about his early life, Bartholomew was most certainly a devout Jew. His name means "son of Tolomai". Most scholars believe that he, and the Nathanael referred to in John, are the same person. An authority in the law of Moses, Bartholomew was a close friend of the Apostle Philip. Having received the gifts of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost, Bartholomew evangelized Asia Minor, northwestern India and Greater Armenia. While preaching in Armenia, he was arrested and sentenced to death. Following Pentecost, Bartholomew embarked on a missionary trip to India. Popular piety records him as serving in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Persia and Egypt. Bartholomew and Saint Jude are credited with bringing Christianity to Armenia. Both are the patrons of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Fr. Pius Parsch in The Church's Year of Grace writes: &qu

July 25th, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Saint James the Greater, the Apostle and martyr. Both his parents, Zebedee and Salome were people of affluence and well-respected. His father was a fisherman of the Lake of Galilee, who lived in or near Bethsaida, perhaps in Capharnaum who had several hired men in his employ. His mother was one of the pious women referenced by Scripture who followed Christ and “ministered unto Him of their substance.” James is called “the Greater” to distinguish him from the Apostle James “the Less,” who was probably shorter of stature. We know little of St. James’s early life. He was the eldest brother of John, the beloved disciple. According to the social rank of their parents, they were certainly men of ordinary education, in the common walks of Jewish life. They had opportunity of coming in contact with Greek culture and language which flourished on the shores of the Galilean Sea. The Galilean origin of St. James in part explains the ene

Optional Memorial - July 1st Saint Junipero Serra was born Miguel Jose Serra on the island of Majorca in 1713 and entered the Franciscan Order in 1730; it was then that he took the name Junipero in honor of St. Francis of Assisi’s humble companion, Brother Juniper. For the next eighteen years, Father Serra spent his time in classrooms, first as a student and later as a professor of theology at the University of Majorca. But Father Serra also had a missionary spirit and, inspired by the work of St. Francis Solanus in South America, he left his relatively comfortable life in Spain for the New World in 1749. He landed first in Vera Cruz, Mexico, where he and a companion proceeded to travel on foot some 250 miles to Mexico City. On the way, Father Serra suffered a spider bite on his leg which did not heal; that plus his asthma would plague him and cause him discomfort for the rest of his life. He served for several years in central Mexico and the Baja Peninsula, learning the nat

Mention the name “Saint Anthony” in a roomful of Catholics, and you are likely to be regaled with story after story of things, people and pets that have been found, often in what seem to be miraculous circumstances, through his intercession. And although this saint is the patron of lost items and a thaumaturgist, or miracle worker, many people may not realize that he is also a Doctor of the Church who had a burning desire to imitate Christ in all things and be martyred for the faith. St. Anthony of Padua was neither born in Padua nor with the name Anthony. He first saw the light of day in Lisbon, Portugal in 1195 and was baptized Ferdinand by his powerful and well-to-do parents, who were devout Catholics. At the age of 15, young Ferdinand joined the Augustinian Order, totally forsaking the wealth and power that could have been his by reason of his family’s standing in society. But he did not remain with that order. In 1220, the mutilated corpses of the five Franciscan protomarty

May 27th, is the optional memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury. He was born in Rome and died in Canterbury, England. An Italian Benedictine monk, at the behest of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, he founded the See of Canterbury and preached the Catholic faith to Britain’s Anglo-Saxon pagans during the late 6th and early 7th centuries. St. Augustine was the first Archbishop of Canterbury. _______________________________________________ St. Augustine of Canterbury, "Apostle of the English" (534 – 604) St. Augustine was the agent of a greater man than himself, Pope St. Gregory the Great. In Gregory's time, except for the Irish monks, missionary activity was unknown in the western Church, and it is Gregory's glory to have revived it. He decided to begin with a mission to the pagan English, for they had cut off the Christian Celts from the rest of Christendom. The time was favorable for a mission since the ruler of the whole of southern England, Ethelbert of Ke

Joseph De Veuster, the future Father Damien, was born at Tremelo in Belgium, January 3rd, 1840. His was a large family and his father was a farmer-merchant. When his oldest brother entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (called 'Picpus' after the street in Paris where its Generalate was located), his father planned that Joseph should take charge of the family business. Joseph, however, decided to become a religious. At the beginning of 1859 he entered the novitiate at Louvain, in the same house as his brother. There he took the name of Damien. In 1863, his brother who was to leave for the mission in the Hawaiian Islands, became ill. Since preparations for the voyage had already been made, Damien obtained permission from the Superior General to take his brother's place. He arrived in Honolulu on March 19th, 1864, where he was ordained to the priesthood the following May 21st. He immediately devoted himself, body and soul, to the difficult service of a "count

April 28th, is the optional memorial of Saint Peter Chanel (1802 – 1841), the 19th century priest, missionary and martyr. Sometimes, we are called to be the planters of seeds that someone else will harvest. That was precisely the vocation entrusted to St. Peter Chanel, whose tireless work in the region of Oceania in the mid-19th century would end up bearing the most fruit after his martyrdom. Peter Chanel was born near Cuet in the area of Belley, France, in 1802. Ordained in 1827, he was first sent to work in a parish which had the reputation of being a challenging place in a “bad” district. Despite the difficulties he faced, the young priest won over his new parishioners by his devotion to caring for their sick. But what Peter Chanel really wanted to be was a missionary, and to that end he joined a new religious society in 1831—the Society of Mary, which would later come to be known as the Marists. Although eager to depart for mission territory, Chanel was at first assigned to

March 23rd, is the optional memorial of St. Toribio of Mogrovejo (1538 – 1606), the 16th century bishop, reformer and missionary who, by his tireless zeal and boundless love, renewed the Church in Peru. Though he began life as a law professor at the prestigious University of Salamanca, it would be as a poor missionary in the New World, not as a high Spanish government official, that St. Toribio of Mogrovejo would discover what God wanted him to do with his life. Toribio was born into Spanish nobility in 1538. His father was Don Louis Alfonso, mayor of Mayorga, and his mother was Anna de Roblès y Moran y Villaquexida. It was Toribios’ great learning and reputation for virtue that attracted the attention of King Philip II of Spain; this subsequently led to his appointment as chief judge of the Inquisition at Granada. Some argued that he succeeded too well in that position; whether or not that is true, the strength of character he displayed made him a natural choice to be appointed t

March 17th, is the optional memorial of Saint Patrick, the 5th century missionary and bishop to whom various miracles are credited. Little is known about his early years. He was born in c. 387 AD, a Roman Britain, at an unknown location. He died in 461, having successfully converted Ireland from paganism to Christianity. His symbol is the shamrock which he often used to elucidate the Holy Trinity. He ministered devoutly as the bishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland until his death. Patrick led a difficult life, but his faith in God, once realized, never wavered. As a young teenager, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates who forced him into slavery. He later wrote that his six years in captivity was vital to his spiritual development and drove him closer to God. He prayed often during his captivity; working as a shepherd. He remained a slave until his early twenties when he received a dream from God telling him his freedom awaited. In the dream, he was led to the coast and the sea. When

Detail of monument to the 26 Jesuit Martyrs at the Nagasaki Museum. Feb. 6th, is the memorial of Saint Paul Miki and companions, the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki comprised of native Japanese Catholics and foreign missionaries who were martyred for their faith in 1597. The most well-known of the martyrs are Saints Paul Miki, John of Goto, and James Kisai. Bro. Miki was studying for the priesthood, Kisai was a lay brother and John was a postulant. The faith and joy they exhibited in imitating Christ to the last impressed their persecutors greatly. Catholicism reached Japan in the 16th century, when the Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier first preached the Good News there. As a result of continued Jesuit catechesis, by 1590, some 200,000 Japanese had entered the Church. So long as the Emperor permitted it, the Jesuits ministered discreetly, with much success. In 1587, the Japanese imperial government, leery of Jesuit influence and the growing number of Christians among their citize

February 3rd, is the optional memorial of Saint Ansgar the 9th century German bishop and missionary. The "apostle of the north" (Scandinavia) had enough frustrations to become a saint — and he did. He became a Benedictine at Corbie, France, where he had been educated. Three years later, when the king of Denmark became a convert, Ansgar went to that country for three years of missionary work, without noticeable success. Sweden asked for Christian missionaries, and he went there, suffering capture by pirates and other hardships on the way. Less than two years later he was recalled, to become abbot of New Corbie (Corvey) and bishop of Hamburg. The pope made him legate for the Scandinavian missions. Funds for the northern apostolate stopped with Emperor Louis's death. After thirteen years' work in Hamburg, Ansgar saw it burned to the ground by invading Northmen; Sweden and Denmark returned to paganism. He directed new apostolic activities in the North, traveling to D

January 26th, the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus, bishops and missionaries in the early years of Christianity. The Divine Office recalls that: "Timothy and Titus were converted to Christianity by Saint Paul, and became his companions and helpers. Paul entrusted Timothy with the care of the Christians in Ephesus, and sent Titus to Crete to look after the Christians there. He wrote them the so-called 'pastoral' epistles, giving advice for pastors and people alike." In 2nd Timothy St. Paul instructs Timothy thusly: "I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands" (2 Tm 1:6). Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois reflects on St. Paul's words: " Speaking to Timothy, Paul advises him 'to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So, do not be ash

Although Saint Paul shares a martyr’s feast day with Saint Peter on June 29, the Church has recognized the most momentous occurrence in this apostle’s life by also celebrating a separate feast for the conversion of St. Paul on January 25th. What makes the story of Paul’s conversion so compelling is both its swiftness and the profound change it wrought in his life. Born to a devout Jewish family in Tarsus, Saul, as he was then known, saw in this new Christian faith a direct challenge to the Judaism to which he had devoted his entire life. So incensed was he against this new religion that, for a time, Saul became one of its most violent and unforgiving persecutors, "entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment." (Acts 8:3). Acts also records that he was present at the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Saint Stephen. Then, acting on formal orders from the high priest in Jerusalem, Saul set out for Damascus to round u

December 3rd is the feast of Saint Francis Xavier, (1506 - 1552) the 16th century Jesuit missionary known as the Apostle to the East. He converted more people in his life than anyone since the Apostle Paul. He is remembered for his unceasing devotion to the faith and his work in Asia to spread the gospel. Francis personally converted and baptized more than 50,000 people in 10 years. He single handedly catechized the entire city of Goa, India into the Catholic Church. Along with his mentor and close friend, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whose tireless persuasion won the young Francis for Christ, he is credited with co-founding the Jesuit Order. Francis Xavier was born in the Castle of Xavier in Navarre, Spain into an affluent noble Basque family. He studied at the University of Paris where he met Ignatius of Loyola. He had planned to devote himself to the intellectual life, but at Ignatius' urging surrendered to God. In August, 1534, Francis along with seven other men made vows of

September 9th, is the memorial of Saint Peter Claver, (1581-1654) the 17th century Spanish priest and missionary of the Society of Jesus. Known as the Apostle to the West Indies, he is the patron of African missions and interracial justice, due to his work among African slaves in Colombia. Claver's dedication to them was so complete, he was called the "Slave to the Slaves" He also served the poor, those who had fallen into heresy and those sentenced to death. Popular piety holds he worked tremendous miracles like raising people from the dead and prophesying the future deaths of others. He was born to an affluent, devoutly Catholic family in Verdu, Spain. He earned his first degree at the University in Barcelona. where he was noted for his intelligence and piety. There, he wrote these words: "I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death, on the understanding that I am like a slave." He recorded this pledge in a notebook he kept throughout his lif