An Uncommon Kindness: The Father Damien Story

Last night I watched this documentary about the life and work of Father Damien, now St. Damien. It can be seen over at VodPod for free.

More blogging to come as time permits.

The Saint Damien Boy Scouts

A group of boy scouts from Hawaii traveled to attend canonization activities for Fr. Damien of Molokai. Their blog shows videos and posts of their journey, which ended on October 14.

Here's a great video including reflections and thoughts from their trip:

Father Damien and four others canonized as saints today

It is reported that five new saints were canonized by the Pope today, including Fr. Damien, who worked with lepers, Zygmunt Szecezesny Felinski, a 19th century Polish bishop who defended the church during the shutdown of churches in his homeland, Francisco Coll y Guitart, who founded a Dominican order, Rafael Arniaz Baron, who dedicated himself to prayer during his short life, and Jeanne Jugan, a French nun who helped found the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order that serves the indigent elderly.

The pontiff said the newly canonized had taken up the call of Jesus to give themselves totally without "calculation or personal gain."

"Their perfection, in the logic of a faith that is humanly incomprehensible at times, consists in no longer placing themselves at the center, but choosing to go against the flow and live according to the Gospel," Benedict said in his homily. via foxnews.com

Saint John Bosco: Mission to Love- Movie Review

Before I watched this movie, Meredith picked it up and said "This is three hours and 20 minutes long."

"It is?" I said.

And it had subtitles. And the opening scene was poorly acted.

But this was a movie made with love. No doubt some editing of the overused flashbacks would have resulted in a shorter film, but at the same time, that might not have portrayed the work that Don Bosco did with the abandoned youth of Turin as well. Perhaps there wouldn't have been time to show how he stood up to church and state authorities, time after time, simply to provide places for the youth to play and learn, a mission that began after a chance visit to a youth prison where not even the light of day penetrated the crowded, inhumane institution. Or time to have a scene where Don Bosco holds out his empty hand to a boy, striking it in half and saying he would share what he had.

"But you have nothing," the boy said.

What he had was love.

John Bosco, a born student, was put to work in the fields after his father died by an older brother who kept telling him the world was hard and he better learn that. He studied for a time with an older priest, and afterward ran away from home to study for the priesthood. His calling came from God, not from man. At odds with authorities constantly, he turned down assignments and sought ways to help the youth on the street and in jail, such as offering to take groups out of the prison, at the risk of having to go to jail himself if any of them ran away.

His superior kept telling him "You must not insist" whenever Don Bosco tried to change the status quo . But his insistence led to the establishment of the Salesian order and its founding members were some of the youth that he so lovingly protected.

The length of this movie immerses the viewer in stark scenes showing Don Boso working with the children juxtaposed with how authorities saw what he was doing. He was censured for disobedience, labeled a fool, and taken to task for having too much pride. And most of all he was criticized for showing trust toward these abandoned youths, who came to him in droves, seeking a piece of bread, and leaving with an education.

Don Bosco could have chosen not to follow the call of God to help these youths. What I loved about this movie is that his joy of doing so was so clearly shown.
[image description: A picture of the actor playing Saint John Bosco is shown, wearing black robes. Behind him is the actress who played his mother and a group of boys are shown in the background. The words : The Story of the Apostle of Youth are shown on top. Below the title of the film is shown: Saint John Bosco: Mission to Love.]

Therese: A Movie

I watched the movie Therese last night and was profoundly moved by its ending. For those who may not know, it's a 2005 film based on the life of St. Therese of Lisieux and it followed her young life, from her childhood through her visits to the bishop and Pope to obtain permission to enter the Carmelite monastery at the young age of 15 - and then through her short time there, until she died from TB.



St. Therese's book, The Little Way, and her autobiography that contains excerpts (Story of a Soul) has guided many on their spiritual journey. Here's an excerpt:

Meditating on these words of Jesus, Mother, I began to see how imperfect my own love was; it was so obvious that I didn't love my sisters as God loves them. I realise, now, that perfect love means putting up with other people's shortcomings, feeling no surprise at their weaknesses, finding encouragement even in the slightest evidence of good qualities in them. But the point which came home to me most of all was that it was no good leaving charity locked up in the depths of your heart. "A lamp," Jesus says, "is not lighted to be put away under a bushel measure; it is put on the lamp-stand, to give light to all the people of the house." The lamp, I suppose, stands for charity; and the cheerful light it gives isn't meant simply for the people we are fond of; it is meant for everybody in the house, without exception.

The Essential Woman

Written by Kristen West McGuire

The Essential Woman presents short excerpts from Edith Stein’s Essays on Woman, alongside reflections on feminine virtue by Kristen West McGuire and Alexandra Burghardt. It is an easy-to read introduction to the life and work of Edith Stein, (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), a Jewish convert and Carmelite who died in Auschwitz in 1942. The book includes an Edith Stein bibliography, and discussion questions.

A veteran Catholic writer, McGuire holds a Master of Divinity degree from Wesley Theological Seminary and a B.S. in Psychology from Georgetown University. She was a columnist on spirituality and art history for Catholic Faith and Family in 2000-2001. Her work has also been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Our Sunday Visitor, and Envoy.

The book is only $5.95, and bulk discounts are available for parish groups and retailers. The book is also available as a free gift for paid subscribers to Secretum Meum Mihi newsletter. (Download PDF subscriptions are $12.95/year, and print subscriptions are $24.95/year.)

To order, click here.

Saints who grow to be old.....

...always fascinated me as a kid. I think it was because I read about some of the martyrs, some of whom died at very young ages, so I got the impression that saints didn't see old bones. This was added to by the fact that I had an Irish grandmother who used to say "The good die young" about six times a day after John F. Kennedy was shot. And then maybe twelve times a day after his brother Robert joined him.

So I probably mixed up the idea that the good die young with the one that, if you live beyond the age of 25 (back then anyone over 25 was old), you couldn't really be a saint.

Luckily I got over that, to some extent. I still find myself wondering how Mother Teresa lived so long more than about her spiritual crisis. I understand dark nights of the soul in a person of faith because here's the thing  - if you don't take your faith journey seriously, you can't have a dark night of the soul. It's time consuming and a person just would rather go off and do something fun. 

I read about so many saints who die young - the virgin saints, the martyr saints - teenagers and children who never see adulthood - and then we have those saints who grow peacefully old - we think. But maybe it's not so peaceful. Maybe, like Mother Teresa, what on earth we see as a gift of years feels to them like a separation from God.  Perhaps, simply, they want to go be with God. 

Did that add to her dark night of the soul? Living all those years of seeing the suffering, treating the wounded, hearing their cries for help - did that make her doubt and think that the earthly years bestowed upon her were something other than an illusory  curtain separating her from God's loving presence? Is it possible that it's this simple: that the very work a saint may be called to do is so difficult that facing years of it is daunting? It seems that her "correspondence, which spans most of Mother Teresa's life, shows that she felt alone and in a state of spiritual pain from around 1949, roughly the time when she started taking care of the poor and dying in Calcutta" 

I don't know. I'm no saint and can't think like one. But having had my dark night of the soul, where I stood in the ocean and shouted to the sky that I no longer believed in God after being immersed in a life where on a daily basis I encountered battered women, hungry children and countless homeless people, I wonder if Mother Teresa's earthly  struggles are that surprising. 

After all, she immersed herself in the sufferings of others. It wasn't a 9 to 5 gig. You can't stop being Mother Teresa at 5:15. It was 24/7 for years.

The saints who grow to be old. I think they deserve their own category. 

[visual description: An elderly Mother Teresa is shown, smiling. She is wearing a blue and white habit.]

Shrine to Mother Drexel

A shrine to St. Katharine  Drexel in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, is the 27th national shrine designated by the USCCB.   It is hoped that the saint's message of love and service will be spread by the distinction.

St. Katharine, known to many as Mother Drexel, built the shrine in 1893 after founding the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to serve Native American and African American poor and oppressed people.
The Philadelphia-born St. Katharine was canonized in 2000, 45 years after her death. -via philly.com

For a bio of the saint and a description of her works, click here.

[Update:  March 3 is the feast day of Mother Drexel and here's an excellent post.]

All Saint's Day

...is celebrated today in the Roman Catholic Church.

In its honor, I'm linking to a FAQ site about saints. Ever wonder who saints are and how they are chosen? Why do we honor saints? How many lay people become saints?

As we remember to pray for the dead, it's also good to honor the memory of those who lived in such a holy manner and meditate on their example.

Lives of the Disabled Saints

Bio: St. Germaine Cousin (my favorite disabled saint) is the patron of child abuse
Germaine was born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed . Her cruel stepmother severely abused her as her father looked the other way. Germaine was fed so little she learned to crawl to get to the dog's food bowl. Boiling water was poured on her legs by her stepmother. Germaine developed scrofula, a form of TB and became even more vulnerable to mistreatment. Her siblings, who watched her cruel treatment, joined in the abuse.

Her stepmother forced Germaine to sleep out in the barn with the sheep so the other children wouldn't catch her illness. She wasn't allowed to eat at meals but was given scraps of food. Germaine, who was entrusted with the care of the sheep, responded by becoming closer to God. She attended daily Mass. She fashioned a rosary out of knots in string and prayed:

"Dear God, please don't let me be too hungry or too thirsty. Help me to please my mother. And help me to please you."

Germaine shared what little she had with others, giving her scraps of food to beggars. Stories of her holiness spread and her stepmother, angry at this, tried to catch her in doing wrong. After throwing a beggar out from the barn that Germaine let sleep over to stay out of the cold, her stepmother chased and beat Germaine when she saw a bundle in her apron, thinking she stole bread. Beautiful flowers fell out of the apron - flowers not due to bloom for months. Germaine handed one to her mother and said

"Please accept this flower, Mother. God sends it to you in sign of his forgiveness."

Her stepmother softened toward Germaine and invited her back inside the home but Germaine was used to her straw bed in the barn. She died at the age of 22 in 1601.

Her body was found incorrupt when exhumed in 1644. The remains were desecrated in 1793by an anti-Catholic tinsmith named Toulza who threw quick-lime and water on them. Yet her body was found to be still intact except where the quick-lime had done its work afte the French Revolution. She is credited with hundreds of miracles.

[Biography content derived solely from Catholic online and Catholic forum websites]

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The Catholic Forum has a list of saints with disabilities and stories on each one. If you're interested, click above.



[visual description: St. Germaine Cousin is shown seated on a rock with a lamb in front of her. She is dressed in a peasant dress and a halo is drawn around her head. ]

"St . Anthony around the blogs"

Via Open Book

Above is a wonderful link to blog entries about St. Anthony, one of my favorite saints.

When I was growing up, my grandmother would always tell us to pray to St. Anthony. He is the saint who "seeks what is lost" so if we misplaced anything, my grandmother would pipe up "Pray to St. Anthony!"

But she also encouraged us to pray to him for all kinds of problems. If we had a problem, she'd say "St. Anthony will help you find the solution". If we were having trouble in school with a class, she'd urge us to ask his help because he'd help us find the answers. On one occasion when I was trying to decide whether to break up with a boyfriend, I stopped her in her tracks before she said "Pray to St. Anthony" but then asked her how St. Anthony could help me with that. She meekly replied "St. Anthony will help you find the right person."

All I know is that I grew up with a very special place in my heart for St. Anthony. Today as I face different issues than even last year I find myself turning to him for his very special brand of help and intercession. I've learned over the years that sometimes the answer I seek is simply spiritual peace even when the problem is not immediately solved.

Pope canonizes 1st Brazilian saint

{visual description: On his trip to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI canonized the first Brazilian saint, Friar Galvao in the first canonizatoin ceremony held outside of Rome. He is shown during the ceremony with other clergy members.}


Friar Galvao, who lived from 1739 to 1822, founded monasteries and convents throughout Brazil, including the Monastery of Light.

Saintly Bad Behavior

In this Slate article by a Jesuit priest, he writes about the common misconception that saints are not, well, human. Makes for interesting reading - and thinking.