Saint Rita Of Cascia ----- The Patron Saint Of Catholic Women

Rita was born in the year 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, near Cascia , Italy . Her parents, Antonio and Amata Lotti, considered her birth a very special gift from God, for Rita was born to them as they were already advancing in age. As a young girl Rita frequently visited the convent of the Augustinian Nuns in Cascia and dreamed of one day joining their community. Her parents, however, had promised her in marriage, according to the custom of the day, to Paolo Mancini, a good man of strong and impetuous character. Rita accepted her parents’ decision, resolved to see this as God’s will for her.

MARRIED LIFE:

The young couple was joined in marriage and soon twin boys were born to them. Rita found herself occupied with the typical concerns of a wife, mother, and homemaker of Roccaporena, while Paolo was employed as a watchman for the town. In Cascia, as elsewhere, a great rivalry existed between two popular political factions, the Guelphs, and the Ghibellines. As a minor official of the town, Paolo often found himself drawn into the conflict, and the strain that this caused probably accounts for the tension, which he sometimes brought into the Mancini household. By her prayer, patience, and affection, however, Rita was able to ease the stress and worry her husband experienced, but she was not able to shield him altogether from the dangers to which society exposed him.

DEATH OF HUSBAND AND SONS:

One day as Paolo was returning home from work he was ambushed and killed. The pain which this unexpected and violent death inflicted upon Rita was only compounded by the fear she felt that her two teenage sons, moved by the unwritten law of the “vendetta,” would seek to avenge their father’s death. Rita’s only recourse was to prayer and persuasion. As it happened, the death of both boys from natural causes a short time later removed them from physical and spiritual danger. Despite her great burden she could still thank God that they had died in peace, free of the poison of murder to which hatred and revenge might have otherwise drawn them.

PEACEMAKER:

Now alone in the world and without family responsibilities, Rita once more turned her thoughts to the desired vocation of her youth, that of joining the Augustinian Nuns of Saint Mary Magdalene Monastery. Some of the religious of the community, however, were relatives of the members of the political faction considered responsible for Paolo’s death, and so as not to tempt the harmony of the convent, Rita’s request for admission was denied. Fortunately, she was not to be easily dissuaded from following what she knew to be God’s plan for her. She implored her three patron saints — John the Baptist, Augustine, and Nicholas of Tolentino to assist her, and she set about the task of establishing peace between the hostile parties of Cascia with such success that her entry into the monastery was assured.

THE GIFT OF THE THORN:

At the age of thirty-six Rita pledged to follow the ancient Rule of Saint Augustine. For the next forty years she gave herself wholeheartedly to prayer and works of charity, striving especially to preserve peace and harmony among the citizens of Cascia.

With a pure love she wanted more and more to be intimately joined to the redemptive suffering of Jesus, and this desire of hers was satisfied in an extraordinary way. One day when she was about sixty years of age, she was meditating before an image of Christ crucified, as she was long accustomed to doing. Suddenly a small wound appeared on her forehead, as though a thorn from the crown that encircled Christ’s head had loosed itself and penetrated her own flesh.

For the next fifteen years she bore this external sign of stigmatization and union with the Lord. In spite of the pain she constantly experienced, she offered herself courageously for the physical and spiritual well being of others. During the last four years of her life Rita was confined to bed and was able to eat so little that she was practically sustained on the Eucharist alone. She was, nevertheless, an inspiration to her sisters in religion and to all who came to visit her, by her patience and joyful disposition despite her great suffering.

THE ROSE':

One of those who visited her some few months before her death — a relative from her hometown of Roccaporena — was privileged to witness firsthand the extraordinary things wrought by Rita’s requests. When asked whether she had any special desires, Rita asked only that a rose from the garden of her parents’ home be brought to her.

It was a small favor to ask, but quite an impossible one to grant in the month of January! Nevertheless, on returning home the woman discovered, to her amazement, a single brightly-colored blossom on the bush where the nun said it would be. Picking it, she returned immediately to the monastery and presented it to Rita who gave thanks to God for this sign of love.

Thus, the saint of the thorn became the saint of the rose, and she whose impossible requests were granted her became the advocate of all those whose own requests seem impossible as well. As she breathed her last, Rita’s final words to the sisters who gathered around her were, “Remain in the holy love of Jesus. Remain in obedience to the holy Roman Church. Remain in peace and fraternal charity.”

DEATH:

Having faithfully and lovingly responded to God’s many invitations to her in the course of her seventy-six years, Rita returned to God in peace on May 22, 1457. Her body, which has remained incorrupt over the centuries, is venerated today in the shrine of Cascia, which bears her name. Her feast is observed on the anniversary of her death, 22 May.

Redemptorists mark 50 years of mission among the Montagnards in Kontum, Central Vietnam

Since 1969, Redemptorist priests and laity have baptised 40,000 ethnic Jarai, as well as Bahnar and others. Now the latter have become missionaries among their neighbours and friends.

 Tens of thousands of worshippers, priests in the Diocese of Kontum (central Vietnam) and Redemptorists have celebrated 50 years (1969-2019) of missionary work among the communities of Vietnam’s central highlands, home to ethnic Jarai, Bahnar and others (Montagnards).

The celebrations, which included pastoral and cultural activities, were held mainly on 14-16 October. Participants shared stories about these 50 years, ending with a Thanksgiving Mass led by Mgr Aloisio Nguyễn Hùng Vị, Bishop of Kontum.

Currently, dozens of missionary centres can be found across the region, in Plei Ply, Plei Cuet, and Cheo Reo. 

During the Thanksgiving Mass, Fr Peter Nguyễn Vân Đông, vicar general of the Diocese of Kontum, described the work of the Redemptorists.

The Diocese has more than 300,000 members out of a population of 1.8 million, divided into 116 parishes. Out of 141 priests, 29 priests are Redemptorist, plus three nuns from the same congregation, to serve 61,000 Catholics divided in various tribal communities.

“Among the latter, 45,000 are Jarai, 6,000 are Bahnar and 10,000 are Vietnamese,”

“The Redemptorists have baptised at least 40,000 of the 45,000 Jarai. In the last 50 years, their priests have built 14 churches and 77 chapels in different villages.”

“Christians are trained and sent,” he added. “In the Bible, Jesus sent 72 disciples to preach to everyone. Today, Redemptorist priests and religious accompany 61,000 people and invite them to go out and proclaim the Good News to others, just as Pope Francis said in his message for the Extraordinary Missionary Month.”

Fr Anton Lê Ngọc Thanh, a Redemptorist, spoke about the mission’s history. "Fifty years ago, on 10 October 1969, Mgr Paul-Léon Seitz Kim brought four Redemptorists to Kontum to start preaching among the Jarai. At that time, this whole area was deserted with very few Kinh people.”

"Between 1969 and 1985 the number of Jarai who came to the Christian faith was very small, perhaps 6 or 7. For 20 years, Redemptorists’ missionary work was very simple: live with these people, work with them, and learn their culture.”

"In 1988, Pope John Paul II canonised 117 Vietnamese martyrs,” said Fr Joseph Trần Sĩ Tín. “Since then, the Jarai who lived between Pleiku and Kontum begun to seek out the faith. They also visited the Redemptorists and received the Word of God. Over this period, the Redemptorists have taught the catechism and provided the sacraments.”

At the end of the Thanksgiving Mass, Mgr Aloisio Nguyễn Hùng Vị, on behalf of the Diocese, thanked the Redemptorists, priests and laity, for their dedication, and urged the congregation to continue sending priests and brothers on missionary work in Kontum.

Credits : Asia News 

Fr Joseph Trần Sy Tin, a life spent in the service of Tribal Jarai in Central Vietnam

The Redemptorist priest arrived in the diocese of Kontum in 1969, along with some fellow priests.

He studied the local language and won the trust of the population. After the hard years of war and an arrest by the Communists, he saw the flowering of baptisms. He baptised a thousand in the mountains; now Catholics are present in 90 villages. The Redemptorists run three missionary centres that have 24,000 faithful.

 Fr Joseph Trần Sy Tin spent a life spent doing mission in the diocese of Kontum (west-central Vietnam) among tribal Jarai. The Redemptorist priest has lived in the area since 1969 and for almost 50 years has accompanied the local population in its journey of faith.

Recently, Fr Joseph met with priests, religious and faithful in the diocese, and spoke about the story of his mission.

Mgr Paul Kim Seitz, bishop of Kontum, had invited priests to work in the diocese for the first time in 1960.

The first village where Fr Joseph Trần Sy Tin settled was to Pleikly. Together with three other Redemptorist priests, he founded the "Group for going out" (Nhóm Ra Đi), whose purpose was to "go out" to live among ethnic minorities who have not yet known Jesus.

“When we arrived in Pleikly,” said Fr Joseph, "we had no house to stay in and did not know anyone in the village. We started to study the Jarai language and visit families to make friends. We ate with them and practiced the language."

At harvest time, "we asked the villagers if we could go into the field to work with them. Sometimes we had lunch together in the rice fields. At evening, we came back home with them and often had dinner together."

After a period of working together, one night the village chief acknowledged them for the first time.

"As we ate dinner around the fire, he told us: 'We took care of our people for years, as regards food, clothing and housing. But no one had ever spoken of the spirit, of good and evil, of happiness. You need to tell us these things.’"

The 1970s were the hardest for Fr Joseph’s mission because the war reached the villages of Kontum. In 1971 the priest was arrested along with a companion by Communist authorities and was sent to near the border with Cambodia, where he lived with poor people suffering from malaria.

After the end of the war (1975), the priest thought that no one would follow Christianity. However, by 1988, many people from ethnic minorities began to be baptised. By 2000, Fr Joseph had baptised a thousand people in the mountains, mostly ethnic Jarai.

The new Catholics were unable to attend Mass regularly because the Communist authorities imposed restrictive exit permits from the villages. Yet, by 2005, Catholics were present in more than 90 villages.

Fr Joseph’s mission relies heavily on the laity whose role is a priority according to the priest. Without them, there is no real mission.

Indeed, the faithful themselves have to proclaim the Good News everywhere, accepting the risks that it entails. Over the years, Fr Tin has trained small groups of lay missionaries.

The clergyman is now the vicar of Pleichuet parish, which has 1,400 members. The Redemptorists also run mission centres in Cheoreo Tolui and Pleichuet Pleikly that, together with the parishes, have more than 24,000 Catholics.

Credits : Asia News 

Holy Week 2019 In The Mountains Of North West Vietnam

Holy Week took on particular significance for Lovers of the Holy Cross sisters who helped prepare Hmong ethnic villagers in the mountainous province of Yen Bai in northwestern Vietnam celebrate the holiest time of the year for the first time in decades.

Two sisters accompanied Bishop John Marie Vu Tat of the Hung Hoa Diocese, along with two priests and two seminarians, as they paid pastoral visits to nine parishes, subparishes and mission stations, in Yen Bai Province

Sr. Mary Kieu Thi Lien, head of the community, said this was the first time a bishop had celebrated Easter triduum services for the local people since Catholic communities were established by foreign missionaries in the area more than 100 years ago.

For decades, some 30 Catholic families including Hmong and Kinh ethnic people, who have resided in the Mu Cang Chai district for 40 years, could not practice their faith publicly as the smaller area within Yen Bai was recognized by the government as having no religion. That changed late last year.

Lien said that in December, Auxiliary Bishop Alfonse Nguyen Huu Long of Hung Hoa and some priests met and discussed religious activities with the district officials. As a result, priests are now allowed to pay monthly visits to local Catholics.

She said the nuns from the Vinh Quang community have visited the area four times since then.

The nuns had to ride motorbikes over 100 kilometers on winding steep narrow roads to mission stations without chapels where they prepared Catholics for services.

They taught people catechism and hymns and how to go to confession and receive the Eucharist, arranged flowers and candles, and made clothes for men to have their feet washed during the Holy Thursday Mass.

Vinh Quang community, which has five sisters, serves Vinh Quang parish, six subparishes and three mission stations, with a total Catholic population of 3,600 in two districts of Van Chan and Mu Cang Chai, which are home to many ethnic minority groups.

"Although we were tired out after the visits, we are happy to have brought the joy of Easter to those in remote areas," Lien said, hoping that the nuns would pay more such visits to the communities.

All You Need To Know About Saint Turibius Of Mogrovejo

Today’s saint was the second Archbishop of the second most important city in Spain’s Latin American empire in the 1500s. Lima, Peru, stood only behind Mexico City in importance to the Spanish Crown during the pinnacle of its colonial ambitions. So when Lima’s first Archbishop died in 1575, the King of Spain, not the Pope, searched for a suitable candidate to send over sea and land to replace him. The King found his man close at hand, and he was more than suitable to the task. Turibius of Mogrovejo was a learned scholar of the law who held teaching and other posts in Spain’s complex of Church and civil courts. 

Yet for all his learning, piety, faith, and energy, there was one huge obstacle to him being a bishop. Turibius was not a priest. He was not even a deacon. He was a very good, albeit unmarried, layman. The arrangement for centuries between Spain and the Holy See was that the Spanish Crown chose bishops while the Pope approved, or rejected, them. 

So after the Pope approved the appointment, over the candidate’s fierce objections, Turibius received the four minor orders on four successive weeks, was ordained a deacon and then ordained a priest. He said his first Mass when he was over forty years old. About two years later, Turibius was consecrated as the new archbishop, and then sailed the ocean blue, arriving in Lima in May 1581.

Archbishop Turibius was extraordinarily dedicated to his episcopal responsibilities. He exhausted himself on years-long visits to the parishes of his vast territory, which included present day Peru and beyond. He acquainted himself with the priests and people under his care. He convoked synods (large Church meetings) to standardize sacramental, pastoral, and liturgical practice. 

He produced an important trilingual catechism in Spanish and two native dialects, learned to preach in these indigenous dialects himself, and encouraged his priests to be able to hear confessions and preach in them as well. Archbishop Turibius’ life also providentially intersected with the lives of other saints active in Peru at the same time, including Martin de Porres, Francisco Solano, and Isabel Flores de Oliva, to whom Turibius gave the name Rose when he confirmed her. 

She was later canonized as Saint Rose of Lima, the first saint born in the New World. Saints know saints.

Archbishop Turibius was a fine example of a counter-reformation bishop, except that he did not serve in a counter-reformation place. That is, Peru was not split by the Catholic versus Protestant theological divisions wreaking such havoc in the Europe of that era. Saint Turibius implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent, not to combat heretics, but to simply make the Church healthier and holier, Protestants or no Protestants. 

From this perspective, the reforms of Trent were not a cure but an antidote. If Turibius’ energy and holiness were motivated by any one thing besides evangelical fervor, it was his desire to make the Spanish colonists of Peru recover the integrity of their own baptisms. The indigenous population needed authentic examples of Christian living to respect and emulate, and few Spanish colonialists provided such models of right living. Saint Turibius’ greatest enemy, then, was simply original sin, which returns to the battlefield every time a baby is born.

After exhausting himself through total dedication to his responsibilities, Saint Turibius fell ill on the road and died at age sixty-seven in a small town far from home. His twenty-four years as Archbishop were a trial of strength. He had baptized and confirmed half a million souls, had trekked thousands of miles on narrow paths made for goats, had never neglected to say Mass, and did not accept any gifts in return for what he gave. Turibius was canonized in 1726 and named the Patron Saint of Latin American Bishops by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1983. 

Perhaps his unforeseen ordination explains his sustained fervor and drive. What came late was valued for having come at all. He bloomed late and bloomed beautifully, becoming the Spanish equivalent of his great contemporary, the Italian Saint Charles Borromeo.

If a visitor searches for the tomb of the saintly Archbishop in the Cathedral of Lima today, he will not find it. There are only fragments of bones in a reliquary. His reputation for holiness was immediate and his relics were distributed far and wide after his death. He is in death as widely shared as he was in life, all the faithful wanting just a piece of the great man. 

In January 2018, Pope Francis prayed before the relics of Saint Turibius in Lima and invoked his memory in a talk to Peru’s bishops. Saint Turibius did not, Pope Francis said, shepherd his diocese from behind a desk, but was a “a bishop with shoes worn out by walking, by constant travel, by setting out to preach the Gospel to all: to all places, on all occasions, without hesitation, reluctance, and fear.”

Prayer : 

Saint Turibius, we invoke your intercession to inspire all who share the gospel, in whatever form, to do so with ardour, skill, and charity, using all the means at their disposal, as you so powerfully did in your own life and ministry.

Saint Patrick -- The Glorious Apostle Of Ireland

It has been said that St. Patrick (c. 389-c. 461) performed a thousand miracles. And why not? Many more (40,000) were prudently attributed to St. Vincent Ferrer, the Dominican missionary and "Angel of Judgment." 

Moreover, the author knows of no saint for whom there are claimed so many resurrection miracles during one apostolic lifetime as for St. Patrick; there were as many as 39 of these wonders.  Thirty-three are mentioned in one specific report:

"For the blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, the palsied, the lunatic, the leprous, the epileptic, all who labored under any disease, did he in the Name of the Holy Trinity restore unto the power of their limbs and unto entire health; and in these good deeds was he daily practiced.  Thirty and three dead men, some of whom had been many years buried, did this great reviver raise from the dead, as above we have more fully recorded."

The above is quoted from The Life and Acts of St. Patrick, translated from the original Latin of Jocelin, Cistercian monk of Furnes of the 12th century, by Edmund L. Swift, Esq., Dublin, 1809.  

A writer that far back probably had sources not available 800 years or more later.  Paul Gallico (in The Steadfast Man) wrote the following concerning the value of tradition:  "Tradition is sometimes more to be trusted than written records, and particularly in a country such as Ireland, where in the early days there was no written record and history was handed down by the poets in the form of sagas, and memory was cultivated far beyond what it is today.  In pre-Christian Ireland every educated man's head was the storehouse for the archives of the nation."

St. Patrick was a great missionary bishop who converted a whole land from paganism, overturning the religion of the druids.  He consecrated 350 bishops, erected 700 churches, and ordained 5,000 priests.  In less than 30 years the greater part of Ireland was Catholic; St. Patrick so consolidated it in the Christian faith that during the Protestant Revolt Ireland was almost unique in its preservation of the Faith.  Even today, people speak of "the faith of the Irish." 

It is hard, indeed impossible, to comprehend such a vast and enduring transformation without the visible support of God through great works and wonders.  But that is what Christ promised to His Apostles, and it has been historically demonstrated in the well-attested lives of His great missionary saints.

St. Patrick himself has personally attested to some of these signs and wonders: "And let those who will, laugh and scorn–I shall not be silent; nor shall I hide the signs and wonders which the Lord has shown me many years before they came to pass, as He knows everything even before the times of the world."  This seems to apply in particular to his prophetic dream-visions.

In his Letters (as in his Confessions and his Letter to Coroticus), Patrick wrote such things as:  "I was not worthy...  that He should bestow on me so great grace toward that nation."  And:  "I baptized in the Lord so many thousands of persons."  And:  "that many people through me should be regenerated to God."  Patrick also wrote: "that I might imitate, in some degree, those whom the Lord long ago foretold would herald His Gospel, for a witness to all nations before the end of the world."  St. Patrick indicated that the Holy Spirit was within him, and he compared himself with St. Paul in a reference to the "unspeakable groanings" of the Holy Spirit.

Further, the ancient author quotes from a reputed "epistle" (letter) of St. Patrick to a friend in a country beyond the sea:

"The Lord hath given to me, though humble, the power of working miracles among a barbarous people, such as are not recorded to have been worked by the great Apostles; inasmuch as, in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I have raised from the dead bodies that have been buried many years; but I beseech you, let no one believe that for these or the like works I am to be at all equaled with the Apostles, or with any perfect man, since I am humble, and a sinner, and worthy only to be despised."

Perhaps because of rumors and his fame St. Patrick was trying to put things in proper perspective.  The word "humble," in his usage, probably meant "lowly" or "insignificant."  

The author of the ancient manuscript observes that he admired the greatness of Patrick's humility more than his raising of the dead.  Patrick himself knew well that his abundance of charismatic gifts (given by God for the glory of God and the benefit of others), far from making him holy, could be a great liability.

Despite his limited number of references to his own greatness, and despite their modesty, it is obvious to anyone familiar with great missionary saints that the spiritual greatness indicated above and displayed in Patrick's life would also call for the marvelous gifts often accompanying such apostles – the most common of which is the working of numerous miracles, including the raising of the dead.

Anyone could gather from his writings, and also from the results of his apostolate of 20-30 years, that St. Patrick was a resolute, steadfast "iron man"; he was a bishop who established monastic discipline in a pagan land, who apparently baptized hundreds of thousands, who converted princes and turned pagan princesses into virgin nuns, who converted the worshipers of idols and the sun and impure things, and who organized and built many churches, leaving behind priests to care for souls.  These were the tremendous and enduring accomplishments in one apostle's missionary lifetime.

St. Patrick's was an achievement unique in history.  Thus it would seem to be a moral certainty that St. Patrick raised the dead on several occasions.  This chapter has been cut down from an originally much longer manuscript-chapter on his reported raisings of the dead, because of the lack of historical records on these matters.  Herein are presented only the best substantiated cases.

Since St. Patrick is claimed to have worked 33 resurrection miracles, it seems a moral certitude that he truly must have worked at least a good number of such wonders, even if the count of 33 may not be exactly accurate.  (Some details may be confused, and thus two slightly different accounts could actually refer to the same event.) It is only fair to report at least several of these.

One day St. Patrick came to a place called Fearta.  On the side of the hill two women were buried.

Patrick ordered the earth removed; in the Name of Christ, he raised them up.  The two proclaimed that their idols were vain and that Christ was the true God.  Along with the women, many bystanders were baptized.  As the ancient writer observes, Patrick not only revived these two from a double death (both temporal and eternal death), but by this miracle he gave spiritual resurrection to many other souls.

When Patrick came to Dublina he prophesied how great that small village would someday become.  He also caused a fountain to spring up there.  It happened that in the region nearby, the young son of the king lay dead in his chamber.  The sorrow over his death was compounded when it was learned that his sister, who had gone to bathe in the neighboring river, had drowned in midstream.  Her body was finally found resting on the riverbed, and was laid out beside that of her brother.  Tombs were prepared for both according to pagan custom.

At this sorrowful time the rumor spread that Patrick of Ardmachia (Armagh), who in the Name of the Unknown God had raised many that were dead, had arrived in the village.  The king, Alphimus, promised that he, his nobles, and the whole "city" would be baptized into the new faith if his two children were restored.  Patrick, seeing the opportunity for a great gain of souls, raised them both to life.

By the physical resurrection of the prince and princess, the spiritual resurrection of the whole area from the darkness of paganism and idolatry was accomplished.  And the temporary resurrection of bodies (that is, until they died again) gave a promise of eternal life in Heaven and of the resurrection of the body on Judgment Day.

After the raising of this royal brother and sister, churches were built and tributes appointed to Patrick as their patron, that is, as the first Archbishop (or Bishop) of Ardmachia.  It is reputedly from the revived Princess Dublina that the present great city of Dublin got its name.

In the country of Neyll, a King Echu allowed St. Patrick to receive his beloved daughter Cynnia as a nun, though he bewailed the fact that his royal line would thereby end without issue.  The king exacted a promise from Patrick not to insist that he be baptized, yet to promise him the heavenly kingdom.  Patrick agreed, and left the matter in the hands of God.

Sometime later King Echu lay dying.  He sent a messenger to St. Patrick to tell him he desired Baptism and the heavenly kingdom.  To those around him the King gave an order that he not be buried until Patrick came.  Patrick, then in the monastery of Saballum, two days' journey away, knew of the situation through the Holy Spirit before the messenger even arrived.  He left to go to the King, but arrived to find Echu dead.

St. Patrick revived the King, instructed him, and baptized him.  He asked Echu to relate what he had seen of the joys of the just and the pains of the wicked, so that his account could be used for the proving of Patrick's preaching.  Echu told of many other-world wonders and of how, in the heavenly country, he had seen the place that Patrick promised him.  But the King could not enter in because he was unbaptized.

Then St. Patrick asked Echu if he would rather live longer in this world, or go to the place prepared for him in the heavenly kingdom.  The King answered that all the world had was emptiest smoke compared to the celestial joys.  Then having received the Eucharist, he fell asleep in the Lord.

There was a prince in Humestia who was baptized.  Later he expressed unbelief about the doctrine of the Resurrection.  After St. Patrick quoted various texts from the Scriptures, the prince said that if Patrick would raise his grandfather, by then buried many days, he would believe in that Resurrection which Patrick preached.

Patrick signed the tomb of the grandfather with his staff, had it opened, and prayed.  A man of very great height, but not as big as a "giant" who had recently been raised from a huge tomb by Patrick, came forth from the tomb.  He described the torments that went on in Hell, and was baptized.  He received the Eucharist, and retired again to his former sepulcher and "slept in the Lord."  After witnessing this miracle none doubted the truth of the Resurrection.

On another occasion a band of men who hated St. Patrick falsely accused him and his companions of stealing, and sentenced them to death.  Patrick raised a man from a nearby tomb and commanded him to witness to the truth of the case, which the resurrected man did.  He protested the innocence of Patrick and his companions and the deceit of the evil ones.  In the presence of all, the resurrected man also showed where the alleged stolen goods–some flax–were hidden.  Many of those who had conspired for the death of St. Patrick now became his converts.

It is interesting to note that each of the miracles related here was aimed at establishing truth, besides doing good to various individuals.  Here is a final example.

An evil man named Machaldus, and his companions, who placed on their heads certain diabolical signs called "Deberth," signifying their devotion to Satan, plotted to mock St. Patrick.  They covered one of their group, Garbanus, with a cloak as if he were dead.  Garbanus, though in perfect health, was placed on a couch as if laid out in preparation for burial.  The men then sent for Patrick, asking him to raise the covered Garbanus from the dead.  This was a fatal mistake.

St. Patrick told them it was with deceit, but not with falsehood , that they had declared their companion dead.  Disregarding their entreaties, Patrick went on his way, praying for the soul of the derider.

Then, uncovering their friend, the plotters found Garbanus not feigning death, but actually dead! Contrite of heart, they pursued St. Patrick; they obtained pardon and were baptized.  At their entreaty, St. Patrick also revived the dead Garbanus.

The same once-evil Machaldus became a great penitent, a bishop eminent in holiness and miracles, and became known as "St. Machaldus." 

Patrick also once raised to life a dead horse belonging to the charioteer of Darius.  He also restored to the charioteer the health he had lost after accusing Patrick of killing the horse.

One wonders why men question and marvel so at the "miracles of the saints" as if these were really their own miracles? If one thinks of these wonders as being primarily the miracles of God, which they are, why marvel? They are not "miracles" for God; for Him they are quite "ordinary" actions.

In the appendices at the end of Jocelin's Life of St. Patrick , in the Selections from the Elucidations of David Rothe, sometime bishop of Ossory, that bishop quotes another learned bishop: 

"Credulity may enter even the most virtuous mind; but when eminent men decline from this readiness of belief they fall into the opposite error, and become incredulous, while there is little fault in credulity, but much incredulity." 

The Blessed Mother At The Foot Of The Cross -- An Excellent Aspect Of Her Spirituality During The Lenten Season

Now there were standing by the Cross of Jesus His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw His Mother and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He said to His Mother, "Woman, behold Thy son." Then He said to the disciple, "Behold thy Mother." And from that hour the disciple took Her into his home. (John 19: 25-7)

We come now to the closing scene of our Redeemer's mortal life, when His Blessed Mother again appears and stands out as a prominent figure on one of the last pages of Gospel history. We had almost seemed to lose sight of Her since the return from Egypt, and the retirement into the hidden life at Nazareth; certainly since the beginning of the public ministry at the marriage feast at Cana; and therefore, Her reappearance here, at the close of it, is so much the more remarkable, especially as She does not remain upon the scene and accompany Our Lord during the forty days of His sojourn upon earth after His Resurrection; but on the contrary, does not even find a place in the record either of that mystery, or of the Ascension. 

The pious imagination of the faithful may picture to itself what it pleases as to Mary's part in those glorious mysteries; but the Gospel only sets Her before us in the sorrowful mystery of the Crucifixion, just where we should, perhaps, have least looked for Her. Nevertheless, there She stands at the foot of the Cross; and as we cannot think of the Child laid in the hard bed of the crib at Bethlehem without His Mother watching over Him, so neither will the Gospel let us picture to ourselves the Man of Sorrows stretched on His last and more cruel bed of the Cross, on Calvary, without His Mother also.

And observe, it is only at the Crucifixion itself that She appears, not in any earlier stages of the Passion. She is not of the number of those women who followed Jesus along the way of sorrows, "bewailing and lamenting Him," and St. Leo points out to us the reason for Her absence. Those women, good and pious as they were, were only moved (he says) by human sympathy, at seeing a just man suffering unjustly; they wept as for a weak and helpless man, led forth to a cruel and ignominious death. But Mary must not be confused with these. She knew the dignity of the Sufferer, the causes and the fruits of the suffering; and She stood there as representing—almost as being in Herself at that moment—"the Church of the living God, the pillar of truth"; not attracted by any merely natural sympathy, or giving way to merely natural feelings. 

On the contrary, there is an entire absence of every sign of natural weakness and woe; no fainting or sobbing, no outcry, no wild gesture of uncontrollable grief; She stands motionless as a statue, not surely a statue of indifference, nor yet of stupor and amazement, but simply a statue of tranquility: a witness of all that happens, a fellow-victim in some sort with the Sufferer, Herself ready to do and suffer God's holy will in all things, even at this most trying moment in Her life. "She stood by the Cross of Her Son." Amid that troubled scene of pain and sorrow, blood and tears; amid the blasphemies of the executioners, the insults of the people, the consternation of the disciples, the cries and lamentations of the pious women, the last words and the loud cry of the Divine Victim Himself, the commotion and darkness of entire nature, Mary, the Virgin Mother Mary, with a strength beyond Her sex, beyond that of ordinary humanity, stood calm and silent. "I read that She stood," says St. Ambrose, "I do not read that She wept." And surely we cannot wonder that the Church should have always recognized in this most touching and amazing incident, a deep mystery, and a fruitful source of consolation and grace.

You may say, indeed, that the Evangelist gives no indications of this mystery in his mode of relating the circumstance; that he simply records what happened as a matter of history, without manifesting any sentiment about it at all. And this is true. But the same remark might be made on every part of the Gospel narrative. Everything in it is simple, but everything is also profound; and these two characters are united and yet distinct, even as the two Natures in Him of Whom the Gospel speaks, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who was at the same time perfect Man and perfect God, but yet one Person. Even so, the Gospels are to be received as narratives in all the simplicity of their historical meaning, and to be studied as mysteries in all the depth of their doctrinal signification; and yet they are but one and the same Scripture. 

This reflection must needs force itself, more or less, on every thoughtful student of the inspired narrative. None but the most careless and indifferent reader could rest content with what lies upon the surface in this passage of the Gospels. For, at first sight, the brief simplicity of St. John's words is so absolute that you would think he had failed to recognize any hidden food, either of doctrine or devotion, in what he said; as though it were possible that the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had leaned on Jesus' breast, and heard and felt the beatings of the Sacred Heart as He instituted the Sacrament of His love, should have been present when His Master was dying a death of agony and shame, and should have received from His dying lips the solemn trust of caring for His widowed and desolate Mother, and yet have felt no emotion at the tender confidence implied in so touching a gift. 

He expresses none in his words, but this is because he writes, not as a man, but as one inspired by the Holy Ghost; the Divine inspiration supersedes and conceals all human feeling; he records the facts which it concerned the Church to know; the full import of those facts the Church would hereafter learn through the same Holy Ghost, Who would be sent to teach Her all truth.

 But again it is objected that the whole incident was simply natural, the dutiful act of a dying Son, affectionately careful to provide a home and a protector for a Mother who was presently to be left in singular desolation. But surely it is scarcely possible that any man can acquiesce in this interpretation who holds a right faith in the doctrine of the Incarnation; who really believes that Jesus Christ was God, and that He was at this moment accomplishing the one great end of His mission upon earth, paying the price of the world's redemption. 

The Evangelist who alone has recorded the incident of which we are speaking, goes on immediately to add that Jesus, "knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, 'I thirst'," after which, having said, "It is consummated," He "bowed His head and gave up the ghost." You see the Divine Wisdom, which "reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly," was most careful in appointing every circumstance of this august ceremonial, if I may so speak—this "High Mass of the world's Redemption," as it has been called, "offered by Jesus to the Eternal Father, while countless angels are the audience and spectators." At such a moment there was no room for anything merely temporary, personal or private; all was public, universal, and of perpetual application, "for us men and for all salvation."

We know indeed that in that same hour Jesus prayed for His murderers and promised Paradise to the penitent thief; but though that prayer and that promise were made for certain definite individuals and couched in private and particular terms, yet they had also another and a larger sense, in which they are not even yet exhausted. He prayed not for those only who were then and there putting Him to death, but also for all sinners to the end of the world, who, as St. Paul tells us, are continually repeating as it were that crime, "crucifying to themselves again the Son of God;" and that most gracious promise to the thief is a pledge and assurance of the forgiveness of all true penitents even to the end of time. Just so, these few words spoken to His Blessed Mother and to St. John were of no merely temporary and present signification, but established the relation of Mother and Son between the Blessed Virgin and the faithful in all ages.

The Blessed Virgin stood at the foot of the Cross, not merely or principally because of the natural love which She bore to the Fruit of Her womb Who hung thereon; for nature would rather have taught Her, for His sake at least, if not for Her own, to be absent from so terrible a spectacle, since, so far from being able to relieve His sufferings, She could only add to them the further pain of witnessing Her own. But She was there for this very end, that She might receive this legacy from Her dying Son—us to be Her children. And St. John too stood at the foot of the Cross and received this last token of his Savior's love, not on his own account merely, and as something personal to himself as one of the sons of Zebedee, but rather as he was a type of all good Christians, the representative of the whole body of faithful disciples. 

And Our Lord spoke, not as the Son of Mary or the Master of John, but as the Redeemer of mankind; and therefore it was that He addressed the Blessed Virgin not by the endearing term of Mother, expressing that natural relationship towards Her which was then so deeply involved and so cruelly tried, but by the mere cold and distant name of Woman: "Woman behold Thy son." "Not as though He ignored or refused the duties of filial piety," says St. Ambrose, "but to show that everything in Him, even the most innocent and holy affections, was altogether subject to the one end for which He came into the world, to do the will of His Heavenly Father and to redeem lost humanity."

Again, this word Woman, thus solemnly uttered at the close of Our Lord's ministry, naturally carries us back to that other occasion when it was first spoken at its commencement: we are transported in memory and imagination from Calvary to Cana. Then Jesus said His hour was not yet come; and during the course of His ministry, the Evangelists remind us of this mysterious hour, St. John telling us on more than one occasion (7: 30 and 8: 20), that the Jews "wanted to seize Jesus, but no one laid hands on Him because His hour was not yet come." 

But by-and-by, "before the feast of the Passover," we read that Jesus knew "that His hour had come, to pass out of this world to the Father" (13: 1). He begins also to speak of His death, and He says distinctly, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." He prays also, "Father, save Me from this hour! No, this is why I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name!" (12: 23-27) And after the agony in the garden, He tells His disciples, "Behold, the hour is at hand" (Matt. 26: 45).

In this hour then, now that it is come, He once more addresses the "Woman" whom so long ago He had seemed to disown and to separate Himself from, because the hour was not yet come. Jesus now recognizes Mary, speaks to Her, thereby assigning Her place in the new and spiritual kingdom which He was establishing. 

She was to be the Mother of its members: She was already the Mother of its Head—Himself, and could not, of course, ever cease to be so; but henceforth She was to be our Mother also, because we were now His brethren. "To as many as received Him He gave the power of becoming sons of God; to those who believe in His Name" (John 1: 12). St. John was the type of all these; and he became both the son of God and the son of Mary. As Jesus, by the mystery of the Incarnation, was given to God and to Mary as the Son of Man, so by the mystery of the Crucifixion we also are made at one and the same moment children of God and of Mary.

 By the one mystery the Son of God was made Man; in the other, the children of men are made the sons of God; and in both Mary has Her place. In the one, She is declared by the salutation of an Angel to be the Mother of God; in the other, by the express appointment of God, She is made to be the Mother of men.

And yet once more; this title of Woman thus publicly proclaimed at the beginning of the new creation seems to take us back to the beginning of the old creation, when God said to the serpent, "I will put enmities between thee and the Woman, and thy seed and Her Seed; She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel." For that prophecy was now being fulfilled: the serpent was at this very time pouring forth the utmost venom of his malice upon the heel of the Woman's Seed, the only part in which He was vulnerable, His human nature which He had received from Mary; and at the same time, that Seed of the Woman, or the Woman by Her Seed, was crushing the serpent's head. He was "blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us; and He was taking the same out of the way, fastening it to the Cross, and despoiling the principalities and powers" (Col. 2: 14-15). 

And in the same hour, Mary also was fulfilling in a signal manner, in Her own person, a part at least of the sentence originally pronounced against the woman: "I will multiply thy sorrows and thy conceptions; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." For this scene of Mount Calvary was at once to make Her childless and to give Her multitudes of children; and certainly no one will dispute the fitness of that language of the prophet which the Church uses to express the dolors of Mary at that moment: "O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to My sorrow... To whom shall I compare Thee, or to what shall I liken Thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?" (Lament. 1: 12; 2: 13) And as Jesus by the sacrifice He was then offering of Himself was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaias (53: 10): "If He shall lay down His life for sin, He shall see a long-lived seed," so Mary, by uniting in the same sacrifice, became a partaker in the same blessing, and She who had brought forth Her "first-born" without pain in Bethlehem, now became the Mother of "a long-lived seed" amid all the pangs of a most cruel martyrdom on Calvary.

If St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4: 15), could justly claim the title of a parent in their regard, because he had preached the Gospel to them, and converted them from Heathenism, saying, "In Christ Jesus, through the Gospel, did I beget you," how much more justly may not She claim to be our Mother, from whom we have received not the mere oral preaching of the Gospel, but the Author of the Gospel Himself. If the manifold labors of the Apostolate give a right to the name and authority of a Father, and may even be justly compared to the pains of maternity: "My dear children, with whom I am in labor again, until Christ is formed in you" (Gal. 4: 19), certainly the Dolors or the Compassion (as it is sometimes called) of Our Lady on Mount Calvary, give more than a sufficient right to the name and affections of Mother. 

 She had borne us, as it were, in the womb of Her affections from the moment of the Annunciation, when She knew that the Holy One which would be born of Her was to save His people from their sins, and knew also the cost at which He must do it. 

When She made an offering of Him in the Temple, and the aged Simeon told Her of the sword that should pierce Her soul, She received Him back from the hands of the priest, not to bring Him up as Her own Son and for Herself, but even as Jochabed received back her infant child Moses from the hands of Pharaoh's daughter, as a child whom she was to nurse for a while, but when he should be grown up, must deliver again that he might "go forth to his brethren and redeem them from their affliction." And now that the time is fully come, She stands on Mount Calvary, not as a mere spectator, but as a partaker and a co-operator in a great supernatural mystery. She stands there, to consummate that offering of Herself and of Her Son which had first been made thirty-four years before, in those words which She addressed to the Angel, "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord; be it done to Me according to thy word;" an offering which had been renewed again and again ever since, but was now to be ratified for the last time and forever.

But Oh!, who shall say what the ratification cost Her! Two opposing interests divided Her Maternal Heart; two contrary affections contended within Her, like the two twins struggling in the womb of Rebecca—the Son of God and the sons of men; and it was impossible that either should be satisfied except by the sacrifice of the other. 

The sons of men were not to be saved but by the death of the Son of God; if the bitter chalice of suffering and of death was to pass away and He drink it not, they would still remain in bondage: which should prevail? Well might She at such a moment repeat the lamentation of Rebecca: "If it were to be so with me, what need was there to conceive?” To what end did I conceive the Son of God, if He was to be thus cruelly sacrificed in My sight? Wherefore was I saluted as "blessed amongst women," if I was to be made the most desolate of mothers? Such at least would certainly have been the voice of nature; but not such was the voice of Mary. 

She knew that "the elder must serve the younger;" that He was come among us "as One Who serveth;" She had brought Him forth, not that He might live, but that He might die, to the end that we should live. She was not the Mother of a Man-God Who afterwards became a Victim for the sins of the world, but She was the Mother of One conceived and born only to be a Victim; She had been made the Mother of God that She might also become the Mother of men.

There hung Her first-born, the Son of God, expiring on the Cross; but from His own dying lips She receives the other, "the disciple whom He loved"—"Woman, behold Thy son." And in him She receives all those other disciples whom Jesus loved; those whom He so loved that He laid down His life for their sakes. She understands and accepts the exchange; She undertakes, and ever after fulfills, the office assigned to Her. For when God bestows a title, or calls by a special name, His works accompany His words, or rather His words are themselves works. They are not like the words of men, a mere breath of the mouth dividing the air, striking the ears of those who hear, and then passing away and becoming as though they had never been; they are works, as I have said—they do what they say. 

As at the first, "He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created," so has it continued ever since. God called Abram Abraham, or the father of many nations, and He made him such. He changed the name of Simon to Peter, or Rock, and He made him the rock whereon He built His Church. And so here also, when He called Mary our Mother, He made Her such. He filled Her Heart with a Mother's love and care for us; He endowed Her with a Mother's power and Mother's privileges in our regard. 

And since His words once spoken do not pass away, but abide forever, She still remains, and will remain to the day of judgment, and even in the day of judgment itself, our most tender and loving Mother. Yes, Mary is the Mother of Jesus, and She is also our Mother; Mother of Him in Heaven, of us on earth. What then may we not hope for? For what can She not do with Him? What will She not do for us? He Who gave the command, "Honor thy father and mother," cannot be indifferent to a Mother’s prayers. She who received this last dying injunction from Her Son to "behold Her children," will not neglect Her children’s wants.