Catholic Saints & Feasts

Auteur(s): Fr. Michael Black
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  • Résumé

  • "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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Pastorale et évangélisme Spiritualité
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Épisodes
  • January 25: The Conversion of Saint Paul

    January 25: The Conversion of Saint Paul
    Jan 25 2025
    January 25: The Conversion of Saint Paul
    First Century
    Feast; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of missionaries, evangelists, and writers

    One man can change the world

    In the long history of the Church, no conversion has been more consequential than Saint Paul’s. Paul had not been ambivalent toward the Church before he converted. He had actively persecuted it, even throwing rocks at the head of Saint Stephen, in all likelihood. But he changed, or God changed him, on one particular night. And on that night, Christianity changed too. And when the course of Christianity changed, the world changed. It is difficult to overemphasize the import of Saint Paul’s conversion.

    One way to think about the significance of an event, whether big or small, is to consider what things would have been like if the event had never occurred. This is the premise behind the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” You compare actual life with a hypothetical “what if” alternative scenario. What if Saint Paul had remained a zealous Jew? What if he had never converted? Never wrote one letter? Never travelled the high seas on missionary voyages? It can safely be assumed that the world itself, not just the Church, would look different than it does today. Perhaps Christianity would have remained confined to Palestine for many more centuries before breaking out into wider Europe. Maybe Christianity would have taken a right turn instead of a left, and all of China and India would be as culturally Catholic as Europe is today. It’s impossible to say. But the global scale of the effects of Paul’s ministry speak to the significance of his conversion.

    Some conversions are dramatic, some boring. Some are instantaneous, some gradual. Augustine heard a boy in a garden repeating, “Take and Read,” and knew the time had come. Saint Francis heard Christ say from the cross, “Rebuild My Church,” and responded with his life. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the father of abortion in the United States, repudiated and repented of his life’s work and searched for a real Church to forgive his real sins. He ultimately bowed his head to receive the waters of baptism.

    The details of Paul’s conversion are well known. He was, perhaps, thrown from his horse on the road to Damascus (except that Acts makes no mention of a horse). Maybe he just fell down while walking. While stunned on the ground, Paul heard the voice of Jesus ask: “Why are you persecuting me?”—not “Why are you persecuting my followers.” Jesus and the Church are clearly one. To persecute the Church is to persecute Christ. Jesus is the head, and the Church is His body. Paul did not convert to loving Jesus while saying that the Church was just an accidental human construct that blocked him from the Lord. No, of course not! He believed what right-minded Catholics have believed for centuries and still believe today. To love Jesus is to love the Church, and vice versa. It is impossible to love the Lord while disregarding the historical reality of how the Lord is communicated to us. The Church is not just a vehicle to carry God’s revelation. The Church is as much a part of God’s revelation as Scripture.

    Paul’s conversion teaches us that when Jesus comes to us, He doesn’t come alone. He comes with His angels, saints, priests, and bishops. He comes with Mary, the sacraments, doctrine, and devotions. He comes with the Church, because He and the Church are one. And when we go to the Lord, we don’t go alone either. We go as members of a Church into whose mystical body we were baptized. Thus Saint Paul heard from God Himself, and thus we believe today.

    Saint Paul, we ask your openness to conversion when we hear the Lord speak to us as He spoke to you. Assist us in responding with great faith to every invitation we receive to love the Lord more fully, to know Him more deeply, and to spread His word more broadly to those who need it.
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    5 min
  • January 24: Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop

    January 24: Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop
    Jan 24 2025
    1567–1622
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of writers and journalists

    A talented gentleman of sterling character embodies holiness

    It is almost an act of rudeness to limit the life of today’s saint to a page or two. Saint Francis de Sales was a religious celebrity in his own day and age. He was an erudite, humble, tough, and zealous priest and bishop. He was holy and known to be holy by everyone, especially those closest to him. He mingled easily with princes, kings, and popes, who enjoyed his charming and educated company. He incessantly crisscrossed his diocese on foot and horseback, destroying his own health, to visit the poor and humble faithful who were drawn to him as much as the high born. He embodied to the fullest that extraordinary pastoral and intellectual productivity, characteristic of the greatest saints, which makes one wonder if he ever rested a single minute or slept a single night.

    Saint Francis de Sales was born and lived most of his life in what is today Southeast France. His father ensured that he received an excellent education from a young age, and his son excelled in every subject. His intellectual gifts, holiness, and engaging personality made him, almost inevitably, an ideal candidate for the priesthood and eventually the episcopacy. He was duly appointed the Bishop of Geneva, a generation after John Calvin, a former future priest, had turned that deeply Catholic city into the Protestant Rome. Saint Francis was Bishop of Geneva primarily in name, not fact.

    In carrying out his ministry, Francis’ weapon of choice was the pen. His apologetic and spiritual works brought back to the faith tens of thousands of former Catholics after they had dabbled in Calvinism. Saint Francis’s works were so profound and creative, and his love of God so straightforward and understandable, that he would be declared a Doctor of the Church in 1877. In his most well-known book, Introduction to the Devout Life, he addressed himself to “people who live in towns, within families, or at court.” His sage spiritual advice encouraged the faithful to seek perfection in the mechanic’s shop, the soldier’s regiment, or on the wharf. God’s will was to be found everywhere, not just in monasteries and convents.

    Many arduous pastoral trips through the mountains of his native region eventually wore him out. Saint Francis never insisted on preferential treatment despite his status. He slept, ate, and traveled as a common man would. When he lay dying, mute after a terrible stroke, a nun asked him if he had any final words of wisdom to impart. He asked for some paper and wrote three words on it: “Humility, Humility, Humility.” Saint Francis is buried in a beautiful bronze sepulchre displaying his likeness in the Visitation Basilica and Convent in Annecy, France.

    Saint Francis de Sales, we ask your intercession to aid us in leading a balanced life of study, prayer, virtue, and service. You were a model bishop who never expected special privilege. Help all those who teach the faith to convey doctrine with the same force, clarity, and depth that you did.
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    4 min
  • January 23: Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin (U.S.A.)

    January 23: Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin (U.S.A.)
    Jan 22 2025
    January 23: Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin (U.S.A.)
    1838–1918
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of Hawaiʻi, lepers, outcasts, and sufferers of HIV/AIDS

    She learned generosity at home and lived it her whole life

    Today’s saint was a model female Franciscan who emulated Saint Francis’ heroic example of personally caring for the outcasts of all outcasts—lepers. Saints are not born, of course; they are made. And Saint Marianne Cope came from a specific time, place, and family. She could have developed her abundant talents in many directions and used them for many purposes, but she re-directed what God loaned her to serve Him, His Church, and mankind. The Church, the Franciscans, and Hawaiʻi were the arenas in which this elite spiritual athlete exercised her skills. She was asked for much and gave even more. She became a great woman.

    Marianne Cope was born in Germany and was brought to New York state by her parents when she was still a baby. She was the oldest of ten children. Her parents lived, struggled, and worked for their kids. She saw generosity in action at home every day. She quit school after eighth grade to work in a factory to financially support her ailing father, her mother, and her many siblings. The challenges inherent to immigration, a new culture, illness, a large family, and poverty turned Marianne into a serious, mature woman when she was just a teen.

    Marianne fulfilled her long-delayed desire to enter religious life in 1862. Once professed, she moved quickly into leadership positions. She taught in German-speaking Catholic grade schools, became a school principal, and was elected by her fellow Franciscans to positions of governance in her Order. She opened the first hospitals in her region of Central New York, dedicating herself and her Order to the time-honored religious vocation of caring for the sick, regardless of their ability to pay for medical services. She was eventually elected Superior General. In her early forties, she was already a woman of wide experience: serious, administratively gifted, spiritually grounded, and of great human virtues. But this was all mere preparation. She now began the second great act of her drama. She went to Hawaiʻi.

    In 1883 she received a letter from the Bishop of Honolulu begging her, as Superior General, to send sisters to care for lepers in Hawaiʻi. He had written to various other religious Orders without success. Sister Marianne was elated. She responded like the prophet Isaiah, saying, “Here am I; send me!” (Is 6:8). She not only sent six sisters, she sent herself! She planned to one day return to New York but never did. For the next thirty-five years, Sister Marianne Cope became a type of recluse on remote Hawaiʻi, giving herself completely to the will of God.

    Sister Marianne and her fellow Franciscans managed one hospital, founded another, opened a home for the daughters of lepers, and, after a few years of proving themselves, opened a home for women and girls on the virtually inaccessible island of Molokai. Here her life coincided with the final months of Saint Damien de Veuster. Sister Marianne nursed the future saint in his dying days, assuring him that she and her sisters would continue his work among the lepers. After Father Damien died, the Franciscans, in addition to caring for the leprous girls, now cared for the boys too. A male Congregation eventually relieved them of this apostolate.

    Sister Marianne Cope lived the last thirty years of her life on Molokai until her death in 1918. She was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 and canonized by him in 2012. She loved the Holy Eucharist, the Virgin Mary, and the Church. And because she loved God first, she loved those whom God loves, her brothers and sisters in Christ. She sacrificed for them, left home and family for them, put her health at risk for them, and became a saint through them.

    Saint Marianne Cope, help us to be as generous as you were in serving those on the margins, those who need our help, and those who have no one else to assist them. You were a model Franciscan in dying to self. Help us to likewise die so that we might likewise live.
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    5 min

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