Épisodes

  • September 17: Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Virgin and Doctor

    September 17: Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Virgin and Doctor
    Sep 17 2024
    September 17: Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Virgin and Doctor
    1098-1179
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patroness of philologists

    A one-woman magisterium orchestrates a life in tune with the Creator

    In the high Middle-Ages, she was New-Age. Before farm-to-table was a term, she lived organically. Before alternative medicine was de rigueur, she catalogued the medicinal benefits of herbs, plants, minerals, and potions. And before anyone ever “went green” to save planet earth, she talked about the “viriditas,” or greenness, of God, meaning how His graces watered a desiccated soul until it flowered with fresh, green, life. Hildegard of Bingen was far, far, ahead of her time even though, from an external perspective, she lived the austere, rigorous, cloistered life common to the female religious of her era.

    Hildegard was born in the Rhineland, the very western region of modern Germany, to a minor noble family. Her mother and father placed her in the care of a well-known local abbess for her education at the tender age of eight, where she learned Latin and the teachings of the Catholic religion. Her world deepened and broadened inside the four walls of her simple Benedictine convent. When her mentor died, Hildegard became the abbess and soon moved the convent, generating some tension in the process, to a new location where it could better flourish as her fame attracted more and more notice and vocations.

    Hildegard was unusual for her time. She was unusual, in fact, for any time. She was a polymath with eclectic interests in numerous fields of study. She was a sophisticated and prolific composer of sacred music whose voluminous works surpass the output of almost any other Mediaeval musician. She had an advanced understanding of medicine and the human body, including an almost complete knowledge of how blood circulated in the body - four centuries before such knowledge was verified through post-mortem studies. Hildegard also had detailed knowledge of animal and plant life, of rocks, reptiles, fish, and the natural sciences in general.

    Yet if she must be known for one thing above all, it must be for her pyrotechnic visions of God and the cosmos. Hildegard’s colorful visions are difficult to classify. She described them as a wide-awake spiritual awareness of the “reflection of the living light.” From childhood, she felt her entire body – bones, nerves, veins, senses – all rising ever higher into the vault of heaven where she experienced all of creation in its particularity and in its oneness. These were not ecstasies or physical transportations, but an eyes-wide-open, all-sensory experience of sermons, virtues, writings, and other human actions as if they were shimmering like the sun on the mirror-like surface of a lake. The over-arching theme of these visions was the mystical marriage between God and His creation through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, a union consummated on the cross, where Christ makes his Bride, the Church, fertile for humanity.

    As Hildegard’s writings became more well-known, the Pope was asked for his appreciation of their theological orthodoxy or heterodoxy. Pope Eugene III approved of Hildegarde’s description of her visions, with a prudent warning for Hildegard to avoid any pride in being so blessed. The great St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a famous contemporary of Hildegard, was also asked his opinions about her writings and the two exchanged letters. In fact, many people, both humble and exalted, corresponded with Hildegard, leaving behind one of the most massive caches of extant letters from mediaeval times.

    In the last years of her life, despite worsening health, Hildegarde’s prestige was such that she was given permission to leave her convent in order to preach in town squares and Churches, something almost unheard of for a woman of her era. She died in the odor of sanctity on September 17, 1179, the day on which her liturgical memorial is celebrated today. In the 2012 Papal Bull declaring her a Doctor of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that “the corpus of her writings, for their quantity, quality and variety of interests, is unmatched by any other female author of the Middle Ages.”

    Saint Hildegarde, your creative and versatile soul brought a feminine genius to the Church’s theological and spiritual patrimony, using poetic and symbolic language to express the mysterious richness of God and his creation. Inspire all Christians to read creation like a book of divine life.
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    6 min
  • September 17: Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop and Doctor

    September 17: Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop and Doctor
    Sep 17 2024
    September 17: Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop and Doctor
    1542–1621
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of catechists and catechumens

    A learned scholar with a warm personality drives the Counter-Reformation forward

    A massive, multi-volume work of Christian theology was published in the 1580s refuting Protestant errors. The volumes were of such encyclopedic and commanding erudition that readers assumed that the name on the books’ spines, “Bellarmine,” referred to an entire faculty of scholars. But the volumes were the work of just one incredible man, today’s saint, Robert Bellarmine. He was a one-man university. The Bellarmines had a pope in the family and gave their son a broad education from his youth. Young Robert mastered numerous subjects, including the art of playing the violin. He joined the Jesuits in 1560 and taught the classics while simultaneously studying theology on his path to the Priesthood. After his ordination in 1570, he became a professor at the University of Louvain, in modern-day Belgium, and then at the Jesuit College in Rome.

    During his long career as a professor, Father Bellarmine never stopped learning. He was rigorous in his intellectual approach, read everything, and was particularly focused on refuting, with nuance, Protestant errors. He even learned Hebrew and wrote a Hebrew grammar to counter the thesis of a then popular Protestant history book. The times demanded that Bellarmine develop an expertise in apologetics, to be totally engaged with the red-hot controversies of his day. This was not the age for theological speculation or philosophical rumination, as the medieval scholastics could indulge in. This was the age to master first principles, to delve into the ancient sources, to root out error, and to express the perennial truths of Catholicism with renewed vigor surrounded by new art, architecture, and sacred music. It was a total mind-body approach. It was the Baroque exploding before your eyes. It was the onslaught of the Counter-Reformation, and Robert Bellarmine was the tip of the spear.

    Bellarmine’s long list of accomplishments is astonishing. He helped produce a new edition of Saint Jerome’s Vulgate Bible, participated in the revision of the Julian calendar, and contributed to the authoritative Catechism which the Church published for over three hundred years. He served on a papal commission that arbitrated a major conflict over the Kingship of France, became a regional superior for the Jesuits, and was ordained a bishop and consecrated a Cardinal. He was a trusted adviser to successive popes, was tasked with resolving a bitter dispute over the theology of grace between Dominicans and Jesuits, and escaped being elected Pope himself by the narrowest of margins in 1605. After this near miss with destiny, he was appointed to serve on various Roman Congregations and as prefect of the Vatican library, so he resigned from his diocesan responsibilities and returned to Rome for the rest of his life, where he became the Holy See’s indispensable man. His long and faithful service at the highest levels of the Church culminated in his playing a role in the famous process against Galileo, who was Bellarmine’s personal friend. Our saint’s last years were spent writing devotional works on prayer and dying well.

    Robert Bellarmine accepted the trappings of his office—robes, servants, and a carriage—but he lived austerely and expected all priests to do the same. His virtues equaled his achievements. He had an attractive blend of warmth, intelligence, and big-heartedness that earned him a huge circle of friends. He knew the truth like few others but listened carefully and respectfully to all who challenged it. Robert Bellarmine was canonized in 1930 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931. He is buried in the Jesuit Church of Saint Ignatius in Rome.

    Saint Robert Bellarmine, we see in your life a beautiful dedication to theological truth, personal austerity, and openness toward others. We ask your intercession before God to give all the faithful the gift to live so balanced and integrated a life.
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    6 min
  • September 16: Saint Cyprian, Bishop, Martyr

    September 16: Saint Cyprian, Bishop, Martyr
    Sep 16 2025
    September 16: Saint Cyprian, Bishop, Martyr
    c.200–258
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red
    Patron Saint of Algeria and North Africa

    The faithful soak up the blood of their beheaded bishop

    The elegantly named Thaschus Caecilius Cyprianus was born in an uncertain year in that buzzing beehive of early Christianity known as Roman North Africa. His biography epitomizes that of many greats of his era: a classically educated Roman citizen of renown finds Christ as an adult, leaves behind his exalted civic status, trades Empire for Church, and places his gifts and reputation at the service of the people as a bishop of consequence. But because he lived in times of hot persecution, Cyprian’s life did not come to a peaceful end like others with similar biographies, such as Saints Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, or Paulinus of Nola. The mighty Bishop Cyprian was sentenced to death by a local bureaucrat. On the fateful day, he knelt in the burning sand and waited for the heavy Roman sword to lop off his head. Cyprian’s cult of martyrdom sprang up instantly, even as the faithful, carrying white cloths, soaked up the holy blood that dripped from his torso. His name was soon placed in the Roman Canon, where it remains today, spoken from the altar and heard by the faithful at Mass in Eucharistic Prayer I.

    Cyprian was a big-hearted, well-educated “man about town” when, in his mid-forties, he was converted by the example and words of an old priest. He redirected his life, made a vow of chastity that astonished his friends, and even abstained from his greatest pleasure—the works of pagan authors. In all of Cyprian’s Christian writings, there is not one single citation of these pagans whose style and thought Cyprian had so admired. Once converted, Cyprian’s mind focused on Scripture and the growing canon of Christian theology, mostly that of his fellow North African Tertullian. Soon after his baptism, Cyprian was ordained a priest, and in 248, after first resisting the appointment, he was made the bishop of his home city of Carthage. His impressive bearing and refined education earned him deep respect among the faithful. His biographer, a deacon named Pontus, wrote about Cyprian precisely so that the great man would be known for the example of his entire life, not just his last few heroic moments.

    Under the persecution of the Emperor Decius (249–252), which so marked the life of the third-century Church, many Christians lined up at the office of their local Roman official to offer token worship to pagan gods and to receive a libellus, or small sheet, documenting their apostasy. Cyprian lost all his possessions in this persecution but avoided capture by going into hiding. He governed his diocese remotely through letters. He was also compelled to defend his flight against criticism levelled by bishops in both Rome and North Africa that he was avoiding martyrdom. Once the tide of persecution subsided, Cyprian returned to Carthage and was lenient but clear, like his contemporary Pope Cornelius, in reintegrating the lapsi back into the Church once they had performed a suitable penance.

    The roiling debate over how to pastorally respond to the lapsi divided the Church in North Africa, with some priests arguing no forgiveness was possible for idolaters, and others demanding that the lapsi perform onerous penances before they were received again into the fold. Cyprian responded to these divisions by writing a treatise on Church unity, arguing that the Pope’s teaching on this matter must be obeyed: “There is one God, one Christ, and but one episcopal chair, originally founded on Peter, by the Lord’s authority. There cannot be set up another altar or another priesthood.” Cyprian later clashed with Pope Stephen I over the validity of the sacraments performed by priests who had apostatized, a matter resolved after both mens’ death in favor of the Roman position of leniency.

    Cyprian’s fellow North African, Saint Augustine of Hippo, in Book Five of his Confessions, recounts how his mother, Monica, prayed in a shrine dedicated to Saint Cyprian in the port city of Carthage around 375 A.D. So, approximately one hundred and twenty years after Cyprian’s death, his legacy was firmly established, fresh and alive, as it still is today.

    Saint Cyprian, you served the unity of the Church as a bishop, understood the beauty and necessity of the sacraments, and accepted death over apostasy. Inspire all bishops to be magnets, drawing the faithful toward Christ and the Church through their teaching and witness.
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    6 min
  • September 16: Saint Cornelius, Pope, Martyr

    September 16: Saint Cornelius, Pope, Martyr
    Sep 16 2025
    September 16: Saint Cornelius, Pope, Martyr
    c. Late Second, or Early Third, Century–253
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red
    Patron Saint of cattle, domestic animals, and earache sufferers

    A Pope reigns for two years, excommunicates a schismatic, and dies in exile

    The twenty-first pope of the Church, Saint Cornelius, succeeded no one. After the death of Pope Saint Fabian, martyred in January 250, persecutions prohibited the clergy of Rome from electing a successor, so the Chair of Saint Peter was vacant for over a year. Finally, when the cruel Emperor Decius departed Rome on military campaign, the clergy chose Cornelius as Bishop of Rome. Not everyone was happy with the choice, especially the former future pope Novatian, who had led the Roman clergy during the vacancy and had convinced himself that he was going to be elected. Novatian’s supporters consecrated him bishop and refused to acknowledge Cornelius. Sides were taken, letters were written, and tensions heightened. After consolidating support from the esteemed Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, and others, Cornelius resolved the dispute by convening a synod of bishops which excommunicated the schismatic Novatian and his followers.

    Pope Cornelius reigned for a little over two years, from March 251 to June 253. Even though his time in office was brief, he made some important decisions and left an interesting legacy. Decius’ persecution gave rise to the greatest pastoral dilemma of the third century—how, and whether, to reintegrate Christians who had offered pagan sacrifice, regretted it, and desired to enter again into the embrace of Mother Church. The related question of whether bishops, priests, and deacons who had apostosized could perform valid sacraments would vex Cornelius’s successors. There were two camps on this issue. Novatian held that lapsed Christians were idolaters, and idolatry was, in the Old Testament especially, unforgivable. The Church could not absolve such apostates. They were to be judged by God alone at death. Cornelius, Saint Cyprian, and other bishops occupied a more moderate position. They taught that the lapsi could be reintegrated into the Church through repentance and an appropriate penance. Cornelius’ position won the day, forever and always, establishing an important theological precedent: There is no sin that cannot be forgiven.

    Pope Cornelius also left, in his letters, an important record of the size, state, and organization of the Church of Rome, hard facts so obvious to those inside of a culture that they often go unreported in historical documents. Decius’ successor as Emperor was named Gallus, and he was no friend of Christians either. He banished Cornelius to a city not far from Rome where the Pope died of physical hardship. Saint Cornelius was buried near the papal crypt in the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus. One day in 1849, an amateur archeologist, a layman who worked in the Vatican library, found a small marble shard that read NELIUS MARTYR in a field on the outskirts of Rome. But there was no martyr named Nelius. He then found another shard that read COR. The inscription is still visible today in the Catacombs of Callixtus: Cornelius Martyr.

    The Romans unsheathed their long knives in the 250s. Pope after pope was martyred by various means. But the Church did not run and hide, it stayed and grew. The blood of Cornelius and other pope-martyrs wet the soil, and the seeds of faith moistened, grew, and sprouted into the vast garden of Catholicism that slowly, and imperceptibly, took deep root in the ground of Europe. Saint Cornelius’ name is read at Mass in Eucharistic Prayer I even today, next to Saint Cyprian’s. He was staunch in his defense of the Church, yet appropriately lenient to his fellow Christians who did not possess his same fortitude. In this respect, he was as wise a pastor as he was brave a martyr.

    Saint Cornelius, our Lord said that it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world if he would lose his own soul. You gained the papacy, not the whole world, yet gave it up rather than bend to the will of the Church’s enemies. Help us to persevere like you.
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    6 min
  • September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows

    September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows
    Sep 15 2025
    September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patroness of Slovakia

    A mother is only as happy as her saddest child

    Every life climbs its Calvary. Every soul has its quiet sorrow which cannot be shared in full with any other soul. This concealed pain is the very real drama that plays out behind the curtain of the duties and distractions of everyday life. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, shared in all things human, save sin, including pain and sorrow. So He wept at the death of Lazarus, and He balanced the heavy cross on His sore bones and trudged up a hill to His own execution. Thoughts and ideas can be shared in their totality. Emotions and experiences only partially so. Suffering is intensely private in that it is a personal, lived experience. The intense sufferings of Jesus Christ were intensified by His perfection. It was more unjust, more cruel, that one so perfect should suffer at the hands of creatures of His own making. Only a perfect being similar to Jesus could enter into His sorrow, could experience it somewhat as He did. That person was Mary. She was not a Goddess, of course, but the New Eve, the perfect person God intended that every person should be from the start. Because she was perfect, she most understood, and felt, the pain of her perfect Son. Shared perfection led to shared sorrow.

    Today’s feast commemorates the sorrows of Mary, most especially those lived during Jesus’ passion and death. Devotional images of Mary show her heart pierced by seven swords, symbolic of seven sorrows: the prophecy of Simeon; the flight into Egypt; Jesus being lost in the temple; meeting Jesus on His way to Calvary; standing at the foot of the Cross; being present when Jesus was removed from the Cross; and her presence at His burial. Mary was perfect, but her life wasn’t perfect. She was squeezed by the same wine press of pain, humiliation, and sorrow that squeezes every life. She was unmarried and pregnant and must have heard the neighbors’ whispers as she walked the dusty streets of her town. She and her family had to flee to a far-off land to escape the murderous King Herod the Great. She lived a real life stuffed with real human drama. But her most intense sorrows were felt when she was in her late forties, when her one and only child died a public death, leaving her, already a widow, totally alone, her middle-aged face stretched with sorrow.

    When our fingers and thumb walk up and down the chain of God’s mercy, we ruminate over things glorious, joyful, luminous, and sorrowful. We recall historical events like Christ’s Baptism and the Last Supper, and theological events like the Assumption and the Coronation.

    The Sorrowful Mysteries are historical. Mary hovers just off center stage. She stands nearby, amidst the crowd on the path to Calvary, upright and brave at the foot of the Cross, weeping as her dead boy is wrapped in a sheet and delicately placed on a cold slab in a rock-cut tomb. She is Our Lady of Sorrows because she, and the Church, are mothers. They give and nurture life. They feel more than men. They respond to suffering with co-suffering, not so much through actions and solutions. On today’s feast, we recall Mary’s sorrow and share in it. But our sorrow is not that of a godless Viking, a pagan Roman, or a modern secularist. Christian grief is not godless grief. Our grief, like Mary’s grief, is ameliorated by the sure and certain hope that the last word in our book is not death and despair but hope and life. Mary’s sorrow is temporary, as all of our sorrows one day will be. There is nothing that does not have a context, except for God. And the context for Christian sorrow is the Resurrection.

    Mary of Sorrows, you shared the pain and sorrow of your perfect Son but were never forlorn. Help all who turn to you to unite our sorrows to yours and His so that we may co-suffer in His death and co-share in His Resurrection.
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    6 min
  • September 14: Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    September 14: Exaltation of the Holy Cross
    Sep 14 2025
    September 14: Exaltation of the Holy Cross
    Feast; Liturgical Color: Red
    Patronal Feast of Cortona, Italy

    A torture device is transformed into a universal symbol of hope and peace

    If the Romans had hung criminals from a gibbet, then Catholic churches would display a noose in their sanctuaries instead of a cross. Or a statue of Jesus’ lifeless body would be hanging in the sanctuary from a sturdy branch with a rope wrapped tightly around His neck. If the Romans had practiced stoning as their chosen form of capital punishment, then there would be a pile of rocks for the congregation to gaze at in hope, with Jesus’ body, bruised and broken, lying lifeless nearby. We are accustomed to the cross. We wear it around our necks, chisel it onto our tombstones, tattoo it onto our arms, and anchor it into rocky mountain peaks. We even top our steeples with the cross and illuminate it at night. The Church has been so spectacularly successful in communicating its truths about suffering and death, about resurrection and life, that we perhaps don’t notice that, over long centuries, a device of torture and death has been reinterpreted as the world’s greatest symbol of life and peace.

    This is the paradox of the cross. Today’s feast commemorates the Cross because in spiritual combat with life, the cross lost. A conqueror might plant the head of his decapitated opponent on a spike, a soldier might return from a far-away war with an enemies’ flag captured in the heat of battle, or an American Indian might tuck the scalps of his poor victims under his saddle. Trophies of war take many forms. The Cross is Christ’s war trophy. The Church exalts the Cross on this liturgical feast because this enemy of life was felled like timber by the Son of God. The Cross was brought low and humbled. It was mocked when Jesus rose from the dead. The Church holds up the Cross to say “Behold what the cross did not do. Behold that life conquers even a cruel and public death.”

    God’s self-emptying started at the incarnation. He humbled himself to walk among us when He restricted Himself to the limitations of His own creatures. God continued to pour Himself out until He climbed onto the wood of the Cross, completing the total self-gift that was His life. Our God is not like a general who sends a subordinate to carry out a dangerous mission, like an absent parent who pays someone else to raise his children, or like a physician who coldly touches his patient’s body and then washes in antiseptic. No, our God is like a surgeon who, before he cuts, points to his side and says to the patient with empathy, “I had the same—see my scars.” Our God points to the wound in His open side and says, “I too was the victim of evil and death.” God bore the Cross and its cruel death so that He could drink from the same bitter cup as man, so that He could enter more fully into the world’s sorrow.

    Death on the Cross was not preordained. God could have freely chosen other ways to redeem the human race—through intelligence, wisdom, charm, money, or education. But then, to participate in His redemption, we would have to study for a PhD, attend etiquette school, get a good job, earn an excellent wage, or receive good grades. Not everyone can do these things. But everyone can die. Death is egalitarian. Everyone does it, eventually. So God did it and “so made the grave a sign of hope that promises resurrection even as it claims our mortal bodies,” as the graveside prayer states. The Cross, then, is everyone’s trophy, raised high with one arm, head cocked to the side. It is in this sense that the Cross is a sign of hope. Because the Cross lost the fight with Christ, death is not the final answer. The Cross says that our God does not answer the question of suffering and death in a partial academic way. He responds in a total human way. He responds with His life. He doesn’t explain; He shares. He responds with empathy by taking up His Cross and inviting us to do the same.

    Jesus Christ, Your three hours on the Cross gave that wicked device a new meaning. Through contemplation of Your sufferings, may we transform all the wickedness and sin in our lives into something valuable. May we convert evil, transform sin, and, like You, go from death to life.
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    6 min
  • September 13: Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor

    September 13: Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor
    Sep 12 2024
    September 13: Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor
    c. 347–407
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of preachers and speakers

    A great preacher, writer, and intellectual suffers for the faith

    In the tug and pull of the theological disputes of the fourth and fifth centuries, today’s saint was a seminal figure. Along with other luminaries such as Saints Ambrose, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil and many others, he tunneled deep into Scripture and the existing Christian tradition to carve out what is today known as the deposit of faith. Saint John Chrysostom was from Antioch, that “Metropolis of heresy” in Saint John Henry Newman’s words, where Arianism was bred, incubated, thrived, and died in the period between the Council of Nicea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381.
    John received an excellent education in the liberal arts and was baptized at the age of eighteen, in keeping with the custom of adult baptism common to his era. He joined a rustic group of hermits in the hills outside of his hometown in his mid-twenties. The conditions were so physically and psychologically brutal, though, that he left after seven years. Living always isolated and mortified would not be his path. He was ordained a priest in 386. His bishop recognized his gifts and put him in charge of the physical and pastoral care of the poor of Antioch, a ministry in which he honed his natural gifts as a preacher. He was so skillful in preaching that he was given, a century after his death, the title of chrysostom or “golden mouth.” John’s theological acumen was no less impressive. His sermons and letters display a refined understanding of the intricacies of the Holy Trinity and of the Gospels. His beautiful theological and spiritual reflections are referenced numerous times in the modern Catechism of the Catholic Church.

    In 398 Saint John was consecrated the Archbishop of Constantinople, the New Rome, provoking jealousy among some contemporaries. John did himself no favors by his overaggressive reforms as Archbishop. He bluntly criticized women for wearing make-up, Christians for attending races and games on holy days, the imperial court for its extravagances, and the clergy for their laxity and wealth-seeking. Recriminations soon followed. He was falsely charged with treason and other crimes and was exiled in 402. He was reinstated after an earthquake in Constantinople was interpreted as divine punishment for his banishment. But John was exiled a second time shortly thereafter. Like other saints, his time of exile proved fruitful. He wrote numerous letters, specifically to bishops in the Western Empire, including the pope. But also like other exiled popes and bishops, assertions of support were only as sturdy as the paper on which they were written. Practical help never materialized.

    John died in exile in 407, a victim of cold, rain, a forced march and lack of food. Within a decade after his death, his reputation was restored by the pope, and his remains were transferred for burial in Constantinople. He was recognized as a Father of the Church at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1568.

    Saint John suffered for his zeal. He was exiled by civil power in an age when correct theology was understood as a form of patriotism, and heresy as treason. He crossed the civil powers of his age, did not back down, and paid a severe price for his fidelity. When Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204, they stole John’s relics and carried them back to Rome. In 2004 Pope Saint John Paul II authorized the return of some of John’s remains to the seat of the Orthodox Patriarch in Saint George Church in present-day Istanbul, John’s own episcopal city.

    Saint John Chrysostom, the heat of your words burned so hot that you were persecuted for your ardor. Inspire all Christian preachers to light a fire of faith in their congregations, without fear for their own reputations or of recrimination.
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    5 min
  • September 12: The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    September 12: The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    Sep 11 2024
    September 12: The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White

    Every name begins a relationship

    A name doesn’t imply that you know everything about someone, but it does make a person “invocable.” To know that there is a “someone” standing before you is not to know too much. When that “someone” has a name, however, he or she is placed in relationship with you, and relationships are what matter most. By means of a name, we go beyond a mere concept, beyond a mere thing. A name includes another in our circle of shared existence. No one wants to be a mere number, or to be just a “Nigerian,” just an “athlete,”or just an “accountant.” Titles and monikers flatten people. They reduce someone to where they came from, what they excel at, their profession, their hair color, their language, and on and on. A name opens a door to the more complex reality that is every human soul.

    The God of Christianity is not a mere concept who “does” but a being who “Is.” He has a name. He is “Abba” or “Father.” He is Jesus Christ. He is the Holy Spirit. It’s hard to imagine truly knowing, or loving, a nameless entity whose identity is its function. We don’t, after all, love “country.” We love Poland, or the Philippines, or Bolivia. And we don’t love “husband” or “wife,” we love the concrete, specific, named person to whom we are married. Our love of God begins in the same way our love of people does—by asking His name.

    Jesus Himself called out “Mary!”in the garden on the morning of His resurrection, and her spoken name elicited a beautiful response: “Rabboni!” In Chapter Three of the Book of Exodus, God calls Moses by name to approach Him in the burning bush. God first states that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But Moses is not completely satisfied with knowing that God is, or for whom He is. So Moses asks the question everyone asks when they want to deepen a relationship: “What’s your name?” God then pulls the curtains aside and invites Moses into His inner life, into relationship with Him. He reveals something more intimate. He tells Moses His name—“Yahweh” or “I am Who I Am.” God hands over part of Himself to man. He can now be called upon. He is invocable. No one can force you to reveal your name. It’s personal, because to reveal your name is to become vulnerable.

    Today the Church commemorates a name as much as the person who bears it. The holiness of the name of God, which the Second Commandment forbids man to take in vain, is reflected in the holy names of all the saints and holy things and holy places dedicated to Him. The name of the Mother of God, the Holy or Blessed Virgin Mary, should be safe in our mouths. This feast falls during the Octave of the Birthday of the Virgin Mary and was inserted into the Church’s universal calendar just after the triumph of the Christian army over the Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The feast was suppressed after Vatican II but once again placed in the calendar by Pope Saint John Paul II in 2002.

    Mary’s name evokes tenderness and maternity. All Christians should call upon the blessed name of the Mother of God as the most powerful intercessor before the throne of Her Son in heaven. Her name puts us in relationship with her. She is not far away. She is close to us, as a mother should be, and she wants to be called upon by her children who are so in need of her.

    Saint Mary, may your holy name be always respected and honored, because you are closer to God than we are, because you know Him more intimately than we do, and because we trust that you will be with us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
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    5 min