Épisodes

  • October 24: Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop

    October 24: Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop
    Oct 23 2025
    October 24: Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop
    1807–1870
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of textile merchants, the Catholic press, and vocational educators

    A tireless bishop founds an Order and moves mountains

    Today’s saint was a finely tuned, high-octane engine of evangelization. Anthony Claret was from Catalonia, the region around Barcelona, Spain. He studied for the priesthood in Rome, was ordained in 1835, and then returned to Spain to spend ten years giving missions. In 1849 he founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, more commonly known as the Claretians in honor of their founder. The Order was particularly focused on publishing works of devotion and piety, books offering spiritual advice, and numerous pamphlets of basic catechesis. The Claretians filled a need and, as publishers, enjoyed enormous success. They published millions and millions of books and pamphlets. And all of this was spearheaded by Anthony, who not only generated doctrinal content but who also mastered the technical details of printing, learned the business side of the industry, and edited the published works himself.

    In 1851, when Anthony was appointed the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, the full array of his talents were put on display. He added the name “Mary” at his episcopal consecration and began a remarkably fruitful seven years as Archbishop. He traveled incessantly throughout his territory, restored the seminary, established hospitals and dozens of new parishes, and personally visited the sick and dying. He was ever present and provocative in his pastoral outreach, so much so that attempts were made on his life by the apathetic offended by his success. He was severely injured in one of these attempts but survived.

    Bishop Anthony was a true man of action. Creative ideas on how to spread the Gospel flowed constantly from his mind. Every tribulation and hardship was, for him, just an invitation to deeper commitment. It was nothing for Anthony to expend all of his energy one day and to wake up and do the same the next day. He was replenished by exhausting himself. In 1857 he resigned as Archbishop when he was recalled to Spain to become the personal chaplain to the Queen. This sedentary life was a cross for Anthony, who was a born missionary. But he continued to dedicate himself to apostolic activity as much as his court obligations allowed.

    At the Royal Monastery outside of Madrid where he was assigned, he set up a science library, a school for music and languages, a museum of natural history, and a fraternity composed of cultural leaders and intellectuals that grew to national prominence. Anthony was such a motor of evangelization and cultural advancement that he earned powerful enemies who feared his success. They eventually drove him from Spain to France, where he died in 1870.

    Like so many saints, Anthony Mary Claret was a double or triple threat. He was so multi-faceted, so skilled in so many diverse fields, that it is hard to believe that one man accomplished so much. He worked well, and he worked quickly. Like many other saints, behind Anthony’s labors was a regimented life of prayer, daily Mass, the rosary, fasting, spiritual reading, self-discipline and moral strictness. He was perpetually in the presence of God, and in his later years experienced spiritual ecstasies and performed miraculous healings. This incredible man of action and prayer was canonized in 1950.

    Saint Anthony Mary Claret, you outdid all your peers in dedication to Christ, Mary, and the Church. We pray that you intercede in heaven to give all bishops the graces and the skills to lead their flocks in prayer, education, and devotion as you did.
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    5 min
  • October 23: Saint John of Capistrano, Priest

    October 23: Saint John of Capistrano, Priest
    Oct 22 2025
    October 23: Saint John of Capistrano, Priest
    1386–1456
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of military chaplains and jurists

    A worldly man becomes a Franciscan and a great preacher

    Today’s saint, like Saints Francis of Assisi, Maximilian Kolbe, Jerome Emiliani and many other male saints, was a prisoner of war. And just like all the others, imprisonment changed John of Capistrano forever. Being confined to the four walls of a prison made him realize how precious was the life that God had given him and how sad it was to waste it on frivolities. John had studied law before he was captured in battle and had even become the mayor of the major Italian city of Perugia. He was bright, energetic, and successful. Life was his oyster. John’s mature decision to enter religious life was not, then, an escape hatch from real life or the last exit on a dead-end road. He had silver in his hands but dropped it to stretch for the gold. In a shocking display of humility after giving his life to Christ, John mounted a donkey backwards and rode through the streets of his town wearing only a list of his worst sins. People ridiculed him and pelted him with mud and dung. In this forlorn state, he presented himself at the door of a Franciscan monastery to seek admission. He was immediately accepted. After studies, he was ordained a priest in 1421.

    John’s well of humility had no bottom, and his physical austerities never ceased. He continually mortified himself. He fasted, went barefoot, and slept little throughout his life. He was a protégé of the great Saint Bernardino of Siena, a fellow Franciscan. Like Bernardino, John became a renowned preacher and traveled throughout Central and Northern Europe drawing vast crowds. John lived poverty so totally that he, along with other reforming Franciscans of his generation, made it appear as if they were the measure for Christ’s poverty, instead of Christ being the example and inspiration for Franciscan poverty. John’s radical poverty and other reforming efforts were also the beginning of the divisions that would eventually cleave the body Franciscan into three distinct Orders.

    Already famous in his mid-sixties as a theologian, preacher, and inquisitor, John was appointed by the Pope to lead a team of Franciscan missionaries to Hungary and the Bohemian peoples of Central Europe. John Hus, a Bohemian priest, had been burned at the stake by the Church for heresy in 1415. This searing event had caused his followers, known as Hussites, to increasingly separate themselves from the Church. Hussite theology was a precursor to the Protestant movement that engulfed Northern Europe one hundred years after Hus’ death. The Pope wanted John of Capistrano to either convert the Hussites or to subjugate them.

    John’s mission to Hungary and Central Europe produced mixed results. He was an effective crusher of heretics, but his techniques did not always display the tact such a delicate mission required. After the shocking fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, John led a preaching crusade to unify a Christian response to the threat of impending Muslim expansion. At the age of seventy, Saint John personally led troops in a successful battle to defend Belgrade from the Turks, but he died soon afterward. Over two centuries after his death, John and his melodic last name of Capistrano were immortalized by his Franciscan brothers when they named a large mission in Southern California in his honor. The Mission of San Juan Capistrano, although ruined by earthquakes, is a much visited stop on the famous chain of missions that wind up and down the spine of California. This soldier-priest and tireless reformer and preacher was canonized in 1724.

    Saint John of Capistrano, we ask your intercession to embolden all preachers to present the truths of Catholicism in all their fullness and vigor, and to buttress that preaching by an impeccable life of virtue and apostolic activity.
     
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    6 min
  • October 22: Saint John Paul II, Pope

    October 22: Saint John Paul II, Pope
    Oct 21 2025
    October 22: Saint John Paul II, Pope
    1920–2005
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of World Youth Day

    Fully prepared, possessing every skill, a pope for the ages makes maximum impact

    Thirty-three years after the dark cloud of communism had settled over Eastern Europe, on a crisp autumn night, heavy bells across Poland began to sway and toll in their high towers. Their clangs peeled down the valleys, thundered through the town squares, and reverberated off every city street. Men and women spilled like water into the streets. Songs. Candles. Prayers. Flowers. Tears. Flags. Embraces. Champagne. Could it be true? A son of Poland had been elected Pope! The impossible had become possible!

    In the town of Wadowice, Father Edward Zacher was paralyzed by emotion. He could not summon a single word for the faithful who crammed the church in thanksgiving. Late that night, he slowly opened the sacramental register of the parish. He leafed through the yellowed pages back to May 1920. Carolus Joseph Wojtyła. Father Zacher had taught him catechism as a boy. The register duly noted, in Latin, Karol’s dates of Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, Priestly and Episcopal Ordination, and consecration as Cardinal. In a margin at the bottom of the page, the old priest’s hand trembled as he made a new entry: “Die 16 X 1978 in Summum Pontificem electus et sibi nomen Ioannem Paulum II imposuit.”

    Pope Saint John Paul II was a titan. He was as prepared as any man before him to be pope. He was all things—a highly educated European intellectual, a philosophy professor with two Doctorates, a mystic of intense spirituality, a working bishop of a large and dynamic Archdiocese behind the iron curtain, a Cardinal whose counsel was valued by the Pope, an active contributor at the Second Vatican Council, a polyglot, and a world traveler. Adding to this embarrassment of riches, he was an athlete and outdoorsman, had palpable charisma, an open personality, a manly presence, vast circles of lay friends, a resonant voice, and he was just 58 years old when elected!

    Never had a conclave of Cardinals made a bolder, wiser choice. That John Paul II was the first Slavic pope, and the first non-Italian in centuries, was also interesting and became more significant as his papacy unfolded. The times and the man were a match. He was simply the perfect man for the hour and his long papacy disappointed in almost nothing.

    The catalogue of accomplishments of John Paul II, both before and after his papal election, is long. He was a tornado of activity and displayed a physical stamina which might have buried a man half his age. He wrote profoundly on every subject: Saint Mary, the Trinity, the Church’ social teachings, suffering, Christ, work, moral theology, philosophy, and on and on. Every subject found ample space to grow in his capacious mind. His personal narrative was also compelling. He had personally experienced the effects of the twentieth century’s twin horrors, Nazism and Communism, both efforts to create a perfect society without regard for God or man’s dignity. He knew what it was to be personally degraded, to come close to death, to go into hiding. He had seen his entire nation brought to its knees in humiliation. He understood, at the deepest level, what the Church meant to the world.

    The papacy of our Saint built on the international Petrine ministry first initiated, in small steps, by Pope Saint Paul VI. John Paul II made this universal ministry an enduring part of every pope’s profile. He said Mass on the altar of the world, where humanity itself was his congregation. He had the piety of a humble Mexican peasant and the sophistication of an erudite German professor. No one, and no type, was a stranger to him.

    An assassin’s bullet almost killed him on May 13, 1981, but he survived, barely. The physical effects of his injuries, and other illnesses, laid bare his sufferings for all to see. On the night of April 2, 2005, this giant, this father to the world, this Moses to the Slavs, died as tens of thousands gathered in prayerful vigil outside his window in Saint Peter’s Square. His funeral Mass was timeless and supernatural in a manner felt by all, but difficult to capture in words. He was canonized in 2014 and is buried in a side nave of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

    Saint Pope John Paul II, you laid your superabundant gifts on God’s altar as a teen, and God used them to the fullest extent until your death. Help all Christians to put their talents at God’s service to help lead others to Christ and to His Church.
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    7 min
  • October 20: Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest (U.S.A.)

    October 20: Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest (U.S.A.)
    Oct 20 2024
    October 20: Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest (U.S.A.)
    1694–1775
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of Ovada, Italy, and founder of the Passionists

    He was a marathoner whose “runner’s high” lasted a lifetime

    After unsuccessfully living the life of a soldier, today’s saint left the military to live a secluded life of prayer for over five years. But then in 1720, he received a vision instructing him to found a Congregation devoted to Christ’s passion. In 1727 he was ordained a priest by the pope, along with his brother, and novices began to come to his new Congregation in greater numbers. Paul was not a frivolous man, though, and the Congregation’s Rule was grueling. He and his brethren lived strict austerity, and their ministry focused on preaching the passion to the poor. The new priests did not socialize with people of means and lived as desperately poor as those they served.

    The effects of poverty encompass more than economic deprivation. Poverty means lack of privacy, bed bugs, rotten teeth, soft apples, little rest, flea-infested clothes, open wounds, infection, putrid water, cold nights, going to bed hungry, violent fights over a handful of coins, lack of hope, and bitterness at one’s own miserable plight. The deep resentment poverty can engender powers the poor man’s emotions over the cliffs of envy and hate.

    Living radical poverty, and experiencing life among the poor and their emotional plight, was too much for some of Father Paul’s novices. Rigors such as this were for the few, and many novices abandoned ship. But enough hardy and faithful men remained to enable the new Congregation to succeed. Provisional church approval came in the 1740s on the condition that the Congregation ameliorate its tough-as-nails Rule. Full papal approval for the Congregation came slowly, in 1769. The Congregation’s members were known as the Discalced Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They were more simply known as Passionists. All Passionists took a special fourth vow to preach Christ’s passion so that it never faded from the faithful’s memory. The Passionists’ black habits bore the distinctive badge of their brotherhood—a heart emblazoned with the words JESU XPI PASSIO mounted by a white cross with instruments of Christ’s crucifixion displayed below.

    Saint Paul of the Cross was so united to the passion that it was said that his heart pulsated more quickly on Fridays. He was a powerful preacher, and both he and the Passionist fathers in general became known as expert retreat masters, confessors, and directors of parish missions. Paul’s heart melted with love for Christ his entire life. He spent hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, never failed to subjugate his body with mortifications and austerities, and was insistent about living radical poverty. Paul seemed to experience a type of spiritual “runner’s high,” something common to many saints known more for their ardor than their originality. As Paul fasted and prayed and lived poverty, it became easier and more joyful for him to fast and pray and live poverty. His virtues gained steam as he rolled through life and as his body sunk deeper and deeper into the person of Christ.

    Paul also founded a Congregation of contemplative nuns devoted to the passion. The Passionists remained a relatively small order until they spread beyond Italy in the mid-1800s, including to England, a country which Paul always intended to bring back to the Church. Providentially, it was a Passionist priest, Blessed Dominic Barberi, who received the great Englishman Saint John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church. Saint Paul of the Cross’ legacy is his Congregation more than his few published works. He even developed a reputation as a miracle worker and healer in his old age. He was raised to the altars in 1867.

    Saint Paul of the Cross, you lived an exemplary life of poverty, obedience, prayer, and mortification throughout your span of many years. May your followers remain faithful to your charism, and may all priests see in you an example of holiness.
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    6 min
  • October 19: Saints Jean de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and their Companions, Martyrs (U.S.A.)

    October 19: Saints Jean de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and their Companions, Martyrs (U.S.A.)
    Oct 18 2025
    October 19: Saints Jean de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and their Companions, Martyrs (U.S.A.)Saint Jean: 1593–1649; Saint Isaac Jogues 1607–1646; Frs. Gabriel Lalemant, Noel Chabanel, Charles Garnier, Anthony Daniel; and laymen René Goupil and Jean de LalandeMemorial; Liturgical Color: RedPatron Saints of North America, co-patrons of CanadaFrench priests and laity leave hearth and home to be slaughtered on the edge of nowhereDeep in the dense and endless forests of Iroquois nation, Jean de Brébeuf, bound tightly to a post, slowly stretched his neck and head toward the canopy high above, and prayed. An Iroquois war party had attacked his Huron mission the day before. He had a chance to escape but he chose to stay. The baptized and neophytes looked to him, needed him, and were captured with him. Saint Jean had long before witnessed, and chronicled, the Iroquois’ depraved treatment of their Indian enemies. Now he was the captive and now he would be the victim. The painted braves prepared their instruments of torture and the ritual butchery commenced. The Iroquis peeled Jean’s lips from his face and cut off his nose and ears. Saint Jean was as silent as a rock. They poured boiling water over his head in a mock baptism and pressed hatchets, glowing red hot, against his open wounds. A hard blow to the face split his jaw in two. This was pain beyond pain, a living holocaust. When the saint tried to encourage his fellow captives with holy words, the Indians cut out his tongue. Near the end, they cut out his heart and ate it. Raw. Then they drank his warm blood. They wanted the blood of this lion to course in their own veins. Eye witnesses to Saint Jean’s torture and death, which took place alongside that of Father Gabriel Lalemant, escaped captivity and gave detailed accounts of what they had seen. Fellow Jesuits recovered the two bodies days later and verified their wounds. Brébeuf’s skull was placed in a reliquary in a convent in Quebec City. It is still there today.Saint Jean de Brébeuf was born in Bayeux, France. Bayeux is a comfortable town with low, sturdy buildings and a handsome Cathedral. It’s the kind of town people want to move to. But Saint Jean went in the opposite direction. He left Bayeux to become a Jesuit priest. When he was chosen to become a missionary, he crossed an ocean to New France (Canada). He was well educated and was the first European to master the Huron language, to study their customs, and to write a Huron-French dictionary. He was a mystic who had an intimate relationship with Our Lord and a vivid spirituality full of saints and angels. He took a vow of personal perfection, striving to rid himself of every sin, no matter how small. He canoed thousands of miles over open waters, and trekked and portaged vast expanses of prairie and woods in search of a congregation for the Truth. In a frontier culture of trappers, loggers, and ruffians, he held his own. The Indians called him “Echon”—one who carries his own weight. His oar was always in the water. For all this missionary labor, there was some success. But there was more disappointment. Some of his assassins were Huron apostates.A heroic death is not the fruit of a lukewarm life. Saint Jean was prepared for his gruesome martyrdom by many years of struggling to breathe inside of smoke-filled cabins, by suffering the bites of swarms of mosquitoes all night long, by shivering through cold nights, by eating disgusting food without complaint, and by trekking rugged terrain while poorly shod. Once, he fell on the ice and broke his collarbone, making it impossible for him to navigate jagged terrain upright. He crawled thirty-six miles on his hands and knees back to his mission. Saint Jean also prepared himself for death through disciplined prayer and meditation. He prepared himself out of a profound acceptance of God’s will. Our faith teaches that grace builds on nature. This just means that a plant grows in the ground. Bad soil; sick plant. Rich soil; healthy plant. The seed of faith planted in Saint Jean by his parents and priests was dropped into rich, black, human soil. God’s grace grew in him. God’s grace thrived in him. God’s grace never died in him. And that same powerful grace comes to us today through the intercession of this mighty oak of a man.Saint Isaac Jogues came as near to martyrdom as any man who ever lived to tell about it. Jogues was a professor in France who crossed the ocean to work among the Huron. For six years he labored as far west as Lake Superior, one of the first French men to see that lake of lakes. He was kidnapped by Mohawks in 1642 and held captive for thirteen months, during which time he witnessed, and suffered from, an orgy of barbarity similar to that later suffered by Brébeuf: torture by fire, removal of fingernails, gnawing away of fingers, whippings with thorn bush branches, cuttings, etc. Jogues’ companion, Jesuit lay brother René Goupil, a trained medic, ...
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    9 min
  • October 18: Saint Luke, Evangelist

    October 18: Saint Luke, Evangelist
    Oct 17 2025
    October 18: Saint Luke, Evangelist
    First Century
    Feast; Liturgical Color: Red
    Patron Saint of artists, physicians, and surgeons

    A disciple of Christ gives the Church two foundational works

    Saint Luke was one of the four Evangelists but not one of the Twelve Apostles. Like Saint Mark, Luke was not among that select group who walked step by step alongside Jesus as he journeyed through Palestine. Luke was more likely a disciple of Saint Paul, who mentions a Luke who accompanies him on his missionary journeys. Little is known with certainty of Luke’s life. What is known is that he wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles—over a quarter of the New Testament. The two volumes of Luke and Acts are foundational works for knowing Jesus Christ and the early Church. The third Gospel does not name its author and does not even claim to be an eye-witness account. But the earliest known manuscripts of the third Gospel are attributed to Luke, and even Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, writing in the late second century, names Luke as its author.

    Every one of the four Gospels has a unique perspective, is written for a specific audience, and relates certain details and stories the other Gospels do not. Saint Luke likely wrote for a non-Jewish crowd. He translates into the Greek language words that the other Gospels leave in their original language, a hint that Luke’s readers were non-Jews who could not read Hebrew and Aramaic. Luke alone tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man who repents of having ignored him. To Luke alone do we owe our knowledge of the Incarnation. It is as if he is just behind the young Mary in the room when the Archangel Gabriel announces that she will be the Mother of God. Only Luke writes down the Virgin’s Magnificat and gives us the scriptural basis for the "Hail Mary.” Yet in all of this, Luke himself does not appear. He must have been humble, because he recedes into the crowd while the whole cast of the Gospel climbs on stage.

    Luke’s Acts of the Apostles is a diary of the very early Church. Acts is often told from a first-person perspective with the use of the word “we.” Without this journal there would be yawning gaps in our knowledge of the nascent Church. It is to Luke, especially, that we are indebted for our knowledge of Pentecost and the workings of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. Luke is clearly on Saint Paul’s missionary team and remains at the great evangelist’s side until the bitter end. When Paul is imprisoned in Rome, with his beheading just over the horizon, he is abandoned by all his coworkers save one. From his prison cell, Paul writes "Only Luke is with me" (2 Tm 4:11).

    Saint Augustine writes in the Confessions that the present tense of past things is called memory. The past is not really the past, then, if we remember it accurately. Memory can be ill-used when it carries a grudge and blocks forgiveness, or when it doesn’t let the past recede but allows it to invade the present so forcefully that no one is allowed to grow beyond their worst five minutes. Understood in a healthy way, memory makes the good past live again. When committed to writing, memory makes the past forever present for posterity.

    The written Gospels make Christ come alive. Their pages are not Christ in full, as no one can be reduced to just their documentary trace. But the Word made flesh, the Word alive today in heaven, was captured at a certain moment in time by the words of Saint Luke. Christians believe that the Gospels capture the essentials of the life of Jesus Christ which God desires the faithful to know. And when these Gospels are read in the light of the living Gospel of the Church and supplemented by the grace of the Sacraments, the witness of the saints, the governance of the hierarchy, and the teachings of the Catechism, we have all that we need to achieve heaven. The Evangelists make the original events of the life of Christ present today. Without these inspired records, God would not cease to be God, but He would certainly be less vivid to us living so many centuries after His Son became man.

    Saint Luke, your words preserving the life of Christ make Him knowable and lovable to the world today. Through your intercession in heaven, we ask that the riches of your Gospel, especially your words about the Blessed Mother, may inspire us to be more faithful disciples.
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    6 min
  • October 17: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

    October 17: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
    Oct 17 2024
    October 17: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
    c. Mid First Century–c. 110
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red
    Patron Saint of the Church in Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa

    An early Bishop-martyr elaborates on Catholic theology

    Although not the most famous Saint Ignatius in the Church, today’s saint was the first to offer a theology of martyrdom. He also wrote seven famous letters en route to his ritual death in Rome which set forth, with surprising vigor for so early a Christian, some fundamental Catholic beliefs. Saint Ignatius was a successor to Saint Peter as Bishop of Antioch in Syria. Antioch is an ancient ecclesiastical see where the followers of Christ were first called Christians. Bishop Ignatius was arrested in Antioch and, for unknown reasons, was transported across half of the empire to Rome for punishment. During this long trek, Ignatius wrote seven hastily composed letters to seven cities. He also visited with Saint Polycarp, who referenced Ignatius’ letters in a subsequent letter of his own. Ignatius’ letters, perhaps miraculously, have survived. They paint a vivid picture of first-century Christianity and prove that what an educated bishop believed in 110 A.D. is essentially what Catholics believe today.

    Some suffering souls have experienced the passion of Christ in the very same manner that Christ did. Stigmatists have had bloody holes pierce their palms, felt the pressure of a crown of thorns on their skull, or the pain of an open wound in their side. Such re-livings of the passion show an advanced spirituality in that they physically manifest a contemplative’s detailed meditation on Christ’s final hours. The earliest Christian martyrs, such as today’s saint, speak more generally. They want to offer their entire lives as a holocaust or to be ground like wheat in the jaws of lions. They want to emulate the Son of God in emptying themselves in an ultimate witness. Only later saints endured sufferings physically parallel to those of Christ. The original martyrs were just open to dying. Period.

    Ignatius wrote in such explicit language about the Holy Eucharist, the Catholic Church, and the importance of bishops that modern Protestants have cast doubt on the authenticity of his letters or, at a minimum, questioned their ancient pedigree. Yet there is no reason to doubt Ignatius’ words or when he wrote them, and neither the early Church historian Eusebius nor the fourth-century Saint Jerome doubted Ignatius. Ignatius was the first to use the word “Catholic” in reference to the Church: “Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” He repeatedly understands the bishop as the image of God the Father, telling the faithful to “defer to him, or, rather, not to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, the bishop of all men.” Ignatius had a balanced Christology: “There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God…” He understands the Eucharist as literally the flesh of Christ. Writing against heretics he states: “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ… Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again.”

    Like Saints Polycarp and Maximilian Kolbe, Ignatius became what he celebrated, a living sacrifice offered to the Father. His body became the offering, a Roman amphitheater the church, the blood-soaked sand his marble floor, the spectators his congregation, and the cacophony of screams of bloodlust the sacred music that guided him in his last liturgical act, the gift of himself as he was torn apart by the powerful jaws of lions. Although Ignatius’ body was ripped to pieces, some few bones were picked out of the grains of sand and brought back to Antioch. They are now found in the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome.

    Saint Ignatius of Antioch, your courageous acceptance of your impending martyrdom was an inspiration to your fellow Christians then and remains an inspiration today. Give all who seek your intercession just a small portion of your steely courage in the face of real danger.
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    6 min
  • October 16: Saint Hedwig, Religious

    October 16: Saint Hedwig, Religious
    Oct 15 2023
    October 16: Saint Hedwig, Religious
    c.1174–1243
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of brides, widows, and Silesia

    A wife and mother spreads the faith like a bishop

    On every limb of the tangled branches of Saint Hedwig’s family tree sits a duke, landgrave, prince, king, queen, and count. The roots of Hedwig’s aristocratic tree likewise spread up and down the hills and valleys of Europe’s heartland. Her uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews occupied duchies, governed dioceses, sat on thrones, ran monasteries, and reigned over realms large and small in the medieval core of Christendom.

    Hedwig was born in a castle to a duke. At the age of twelve, she married a duke, Henry the Bearded of Silesia, a region straddling present day Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Hedwig lived when the mortar in the walls of Europe’s castles was still wet, and their moats still freshly dug. She and her kind, the early nobility of Europe, correctly understood that culture and Catholicism were synonymous. To bring the Church to a people just stepping out of the darkness of paganism was to bring hospitals, monogamy, the Mass, literacy, knowledge, schools, law, monasteries, farms, care for the poor and widows, and the hope of the Gospel. Hedwig understood this perfectly. She unapologetically promoted the faith of Jesus Christ because it was as good for the people as it was for God.

    Hedwig bore her husband seven children. She and Henry were a generous couple who personally cared for the sick, founded and patronized hospitals, and who promoted Catholicism through the establishment and endowment of religious houses. They established Cistercian, Augustinian, Premonstratensian, Dominican, and even very early Franciscan foundations. After their last child was born, Duke Henry and Hedwig took a mutual vow of chastity before their bishop and lived mostly apart. Henry received the tonsure and let his beard grow long. Hedwig moved close to the convent of Trebnitz, in present day Wrocław, Poland, which she and Henry had previously founded. It was the first women’s religious house in Silesia and part of Henry and Hedwig’s broader effort to develop Christian life and German culture throughout Central Europe.

    After Henry died in 1238, the widow Hedwig took the grey habit of the Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz Abbey, where her daughter Gertrude was abbess. It was likely not easy for Hedwig, the mother, to live in obedience to her very own daughter. Hedwig did not, however, take formal religious vows, because her wealth was still needed to support the monastery. But Hedwig otherwise lived the austere life of prayer, mortification, fasting, and poverty, which the monastic community itself lived. Early biographies relate that Hedwig also performed miracles, saw into the future, and had the gift of prophecy, even foretelling her own date of death.

    Saint Hedwig did not kiss the chains of her captivity, bleed to death as a martyr in the arena, or boycott her womb as a vowed and perpetual virgin. She was the wife of a powerful man and the mother of a large family. She walked the wide and well-traveled road of marriage and family domesticity. And it was along that path that she found holiness, carried the burdens of the Church’s mission on her shoulders, and left a legacy of church building normally associated with an indefatigable bishop. This wife and mother was canonized in 1267 and is buried near her husband in the abbey church at Trebnitz, where she last closed her eyes in 1243.

    Saint Hedwig, your missionary fervor helped build the church in your native land. May your tireless work be an example to all the faithful to use whatever station in life they occupy as a platform to better know love, and serve God and His Church.
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    6 min