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The title of today's entry is from the Magnificat Antiphon: "O how blessed a bishop was he! His inmost heart of hearts yearned on the King Christ, and he had no dread for the power of the Empire! O how holy a soul was his, which passed not away by the sword of the persecutor, and yet lost not the palm of martyrdom."

This wonderful painting, so rich in liturgical details -- look at the gorgeous chasuble -- depicts a famous episode in Saint Martin's life. One day, as he prepared to offer the Holy Sacrifice, Bishop Martin caught sight of a poor beggar in need of clothing. Immediately, he ordered his attending deacon to provide the beggar with a suitable garment. Seeing that the deacon was in no hurry to obey his order, Martin removed his tunic and gave it to the beggar. Later, at Holy Mass, a globe of fire appeared above his head. At the elevation of the Sacred Host, the sleeves of Bishop Martin's alb fell back baring his arms. Straightaway two angels appeared and, with a precious cloth, covered the prelate's arms for the duration of the elevation. The beggar (in the foreground, clothed in Martin's black tunic) and the other faithful looked on in wonder.

The Soldier Announces the Advent of the King

Today's Holy Gospel, focusing on judgment and on the arrival of the Bridegroom-King in glory with all his angels, is perfectly adapted to the eschatological impetus given to the liturgy between All Saints Day (November 1st) and the First Sunday of Advent. In other parts of the Catholic world, a six-week Advent begins on the Sunday following the feast of Saint Martin. This is the tradition of the Church of Milan, for example. The arrival of Martin the soldier announces the arrival of Christ, the true King, the Lord of glory.

The Confession of Saint Martin

Saint Martin of Tours was the first non-martyr to be honoured with a liturgical cult, the first of a long line of "confessors" to make their way into the Church's calendar. The Invitatory Antiphon refers to today's feast as "Saint Martin's confession." Confession here refers both to the saint's profession of the Catholic faith unto death, and to his praise of God. The Magnificat Antiphon will have us sing: "Though he did not die a martyr's death, this holy confessor won the martyr's palm." The magnificent hymn Iste Confessor, sung today at Matins and Vespers, was composed for the feast of Saint Martin.

Benedictines have a tradition of devotion to Saint Martin: Holy Father Benedict dedicated a chapel to Saint Martin at Monte Cassino. Franciscan liturgists of the Middle Ages borrowed from the Office of Saint Martin in composing the liturgy for the feast of Saint Francis, in many cases simply changing Martinus to Franciscus.

The Holy Ghost guided Saint Martin through a succession of states of life. There is Martin the soldier, Martin the catechumen, Martin the monk, and finally, Martin the bishop. this may account for his astonishing popularity. While in North America, Saint Martin is often forgotten, in France, over five hundred villages and over four thousand parishes bear his name and witness to the enthusiastic piety stirred up by his memory. In France and in Italy, Martin (the name of Saint Thérèse), and Martino (my grandmother's name), are common surnames.

Martin the Merciful

The lesson from the prophet Isaiah presents Saint Martin as one filled with the Holy Spirit, as one anointed and sent to bring good news to the poor. Martin binds up broken hearts, comforts those who mourn. He puts praise in the mouths and hearts of the despondent. The Life of Saint Martin by Sulpicius Severus recounts Martin's miracles of compassion, conversion, generosity, and healing. Together with Saint Athanasius' Life of Saint Antony, the Life of Saint Martin became the standard reference for the biographers of holy men.

The Poor Christ

Saint Paul had his blinding light on the road to Damascus; Saint Martin encountered Christ in the person of a poor beggar. Drawing his sword, Martin cut his ample military cloak in two and covered the beggar with half of it. The following night he was rewarded with an apparition of Our Lord, clothed in the same half- cloak.

The whole liturgy today evokes the cloak divided by a sword and given to Christ. A wondrous exchange! Saint Martin clothes the poor Christ with his cloak; Christ clothes the poor Martin with glory. "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). The words of the holy gospel: "I was naked and you clothed me" become "You, Martin, were naked and I clothed you." We celebrate Martin, clothed with grace and with glory by the humble beggar, Christ, whom he had clothed by cutting his prestigious Roman military cloak in half with his sword: the sacrifice of his pride.

Divinely Disproportionate

The naked Christ is all around us waiting to be clothed in whatever remnants our pride will yield to the sword of sacrificial love. In the absence of a sword, a mere pin will do! The paradox is that in clothing the Beggar, we become the beggar, and the Beggar becomes the one who clothes us in a mantle of justice, of grace and of glory. Is not the teaching of that other Martin, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face? The smallest gesture of sacrificial love on our part unleashes a torrent of transforming love on the part of God. There is no equality here; there cannot be. Fair exchange is utterly foreign to the Kingdom of God. "If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned" (Ct 8:7). The divine response is always magnificently disproportionate to the tiny human gesture.

The Holy Sacrifice

Nowhere is this truer than in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass of the Catechumens (Liturgy of the Word) stirs us to respond in some way to God, Who, in speaking, already gives Himself, and communicates to us His life, His love, and His light. Is this not the prayer of the priest before receiving the Precious Blood: "What shall I render to the Lord for all His bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord" (Ps 115:12-13)?

Suscipe Me



How do we respond? What do we bring to the altar? A little bread, a little wine, a drop of water: poor and humble symbols of ourselves, our life, our work, our joys, and our sufferings, but especially of our desire to, as Blessed Michael Iwene Tansi put it, "to belong entirely to God." What is the bread on the paten, the wine mixed with water in the chalice, if not a silent cry to the living God: Take me! Suscipe me? I surrender to the priestly hands of the Son; I yield to the mysterious action of the Paraclete. I offer myself to the two hands of the Father -- the Son and the Holy Spirit -- that by them, my poverty might become an oblation pleasing in the Father's sight.

Here (once again) is the homily I preached in French two years ago at the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne, France. Richard Chonak's fine translation follows. Thank you, Richard.

« Voici le peuple immense de ceux qui t'ont cherché ».

Oui, Seigneur Jésus, tous ils ont cherché ton Visage.
Tous, ils ont pris à cœur cette parole
que ton Esprit Saint a fait chanter le roi prophète :
« Mon cœur t'a déclaré : je cherche le Seigneur. . .
c'est ta Face, Seigneur, que je rechercherai.
Ne détourne pas de moi ton Visage » (Ps 26, 8-9).

Tous, ils sont devenus miroirs vivants de ta Sainte Face,
selon ce que dit ton Apôtre :
« Et nous tous qui, le visage découvert,
réfléchissons comme en un miroir la gloire du Seigneur,
nous sommes transformés en cette même image,
toujours plus glorieuse,
comme il convient à l'action du Seigneur, qui est l'Esprit » (2 Cor 3, 18).

Seigneur Jésus, la beauté de la gloire de tes saints nous ravit
parce qu'elle est le reflet sur leurs visages de la beauté de la gloire de ta Face !
Aujourd'hui tu nous révèles,
aujourd'hui tu nous redis le secret de toute sainteté :
la recherche de ta Face.

À quiconque cherche ta Face, Seigneur Jésus, tu la révèles,
et celui à qui tu révèles ta Face ne peut que l'adorer.
Cette adoration de ta Sainte Face est transformante,
C'est toujours le roi prophète qui nous donne de chanter chaque nuit :
« Sur nous s'est imprimé, Seigneur, la lumière de ta Face » (Ps 4, 7).

Parmi tous ces visages illuminés par la beauté de ta Face,
il y a un visage qui rayonne d'une splendeur qui fait pâlir le soleil.
C'est le visage de ta Mère, la toute belle, la toute pure.
Tu es toute belle, ô Marie, car sur ton visage nous voyons
le reflet éblouissant de Celui
qui est « le resplendissement de la gloire du Père
et l'effigie de sa substance » (Hb 1, 3).

Toi, la reine de tous les saints,
tu es le signe grandiose qui apparaît dans le ciel :
la Femme revêtue du soleil,
ayant la lune sous ses pieds,
et portant une couronne sertie de douze étoiles.

Je dois vous avouer, chères sœurs,
que dès que nous avons chanté l'antienne du Magnificat aux premières vêpres,
j'ai compris que la foi d'Abraham restait, en quelque sorte, inachevée,
tant qu'elle n'a pas trouvé en Marie sa plénitude.
Les fils et les filles d'Abraham, plus nombreux que les étoiles du ciel,
sont tous sans exception aucune, fils et filles de Marie,
de celle qui a cru « en l'accomplissement de ce qui lui fut dit
de la part du Seigneur » (Lc 1, 45).

C'est Marie qui entraîne tous les saints dans le chant qui, un jour,
déborda de son Cœur immaculé :
« Le Puissant a fait pour moi des merveilles » (Lc 1, 49).
Voici le chant de tous les saints.
Chacun le reçoit des lèvres de Marie pour le reprendre à son tour »
chacun avec sa voix, chacun avec son accent,
chacun avec la mélodie que lui inspire le Saint-Esprit.
C'est cela ce grand bruit qui remplit le ciel ;
c'est le chant de Marie repris par le chœur des saints.

Et qui sont ces saints, tous enfants de Marie ?
Ils sont les bienheureux de l'évangile que vous venez d'entendre.
À chacun des béatitudes correspond cette parole de Jésus crucifié,
ce testament d'amour confié au disciple bien-aimé : « Voici ta Mère » (Jn 19, 27).

Il me faut donc dire :
Vous, les pauvres de cœur, voici votre Mère,
la Vierge des pauvres telle qu'elle s'est manifestée à Banneux,
la Reine des anawim, de ceux qui attendent tout de Dieu.

Vous, les doux, voici votre Mère,
Marie, la bonne agnelle,
celle dont la mansuétude dépasse celle du roi David,
celle dont a douceur apaise tous nos conflits et calme toutes nos tempêtes.

Vous qui pleurez, voici votre Mère,
celle que l'Église, riche de l'expérience de deux millénaires,
appelle Consolatrix Afflictorum, la Consolatrice des Affligés.

Vous qui avez faim et soif de la justice, voici votre Mère,
la Mère de l'Eucharistie,
celle qui a donné de son corps et de son sang
pour que, de son sein virginal, fécondé par la puissance du Saint Esprit,
soient offerts au monde entier le Corps et le Sang du Christ
pour vous rassasier.

Vous les miséricordieux, voici votre Mère,
celle que l'Église, dans ce chant sublime qui s'élève des monastères de par le monde entier tous les soirs, appelle Mater misericordiae.
Marie ne s'effraie point à la vue de vos misères.
Elle les prend toutes dans son Cœur pour les tremper
dans l'huile et dans le vin du Saint Esprit.

Vous les cœurs purs, voici votre Mère,
l'Immaculée, la toute belle, celle qui opère dans le cœur dans pécheurs
des merveilles de pureté et de candeur.

Vous les artisans de paix, voici votre Mère, Regina pacis,
celle qui n'a jamais oublié le chant angélique qui a fait tressaillir les étoiles
en la nuit où elle a mis au monde le Prince de la Paix :
« Gloire à Dieu au plus haut des cieux, et paix sur la terre
aux hommes qu'il aime » (Lc 2, 14).

Vous les persécutés pour la justice, voici votre Mère,
la Regina Martyrum, celle dont l'âme fut transpercée d'un glaive de douleur.
Elle s'est tenue debout près de la croix de son Fils.
Elle a sondé toutes les amertumes et,
avec son Enfant crucifié, a bu le calice que le Père leur avait présenté.

Vous les insultés et les calomniés, voici votre Mère,
celle qui, rayonnante d'amour et de vérité, éclairera tous vos chemins.
C'est elle qui soutient les martyrs.
Rien de ce que vous souffrez ne lui est étranger.

Vous qui êtes dans la joie,
vous qui jubilez d'allégresse, voici votre Mère,
la Causa nostrae laetitiae.
Votre joie est la sienne, et sa joie à elle,
elle la déverse à flots dans les cœurs de tous les saints
jusque dans les siècles des siècles.

Sainte Marie, Mère et Reine de tous les saints,
nous voulons, comme l'apôtre Jean,
te prendre dès maintenant chez nous,
pour que tu nous apprennes les béatitudes
dont tu es l'icône parfaite.
Fais nous goûter au bonheur de tous les saints.
Et maintenant, accompagne-nous à l'autel du Saint Sacrifice.
Un jour, nous l'espérons fermement,
tu seras là pour nous accueillir au banquet qui déjà nous est préparé au ciel,
celui des Noces de l'Agneau.
Amen.

Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

Ephesians 2: 19-22
Psalm 18: 2-3, 4-5
Luke 6:12-16

Saint Jude at the Mystical Supper

Today's Gospel tells us that Simon was one of the twelve disciples whom Jesus called to Himself and named Apostles; Saint Jude too was among the Twelve. The Apostle Jude has a cameo appearance in Saint John's Gospel at the moment of the Last Supper. Picture Saint Jude listening to Jesus with rapt attention. The question Jude puts to Our Lord is far from superficial. It suggests that he was an intelligent man capable of listening with the ear of the heart and long accustomed to pondering the deep things of the Spirit.

Saint Jude's Question

We, for our part, can be grateful to Saint Jude for the question he asked his Master. Our Lord's answer is full of light. "Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, 'Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?'; Jesus answered him, 'Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them'" (Jn 14:21-23).

The Indwelling Trinity

Thus is the mystery of the indwelling God revealed to the Apostle Jude. What is the mystery of the indwelling God? It is the abiding presence of the Father loving the Son, and of the Son loving the Father in the hearts of those who love Jesus and hold fast to His words. These few verses from the Gospel of Saint John are sufficient to make the Apostle Saint Jude, more than anything else, a patron of the interior life: the life of undivided attention to the words of Jesus, the life of adoring attention to the indwelling Trinity. Imagine what might be the conversations between the Apostle Jude and Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity in heaven.

Economic Crisis and the American Devotion to Saint Jude

Popular devotion to Saint Jude is an American phenomenon that began in Chicago in 1929. The steel mills had begun massive lay-offs. In Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish more than 90% of the faithful were without paychecks, unemployment compensation, and Social Security benefits. The pastor, Father James Tort, saw the ever-growing bread lines, the distress of families, and the desperation in the faces of so many. He had, some time before the crisis, come into possession of a Latin American statue of an Apostle rarely invoked. Saint Jude was depicted clasping an icon of the Face of Christ to his breast, with a flame of Pentecostal fire over his head. Father Tort moved the statue to a place of prominence in the church. He announced a novena to The Forgotten Saint. It drew enormous crowds. People were strangely attracted to this obscure saint, to this saint rarely invoked because often confused with the other Jude, the one by whom Jesus was betrayed.

On the final evening of a solemn novena that ended on October 28, 1929 -- one day before the crash of the Stock Market -- an overflow of more than one thousand people stood outside the church praying and singing. Those asking the intercession of Saint Jude were given relief in unexpected ways and, more than anything else, they found hope again. Saint Jude's reputation as the patron saint of desperate causes spread from Chicago to shrines, churches, and homes all over the country.

The Apostle of the Holy Face of Jesus

Popular images of Saint Jude passed into the collective memory of American Catholic piety. The medallion of the Face of Christ that he holds represents the miraculous icon of Edessa, the Holy Face of Jesus Not Made by Human Hands. The legend is that Abgar, the King of Edessa, stricken with leprosy, wrote the following letter to Jesus:

Abgar Ouchama to Jesus, the Good Physician Who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting: I have heard of Thee, and of Thy healing; that Thou dost not use medicines or roots, but by Thy word openest (the eyes) of the blind, makest the lame to walk, cleansest the lepers, makest the deaf to hear; how by Thy word (also) Thou healest (sick) spirits and those who are tormented with lunatic demons, and how, again, Thou raisest the dead to life. . . . Wherefore I write to Thee, and pray that thou wilt come to me, who adore Thee, and heal all the ill that I suffer, according to the faith I have in Thee.

Jesus, receiving the letter in Jerusalem, replied:

Blessed art thou who hast believed in Me, not having seen me, for it is written of me that those who shall see me shall not believe in Me, and that those who shall not see Me shall believe in Me. As to that which thou hast written, that I should come to thee, (behold) all that for which I was sent here below is finished, and I ascend again to My Father who sent Me, and when I shall have ascended to Him I will send thee one of My disciples, who shall heal all thy sufferings, and shall give (thee) health again, and shall convert all who are with thee unto life eternal.

The-Holy-Face-Not-Made-By-Human-Hands

The disciple referred to here is none other than Saint Jude. The legend goes on to recount that Abgar, having received Our Lord's answer, wanted nothing so much as an image of His Face. He sent an artist to Jesus with instructions to paint the Divine Countenance. The artist had no success because of what he called "the inexpressible glory" in his Face, which changed in grace. Jesus, moved to pity, asked for a cloth, applied it to his Face, and entrusting it to the Apostle Jude, sent it back to King Abgar. When Abgar opened the cloth, he found himself before a miraculous image of the Holy Face of Jesus. This image, carried by the Apostle Jude to King Abgar, is said to be the model of every other icon of the Face of Christ.

Saint Jude, the Bearer of the Image of the Holy Face

Saint Jude, then, is the Apostle who comes to us bearing the image of the Vultus Christi. Jude, the Patron Saint of Impossible Causes, and Jude, the Apostle of the interior life is also Jude, the Apostle of the missionary life: he carries the Face of Christ to those who, like King Abgar, ask for healing and hope.

A Promise Fulfilled in the Most Holy Eucharist

The promise made by Our Lord in response to Saint Jude's question is sufficient for us: "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (Jn 14:21-23). The Church gives us this very verse from Saint John as today's Communion Antiphon. It is the sacred liturgy's way of saying that the promise announced in these words of Our Lord is fulfilled for us in the adorable mysteries of His Body and Blood. Relying on that promise, we go forth from participation in the Holy Mysteries bearing the Eucharistic Face of Christ in our hearts.

Today was the second anniversary of my pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial, la cité du Sacre-Coeur in the company of dear friends. Ma joie demeure.

The Mystical Invasion

Saint Teresa of Jesus died in 1582. Sixty-five years later, in 1647, Saint Margaret Mary was born. The spiritual climate in Europe, following the Council of Trent, was one of extraordinary effervescence. Henri Brémond in his monumental Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France speaks of a "mystical invasion." Saint Teresa's Carmel had crossed the Pyrenees, introducing men and women of all states of life to the way of interior prayer. The Jesuits had launched their missions to North America or, as they called it, "New France." Men and women of God, too many to be counted, undertook great things for His glory. It was the golden age of great friendships in God. In 1610, the young widow, Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal, together with Francis de Sales, established at Annecy the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, declaring "that no great severity shall prevent the feeble and the weak from joining it."

The Choice of God

When Margaret Mary Alacoque entered the Visitation Monastery of Paray-le-Monial, it was assumed that she, like so many other women, would disappear into the cloister, leaving behind no more than the sweet lingering fragrance of another life given to Christ. But, as always, "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (1 Cor 1:27-29).

Contemplating the Pierced Side

The icy wind of Jansenism was blowing through the chinks in more than one cloister. It chilled the heart with the fear of a distant and vindictive God, eclipsing the mission of Jesus sent by the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, "to proclaim release to the captives . . . to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Lk 4:18). While the hearts of many around her grew cold, Saint Margaret Mary fixed her gaze upon the wounds of Jesus Crucified. Like Saint John the Apostle, like Saints Bernard, Lutgarde, Gertrude, Mechthilde, and countless others before and after her, the humble Visitandine of Pary-le-Monial was compelled by the Holy Spirit to look upon Jesus' pierced Side. "They shall look on Him whom they have pierced" (Zech 12:10, Jn 19:37).

A Priest, A Friend

In the Jesuit priest, Saint Claude La Colombière, Margaret Mary found a friend, one capable of standing with her at the Cross, of listening with her to the murmurings of the Holy Spirit, of gazing with her at the pierced Side of Jesus, and of entering with her to dwell in his Heart. The words of the apostle Paul seem to be those of Saint Claude to Margaret Mary: "It is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has commissioned us; He has put his seal upon us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee" (2 Cor 1:22)

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

In contemplating the pierced Side of the Crucified, Saint Margaret Mary discovered what many had forgotten: "the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ" (Eph 3:18). It was given her to "know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge" and fills "with all the completion God has to give" (Eph 3:19). She discovered, moreover, that the open Side of Jesus beckons to all from the adorable Sacrament of the Altar, and that His Eucharistic is, at every moment, ablaze with love.

"Behold this Heart," He said, "which, not withstanding the burning love for man with which it is consumed and exhausted, meets with no other return from the generality of Christians than sacrilege, contempt, indifference, and ingratitude, even in the Sacrament of my Love. But what pierces my Heart most deeply is, that I am subjected to those insults by persons specially consecrated to my service."

Reparation

Reparation, Saint Margaret Mary understood, is an imperative of love. The Side of Jesus remains open in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and men pass it by -- some with a cold indifference, others with a merely formalistic token of acknowledgement, and still others without the slightest indication of grateful adoration -- and among these, alas, are priests and consecrated souls.

In this age of locked churches, of tabernacles forsaken from one Sunday to the next, of the Sacred Species so often handled casually and without reverence, and in the wake of public sacrileges perpetrated against the Blessed Sacrament, reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is, more than ever, necessary.

The Cenacle, the Cross, the Altar

Saint Margaret Mary invites us to re-discover the Heart of Jesus ablaze with love in the Most Holy Eucharist. The Eucharistic Christ, the Christus Passus, abides in our midst as Priest and Victim. There He perpetuates the oblation made first in the Cenacle, and then from the altar of the Cross.

In every age souls, like Saint Margaret Mary, have been polarized by the mysteries of the Cenacle and of the Cross actualized in the Most Holy Eucharist. In some way, the Holy Spirit continually reproduces Saint John's icon of the Church contemplating the pierced Side of Jesus on Calvary: "Standing by the Cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. . . . and the disciple whom He loved" (Jn 19:25-26).

I Look Round for Pity

The Sacred Heart is at the center of the Most Holy Eucharist both as sacrifice and as sacrament. The sacred action of the Mass perpetuates the Sacrifice of Calvary by which Christ, obedient unto death, hands Himself over to His Father and to those who partake of His Body and Blood. The priestly Heart of Jesus that beats with love in the Sacrifice of the Mass where He offers Himself as Victim, lives and burns with the same fire of love in the Sacrament of the Altar. From the tabernacle, as once from the Cross, He seeks souls to console Him, saying in the psalmist's words: "I look round for pity, where pity is none, for comfort where there is no comfort to be found" (Ps 68:21).

The Burning Furnace of Love

One cannot look long at Jesus Crucified without "the eyes of the heart" (Eph 1:18) being drawn to His pierced Side, and without entering, drawn on by the Holy Spirit, through the door of His pierced Side, into what men and women of every age have experienced as a "burning furnace of love." The "unsearchable riches" (Eph 3:8) of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, contemplated "for now, as in a mirror darkly" (1 Cor 13:12), are given us, until the return of the Lord in glory, in the adorable mystery of the Eucharist. And so, we go to the altar and to the tabernacle again and again to taste "with all the saints" (Eph 3:18), the "perfect love that casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18).

A Thursday of Adoration and Reparation

For the very first time, our embryonic monastery observed the Thursday of Adoration and Reparation for Priests. Being three, we were able to prolong our adoration before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus for the sake of our brothers, His beloved priests. Our tiny oratory has become a sanctuary of adoration, and this in response to the particular mandate given us by Bishop Slattery.

Saint John Leonardi

Also today, my Benedictine confrère, Father Samuel Weber, sent me the text of the Holy Father's General Audience for the 400th anniversary of the death of Saint John Leonardi, Founder of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, and patron saint of pharmacists. The whole text is worth meditating, especially in the context of the Year of the Priesthood, but the following lines went straight to my heart:

The Splendor of the Holy Face of Jesus

Saint John Leonardi's existence was always enlightened by the splendor of the "Holy Face" of Jesus, kept and venerated in the Cathedral Church of Lucca, becoming the eloquent symbol and the indisputable synthesis of the faith that animated him. Conquered by Christ like the Apostle Paul, he pointed out to his disciples, and continues to point out to all of us, the Christocentric ideal for which "it is necessary to divest oneself of every self interest and only look to the service of God," having "before the mind's eye only the honor, service and glory of Christ Jesus Crucified."

And the Maternal Face of Mary

Along with the face of Christ, he fixed his gaze on the maternal face of Mary. She whom he chose patroness of his order, was for him teacher, sister and mother, and he felt her constant protection. May the example and intercession of this "fascinating man of God" be, particularly in this Year for Priests, a call and encouragement for priests and for all Christians to live their own vocations with passion and enthusiasm.