SAINT OF THE DAY: 16 OCTOBER, 2014

Saint Margaret d’Youville

Foundress of the Sisters of Charity, called Grey Nuns
(1701-1771)

The oldest of six children, at seven years of age Mary Margaret Dufrost, born at Varennes near Montreal, had already lost her courageous soldier-father.

After receiving only two years of excellent education in Quebec City with the Ursuline nuns, she was obliged to return to Varennes before her twelfth birthday, to assist her mother to bring up her five younger brothers and sisters.

The Sisters had foreseen the heavy responsibilities which would come upon her, and under their tutelage, as they later testified, she had redoubled her activity and application to all her duties.

By means of a subsidy granted by the king of France to the families of his deceased military officers, the little family was able to remain together.

One day, some sixty years later, Mother Margaret d’Youville, Foundress of a Congregation of Sisters of Charity, would be known to the people of Quebec as the Providence of Montreal.

It became proverbial among the Church’s authorities, even before she died, when there was a charitable work to do, to ask the Grey Nuns; they never refuse a mission. This was indeed an honorable reputation; but in 1730 the twenty-six year-old widow of Francis d’Youville, seigneur of La Découverte, alone with two sons to bring up, could not have imagined such honor, nor what Providence was holding in store for her already strong and experienced charity.

Saint Margaret was living in Montreal with her two sons at the death of Mr. d’Youville. It was soon evident that the pious widow would seek no distraction amid the world’s frivolities.

She took in sewing and opened a little business, thus becoming known in the city; half of her earnings were always dedicated to her children’s Christian instruction.

Both of her sons would later become priests. These occupations were not enough, however, to occupy her time; she visited prisoners, cared for the dying, brought peace to many troubled households, and even aided the poor financially.

Her work with the unfortunate soon brought to her three apostolic young hearts, to offer their assistance. The four young women put their savings in common, and kneeling before a little statue of the Blessed Virgin, vowed their lives to the care of the poor. They rented a house, and soon received five suffering members of the Mystical Body of Christ as their charges.

The young missionaries did not escape the harsh opinions which always test the perseverance of those who desire to serve God in the person of the unfortunate.

Undisciplined tongues accused them of bootlegging alcohol and even of making abundant use of it themselves. Mother d’Youville prayed to the Eternal Father, to whom she would always have an outstanding devotion, that she might not, during her trials, lose her good spiritual director who was ill; she already had lost her closest companion by death.

The director was cured, but the little hospital burnt down in January of 1745. The misery of the little group won sympathy for them, and soon lodging, clothes and food were offered them.

Their destitution drew the attention of city authorities, who at that time were wondering what to do about the city hospital, overburdened with large debts and without sufficient personnel to staff it. When Mother d’Youville offered to take on both the debts and the labors, they were very happy indeed to accept her offer.

With five companions, nine indigents and two lady-boarders, she entered the hospital in 1747.

There a new difficulty for the foundress would soon make its appearance; the work still had enemies, and in 1750 plans were made, without consulting her, to merge it with another of similar nature, staffed by the nursing nuns of Quebec City.

Finally an appeal made by the Foundress to the king of France, Louis XV, elicited his command that the decision of the local authorities be canceled, and she was authorized in 1752 to keep the hospital and to found a Community.

It was not only the sick who were the object of Saint Margaret d’Youville’s loving care. Foundling children, prisoners, orphans, the handicapped, the aged, were soon the cherished beneficiaries of the Grey Nuns’ indefatigable solicitude.

Their foundress passed to her reward in 1771; and that night a large luminous cross appeared in the Montreal skies, attesting the death of a Saint. But her community continued and has been richly blessed, not only by the poor it has strengthened for the combats of life, but by the Father of the Poor Himself, who in 150 years gave it extension to fifteen dioceses of North America.

The Grey Nuns have labored in the most difficult missions of the extreme north of Canada, as well as in a dozen cities of the more southerly provinces and the United States.

Their self-effacement, their missionary spirit, their hardy courage in the face of the rudest living conditions, have earned the admiration of all who know them.

(SOURCE: La Vénérable Mère d’Youville, by Abbé Émile Dubois (L’Oeuvre des Tracts: Montreal, 1921).)

SAINT OF THE DAY: 15 OCTOBER, 2014

Saint Teresa of Avila

Virgin, Reformer of the Carmelite Order
(1515-1582)

By their fruits you will know them, says Our Lord of those who claim to be His followers. The fruits which remain of the life, labors and prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila bear to her virtue a living and enduring testimony which none can refuse to admit.

She herself wrote her life and many other celebrated spiritual works, and much more can still be said of this soul of predilection, whose writings and examples have led so many souls to high sanctity.

Born in 1515 in the kingdom of Castile in Spain, she was the youngest child of a virtuous nobleman. When she was seven years old, Teresa fled from her home with one of her young brothers, in the hope of going to Africa and receiving the palm of martyrdom.

Brought back and asked the reason for her flight, she replied: I want to see God, and I must die before I can see Him.

She then began, with her same brother, Rodriguez, to build a hermitage in the garden, and was often heard repeating:

Forever, forever! She lost her mother at the age of twelve years, and was led by worldly companions into various frivolities. Her father decided to place her in a boarding convent, and she obeyed without any inclination for this kind of life.

Grace came to her assistance with the good guidance of the Sisters, and she decided to enter religion in the Carmelite monastery of the Incarnation at Avila.

For a time frivolous conversations there, too, checked her progress toward perfection, but finally in her thirty-first year, she abandoned herself entirely to God.

A vision showed her the very place in hell to which her apparently light faults would have led her, and she was told by Our Lord that all her conversation must be with heaven.

Ever afterwards she lived in the deepest distrust of herself. When she was named Prioress against her will at the monastery of the Incarnation, she succeeded in conciliating even the most hostile hearts by placing a statue of Our Lady in the seat she would ordinarily have occupied, to preside over the Community.

God enlightened her to understand that He desired the reform of her Order, and her heart was pierced with divine love.

The Superior General gave her full permission to found as many houses as might become feasible.

She dreaded nothing so much as delusion in the decisions she would make in difficult situations; we can well understand this, knowing she founded seventeen convents for the Sisters, and that fifteen others for the Fathers of the Reform were established during her lifetime, with the aid of Saint John of the Cross.

To the end of her life she acted only under obedience to her confessors, and this practice both made her strong and preserved her from error.

Journeying in those days was far from comfortable and even perilous, but nothing could stop the Saint from accomplishing the holy Will of God. When the cart was overturned one day and she had a broken leg, her sense of humor became very evident by her remark: Dear Lord, if this is how You treat Your friends, it is no wonder You have so few!

She died October 4, 1582, and was canonized in 1622.

The history of her mortal remains is as extraordinary as that of her life. After nine months in a wooden coffin, caved in from the excess weight above it, the body was perfectly conserved, though the clothing had rotted.

A fine perfume it exuded spread throughout the entire monastery of the nuns, when they reclothed it.

Parts of it were later removed as relics, including the heart showing the marks of the Transverberation, and her left arm.

At the last exhumation in 1914, the body was found to remain in the same condition as when it was seen previously, still recognizable and very fragrant with the same intense perfume.

(SOURCE: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12;Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).)

SAINT OF THE DAY: 12 OCTOBER, 2014

Blessed Jeanne Leber

Recluse
(1662-1714)

Blessed Jeanne Leber is a native Canadian Saint, born in January 1662 at Montreal.

She was the only daughter of a young immigrant couple from Normandy in France, and the godchild of two of the city’s founders, Monsieur de Maisonneuve and Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, foundress of the city’s first hospital.

The little girl often asked her godmother profound questions concerning religion, such that the Hospital nuns were amazed.

Her parents cultivated the excellent qualities of their daughter, and she was sent to be educated in Quebec City by the Ursuline nuns.

Jeanne spent hours praying before the Blessed Sacrament, thus showing from her early years her tendency toward a purely contemplative life.

She used to talk with the Angels, and she charmed everyone by her gentleness and simplicity.

She was gay in company and accepted willingly the roles she was assigned to play in the little dramatic presentations of her school.

One day, as Christmas was nearing, she asked to play the role of the Infant Jesus. The others were surprised and questioned her as to her reason.

She answered gravely: The Divine Child does not say a word and does not move, and I would like to imitate Him in all things!

At the age of fifteen she returned to Montreal, to continue her formation under the supervision of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, the foundress there of another new missionary Community, The Congregation of Notre Dame, for the training of the young.

In 1680 Jeanne’s vocation was studied, after she had made a private vow of perpetual virginity at the age of seventeen, which a priest ratified.

A close friend who like herself had wanted to serve God alone, died suddenly; and Jeanne’s resolution was strengthened at the sight of the profound peace on the countenance of her deceased and dear companion.

She wanted to imitate Catherine of Siena, and make herself a recluse in her father’s house.

She refused the offer of a brilliant marriage; her confessor felt he could not oppose her pious intention but required that she obtain her parents’ consent.

They did not long oppose her, for her director from childhood, a priest of Saint Sulpice, Monsieur Seguenot, favored her vocation.

She remained submissive to her director until her death, and never sought any other.

Never would her determination be altered. Jeanne said: I must die to the world. Long live Jesus! But the emission of solemn vows which she ardently desired to pronounce, was prudently deferred for several years.

After the death of her mother, as a recluse in a house of the Congregation of Notre Dame she was lodged very close to the Tabernacle, the source of her hope and her strength; her room adjoined the Chapel wall against which it was placed.

She observed a very strict poverty in clothing, shoes, furnishings; she took a common and rude nourishment, often limiting herself to bread and water, or taking scarcely enough to sustain her life.

During her twenty years in this convent, she rose every day at 4 o’clock, from Easter until November 1^st, and the rest of the year at 4:30.

She recited the Office of the Blessed Virgin and heard Holy Mass; she did spiritual reading twice and offered several hours of mental prayer every day.

She rose every night for another hour of prayer.

To avoid any idleness she did handwork, sewing or knitting for the poor, or made sacerdotal vestments or altar decorations.

She was very expert in embroidery, and worked with wool, silk, gold and silver thread with equal competence, making her own patterns without ever having studied drawing and design.

She was said to have furnished all of Montreal with chasubles, copes, dalmatics, altar cloths and other precious articles for its churches.

In 1714 she fell ill with an oppression of the chest and fever, and was obliged to remain in bed and commanded to use sheets and a mattress, which she had never done.

She recognized that her last hour was at hand and disposed of everything in her usage.

She begged pardon when her cough became uncontrollable and despite her efforts not to do so, disturbed those in the chapel adjoining her humble cell.

She died on October 3, 1714, at the age of fifty-two years.

(SOURCE: Jeanne LeBer, Première Recluse du Canada Français by Marie Beaupré (Editions ACF: Montreal, 1939); Dans le nid d’Aiglons, la Colombe,by Leo-Paul Desrosiers (Fides: Montreal, 1963); Jeanne LeBer, by Juliette Lavergne. Brochure (Fides: Montreal, 1947).)

SAINT OF THE DAY: 08 OCTOBER, 2014

Saint Bridget of Sweden

Widow
(1302-1373)

Saint Bridget was born into the Swedish royal family in the year 1302, the daughter of very virtuous Christian parents.

More than one prophetic episode attended the birth of Bridget, whose voice would be heard with admiration by the entire world, according to a bishop of her country.

Curiously, for three years she said not a word, then began to speak with facility and clarity, like persons of mature years. At the age of seven, after her mother had died, she beheld the Mother of God, who presented her with a beautiful crown.

She became sober, modest, candid, humble, and peaceful. At the age of ten she saw Our Lord as He was on the Cross, and she began to meditate constantly on the mysteries of the Passion, while occupying herself exteriorly with needlework.

In obedience to her father, she was married to Prince Ulpho of Sweden. Saint Bridget became the mother of eight children, four boys and four girls, one of whom, Saint Catherine of Sweden, is honored as a Saint.

Their four sons died young, two during one of the crusades.

After some years she and her husband separated by mutual consent; he entered the Cistercian Order, where he died thirty years before his holy spouse.

After his death, her life became still more austere; for her guide she had a celebrated Doctor of Theology, a Canon of the cathedral of Linkoeping.

Severe for herself, Saint Bridget remained gentle for the poor and nourished twelve persons every day, serving them herself; she established hospices for the sick and the convalescent.

She founded the Order of the Holy Saviour for sixty nuns, at the Abbey of Wastein or Wadstena in Sweden.

Saint Bridget received a series of sublime revelations, all of which she scrupulously submitted to the judgment of her confessor.

During a famous pilgrimage which she made to Rome at the command of her Lord,

He dictated to her the Fifteen Prayers of Saint Bridget, in honor of His Passion.

Saint Bridget also went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with her daughter, Saint Catherine, and amid the very scenes of the Passion was further instructed in the sacred mysteries.

She died in Rome, after her return from this pilgrimage, in 1373.

(SOURCE: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12;Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).)

SAINT OF THE DAY: 04 OCTOBER, 2014

Saint Francis of Assisi

Founder of the Franciscan Orders

(1182-1226)

Saint Francis, the son of a merchant of Assisi, was born in the year 1182 in a poor stable, his birth already prophesying the Saint who would preach poverty to a world seduced by luxury.

Though chosen by God to be for the world a living manifestation of Christ’s poor and suffering life on earth, in his youth he was generous, always of equal humor, and much appreciated by his friends; he was fond of splendors, fine clothing, and good company, and easily won the affection of all who knew him.

More than once various holy persons foretold for him a future of glory, but in veiled terms. Francis did not understand these predictions, and supposed he would become the leader of a large militia.

The military life he had adopted ended when Jesus told him he was destined to fight another kind of combat, one against the demon and sin; that the grandeurs predicted were spiritual, not temporal — and to return home.

He became inspired with a great esteem for poverty and humiliation.

The thought of the Man of Sorrows, who had nowhere to lay His head, filled him with holy envy of the poor, and constrained him to renounce the wealth and the worldly station which he had come to abhor.

One day, while on horseback, he met a leper begging alms who inspired him with repugnance, and he took a path to avoid him.

Then, repenting, he turned his horse around and returned to embrace him and give him a generous alms, as was his custom for all beggars.

He continued on his way, but looked back, and nowhere on the plain could the stranger be seen, though there were no trees, no refuges anywhere. He was from that day a completely transformed person.

He decided to use his wealth to care for the poor and the sick, and dedicate himself in person to the same works.

When he prayed one day in the little chapel to do only what God willed of him, the Saviour spoke again to him, repeating three times the mysterious words: Go, Francis, and repair My house which is falling into ruin.

He then undertook to repair the old church of San Damiano where he had heard these words, retiring for refuge to a grotto.

He was regarded as a fool by the people, when he returned to the city in the clothing of a poor beggar.

This was indeed the folly of the Cross.

Francis renounced his heritage definitively, to beg thereafter his daily sustenance and what he needed for the repair of the church, and left the city singing the praises of God.

He repaired two other churches.

The love of God which was burning brightly in the poor man of Assisi began to give light and warmth to many others also, and it was not long before several came to join him.

One of them was a very wealthy man of Assisi, the second a Canon of the Assisi cathedral, and the third the now Blessed Brother Gilles.

They adopted the absolute poverty of Francis, and the foundations of the Franciscan Order were laid. They were first called the penitents of Assisi.

No counsels could make Francis change his resolution to possess nothing at all. God revealed to him then that he was to found a religious Order.

Pope Innocent III, when Francis with his first twelve companions journeyed to Rome, after first rebuffing them, recognized him as the monk God showed him in a vision, supporting on his shoulders the Church of Saint John Latran, which was growing decrepit.

He received the profession of Francis and his twelve companions, and in 1215 they were formally constituted as a religious Order, which then spread rapidly throughout Christendom.

In 1216, Saint Francis after assembling his religious, sent them out to preach in France, Spain, England and Germany, where they established monasteries, lasting proofs of the efficacy of their missions.

A second general Chapter was held in 1219 on the feast of Pentecost, and the little Brothers gathered from all over the world at Saint Mary of the Angels, the church which Francis and his first twelve disciples had received only nine years earlier.

Cabins of reeds and tents were put up all over the countryside.

The Cardinal who visited them exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, O Brother, truly this is the camp of the Lord! They were more than 5,000 in number.

Saint Francis exhorted his brethren: My Brothers, above all, let us love the Holy Church; let us pray for her exaltation, and never abandon poverty. Is it not written, Trust in the Lord, and He Himself will sustain you’?

Francis, after visiting the Orient in a vain quest for martyrdom, spent his life like his Divine Master — now in preaching to the multitudes, now amid the desert solitudes in fasting and contemplation.

His constant prayer was My God and my All! During one of these retreats on Mount Alverno, he received on his hands, feet, and side the imprints of the five wounds of Jesus.

With the cry, Welcome, sister Death! he passed to the glory of his God, October 4, 1226, at the age of 44 years.

(SOURCE: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12;Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).)

SAINT OF THE DAY: 02 OCTOBER, 2014

The Holy Guardian Angels

God does not abandon to what we call chance, any of His creatures.

By His essence and providence He is everywhere present; not a sparrow falls to the ground, nor a hair from our heads, without His consent.

He is not content, however, with assisting His creation daily and at every moment, with sustaining His handiwork, which without His continuous support would return to dust.

His divine and infinite Love, not only maintaining the existence which He gives and perpetuates in living beings, has charged His Holy Angels with the ministry of watching and safeguarding each one of His rational creatures.

The Angels, divided into nine hierarchies, have varied obligations. Their intelligence and prudence are penetrating like the beam of a lighthouse; so it appears even when we compare it to the best of human intelligences, which are like the light of a little candle in contrast.

An Angel, visualizing an end to be attained, sees instantly the means necessary to achieve it, whereas we must pray, study, deliberate, inquire, and choose during many phases of effort, in order to reach our proposed ends.

Kingdoms have their Angels assigned to them; dignitaries of the Church and of the world have more than one Angel to guide them; and every child who enters into the world receives a Guardian Angel.

Our Lord says in the Gospel: Beware lest you scandalize any of these little ones, for their Angels in heaven behold the face of My Father.

Thus the existence of Guardian Angels is a dogma of the Christian faith, based on Holy Scripture itself.

(SOURCE: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).)

SAINT OF THE DAY: 01 OCTOBER, 2014

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Carmelite
(1873-1898)

Few Saints have aroused so much admiration and enthusiasm immediately after their death; few have acquired a more astonishing popularity everywhere on earth; few have been so rapidly raised to the altars as was this holy young Carmelite.

Marie Françoise Thérèse Martin, known as the Little Flower of Jesus, was born January 2, 1873 at Alençon in Normandy, France, of very Christian parents.

The Martins, who lost four of their little ones in early infancy or childhood, regarded their children as gifts from heaven and offered them to God before their birth.

Thérèse was the last flower of this blessed stem, which gave four Sisters to the Carmel of Lisieux, still another to the Visitation of Caen.

The five sisters were left without their mother, a victim of cancer, when Thérèse was only four years old; but her two oldest sisters were of an age to take excellent care of the household and continue the Christian character formation of the younger ones, which their mother had initiated.

Their saintly father was soon to see his little flock separated, however, when one after the other they left to enter religious life. He blessed each one and gave them all back to God, with humble gratitude to God for having chosen his daughters.

From childhood Thérèse had manifested a tender piety which her naturally lively temperament could not alter. Her mother’s death affected her profoundly, however, and at the age of nine she was visited with a severe trial in the form of an illness the doctors could not diagnose, and which seemed incurable.

She was instantly restored to her ordinary good health by the Virgin Mary, in answer to her desolate sisters’ prayers; Thérèse saw Her statue become animated, to smile at her with an ineffable tenderness as she lay on her bed of suffering.

Before the age of fifteen Thérèse already desired to enter the Carmel of Lisieux, where her two eldest sisters were already nuns; a trip to Rome and a petition at the knees of the Holy Father Leo XIII gave her the inalterable answer that her Superiors would regulate the matter. Many prayers finally obtained an affirmative reply to her ardent request, and four months after her fifteenth birthday she entered Carmel with an ineffable joy.

She could say then, I no longer have any desire but to love Jesus even to folly.

She adopted flowers as the symbol of her love for her Divine Spouse and offered all her little daily sacrifices and works as rose petals at the feet of Jesus. Divine Providence gave to the world the autobiography of this true Saint, whose little way of spiritual childhood was described in her own words in her Story of a Soul.

She could not offer God the macerations of the great soldiers of God, only her desires to love Him as they had loved Him, and to serve Him in every way possible, not only as a cloistered nun, but as a missionary, a priest, a hero of the faith, a martyr.

She chose all in spirit, for her beloved Lord.

Later she would be named patroness of missions. Her spirituality does not imply only sweetness and light, however; this loving child of God passed by a tunnel of desolate spiritual darkness, yet never ceased to smile at Him, wanting to serve Him, if it were possible, without His even knowing it.

When nine years had passed in the Carmel, the little flower was ready to be plucked for heaven; and in a slow agony of consumption, Thérèse made her final offering to God.

She suffered so severely that she said she would never have believed it possible, and could only explain it by her desire to save souls for God.

She died in 1897, was beatified in 1923 and canonized in 1925.

And now, as she foretold, she is spending her heaven in doing good upon earth.

Countless miracles have been attributed to her intercession.

(SOURCE: Lives of the Saints for Every Day of the Year. (Reprint of the work of John Gilmary Shea, with Appendix including recently canonized Saints) (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1955. Third Edition: Tan Books and Publishers: Rockford, Ill., 1995); Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l’année, by Abbé L. Jaud (Mame: Tours, 1950))

SAINT OF THE DAY (part 3) : 29 SEPTEMBER, 2014

Saint Raphael the Archangel

This holy Archangel identified himself to the exiled Jew Tobias as one of the Seven who stand before God (Tob. 12:15).

His name means the healing of God, and he is thought to be the Angel who came down and agitated the water of the pool of Bethsaida in Jerusalem.

The sick, who always lay around the pool, strove to be the first to enter the water afterwards, because that fortunate one was always cured.

We read of this in the story of the paralytic cured by Jesus, who had waited patiently for thirty-eight years, unable to move when the occasion presented itself.(Cf. John 5:1-9)

Saint Raphael is best known through the beautiful history of the two Tobias, father and son, exiled to Persia in the days of the Assyrian conquest in the eighth century before Christ.

In their story, the Archangel plays the major role.

The father Tobias was a faithful son of Jacob and was old and worn out by his manifold good works; for many years he had assisted his fellow exiles in every possible way, even burying the slain of Israel during a persecution by Sennacherib, and continuing this practice despite the wrath that king manifested towards him.

Having been stripped of all his possessions, he desired to have his son recover a substantial sum of money he had once lent to a member of his family in a distant city.

He needed a companion for the young Tobias.

God provided that guide in the Archangel Raphael, whom the son met providentially one day, in the person of a stranger from the very area where he was to go, in the country of the Medes.

Raphael to all appearances was a young man like himself, who said his name was Azarias(Assistance of God).

Everything went well, as proposed; the young Tobias recovered the sum and then was married, during their stay in Media, to the virtuous daughter of another relative, whom Providence had reserved for him.

All aspects of this journey had been thorny with difficulties, but the wise guide had found a way to overcome all of them.

When a huge fish threatened to devour Tobias, camped on the shores of the Tigris, the guide told him how to remove it from the water, and the fish expired at his feet; then remedies and provisions were derived from this creature by the directives of Azarias.

When the Angel led Tobias for lodging in the city of Rages, to the house of his kinsman Raguel, father of the beautiful Sara, the young man learned that seven proposed husbands had died on the very day of the planned marriage.

How would Tobias fare?

The Angel reassured him that this would not be his own fate, and told him to pray with his future spouse for three nights, that they might be blessed with a holy posterity.

Sara was an only daughter, as Tobias was an only son, and she was endowed with a large heritage.

During the absence of the young Tobias, his father had become blind when the droppings of a pigeon had fallen into his eyes.

When the two travelers returned after an extended absence, which had cost his mother many tears, the young Tobias was deeply grieved to find his father unable to see him and his new daughter-in-law.

But Raphael told the son how to cure his father’s blindness by means of the gall of the fish; and after the remedy had proved efficacious, all of them rejoiced time in their blessings.

When Tobias the son narrated his story and told his father that all their benefits had come to them through this stranger, both father and son wished to give Azarias half of the inheritance.

Raphael declined and revealed his identity, saying he was sent to assist the family of the man who had never failed to obey and honor the blessed God of Israel. Raphael, before he disappeared, said to the family:

It is honorable to reveal and confess the works of God. Prayer is good, with fasting and alms, more than to lay up treasures, for alms deliver from death and purge away sins, and cause the giver to find mercy and life everlasting…

When thou didst pray with tears and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner to hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord.

And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that trials prove thee…

I am the Angel Raphael, one of the seven who stand before the Lord.

(SOURCE: The Holy Bible: Old and New Testaments)

SAINT OF THE DAY (part 2) : 29 SEPTEMBER, 2014

Saint Gabriel Archangel

The day before the great feast of the Annunciation, the Church celebrates the feast of the Archangel who brought to earth the glad tidings that Mary was chosen to be the Mother of the Incarnate God.

This angelic Messenger appears several times in the history of God’s chosen people.

He came to Daniel the prophet after he had a vision of the future Persian and Greek empires, to explain the vision to him, as Daniel narrates in the eighth chapter of his book.

So great was the Archangel’s majesty that the prophet fell on his face trembling.

The Angel of the Incarnation again appeared to the prophet to answer his prayer at the end of the exile, and advise him of the exact date of the future Redemption by the long-awaited Messiah.

When the fullness of time had come, Gabriel was sent several times as the harbinger of the Incarnation of the Most High God. First, to the Temple of Jerusalem, while Zachary stood at the altar of incense, to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would bring forth a son to be called John, who would prepare the way of the Lord. (Luke 1:17)

Six months later the great Archangel again appeared, bearing the greatest message God ever sent to earth.

Standing before the Blessed Virgin Mary, this great Archangel of God trembled with reverence as he offered Her the ineffable honor of becoming Mother of the Eternal Word.

Upon Her consent, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. It was he, we can readily believe, who also fortified Saint Joseph for his mission as virginal father of the Saviour.

Gabriel rightly bears the beautiful name, the strength of God, manifesting in every apparition the power and glory of the Eternal. According to some of the Fathers of the Church, it was Saint Gabriel, Angel of the Incarnation, who invited the shepherds of Bethlehem to come to the Crib to adore the newborn God.

He was with Jesus in His Agony, no less ready to be the strength of God in the Garden than at Nazareth and Bethlehem.

Throughout Christian tradition he is the Angel of the Incarnation, the Angel of consolation, the Angel of mercy.

(SOURCE: Lives of the Saints for Every Day of the Year, edited by Rev. Hugo Hoever, S.O. Cist., Ph.D. Catholic Book Publishing Co. (New York: 1951-1955); La Sainte Bible commentée, Ed. Abbé L.-Cl. Fillion (Letouzey et Ané: Paris, 1903), Vol. VI, pp. 298-303, notes)

SAINT OF THE DAY (PART 1) : 29 SEPTEMBER, 2014

Saint Michael the Archangel

Protector of the People of God

MI-CA-EL, or Who is like unto God? was the cry of the great Archangel when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts.

From that hour he has been known as Michael, Captain of the armies of God, the archetype of divine fortitude, the champion of every faithful soul in strife with the powers of evil.

What is more, we see him in Holy Scripture as the special guardian of the children of Israel, their comfort and protector in times of sorrow or conflict. It is he who prepares their return from the Persian captivity, when the prophet Daniel prays for that favor (Daniel 10:12-13); who leads the valiant Maccabees to victory in battle, after the prayer of Judas Maccabeus (I Mac. 7:41-44).

Ever since its foundation by Jesus Christ, the Church has venerated Saint Michael as her special patron and protector.

She invokes him by name in her Confiteor, when accusing her faults; she summons him to the side of her children in the agony of death, and chooses him as their escort from the chastening flames of purgatory to the realms of holy light.

Lastly, when Antichrist shall have set up his kingdom on earth, it is Michael who will unfurl once more the standard of the Cross.

This we know from a prophecy of Scripture which states clearly that in those days the great prince Michael will rise up to protect the children of God. (Daniel 12:1-4)

During the plague in Rome in the 6^th century, Pope Gregory the Great saw Saint Michael in a vision sheathing his flaming sword to show that he would put an end to the scourge which was ravaging the city.

In 608 a church was erected in thanksgiving to Saint Michael for the help he gave.

Reflection: Saint Bernard wrote: Whenever any grievous temptation or vehement sorrow oppresses you, invoke your Guardian, your Leader. Cry out to him and say, Lord, save us, lest we perish!

(SOURCE: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).)