Have no fear, O my soul

"What need I fear? 

He Who sustains the world is within me.

The Blood of a God circulates within my veins:

Have no fear, O my soul.

The Lord of the Universe

has taken you up into His Arms

and wants you to find rest in Him.”

 Luisa M. Claret de la Touche, Servant of God

 

 

St Scholastica

Italy ~ 480-547

Benedictine Abbess

Twin sister of St Benedict

FEAST DAY – February 10

"She was able to do more because she loved more." ~ St Gregory the Great

St Scholastica, ora pro nobis!

Saint Scholastica, twin sister of Saint Benedict of Nursia who founded of the Benedictine order, was consecrated to God at a very early age but probably continued to live in her parents' home. It is said that she was as devoted to Jesus as she was to her brother. So, when Benedict established his monastery at Monte Cassino, Scholastica founded a convent in nearby Plombariola, about five miles south of Monte Cassino. The convent is said to have been under the direction of her brother, thus she is regarded as the first Benedictine nun.

The siblings were quite close. The respective rules of their houses proscribed either entering the other's monastery. According to Saint Gregory, they met once a year at a house near Monte Cassino monastery to confer on spiritual matters, and were eventually buried together, probably in the same grave. Saint Gregory says, "so death did not separate the bodies of these two, whose minds had ever been united in the Lord."

Saint Gregory tells the charming story of the last meeting of the two saints on earth. Scholastica and Benedict had spent the day in the "mutual comfort of heavenly talk" and with nightfall approaching, Benedict prepared to leave. Scholastica, having a presentiment that it would be their last opportunity to see each other alive, asked him to spend the evening in conversation. Benedict sternly refused because he did not wish to break his own rule by spending a night away from Monte Cassino. Thereupon, Scholastica cried openly, laid her head upon the table, and prayed that God would intercede for her. As she did so, a sudden storm arose. The violent rain and hail came in such a torrential downpour that Benedict and his companions were unable to depart.

"May Almighty God forgive you, sister" said Benedict, "for what you have done." "I asked a favor of you," Scholastica replied simply, "and you refused it. I asked it of God, and He has granted it!"
Just after his return to Monte Cassino, Benedict saw a vision of Scholastica's soul departing her body, ascending to heaven in the form of a dove. She died three days after their last meeting. He placed her body in the tomb he had prepared for himself, and arranged for his own to be placed there after his death.

from the Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great

 

Prudent time management

"The best way to economize time

is to ‘lose’ half an hour each day

attending Holy Mass."

Blessed Frédéric Ozanam

 

Lent begins this year on Feb 22 –

Plan now to attend Mass every day

during the Lenten Season!

Invite a friend to join you!

 

A Saint for those who are Prisoners of the Past

Every year on Feb 8th I send this same reflection from Fr Mark Kirby because every year it is the best one I can find.  It bears repeating - every word. St Josephine, pray for us! - Janette



I originally posted this homily two years ago. The message of Saint Josephine Bakhita is so compelling that I decided to post it again on the occasion of her liturgical memorial. (Fr Mark Kirby, 2.07.09) http://vultus.stblogs.org/

We celebrate today the memorial of Saint Josephine Bakhita as well as the sixty-second (65th in 2012) anniversary of her death. Born in Sudan, Africa in 1869, Madre Josephine died in Italy in 1947, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000. Her memorial, endowed with a magnificent new Collect, was inserted into the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal published in 2002.

The Holy Spirit Interceding for Us in the Liturgy

I have had occasion to say this many times before, but it bears repetition: the Collect prescribed by the liturgy on any given day is a pure distillation of the Church's prayer. The Collect of the day is nothing less than the Holy Spirit "helping us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26). The Collect of the day is the Church articulating for us those "sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26) by which the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for us, filling us with the prayer of Christ.

Every line of the Collect for Saint Bakhita merits attention; every phrase needs to be repeated in meditation.

O God, who led Saint Josephine Bakhita
from abject slavery
to the dignity of being your daughter and the bride of Christ,
give us, we beseech you, by her example,
to follow after Jesus the Crucified Lord with unremitting love
and, in charity, to persevere in a ready mercy.

Called by a New Name

As a result of the trauma she endured when she was kidnapped and sold into slavery as a little girl, Saint Josephine Bakhita could not remember the name her parents had given her. Her captors called her Bakhita, meaning "fortunate" or "lucky." "thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God" (Is 62:2-3). Years later, at her baptism, Bakhita received the name Giuseppina or Josephine.

A Saint Sold and Resold

Bakhita's life was marked by indescribable emotional, moral, and physical suffering. After her kidnapping, she was sold and resold in the slave markets of El Obeidh and Khartoum. In the capital of Sudan, Bakhita was bought -- yes, bought -- by the Italian Consul, one Callisto Legnani. Bakhita was surprised that her new owner didn't use the lash on her when giving orders; he treated her with kindness and affection. When the political situation obliged him to return to Italy, he took Bakhita with him. There Bakhita entered the service of another family. These good people, in turn, entrusted Bakhita to the Canossian Daughters of Charity in Venice.

Daughter of God

Bakhita became a catechumen and was baptized on January 9th, 1890. From then on, she would kiss the baptismal font, saying, "Here I became a daughter of God." The Collect echoes this: O God, who led Saint Josephine Bakhita from abject slavery to the dignity of being your daughter. . . .

Christ, the Gentle Master

Protected by Italian law, Bakhita chose to remain among the Canossians. The psalmist expresses her choice: "Better is one day in thy courts above thousands. I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners" (Ps 83:10). She who had been bought and sold by a series of human masters discovered the tender love of Christ, the gentle Master. Sweet paradox. Bakhita called God, "Master."

La Madre Moretta

On December 8th, 1896, Bakhita was consecrated forever to God as a Canossian Daughter of Charity, becoming Mother Josephine. The local people and school children called her affectionately la Madre Moretta, "the little Black Mother." Daughter of God, Bride of Christ, Mother of the little and the poor, Bakhita became the complete consecrated woman: free, loved, fruitful, fully realized. "Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken: and thy land shall no more be called Desolate: but thou shalt be called My pleasure in her, and thy land inhabited. Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee: and thy land shall be inhabited" (Is 62:4).

No Trace of Bitterness

Mother Josephine Bakhita served her Master for almost fifty years. The Collect speaks of her following Jesus the Crucified Lord with unremitting love. In charity, it says, she persevered in a ready mercy. This is the miracle of Saint Bakhita. There was no trace of bitterness in her. The cruel degradations and unspeakable moral outrages suffered as a slave, though never forgotten, had no hold on her. She to whom men had refused mercy persevered to the end in a ready mercy for others. She was not a prisoner of her past. We who are so often prisoners of the past, unable to let go, unable to forgive, unable to move beyond old hurts, do well today to seek her intercession.

Set Free by Love

Looking to the future does not mean forgetting the past; it means transfiguring it. It means re-reading it with eyes of mercy in the light of faith. We need not remain slaves of our own histories, chained to the evil things, the hurtful things, the unjust things that happened ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or seventy-five years ago. There is another way: the way of those set free by love.

Two Suitcases

Toward the end of her life, Mother Bakhita used to smile and say: "I travel slowly, one step at a time, because I am carrying two big suitcases. One of them contains my sins, and in the other, which is much heavier, are the infinite merits of Jesus. When I reach heaven I will open the suitcases and say to God: 'Eternal Father, now you can judge.' And to St. Peter: 'Close the door, because I'm staying.'"

La Madonna

In her final agony Bakhita relived the horrors of her enslavement. "Loosen the chains," she said to her nurse, "they are so heavy." The Mother of God herself came to loosen the chains. Bakhita died smiling, saying, la Madonna, la Madonna. It was February 8th, 1947.

The Eucharist, Mystery of Liberation

Saint Josephine Bakhita, intercede for us that, freed from the chains that bind us to the past, we may go forward into freedom. For each of us the path forward is the Communion procession to the altar. The Most Holy Eucharist is the mystery of our liberation, the healing of memories, the Bread to children given, the Chalice of undying love lifted daily to the lips of the Bride.

St Josephine Bakhita

Religious (Canossian Daughters of Charity)

1869-1947

Feast Day - Feb 8

 

St Josephine Bakhita, ora pro nobis!

Such is His love

 

"Does our Lord not give Himself whole and entire to each one? And if a greater number come to receive Him, does He divide Himself up? Does He give less to each one? If the church is full of adorers, can they not all pray to Jesus and converse with Him? Is not each one listened to and his prayers granted as if he were the only one in church?

Such is the personal love of Jesus for us. Each one may take it all for himself and wrong no one; the sun gives all its light to each and every one of us; the ocean belongs whole and entire to each and every fish. Jesus is greater than us all. He is inexhaustible."

St. Peter Julian Eymard

 

They stayed for Love of Jesus

 

"Fr Paul Miki was the son of an affluent Japanese military chief and a gifted evangelist who strongly defended the faith against Buddhism.  When the political climate became hostile to Christianity in Japan, the missionaries were ordered to leave.  He and fellow Jesuit missionaries decided to continue their ministry in secret.  The Jesuits did not want to leave the faithful without the Holy Eucharist and Sacraments. They were eventually arrested.

Fr Miki was martyred along with two other Jesuits and 23 other Christians - united in a common faith and love for Jesus Christ and His Church.  They were killed simultaneously by being raised on crosses and then stabbed with spears. The people pushed near, dipped cloths into the wounds and cut off pieces of the clothing of the holy martyrs as holy relics.

When missionaries returned to Japan in the 1860s, at first they found no trace of Christianity. But after establishing themselves they found that thousands of Christians lived around Nagasaki and that they had secretly preserved the faith.  The survival of Japanese Catholicism is one of the most moving stories in the entire history of the Church. For over two centuries the people had no priests but lived the faith as best they could, in secret, not daring to keep written materials but handing down their beliefs by word of mouth."

James Hitchcock, The Nagasaki Martyrs

St. Paul Miki and Companions

Martyrs ~Japan (d. 1597)

FEAST DAY - Feb 6

 

While hanging upon a cross Paul Miki

preached to the people gathered for the execution:

“The sentence of judgment says these men came to Japan from the Philippines, but I did not come from any other country. I am a true Japanese. The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. I certainly did teach the doctrine of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason I die. I believe that I am telling only the truth before I die. I know you believe me and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you to become happy. I obey Christ. After Christ’s example I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.”

St Paul Miki and Companions,

ora pro nobis -

May we all be loyal unto death

for our faith!