September 11--St. John Gabriel Perboyre, Priest and Martyr

St. John Gabriel Perboyre, born in France in 1802, joined the Congregation of the Missions with a great desire to be a missionary. He was ordained in 1826 but was prevented from going to foreign missions due to his excellence at teaching in the seminary. However, in 1835 he was finally sent to China. In China he rescued street children and taught catechumens. But China was an unstable country and the Opium Wars ignited persecutions of foreigners. In 1839 St. John Gabriel was betrayed by a catechumen and then subjected to a year of trials and tortures. He was accused of teaching a false religion, charged to reveal other Christians, made to kneel on rusty iron chains, hung by his thumbs and hair, beaten by bamboo canes, and accused of immoral relations with a Chinese girl. He was sentenced to death by strangulation while on a cross and died a martyr on September 11, 1840.

St. John Gabriel faced persecution in two ways. France was an anti-clerical country after the French Revolution. China was anti-Christian because it associated Christianity with Western culture. Both societies brought him closer to Jesus by their opposition to Jesus and his Church. We are living in a society that is moving in the direction of being anti-Catholic due to Church teaching in which we follow Jesus in matters of marriage, sexuality, and the dignity of the human person at all stages of life. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee ridiculed an effort by the current administration regarding human rights because he believed it would “give preference to discriminatory ideologies.” This is the new label facing the Catholic Church. We are at the start of an era of persecution. We may not be killed, but we will be vilified, yet another kind of martyrdom.

September 27--St. Vincent de Paul, Priest

Today’s saint was actually something of a slacker when he first became a priest. He was in it for a Church office in order to earn money for his family, who were peasants. He could then retire early and return home. But it wasn’t to happen. St. Vincent de Paul became a good priest. With his desire to help the poor and guide them with good priests he founded the Congregation of the Mission, or Vincentians. Further he guided some women to help the poor. He cofounded the Daughters of Charity with St. Louise de Marillac. Instead of living in a convent, they lived in houses and “gave their lives to visiting the sick in the homes, ministering in hospitals, caring for prisoners, orphans, the mentally ill, and the homeless of Paris.” They were the first missionary order of sisters. St. Vincent de Paul also collected money to provide relief in time of war. He was named the patron saint of charitable societies by Pope Leo XIII.

St. Vincent de Paul gives his name to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul founded by Bl. Frédéric Ozanam. “The Society numbers about 800,000 members in some 140 countries worldwide.” The number in the United States is over 97,000. They run thrift shops, housing assistance, disaster relief, visits to homes, prisons, and hospitals, food pantries, and more.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” These are the corporal works of mercy, which Jesus defined as the key to salvation in Mt. 25:31-46. We are grateful for the work of the Societies of St. Vincent de Paul for their ministry. God bless you.