December 30--Bl. Eugenia Ravasco, Religious and Foundress

Bl. Eugenia Ravasco by Unknown Artist licensed under public domain.

Bl. Eugenia Ravasco was one of the 1,344 people beatified by St. John Paul II. He wanted to show that holiness is possible for all of us. This was true for Bl. Eugenia. She had a difficult childhood due to the death of her mother at age 3 and her father at age 10. She was then raised by an aunt, and later an uncle, who died when she was 16, leading her to run the household of 12 children! She discerned a vocation to religious life, which upset the plans to have her married to nobility.

“As time went on, Eugenia felt that God was calling her to found a religious order that would form ‘honest citizens in society and saints in Heaven’. Other young women had also joined her in this effort. On 6 December 1868, when she was 23 years old, she founded the religious congregation of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Canon (later Archbishop) Magnasco had prepared her carefully and she continued, together with the sisters, to teach catechism and to open schools.”

“Thus schools, catechism teaching, associations and oratories arose. Mother Ravasco's educational project was to educate young people and train them in a solid, industrious, open Christian life, so that they could be ‘honest citizens in the midst of society and saints in heaven’; she wanted to educate them in the faith and in reading the facts from a historical-salvific perspective, proposing holiness to them as a life goal.”

Holiness needs to be our life goal! We need to grow in holiness so we can live God’s plan for us. That plan involves loving, serving, and worshiping God and loving and serving each other, and especially those who need our love the most! Bl. Eugenia, pray for us!

October 6--Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher, Virgin and Foundress

 

A painting of Canadian nun Eulalie Durocher, also known by her religious name Marie-Rose Durocher. It replicates an earlier painting by Théophile Hamel licensed under Public Domain.

Pope St. John Paul II beatified today’s saint in 1982, stating: “Marie Rose Durocher acted with simplicity, prudence, humility, and serenity. She refused to be halted by her personal problems of health or the initial difficulties of her newborn work. Her secret lay in prayer and self-forgetfulness, which, according to her bishop, reached the point of real sanctity.” There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the secret to becoming a saint! For Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher died at the age of 38 in Quebec, Canada after living a full, if not healthy or easy, life.

At the age of 18 she tried to enter the convent, but her poor health prevented her from completing her education. Then her mother died and she took over her duties. Then she moved to her brother’s rectory as a housekeeper and secretary. It was there that she noted the lack of Catholic education for the children. In 1841 she heard that the bishop was arranging for an order of teaching sisters to come to Canada and tried to join. However, the plan fell through and instead the bishop asked her to start a teaching order. She agreed and in 1843, with two other women, founded the order of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. By 1849 demand for her girls’ schools had grown so much that she needed four convents and 30 teachers to educate 448 students! In some provinces her order was teaching boys as well. However, she faced conflict and poor health, which led to her death in 1849.

“Simplicity, prudence, humility, and serenity.” As they consecrated Bl. Marie-Rose, these virtues can help us become holy: simplicity instead of worldliness; prudence instead of rashness; humility instead of pride; and serenity instead of anxiety. Bl. Marie-Rose Durocher, pray for us!

January 9--Bl. Alix Le Clerc, Religious

 

Hermann Weyen Scan Furmeyer 27 jun 2008, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Who deserves to be educated? In our society we would say everyone deserves an education, but in the time of Bl. Alix Le Clerc, only young men with money could afford an education. So she set out to serve and educate young women by founding the Congregation of Notre Dame with St. Peter Fourier, her pastor. On Christmas Day, 1597, she and four other women took private vows for their association because women's religious orders were normally cloistered, or enclosed, in convents. She was foundress of what we would call the first religious order of sisters, rather than nuns, because they worked in the world. The next July they started their first free school for young women in Nancy, France. Their goal was to provide free education to any girl, poor or wealthy, Protestant or Catholic. "Both believed that education would empower people, especially the girls who would grow up to become mothers in families. An education containing religious instruction would then benefit the entire family and strengthen faith in the family and society."

The Sisters of Notre Dame founded schools for girls in 43 countries, including the United States in Omaha, Nebraska, where they founded Notre Dame Academy in 1926. In 1974 it merged with Rummel High School to form Roncalli Catholic High School where its legacy of "Help all and harm none," the motto of St. Peter Fourier, and "Do the most good," the model of Bl. Alix, continue to this day.

Catholic education, whether it has been through all-boys schools, all-girls schools, co-ed schools, private schools, parochial schools, or diocesan schools, has greatly benefited society. Over 1.6 million students are educated in U.S. Catholic schools in over 5,900 schools. We need to remember and be grateful for the men and women who had the vision to found Catholic schools, like Bl. Alix Le Clerc.

August 25--St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest and Religious

*

Jesus taught, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours” (Lk. 6:20). He also taught, “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” (Mt. 25:34-36). So, what happens when someone tries to live Jesus’ teaching? Sometimes they are praised, sometimes persecuted, sometimes both.

Today’s saint is one who experienced both praise and persecution for serving the poor. St. Joseph Calasanz was born to a minor Spanish noble family in 1557. He received the benefits of wealth, but rather than enjoying those benefits for himself, he became a priest and in Rome started the “first popular and free school in Europe” for the poor and abandoned children. He founded a school system he called the “Pious Schools” in 1616. He founded an order to run the schools called the Piarists, Latin for pious, in 1617. His order took the three standard vows, plus a fourth vow “to dedicate their lives to the education of youth.” 

 However, his work caused opposition. “Many rich were threatened by the thought of underprivileged people learning new ideas.” He was a friend of Galileo and helped him when it was unpopular. His own order suffered internal strife due to the sins and power of some of its members to the point St. Joseph was pushed out as superior general. The order was suppressed in 1646. He died in 1648, “convinced that his Order and his dream would not die.” The Order was restored twenty years later, and he was canonized in 1767 and declared the “Heavenly Patron of all Christian popular schools” by Pope Pius XII in 1948.

* The Last Communion of St Joseph of Calasanz by Francisco Goya 1819 Oil on canvas, 250 x 180 cm Escuelas Pías de San Antón, Madrid

April 7—St. John Baptist de la Salle, Priest

If you have been to a school with others in a classroom, you can thank St. John Baptist de la Salle.  If you have been in a grade, or had a core curriculum, or learned in your mother tongue, or had vocational training, or had teachers who were trained to teach, you can thank St. John Baptist de la Salle.  It is due to his innovations in education that much of what we take for granted today has been the preferred method for centuries.

St. John Baptist de la Salle was the son of wealthy parents who decided to become a priest.  It was at a chance meeting with a fellow priest who was trying to start a school to educate young girls that he began to come up with the idea to teach poor boys in a free school.  His methods of education involved teaching them in French and not Latin, with others together of similar ages rather than individually as with a tutor, and by means of separate classes that comprised a core curriculum.  He wanted them to be educated in manners and in a trade as well as in religion.  He wanted the boys to be good citizens on earth and good saints for heaven.  He founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools in the 17^th century and was named patron of school teachers in 1950.

We send our children to school in order to become good citizens, which is one of the primary purposes of St. John Baptist de la Salle’s schools and order.  But we also need to provide for their moral and religious education so that they may be saints.  We may send them to a parish religious education program, home school them, or send them to a Catholic school.  Nonetheless, our children, and we too, are citizens of two societies, that of earthly society and of heaven.  Let us follow John Baptist de la Salle in preparing our children for both.