July 24--St. Kinga (Cunegunda), Holy Woman

Grzegorz Czarnic, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Can a woman both be married and a virgin and be dedicated to loving both husband and God? Yes! We have two excellent examples of that unique calling: Our Blessed Mother Mary and St. Kinga. St. Kinga’s story is one of devotion to God through her role as Queen of Poland. Born in Hungary in 1224 to the King of Hungary, St. Kinga had many saintly relatives. St. John Paul II, in his canonization homily said, when “she was to marry Prince Boleslaus, she convinced him to live a life of virginity for the glory of God, and after a waiting-period of two years the spouses made a vow of perpetual chastity….

“This way of life, perhaps difficult to understand nowadays, yet deeply rooted in the tradition of the early Church, gave Saint Kinga that inner freedom which enabled her to be concerned first of all with the things of the Lord and to lead a profound religious life. Today let us reconsider this great testimony. Saint Kinga teaches us that both marriage and virginity lived in union with Christ can become a path to holiness. Today Saint Kinga rises to safeguard these values. She reminds us that the value of marriage, this indissoluble union of love between two persons, cannot be brought into question under any circumstances. Whatever difficulties may arise, one may not abandon the defence of this primordial love which has united two persons and which is constantly blessed by God. Marriage is the way of holiness, even when it becomes the way of the Cross. …

“[S]he esteemed chastity and virginity, rightly seeing in this state an extraordinary gift whereby man experiences in a special way his own freedom.” We need both holy marriages to raise godly families and consecrated virgins dedicated completely to serving God.

July 12—Sts. Louis Martin and Azélie-Marie “Zélie” Guérin, Holy Man and Holy Woman

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They are the only married couple canonized together.  Both tried to enter religious life but were rejected.  They married three months after meeting each other.  Both entered marriage with the intention of living as St. Joseph and St. Mary did.  Nonetheless, they did want children and their confessor guided them.  So, they became parents to nine children with five daughters surviving and eventually entering religious life, one of whom is St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  They were successful in business; Louis being a watchmaker who quit his career to manage his wife’s more successful lace-making business.  St. Zelie died of breast cancer at the age of 45, while St. Louis died from a heart attack after a lengthy illness brought about by strokes when he was 70, surviving his wife by 17 years.  

However, there was more to their lives than just living, working, raising a family, and dying.  They were holy and devoted their lives to God through living, working, raising a family, and dying.  We know quite a bit about them from his 16 letters and her 216 letters.  She wrote to one daughter:  “As for me, I wished to have many children so that I could raise them for Heaven.”  She had great love and affection for her husband as well:  “I always get what I want without a fight; there's still a month before you go (on retreat); that's enough time for me to change your father's mind ten times.”  The years after her death were hard on him, especially after the strokes, when he suffered delirium.  When he could, he would repeat:  “Everything for the greater glory of God,” and “I have never been humiliated in my life, I need to be humiliated.”  Here are models for modern families!  Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, pray for us.

*https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-holy-lives-and-passions-of-sts-louis-and-zelie-martin

September 10--Servants of God Pedro de Corpa and Companions, Priests, Religious, and Martyrs

Georgia has martyrs for the faith and for marriage. These martyrs were killed over 420 years ago in the missions of the Spanish Franciscans to the natives of Georgia. The five martyrs had been missionaries to the region for a few years and had been accepted by the natives, converting many, including the leader and the presupposed successor of one village. However, Juanillo, the nephew of the leader, was opposed by the missionaries. He was rebuked for marital infidelity, even though he was baptized. This offended Juanillo, who then planned and carried out the martyrdom of the five priests. The reasons for the killings, by one who had participated in it, was that they were “troublemaker[s], had forbidden the natives to have dealings with spirits, and had said that they should not have more than one wife.” All of the martyrs had been clubbed to death by Christian natives. The cause for their canonization was opened in 1984, with the positio, or the document/s used to promote the cause, presented in 1993.

We are called to share our faith by being disciples. Sometimes that means we are called to evangelize those who have already been baptized. We may also suffer at the hands of our fellow Catholics and Christians who support marital infidelity of various kinds, including divorce, adultery, fornication, same-sex, so-called, marriage, contraception, abortion, and so forth, in the name of “tolerance” or “diversity” or “legality” or “rights” or “happiness”. We may not be bludgeoned to death but shamed into silence and acquiescence. Keep in mind, silence implies acceptance. Be not afraid of the truth and joy and beauty of marital love. Jesus wasn’t, and neither were the Georgia martyrs.

August 29—The Passion of St. John the Baptist

St. John the Baptist is commemorated in two feasts, his birth and his death.  We know from Scripture that he died due to the whims of Herodias, the invalid wife of Herod Antipas, and the acquiescence of her daughter, who is traditionally known as Salome.  Salome danced before Herod, who was so delighted that he promised to give her anything she wanted, up to half of his kingdom.  Herodias told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, who had condemned her marriage to Herod because she was wife to Herod’s brother, Philip.  John the Baptist was not killed for his love for Christ as such; as the last of the prophets, he was killed because he witnessed to God’s truth of the sanctity of marriage.

Marriage is a sacred covenant, symbolic of Jesus’ love for the Church.  Marriage freely vows the husband and wife to a life of love as demonstrated in their acceptance of fidelity, permanence, and openness to each other in fertility, that is, willingness to accept children as gifts from God.  Jesus raised the institution of marriage to a sacrament and stated, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mark 10:6-9).  

Marriage is not about the fulfillment of a sexual desire, or a statement of civil rights, but rather it is a witness to the love of Christ for the Church.  Therefore, every sacramentally married couple participates in a special way in the very love of Christ for us, his Church.  And so it is up to every sacramentally married couple to witness to that love by their faithfulness to each other, by the permanence of their marriage until death do them part, and in their willing acceptance of children as conceived in accord with the great gifts of unity and potential procreation in each act of marital love.  These are the truths for which St. John the Baptist died.  He can be called the patron and defender of marriage in our day and age.