July 16--St. Bartholomew of Braga, O.P., Bishop

See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Today's saint was canonized by Pope Francis in 2019, 429 years after his death. This is much longer than the average 181 years. It was also an equipollent canonization, which means that the normal requirement for two miracles can be dispensed if the pope declares that the saint has been venerated continuously since ancient times.

So what makes St. Bartholomew of Braga worthy of such an unusual declaration? He was born in Portugal in 1514, entered the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) in 1527, and was ordained a priest, teaching theology for his order. He was ordained bishop of Braga in 1559 and attended sessions in the Council of Trent from 1561-1563. He contributed 268 suggestions, collaborated with St. Charles of Borromeo regarding the duties and virtues of priests, and “exercised great influence in the discussions, particularly those with regard to the decrees on the reform of ecclesiastical life.” After the Council he returned to Braga to implement the decrees. He resigned in 1582 and retired to a convent until his death in 1590. All in all, he was a good, holy bishop. He is patron saint of catechists, teachers of the faith.

For example, he wrote about prayer: “We ought continually to raise our hearts to God, … and expose them to the rays of His light, so that our prayer should kindle a fire in our souls, from whence a heat may come forth which will spread over all our actions. We must strive to procure this peace by every possible effort, and ask it of God with many sighs, so that amidst this crowd of affairs and continual distractions, our minds may remain always quiet and calm, and preserve their liberty and vigour.” Words of a true teacher and shepherd of his people! St. Bartholomew, pray for us!

March 8--St. John of God, Religious

 

St. John of God saving the Sick from a Fire at the Royal Hospital in 1549 by Manuel Gómez-Moreno González licensed under Public Domain.

Hospitals are a true legacy of the Catholic Church. The Council of Nicea in AD 325 decreed that every cathedral city should have a hospital to care for sick travelers. The importance of caring for the sick goes back to Jesus and the corporal works of mercy, when he said of those he identified with: “I was … ill and you cared for me” (Mt. 25:36). So it is not unusual for us to find saints who either founded hospitals or religious orders to care for the sick. That is the case with today’s saint, St. John of God.

Born in Portugal in 1495, João Duarte Cidade, John of God, lived the life of a soldier. After 40 years, he sought meaning and, after hearing a sermon by St. John of Avila, realized his sinfulness and publicly beat himself begging for mercy and repentance. He was committed to a mental hospital where St. John visited him and advised him to serve others rather than inflict punishment on himself. This persuaded John of God and he started attending to the sick poor, begging for funds for medical supplies and attending to patients in the hospital. He gathered others around him and founded the Order of Hospitallers. He died in 1550 from pneumonia after saving a man from drowning in Granada, Spain. He was declared patron of the dying and of hospitals by Pope Leo XIII. The Order of Hospitallers of St. John of God administers over 300 hospitals, services, and centers in 53 countries.

Catholic hospitals serve God by healing as Jesus did. Today, the Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental provider of health care in the world, with over 600 hospitals and 1,400 long-term care facilities in the United States alone! St. John of God, pray for us.

February 20--Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto, Holy Children

                  

Our saints today are proof that age is no barrier to holiness. They were ten and nine when they died from the 1918 influenza pandemic. They are the youngest non-martyrs canonized. St. Jacinta and her brother St. Francisco along with their cousin Lúcia dos Santos were blessed with the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima on the 13th of each month May through October 1917. Mary asked them to learn to read and write and to pray the rosary “to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” They were told to pray for sinners and the conversion of Russia. After the apparitions they practiced austere self-mortifications, such as prostrating themselves to pray for hours or kneeling with their heads on the ground.

Pope Pius XI denied their causes for sainthood because he decided that minors could not fully understand or practice heroic virtue. However, in 1979 the Bishop of Leiria-Fátima asked that the world’s bishops to petition the pope for their causes. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints decided that children could be blessed with the grace to be “spiritual prodigies.” Pope St. John Paul II declared them venerable in 1989 and blessed in 2000. Pope Francis canonized them on May 13, 2017, one hundred years after the first appearance of Mary to them.

Children are gifts from God to their parents. Parents are blessed to be able to share the faith with these new disciples in the haven of the domestic Church, the home. Children are God’s opportunities to bring parents closer to God so the children can also be closer to God. Holiness is both our calling and a grace from God. Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto show us that even children can know holiness. May they pray for us and our children.

*https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/ChildrensofFatima_%28croped%29.jpg   Attributed to Joshua Benoliel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

July 5--St. Elizabeth of Portugal, Holy Woman

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Do you have a peacemaker in your family; someone who can patch things up when one relative insults another, or when family members get into a dispute? Well, the Iberian peninsula and all its royalty had a saint to help them out, Elizabeth of Portugal. She was born to the future King of Aragon in 1271, betrothed to the King of Portugal in 1282, and married in 1288. Her brothers were kings of Aragon and Sicily; her son-in-law, King of Castile. So her whole family tended to want their way, being kings! She, on the other hand, was devout, even as a child. She is quoted as far as understanding her role in life: “God made me queen so that I may serve others.” And she served in many ways, but most notably as a peacemaker by stopping a civil war between her husband and son and as well as stopping a war between her son and son-in-law. Legend has it that in the civil war she rode on a mule between the two sides to prevent combat. She even negotiated a peace treaty with the Queen of Castile. After her husband died in 1325, she became a Third Order Franciscan, retired to a convent, and died in 1336.

Kings often have huge egos. We also tend to have huge egos, inflated by pride and self-righteousness. When we perceive a comment as an insult or even a disagreement with a cherished belief, we tend to lash out, causing pain and suffering. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5:9). Many times he gives us those peacemakers to calm the waters and, even sometimes, to deflate our egos. If we have egos the size of royalty, may God send us peacemakers, such as St. Elizabeth!

*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Elizabeth_of_Portugal_(1271%E2%80%931336),_by_Spanish_(Madrilenian)_School.png

**https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Rainha_Santa_em_Alvalade_(Roque_Gameiro,_Quadros_da_Hist%C3%B3ria_de_Portugal,_1917).png