April 17—St. Benedict Joseph Labre, Holy Man

We see them in the park or under the highway bridge or in the wooded area near the river.  They are the homeless, the poor who have no place to rest their heads.  We attempt to deprive them of the dignity deserving of all humans when we only see their poverty and their state of being outcast.  Our saint was one such outcast, a homeless drifter who visited shrines as a part of his religious life, St. Benedict Joseph Labre. 

After numerous attempts to join religious orders to live the solitary life of prayer he desperately craved, he decided to make the open air his monastery.  He eventually found his way to Rome where his confessor described his first meeting:  “I noticed a man close beside me whose appearance at first sight was decidedly unpleasant and forbidding. His legs were only partially covered, his clothes were tied round his waist with an old cord. His hair was uncombed, he was ill-clad, and wrapped about in an old and ragged coat. In his outward appearance he seemed to be the most miserable beggar I had ever seen. Such was the spectacle of Benedict the first time I beheld him."  Holiness was hidden beneath the cloak of poverty.

We have the opportunity to meet the homeless and minister to them, whether at the local shelter or Open Door Mission.  These men, women, and children are not necessarily the holy hermits that St. Benedict was, but they are God’s beloved.  We are called to shelter, feed, clothe, give drink, visit the sick and imprisoned, and bury our brothers and sisters as Jesus taught (Mt. 25:35-45).  St. Benedict Joseph Labre, patron of the homeless, pray for us.

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.

April 4—St. Isidore of Seville, Bishop

The Church oftentimes names a person as a patron saint of a cause or group or even a nation.  For example, Mary, the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the United States and St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron of Catholic schools.  However, there is no patron of the Internet.  Today’s saint has been proposed as the patron of the Internet because of his encyclopedia, which was used as a textbook for 900 years!

St. Isidore of Seville is considered the last of the Church Fathers.  He was the bishop of Seville, Spain and was influential in the conversion of the Visigoths in Spain in the seventh century.  He also established schools and seminaries, completed a Spanish version of the liturgy (Mozarabic), and played a major role in two councils in Spain.  His efforts inspired the education system of the Middle Ages.

We are fortunate to live in an age that values learning.  We have numerous junior colleges, colleges, and universities that educate our youth in various arts and disciplines.  We have numerous professions that contribute to the common good.  We owe their skills to men and women who have dedicated themselves to the vocation of teaching, the passing on of a lore of knowledge and the skill of processing that knowledge so that students may benefit society.  

But knowledge and skill are useless without wisdom.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10).  It is vital that we educate our youth not just in arts and disciplines that may benefit society, but also in the ways of God so that society, in turn, may benefit individuals respectful of Truth.  St. Isidore knew about learning, but he also knew about God and the necessity of faith to guide reason.

March 23—St. Turibius de Mongrovejo, Bishop

Saint Who?  St. Turibius was one of the first saints of the Western Hemisphere.  He was archbishop of Lima, Peru from 1580-1606, home to St. Rose of Lima and St. Martin de Porres.  But before he was assigned to Lima, he first was ordained bishop after just being ordained priest.  Correct, he was drafted to be the archbishop of Lima when he was still a layman!  But the reason he was drafted was because of his ability as a lawyer and judge in Spain.  The Church needed someone beyond reproach to clean up the ecclesiastical and colonial mess of the conquistadors. 

When he arrived in Peru he walked to Lima, 600 miles away, teaching and baptizing as he went.  He traversed his diocese three times, baptizing and confirming nearly 500,000 natives.  He also challenged the governors and promoted the rights of the native peoples against their Spanish overlords.  He built roads, schoolhouses, hospitals, chapels, convents, and the first seminary in the Western Hemisphere in Lima.

St. Turibius was a pioneer in protecting native rights and ministering to their needs.  Not all of Spain was bent on the gold and glory of conquest.  He was concerned with God and how to bring God to these people.  It was not a matter of imposing a foreign god upon a defeated people; it was a matter of sharing the message of the love of the true God to those who had never heard of him.  He was their protector against the corruption and greed of the conquistadors.  Who do we protect?  To whom do we minister?  With whom do we share the message of God?  St. Turibius de Mongrovejo is not Saint Who? but rather, Saint Wow!

March 19—St. Joseph, Husband of Mary

Ite ad Joseph.  “Go to Joseph!”  But why?  We have Mary, who intercedes continually on our behalf.  We have Jesus, of course, who listens to our prayers and knows our needs before we do.  We go to Joseph because he was the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus.  He took care of and protected both of them.  He took Mary into his home after he had discovered that she was pregnant with Jesus, protecting her from being stoned to death for adultery.  He took her and the unborn Son of God to Bethlehem and found a place to stay, even though he was desperately poor.  He rescued them from Herod’s sword by fleeing to Egypt.  He raised Jesus as his son, taught him the trade of carpentry, and showed him what it meant to be a righteous man, for that is what he is called in the Gospel of Matthew (1:19).  He never said a word in any gospel, but he did what God called him to do.

Ite ad Joseph.  “Go to Joseph!”  Joseph is the patron of the Universal Church, which is the Bride of Christ.  As a husband and father, Joseph modeled for the young Jesus the meaning of spousal love in his celibate love of his wife, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Joseph was the first “Abba” that Jesus knew as a child.  Joseph pointed Jesus to his true Father in heaven.  Joseph points us to our Father as well.  Those of us who are fathers and/or husbands, we need to model true love for our wives and point our families to our Father.  We need to “Go to Joseph!”