Category: Saints

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Saints

Good Reads For Growth in Holiness

Michael R. Heinlein

September 21, 2022 7:46 am September 21, 2022

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3 min read

The vast panoply of spiritual writings from the saints and other holy persons can be overwhelming and intimidating. There are just so many priceless works! That makes it hard to…

The vast panoply of spiritual writings from the saints and other holy persons can be overwhelming and intimidating. There are just so many priceless works! That makes it hard to direct someone to a text without knowing more specifics. Additionally, I can only address or recommend those I’ve read or have some familiarity with. All that being said, I would recommend the following three spiritual classics without hesitation:

“Introduction to the Devout Life”: St. Francis de Sales addresses Christians living in any state of life who want to grow in a personal relationship with Christ. He reminds readers that God made all of us with intentionality, and our goal should be to fulfill that. As he wrote, “Be who you are and be that well.” The book is composed in five parts, each relating to a particular stage on a person’s Christian journey, the third of which — on the practice of virtue — is most helpful in anyone’s life.

“Story of a Soul”: The autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux chronicles the saint’s short life that, not unlike many, was filled with much suffering. In the book, the saint posits her “Little Way” — a spiritual path to serve God in one’s littleness and simplicity. The “Little Way” doesn’t require us to do great things or offer great sacrifices, but to be faithful in all the ordinary and daily circumstances of life — embracing it all as a gift from God. St. Thérèse sums up her spiritual plan well: “I know well that it is not my great desires that please God in my little soul, what He likes to see is the way I love my littleness and my poverty; it is my blind hope in His mercy, this is my only treasure…. The weaker one is, without desires or virtues the more ready one is for the operations of this consuming and transforming love…. God rejoices more in what He can do in a soul humbly resigned to its poverty than in the creation of millions of suns and the vast stretch of the heavens.”

“Confessions”: St. Augustine’s Confessions is a partial autobiography chronicling his own conversion and the regrets associated with his formerly sinful life. The last portions of the book are a commentary on a variety of theological and philosophical ideas. Especially moving in the text are St. Augustine’s reflections on the Faith and his own memories of his relationship with his mother who, in fact, brought him to the Faith. Confessions is one of the most profound conversion stories in history, one to help all Christian grown in their own relationship with God. In this work we find the famous line that sums up St. Augustine’s primary discovery in his spiritual journey, and perhaps experienced in many of ours: “For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”

These and other spiritual classics are available from Our Sunday Visitor’s Noll Library Classics.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

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3 min read

Saints

St. Macrina the Elder: A saint for grandparents

Thomas Craughwell

September 4, 2022 7:11 am September 4, 2022

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St. Macrina was the grandmother of St. Basil the Great, his brothers St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sebaste, and their sister, St. Macrina the Younger. Macrina raised…

St. Macrina was the grandmother of St. Basil the Great, his brothers St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sebaste, and their sister, St. Macrina the Younger. Macrina raised all of her grandchildren (she had 10), and she took special care to give them a sound religious education. Her care paid off: Basil became a monk and wrote a monastic rule that is still followed by monks in the East. Gregory became bishop of Nyssa and then archbishop of Sebaste. Peter preceded his brother as archbishop of Sebaste. All three brothers were champions of the Catholic faith against Arianism, a heresy that was raging across the Christian world at the time. And Macrina the Younger became abbess of a small community of nuns near the Black Sea.

St. Macrina had been converted by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (the name means “wonder-worker”), a renowned preacher. It was said that when he was made bishop of Caesarea, there were only 17 Christians in his diocese, but when he died there were only 17 pagans in his diocese he had not managed to convert.

In 303, Emperor Diocletian began his empire-wide persecution of Christians. It would be the last Roman persecution of the Church, and it would prove to be the most ferocious. Thousands of Christians were killed, among them some of the most revered martyrs of the early Church, including St. Agnes, St. Sebastian, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, and St. Januarius, known to Italians as San Gennaro. As was true of so many Christians, Macrina and her husband went into hiding. They fled to a remote spot in a vast forest along the shores of the Black Sea, where they remained for seven years. It was a terrible time for the couple. In addition to the constant fear that they would be discovered and dragged off to a horrible death, they often had difficulty foraging for food. Several times Macrina and her husband nearly starved to death.

Only in 311 did they feel safe enough to leave their refuge and return to civilization. Soon thereafter, Macrina’s husband died, and she filled her days raising and educating her grandchildren.

Her feast day is January 14.

St. Macrina the Elder is the matriarch of one of the Church’s most blessed families. Along with her son, St. Basil the Elder, and her daughter-in-law, St. Emmelia, four of her 10 grandchildren have been canonized as saints, including:

St. Basil the Great: Bishop of Caesarea and Doctor of the Church, St. Basil is known as a great defender of Christianity against Arianism. He was revered for his spiritual achievements and his many contributions to Christian culture in the fourth century. His feast day is Jan. 2.

The Crosiers

St. Gregory of Nyssa: Bishop of Sebaste and a prolific writer, St. Gregory is credited with being one of the most ardent orthodox leaders of his time due to his outspokenness against Arianism. His feast is March 9

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4 min read

Saints

St. Louis IX: A saint for piety

Michael R. Heinlein

August 25, 2022 7:51 am August 25, 2022

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At times the biographies about St. Louis IX, King of France, make it sound like he had an overbearing mother. And it seems very likely that he did. However, it…

At times the biographies about St. Louis IX, King of France, make it sound like he had an overbearing mother. And it seems very likely that he did. However, it also seems that the care and formation that his mother provided also is what contributed greatly to his personal holiness.

St. Louis’ mother, Queen Blanche, knew that her young boy would one day become king, and she did all within her power to make sure that he would be prepared as best as possible. She personally saw to it that he was trained in all the things a king-in-waiting should, including Latin, military arts, oration and government. But first and foremost, she raised him to desire holiness above all. She drilled into him: “I love you, my dear son, as much as a mother can love her child; but I would rather see you dead at my feet than that you should ever commit a mortal sin.”

This aversion to sin defined St. Louis’ life and directed his own quest for holiness. He knew that in order to be a good king, husband and father he needed to be a good Christian first. To aid him in this quest he adopted a spirituality that included a strict regimen of mortification and penitence.

As a king, he enacted a series of laws by which he forbade sinful and illicit behavior in his realm. And he reformed the French judicial system to be thoroughly more merciful and just. For those reforms, he is memorialized throughout the world — even in the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court buildings.

All of this adds up to the fact that the saintly king was a pious man marked by charity in thought, word and deed. St. Louis modeled this charity in a very tangible way by his care of and service to the poor and underprivileged. He attended to the construction of institutions for their care and even publicly washed the feet of the poor on Holy Thursdays in imitation of Christ.

In 1234, St. Louis married Princess Margaret of Provence. Their marriage was tested thoroughly, however, by the saint’s meddlesome and overbearing mother who became very jealous of the attention her son gave his wife. Despite the difficulties, their marriage appeared a success, and together they had 11 children.

St. Louis’ reign was marked as a golden age of French culture and prominence on the global stage. A man of courage and action, he also supported the intellectual life of the Church and supported the establishment of a theological school in Paris that would be later known as the Sorbonne. He even was joined once at court by the great St. Thomas Aquinas, a preeminent theologian and philosopher of the day.

A motto in life for St. Louis comes from the mission with which he was entrusted at his coronation: to serve as “God’s lieutenant on Earth.” His life’s highest aim was to give his all for the glory of God and the good of his people. This was evident in leading two of the Crusades, at which time he took possession of a relic of Christ’s crown of thorns. St. Louis built a magnificent chapel in Paris to house the relic. Known as Sainte Chappelle, it remains one of the most visited places in France.

He died in 1270 in Tunisia after contracting dysentery en route to the Holy Land during the eighth Crusade. In his spiritual testament to his eldest son, he passed along the guiding wisdom he learned from his mother years before: “My dearest son, you should permit yourself to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom before you would allow yourself to commit a mortal sin.” St. Louis was canonized in 1295.

Feast day is August 25.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter at @HeinleinMichael.

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1 min read

Saints

Purgatory Needed for Saints?

Msgr. Charles E. Pope

August 23, 2022 9:10 am August 23, 2022

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When the Church canonizes a saint, we are confirming they are in heaven. The pope does this based on the supplied evidence of a holy life, and also the evidence…

When the Church canonizes a saint, we are confirming they are in heaven. The pope does this based on the supplied evidence of a holy life, and also the evidence of miracles credibly attributed to the prayers of the saint. Canonization says they are in heaven now and that any purification they might have needed is complete. The Church is not thereby indicating that the saint needed no time in purgatory, only that their purgation is now complete and they are in heaven, as seen by the evidence of the miracles wrought by God through their prayers. Though we cannot know if or for how long a canonized saint might have needed purification in purgatory, it seems likely that even most canonized saints would need some purgation after death. Jesus promises us that when he is finished with us we would be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (see Mt 5:48). Even very holy people probably need some final purification for the Lord to finish and perfect this awesome promise in us.

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6 min read

Saints

What Does It Mean To Be A Mystic?

Kathryn Jean Lopez

July 14, 2022 7:29 am July 14, 2022

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Have you ever wondered about the Holy Trinity? Have you ever noticed it was Trinity Sunday and hoped to learn more? You may know it is a mystery. Perhaps you…

Have you ever wondered about the Holy Trinity? Have you ever noticed it was Trinity Sunday and hoped to learn more? You may know it is a mystery. Perhaps you have thought that there must be a way to get to know these three Persons of the Trinity.

It’s a beautiful thing to set out to pray by first acknowledging the presence of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each is a part of our lives, at the heart of our existence as God’s adopted sons and daughters. Give it a try, and you might just feel a little more comfortable reading about some of the great mystic saints and other holy ones of Christianity.

A number of years ago, one friend wrote a foreword to another’s book. Popular Catholic radio show host and author Jennifer Fulwiler said Gary Jansen, the author of a number of practical books on prayer, is a “mystic.” I gave this particular book, “Station to Station: An Ignatian Journey through the Stations of the Cross” (Loyola Press, $9.95), to a few people, and at least one commented: “You said the guy who wrote that book is a friend of yours. But he’s a mystic!”

You can almost hear the exotic music in the background, can’t you? We think of mysticism as something foreign to our experiences. But it needn’t be. It really shouldn’t be.

Intimate union with Christ

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that:

“Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called ‘mystical’ because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments — ‘the holy mysteries’ — and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all” (No. 2014).

That’s pretty clear. We’re all called to a deeper union with God. Really, when you think about it, this is the journey of our lives. And so, with each passing year, the liturgical seasons we celebrate should be richer. What that looks like will be different for each of us, but it’s amazing to me, when you are really praying and have some people in your life doing the same, you recognize God’s work more and more in one another and in the world. You see differently. You love differently. The beatitudes become the background music to your lives. It can be contagious. Jesus can truly radiate through you. And you’ll find the Holy Spirit giving you words that people need to hear. This is all possible because you know you are a beloved son or daughter of our heavenly Father, the creator of the world. And you know this miracle is, regardless of what tough servings of suffering you’ve been dealt in life. This is a little bit of what life in the Trinity looks like.

St. Maria Faustina Kowalska

A surefire way to get serious about this path is to invite the saints into your life. One of those saints was a contemporary to most of us. Pope St. John Paul II made it a point to introduce St. Maria Faustina Kowalska to the world. Hers was surely a mystical union with God, which resulted in the Divine Mercy devotion that has landed somewhat at the heart of the Church. So many pray for divine mercy on us and on the whole world. When we look and see the anger and misery all around us, we should see these as pleas to pray so we more and more can be instruments of God’s merciful love in the world.

In my book, “A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living” (St. Benedict Press, $44.95), I include this from Sister Faustina’s diary:

“On one occasion, God’s presence pervaded my whole being, and my mind was mysteriously enlightened in respect to His Essence. He allowed me to understand His interior life. In spirit, I saw the Three Divine Persons, but Their Essence was One. He is One, and One only, but in Three Persons; none of Them is either greater or smaller; there is no difference in either beauty or sanctity, for They are One. They are absolutely One. His Love transported me into this knowledge and united me with Himself. When I was united to One, I was equally united with the Second and to the Third in such a way that when we are united with One, by that very fact, we are equally united to the two Persons in the same way as with the One. Their will is One, one God, though in Three Persons. When One of the Three Persons communicates with a soul, by the power of that one will, it finds itself united with the Three Persons and is inundated in the happiness flowing from the Most Holy Trinity, the same happiness that nourishes the saints. This same happiness that streams from the Most Holy Trinity makes all creation happy; from it springs that life which vivifies and bestows all life which takes its beginning from Him” (“Diary of Sister Faustina, paragraph 911).

That may be very different from your prayer. That’s OK! But the depths she plunged are an invitation to give God time and see what he wants to show you, reveal about himself and his presence in your life and in the world.

To stay with Faustina for a moment: There is so much about Divine Mercy with which she can help us, and it’s something that so many need. Here’s the prayer John Paul II prayed on our behalf at Faustina’s canonization Mass in 2000:

And you, Faustina, a gift of God to our time, a gift from the land of Poland to the whole Church, obtain for us an awareness of the depth of divine mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and to bear witness to it among our brothers and sisters. May your message of light and hope spread throughout the world, spurring sinners to conversion, calming rivalries and hatred and opening individuals and nations to the practice of brotherhood. Today, fixing our gaze with you on the face of the risen Christ, let us make our own your prayer of trusting abandonment and say with firm hope: Christ Jesus, I trust in you!

May it be so! Make the Holy Trinity, Mary, and the communion of saints truly a part of your life.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review, a regular columnist in Our Sunday Visitor and author of “A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living.”

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Saints

Recognizing St. Joseph

Msgr. Charles Pope

June 15, 2022 7:31 am June 15, 2022

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More should be said of St. Joseph, especially today when fatherhood is in such crisis. St. Joseph was a strong man who was willing to sacrifice career and personal comfort…

More should be said of St. Joseph, especially today when fatherhood is in such crisis. St. Joseph was a strong man who was willing to sacrifice career and personal comfort to protect and care for his family. He listened to God and did what he was instructed to do in the obedience of faith. Here is a powerful model for men and fathers today. I often preach on St. Joseph when I give men’s conferences.

That said, the reserve in emphasizing Joseph extends to the Scriptures themselves. This is not due to any neglect of St. Joseph personally, but extends from the emphasis that the true Father of Jesus is God the Father.

We ought not be overly forgetful of St. Joseph. Even if what we know of him from the Scriptures is very limited, what we do know is powerfully inspiring.

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