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Catholic Saints & Feasts

Catholic Saints & Feasts

著者： Fr. Michael Black
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 "Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black.

These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.Copyright Fr. Michael Black キリスト教 スピリチュアリティ 聖職・福音主義
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  • June 29: Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

    June 29: Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
    2024/06/29
    June 29: Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
    First Century 
    Solemnity; Liturgical Color: Red
    Patron Saints of the city of Rome

    Like the sun, Peter and Paul rose in the East but set in the West

    Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. The Pope is the head of the churches. The invisible, heavenly Church, mystically depicted by the Book of Revelation and described by Saint Paul as “our mother,” is the “Jerusalem above” (Ga 4:26). This perfect, inner, Church of God has theological priority over all earthly churches, which are its shadow. The first Christian congregation, in Jerusalem, anticipated and grew into the universal Church. For a short period, the Jerusalem Church was the universal church. And from this original whole, smaller parts formed, until the one Church became present throughout the world. Unity exists, then spreads. The children do not create the parents. The many dioceses throughout the world are not stitched together into a patchwork quilt called the universal Church. Catholicism is not an international federation of dioceses or the end result of its own geographic stretch. The one Church precedes the many churches. It gives them birth. The progression is from God outward, from spirit to flesh, from ontological to historical, from Jerusalem to Rome, and from Rome to the world.

    All dioceses are sisters to one another. So Manila, Philippines, is a sister diocese to that of Vilnius, Lithuania; and Lagos, Nigeria, is a sister diocese to that of La Paz, Bolivia. But the universal Church is not herself a diocese. She has no sisters, lest her oneness be compromised by having a mirror church. The universal Church is a mother, not a sister. And the Mother Church was established in Rome by Saints Peter and Paul, whose feast  we celebrate today. This feast also implicitly commemorates Rome’s position as head of all the churches. Rome’s particular vocation is to preserve the unity of God’s Church on earth. This vocation is not an accidental historical addition to the Church’s original nature. Unity is intrinsic to the Church’s theology, and so there must be a practical force or power, internal to the Church, to preserve her unity. God’s Son, after all, has only one bride, with whom he celebrates only one heavenly banquet for only one eternal, mystical wedding. 

    In Matthew’s Gospel, Christ states in unmistakably clear language that He will build His Church on Saint Peter (Mt 16:17–19). This was not a claim from Peter but a statement of fact from Christ. For many centuries, this text has been cited in support of both Roman primacy and papal infallibility. Yet an even more fundamental historical, not biblical, fact originally supported Roman primacy. The great Saint Irenaeus in the late second century clarifies that Rome is “the greatest and most ancient Church, founded by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul.” No other city could claim to be the seat of two martyred Apostles. Not Jerusalem, not Antioch, and not Alexandria. Constantinople, the “New Rome,” could not claim to have been built over the bones of even one Apostle. Rome’s headship over all the churches is rooted most deeply in the martyrdoms in the eternal city of Saints Peter and Paul, the Christian counterparts of Rome’s twin pagan founders Romulus and Remus.

    Rome, the two-Apostle city, continues to draw pilgrims. If a plumb line were dropped hundreds of feet from the apex of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, it would come to rest directly over the tomb of the Apostle himself in the necropolis below the Basilica’s main altar. A few miles away, under the main altar of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, lies the mortal remains of the great Apostle to the Gentiles. The inscription naming Saint Paul on an ancient marble cover for his tomb leaves no doubt whose bones were placed there. The cover even has small holes through which pilgrims could lower ribbons to touch Saint Paul’s bones and thus complete their pilgrimage to Rome with a third class relic. It is a recent phenomenon to go to Rome to see the reigning pope. Traditionally, pilgrims went specifically to pray at the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul.

    Our beautiful Church is a miracle. Theologically perfect but humanly flawed. Mystical and historical. All soul and all body. The Church reflects mankind—capable of so much, yet limited by her imperfections. The Church is founded upon a perfect God and two very different, great, and imperfect men whom God chose—Peter and Paul.

    Saints Peter and Paul, deepen our filial devotion to our Mother the Church, who gives us life through the sacraments and who preserves our hope of attending the eternal banquet of God in heaven. Protect our Mother from corruption to be a more perfect spouse of Christ.
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    6 分
  • June 28: Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr

    June 28: Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr
    2024/06/28
    June 28: Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr c. 125–c. 200 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of apologists and catechists The Church was explicitly Catholic from the start The iconic opening words of Julius Caesar’s Gallic War are “All Gaul is divided into three parts.” The chieftains of these three regions of Roman Gaul (France) met yearly in the southern city of Lugdunum, known today as Lyon. These rough noblemen and their large retinues trekked to Lyon in 12 B.C. for the dedication of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls on the slope of Lyon’s hill of the Croix Rousse. The inauguration ceremony was an elaborate reinforcement of Rome’s military, religious, and commercial dominance. Pagan priests performed pagan rites on pagan altars to pagan gods, asking those gods to favor the new sanctuary, the tribes present, and the city. This important sanctuary remained a focal point of Lyon’s civic and religious life for centuries. And in the sand and dirt of this Sanctuary of the Three Gauls, in 177 A.D., the blood of the first Christian martyrs of Gaul was spilled. Here they were abused, tortured, and executed. Killed for their faith were about fifty Christians, including the Bishop of Lyon, Pothinus, and a slave woman named Blandine. While they were imprisoned and awaiting their fate, these future martyrs wrote a letter to the Pope and gave it to a priest of Lyon to carry to Rome. That priest was today’s saint, Irenaeus. With the dead bishop Pothinus’ mutilated remains tossed into the river, Irenaeus was chosen as his replacement. He would remain the Bishop of Lyon until his death. It was in this way that the tragic end of some raised others to prominence. As the first generation of Christians in Gaul retreated from history, the great Saint Irenaeus, the most important theologian of the late second century, emerged. Copies of Saint Irenaeus’ most important works survived through the ages, likely due to their fame and importance, and are now irreplaceable texts for understanding the mind of an early Church thinker on a number of matters. Irenaeus was from Asia Minor and a disciple of Saint Polycarp, a martyr-bishop of Smyrna, who was himself a disciple of Saint John the Evangelist. The voice of Saint Irenaeus is, then, the very last, remote echo of the age of the Apostles. Similar to those of Saint Justin Martyr, Irenaeus’ writings astonish in proving just how early the Church developed a fully Catholic theology. In keeping with other theologians of the patristic era, Irenaeus focused more on the mystery of the Incarnation, and Christ as the “New Adam,” than on a theology of the Cross. He also called Mary the “New Eve” whose obedience undoes Eve’s disobedience. Irenaeus’ writings primarily critique Gnosticism, which held that Christianity’s truths were a form of secret knowledge confined to a select few. The only true knowledge is knowledge of Christ, Irenaeus argued, and this knowledge is accessible, public, and communicated by the broader Church, not secret societies. Irenaeus fought schismatics and heretics, showing just how early the connection between correct theology and Church unity was understood. His main work is even entitled “Against Heresies.” He promoted apostolic authority as the only true guide to the correct interpretation of Scripture and, in a classic statement of theology, Irenaeus explicitly cited the Bishop of Rome as the primary example of unbroken Church authority. Like Saint Cyprian fifty years after him, Irenaeus described the Church as the mother of all Christians: “...one must cling to the Church, be brought up within her womb and feed there on the Lord’s Scripture.” This theology notes a beautiful paradox. While in the physical order, a child leaves his mother’s womb and grows ever more apart from her as he matures, the Church’s motherhood exercises an opposite pull on her children. Once she gives us new life through baptism, our bonds with Mother Church grow ever stronger and tighter as we mature. We become more dependent on her sacraments, more intimate with her life and knowledge, as we grow into adulthood. The Church becomes more our mother, not less, as we age. On Pope Saint John Paul II’s third pastoral visit to France, in October 1986, his very first stop was the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in Lyon. Excavated and opened to the public in the mid-twentieth century, it rests largely unknown, a ruin, in a residential neighborhood. Before dignitaries and a large crowd, the Pope prostrated himself and kissed the site where the many martyrs of Lyon died so many centuries before. Saint Irenaeus may have been looking on from the stone benches that fateful day in 177 A.D. when his co-religionists were murdered. The blood of those forgotten martyrs watered the seed that later flowered into the great saint we commemorate today. Saint Irenaeus, may your intercession strengthen our wills, enlighten our minds, and deepen our trust....
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    7 分
  • Immaculate Heart of Mary

    Immaculate Heart of Mary
    2024/06/08
    Immaculate Heart of Mary
    Saturday following the Second Sunday after Pentecost
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White

    Wing to wing, oar to oar, heart to heart

    The images by which the Church describes Herself are primarily feminine—Bride, Mother, Virgin, Spouse—while masculine terms are used for the Church’s ministry— the Office of Saint Peter, Office of Bishop, Holy Orders, etc. The fatherly labor and paternal structure of the Church are an outgrowth of her essentially maternal nature. Ecclesia Mater, Mother Church, loves with a huge heart, while Apostles, bishops, priests, and deacons hold souls together in their common mother’s embrace. In the thinking of Pope Saint John Paul II, the “Marian Church,” the Church of discipleship, precedes and makes possible the “Petrine Church,” the Church of office and authority. So authority serves discipleship, and discipleship has preeminence over, and makes sense of, authority. Even the fatherly and authoritative Saint Paul speaks with maternal concern, calling new Christians his “children,” saying he is like a “nurse” to them, and bragging that he has “begotten” them through the Gospel.

    On today’s Feast of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, the maternal warmth radiating from the core of Mary bakes the faithful soul. Our hearts glow when we look upon the seven-pierced heart of the mother of Jesus and commiserate with the holy longing in her tender eyes. Our love for Mary also softens our love for our mother the Church. Our minds know that the Church loves us and nourishes us with sanctifying grace. But intellectual convictions need to be felt. In the same way that Christ concretely and historically images the Father, so too Mary images, concretely and historically, the Church. Mary is not a mere symbol of the Church but anticipates and embodies what she gave birth to. Absent Mary, the Church would be just a little bit too hard, too distant, and too austere. It would be like a camping site or a large, cold, house, providing shelter but lacking a woman’s touch. Mary converts the dry household of faith into a cozy family home. Without her heartfelt love, the house would simply not be the same.

    The prophecy of Simeon in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel is the first biblical indication of Mary’s interior suffering. Simeon tells Mary that Jesus will be a sign that will be contradicted and that a sword shall pierce her own heart. Years later, Mary and Joseph panic when Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem while they return to Nazareth. When they recover him in the temple and return home, Luke tells us that Mary “treasured all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:51). At the foot of the cross, Mary’s pondering heart is crushed and bewildered when sin closes in on her Son. But just when Christ’s life appears to be stillborn, Mary’s heart is vivified by the resurrection, and she becomes the first-century Church’s indipensable witness and most sturdy anchor.

    The Immaculate Heart of Mary is not a closed garden. We don’t peek in through the window of the family home in Nazareth to spy Mary standing in the kitchen. Mary’s life was not as public as her Son’s, but it was not as private as her contemporaries. And in the Book of Revelation, her mystical significance is exposed for all to see. She straddles heaven and earth in a duel with the devil. Mary’s wounded maternal heart beats strong and fast for the faithful and for the world, then, on a cosmic stage. Her heart is sinless but bruised, slit by seven swords of sorrow and dripping red for love of man. Vatican II’s description of Mary as the Temple of the Holy Spirit (Lumen Gentium 52-53) implies that her heart is the red-hot tabernacle of that Temple. Today’s feast was first referred to as Mary’s “Admirable Heart” or “Most Pure Heart.” Yet all the titles reflect the same truth; just like the love of Jesus’s Sacred Heart, Mary’s love for Christ and us is a tangible, human love. The Queen and King of Hearts are united in their love of all that is worth loving.

    Immaculate Heart of Mary, your bruised but beating heart softens our love for you and the Church. Your love is maternal, warm, docile, and concerned. Infuse our hearts with love like yours so we can live like you in this world and the next.
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    5 分

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