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Catholic Saints & Feasts

By: Fr. Michael Black
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  • Summary

  • "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
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Episodes
  • May 9 or 12, 2024: Ascension Of The Lord

    May 9 or 12, 2024: Ascension Of The Lord
    May 8 2024
    The Ascension of the Lord
    c. 33 A.D.
    Depending on ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the Thursday which falls forty days after Easter, or the Seventh Sunday of Easter
    Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White

    Ecce Homo...in all His glory

    The heart-piercing flash of a second when the wife’s eyes lock with her husband’s as she steps into the lifeboat, but he stays on board the listing ship. The wailing and crying as mothers and children are ripped apart on the platform at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The well-loved cousin who leaves his far-flung relatives’ home after a visit, everyone knowing he will never pass that way again. The emotional farewell. The final, bittersweet call. The last hug and tender kiss on the teary cheek. History, literature, and everyday reality are thick with dramatic goodbyes.

    Departures can be painful, none more than the mysterious finality of a soul’s departure from this life. For those without faith, confusion deepens the pain. Without God there is, after life, just the void. The real absence. Emptiness, chaos, and guesswork about what frightening reality awaits behind the curtain. Today’s Feast of the Ascension is a peek behind that curtain and what the believer sees is life, fulfillment, and hope. In the Ascension, we have a preview of coming attractions and much, much more. Forty days after His Resurrection from the dead, the disciples witness the Lord go away. But they are not sad. Saint Luke relates that the disciples were full of joy upon returning to Jerusalem after witnessing Jesus’ Ascension on the Mount of Olives. Jesus had gone away but had not died. He had departed but was fully alive. Christ showed that there was an alternative path, a different way to “do” leaving time and space.

    Most memory is happy memory. We naturally forget what causes us pain and embarrassment and more easily retain what brings smiles and light. Our Catholic religion serves us well when it remembers truths on our behalf. The Church tells us year in and year out where we came from—God. It reads to us at Mass the stories of our salvation. It reminds us that death and suffering are painful but not the end. And in the Ascension the Church preserves the very positive memory of man’s greatness. The Ascension reinforces our dignity. It is a shot of vitamin B right into the spine. We stand taller and straighter when we know that we are meant to live forever in the Father’s house in heaven.

    Many modern biologists point to a pile of wet clay and say, “Look, here is man.” Modern visual artists often show bloody, suffering, degraded man and say, “Look, here is man.” Sensualists sell the unclothed body to the lustful and say, “Look, here is man.” Pontius Pilate stood the broken and bloody body of Jesus before the rabble and said the same, “Ecce Homo.” Today the Church asks its believers to gaze up at the Ascension and to say, “Here is man too. Here is the body restored, in all of man’s resplendent power.” It is not enough for us to guess about our origins. We must reflect upon our destination. Where we are going says more about us than where we came from. Man is not a small pile of dirt. He is not his broken jaw, his foreclosed home, his failed marriage, or his carnal desires. He is these things, but he is more. Man is great because God is great.

    At Mass the priest says, “Lift up your hearts,” and the people respond, “We lift them up to the Lord.” Indeed. Today we marvel at the spectacle of the God-Man Jesus Christ ascending to heaven and to home. From that high place, and only from there, can we properly gauge our dignity. The Ascension should not invite speculation about the number of rooms in the Father’s mansion, or how exactly the Lord zoomed up into the clouds. The Ascension is about what comes next. It’s about our dignity. It teaches us that self importance is nothing. It is union with God that makes us great and makes us happy.

    Lord Jesus, You were from Mary biologically but from the Father theologically. On this Feast of the Ascension, You return to the Father’s house. Help all who believe in You and who belong to You in the Church to one day join You in that heavenly home forever and ever. Amen.
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    6 mins
  • May 10 St. John of Avila

    May 10 St. John of Avila
    May 6 2024
    May 10: Saint John of Ávila, Priest and Doctor
    1499-1569
    Optional Memorial: Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of Andalusia Spain and Spanish clergy

    His humble epitaph reads “I was a sower”

    Some of the most passionate and daring missionaries stayed close to home. They never sailed the high seas or crossed a snow-capped mountain. Today’s saint was one of them. He was an only child, and after his parents died, Fr. John sold his family property, travelled to Seville, cut all ties, and prepared to sail to New Spain (Mexico), one more wave in that surging missionary tide which crashed on Mexico’s shores throughout the 1500s. But it was not to be. St. John of Ávila never walked up the ship’s plank. He never crossed the ocean. While waiting for his ship in Seville, his skills as a preacher and catechist, and his obvious holiness, were noticed by the local bishop, who convinced him to preach, teach, and evangelize in Andalusia, in Spain’s rugged south.

    Saint John then spent himself crisscrossing a region that had only recently been conquered by the Spanish crown, and so was still populated by Spanish Muslims and Jews whose conversions to Catholicism were often more matters of expedience than religious conviction. In this newly opened mission field, our saint’s broad, humanistic education perfectly matched the pastoral need. Father John harmonized orthodox theology, renaissance humanism, rigorous morality, and an insightful spirituality into a powerful synthesis which, when conveyed through his compelling preaching, moved his congregations to their very cores. As John migrated through the great cities of southern Spain - Seville, Córdoba, Granada – large numbers of the faithful followed him everywhere, eager to absorb every word that flowed from his mouth or pen.

    People of every class, educational level, and depth of religious commitment found St. John fascinating. In his own lifetime he came to be known as “Master Ávila” for his dominance of the sacred sciences and his vigorous pastoral efforts. He converted, or led to deeper conversion, Saint John of God, founder of the Hospitaller Order, and Saint Francis Borgia, a future Master General of the Jesuits. He was a friend of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and advised Saint Teresa of Ávila, foundress of the Discalced Carmelites. Despite these, and many other, personal connections to famous religious orders and their founders, St. John always remained a diocesan priest, not a religious order priest, something unusual for a priest of his era with such wide influence.

    Saint John’s erudition and solid virtues were further buttressed by his life of abject poverty and physical suffering. He was also part of that loud, pan-European cry for church reform that preceded the Council of Trent by decades. Saint John established several seminaries and colleges, provided spiritual direction to multitudes of laity, religious and seminarians, wrote a long spiritual treatise called Audi filia (“Listen daughter”) and was invited by a bishop to attend the Council of Trent as his theological adviser, though illness prevented Saint John from making the journey.

    John was declared Venerable in 1759, Blessed in 1893, and Saint in 1970. Proving that saints are always contemporary, he was declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 after a petition from the Spanish episcopacy for such an honor was duly studied and approved by the Vatican. The Papal Bull declaring him a Doctor of the Church states: “The teaching of John of Ávila is outstanding for its quality and precision, and its breadth and depth, which were the fruit of methodical study and contemplation together with a profound experience of supernatural realities.”

    In his last few years, Saint John suffered acute physical pain and was largely confined to his humble home. Confinement allowed him to finally perfect his theological and spiritual writings and to correspond with those seeking his wise counsel. The esteemed Master Ávila, a true Man of La Mancha, died clutching a crucifix, surrounded by many disciples, on May 10, 1569.

    Saint John of Ávila, your refined education, broad mind, and ardent love of God and Mary showed itself in all you did and said. May our lives likewise reflect our deepest Christian beliefs, inspiring our friends and families to live saintly perfection.
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    6 mins
  • May 10: Saint Damien de Veuster of Moloka’i, Priest (U.S.A.)

    May 10: Saint Damien de Veuster of Moloka’i, Priest (U.S.A.)
    May 4 2024
    May 10: Saint Damien de Veuster of Moloka’i, Priest (U.S.A.) 1840–1889 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of those suffering leprosy A joyful celibate brings hope and dignity to the walking dead It is often just one decision that releases the bolt, opening the door to a new life. The first step down a new road of a thousand smaller steps begins with one choice—to board the ship or to stand on the dock, to accept the marriage proposal or to wait for another, to sign the document or to leave it blank. Without that first choice, a different life would have been lived. Everyone, at some point, stands at this crossroad. But an impulse must be obeyed or rejected for untold other events, decisions, and influences to begin to unwind. This is one of the mysteries of life, how so much depends on one brief moment. Young Jozef De Veuster (Damien was his religious name), growing up in a large family in rural Belgium, could never have imagined where and how his life would end. He was most likely going to follow the path of most other young men of his time and place—get married, have a family, go to Mass on Sunday, and take over the family farm. But an older brother was a priest, and two sisters were nuns, so a religious vocation was always a possibility. Damien eventually responded to the Lord’s call and his own impulse toward religious life and entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, just as his brother did before him. But just as his brother, Father Pamphile, was slated to leave for Hawaiʻi as a missionary, he had to abandon his voyage for health reasons. And thus a decision had to be made. A pivot point had arrived. Was Damien to replace his brother and go to Hawaiʻi or not? Leave family forever or stay home? Be a foreign missionary or stay among his own? Brother Damien walked the long plank upward and boarded the ship. He arrived in Honolulu in March 1864 and was ordained a priest in May. He would live his entire priestly life in Hawaiʻi. He never left the Hawaiʻian islands again. Father Damien served in parishes for several years, learning to love his parishioners and being loved by them in return. Then, in 1873, the bishop asked for volunteers to go to an isolated leper colony on the island of Moloka’i. Father Damien volunteered. For the next sixteen years, he dedicated himself without reserve to this exiled community. He carried out more than a “ministry of accompaniment.” He accompanied, yes, but he also led, taught, inspired, and died to self. Father Damien’s robust health and farm background made hard work natural. He enlarged a chapel and built a rectory, a road, a dock, and numerous cottages for the lepers. He showed the people how to farm, to raise cattle, and to sing (despite his diseased vocal cords), and to play instruments (despite his missing fingers). He was a vital force walking in a living graveyard. Life on an isolated leper colony was psychologically difficult for everyone, even the priest. But Father Damien brought faith and human dignity to a depressed population alienated from family and society. He treated the sick and the dying—and everyone was sick and dying—with the dignity of children of God. A proper cemetery was organized, funeral Masses were said with the accompaniment of a choir, and solemn processions bore everyone to their final resting place. This was a far cry from the inhuman chaos that preceded his arrival. Father Damien carried out all of his pastoral work with fatherly concern. He was there, after all, because he was a celibate priest. No married Protestant minister would have dared to place himself, his wife, and his children in such a dangerous situation, and none ever did. Like all good fathers, Father Damien was both joyful and demanding. He was open. He smiled. He cared. He scolded. His source of strength was not merely his solid foundation in human virtue but primarily his Catholic faith. Father Damien’s love for the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, and the Virgin Mary deepened through the years. His greatest non-physical sufferings were the lack of a priest companion with whom he could converse and to whom he could confess his sins. Father Damien contracted leprosy after eleven years in the colony. He personally never wrote to his mother with the news. But when the old widow in Belgium learned of her son’s illness, she died of a broken heart. Father Damien lived five years with leprosy, continuing his priestly work, and died in 1889 at the age of forty-nine. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 after two medical miracles were attributed to his divine intervention. Saint Damien of Moloka’i, intercede on behalf of all fathers to make them ever more generous in serving without reserve the families they head, making your life not only a source of inspiration, but also of emulation, to all who know of your heroic generosity.
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    7 mins
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Christianity Spirituality
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