Catholic Saints & Feasts

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.

  1. May 21: Saint Christopher Magallanes, Priest & Martyr, & Companions, Martyrs

    1D AGO

    May 21: Saint Christopher Magallanes, Priest & Martyr, & Companions, Martyrs

    May 21: Saint Christopher Magallanes, Priest and Martyr, and Companions, Martyrs Fr. Magallanes: 1869–1927; 22 priests and 3 laymen: 1915-1937, the majority killed between 1926-1929 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red A Mexican bloodletting The governor of Mexico’s Tabasco state in the 1920s, Garrido Canabal, was so insanely anti-Catholic that he named his three sons Lenin, Satan, and Lucifer. He was also a farmer and named one of his bulls “God,” a hog “Pope,” a cow “Mary,” and a donkey “Christ.” He ordered the removal and destruction of all crucifixes from public buildings and graveyards in Tabasco. Painful photographs of the destruction prove that it happened. For his vicious persecution of the Church, he was elevated to a national cabinet position in the 1930s. Canabal was a political protégé of the Mexican president, and later strongman, Plutarco Calles. Calles was an illegitimate child, born to unmarried parents. Calles hated being called an illegitimate child and especially resented the Roman Catholic Church for this title of illegitimacy. In time, Calles became a devout believer in the religion of atheism, eagerly shared his beliefs with others, and put great energy into evangelizing others to his side. As governor of the state of Sonora, he expelled all Catholic priests. As president of Mexico, he carried out an overtly violent, ferocious, scorched-earth attack on Catholicism without par in the twentieth century. Priests were killed for no other reason than for being priests. This led to a popular counterreaction known as the Cristero War, a slow burn of assassinations, pitched battles, skirmishes, and reprisals. Central Mexico was in a full-blown meltdown in the 1920s. For a visitor to Mexico today, or to anyone familiar with its culture, such events are difficult to imagine or comprehend. Mexico harbors one of the most vibrant Catholic cultures in the entire world, thick with devotions, processions, Masses, feast day celebrations, and religious song and dress. Yet the Cristero War did happen, and not a thousand years ago. The militant, anti-religious mentality of Anglo-Saxon secular humanism is familiar to many believers today. It is the air we breath. This educated secularism opposes the very idea of God, exalts a narrow understanding of freedom, denigrates the concept of belief, and transposes science as an object of faith rather than a formal creed. The militant anti-religious mentality of 1920s Mexico, and of other culturally Catholic nations, was and is different from Anglo-Saxon secularism. Anti-Catholicism in Catholic nations expresses itself in anticlericalism. Hatred is unleashed against bishops and priests and their instruments of ministry—altars, crucifixes, vestments, rosaries, statues, etc.—not so much against creeds or ideas. You don’t need to read Nietzsche or to master the Enlightenment canon to hate the Church. Whereas Anglo Saxon secularism wages its battles in the higher echelons of university classrooms and the courts, Latino anticlericalism is not too complex. Just kidnap a priest, blindfold him, tie his hands tightly behind his back, and shoot him in the head. Anticlericalism liquidates its enemies against the dirty brick wall behind the local police station. No courtrooms are needed. Today’s saint, and the others canonized with him, were caught in the storm that was Plutarco Calles. Father Magallanes was a priest of humble origins similar to those of Calles, but Magallanes walked a different path than the strongman. After working the land as a youth for his poor family, he entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 1899. He then served faithfully as a chaplain and as a pastor to the Huichole Indians for many years. By middle age, he was a priest of some stature. But the otherwise ordinary arc of his life took an extraordinary turn when, on May 21, 1927, he was on his way to celebrate the Feast of St. Rita of Cascia (May 22) in a small village. A shootout between Cristeros and Federal forces near the village led to Father Magallanes’ arrest, along with a brother priest, Father Caloca. There were no accusations and no trial. There was neither the presentation of evidence nor the right of defense, since priests had no civil rights in Mexico at the time. On May 25, 1927, the two priests were led to the courtyard of a municipal building for what always happened next. Father Magallanes stated: “I am innocent and die innocent. I absolve with all my heart those who seek my death and ask God that my blood bring peace to a divided Mexico.” The priests absolved each other, spoke some few words of comfort, and then were shot to death by a firing squad of fellow Mexicans in soldiers’ uniforms. Father Caloca’s last words were: “For God we lived and for Him we die.” Twenty-five martyrs are commemorated today. All were diocesan priests, except for three laymen who died with their parish priest. They died in eight different Mexican states under circumstances similar to those of Frs. Magallanes and Caloca. One was hung from a mango tree in a town square, another from an oak in the country; one was shot for not revealing the confessions of his co-prisoners, one was bayoneted and beaten to death; one was shot and his body placed on railroad tracks to be mutilated by a train. The executioner of one priest refused to fire his rifle. He was shot right after the priest. Pope Saint John Paul II beatified the group in 1992 and canonized them in 2000. In addition to Frs. Magallanes (Cristóbal Magallanes Jara) and Caloca (Agustín Caloca Cortés), these martyrs were: Román Adame Rosales, Rodrigo Aguilar Alemán, Julio Álvarez Mendoza, Luis Batis Sáinz, Mateo Correa Magallanes, Atilano Cruz Alvarado, Miguel De La Mora, Pedro Esqueda Ramírez, Margarito Flores Garcia, José Isabel Flores Varela, David Galván Bermúdez, Salvador Lara Puente (layman), Pedro de Jesús Maldonado Lucero, Jesús Méndez Montoya, Manuel Morales (layman), Justino Orona Madrigal, Sabás Reyes Salazar, José María Robles Hurtado, David Roldán Lara (layman),Toribio Romo González, Jenaro Sánchez Delgadillo, David Uribe Velasco, and Tranquilino Ubiarco Robles. Father Magallanes, your quiet witness and noble death are an inspiration to all who suffer physical violence for the faith in unknown ways and in unknown places. May your intercession and courage be an inspiration for all priests, laymen, and religious who are tempted to bend in the winds of persecution.

    8 min
  2. May 20: Saint Bernardine of Siena, Priest

    2D AGO

    May 20: Saint Bernardine of Siena, Priest

    May 20: Saint Bernardine of Siena, Priest 1380–1444 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of advertising and gambling A sensational preacher popularizes the Holy Name devotion Saint Bernardine of Siena was the Billy Graham of his day. Graham was a well-known American evangelist who traveled ceaselessly from city to city preaching the good news of the Gospel over many decades. Yet while today’s saint was certainly a roving evangelist, he was also much more. He was first and foremost vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience as a Franciscan Friar. Saint Bernardine was also ordained into the one Priesthood of Jesus Christ by a successor of the Apostles. And he had received a long and complete theological and humanistic education before he ever opened his mouth in front of a crowd. He was even a doctor of canon law. Fifteenth-century Italy was hot with reform of the Church. Ever since 1417 and the end of the Great Schism (an era of two and even three competing popes), talk of Church reform was on the lips of anyone who believed enough to care. Unfortunately, every effort to compel a bishop to live in his diocese, to form better educated priests, to purify indulgence selling, to streamline Church courts, to appoint holy bishops, to stop commerce in relics, and so on, was ignored or resisted. The roots of some weeds are tangled and ferocious. They cannot be pulled from the ground. The 1400s were a lost century for efforts to reform the Church. The popes tightened their grip on Church power so that no council would ever pry their fingers from the levers of ecclesial governance. The needed reforms would have to wait until the immensely successful Council of Trent in the mid-sixteenth century. But it was too late by then. Father Martin Luther and others had been tired of waiting. The Reformation began in 1517, one hundred years after the Great Schism ended. Vast populations of Northern Europe were cleaved from the true Faith because the needed reforms came too late. Saint Bernardine was one of the many bright lights of fifteenth-century Italy who did everything in his power to create a holier Church through his preaching. He was such a compelling and entertaining speaker that enormous crowds turned out to hear him, normally first thing in the morning. He encouraged devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus and often held the IHS monogram in his hand when preaching. This devotion was later incorporated as a feast day into the universal calendar of the Church. Bernardine dramatically exhorted his congregations to melt their mirrors, playing cards, perfumes, dice, wigs, and other worldly distractions in a “bonfire of the vanities” roaring near his pulpit. This was true drama. In the Franciscan tradition, Bernardine of Siena walked everywhere. No horse or mule or carriage for the journey. He excoriated usury, superstition, and the deplorable scourge of homosexual acts, in the starkest terms. Compared to the modern penchant for market research, polling, and tailoring a message to audience expectations, Saint Bernardine was fearless. He spoke the unvarnished truths of his religion to the adherents of the same. Preaching, he understood, was an essential charism of the Priesthood of Christ, not an add-on. Saint Bernardine also published, far ahead of his time, works on entrepreneurship, business practices, a just wage, and the determining of just values for a product or service. Saint Bernardine was a sophisticated thinker with a common touch. The fact that Saint Bernardine lived almost into the age of the printed book meant that many of his sermons were accurately preserved. It also meant that images of his likeness were uniform and accurate. A famous painting by El Greco shows the emaciated friar in a worn Franciscan habit, the three knots on his white cincture visible, representing poverty, chastity, and obedience. His right hand holds a standard bearing the monogram of the name of Jesus—IHS. In his left hand is a book, perhaps the Bible. And at his feet are three bishops’ miters. Saint Bernardine was three times offered to be made a bishop and three times he said, “No.” Thus, in addition to all of his other considerable virtues, our saint also possessed the queen of the virtues — humility. Bernardine of Siena was the Saint Paul of his era and was canonized in 1450, just six years after he died, numerous miracles having already been attributed to his intercession.  Saint Bernardine of Siena, inspire all preachers to not count the personal cost of stating uncomfortable truths but instead to suffer the repercussions of honest talk. Help priests to fortify their preaching with impeccable lives of prayer, fasting, devotion, and virtue, just as you did.

    6 min
  3. May 18: Saint John I, Pope and Martyr

    4D AGO

    May 18: Saint John I, Pope and Martyr

    May 18: Saint John I, Pope and Martyr c. Late Fifth Century–526 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red The pope is crushed in a secular vice by two worldly masters The early Popes were Roman citizens who retained their birth or baptismal names upon being elected to the See of Peter. Their names perfectly reflect a flourishing Roman culture rather than the Christian subculture which was gradually budding and flowering in its midst. So there are Popes Clement, Linus, Anacletus, Sixtus, Victor, Callixtus, Urban, and Fabian. It sounds like a roll call of Roman senators in white togas seated on the marble benches of the Forum. It is not until 254 that Pope Stephen bears a name from the New Testament and not until 336 does Pope Mark honor an Evangelist. Considering the centrality of Saints John the Evangelist and John the Baptist to the Christian story, it is surprising that five hundred years transpired before today’s saint, Pope John I, so honored their memory. A pope is only called the “First” once there’s a “Second.” In 533 a man named Mercurius succeeded today’s John as Bishop of Rome. Mercurius’ birth name was so overtly pagan—honoring the Roman God Mercury—that he chose to honor his martyred predecessor John by adopting his same name. Mercurius thus initiated the venerable tradition of a pope adopting a new name upon his election. At the same time he also retroactively turned Pope John into Pope John I. The flow of the early martyrs’ blood had long since ceased by John I’s election in 523. There was no emperor or court even left in Rome by 523 for barbarians to attack. The traditional date of the fall of the Western Roman Empire is 476. John I was, then, the pope of a declining, far western outpost of an empire whose central government had been in Constantinople for almost two hundred years by John I’s election. Rome was fading. The Empire’s long, slow decline in Italy had created a vacuum. Rugged tribes of the North, including the Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths), poured south into the warm valleys and cultured towns of the Italian countryside and saturated Rome itself. The Ostrogoths had called the Italian peninsula home for so long that, by the sixth century, they were part Roman, part barbarian, and part Christian. Borderlands are always a mix. For complex historical reasons, the Ostrogoths and their Italian ruler, Theodoric, were Arians. Their prior isolation in Northern Europe had prohibited them from absorbing the teachings of the fourth-century Councils of Nicea and Constantinople. So the Ostrogoths were unaware that the Church had decisively rejected the Arian heresy, which held that Christ was a god, but not the God. It was amidst these tense political and religious circumstances that poor Pope John I was placed in an impossible situation. John was caught between the Emperor Justin in remote Constantinople, who exercised significant control over Church discipline, and Theodoric, who was standing right at his side, breathing down his neck. Justin had issued an edict ordering the Arians, including the Ostrogoths in Italy, to surrender their churches to the Catholics. Theodoric would have none of it. He was as angry as a hornet. To him, it was the first step toward Constantinople reasserting its control over Italy, something the Ostrogoths would resist to the death. So Theodoric sent Pope John at the head of a large embassy of Roman dignitaries to Constantinople to demand that Justin withdraw the edict. Pope John obediently went. He was greeted in the capital with elaborate ceremony and honored as head of the Church. But he could not, and did not, secure what Theodoric so desired. It was impossible. The edict was binding. When Pope John and his party crossed the Adriatic Sea to return to Rome, they landed at Ravenna. Theodoric, who had heard of Pope John’s failure to have the edict rescinded, imprisoned him. And there the Pope died, in Ravenna, perhaps of shock, perhaps of mistreatment. His blood did not run red like the martyrs of old, but he died a victim for Christ nonetheless, unable to simultaneously satisfy two powerful secular masters. John I’s mortal remains were returned to Rome. In keeping with the custom for all popes since Pope Leo the Great (440–461), Pope John I was interred in the nave of the Constantinian Basilica of St. Peter. When the new St. Peter’s was built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, John’s tomb did not surface nor did any epitaph. But Pope Saint John I is still there, somewhere, under the floor of St. Peter’s, arms crossed, facing up, ring on his bony finger, vested in gold, miter crowning his head, as waves of tourists walk on the marble floor above him. He rests in peace, forgotten to but a few. Pope Saint John I, your fidelity to your vocation as Pope led to your death. You were faithful in the face of threats from civil power but did not bend to its will. May all popes look to your example for inspiration in leading the Church.

    7 min
  4. Ascension Of The Lord

    5D AGO

    Ascension Of The Lord

    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.

    6 min
  5. May 15: Saint Isidore

    MAY 15

    May 15: Saint Isidore

    May 15: Saint Isidore c. 1080–1130 Optional Memorial (U.S.A.); Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of farmers and brick layers Our daily duties are not a distraction from God’s will It would be wonderful to see in a church a marble statue of a nurse taking a patient’s blood pressure. It would be edifying to see in a Basilica’s bright stained glass a housewife standing fatigued at the ironing board, running the iron over her kids’ shirts. And it would be marvelous to gaze in admiration at a well-executed painting of a factory worker pounding a piece of metal into shape with a hammer. Imagine if Catholic art presented these mundane scenes for contemplation in our churches, chapels, and shrines. Imagine kneeling before a bank of glowing candles and reflecting upon the everyday heroism of the lay vocation. We could light a small candle, step back, cross our hands, pause in silence, look at the layman in a suit at his desk in the mosaic before us, and whisper a prayer asking for his divine intercession to help us be a more charitable nurse, a more dedicated housewife, or a more honest worker. There is nothing in the mind that is not first in the senses. So our churches inspire us, ideally, with their statues, stained glass, paintings, mosaics, floors, and tapestries. The images of the holy men and women of our long Catholic tradition typically show popes, bishops, priests, nuns, abbots, monks, friars, brothers, missionaries, and others, dressed in their religious habit and armed with the symbols of their office and their life. All of this is good. All of this is necessary. All of this is inspiring. Yet today’s saint, Isidore, offers us a different pathway of holiness to consider—the broad and well-traveled pathway crowded with the Catholic laity on their way to work in the morning. Saint Isidore was from Spain and was named in honor of Saint Isidore of Seville, a scholar, bishop, and Father of the Church who lived in the sixth and seventh centuries. The two Isidores could not be more different. Today’s Saint Isidore is known in Spanish as “Labrador” or “the farm worker.” He was not a scholar and probably had trouble reading. He was not ordained to Holy Orders but married and a father. He surely had calluses on his hands, a red, leathery neck burned by the sun, and a sore and twisted back for most of his life. He earned what little he had. No one gave it to him. He did not put food on his family’s table by generating great thoughts or publishing profound books. And due to exhaustion he probably had no trouble sleeping at night. Numerous legends of miracle working and holiness attest to Saint Isidore’s influence on Spanish culture. In 1947 his partially incorrupt body was even put on public display to provoke prayers to bring a terrible Spanish drought to an end.  Saint Isidore is the patron saint of Madrid and of numerous other towns, cities, and regions throughout the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America. Processions, Masses, fireworks, and public devotions render him homage on his feast day. Yet besides his dedication to working the land, few details of Saint Isidore’s life are known with certainty. Our religious faith cannot occupy only one sphere of our life, as if it were a hobby akin to building a ship in a bottle, flying a kite, or cultivating a garden. A real religion impacts everything. Even work. Especially work. We fulfill God’s will in our daily lives—which are packed full of work—by doing our work well. We should do our work diligently and at a high professional level, because it is an offering to God first and foremost. In other words, bad work equals a bad offering. Work is the practical use and expression of the skills God has loaned us for our earthly pilgrimage. To misuse those skills, to let them lie fallow, or to put them to ill use, is to bury a treasure in the ground. “Ora et Labora” is the Benedictine maxim. Prayer and Work. Yet work is prayer for the vast majority of the baptized. Saint Isidore’s life teaches us, indirectly, that God can convert an entire nation without ink or paper. A book might help, of course, but a religion of the Word is not the same as a religion of the Book, and Catholics are a people of the Word. Saint Isidore is the patron saint of farmers, day laborers, and brick layers. He is often shown wearing rough clothes, oxen leading him as he plows a furrow, with an angel at his side and a golden halo shining over him. A farmer saint. Why not? Saint Isidore, your witness of dedicated and holy work is a model for all who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. May your quiet and humble dedication to your lay vocation inspire all the baptized to see in “work well done” a source of dignity through which man participates in God’s creative act.

    7 min
  6. May 14: Saint Matthias, Apostle

    MAY 14

    May 14: Saint Matthias, Apostle

    May 14: Saint Matthias, Apostle First Century Feast; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of alcoholics and tailors The Twelve were deeply biblical—Judas had to be replaced Conservative Muslims believe that any territory that was once settled and governed by the adherents of Mohammed pertains forever and always to the Caliphate. Once Islamic, always Islamic. To illustrate, it took many generations for the Islamic fist to finally loosen its grip on Spain. Yet despite the Muslim armies being pushed back into the waters of the Mediterranean in 1492, some strict modern followers of Mohammed still harbor dreams of former glories and hope that Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) will one day re-emerge. Catholicism harbors no such illusions of glory for formerly Catholic lands, but it does practice a theological form of “Once Catholic, Always Catholic.” Many Bishops who serve in the Roman Curia exercise no authority over a diocese. Auxiliary bishops likewise lack a territory. These two categories of bishops are thus given a “titular” episcopal see. It is a see in name, or title, only. The see is normally that of an ancient diocese whose existence ceased due to, typically, Muslim invasion. The custom of assigning “titular” sees to some bishops not only preserves the memory of lost peoples and dioceses, it also has some theological support. A bishop and his diocese are united, like spouses, in a marriage arranged in Rome. That’s why a bishop wears a ring. And a diocese, once created, cannot remain a widow. A new bishop is always appointed to be wedded to it. A diocese must have a spouse, even if he is a long way from home in distance and time. Titular bishops succeed in the present, if only in name, the past bishops of now defunct dioceses. The tradition that all bishops, beginning with the Apostles, must have successors is rooted not just in the early Church but in Judaism. The Twelve Apostles are more often referred to in the New Testament by their number than their names. They are, simply,  “The Twelve.” This custom is rooted in the twelve tribes who settled the land of Canaan after the Exodus from Egypt. These tribes were founded by the twelve sons of the Patriarch Jacob, later renamed Israel. It was inside of this Old Testament Jewish tradition that Jesus Christ acted when He chose twelve men upon whom to found His Church. Jesus specifically states that His followers will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28, Lk 22:30). And the Book of Revelation states that the names of the twelve tribes of Israel will be written on the gates of the Heavenly Jerusalem (Rv 21:12 ff). It was fitting, then, when “The Twelve” were reduced to “The Eleven” after Judas’ self murder, that the fullness of the biblical number had to be restored. And this is where today’s saint steps out from the shadows to play his role in Christian history. The first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the great history book of the early Church, tells us that, after the Ascension, the eleven Apostles returned to Jerusalem. There, Peter “stood up among the believers” to tell them that someone who had “accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us… must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” Two names were proposed to replace Judas: Matthias and Joseph called Barsabbas. Then the Eleven prayed to the Lord to show them the way. They cast lots. Matthias was chosen. An Apostle, for the first time, had a successor. And, of equal significance, the appointment came from the group, or college, of Apostles, led by Peter. Thus was established, just days after Christ left the earth, a form of Church preservation and growth which would be repeated, and is still repeated, tens of thousand of times in Christian history. The Church has placed the Feast of St. Matthias purposefully close to the Feast of the Ascension, just as his election in Acts occurred so soon after that event in the Bible. The Holy Spirit had yet to descend at Pentecost, and still the Church performed the will of God with authority in selecting Matthias. It was all there in the beginning. It is still here all around us. The miracle of the Church and her Apostles continues. It will always continue. Saint Matthias, we beg your intercession from your powerful throne in the Heavenly Jerusalem, that you fortify all who govern your Church to emulate “The Twelve” in their wisdom, trust, prudence, and daring in leading and spreading the Faith.

    6 min
  7. May 13: Our Lady of Fatima

    MAY 13

    May 13: Our Lady of Fatima

    May 13: Our Lady of Fatima 1917 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Like the moon’s mellow glow, Mary reflects a greater light The ancient Greco-Roman world that Christianity replaced was deeply devoted to the gods, not God. Its landscape was dotted with a thousand shrines, oracles, sacred caves, and holy mountains where the god of this and the goddess of that lived or lurked. And the pagan faithful—and they were faithful—trusted that someone among this government of gods could be petitioned for this need or lobbied for that favor: so that the battle would be won, the harvest plentiful, the illness brief, the baby a boy, or the sea calm for the voyage. This all made sense. Just as human nature was expressed in countless persons, so too would the divine nature be manifested in myriad gods and goddesses. Countless stars populated the blackness between earth and sun. So too did gods thicken the reality between the realm of the flesh and the realm of the spirit in ancient paganism. Over a span of centuries, Christianity methodically and inexorably displaced this ancient worldview. The Church rolled slowly on, like a colossal glacier, from east to west and south to north, gathering, pushing, and budging everyone and everything to the margins as it carved a new landscape for a new people. Yet the old worldview, while theologically childish, had deeply human elements. It is natural to think that between man and god there would be sub-gods or something of the like. It is natural to imagine that a local god would have local concerns and give a local answer to local people. It is natural to presume that a high summit is holier than a flat prairie and that to visit it, to make a petition, and to leave an offering would merit more than to do nothing at all. Greco-Roman paganism expressed the deep, universal, religious impulse found in every culture. Christianity built on the same human foundations as paganism, and it responded to the same human longings. But Christianity built on that sound foundation a solid house of revealed theological truth. And that truth revealed that the one God—omniscient, omnipresent, all powerful—expresses Himself through the tool of creation, though He Himself is not creation. Christian truth also revealed that God not only acts through secondary causes but is also approached through them. So bread and water become Christ’s Body and Blood, water is blessed by a holy man and wets our foreheads when we mark ourselves with the cross, and certain men and women live so heroically the mystery of God in their lives that we call them saints. This constellation of saints has long replaced the confused, but understandable, pagan pantheon of old. Instead of a god of the sea, a god of war, and a god of rain, we have patron saints for sailors, soldiers, and farmers. We have saint intercessors for the mentally ill, for pregnant women, for impossible causes, and for a happy death. Catholicism has a saint for everything and for everyone, forming a more theologically satisfying worldview that nonetheless responds to the innate religious impulse of all men. Today’s Memorial celebration commemorates the greatest saint of all, Saint Mary, as she manifested herself to three humble children in the Portuguese village of Fatima in 1917. Our Lady, the only mother ever chosen by her son, appeared in a particular place, at a particular time, to a particular people, to satisfy a particular need. She spoke to the children deep theological truths about heaven, hell, and purgatory. She performed a publicly witnessed miracle that made the sun dance, asked for increased devotion to her Son Jesus Christ, and pleaded for reparation for the many sins committed against Him. A shrine was built in the Blessed Mother’s honor at the site of her apparitions, which has welcomed millions and millions of pilgrims, including popes, over the decades. Our Lady is for the whole Church, of course, but she is closer to the faithful when she comes to them on their own terms—in their own tongue, skin, and dress, hovering over their own soil. There is one Mary, historically and theologically. There are many Marys, culturally and symbolically. Pope Saint John Paul II was shot on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. He was grievously injured but survived. He later said that one hand pulled the trigger, but another hand guided the bullet. He went on pilgrimage to Fatima to give thanks for that saving hand. The bullet that penetrated his torso, and was removed by doctors, was placed into the silver crown of Our Lady of Fatima. It rests there today. We honor Mary for many graces, we petition her for many favors, and we thank her for many gifts—for the battle won, for the plentiful harvest, for the healthy baby, for the calm sea, and for the lives saved, dramatically, from an assassin, or mundanely, from everything else. Our Lady of Fatima, your miraculous apparitions fill us with hope that you follow our concerns, intervene in our lives, and demand of us greater fidelity. May we heed your words and your warnings and carry out God’s will with your own life as our example.

    7 min
  8. May 12: Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Martyrs

    MAY 12

    May 12: Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Martyrs

    May 12: Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Martyrs c. Early Second Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Roman soldiers made good martyrs The earliest manuscript proving the existence of Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, a copy of one of his works, dates from the ninth century A.D.  Caesar was stabbed to death in 44 B.C. So approximately nine hundred years separate the life of Caesar from the first tangible, physical, paper copy of one of his written works. The earliest manuscript describing Caesar, but not written by him, dates from after the ninth century, and so is even more removed from the man it describes. None of this means that Julius Caesar did not exist or that he did not compose the works attributed to him. First century B.C. Roman coins prove, unequivocally, that Julius Caesar existed. No Roman coins prove the existence of today’s martyrs. Instead, something thousands of times larger than a coin proves they existed. There’s a church. In fact, there are two churches in Rome dedicated to Saints Nereus and Achilleus. These churches are not hard to find. You can touch their walls, open their doors, and sit in their pews. There is not one structure, much less two, in Rome or in any other city, dedicated to Julius Cesar. Even the exact location of his assassination is a matter of conjecture. Almost nothing can be said with certainty regarding the lives and deaths of Nereus and Achilleus. There are conflicting traditions of when they lived, where they lived, and how they died. But…there are those churches. Two of them. In Rome. One is a fourth-century Basilica inside the Catacombs of Domitilla. The other, from the sixth century, was built on the site where an early Christian tradition says Saint Peter encountered Christ as Peter was abandoning Rome. A stone is a valuable form of testimony. It is more permanent than paper. A stone doesn’t easily deteriorate. A stone is heavy and remains where its builder placed it. Its location itself provides important clues. The stones of the two Roman churches dedicated to today’s saints give powerful, if silent, testimony. The churches are planted in the earth like giant gravestones telling who can be found in or beneath them. Who would assume that the words etched into a gravestone were a lie? Who would think that a name carved into granite described no one? Who would imagine that the ground under a memorial was empty, holding no grave, no casket, no body? Only a fool would believe such things. But Christians are no fools. An enormous death memorial, in the form of a church, was built by dedicated Christians in the fourth century in honor of today’s saints. Nereus and Achilleus were likely soldiers who were executed for their belief in Jesus Christ. An official list of Roman martyrs from the fifth-century names, specifically, Nereus and Achilleus, and states, specifically, that they are buried in the Catacombs of St. Domitilla. Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who reigned from 590–604, gave a homily, duly recorded and preserved, at the very tomb of Saints Nereus and Achilleus: “These saints before whose tomb we are assembled, despised the world and trampled it under their feet…” And more than one medieval manuscript records an ancient dedication to Nereus and Achilleus by Pope Damasus (366–384) attesting to their martyrdom for refusing to carry out military orders to kill Christians. The relics of today’s saints were transferred from their ancient underground Basilica in the catacombs to their “new” Church sometime in the sixth century. By the ninth century, the Basilica had been forgotten as wave after wave of invasion and plague and sack and turmoil decimated the Eternal City until it was a shadow of its imperial glory. But in 1874, a pioneering archaeologist named Giovanni de Rossi began excavating the Catacombs of Domitilla.  In the ruins of a subterranean Basilica there, he found two pillars, one of which had the name “Achilleus” carved into it. De Rossi also discovered chunks of the very marble slab bearing the dedication of Pope Damasus to Nereus and Achilleus! This discovery proved the medieval manuscripts describing the dedication were accurate. The stones spoke. The faithful listened. The traditions are true. The Church preserved its sacred history, and today the great tradition of honoring those who shed their blood for Christ perdures. Saints Nereus and Achilleus, we know little about you, except the most important things—that you lived, that you converted, and that you chose to not continue living rather than to deny your belief in Christ. We know these things, and they are enough. Pray for us.

    6 min
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About

"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.

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  • Creator
    Fr. Michael Black
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    267
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Fr. Michael Black
  • Show Website
    Catholic Saints & Feasts

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