All Saints' Day

November 1st is All Saints' Day in the Roman Catholic Church.  This celebration goes back to the early 7th century.  (The Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate All Saints' Sunday on the first Sunday after Pentecost in May or June, depending on what day Easter falls.)

All Saints' Day is a national holiday in Poland.  Families get together to visit the graves of family members.  At the graves they light candles and pray. 

 

The effect of the lit candles on the gravestones in the dark evening is striking, as you can see in the photo above.  It may seem to some a depressing, somber event.  For those of us who hope in the resurrection it is not.  Furthermore, it is a time to meet family members, many of whom live far away and make a special trip for this occasion, and recollect past times and departed loved ones. 

 

What is a Saint?

 

A saint is primarily someone who has lived a life of heroic virtue and now enjoys the beatific vision of God our Father in heaven.  In other words, a saint is someone who died in the friendship of Jesus Christ and now spends eternity in heaven. 

 

In the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church there are canonized saints.  Those are individuals who the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has formally recognized as having died in love with Jesus and who are now in heaven.  The Church recognizes that the formally canonized saints do not include all the saints in heaven.  There are many unknown saints in heaven.  I will never have my picture on a stained glass window, but I am called to be a saint (see Leviticus 11:44). 

 

We can think of the canonized saints as the Church's Hall of Fame.  Their lives are meant to be models for our encouragement.  The saints struggled with the same things we do.  Some had short tempers.  Some struggled with gluttony.  Some with lust.  Some had debilitating physical ailments.  But each of them gave their life over completely to Jesus Christ.  Some sooner, some later, but all in the end submitted their wills to the will of God. 

 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . .

 

All Souls' Day and Purgatory

 

November 2nd is All Souls' Day.  Briefly, this celebration is associated with the doctrine that the souls of the faithful who at death were not without stain due to venial sins and from attachment to mortal sins cannot immediately attain the beatific vision in heaven (nothing unclean can enter heaven, Revelations 21:27).  We may assist them through prayer and the sacrifice of the Mass.  Their full sanctification is carried out posthumously in Purgatory.

 

Purgatory is a topic for a posting of its own, but here are some scriptural references used to support the doctrine: Luke 12:59; Matthew 12:32; 1 Corinthians 3:13-15; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 3:19.  There's also 2 Maccabees 12:43-46 but Protestants don't include this book in the Old Testament.

 

My patron saints

 

A patron saint is someone who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family or person.  Just as our family and friends on earth can pray for us, so can our family in heaven (see Revelation 5:8 and 8:3-4).  For those of us with a Christian name like Mark, Philip, Mary, Elizabeth, etc., we could chose that saint as our patron.  There is no canonized saint with the name Randall.  There is a Saint Kevin (my second name), but I have chosen two other saints as my patrons.

 

Saint Joseph is referred to as the "silent saint."  Scripture records no spoken words of his.  Rather than speaking, Joseph is portrayed as acting on the word of God.  When he decided to quietly divorce Mary after discovering she was with child when they'd had no physical relations, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and explained what was happening and what Joseph must do.  Upon waking up, Joseph did as he was commanded.  Twice more the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, first commanding him to take Mary and Jesus into Egypt to flee from the murderous King Herod, and second commanding him to return the family to Israel after Herod's death.  Again, Joseph immediately obeyed.  (See Matthew's Gospel, chapters 1 - 2 for these examples)

 

I am a husband and father of two children.  Although they are my biological children, I understand that they are really God's.  My duty is to protect them, provide for them, instruct them and love them and to love, honor and serve my wife, just as Joseph did for Jesus and Mary.  For this reason and for his unfailing obedience to God, Saint Joseph if one of my patron saints.

 

 

 

Saint Joan of Arc (died 1431) is my other patron saint.  She was an illiterate peasant girl who at the age of 12 began to see visions of Saints Michael, Catherine and Margaret, who instructed her to drive the occupying English from France.  The story of Joan's struggle to convince the French authorities that her mission was legitimate, her leadership of the French army to a string of miraculous victories, her amazing verbal defense alone against a stacked court of highly learned men after her capture and finally her courage in the face of execution are an inspiration to me.  According to witnesses, Joan's final words as she burned at the stake were, "Jesus!  My Jesus!"  I can't help but believe that at that very same moment she cried those words as she ran into the arms of her beloved Jesus in heaven.

 

Sain Joan's humility, obedience to the voice of God and her courage are why she is one of my patron saints.

 

I wrote the following Prayer to Saint Joan of Arc:

 

To have the humble heart of a shepherdess,

Content to sleep upon the dewy sod;

The soldier's steely stare, the lion's nerve;

To keep the night watch through and never nod;

To keep the flame of faith in purity

And love and never break beneath the rod;

O purest lily, white as heaven's Lamb,

Saint Joan pray for us to the Lord our God.

 

 

Saint Joan enters Orleans in triumph.

 

 



Memento mori

I once read a novel by Muriel Spark titled Memento Mori.  That's Latin for "Remember your mortality" or "Remember you must die."  In the novel the elderly Dame Lettie Colston and her aquaintances receive a series of phone calls where a voice delivers the same message each time: "Remember you must die."  As a result the characters reflect on their past lives while they try to identify the culprit. 

What's remarkable is that even though many dark secrets are uncovered from the characters' past lives, they never change their shallow, selfish behaviour.  The phone calls unsettle them, but they never come to repentance.  It's as if the phone calls are a gift constantly offered but never accepted.

Muriel Spark converted to Roman Catholicism before she wrote her novels.  (Although she had written poetry and short stories before her conversion, she claimed she was unable to write novels until after her conversion.)  All of her novels that I've read are colored with her Christian faith without ever being preachy.  They're on average about 200 pages each with plenty of dialogue, so you could easily read one in an evening.

Life, Death and Time

Autumn Depression

The other evening they had an item on the Polish news about autumn depression.  A lot of people around the world suffer from this.  It's understandable, I suppose.  Fall is a beautiful season but it is tinged with some sadness.  Summer is over.  The days are getting shorter and colder and the trees begin to get bare.  Fall reminds us that the year is dying. 

How many of us remember those New Year resolutions we made 10 months ago?  How many of us have kept them?  We didn't lose weight or quit smoking or join a gym.  We're still stuck in the same dead-end job or haven't yet found a job.  We continue to get impatient with our spouse and children.  We haven't found that special someone and are still alone.  We still think evil thoughts.  We still don't make enough time for prayer.

The Kingdom of God is at hand

According to one account, the phrase "Kingdom of God" appears 122 times in the New Testament with 99 of these found in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke).  The Kingdom of God is not for some future time.  The Kingdom may be as a mustard seed or a buried pearl, but it is here and now among us.  And since that is true, it is therefore true that eternal life is now.  Our earthly lives will end but our eternal lives begin once God's Kingdom takes root in our hearts.

Christians ought to do everything to the best of their abilities.  Whether we're doctors, teachers, sales clerks or professional athletes; parents, spouses, children, siblings, etc., we should strive for excellence because all that we do should be for the greater glory of God (ad majorem Dei gloriam).

Yet we may lose our job, our health or our family.  We may lose everything we ever worked for.  But our friendship with Jesus Christ is what ultimately matters.  Whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ.  More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11)

Our lives are not our own anyway, so why do we worry?  Your life belongs to God, so let him have it.  This earthly life is going to pass whatever you do, but Jesus has prepared a mansion for you.  He loves you and wishes for you to spend eternity with him.

This October 14th was the 15th anniversary of the death of Renata's father.  He died of a heart attack.  I never met him.

What is truth?

One of the most ironic passages in Scripture is from John's Gospel, 18:37-38, where Jesus is on trial, standing before the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate: So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?"  Jesus answered, "You say I am a king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everybody who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."  Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

Pilate asks the very Truth standing in front of him, "What is truth?"

Jesus before Pilate

This past week I came across two separate articles on the internet that are actually related to one another.  One was about a recent Pew Research Center report showing that Protestants are no longer a majority in the United States.  According to this report, one in five Americans say they have no religious affiliation.  There are also a growing number of Americans who say they are "spiritual, but not religious" (whatever that means) or who identify themselves as atheist.

The other story related how at a current synod of bishops in the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI is calling for a re-evangelisation of modern, secular culture.  As Protestants are no longer the majority religion in the United States, so has the Catholic Church lost ground in Europe, North America and Latin America.

Many online readers commented on both of these articles.  The typical comments ran like this: This only shows how humans have grown wiser and more intelligent; Good riddance to ignorance; The churches need to adapt to the modern world or disappear and so on.

G. K. Chesterton once wrote, What's true at 9 in the morning doesn't stop being true at 2 in the afternoon.

In other words, Truth is eternal.  Any half-way serious and reflective person can look around and see that the present day, secular culture is sick and dying.  When this worldly culture collapses into dust and ashes (and collapse it will) the Church will still be standing.  And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

But I'm afraid we have a long, dark age before us; a time of great trial and tribulation.  This is the time for Christians to fortify themselves; for the Church to draw ever closer to her Spouse, Jesus Christ, the Source of all strength and comfort.

And if anyone thinks I make this dire prediction lightly or even with some perverse glee, remember that I'm a father of two young children.  The last thing I want for them on this earth is a future of darkness and trouble.

The Year of Faith

In regards to Christians fortifying themselves, Pope Benedict has declared that a "Year of Faith" will begin for Catholics on October 11, 2012 and conclude on November 24, 2013, the feast of Christ the King.  The pope has written that the "Year of Faith" is a "summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the One Savior of the world."

There are many ways for Catholics (as well as our other Christian brothers and sisters) to renew our faith and dioceses and parishes around the world will encourage this renewal in a variety of ways: through spending more time with Scripture, the catechism and other Church writings; through the sacraments of the Church, particularly the Eucharist; and through prayer and striving daily to live out our Christian faith.

The following comes from an article in this month's Magnificat by Bishop Malcolm McMahon of the diocese of Nottingham, England.

My favorite definition of Faith is the one found in the old "penny" catechism.  In answer to the question, "What is Faith?", the reply is given that, "Faith is a supernatural gift of God which enables us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed."  I like this because it reminds us that Faith is a gift or grace.  It is the way in which God, who is Truth itself, enables us to believe in him as our creator and in his Son Jesus, our Saviour.  There is a great freedom about faith because as a gift we can either take it or reject it.

The Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has interpreted the revelation of God in the holy scriptures through the ages.  Our faith has been passed down to us, and it is our responsibility to pass it on intact to the next generation.  In other words we don't make it up for ourselves.  Nowadays people often make up their religion, choosing a bit of spirituality from one tradition and customs from another; a kind of mix and match religion.  Furthermore, modern people will often only accept as true that which they can authenticate for themselves.  So unless something can be proved to one's own satisfaction then it cannot be believed.

However, Pope Benedict suggests a way of developing our personal faith.  We don't all have to become theologians and try to prove everything we believe, or develop a fantastic memory so that we can learn the catechism by heart.  He points out that, "Faith grows when it is lived as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy."

And that, of course, is the way that most of us deepen our faith: through a close relationship with Jesus.

Having a friendship with Jesus means discovering his love in other people who form his body, the Church.  It means reaching out to the people that Jesus cared for; listening to him in prayer, and shaping our lives to be his disciples.

Do we have such total trust in Jesus that we would follow him at all costs?  Could we, like the first disciples, leave behind our livelihood and follow him if he called us in this way?  I don't suppose Saint Peter was an expert theologian who knew every aspect of his faith, yet he followed Jesus when called.  He trusted him; he believed in him.

The Year of Faith calls us to deepen our faith and to live it more fully.  So let us open ourselves to receive the gift of faith anew.  God will help us to understand and believe in his revelation by the love he shows us, and by encouraging us to live our faith in new and exciting ways.

October

Here it is, October; one of the most beautiful months in the year.  It's a funny name, too, as 'oct' means eight as in octopus and octagon.  But October is the tenth month of the year!  It's because on the Roman calendar October was the eighth month of the year.  March, the beginning of spring, was the first month.

The leaves around here are starting to put on their autumnal display.

Emilia and Adam's school

For baseball fans October can be bitter-sweet.  It's the start of the playoffs, eventually culminating in the World Series.  For most fans the end of the regular season brings an end to their favorite team's season.  Their team didn't make it to the playoffs ("again!" in a lot of cases).  For most baseball fans, October is the time for watching somebody else's teams compete in the World Series.  As a life-long Milwaukee Brewers fan I know that feeling very well. 

When I was 13 years old my team did make it to the World Series in 1982.  I don't know how to describe the thrill of that.  Either you've experienced that or you haven't.  It was one of the better World Series; a back-and-forth series with Milwaukee eventually losing to the Saint Louis Cardinals in 7 games.  I'll admit I cried after Milwaukee lost that seventh game. 

I'll remember not only that World Series but that entire season for the rest of my life.  That was the year I went to my first ever major league baseball game: August 14th, Milwaukee County Stadium, the burly Brewer slugger Gorman Thomas hit a home run in a losing cause as Milwaukee fell to the Toronto Blue Jays 4-2.  It was Richland County Night at the ballpark.  I think it was WRCO radio that organised tickets and chartered a school bus to take fans from Richland Center to Milwaukee and back.  I went with my Dad, step-mother and step-brother and I remember getting home at around 1 o'clock the next morning.



My favorite baseball player of all time, Robin Yount, #19.

The Battle of Lepanto

October 7th marks the anniversay of the Battle of Lepanto, which occured in 1571.  The significance of this battle is that the Muslim Ottoman Empire (centered in Turkey) was a dominant power in the Mediterranean Sea.  Christian Europe was in danger of falling under Islamic control.  A naval fleet made up of an alliance of Christain forces (Venice, Spain, the Papal States, Genoa, Savoy and Malta), led by the legendary Don Juan, met the Ottoman naval force in the Gulf of Patras near Greece.  The Christian forces were outnumbered.  Pope Pius V encouraged all Christians to pray the rosary, asking the Virgin Mary to intercede on behalf of the Christian forces.

During a meeting in Rome on October 7th, many hundreds of miles from the scene of the battle, the pope suddenly stood up and walked over to the window.  Looking out the window he said, "This is not a moment for business; make haste to thank God, because our fleet this moment has won a victory over the Turks."

When news of the Christian victory reached Rome days later, the city rejoiced.  The pope instituted a new feast day for October 7th, Our Lady of Victory.  The Church still celebrates this day as the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

On a literary note, the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, of Don Quixote fame, fought in that battle and lost the use of one arm.

Some poems

Back in 2000 I had the honor of having a poem accepted for publication for the first time.  A monthly magazine called The Villager, published by the Bronxville Women's Club of Bronxville NY, published the following in their October 2000 edition.

Three Views On October

"Oh, he's a fat one, sated on the fruits of summer.
But his days are numbered, he's nearing death.
Smell the sweet decay on his breath."

"No.  He's a harlequin, this jolly October.
An audacious fellow, dressed in florescent red and yellow.
Look at him laughing and dancing in the face of winter!"

"Excuse me, gentlemen, I must intervene.
Our October is a haughty Queen,
with a gold and scarlet cloak, and hair of amber.
Her eyes of evening blue look coolly to the future."


There were a total of five different poems by five poets included in that month's edition.  The other four are very good, so I'm flattered that my poem was considered worthy to be included with those.  My favorite of the five poems is this one by a William Beyer:

October

October moves

Like a proud peacock,

Gold

As wheat,

Red

As fire,

Passing up

The garden path

With great desire.