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October 23
Spiritual Bouquet: Fill up my joy by thinking alike, having the same charity, with one soul and one mind. Phil. 2:2
A redeemer is one who pays the debt of another, to deliver him from an unfortunate situation from which he finds himself unable to be liberated without aid. As an example, we can recall the religious Orders whose members dedicated themselves to the redemption of captives, paying for their release or offering to serve in the place of those who had become slaves of the Moors.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of all mankind. From what misfortune did He free us? The mystery of original sin and man’s enslavement to the influence of the demons, is the key to the other mysteries of our religion, although it is the most difficult for us to grasp. (Cf. Book of Job)
Our Lord has re-established man in a state more enviable than that of our first father, Adam, who until his sin was the possessor of remarkable gifts and immortality. With Job we can say: “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” for we have known Christ and His doctrine, and we possess Him in His Sacrament of love. The evils from which He has delivered us are both of the present life and of the future life, if indeed we cooperate with His plan for our salvation. The evils of the present life are those which affect the body, sickness and death, and those which affect the soul. Of these latter — the more important — first of all is ignorance. Before Christ came, this ignorance was so great, the darkness so thick, that men had reached the point of no longer knowing what it was most important for them to know — their origin, their nature and their future destinies. The second evil of the soul is concupiscence, that crowd of bad inclinations which make us all tend toward evil and often carry us into it. Thirdly, we have to bear a hereditary burden of sin — first, original sin, in which we are all conceived; then actual sins, into which concupiscence leads all men to a greater or lesser degree.
But Jesus has delivered His faithful Christians, and all who so desire. He has delivered from ignorance by revealing to us the truths we must believe to be saved, and by teaching us through His holy Church, the continuing work of Redemption. He has delivered us from concupiscence by actual graces, which if they do not extirpate all bad inclinations, at least give us the strength to overcome them and tame them. And God can well say to us, as He once said to Saint Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” (I Cor. 12:9) And there is no sin for which Jesus has not earned our pardon, if we ask for it. Do not the sacraments of Baptism and Penance have the power to take away every sin, even if they should be as numerous as the hairs of our head, and redder than scarlet?
We are not delivered from the exterior power of sin’s chastisements affecting the body, but Jesus has made it possible to convert them into blessings, for He has won for us the strength to bear them with patience and sanctify them by submission to the holy Will of God, and thereby to make of them a very great source of merits. Death itself will not dominate us forever. After having felled us, it will be victim in its turn, for Christ will raise us up some day, as He raised Himself up, and then we will die no more. Let us say in our hearts, an unending “Thank You” to our Redeemer.
Source: Les fêtes chrétiennes, by Canon R. Turcan (P. Téqui: Paris, 1929 ) Vol. I.
SAINT ANTHONY-MARY CLARET
Founder of the Claretian Fathers and the Sisters of Mary Immaculate
(1807-1870)
Saint Anthony Mary Claret is the Founder of the Claretian Fathers, or the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Born in 1807 in Spain, he was a very pious child. He later wrote that, already at the age of five, “my little heart trembled at the thought of hell, and I said to myself: Will those who fall into hell never stop suffering? No, never. Will they always suffer? Yes, always. This thought remained profoundly engraved in my mind, and I can say that it is ever present to me. That is what has animated me to work for the conversion of sinners. Why? Because I received [from God] so tender a heart that I cannot see a misfortune without assisting it.” The young Anthony practiced his father’s trade, the weaving of fabrics, in which he excelled, until one day in church, “All the efforts I made not to voluntarily entertain thoughts of my trade were in vain; I was like a wheel turning with great speed, which cannot be stopped all at once... There were more machines running in my head than there are Saints on the altars.” He entered the local seminary in the same year, 1829.
As a young priest he went to Rome to place himself at the disposition of the Congregation of the Propaganda; there the director of a retreat counseled him to enter the Society of Jesus. He did so but was obliged to leave it soon afterwards because of poor health. He returned to Spain, and for nine years preached everywhere the word of God and promoted the Catholic Press. In 1848 he founded a publishing house at Barcelona, and soon afterwards established his Claretian congregation of priests. The six priests of this Congregation had just received the formal approbation of the bishop of Vich, and completed a retreat at the Seminary in July of 1848, with the Exercises of Saint Ignatius; on August 11th, while their new Superior was preaching a mission to the clergy of the diocese, he received a royal decree nominating him Archbishop of Santiago, in Cuba. He was inclined to refuse it categorically and attempted to do so, but was not heard; he asked his five companions to pray for light for several days, then to advise him as to their reply — should he or not accept the nomination? They were unanimous in saying they believed he should accept, and he did.
For six years he dedicated himself to the organization and evangelization of his diocese. In Cuba he founded another new congregation, the Sisters of Mary Immaculate, dedicated to the instruction of the young. A School of Arts and Trades was opened there, and Latin America saw established its first common funds resources. Abuses vanished under his strict and persevering disciplinary measures. In Cuba an attempt was made on his life; he received a severe wound of the head which limited his preaching capacity for a time, and he was recalled to Spain, summoned by Queen Isabella II to replace her deceased confessor. He continued to travel to various places on the peninsula, preaching everywhere in Andalusia and elsewhere. In 1862, from September 12th until October 29th, during one royal visitation, one of the Queen’s servants counted the sermons he had given — two hundred and five: 16 to the clergy, nine to the seminarians; 95 to the various groups of Sisters; thirty-five to the poor in the various houses of charity; and twenty-two others to the people in general in the churches. He created the Academy of Saint Michael for the Catholic intellectuals, called to sustain the influence of the Church; he founded popular libraries and saw to the diffusion of good literature; he accompanied the exiled Queen to Rome and took part in the First Vatican Council, 1869. Finally he settled in France, where he died in 1870.
He was commanded to write his life by his spiritual director; this he did, beginning in 1861. We are fortunate to possess this autobiography of an extraordinary soul, both contemplative and active in the love and service of God. It serves for the formation of missionaries, since his director told him it should be conceived with that purpose. In this book he wrote a paragraph which has become classic, to describe what an apostle of the Gospel should be. In it the paths he followed himself are made articulate:
“A son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man who is consumed with love and who sets on fire everything in his path. He is a man who unceasingly expends himself to light the fire of divine love in the world. Nothing stops him; he places his joy in privations, he undertakes all works for the glory of God; he embraces willingly every sacrifice, he is happy in the midst of calumnies; he exults in torments. He can think of but one thing — working, suffering, and seeking at all times the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, to imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Source: Saint Antoine-Marie Claret: Autobiography. Translation from the Spanish by Rev. Léonor-Alban, F.S.C. Preface by Jean-Marie Lozano, C.M.F. (Les Éditions du soleil levant: Namur, 1961). Available in English with a biography, and a book narrating his miracles (Tan Books and Publishers: Rockford, 1985).
SAINT THEODORET
Martyr
(†361)
In about the year 361, an uncle to the emperor Julian the Apostate, who bore the same name and who was an apostate like his nephew, was made Count of the East. He closed the Christian churches at Antioch, according to imperial orders.
When Saint Theodoret assembled in private the Christians of Antioch, he was summoned before the tribunal of the Count, condemned, and inhumanly tortured. His arms and feet were fastened by ropes to pulleys, and stretched until blood streamed from his sides. “O most unfortunate man,” he said to his judge, “you know well that at the Day of Judgment the crucified God whom you blaspheme will send both you and the tyrant you serve to hell!” Julian trembled at this awful prophecy, and had the Saint dispatched quickly by the sword. A short time afterwards, the judge himself was arraigned before the judgment-seat of God.
Reflection: Take care to reflect upon the four last realities — death, judgment, resurrection, and eternity in either heaven or hell. Thus you will live in holy fear, and will learn to love God better. His justice is part of His goodness and is worthy like Himself of adoration.
Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).