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Catholicism Week 15Communion of the Saints – Part 1

Bishop begins this video with this simple question…who is a saint? Then Bishop describes a saint in a kind of way that I think still tends to make many of us uncomfortable, or at the very least confused. He describes a saint as a friend of God, a person of heroic virtue, and someone who is in heaven. Bishop sums all of that up with, “a saint is someone who has allowed Christ to live His life in him.” St. Paul put it this way, Galatians 2:20 (RSV2CE) 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I’m not sure how many of us as Christians know how to process those kinds of statements. He used the example of Peter, a fisherman by trade, describing the moment that Jesus met Peter for the first time.

Luke 5:1–8 (RSV2CE) 1 While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. 2 And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, 7 they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

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I love the way Bishop describes the beginning of the making of a saint with an invasion of grace. Jesus sees two boats, and He just gets in Peter’s boat, and asks him to put out a ways from the shore so He can teach the people that have gathered. But then grace gets a little bolder, Jesus tells Peter to put out into the

deep and let down his nets. This is the first hint of Peter resisting this invasion of grace. Big hint right here, if you are experiencing an invasion of grace, just go with it…recognize it and do not resist, just trust me on this. I love the way Luke gives Peter’s response, “But at your word, I will let down the nets.” Big hint number 2, if you get a word from Jesus, just do the Nike thing, “just do it.” Peter’s boat

was everything to him, it was his livelihood allowing him to take care of his family and to interact with the business world. Do not be surprised if Jesus just gets in your boat one of these fine days with a boatload of grace. I am sure Peter was a good fisherman, but when Jesus got in his boat, he immediately a better fisherman. Grace enhances everything it touches, even your livelihood and all that is vital to you. Any kind of resistance will eventually bring you to your knees. Saints are the ones that allow Jesus to get into their boat and take over their lives.

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Bishop Barron then opens for us the lives of four saints, all women from very different backgrounds, and today we will look at two of them. The first is Katherine Drexel of Pittsburg. Once again Bishop takes us on location to the convent of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Bensalem, Pa., founded by Katherine Drexel, and

her story is an inspiration for us all. She grew up in very wealthy family, her father and stepmother were devout Catholics. Mr. Drexel was a banker, and everyday after coming home from the bank he spent time in their family chapel he had built into their home. Three days a week they opened their home to the poor to share their wealth with those who had nothing. The Drexel’s believed God had made them wealthy in order to help those in real need. Father James O’Conner had a tremendous impact on young Katherine encouraging her at the age of 14 to develop a path to spiritual growth and holiness that she might follow…and that is exactly what she did. She was well educated and at age 20 she was introduced to high society in Philadelphia, that left her unimpressed and rather bored. It was just a few months after that she lost both her father and stepmother within a few months of each other and she inherited a very large sum of money in her early twenties. Each of the sisters received around 4 million dollars, today that would be the equivalent of 400 million dollars.

Not knowing what to do with all that money and the rest of her young life, she was visited by a bishop and priest who had founded a missionary work among the Native Americans out west. They did such an impressive job describing their vision, she traveled west with them to see the work for herself and ended up giving a large portion of her inheritance to the mission. But she still struggled

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with her future and like many other wealthy Americans at that time, she tried to find solace and direction by visiting many of the European resorts and baths of

that time. Makes sense, if you are confused about something…take a bath. She did however, at the end of her journey, have another life changing encounter, being granted an audience with Pope Leo XIII. She knelt before the Pope and spoke of her passion for the Native Americans and her desire to see them evangelized, catechized and truly loved by the Church. She pleaded with the Holy Father to find an order of priests or nuns that could be sent to those precious souls. Pope Leo listened, and then looked at her with intense compassion and said, you are the one to do that work. Those words by the vicar of Christ, cut her to the heart, and

outside the Vatican that day she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. She began to think deeply about this challenge of the Pope and if she should become a nun to begin this work. At home her spiritual director was very doubtful that this wealthy, protected, young aristocrat could even make the difficult transition to the religious life and begin a work like this and see it through to its completion. But eventually he relented and soon after she entered the religious life and became a num. Two years later, in 1891, she became the foundress of The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. I love the statue that Bishop had on his video Sister holding a black toddler and looking into the eyes of a young Indian girl. From the beginning of the order she began to attract many other sisters that were eager to join the mission and ready to dedicate their lives to the new order. They trained and prepared for three years before they began their work with the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Soon after they built a school along the James River in West Virginia for African American children. Then she founded

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Xavier University in New Orleans, for young blacks to receive quality college education unheard of in that time, and a great university to this day. All funded by the inheritance of Katherine Drexel, now a simple nun, who gave and gave and gave, until there was no more to give.

For many years she traveled constantly overseeing the many works the new order had begun. Travel was difficult in those days and at one point she suffered a heart attack from the stress on her body, causing her to curtail the constant travel. But that did not stop her, for the last twenty years of her life she prayed constantly from the Mother House for the success of the work of the Order she had founded. She died in 1955, living out her life of poverty and devotion to the work that God had called her to. Bishop then makes the point that we should all strive to become a saint, that is the greatest goal in this life. Only saints are in heaven, so by God everyone of us should make it our life’s goal to become a saint.

The next saint that Bishop shares with us is Therese of Lisieux. The video takes us to a large and beautiful basilica in Lisieux, France that was built in veneration of the saint called the Little Flower. She was a cloistered nun who died at the age of 24, and at her death she was known only by her family, and the sisters in her order. Within a few years of her death, she had a worldwide following, and soon after she was declared a saint, and eventually a Doctor of the Church. I found this astounding, when a reliquary containing her bones was brought to the US in the 1990’s millions responded, and all of Ireland came to visit her remains. It all started with her autobiography called, The Story of a Soul. At first Bishop was not all that impressed with her writing, but after several years he noticed all the intellectuals who were drawn to Therese, Catholic thinkers that were admired by the Church and Bishop.

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Thomas Merton, Dorothy Stein, John Paul II, and many others were admirers of the Little Flower. Prompted by a favorite French professor in Bishop’s doctorate program, he knew he needed to take a long second look.

Therese was born into a very devout Catholic family, middle class by all accounts, very devoted to her father. Her childhood was not easy, picked on by her classmates, and losing her mother at age four. When her older sister, Pauline, her

substitute mother left to enter the local convent Therese took a turn for the worse and suffered for years from all kinds of serious physical and psychological ailments. A statue of Our Blessed Mother turned all that around one day, with one of those invasions of grace. Bishop takes us right into her bedroom with the very statue of the Blessed Mother, describing how that day she became fixed on

the smile of Our Mother, and a rush of healing set everything right in in body and her mind, she was miraculously healed. Bishop the makes a statement right at this point in the video that would make a lot of protestants sit up and take notice. Therese saw at that moment in time as an invasion of grace, and Bishop states as Catholics we know we need to cooperate with grace, but the reality is everything in our lives begins with the grace of God and comes to its completion by that same grace.

By the age of 15 Therese had a burning desire to enter the Carmelite order of nuns but was resisted by several priests and bishops, being told she was too young. That did not stop her, after convincing her father, she joined some pilgrims traveling to Rome hoping to plead her case to the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII. She had been told to not say a word to the pope, but she could not hold her passion to become a Carmelite inside, and it all came gushing out. The pope smiled but only told her “you will enter if God wills it.” She had to be carried out still

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begging her case, by two papal guards. One month later the bishop of the diocese gave in and she entered the Carmelite convent there in Lisieux at the age of 15.

She lived that last nine years of her life as a simple Carmelite nun, cultivating a path she called “The Little Way”, the kind of way that any simple believer could follow. It was based on the Sacred Scripture, Matthew 18:3–4 (RSV2CE) 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And we all know how children are, completely dependent, full of hope, always waiting to receive gifts. In her “The Story of the Soul,” Therese described the importance of becoming a little child who sleeps without fear in its father’s arms. The Little Way was also all about choosing to do simple and little things with great love. Small

acts of kindness and very simple sacrifices that all add up and make a very big difference in your life and the lives of those around you. She described her struggle to apply The Little Way to the care of a cranky older nun in the convent, striving to keep things very simple and very childlike, and totally immersed in love…responding to what love demands.

Toward the end of her life she had a great desire to fulfill all the great callings of the Church, like the evangelist, priest, martyr, missionary, and even doctor of the Church. She wondered how she could be all those things in her little monastery in Carmel. Soon after she found St. Paul’s famous passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, and the intense love inside of her blossomed even more.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 (RSV2CE) 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

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1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (RSV2CE) 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:13 (RSV2CE) 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

In those moments of revelation, she suddenly knew what empowered the evangelist, priest, martyr, and doctor of the Church…it was love and Therese determined to be that powerful love in the heart of the Church in her little convent in Carmel. That truly is “The Little Way.” Toward the very end of her life, she struggled with doubts that God even existed as well as heaven, that went on for months and months, being enveloped in a terrible darkness. She believed that God brought that darkness upon her, so she could experience in her own soul, what life is like for an unbeliever that has no faith, no place for God in their lives, like many in her generation. Therese died of tuberculosis September the 30th, 1897. In a few years after her death, through the publication of “The Story of a Soul”, a vast following of believers in The Little Way began to grow, and grow, and

grow. She claimed over and over that she was not one of the giant trees in the forest of the Church, instead she was nothing more than a little flower on the

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forest floor, and that was what they called her as the years went by. Great power can indeed come in small packages, as will see again next week as we look at the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and the life of Edith Stein as well.