North American Martyrs

 Today we have the feast of The North American Martyrs: Isaac Jogues, Renee Goupal, Gabriel Lallement, John de Brebeuf, Anthony Daniel, Noel Chabanel, Charles Garnier, John Le Lande. 

 The Memorial is celebrated on 19 October as a group, they each have a feast day all their own.  Canada celebrates their feast on 29 September.  The Anglicans also venerate them today as if I care about that..

 These are the Jesuit missionaries who were sent to Canada to minister to the “Noble” American Indians of Canada and Upstate New York.   As many of you know, there is a modern round church dedicated to this group of martyrs in Queens NY.   

 Contrary to current popular belief, these folk were martyred, not because they were imposing their beliefs on the indigenous “honorable” people, but rather they were preaching peace…a concept lost on the warlike and politically incorrect Mohawks, who loved to kill, enslave  and generally mess with the peaceful Iroquois and Lenape.    In fact, in the language of the Lenape the Mohawks are called “Opanu Nan”; which is often translated as “angry people.”    Add to that, local changes in rainfall, crop failures, disease, ill luck, and other unpredictable phenomenon and invariably the Jesuit “Black Robes” were blamed by the superstitious Mohawks who noticed the climate changes while taking a break from sharpening their tomahawks.   

 Anyhoo, each of these martyrs have their own horrible stories, specifically Saint Isaac Jogues.  Father Jogues was a Jesuit Priest and a teacher sent to Canada in 1636 to work among the Hurons and Petuns in the area of the Great Lakes.  He taught the Faith to any who would listen.

 Our saint was captured and tortured for 13 months by the Mohawks.   They physically mutilated him most notably by cutting off his thumbs, index and middle fingers, the finger he used to impart blessings, and the source of all the perceived difficulties. .   He was released through the help of some Dutch settlers and sent back home.   The Pope granted Isaac a dispensation to continue to say mass and give blessings with the stumps of his fingers…. He returned to Canada and Upstate NY to continue his work among the Mohawks. He eventually met his fate in Upstate New York on 18 October in 1646 at the business end of a Tomahawk to the head while trying to negotiate peace between the Mohawks and the Iroquois.  His head was displayed on a pole and his body thrown in to the Mohawk River.   His individual  feast day is on the 18 October. 

Luke the Evangelist

Saint Luke the Evangelist

Feast 18 October

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Our saint for today was born to pagan Greek parents in Antioch, but became one of the earliest converts to “The Way”. He was a Physician, and probably traveled as a ship’s doctor.

Legend has that he was also a painter who may have done portraits of Jesus and Mary, but none have ever been correctly or definitively attributed to him; this story led to his patronage of artists.

He met Saint Paul the Apostle at Troas, and evangelized Greece and Rome with him, being there for the shipwreck and other perils of the voyage to Rome, and stayed in Rome for Paul’s two years in prison.

He wrote the Gospel According to Luke, much of which was based on the teachings and writings of Paul, interviews with early Christians, the Gospel of Mark and his own experiences. Some scholars, including Scot Hahn, think he actually interviewed the Blessed Mother to get some of her input into the Gospel. The connection probably went from him traveling with the other evangelist, Mark. Mark also traveled with Paul for a while but they parted sort of unpleasantly and later, reconciled. Mark was also a disciple of Peter. Peter had ongoing communication with his fellow apostle John, who lived with the Blessed Mother until her Assumption. This may be why the most detailed account of the childhood of Jesus is recounted in Luke’s Gospel.

Luke wrote a second volume to his Gospel; a history of the early Church, the Acts of the Apostles. Some passages in Acts are written in the first person, i.e. Luke describing what happened to him. As we know the latter half of Acts focuses almost exclusively on Paul’s work, maybe giving us a skewed view of the early church.

Luke was a gentile, the only gentile author of any of the Gospels. His Gospel is also the only one that was originally written as opposed to being passed on orally. It is written in an educated form of Greek. It the book of Revelation the evangelist is represented an Ox.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac says that after St. Luke’s feast day there is generally a spurt of mild weather called St. Luke’s Little Summer. In olden days, St. Luke’s Day did not receive as much attention in the secular world as St. John’s Day (June 24) and Michaelmas (September 29), so to keep from being forgotten, St. Luke presented us with some golden days to cherish before the coming of winter — or so the story goes. This is different than Indian Summer which occurs around the feast of St. Martin of Tours (11 Nov), correct people if they mistake these two spurts of mild weather…it is one of the seven spiritual works of mercy; educate the ignorant.

Luke died around the year 74, somewhere in Greece some stories say he was martyred, others that he died of natural causes, his relics are in Padua, Italy.

Name Meaning
• bringer of light (= luke)

Patronage
• artists
• bachelors
• bookbinders
• brewers
• butchers
• doctors
• glass makers
• glassworkers
• gold workers
• goldsmiths
• lacemakers
• lace workers
• notaries
• painters
• physicians
• sculptors
• stained glass workers
• surgeons
• unmarried men

Representation
• brush (refers to the tradition that he was a painter)
• man accompanied by a winged ox
• man painting an icon of Blessed Virgin Mary
• ox

Ignatius of Antioch

Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Memorial 17 October

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Our saint for this week was an early convert from paganism to Christianity. He was the second bishop of Antioch it Is said that Saint Peter the Apostle himself appointed Our Saint as the bishop of that particular diocese. Ignatius was also a disciple and student of the Apostle John. Antioch is the first place we were called “Christians”. A long standing legend says he was the infant that Jesus took into his arms in Mark 9 and placed in the midst of the Apostles telling them that whoever accepts a child such as this receives him and the one who sent him. Mark was also a disciple of Peter. This is probably not a reliable legend since he was probably born around the year 50 AD

Anyhoo, during the persecution of Trajan, Ignatius was considered a big troublemaker in a big city in the empire. So the emperor ordered Our Saint to be taken to Rome to be killed by wild animals. Naturally there was no Amtrak back in the Roman Empire so the journey to Rome to meet his end took four months. On the way, Ignatius wrote a series of encouraging letters to the various local churches under his care. In these letters, written about the year 107, he describes the structure of the Church including Bishops, Priests and Deacons…and the nature of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, the belief in the Eucharist being the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, not just a symbol, goes way back to the earliest times of the Christian Church, I’ve included some of his writings below. I find them interesting, but you know me.

As nice added bonus, he the first writer to coin the term the “Catholic Church”; which is also One, Holy and Apostolic.

He was martyred by being thrown to wild animals in the year 1o7 or thereabouts. His relics are in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

He is patron of people suffering throat diseases, as is St Blaise.

Readings

"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes...keep aloof from such persons" (St. Ignatius: Letter to the Smyrnaeans; Ch. 6:2-7:1).



"See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast (Mass); but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid." (St. Ignatius: Letter to the Smyrnaeans; Ch 8)

Pope John XXIII

Pope Saint John XXIII

 

Also Known As

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli

Good Pope John

 Memorial 11 October

He has been called the most beloved Pope in history and also the guy who ruined real Catholicism.      Among other things John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council although he did not live to see its closing.  The date assigned for the celebration of Saint John XXIII is not 3 June, the anniversary of his death, as would be usual, but 11 October, the anniversary of his opening of Vatican 2.   

Our saint was born 25 November 1881, from his early teens, in addition to a hearty appetite he maintained a diary of spiritual reflections that was subsequently published as Journal of a Soul. The collection of writings charts Our Saint’s efforts as a young man to "grow in holiness" and continues after his election to the Papacy; it remains widely read.

During World War II he was named the Papal Nuncio to Turkey.   Roncalli used this office to help the Jewish underground in saving thousands of refugees in Europe, leading some in the Jewish community to call him a Righteous Gentile; a title I find a little insulting frankly.    In 1944, during World War II, Pope Pius XII, another maligned individual in the popular media, named him Apostolic Nuncio to France. In this capacity he had to negotiate the retirement of bishops who had collaborated with the German occupying power.

He was elected Pope after the death of Pius XII ahead of Giovani Battista Montoni, Archbishop of Milan, although Montoni was the archbishop of one of the most ancient and prominent sees in Italy, he had not yet been made a cardinal.  Consequently, Montini was not present at the 1958 conclave and the cardinals abided by the established precedent of voting for only a member of the College of Cardinals, despite the affirmation in Canon Law that any Catholic male may be chosen.   One of the first acts John did was to elevate Montoni to the College of Cardinals.   Montoni was elected Paul VI on the death of our Saint for today.  

John was elected probably due to his advanced age to be a stopgap Pope (like Benedict XVI was, honestly) until someone younger could be put forth.  Imagine the surprise of everyone when John called for an Ecumenical Council.   “Your Holiness…it’s been only 90 years since the last council…you can’t do this!!”    “I’m-a da Pope…I can-a do anytin I a-wanna!”    Cardinal Montini remarked to a friend that "this holy old boy doesn't realize what a hornet's nest he's stirring up".    To give you some insight into how rare these things are: Prior to the council John called, Vatican II,  the ecumenical council now known as Vatican I was in  the 1880’s, the last ecumenical council prior to that was the Council of Trent in the 16^th century.  

Upon his choosing the name, there was some confusion as to whether he would be known as John XXIII or John XXIV; there was controversy about the legitimacy of the previous claimant named John XXIII, his birth name was Baldassarre Cossa.  Baldassarre was the Pope consecrated at the council of Pisa as a successor to antipope Alexander V who called and chaired the council of Pisa in order to end the Western Schism of the Church, a really interesting time in history actually; there were as many as 3 popes in any given year, each having some legitimate claim to the title each backed by a collection of Cardinals and Countries depending upon where you were at the time.  Much like when Lou Thez, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers, and Bruno Sammartino all claimed to be World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.    Anyhoo, the Church did not know where to fit John XXIII (Baldassarre), so when asked, our Saint for today declared that he was John XXIII, thus affirming the antipapal status of Baldassarre Pope John XXIII.  As an aside, there never was a Pope John XX…they mis numbered them.  

Our saint died 3 June 1963 (aged 81) of stomach cancer. He was canonized in 2014 by Pope Francis who waved the second miracle in the process so he could acknowledge his sainthood along with John Paul II.   John XXIII has only one miracle to his name, used for his beatification, the cure of a nun with a stomach hemorrhage.       

In the Sistine Chapel, three sets of Papal vestments are kept in varying sizes so the newly elected Pope can be properly vested no matter how big or small he may be, when he makes his first appearance.  It is said that John XXIII barely fit into the largest sized Papal cassock there, quite a big boy.   

Denis of Paris

Saint Denis of Paris

 

Also known as: Dionysius of Paris

memorial:  9 October

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Our Saint this week is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and as such, even though a patron of France, he holds a special place in my heart.   He was born in Italy, and became a missionary in the third century to Paris.  France at that time was a barbaric and wild land.    He was the first Bishop of Paris.

 His preaching and leadership, along with legendary miracles led to a great many conversions, he brought Paris and all of France into the fold.   Naturally, this success roused the ire of local pagans, who convinced the local pagan hordes to maltreat him probably by throwing baguettes and croissants, and probably more noxious things as well.   Eventually the pagan Roman Governor had our saint imprisoned.    As with many Christians at the hands of pagans he was tortured and martyred in the persecutions of Decius.    He was beheaded in the year 258 or thereabouts, on Mountmarte (mount of martyrs). His decapitated body was thrown into the river Seine, but later recovered and buried by his disciples.  His relics are now at the monastery of Saint Denis 

Anyhoo, legends have grown up around his torture and death, he was beheaded and the most famous story has his body carrying his severed head some distance from his execution site.  Denis is said to have picked up his severed gourd and then proceed to walk six miles while acephalous, preaching a sermon the entire way from the severed head in his hands.   There are several stories of other saints carrying their own severed heads after decapitation; saints who do this are called cephalophores (head carriers).   This is primarily the reason I say beheading is usually effective in making martyrs.     

 Saint Genevieve built a basilica over his grave. His feast was added to the Roman Calendar in 1568 by Pope Saint Pius V, though it had been celebrated since 800.

He is patron saint; against frenzy, headaches, and against rabies 

Bruno

Saint Bruno
Memorial
· 6 October

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Our saint today was ordained in 1055. He taught theology in Paris. One of his students was later Pope Urban II; the Pope who ordered the first Crusade.

Bruno was very critical of the mismanagement of the church in France at the time. This made him a bunch of friends in the hierarchy. Apparently when one has a troublemaker, then and now, the best way to solve the problem is to give that person a job. Bruno was made Chancellor of Rhemis and put in charge of cleaning up the French church’s mess. He cleaned house and straightened stuff out.

Later on he helped found the Carthusian Order. The Carthusuians have very little contact with the outside world, they do not accept folks who want to go on retreats like the Trappists sometimes do. If anything ever happens to The Whip, I plan to join up. Through church history the Carthusians are one of the few religious orders that never had to be “Reformed” or cleaned up. The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world is turning."

Bruno is the patron of possessed people from a story about the burial of a Devout Priest named Raymond. A demon was waiting at the head of the bier to drag the priest’s soul to the infernal regions. The prayers of a young Bruno, who was officiating at the funeral, stopped this demon.

Because the Carthusians never want any public notice called on themselves Bruno was never formally canonized. On February 16th of 1623 Pope Gregory XV just started calling him Saint Bruno with no fanfare.

He is the namesake of the late WWWF champion Bruno Sammartino. Sammartino’s birthday is today. His devout Catholic parents from Abruzzi Italy named him for our saint. Bruno held the championship belt longer than anyone else; 4,040 days, eventually losing to the man of the hour, the man with the power, the dude that’s too sweet to be sour, Superstar Billy Graham April 30, 1977 in Baltimore. Superstar Billy Graham was an ordained Pentecostal minister…no joke. They are my number 1 and number 2 favorite professional wrestlers

Born· 1030 at Cologne, Germany

Died · 1101 at Torre, Calabria, Italy of natural causes,  buried in the church of Saint Stephen.

Patronage
· possessed people