Blessed Peter To Rot

He was born in 1912 at Rakunai, a village on the Melanesian island of New Britain, today part of Papua New Guinea. His parents belonged to the region’s first generation of Catholics. He was a pious boy and the parish priest thought that he should study for the priesthood, but his father felt that the tradition of Catholicism in the region was too short and none of the people were yet ready for the priesthood, so Peter became a catechist. He married in 1936 and had three children. When the Japanese occupied the island during the war, all the missionaries and mission staff were imprisoned in a concentration camp and Peter was the only spiritual guide that Catholics had. He organized prayer services, gave religious instruction, baptized children, preserved the consecrated Hosts and administered them to the sick and dying, and gave help to the poor. The Japanese had destroyed the church when they arrived, so Peter built a new one out of the branches of trees. After a quiet start, repression grew violent. The Japanese banned all Christian worship, public and private, and decided to reintroduce polygamy among the people. Peter was arrested in April or May 1945 and savagely “questioned” by officials. He was sentenced to two months in prison. A Japanese doctor came and injected him with poison, stuffed his ears and nose with cotton wool, and held him down and suffocated him until he died. An immense crowd attended Peter’s burial, at which no religious rite was permitted. He has been increasingly revered as a martyr ever since that day.

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Saint Maria Goretti (1890 - 1902)

 Maria Goretti was the third of seven children of a poor peasant family living near Corinaldo in the province of Ancona in Italy; owing to extreme poverty the family later migrated to a village near Anzio. In order to make ends meet, Maria’s father entered into partnership with a man called Serenelli, and shared a house with him and his two sons, one of whom was called Alessandro. Her father died in 1900, when Maria was ten. Maria impressed everyone with her radiant purity. She was naturally pious, kind, and helpful. She was also outstandingly beautiful – and Alessandro Serenelli was an outstandingly passionate and undisciplined man. She resisted his attentions, which only made her the more desirable, and narrowly managed to escape a serious sexual assault, which he made her keep secret by means of threats of murder. A month later Alessandro arranged things so that he would be alone in the house with Maria; and he had a dagger. She tried to resist, begging him to have care for his immortal soul, but he thrust a handkerchief into her mouth to prevent her from crying out, tied her up, and threatened her with the dagger. She could, the theologians say, have consented then, with no danger to her soul; but her love of purity was too great. Alessandro, enraged, stabbed her fourteen times. She did not die, though her entrails were hanging out from one of her abdominal wounds. She was taken to hospital, seven miles of bad road in a horse-drawn ambulance, and was operated on for more than two hours. She lived for twenty hours more, became a Child of Mary, received the Last Sacrament, and specifically forgave her murderer. She died in the afternoon of 6 July 1902, at the age of eleven years, eight months, and twenty days. Alessandro narrowly escaped being lynched, and was tried and sentenced to thirty years’ penal servitude with hard labour. For the first seven years or so he maintained a cynical and defiant attitude, but he repented, and dreams of Maria herself figured largely in his repentance. (You might say, he pretended to repent so as to get his sentence reduced – but the most sceptical experts were convinced, and he had to remain in prison for another twenty years, which is a long time to sustain a pretence). Maria was beatified in 1927. Alessandro was released in 1928; and he and Maria’s mother received Communion side by side on Christmas Day 1937, and they spent Christmas together. Maria was canonized in 1950. Her mother was present at the ceremony, the first time this has ever happened. Some people say that Alessandro was there too, others not; but it is certain that he spent his last years in a Capuchin monastery: he died in 1970. The trouble with purity nowadays is that we don’t believe in it – or at least we say we don’t. When we read of one saint or another that he or she was a virgin, we are more inclined to deride than to admire. And that is sad: here is not the place for a long disquisition on sex, but suffice it to say that sex is a valuable thing that should not be squandered or used trivially; any more than one should use champagne for cleaning floors. Even if we find it difficult to admire virginity as such – even when it is a positive virtue and not a negative one – we should still, even as pagans, admire purity. For whatever alternative set of moral standards one may adopt, purity, decency, and self-respect are all-important and always will be. (The standards of what is or is not decent may be different – in Victorian times it is said that it was indecent to let ankles be seen, while a few centuries earlier large codpieces were the fashion for men – but decency itself is always there, however the ways of measuring it may change). One may admire or praise Maria Goretti for all manner of other things if one likes – some people have a great fondness for sentimentality, melodrama, and wet plaster saints – but at the end of it all, the heroic virtue that she exhibited was a blazing affirmation of purity and integrity. Even if her standards are not ours, we must still have standards of some kind; and if we are faced with a threat to them, we must defend ourselves with the same passion that she showed. To behave otherwise, to tell ourselves “well, it doesn’t matter really”, is to commit slow moral suicide.

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Novena To St. Maria Goretti

Day 9:

O St. Maria Goretti, patron of victims of rape, please pray for all those dignity has been attacked.
Pray for their healing, for comfort, and for peace for them.
Please pray that we, as a society, may be able to better protect those who are survivors of sexual assault.
And please pray for justice for their attackers, but most of all, for their contrition and conversion.
Also, please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
Amen.

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Blessed George Nichols, Richard Yaxley, Thomas Belson, Humphrey Pritchard (-1589)

These four men were executed at Oxford on 5 July 1589. Two were priests: George Nichols, born at Oxford, and Richard Yaxley, born at Boston, Lincolnshire, both ordained at the English College at Rheims. Thomas Belson was a gentleman from Oxfordshire who worked as a layman to support the underground work of the priests in Elizabethan England and had previously been imprisoned and deported; he was 26. All three were arrested at the Catherine Wheel at Oxford, together with Humphrey Pritchard, employed by the widow who owned the public house; she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. After examination and torture in London, the four were tried and executed at Oxford. Blessed Humphrey Pritchard, the barman, was taunted for his ignorance by some of the university men present at the execution. When he said that he died for being a Catholic, one of them shouted that he was unable to explain what being a Catholic meant. Blessed Humphrey replied: “What I cannot say in words, I will seal with my blood”. They were beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.

Birmingham Ordo

St. Antony Mary Zaccaria (1502 - 1539)

He was born in Cremona in Lombardy and started by studying medicine, but soon decided to become a priest instead and was ordained in 1528. He founded the Congregation of Clerks Regular of St Paul, generally known as the Barnabites (after the church that was their headquarters), whose aim was the reform of the clergy and laity. He was part of the general movement to self-reform in a Church that was coming increasingly under attack from the Protestant Reformation.

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Novena To St. Maria Goretti

Day 8:

O St. Maria Goretti, patron of youth, please pray for the children in my life and the youth across the world.
Please pray that their faith may be as strong as yours was when you were 11 years old.
Pray that I may do what I can to support children in their faith, and to encourage them to love our Lord, to put Him first in their lives, and to follow His commandments.
Please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
Amen.

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Blessed John Cornelius (1557-1594)

 John Cornelius pronounced Jesuit vows in prison days before he was hanged, drawn and quartered. He met Jesuits while he was studying theology in Rome in 1580 and had asked to enter the Society of Jesus, but was not able to leave the people he served to go to Flanders for the novitiate, which was the normal policy at the time. Before he was able to get to the novitiate, he was arrested in the Dorsetshire castle of the family who had sheltered him for years and sentenced to die for high treason- celebrating Mass and converting people back to Catholicism. The son of Irish parents living in Cornwall, the priest's true name was John Conor O'Mahony, but used his middle name in a Latinized form. He was expelled from Exeter College, Oxford, for being Catholic and left for the Continent to study. After he was ordained a priest in Rome, he returned to England and made the home of Sir John Arundell his base of operations. He placed himself under the direction of Father Henry Garnet, the superior of the English mission, while he waited for permission to make his novitiate, but was captured before he received an answer. One of the family servants betrayed him to the authorities, and he was arrested April 14, 1594, while hiding in a priest-hole in the Arundell family castle in Dorset. Prison officials in London tortured him in a vain attempt to learn the identities of the families who had sheltered him or those who had attended the Catholic services. Aware that his death was near, he pronounced the vows of the Society before a Jesuit and two lay people as witnesses. Then he was returned to Dorsetshire and condemned on July 2 to be executed for high treason. The sentence was carried out the very next day.

www.sjweb.info

St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271-1336)

She was the daughter of King Peter III of Aragón and was named after her great-aunt, St Elizabeth of Hungary. She was married to King Denis of Portugal, by whom she had two children. She set up hospitals, orphanages, and other institutions, patiently endured her husband’s infidelities and provided for the education of his bastards, and acted as peacemaker in the quarrelsome and complicated politics of the time. On her husband’s death in 1325 she retired from public affairs and devoted herself to prayer and the service of the poor. Throughout her life she was faithful and regular in prayer, and daily recited the Liturgy of the Hours. In 1336 her son, by now King Alfonso IV of Portugal, went to war against King Alfonso XI of Castile. Elizabeth followed the Portuguese army on the field in an effort to bring about peace. She succeeded, but the effort killed her. The canonization of royal personages may seem offensive to our modern egalitarian principles; but though it may be hard to attain sanctity in a mediaeval kingdom or its equivalent, a modern corporation, with God nothing is impossible.

universalis.com

Novena To St. Maria Goretti

Day 7:

O St. Maria Goretti, beautiful model of christian suffering, pray for me.
You carried your cross so courageously while you suffered through surgery without anesthesia. You thirsted and were not able to be given water, and you accepted that cross because you loved our Lord.
Pray for me, St. Maria Goretti, that I will become better at carrying my cross.
Pray that I will not complain about my cross, and that I will remember to offer it up to our Lord, for I know that He does not waste any ounce of suffering given to Him.
Please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
Amen.

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St. Thomas the Apostle

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, popularly called “the doubting apostle" but from that moment of contact with the risen lord he made a great leap of faith and became the first person to call Jesus Christ “God" according to today's Gospel reading (Jn 24:20-29). “Thomas's doubt turned to strong belief: Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:28).

 According to traditions, St. Thomas embarked on a mission to India, where he baptised many and established Christianity in that land, he however paid the ultimate price and suffered martyrdom there.

 St. Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

Novena To St. Maria Goretti

Day 6:

O St. Maria Goretti, beautiful model of living a holy, everyday life, pray for me.
I often feel as though my life must be extraordinary if I am to be a saint, but you show me another way. You show me that I can be a saint if I love our Lord with all my heart, and if I serve my family and put them before me.
Please pray that I may be selfless as you were, and that I can learn to deny my own desires so that I can fulfill our Lord’s will.
Please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
Amen.

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Novena To St. Maria Goretti

Day 5:

O St. Maria Goretti, beautiful model of mercy, pray for me.
God’s mercy is the only hope for mankind. I know we are called to imitate our Father’s mercy to those around us, but it is hard, and I often fail.
But you, even at the age of 11, were strong and courageous enough to offer mercy to your attacker, the one who hurt you the very most.
Please pray that I will be able to do the same to those who hurt me. Please pray that I will not consider their unworthiness, but that I may consider our Lord, as you did.
Please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
Amen.

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St. Oliver Plunkett (1625-1681)

England, Ireland: 1 Jul

Arundel & Brighton: 2 Jul

Oliver Plunkett was born in County Meath in 1625, and died at Tyburn in 1681. 

Little is known about his early life except that he was educated privately by a Cistercian cousin, Dr. Patrick Plunkett, who eventually became Bishop of Meath. Ordained in Rome in 1654, he was professor at the college of Propaganda Fidei until 1669, when he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. He held synods and visitations and promoted the reforms initiated by the Council of Trent. It was a time when persecution was less severe, though he would often have to dress as a layman. 

In 1673 the English Parliament forced the king, Charles II, to behave more strictly towards Catholics, and edicts were issued banning bishops and all religious from Ireland. For the next few years he was able to continue his work clandestinely and was even able to hold a provincial synod. Despite the danger he went to visit his uncle, Bishop Plunkett, who was dying. He was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle in 1679, he was tried on the extraordinary charge of having planned to bring seventy thousand French troops into Ireland. There was clearly no hope of a successful conviction in Ireland. He was taken to London and duly found guilty of the charge. He was executed in London, the final victim of the ‘Popish Plot’ and the last person to be executed for the faith in England. He is remembered for his pastoral zeal and for the friendly relations he established with those who did not share the Catholic faith. His body rests at Downside Abbey, his head at Drogheda.

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Novena To St. Maria Goretti

Day 4:

O St. Maria Goretti, beautiful model of chastity, you guarded your virginity with such fervor. Even at the age of 11, you knew the value of the virtue of chastity.
Please pray that I will become better at practicing chastity in my own life.
Pray that I will learn to live a life in which desire is subservient to reason. Please pray that I will be able to love as Jesus does: selflessly.
Please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
Amen.

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