St Aidan (- 651)

Ordinariate, England, Ireland

Aidan, a native of Ireland, was a monk on Iona. When the Christian King Oswald returned from exile on Iona to his kingdom of Northumbria, he invited the monks of Iona to provide missionaries to instruct his people in Christianity. After initial difficulties, Aidan was consecrated bishop and sent with a group of Irish monks to begin this task.

  He established a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne which became the centre of a major missionary effort in the North of England. The monastery also became a valuable centre of learning and an important training ground for the education of English boys who would continue the work of evangelisation.

  From Lindisfarne Aidan journeyed throughout Northumberland, usually on foot, and working closely with King Oswald who found him to be a wise adviser and a good personal friend. After Oswald’s death in 642, Aidan continued this work under his successor, Oswin, but when Oswin himself was killed nine years later, Aidan did not long survive him and died two weeks later in 651.

  According to Bede, Aidan was a man of great gentleness and moderation, outstanding for his energetic missionary work. His influence on the North of England was enormous, and his wise promotion of Christian education among the native English laid the solid foundation for the spread of the Gospel in the centuries which followed his death.

Middlesbrough Ordo

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St. Anne Line (c.1565-1601)

Ordinariate, England: 30 Aug

Nottingham: 27 Feb

Liverpool: 1 Sep

Anne Heigham was born at Dunmow (Essex) around 1565, and was hanged at Tyburn on 27 February 1601. In her teens, she became a Catholic and was disinherited, and in 1585 married Roger Line, also a disinherited convert, who was subsequently imprisoned then, already a sick man, exiled for his faith, dying in Flanders soon afterwards. Anne was left destitute and herself suffered poor health. She offered her services to the Jesuits and was asked to look after a house of refuge in London. She ran a large safe house for priests, taught children, and made vestments. To strengthen her resolution she took voluntary vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. On 2 February after a large number of people had been seen gathering at her house for Mass, she was arrested. Her trial was on 26 February. Despite the prosecution’s failure to prove the charge of harbouring a priest the Lord Chief Justice directed the jury to find her guilty, and condemned her to be hanged the next day.

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St. Margaret Clitherow (c.1553-1586)

Ordinariate, England: 30 Aug

Nottingham: 27 Feb

Liverpool: 1 Sep

Margaret Middleton was born in York around 1553, lived there all her life, and died there on 25 March 1586. At 15, she married a butcher, John Clitherow, and three years later became a Catholic. Her brother-in-law William was a Catholic and after ordination as a priest became a Carthusian; he may well have influenced Margaret’s decision to become a Catholic. Imprisoned for her non-attendance at church, she taught herself to read and later ran a small school for her own and her neighbours’ children. Her husband remained Protestant, but allowed her to hide priests in their house. It is said that she used to visit the Knavesmire (the Tyburn of the North) to pray for those who had been martyred there. She saw that her children were all educated in the faith through the services of a young man who had been imprisoned for his faith in York Castle. She knew this prison well having been detained there several times for non-attendance at Church of England services. In 1586 the secret hiding places in her home were discovered, and Margaret was put on trial. In order to prevent her children and servants from being questioned she refused to plead, for which the punishment was being laid on sharp stones and then crushed to death. Her body was secretly buried by the authorities but was later discovered by friends, who buried her privately elsewhere; though the place of her burial has not yet been found. Her daughter Anne was imprisoned for four years for refusing to attend a Church of England service, and finally became a nun at Louvain. Her sons Henry and William became priests, and Anne became a nun at St. Ursula’s, Louvain.

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St. Margaret Ward (?-1588)

Ordinariate, England: 30 Aug

Nottingham: 27 Feb

Liverpool: 1 Sep

Margaret Ward was born at Congleton (Cheshire), but entered into the service of a family in London. She was arrested after assisting a priest, William Watson, who was himself awaiting execution to escape from prison (after a somewhat bizarre life he was eventually executed for having mounted an attempt to kidnap and usurp King James I) . After many twists and turns she was eventually arrested but though severely tortured refused to reveal Watson’s hiding place or to renounce her faith. She was tried at the Old Bailey, and executed on 30 August 1588.

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Blessed Ghebre Michael (1790 - 1855)

He was born in Ethiopia in 1790. He entered an Orthodox monastery, where he proved to be a gifted student. His name, “Ghebre-Michael” means “servant of Michael”.

  He took an intense interest in the history of monasticism and, concerned at the deterioration of monastic standards in Ethiopia, travelled around the country, visiting monasteries, researching their history and the manuscripts in their libraries, and inspiring a small group of monks in each place with a zeal for reform.

  Having come to the conclusion that the root cause of the trouble was the monks’ poor theological education, he determined to travel to Jerusalem to continue his studies. He had intended to travel alone, but at this time an important coincidence supervened and changed the course of his life.

  Ethiopia had only one Orthodox bishop, who was appointed by the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, and in 1840-41 the see was vacant. A delegation was being sent to Alexandria to ask the Patriarch for a new bishop and to visit Jerusalem on the way back, and Ghebre-Michael was invited to join the group. He made one stipulation: that the return journey should include Rome as well as Jerusalem, with the aim of lessening the suspicion of the Catholic Church among the Orthodox. On this journey he first met the Catholic missionary Justin de Jacobis, whose holiness and way of life made a great impression on him.

  To everyone’s dismay, the bishop chosen by the Patriarch was in every way unsuitable. Educated by Protestants, he had his own political agenda. He set himself against Ghebre-Michael’s project of reform and theological purification, and his followers tried to poison Ghebre-Michael himself.

  In September 1843 Ghebre-Michael sought out Justin and asked to be received into the Catholic Church (at that time about three dozen Ethiopians had become Catholics). They discussed the matter for nearly six months, and visited many monasteries together to study their ancient manuscripts. Finally, in February 1844, Ghebre-Michael was received into the Church.

  In July 1854, together with four other converts, Ghebre-Michael was arrested by the bishop and tortured with the aim of getting him to renounce Catholicism. This torture continued for many months. When a new emperor of Ethopia was crowned in February 1855 he had Ghebre-Michael put in chains and took him with him wherever he went. He was put on trial in the presence of the British Consul in May 1855, and, still refusing to apostasize, was sentenced to be shot. The Consul interceded for him, his life was spared, but he died on 28 August 1855 as a result of the harsh treatment he was receiving. He was buried at the side of the road; the exact site is unknown.

  He was beatified as a martyr in 1926. 

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St. Edmund Arrowsmith

He was born at Haydock in Lancashire. His father was a yeoman farmer and his mother was a member of an important Lancashire Catholic family. At the age of 20 he left England and went to the English College at Douai to study for the priesthood. He was ordained in Arras on 9 December 1612 and sent on the English mission a year later He ministered to the Catholics of Lancashire without incident until around 1622, when he was arrested and questioned by the Anglican Bishop of Chester. Edmund was released when King James I of England ordered all arrested priests to be freed. He joined the Jesuits in 1624.

In the summer of 1628, he was denounced to the authorities. He was put on trial, and sentenced to death for being a Roman Catholic priest in England. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Lancaster on 28 August 1628. His final confession was heard by Saint John Southworth, who was imprisoned along with Edmund.

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St. Rose of Lima (1586 - 1617)

She was born in Lima, in Peru on 20th April 1586. She lived a life of selflessness and devotion from an early age. She refused to marry, and became a Dominican tertiary at the age of 20. Her asceticism and her intense spiritual experiences excited the criticism of her friends and family and the suspicion of the Church authorities.

  She cared for the sick, the poor, Indians, and slaves.

  She was the first person in the Americas to be canonized, and is a patron saint of South America.

 

 

 

 

St. John Wall (1620-1679)

John Wall was born 1620 near Preston in Lancashire. He was the son of wealthy and staunch Lancashire Catholics. He was sent to Douai for his schooling. He enrolled at the English College in Rome in 1641 (as John Marsh, one of various aliases he used during his ministry), was ordained priest in 1645 and sent to the English mission in 1648. In 1651 he received the Fransiscan habit at St Bonaventure’s Friary, Douai. He returned to England some years later, and worked as a priest for more than twenty years, mainly based at Harvington Hall in Worcestershire. He was arrested in December 1678 during the flurry following the Titus Oates Plot, at Rushock Court near Bromsgrove, where the sheriff’s man came to seek a debtor. Once it was clear that he was a priest, he was ordered to take the Oath of Supremacy; on refusing to do so he was committed to Worcester. He was tried on the charges of receiving and exercising his priesthood, and of refusing the oaths. He was duly sentenced to death, and sent to London. On being sentenced he said: “Thanks be to God; God save the King; and I beseech God to bless your lordship and all this honourable bench” Under further questioning he was offered his life if he would abjure his religion. He later wrote: “I told them I would not buy my life at so dear a rate as to wrong my conscience.” He was brought back to Worcester, and was executed at Redhill. His quartered body was given to his friends, and was buried in St. Oswald’s churchyard. The long speech he composed for his execution was circulated among Catholics after his death; and the authorities issued as a broadsheet the public account of his execution containing “a true copy of the speech…with animadversions upon the same”.

 

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Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary to be a dogma of faith: “We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory.” The pope proclaimed this dogma only after a broad consultation of bishops, theologians and laity. There were few dissenting voices. What the pope solemnly declared was already a common belief in the Catholic Church.

We find homilies on the Assumption going back to the sixth century. In following centuries, the Eastern Churches held steadily to the doctrine, but some authors in the West were hesitant. However by the 13th century there was universal agreement. The feast was celebrated under various names–Commemoration, Dormition, Passing, Assumption–from at least the fifth or sixth century. Today it is celebrated as a solemnity.

Scripture does not give an account of Mary’s Assumption into heaven. Nevertheless, Revelation 12 speaks of a woman who is caught up in the battle between good and evil. Many see this woman as God’s people. Since Mary best embodies the people of both Old and New Testaments, her Assumption can be seen as an exemplification of the woman’s victory.
Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 15:20, Paul speaks of Christ’s resurrection as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Since Mary is closely associated with all the mysteries of Jesus’ life, it is not surprising that the Holy Spirit has led the Church to believe in Mary’s share in his glorification. So close was she to Jesus on earth, she must be with him body and soul in heaven.

Happy feast day to all children of Mary.

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St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894 - 1941)

 He was born on 8 January 1894 in occupied Poland: he joined the Franciscans in Lwów in 1910, and was ordained eight years later, as his country became free and independent for the first time in over 120 years. He believed that the world was passing through a time of intense spiritual crisis, and that Christians must fight for the world’s salvation with all the means of modern communication. He founded a newspaper, and a sodality called the Knights of Mary Immaculate, which spread widely both in Poland and abroad.

 In 1927 he founded a community, a “city of Mary,” at Teresin: centred round the Franciscan friary, it attracted many lay people, and became self-supporting, publishing many periodicals and running its own radio station. In 1930 he went to Japan, studied Buddhism and Shintoism, and through the Japanese edition of his newspaper spread the Christian message in a way that was in harmony with Japanese culture. In Nagasaki, he set up a “Garden of the Immaculate,” which survived the atomic bomb. He also travelled to Malabar and to Moscow, but was recalled to Poland in 1936 for reasons of health. When the Germans invaded in 1939, the community at Teresin sheltered thousands of refugees, most of them Jews.

In 1941 he was arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he helped and succoured the inmates. In August of that year a prisoner escaped, and in reprisal the authorities were choosing ten people to die by starvation. One of the men had a family, and Maximilian Kolbe offered to take his place. The offer was accepted, and he spent his last days comforting his fellow prisoners. The man he saved was present at his canonization.

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St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891 - 1942)

She was born into a practising Jewish family. She had a distinguished career as a philosopher and received a doctorate at the University of Freiburg, but her academic career was impeded because she was a woman.
Reading the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Ávila brought about her conversion to Catholicism and she was baptized on 1 January 1922. She taught at a Dominican girls’ school and studied Catholic philosophy. She became a lecturer at the Institute for Pedagogy at Münster but was thrown out of her post in 1933 as a result of the Nazi régime’s anti-Semitic legislation.

She entered a Carmelite monastery in Cologne and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Her order moved her to the Netherlands to keep her safe from the growing Nazi threat. While a Carmelite she wrote an important philosophical book, seeking to combine the phenomenology of her former teacher Edmund Husserl with the philosophy of Aquinas, and she also wrote on St John of the Cross.
On 20 July 1942 the Dutch Bishops’ Conference had a statement read in all churches condemning Nazi racism. In retaliation the authorities ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts to Christianity. Teresa Benedicta was taken to Auschwitz and killed on 9 August 1942.

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Men should stop sinning against God as He is already very much offended. *The kingdom of God is nearer than we may think*. He that has ears let him hear.

Saint Mary of the Cross (1842 - 1909)

Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne and worked as a governess and a teacher to support her family. In 1866 she founded St Joseph’s School, the first free Catholic school in Australia. With Father Julian Tenison Woods she founded an order of nuns, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. They opened many schools and other charitable institutions, and continue to this day. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 17 October 2010: the first Australian saint.

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St Dominic (1170 - 1221)

He was born in Castile (part of modern Spain) and became a canon of the cathedral of Osma. He accompanied his bishop (Diego de Azevedo) in a mission of preaching against the Albigensian heresy, which was then strong in southern France. While the official missions lived in formality and splendour, Dominic and Diego lived in extreme poverty, and prepared with great diligence for the debates that they held with their opponents. When the suppression of Albigensianism was undertaken by invasion and war of a particularly savage kind, Dominic continued to try to preach and persuade.

  In 1216 he founded the Order of Preachers, dedicated to saving souls by preaching and persuasion. Like the Franciscans, founded a few years before, the Dominicans put great importance on poverty, both of the individual and of the community, and of the need to be involved directly in the world while still living some form of monastic life. At a time when the settled Benedictine monasteries had grown into great and rich institutions, this was a revolutionary and to some a subversive concept. The Friars made a lasting impact on the life of mediaeval Europe, and the Dominicans in particular altered the course of intellectual history by making a well-thought-out and rational response to the new learning that was appearing as long-forgotten thinkers such as Aristotle became known once more in the Christian West.

  Dominic died at Bologna on 6th August 1221.

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Blessed Nicholas Postgate (1598 - 1679)

Nicholas Postgate was born around 1598 at Kirkdale House, Egton, one of the children of James and Margaret Postgate. His father died in 1602 leaving his widow with four young children to bring up. His mother was fined several times for non-attendance at the parish church before her death in 1624. The influence of missionary priests in the area probably led to Nicholas leaving home in 1621 to attend the training college for Catholic priests at Douai in northern France. Ordained priest on 2 April 1629 and knowing that he faced a sentence of death if he was caught, he returned to England on 29 June 1630.

  His first home was at Saxton near Tadcaster, later moving to Holderness in East Yorkshire. After the death of Lady Dunbar in 1659 he is believed to have gone to Everingham. He was over 60 years of age when he returned to his native moors and settled in a small thatched cottage at Ugthorpe near Whitby. Here he lived in virtual poverty serving the Catholics of the whole of the North Yorkshire moors from northern Cleveland to well south of Whitby and inland to Pickering. In 1664 he wrote to the President of the English College at Douai that during his 34 years working in Yorkshire he had performed 226 marriages, baptised 593 infants and buried 719 dead. He also brought 2,400 persons into the Catholic Church.

  On 8 December 1678 Father Postgate walked from Red Barn Farm at Littlebeck to baptise the infant son of Matthew and Mary Lythe. Unfortunately John Reeves, an Excise Collector from Whitby, decided to organise a search at Red Barn Farm in the hope of finding a connection with the Titus Oates Plot. Arriving as the baptism was taking place and finding Catholic books, relics, wafers etc, he arrested Father Postgate together with Matthew Lythe and two other farmers.

  The following day after appearing before Magistrate Sir William Cayley, at Brompton, he was sent to York to await trial. The trial was lengthy and in 1679 he was indicted for high treason for being a Catholic priest. The death of the 83 year old priest took place on 7 August 1679 at the Knavesmire, York, where he was hung, drawn and quartered, which the Law inflicted on Catholic priests.
  Ever since his death, Father Nicholas Postgate has been honoured not only by local Catholics but by families who have moved abroad.

  On 22 November 1987, along with 84 other martyrs, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II.


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St. Cajetan (1480-1547)

He was born in Vicenza and became a priest at the age of 36. He worked hard for the poor and the sick and for the reform of the Church; with this last aim in mind, he founded a congregation of secular priests which became known as the Theatines. These had three functions: preaching, the administration of the sacraments, and the celebration of the liturgy.
  He encouraged the growth of pawn-shops as a means of helping the poor out of temporary financial difficulties and keeping them out of the hands of usurers. His congregation also cared for incurable syphilitics (a particularly virulent form of syphilis was sweeping Europe, having been imported from the Caribbean by Columbus’s men).
  His example encouraged many others on the path to active sanctity. He said [in a letter to Elisabeth Porto]: “Do not receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may use him as you judge best, but give yourself to him and let him receive you in this Sacrament, so that he himself, God your saviour, may do to you and through you whatever he wills.”

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Pope St. Sixtus II and his companions ( - 258)

Sixtus was elected Pope in 257. Twelve months later, on 6th August, as he was celebrating Mass in the catacomb of St. Calixtus, he was seized by the authorities (it was the time of Valerian’s persecution) and beheaded along with four of his deacons. He was buried in the same catacomb.

  St. Laurence, another deacon, was captured and executed four days later.

  We know most of the details of this martyrdom from a letter of St. Cyprian, who was himself martyred later in the same year.

St Jean-Baptiste Vianney, Curé of Ars (1786 - 1859)

He was the son of a peasant farmer, and a slow and unpromising candidate for the priesthood: he was eventually ordained on account of his devoutness rather than any achievement or promise.

  In 1818 he was sent to be the parish priest of Ars-en-Dombes, an isolated village some distance from Lyon, and remained there for the rest of his life because his parishioners would not let him leave. He was a noted preacher, and a celebrated confessor: such was his fame, and his reputation for insight into his penitents’ souls and their futures, that he had to spend up to eighteen hours a day in the confessional, so great was the demand. The tens of thousands of people who came to visit this obscure parish priest turned Ars into a place of pilgrimage.

  The French State recognised his eminence by awarding him the medal of the Légion d’Honneur in 1848, and he sold it and gave the money to the poor.

 

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Saint Æthelwold (-984)

Together with St Dunstan, Ethelwold (or Æthelwold) ranks as one of the great figures of 10th-century monastic reform. Born in Winchester sometime between 904 and 909, he spent his youth at the court of King Athelstan. He became Prior of Glastonbury and in 955 received from King Ædred the Abbey of Abingdon which he re-established. On 29 November 963 he was ordained Bishop of Winchester by St Dunstan. There he installed monks in the cathedral, and restored the two Winchester foundations of the New Minster and Nunnaminster. He also restored the monasteries at Milton (Dorset) and Chertsey, and made new foundations at Ely, Peterborough and Thorney (East Anglia), in the course of which he made himself unpopular with secular clergy who were turned out of monasteries to make way for genuine monks.

  He was a renowned scholar, compiling the Regularis Concordia and translating the Rule of Benedict into Old English. He used some of the wealth he accumulated to build new churches and was a great patron of ecclesiastical art. He died on 1 August 984 at Beddington in Surrey, and was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester. After a miraculous cure attributed to him some twelve years later, his body was moved from the crypt to the choir and he was recognized as a saint, though never formally canonized.

 

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St. Oswald (c.604 - 642)

Saint Oswald was born at the very beginning of the 7th century. He was the youngest son of the pagan Ethelfrid, the first king of a united Northumbria. After his father’s death in battle, the young Oswald fled to Iona for safety and was baptised there and became a devoted Christian.

  In 633 Oswald returned to Northumbria to regain his father’s kingdom. It was said that he set up a wooden cross as his standard and dedicated himself and his people to God’s protection before engaging himself in battle with the occupying Welsh King Cadwallon, not far from the present Hexham. He defeated and killed Cadwallon and at once invited the monks from Iona to begin the evangelisation of his kingdom which extended from the Forth to the Humber. After initial difficulties, the monk Aidan was sent to lead these Irish missionaries and Oswald found him to be both a valued adviser and a good friend. Oswald took seriously the work of bringing Christianity to his people and was even known to accompany Aidan on his missionary expeditions and to act as interpreter during the time Aidan was learning the language of the English. He was also well known both for his personal prayerfulness and his charity to those in need.

  Sadly the reign of King Oswald lasted only eight years. In 642 he was killed in battle by Penda the pagan king of the Mercians. It was said that as he fell in death he was heard to pray for those who died with him. Oswald was a popular hero and his reputation as a saint was widespread even into mainland Europe.

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St. Germanus of Auxerre (c.378 - 448)

Wales: 3 Aug

Plymouth: 30 Jul

 

After pursuing a legal career and being governor of a province, he was consecrated bishop of Auxerre in Gaul. In 429 he was selected as one of the leaders of a mission to Britain to combat the growing heresy of Pelagianism. His mission was successful, and he also led the native Britons to a victory against the invading pagan Picts and Saxons. He visited Britain a second time in the 440s, to combat Pelagianism once more, and he died at Ravenna in the late 440s, while on a mission to the emperor to obtain pardon for the citizens of Armorica, which had rebelled against the Roman government.

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St. Peter Julian Eymard (1811 - 1868)

He was born in La Mure in France. He became a parish priest in 1834 and joined the Marists five years later. He fostered Eucharistic adoration throughout his life and founded a religious order of priest-adorers of the Holy Eucharist who came to be known as the Priests of the Blessed Sacrament. He was a great supporter of frequent Communion at a time when the idea had not yet been widely accepted by the Church.

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St. Eusebius of Vercelli (283 - 371)

He was born in Sardinia and brought up in Rome, and later (in around 340) was made the first bishop of Vercelli in Piedmont. He lived in a community with his diocesan priests, the first bishop ever to do so.
  He was a strong supporter of orthodoxy, and in 355 was sent into exile by the Emperor for refusing to sign the condemnation of St. Athanasius that had been passed by the Council of Milan. He was in exile for six years, harshly treated by those who had charge of him. On his release he worked hard for unity, but in vain.
  He co-operated with St. Hilary in fighting Arianism, and eventually died peacefully in Vercelli, where a manuscript of the Gospels in his handwriting is preserved.

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St Alphonsus Liguori (1696 - 1787)

 

Saint Alphonsus Liguori was born in Marianella near Naples on September 27, 1696. He was the first born of a rather large family belonging to the Neapolitan nobility. His received a broad education in the humanities, classical and modern languages, painting and music. He composed a Duetto on the Passion, as well as the most popular Christmas carol in Italy, Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle, and numerous other hymns. He finished his university studies earning a Doctorate in both civil and canon law and began his practice in the legal profession.

 

  In 1723, after a long process of discernment, he abandoned his legal career and, despite his father’s strong opposition, began his seminary studies. He was ordained a priest on December 21, 1726, at the age of 30. He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and marginalized young people of Naples. He founded the “Evening Chapels”. Run by the young people themselves, these chapels were centres of prayer, community, the Word of God, social activities and education. At the time of his death, there were 72 of these chapels with over 10,000 active participants.

  In 1729, Alphonsus left his family home and took up residence in the Chinese College in Naples. It was there that he began his missionary experience in the interior of the Kingdom of Naples where he found people who were much poorer and more abandoned than any of the street children in Naples.

  On November 9, 1732, Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, popularly known as the Redemptorists, in order to follow the example of Jesus Christ announcing the Good News to the poor and the most abandoned. From that time on, he gave himself entirely to this new mission.

 

  Alphonsus was a lover of beauty: musician, painter, poet and author. He put all his artistic and literary creativity at the service of the mission and he asked the same of those who joined his Congregation. He wrote 111 works on spirituality and theology. The 21,500 editions and the translations into 72 languages that his works have undergone attest to the fact that he is one of the most widely read authors. Among his best known works are: The Great Means of Prayer, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, The Glories of Mary and The Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament. Prayer, love, his relationship with Christ and his first-hand experience of the pastoral needs of the faithful have made Alphonsus one of the great masters of the interior life.

 

  Alphonsus’ greatest contribution to the Church was in the area of Moral Theological reflection with his Moral Theology. This work was born of Alphonsus’ pastoral experience, his ability to respond to the practical questions posed by the faithful and from his contact with their everyday problems. He opposed the sterile legalism which was suffocating theology and he rejected the strict rigorism of the time… the product of the powerful elite. According to Alphonsus, those were paths that were closed to the Gospel because “such rigour has never been taught nor practised by the Church”. He knew how to put theological reflection at the service of the greatness and dignity of the person, of a moral conscience, and of evangelical mercy.

 

  Alphonsus was consecrated bishop of St. Agatha of the Goths in 1762. He was 66 years old. He tried to refuse the appointment because he felt too old and too sick to properly care for the diocese. In 1775, he was allowed to retire from his office and went to live in the Redemptorist community in Pagani where he died on August 1, 1787. He was canonized in 1839, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1871 and Patron of Confessors and Moralists in 1950.

 

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St. Ignatius Loyola (1491 - 1556)

Ignatius (or Iñigo) was born in Loyola in the Spanish Basque country. He was a soldier, but was wounded in the battle of Pamplona (against the French) at the age of 30. During a long convalescence he read a life of Christ and a collection of lives of the saints, and discovered that his true vocation was to devote his life wholly to God. He was as systematic about this as he had been about his military career: he spent a year’s retreat in a Dominican friary, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and then set about learning Latin.

  Such enthusiasm in a layman caused grave suspicion in the Spanish authorities, and he was questioned and imprisoned more than once. He moved to Paris in 1528 and continued his studies; and then in 1534 Ignatius and six companions bound themselves to become missionaries to the Muslims in Palestine. By the time they were ready to set out, war made the journey impossible and so the group (now numbering ten) offered their services to the Pope in any capacity he might choose. A number of them were duly ordained and they were all assigned to various tasks.

  Soon it was proposed that they should organise themselves into a regular religious order, and in 1540 the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) was formed. Ignatius was the first Superior General until his death. Soon after their foundation the Jesuits began to meet the challenge of the Reformation: a tough task, given the debilitated state into which the Church had fallen, but one which, as Ignatius said, had to be undertaken “without hard words or contempt for people’s errors”.

  Ignatius had a gift for inspiring friendship, and was the recipient of deep spiritual insight. Soon after his conversion Ignatius wrote the Spiritual Exercises, a systematic step-by-step retreat that can be followed by anyone – and has been followed by many, not all of them Catholics, ever since.

 

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