Rejoice! In All Circumstance Give Thanks!

Lonely or Not

Homily from the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

 

'I get so lonely I could die.'

These lyrics from the well known song Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley may speak to our own life experience. Indeed, there's something logical about putting loneliness and death in the same sentence.

Man is made for relationship. He is who he is because of who he loves and whom he is loved by. The philosophers would say that man in relationship is a human person; man alone (without a sense of loving or being loved) is only a human being, i.e. a human who merely exists.

Man is made for love. The guests in Heartbreak Hotel know this only too well. Without love human life loses its meaning and becomes alienation which gives birth to the words: I get so lonely, I could die.

How important then to listen carefully to Jesus' words today: You must love… .

They are framed as a command but are actually an analysis of what gives human life its fundamental significance.

A careful reading of the first three chapters of the book of Genesis will show that in the beginning, from the moment of our creation, God established us in four relationships. These relationships are part of the very substance of our human lives: our relationship with God, with our self, with others, and with the natural world. These four relationships shape the very path we must walk to reach our destiny and therefore, thanks to our fallen human nature, constitute the decisive stumbling blocks on our journey.

It is in our relationship to God, to our own self, to others and to the natural world, wounded but redeemed, that we now live out our daily lives as disciples of the Lord. How important, then, that we get them right, because it is so easy to get them wrong!

It may come as a surprise, for example, to hear a married couple say, 'We have always loved God more than we love each other.' Or for a father to say, 'My first love is for my wife, and only then for my children.'

Obviously there is much more to say in order to finetune exactly the hierarchy of love I am attempting to assert here. But the truth remains that we can get our relationships wrong all too easily and cause, thereby, significant disorder in our own life, and in the lives of those who form our relationship network.

I love to hear engaged couples telling me they have decided to live chaste lives until marriage because they 'want to be faithful to God!' These couples have got it right. They have put God before themselves; they are in a right relationship with him and therefore, with each other.

You must love the Lord your God … this is the greatest and the first commandment.

And when they marry this couple will be in a right relationship with their children who have a right to be born within a loving, stable, committed and secure marriage.

To get the order of our love relationships right is to bring about the 'order of God's love'. St Ignatius sometimes used this beautiful phrase. It is an order which brings peace and life, health and fruitfulness.

The greatest and first commandment is to love God. How? With all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. The second commandment is to love our neighbour. How? As yourself. This is the divine vision and plan according to which we were 'put together' in our mother's womb.

It is a great tragedy to meet individuals who live as though they understood the first and only commandment to be: I will love my self with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind. Let us pray to be preserved from this catastrophic corruption of our true nature.

Next week each of the three readings affirms what we sometimes forget - that we are all brothers and sisters, children of the one Father. The love we have for our self is the definition, the template, of the love we should have for each other, and there must be no exceptions.

As we have just heard in the first reading today we must not molest the stranger because we ourselves were once strangers in the land of Egypt. We must not be harsh with widows or orphans or the Lord will make our wives widows and our children orphans. The consequences of breaking the bond of love between ourselves and our neighbour are severe.

Christian warfare is fought on the battlefield of relationship. Let us examine ourselves in the light of the great commandment of love, and allow the Lord's words to be both encouragement and correction for us.

Respect Life Sunday

 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A (Respect Life Sunday)
Her name is Joanne Schiebel.  In 1954, she was a young unmarried college student who discovered that she was pregnant.  In the 1950s, her options were limited.  She could have had an abortion – but the procedure was both dangerous and illegal.  She could have gotten married, but she wasn’t ready and didn’t want to interrupt her education. Joanne opted, instead, to give birth to the baby and put it up for adoption.

And so it was that in 1955, a California couple named Paul and Clara Jobs adopted a baby boy, born out of wedlock, that they named Steven.
We know him today…as Steve Jobs.

It would not be overstating things to say that Steve Jobs is my generation’s Thomas Edison. As one observer put it, he knew what the world wanted before the world knew that it wanted it.

If you have an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod, or anything remotely resembling them, you can thank Steve Jobs.
If your world has been transformed by the ability to hear a symphony, send a letter, pay a bill, deposit a check, read a book and then buy theater tickets on something roughly the size of a credit card…you can thank Steve Jobs.
And: you can thank Joanne Schiebel.
If you want to know how much one life can matter, there is just one example.
But: imagine if that life had never happened.
Imagine if an unmarried pregnant college student 56 years ago had made a different choice.
Now, imagine all the unmarried pregnant college students who make that different choice today.
By one measure, more than half of all abortions in the United States – 53% — occur in young women under the age of 25.   That is hundreds of thousands of lives every year, snuffed out.  Millions over the last quarter century.
The horrifying truth is this: we live now in a culture that not only does not respect life, but discards it like trash — not only at the beginning of life, but also at the end, and every place in between.
What has happened to us?
In Europe, there’s a new industry of “suicide tourism,” for people who are old or infirm and want to kill themselves.
In California, when it was announced during a recent presidential debate that 234 people had been executed in Texas, hundreds of people in the audience applauded.
What has happened to us?
Catholics can disagree about whether the death penalty is necessary.  But we can’t disagree about this: cheering death – any death, especially if it involves someone who may be innocent – is an affront to life.  And yet we do it so easily.  And that is part of the problem.
Life has become disposable.
In the New York Times recently, there was a long article about the practice called “singleton” – where women pregnant with triplets or twins can arrange to have one or more of the babies aborted, to better manage the size of their family.
We don’t talk about it often, but it needs to be said: the reason we don’t see as many children any more with Down Syndrome isn’t because of some great medical breakthrough.  No.  It’s because roughly 90% of them are being aborted.
What has happened to us???
If you listen closely, the gospel this Sunday is, in one sense, about respecting life – and choosing death.   It brings us the familiar saying about “the stone that the builder rejected.”  Well, we have rejected more stones, more lives, than we can count.  When will it end?
It’s increasingly clear that the only lasting change will happen when we work to change not only laws, but also hearts.
And that begins with each of us.
When will it end?  This nightmare will end when we pass on what we all know to be true: for all its complexity and complications, all its sorrows and fears, all its headaches and heartaches…life matters.  Every life.  At every moment.
This nightmare will end when we teach our children that nothing, and no one, is ever discarded.  Remember the multiplication of the loaves and fishes?  When Christ performed that miracle, the story didn’t end when everyone ate.  It ended with the people gathering up every crumb.  Because every crumb was a part of that miracle.  No one, no thing, no life is wasted in the incredible work of God.
This nightmare will end when we acknowledge that life is inconvenient, and difficult, and unplanned. But nothing, and no one, is ever unplanned or unwanted when the one doing the planning and the wanting is God.
This nightmare will end when we realize, at last, that love is greater than fear.
It will end when we make of our lives a continuing prayer – prayer that isn’t afraid to plead, to ask, to question, to hope.  Prayer that embraces the beautiful truth of the most popular prayer in the world: “Thy will be done.”   Prayer that is able to trust.
It will end when we see life not as a problem to be solved, but as a gift to be embraced.

It will end when we simply choose life.   Beautiful, chaotic, unpredictable, explosive, crazy life.  Life isn’t something to be discarded because it is difficult, or inconvenient, or unexpected, or old or sick.  It is so much greater than we realize.

I sometimes mention this in baptism instruction: the baptism rite begins with declaring the name of the child.  It harkens back to Genesis, and the first thing Adam did after God created him – he named everything around him.  With that, man continued God’s creative work in the world.  And we do that today: with every life we welcome, God continues His creation. Choosing life, we choose to be a part of that.

That’s what Joanne Schiebel did.  Think of her the next time you make a phone call or plug in your iPod or download music.
And this morning, consider the work before us.  It begins here, and now.
By changing how we talk about life, how we treat life, how we teach life to our children, we will begin to change hearts, change minds.
“Respect life” is more than just a catchphrase.  It needs to be a way of living.  Respect life. Not just in the womb, but everywhere, at every time, in all circumstances — within our families, our communities, the places we work and do business.  It means treating every life with dignity, and honoring every life as a gift.
Doing that, moment by moment, we will begin to change the culture.
And: heart by heart, we will begin to change the world.

Let Go & Let God

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Four weeks ago, on the 22nd Sunday of the year, we heard Jesus say to Peter: Get behind me, Satan … because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s!

On the 23rd Sunday Jesus shows us how to treat those who do the wrong thing by us in a way that would be according to God’s way of thinking.

On the 24th Sunday we celebrated the feast of the Triumph of the Cross; madness according to the world's way of thinking but for us who believe, the sublime wisdom of God.

Last week, the 25th Sunday, Isaiah cautioned us: Let the wicked man abandon his way, the evil man his thoughts. … for my thoughts are not your thoughts …. .

Then the Gospel showed us a God who is generous in a way that we, according to our human way of thinking, would think unfair. Once again we see that God’s thoughts are high above our thoughts.

Which brings us to the First Reading today, the 26th Sunday, in which God seems to be defending himself from our human way of thinking which calls him unjust.

Is what I do unjust? Is it not what you do that is unjust?

Imagine us accusing God of injustice!

In the Second Reading St Paul is pleading with the Philippians: ... be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. That is the one thing that would make me completely happy.

A common mind? Which mind?

In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus...

Well, by now I think you are beginning to see what I’m getting at. The mind of God is indeed higher above us than the heavens. Our ways of thinking are not God’s ways of thinking and the whole of the struggle of Christian discipleship could be summed up as the struggle to begin thinking like God, as St Paul puts it: ...to put on the mind of Christ.

Well, our Gospel today shows us a young man caught in the very act of doing just this. He was asked by his father to spend the day working in the vineyard. His father might just as well have asked him to wash the car, clean up his room, take out the garbage or turn off the television.

The young man was very human but notice he was also very honest. He didn’t like to pretend. He said straight out to his father, 'No! I won’t! I am not going to work in the vineyard. It’s not my turn to wash the car. I didn’t mess up the bedroom. I’ll take out the garbage later, if I don’t forget … and, anyway, I just want to watch this television programme first.'

How human this way of thinking is!

Well, the dad in our Gospel just leaves him to work it out and the young man starts thinking. We are not told what his thought processes were, just that he thought better of it.

He did what Isaiah advised: Let the wicked man abandon his way, the evil man his thoughts. And so he went off to work in the vineyard.

The prostitutes and the tax collectors did exactly the same thing. They at first said no to God in their lives and lived far away from him. But then, at the sound of Jesus’ words they thought better of it and repented. They sought forgiveness and became disciples of the Lord.

There’s no need to say too much about the other son, or about the chief priests and elders. We are simply told that they refused to think better of it. How sad!

Let me repeat, isn’t our whole Christian life a process of learning to think better of it? … of learning to put on the mind of Christ?

Are you in that process?

Watchmen for Israel

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Fraternal correction, assertiveness and speaking the truth in charity are some of the phrases that lead us into the message of this Sunday. The readings focus on the painful responsibility of fraternal correction which entails many qualities: assertiveness, courage, compassion, patience, gentleness, humility, sincerity and prudence, to names just a few. The readings also remind us that we will be held accountable for our silence and failure to speak up. There are many situations in our own homes when at times we are hesitant to speak up. In the first reading, the Lord sends his messenger as “watchman for the house of Israel” as a spokesperson of the Lord, to warn God’s people. The messenger of the Lord is sent to persuade the wicked from wrongdoing. If not, the Lord will hold the messenger responsible. The underlying message is that we are all responsible for one another in helping each other to remain faithful to the Lord. Here the Lord addresses all of us, urging us to listen to his voice. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” This call to faithfulness is also a call to the commandment of love that undergirds all of God’s Commandments. The Commandment of love is also the spirit that leads us to correct others when they stray away. Calling others to account when they do wrong or persist in wrongdoing is not easy. We ourselves must be living faithfully before we can call others to change their lives. We must be a living example. The bottom line in the message is that we cannot privatize religion, because Christian life is not a private affair between God and me. Such practice of Christian life would lead to a culture of silence before the wrong doing of our brothers and sisters. We are reminded of the obligation to speak up prophetically, to be assertive with humility and the compassion of Christ.

In the Gospel of this Sunday, Jesus challenges us to point out the faults of others privately first, but publicly if necessary. Paul in the Second reminds us that we correct others out of love and concern for their spiritual wellbeing. Elsewhere Paul urges us to “Be kind and tender to one another. Forgive each other, just as God forgave you because of what Christ has done" (Ephesians 4:32). It is then that we are better able to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). If we are sincere in our relationship with Christ, if we are intimately related to Christ and the Father in the Spirit, the zeal to invite others to such a relationship will drive us to speak up before others, inviting them to God’s loving mercy and forgiveness. In the words of St. Paul, true Christian love will enable us to help each other along the way to perfection without an attitude of superiority. Everyone in the Christian community, including those in leadership must be willing to give and to receive loving admonition from others. The message of this Sunday may be summed up in three points: 1) Every one of us is called to a life of witness before others; 2) Such life involves personal conversion to Christ and a deeper relationship with God; 3) If we are intimately related to Christ, it is far much easier to invite others to change their way of life. We pray that God’s grace may strengthen our Christian witness; to be God’s instruments with the courage to speak the truth in love.

Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given

The story of Jesus feeding the crowds is told more often than any other story in the four Gospels. Each of the Gospels tells at least one story of Jesus feeding a crowd of thousands, and the Gospels of Mark and Matthew tell the story twice [Mark 6:30-44, 8:1-9; Matthew 14:13-21, 15:32-39; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-13]. You can see how important this story was to the early community, for the story was clearly linked to the Eucharist. We often think of the Eucharist as originating with the Last Supper, but the early Church also put a great deal of emphasis on Jesus eating with his disciples in Galilee, and, after the resurrection, on his returning to eat meals with his friends. In different ways each of these meals anticipates the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Today's Gospel passage makes the connection very explicit. Jesus asks the disciples to bring him what little food they have -- five loaves and two fish -- and he orders the crowds to sit down on the grass. Take a look at the next sentence: “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds” [Matthew 14:19]. If you had a pencil, you could underline the four familiar words that we always hear at the Eucharist: “take,” “bless,” “break,” and “give.”
This morning's Gospel gives us a chance to reflect on how we are formed and shaped by the Eucharist. When you and I were baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we discovered the deepest truth about ourselves: that we are the Beloved of God. That is our deepest identity: we are God's Beloved. Yet it takes a lifetime to live into the truth of our Belovedness, to make it incarnate in everything we say and do, so that in the very nitty-gritty details of our lives, from the moment we get up in the morning until the moment we fall asleep at night, we not only remember in some abstract and rather distant way, “I am the Beloved of God,” but more and more fully become the Beloved, become who we really are.

You may have noticed a few months ago that we made a small change in the Eucharist, which is printed in the service leaflet. After the Lord's Prayer, the celebrant breaks the bread and says: “Behold what you are.” And we reply, “May we become what we receive.” Rob brought these lines back after a visit to the monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, and the words can be traced all the way back to St. Augustine, who, sometime in the 4th and 5th centuries, preached a sermon on the Eucharist [Sermon 57, “On the Holy Eucharist”] in which he reflected on “one of the deep truths of Christian faith: through our participation in the sacraments (particularly baptism and Eucharist), we are transformed into the Body of Christ, given for the world.”

The point is that every time we receive the Eucharist, we are transformed -- or should be transformed -- a little more fully into the Body of Christ, so that the divine love that made us and that flows through us can become more fully expressed in the world. How are we formed by the Eucharist? One place to look is in those four gestures: “taken,” “blessed,” “broken” and “given.” I am indebted in these remarks to the priest and writer Henri Nouwen, a friend and mentor whose book, Life of the Beloved, is on my very short list of top spiritual books. As Henri says, the words “taken,” “blessed,” “broken,” and “given” summarize the life of a priest, because whenever I come together with members of this community and celebrate the Eucharist, I take bread, bless it, break it, and give it. “These words also summarize [our lives] as [Christians] because, as [Christians, we are] called to become bread for the world: bread that is taken, blessed, broken, and given. Most importantly...they summarize [our] lives as... human beings because in every moment of [our lives] somewhere, somehow the taking, the blessing, the breaking, and the giving are happening.”

What does it mean to say that we are “taken”? To be “taken” by God is to be chosen, to be precious to God. As Henri puts it, “Long before any human being saw us, we are seen by God's loving eyes. Long before anyone heard us cry or laugh, we are heard by our God who is all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are spoken to by the voice of eternal love.”Claiming and reclaiming our chosenness is the great spiritual battle of our lives, for in a competitive, power-hungry, manipulative world, it is all too easy to forget that God has taken us, God has chosen us -- easy to slide into self-doubt and self-rejection.
Knowing that we have been taken by God, that we have been chosen, is the first thing we need to claim as we behold what we are and become what we receive. The second is to recognize that we are “blessed.” The word “blessing” comes from the Latin word, benedicere, which literally means to speak well of someone, to say good things about someone. We all have a deep need for affirmation, to know that we are valued not just because of something we did or because we have a particular talent, but simply because we are.
Henri tells a wonderful story about the power of blessing in his community. For the last ten years of his life, this renowned spiritual teacher and best-selling author who had taught at world-class universities lived as a chaplain at the L'Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, a community for people who are mentally and physically disabled. Henri describes how one day a handicapped member of the community, Janet, asked him for a blessing. Henri was distracted, and rather automatically traced the sign of the cross on her forehead. Janet protested, “No, I want a real blessing!” Henri realized how unthinkingly he had responded to her request and he promised that at the next prayer service, he would give her a real blessing. After the service was over, when about thirty people were sitting in a circle on the floor, Henri announced, “Janet has asked me for a special blessing.” He didn't really know what she wanted, but she made it crystal clear: she stood up and walked over to him. He was wearing a long white robe with large sleeves that covered his hands as well and his arms, and when Janet came forward and put her arms around him and put her head against his chest, Henri covered her with his sleeves so that she almost vanished in the folds of her robe.
As they held each other, Henri said “Janet, I want you to know that you are God's Beloved Daughter. You are precious in God's eyes. Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house, and all the good things you do show what a beautiful human being you are. I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.”
As he said these words, Janet raised her head and looked at him, and from her broad smile, Henri knew that she had really heard and received the blessing.
After Janet returned to her place, another handicapped woman raised her hand -- she, too, wanted a blessing. She stood up and put her face against his chest, and before long many more of the handicapped people took a turn, expressing the same desire to be blessed.
Henri says that, for him, the most touching moment came when one of the assistants, a twenty-four-year-old student raised his hand and said, “And what about me?” When I heard Henri tell this story, he mentioned that this was a big, burly guy with a neck out to here, probably a football player. This fellow came forward and Henri wrapped his arms around him and said, “John, it is so good that you are here. You are God's Beloved Son. Your presence is a joy for all of us. When things are hard and life is burdensome, always remember that you are loved with an ever-lasting love.”
As Henri spoke these words, John looked at him with tears in his eyes and then he said, “Thank you, thank you very much.”
How hungry we are for blessing! And we are blessed, for God is always speaking a word of blessing in our hearts. When we know ourselves as blessed, we can't help but speak good things to other people, and about other people, and call forth their beauty and truth. As Henri says, “No one is brought to life through curses, gossip, accusations, or blaming... As the ‘blessed ones,' we can walk through this world and offer blessings. It doesn't require much effort. It flows naturally from our hearts.”
We are chosen and blessed. And we are broken, too. Everyone in this room is broken. We all have places of loneliness or fear, places of disappointment, shame, or grief. We all know the pain of broken relationships, and we all face death, which Henri calls “the most radical manifestation of brokenness.”Accepting and befriending our brokenness is part of the long journey of entrusting our whole selves to the care of God, so that, as St. Paul puts it, we know that “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's” [Romans 14:8]. And it is important to place our brokenness in the light of God's blessing, to experience it within the context of God's love. When something ‘bad' happens to us, it can be tempting to let that event fuel the fire of our self-rejection, to say to ourselves, “You see? Of course that happened to me. I always thought I was no good. Now I know for sure -- the facts of my life prove it.” But when we know ourselves as God's Beloved, we experience our suffering differently -- maybe as a kind of purification, or as a way to enter a deeper communion with a loving God who, in Christ, allowed himself to be broken.
We are chosen, blessed, and broken -- to be given. “Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others,” writes Henri. “...Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life... How different would our life be were we truly able to trust that it multiplied in being given away! How different would our life be if we could but believe that every little act of faithfulness, every gesture of love, every word of forgiveness, every little bit of joy and peace will multiply and multiply as long as there are people to receive it... and that -- even then -- there will be leftovers!”
Do you remember our Gospel story? As Matthew puts it, “All ate and were filled” [Mt 14: 20], and even after those thousands were fed, the leftovers could be piled up in twelve baskets. That is the promise of the Gospel: that as we know ourselves to be taken, blessed, broken, and given, we will become bread for the world. Our lives will feed and bless those around us in more ways than we can ask or imagine.
In our Eucharist this morning, we see “a sign of God's desire and intent to feed not only us but this whole hungry world.”
Once again, we behold what we are.
May we become what we receive.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
Readings: Is 55:10-11; Rom 8:18-23; Matt 13:1-23

The sower, the seed, the soil, the harvest are the metaphors that help us to capture the central message of this Sunday readings. The readings invite us to reflect on Christ the Sower of God’s Word. The Prophet Isaiah in the First Reading speaks about the effectiveness of God’s Word. Like the rain and snow, which do not return without watering the earth, so too the Word that comes from the mouth of God does not fail. Isaiah’s message in the first reading is a prelude to the Gospel of today about the parable of the Sower. Just as the rain waters the land, showing us how God’s Word brings about the desired results, similarly the parable of the Sower reveals to us the dynamic power of God’s Word. Isaiah’s message contains an important aspect of conversion, so that the Word of God, like the rain may shower upon our hardened hearts making them “fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats.” The First Reading therefore helps to interpret the parable of the Sower in the Gospel. One interpretation is that many people who hear the Gospel simply never seem to “get it.” The message is stolen from them by the enemy before it takes root. Let me illustrate that interpretation with some statistics. There are about 50% of our Catholic kids who receive the Sacraments but disappear between age 18 to 35, only to reappear later for marriage. Why is that? Inadequate faith formation fails to equip them to take the heat and pressure of our secular culture. Then there are about 89% of lifelong, regular church goers who, according to George Gallup, have values and lifestyle identical to those of their secular neighbors. Their faith has been so neutralized by inadequate faith formation and a focus on worldly preoccupation. Though they look like Catholics, their faith practice is fruitless. Then there are those who remain faithful, going regularly to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. They manage to do some good for some people, but in all produce only a mediocre harvest in life. Finally there are those who yearn to learn more about their faith. They sink their roots in Scripture, Tradition, prayer and the sacraments. These produce an abundant harvest. Jesus wants all of us, not just some to yearn for more so that we all may produce a bumper crop.

The Holy Trinity

The Trinity tells us that there are three Persons in one Divine Nature. The names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are names of persons. God can serve as either a name for the Father or a name for the Divine Nature. Before delving into the relative meaning of Persons and Natures it will be useful to make it clear that these terms refer to distinctly different things.
I will attempt to clarify this with an analogy. My hand has five fingers, but all five fingers are parts of one hand (and the words finger and hand do not refer to the same kind of thing). It is appropriate, therefore, that I will arrive at a different number if I count fingers than hands. Likewise, Person and Nature are different things, and when I apply these words to God I find that there are three of the former and one of the later.
As useful as analogies can be to explain a concept, in all cases we find that analogies can only provide an accurate picture to a certain extent. Therefore it is useful to point out the places where they fail, and to provide a variety of them. We will then be able to proceed to an understanding by comparison and contrast. The analogy of fingers and hands breaks down in the following ways:

1. God is not composed of matter. Instead his Nature refers to the eternal perfections that he possesses: Love, Goodness, Power, etc.
2. God is not composed of parts. If God were composed of parts, then it would be necessary to have a cause for the arrangement of the parts, and something else would be fundamental.
3. There is only one Divine Nature. While there can be many hands, there can only be one Divine Nature.

One can now construct another analogy to consider the Persons and Nature of God. We can say that the persons are like dimensions, and the Nature is like three-dimensional space. The dimensions are indeed distinct realities, which we may term height, width, and depth, but we cannot call them parts, nor can we remove one dimension from the space in which we live. Three-dimensional space is composed of three inseparable dimensions. This analogy fails at a certain point to describe God as well, because there is really no way to distinguish one spatial dimension as special or different from the others.

As yet, however, we have only discussed how something can be different and yet inseparable. We cannot yet comprehend what the meanings of the words Person and Nature are. Persons are objects and sources both of communication, and of love. St. Augustine explains the passage "God is love" (1 John 4:8) by noting that if God is to be "love" for all eternity, then there must always exist Divine Persons in God to love one another. Ludwig Ott suggests that we may think of Persons as somewhat analogous to personalities, John Henry Newman suggests that we might think of them as personifications of Divine attributes (i.e. the Son is the Wisdom of the God).

The Divine Nature is that through which the Divine Persons are and through which they act. The Divine Nature is to the Divine Persons what the body is to a human person. However, as I noted before, the Divine Nature is not something material, rather it refers to the Divine Perfections as noted above.

These next few points are somewhat detached from the above discussion, but it is useful to bring them up as they are common misinterpretations.

Although the idea that the Divine Nature is Goodness, Love, etc. rules the interpretation of Divine Nature as a term meaning Divine species, the interpretation is voiced on occasion. This idea leads to the suggestion that the Divine Persons are just instances of this species. Divine Nature is not meant to be taken as a term for species in the doctrine of the Trinity, and if we do allow the term Divine species the doctrine of the Trinity only allows us to have one instance of it.

Vocation

The word "vocation" comes from the Latin word "vocare" which means "to call."
And that's what a vocation is: not something I choose per se, but rather the life
God is calling me to live.

We often ask children, "What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do with your life?" It's a fair question. But the real questions we should be asking is "What does God want you to be when you grow up? What does God want to do with your life?"

For many, it’s a call to the vocation of marriage. For some, it’s a call to the priesthood or religious life. For those who are still awaiting the answer, know this: God is calling you each and every day. You may not know it, but He is preparing you. God will use the good events (as well as the bad), your good qualities (as well as the bad) to shape you in formation for your vocation. You might look at some of the bad events of your life or some of your sinful tendencies and say, "I could never be a priest. I’m too much of a sinner. I’m not worthy."

What the priest says

If your wife just heard that she has to not have sex for 15 days, because she is having a baby.
And her husband told her that he could not wait 15 days for sex. So after church on a Sunday, he pulled his parish priest a side and told him that he could not wait 15 days for sex. The priest looked him dead straight in the eye and said try for 365 days.

Good Friday

Good Friday is the Friday immediately preceding Easter Sunday. It is celebrated traditionally as the day on which Jesus was crucified. If you are interested in a study of the issue, please see our article that discusses the various views on which day Jesus was crucified. Assuming that Jesus was crucified and died on a Friday, should Christians remember Jesus' death by celebrating Good Friday?

The Bible does not instruct Christians to remember Christ’s death by honoring a certain day. The Bible does give us freedom in these matters, however. Romans 14:5 tells us, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” Rather than remembering Christ's death on a certain day, once a year, the Bible instructs us to remember Christ’s death by observing the Lord’s Supper. First Corinthians 11:24-26 declares, “...do this in remembrance of me...for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”

Why is Good Friday referred to as “good”? What the Jewish authorities and Romans did to Jesus was definitely not good (see Matthew chapters 26-27). However, the results of Christ’s death are very good! Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” First Peter 3:18 tells us, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.”

Many Christian churches celebrate Good Friday with a subdued service, usually in the evening, in which Christ’s death is remembered with solemn hymns, prayers of thanksgiving, a message centered on Christ suffering for our sakes, and observance of the Lord's Supper. Whether or not Christians choose to “celebrate” Good Friday, the events of that day should be ever on our minds because the death of Christ on the cross is the paramount event of the Christian faith.

Holy Thursday

HOLY THURSDAY is the most complex and profound of all religious observances, saving only the Easter Vigil. It celebrates both the institution by Christ Himself of the Eucharist and of the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood (as distinct from the "priesthood of all believers") for in this, His last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover, He is the self-offered Passover Victim, and every ordained priest to this day presents this same sacrifice, by Christ's authority and command, in exactly the same way. The Last Supper was also Christ's farewell to His assembled disciples, some of whom would betray, desert or deny Him before the sun rose again.

On Holy Thursday morning there is a special Mass in Cathedral Churches, celebrated by the bishop and as many priests of the diocese as can attend, because it is a solemn observance of Christ's institution of the priesthood at the Last Supper. At this "Chrism Mass" the bishop also blesses the Oil of Chrism used for Baptism, Confirmation and Anointing of the sick or dying. The bishop may wash the feet of twelve of the priests, to symbolize Christ's washing the feet of His Apostles, the first priests.

The evening Holy Thursday Liturgy, marks the end of Lent and the beginning of the sacred "Triduum" ("three days") of Holy Week, which culminates in the Easter Vigil, and concludes at Vespers on the evening of Easter day (see Paschalis Sollemnitatis, §§ 38-40). The Mass begins in the evening, because Passover began at sundown; it commemorates Our Lord's institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper. It also shows both the worth God ascribes to the humility of service, and the need for cleansing with water (a symbol of baptism) in the Mandatum, washing, commemorating Jesus' washing the feet of His apostles, as well as in the priest's stripping and washing of the altar. Cleansing, in fact, gave this day of Holy Week the name Maundy Thursday.
The action of the Church on this night also witnesses to the Church's esteem for Christ's Body present in the consecrated Host in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, carried in solemn procession to the flower-bedecked Altar of Repose, where it will remain "entombed" until the communion service on Good Friday. No Mass will be celebrated again in the Church until the Easter Vigil proclaims the Resurrection.

And finally, there is the continued Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by the people during the night, just as the disciples stayed with the Lord during His agony on the Mount of Olives before the betrayal by Judas.

There is such an abundance of symbolism in the solemn celebration of the events of Holy Thursday layer upon layer, in fact that we can no more than hint at it in these few words. For many centuries, the Last Supper of Our Lord has inspired great works of art and literature, such as the glorious stained glass window in Chartres cathedral (above), Leonardo's ever popular (and much imitated) Last Supper in the 16th century; and a reminiscence called Holy Thursday, by the French novelist François Mauriac, written in the 1930s. (A chapter of Mauriac's meditation was reprinted in Voices, Lent-Easter 2002, with permission from Sophia Institute Press).

Psalm Sunday

We now come to the Sunday with a split personality. It starts with an upbeat gospel recounting Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is a festive affair, complete with a parade route strewn with palm branches instead of ticker tape. But we quickly progress to the stark reading of Jesus’ passion, bearable only because we already know its happy ending. Mel Gibson’s film did us a favor in reminding us how shockingly brutal the whole business really was.

Two names for the same day: Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. I propose a third name: Fickle Sunday. For the same crowd that was cheering during the parade were jeering a few days later. They’d been wowed by His sermons, fed with loaves and fishes, healed of their diseases, delivered of their demons. But as soon as the tide began to turn, so did they. Their cries of “Hosanna” turned to shouts of a very different kind: “Crucify Him!”

Of course, He was not surprised in the least. The gospels tell us that He knew the human mind heart all too well. He was not fooled by all the acclamations and fanfare. Flattery could not swell His head. He had no illusions of grandeur or ambition for worldly glory. In fact, our second reading tells us that He had willingly emptied Himself of heavenly glory in pursuit of His true passion — His Father’s will and our salvation.

He “set His face like flint.” He was on a mission and nothing would deter Him. He barreled through barriers that usually stop us dead in our tracks — fear of ridicule, fear of suffering, abandonment by our closest companions. He was willing to endure the sting of sin to blot out sin, and was eager to face death in order to overcome it.

He did indeed have a “well-trained tongue.” His words had mesmerized the crowds, intrigued Herod and even made Pilate stop and think. But now His lips are strangely silent. All the gospels point out that He said very little during His passion, collecting only seven brief statements from the cross. Maybe this was to fulfill the Scripture that said “like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth” (Is 53: 7b). Actually, everything that happened in those fateful hours fulfilled Scripture. Isaiah 50 had foretold the beating and mockery. Psalm 22 lays it all out hundreds of years before it happens: His thirst, the piercing of His hands and feet by Gentiles (called “dogs” by the Jews), and the casting of lots for His clothing. The opening line of this psalm happens to be “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Could it be that the Lord uttered this phrase to remind us that this was all in the plan?

So the virtual silence of his well-trained tongue was to fulfill Scripture. But there was another reason for His silence. Though Jesus was destined to preach on Good Friday, the message was not to be delivered in words. The language of this sermon was to be body language. Good Friday, according to Jewish reckoning, actually began at Sundown on Holy Thursday. So on the beginning of His final day, Jesus gave us the verbal caption of His last and greatest sermon: “This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, which is poured out for you.”

“I love you” is not so much something you say as something you demonstrate. Diamonds may be a moving testimony to love, but the laying down of one’s life is even more compelling. And though this life is human and therefore vulnerable, it is also divine and therefore infinite in value. A gift so valuable that it outweighs every offense committed from the dawn of time till the end of the world. An act so powerful that it melts hearts, opens the barred gates of paradise, and makes all things new.

How can we have a deeper conversation with God

Let me offer a 3-step plan:  1.)  Take Inventory, 2.) 
 Discern Your Desires, and 3.)  Take Baby Steps

1.)  Take Inventory.  Tonight, make a list of everything you are doing today in your spiritual life.  Write down if you go to Mass every Sunday, if you say prayers in the morning or evening, if you pray as a family before meals.  Be honest.  Maybe your list will only be as long as "Going to Mass on Sunday."  That's OK.  This isn't about feeling bad about where you are.  This is about understanding where you are today, so you can plan where you will go tomorrow.

2.)  Discern Your Desires.  Make another list.  On this list, write down where you'd like to go in your spiritual life.  Maybe you want to say a Rosary each day.  Maybe you want to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.  Maybe you want to go to confession more frequently.  Maybe you'd like 5 minutes of silent prayer with the Lord each day.  Prayerfully consider how you'd like to grow in your relationship with God and make a list of your desires.
3.)  Take Baby Steps.  I can't run a marathon.  But I can run to the refrigerator.  That's my baby step.  My friend, Fr. Jake Runyon just got back from a vacation in which he pedaled his bike around Lake Michigan!  870 miles!  Not exactly my idea of a vacation.  It wasn't Fr. Jake's first time on a bike.  He had to take baby steps to get to that point.  Often, when want to accomplish something, we will get super-ambitious and make big plans for ourselves and sometimes we will try to do to much too soon.  When that happens, we often fail and then we say, "Well, I guess prayer doesn't really work for me."  Or, "I guess I'm no good at prayer."  That's nonsense.  Take baby steps.  When I was in the seminary, I wanted to cultivate the habit of praying a Rosary each day, but I was failing.  So my advisor told me to pray one decade each day for a month.  Then 2 decades the next month and so on. 

And we've got an event coming up that can serve as a great launching pad for deepening your spiritual life.  It's a retreat called "The Sacred and the Ordinary: Uncovering God's Presence in Our Busy Family Lives."  You will learn how to recognize how God reveals Himself to us in our busy schedules and obligations.  It will take place Saturday, July 31st from 9AM-3PM in the St. Vincent's Spiritual Center.  There's a signup in the gathering space after Mass.

Taking baby steps forward in our spiritual life will deepen our conversation with God.  They will deepen our relationship with God.  We will all meet Him face-to-face one day.  When we do so, we want to meet a very good friend, not just a casual acquaintance.  Taking baby steps forward will help us be both Martha and Mary at the same time.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California

U2-Beautiful Day Lyrics

Where The Streets Have No Name (Studio Version)

Saint Andrew

Saint Andrew Biography

Saint Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus. He was the younger brother of Saint Peter and was born in Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. The brothers were fishermen by trade. Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he would make them “fishers of men.”

The Gospel of John teaches us much about St. Andrew who was originally a disciple of St. John the Baptist. When John pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Andrew understood that Jesus was greater and immediately left John to follow Jesus. He visited in Jesus’ home and later brought his brother Simon Peter, who Jesus also called to be an apostle.
It is believed that Saint Andrew and Saint Peter continued their trade as fishermen until Christ called them to a closer relationship, and they left all things to follow Jesus.
After Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, St. Andrew the Apostle preached the gospel in Asia Minor and in Scythia as far as Kiev.  Not much is mentioned in the Book of Acts regarding the life of Saint Andrew.

Saint Andrew was martyred by crucifixion at Patras in Achaea in Greece. Because St. Andrew deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross on which Christ had been crucified, he asked to be tied to a Crux decussata or an X shaped cross. The Apostle Andrew did not die right away but instead he was left to suffer for two days while he continued to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ until he finally died.
Although little is mentioned in the Book of Acts regarding the life of St. Andrew, much can be learned through St. Andrew's life. He and Saint Peter gave up their lifelong careers and lifestyles, leaving everything behind, to follow Jesus. Their undying faith in a difficult world is an inspiration to all Christians.
His relics consist of a small finger, the top of his cranium and pieces of the cross. These are kept in a shrine at the Church of St. Andrew in Patras.
Saint Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland, Russia and Greece. Scots celebrate Saint Andrew's Day around the world on the 30th of November. The flag of Scotland is the Cross of St. Andrew.

St. Peter's Basilica

The Basilica of St. Peter is a huge church in the Renaissance style located in Rome west of the River Tiber and near the Janiculum Hill and Hadrian's Mausoleum. Its central dome dominates the skyline of Rome. The basilica is approached via St Peter's Piazza, a forecourt in two sections, both surrounded by tall colonnades. The first space is oval and the second trapezoid. The facade of the basilica, with a giant order of columns, stretches across the end of the square and is approached by steps on which stand two 5.55 metres (18.2 ft) statues of the 1st century apostles to Rome, Saint Peter and Saint Paul.The basilica is cruciform in shape, with an elongated nave in the Latin cross form but the early designs were for a centrally planned structure and this is still in evidence in the architecture. The central space is dominated both externally and internally by one of the largest domes in the world. The entrance is through a narthex, or entrance hall, which stretches across the building. One of the decorated bronze doors leading from the narthex is the Holy Door, only opened in Holy Years. The interior is of vast dimensions by comparison with other churches. One author wrote: "Only gradually does it dawn upon us - as we watch people draw near to this or that monument, strangely they appear to shrink; they are, of course, dwarfed by the scale of everything in the building. This in its turn overwhelms us."

St. Peter's Basilica from the River Tiber. The iconic dome dominates the skyline of Rome.

There is a barrel-vaulted nave, the highest of any church, leading to the central dome. The aisles are lower and have a number of chapels off them. There are also chapels surrounding the central dome. Moving around the basilica in a clockwise direction they are: The Baptistery, the Chapel of the Presentation of the Virgin, the larger Choir Chapel, the Clementine Chapel with the altar of St Gregory, the Sacristy Entrance, the left transept with altars to the Crucifixion of St Peter, St Joseph and St Thomas, the altar of the Sacred Heart, the Chapel of the Madonna of Colonna, the altar of St Peter and the Paralytic, the apse with St Peter's Cathedra, the altar of St Peter raising Tabitha, the altar of the Archangel Michael, the altar of the Navicella, the right transept with altars of St Erasmus, Saints Processo and Martiniano, and St Wenceslas, the altar of St Basil, the Gregorian Chapel with the altar of the Madonna of Succour, the larger Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, the Chapel of St Sebastian and the Chapel of the Pieta.

The entire interior is lavishly decorated with marble, reliefs, architectural sculpture and gilding. The basilica contains a large number of tombs of popes and other notable people, many of which are considered outstanding artworks. There are also a number of sculptures in niches and chapels, including Michelangelo's Pieta. The central feature is a baldachin, or canopy over the Papal Altar, designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini. The sanctuary culminates in a sculptural ensemble, also by Bernini, and containing the symbolic Chair of St Peter.
One observer wrote: "St Peter's Basilica is the reason why Rome is still the center of the civilized world. For religious, historical, and architectural reasons it by itself justifies a journey to Rome, and its interior offers a palimpsest of artistic styles at their best..." The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson described St Peter's as "an ornament of the earth ....the sublime of the beautiful."

The Transfiguration

"After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There He was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters - one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.' (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: 'This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!' Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead" (Mark 9:2-9).

 


The account of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ as recorded here in Mark (parallel passages are found in Matthew 17:1-3 and Luke 9:28-36) is a demonstration to three witnesses that Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be. In all three accounts of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, we are given the names of the three disciples who accompanied Jesus and who stood as human witnesses to the glory that was Christ's. There were also three heavenly witnesses, Moses, Elijah, and the voice of God from heaven. Therefore, the Old Testament law of three witnesses required to attest to any fact (Deuteronomy 19:15) was satisfied both in earth and in heaven.

The word "transfigured" is a very interesting word. The Greek word is "metamorpho" and it means to transform, literally or figuratively to metamorphose, or to change. The word is a verb that means to change into another form. It also means to change the outside to match the inside. The prefix "meta" means to change and the "morphe" means form. In the case of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ it means to match the outside with the reality of the inside. To change the outward so that it matches the inward reality. Jesus' divine nature was "veiled" (Hebrews 10:20) in human form and the transfiguration was a glimpse of that glory. Therefore, the transfiguration of Jesus Christ displayed the Shekinah glory of God incarnate in the Son. The voice of God attesting to the truth of Jesus' Sonship was the second time God's voice was heard. The first time was at Jesus' baptism into His public ministry by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:7; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).

Therefore, the transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a unique display of His divine character and a glimpse of the glory, which Jesus had before He came to earth in human form. This truth is emphasized for us in a passage in the Apostle Paul's letter to Phillippi. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form (morphe) of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form (morphe) of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:5-11).

The Son of God came to earth in the form of a man to be the true servant of God and to gift mankind with the greatest gift ever given, eternal life. The transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a visible sign in the presence of reliable witnesses of the reality of the power of God and the glory, which is Christ Jesus.

The Ascension

The elevation of Christ into heaven by His own power in presence of His disciples the fortieth day after His Resurrection. It is narrated in Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
Although the place of the Ascension is not distinctly stated, it would appear from the Acts that it was Mount Olivet. Since after the Ascension the disciples are described as returning to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, within a Sabbath day's journey. Tradition has consecrated this site as the Mount of Ascension and Christian piety has memorialized the event by erecting over the site a basilica. St. Helena built the first memorial, which was destroyed by the Persians in 614, rebuilt in the eighth century, to be destroyed again, but rebuilt a second time by the crusaders. This the Moslems also destroyed, leaving only the octagonal structure which encloses the stone said to bear the imprint of the feet of Christ, that is now used as an oratory.
 

 
 
 
Not only is the fact of the Ascension related in the passages of Scripture cited above, but it is also elsewhere predicted and spoken of as an established fact. Thus, in John 6:63, Christ asks the Jews: "If then you shall see the son of Man ascend up where He was before?" and 20:17, He says to Mary Magdalen: "Do not touch Me, for I am not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brethren, and say to them: I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God." Again, in Ephesians 4:8-10, and in Timothy 3:16, the Ascension of Christ is spoken of as an accepted fact.
The language used by the Evangelists to describe the Ascension must be interpreted according to usage. To say that He was taken up or that He ascended, does not necessarily imply that they locate heaven directly above the earth; no more than the words "sitteth on the right hand of God" mean that this is His actual posture. In disappearing from their view "He was raised up and a cloud received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9), and entering into glory He dwells with the Father in the honour and power denoted by the scripture phrase.

Saint Patrick

Feastday: March 17
Patron of Ireland
b. 387 d.461

St. Patrick of Ireland is one of the world's most popular saints.

Apostle of Ireland, born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in the year 387; died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, 17 March, 461.

Along with St. Nicholas and St. Valentine, the secular world shares our love of these saints. This is also a day when everyone's Irish.

There are many legends and stories of St. Patrick, but this is his story.

Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britian in charge of the colonies.

As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him.

During his captivity, he turned to God in prayer. He wrote

"The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same." "I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."

Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family.

He had another dream in which the people of Ireland were calling out to him "We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more."

He began his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained by St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre, whom he had studied under for years.

Later, Patrick was ordained a bishop, and was sent to take the Gospel to Ireland. He arrived in Ireland March 25, 433, at Slane. One legend says that he met a chieftain of one of the tribes, who tried to kill Patrick. Patrick converted Dichu (the chieftain) after he was unable to move his arm until he became friendly to Patrick.

Patrick began preaching the Gospel throughout Ireland, converting many. He and his disciples preached and converted thousands and began building churches all over the country. Kings, their families, and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity when hearing Patrick's message.

Patrick by now had many disciples, among them Beningnus, Auxilius, Iserninus, and Fiaac, (all later canonized as well).

Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.

He died at Saul, where he had built the first church.

Why a shamrock?

Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and has been associated with him and the Irish since that time.

In His Footsteps:

Patrick was a humble, pious, gentle man, whose love and total devotion to and trust in God should be a shining example to each of us. He feared nothing, not even death, so complete was his trust in God, and of the importance of his mission.