The Boy of Faith

Mass on Presidio in an unoccupied classroom...
But the ashes are the same regardless!  

This year the date of this saint falls on Ash Wednesday...the day set aside to remember that we are all sinners and need to seek God's mercy.  We have ashes placed on our foreheads and hear the words,

"Remember you are dust,
and to dust you shall return."

For today's saint, these words must have been a comfort knowing that he would not only return to dust but be raised to heaven as a martyr for the Lord he loved.

Blessed Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio

Feast Day: February 10
Born: 1913
Death: 1928
Mexico

Jose was born during a tumultuous time for his country.  The Christians of Mexico were being persecuted by the newly formed Communist government.  The Cristero Wars had begun and young Jose did not know life without the struggles for the faith.

From a young age Jose had a great love and enthusiasm for the Blessed Sacrament, and encouraged his friends to have more devotion to Our Lord and Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Whenever Jose heard of the glorious battles of the Cristeros, which his two brothers were engaged in, his desire to join the holy army grew.  Finally, Jose wrote a letter to one of the Cristero Generals, Prudencio Mendoza, pleading to be allowed to fight. The general finally agreed...Jose was only 14 years old.

During a battle, Jose was rushing to bring a fellow soldier a new supply of ammo.  Just then, he caught sight of the General whose horse had been shot dead.  On foot, without a horse, the General was extremely vulnerable.  Making a sacrifice that would ultimately cost him his life, Jose freely gave the general his own horse.  Moments later, Jose was caught by the federalists and locked up in a church sacristy that had been turned into a prison.

Jose, knowing he would die for the faith, secretly asked for the Eucharist to be brought to him to strengthen his soul for martyrdom.

On the way to execution, soldiers struck him savagely with sharp machetes.  With every blow, the young boy cried out, "Viva Cristo Rey!"  When he got to the cemetery, he was bleeding heavily.  His torturers had also cut off the soles of his feet and forced him to walk on salt.  The boy screamed with pain but would not give in.  As the road was nothing but rocks and dirt, the stones where he had walked were soaked in his blood.  The soldiers said:  "If you shout, ‘Death to Christ the King’, we will spare your life."  He only answered: "Long live Christ the King! Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe!"

The commander ordered the soldiers to bayonet Jose.  They pierced his body.   But with every stab he only shouted louder and louder: "Viva Cristo Rey!"  The commander was so enraged that he pulled out his pistol and on February 10, 1928 killed Blessed Jose on the spot.

The martyrdom was witnessed by two children, one of seven years and the other nine, who later became founders of religious congregations. One of them is the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.  The other witness to the events was the nine year old Enrique Amezcua Medina, founder of the Priestly Confraternity of the Operators of the Kingdom of Christ.

He was declared a martyr and beatified in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. People have given him the title of The Martyr of Sahuayo and The Martyr of Christ the King.

For some, you might remember the appearance of Jose in the recent movie about the Cristero Wars, For Greater Glory (2012).  However dramatic the movie made his death, the true story is so much more...and the ability to unify the faithful after his death was monumental.  We have actually enjoyed the story of his life told by Glory Stories (listen on line!), which also includes a testimony from the young boys who witnessed his death.

A Saint from Wales

You might not have heard of today's saint (I know I had not until now.) but he was a very important bishop of his day.

St. Teilo of Wales

Feast day: February 9
Birth: 500
Death: 560
Penalun

Teilo (also known by his Cornish name Eliud) had great inspiration for his faith journey in his family of saints (father, St. Issel; and uncles, Sts. Ismael and Euddogwy).  In some accounts, he is of a royal family who claims another saint in their ancestry (St. David).  To further his faith, Teilo was also educated by saints.

Along with companions, he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  Upon his return, Teilo succeeded the previous bishop who retired to a hermitage. Teilo founded the first church in Llandaff, headed a monastic school, and become bishop over Glywysing & Gwent.

In the 540s yellow plague affected Britain, so Teilo, with a small group of monks, moved to Brittany.  He stayed in Brittany for seven years and seven months.  During this time, Teilo and his followers are said to have planted three miles of fruit trees.  To this day the fruit groves they planted are known as the groves of Teilo and Samson.

A funny legend has it that Teilo was asked to subdue a belligerent winged dragon, which he tamed and tied to a rock in the sea off Brittany.

After his return to Llandaff, he continued to serve the community for several years before his death around 560.

Martyr without Teeth

I chose to talk about this saint because of my recent intercession to her while preparing for a root canal.  Who is to say if she listened to me.  All I know is that the procedure was not near as bad as I thought it was going to be and I am not feeling pain in my teeth any more!  Praise God!

St. Apollonia

Feast day: February 9
Birth:  ??
Death: 249
Patron against dental disease and toothaches
Rome

We learn the story of Apollonia from the bishop to the region, Dionysius.  He wrote about many people in Alexandria who were suffering during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Emperor Decius.  He wrote of Apollonia:

"At that time Apollonia was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of wood and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words [either a blasphemy against Christ, or an invocation of the heathen gods]. Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death."

In his eyes, she was as much a martyr as the others, and as such she was revered in the Alexandrian Church. In time, her feast was also popular in the West.

Apollonia is popularly invoked against the toothache because of the torments she had to endure. She is represented in art with pincers in which a tooth is held.

Saint Who Transformed From Suffering

Today's saint was born just after the end of the Civil War in the United States; however, she would not have her freedom like the slaves in the United States.  She would wait until her adulthood to be free as she was living in Italy.

St. Josephine Bakhita

Feast day: February 8
Birth: 1869
Death: 1947
Sudan (slave and freed in Italy)

Josephine was born into the prestigious Daju people; her well respected father was brother of the village chief. She was surrounded by a loving family of three brothers and three sisters; as she says in her autobiography: "I lived a very happy and carefree life, without knowing what suffering."

Sometime between the age of seven to nine, she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders, who already had kidnapped her elder sister two years earlier. She was cruelly forced to walk barefoot about 600 miles, and was already sold and bought twice before she arrived at her destination. Over the course of twelve years (1877–1889), she was resold again three more times and then given away. It is said that the trauma of her abduction caused her to forget her own name.  When she was forced to become Muslim, she took on the name given to her by the slavers, bakhita, Arabic for lucky.

Josephine was bought by a very rich Arab merchant who employed her as a maid in service to his two daughters. They liked her and treated her well. But after offending one of her owner's sons, possibly for breaking a vase, the son lashed and kicked her so severely that she spent more than a month unable to move from her straw bed.

She was then sold to a Turkish general and she had to serve his mother-in-law and his wife who both were very cruel to all their slaves.  It was here that she was also scarred with intricate designs on her body by the master's wife.  Bakhita says: "During all the years I stayed in that house, I do not recall a day, that passed without some wound or other. When a wound from the whip began to heal, other blows would pour down on me".

In 1882, a war broke out in the region, and her master, in his haste to leave, began to sell his slaves in great numbers.  However, he held back ten slaves to be sold at a later destination.  Josephine was one of these ten.  She was then sold to an Italian consul, who didn’t use the lash when giving orders and treated her in a loving and kind way.

Two years later, when he had to return to Italy, Josephine begged to go with him. By the end of 1884 they escaped with a friend of the consul, Augusto Michieli. They traveled 400 miles on camel back to to the largest port of Sudan, and arrived at the Italian port of Genoa. They were met there by Augusto Michieli's wife Signora Maria. In grateful thanksgiving for safe travel, the consul gave the enslavement of Josephine as a present. Her new masters took her to their family villa.  She lived there for three years and became nanny to their daughter Alice, known as Mimmina.  The Michielis brought her with them to the Sudan for nine months before returning to Italy.

In 1888, her life would be forever changed, when her master decided to purchase a hotel in Sudan.  His wife felt she should be with her husband, but for safety reasons left Josephine and Alice in the care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice.  When she returned to take them both to Suakin, Josephine refused to leave.  The superior of the institute for Catechumenates complained to the Italian authorities.

In 1889 an Italian court ruled that, because the British had induced Sudan to outlaw slavery before her birth and because Italian law did not recognize slavery, Josephine had never legally been a slave.  For the first time in her life she was in control of her own destiny. She chose to remain with the nuns.  In 1890 she was baptized with the names of Josephine Margaret and Fortunata (which is the Latin translation for the Arabic Bakhita). On the same day she was also confirmed and received Holy Communion from the Archbishop of Sarto and Cardinal Patriarch of Venice...the future Pope Pius X.

She would later enter into the novitiate and then the full veil by 1896.  She was always kind and generous regardless of the job she was given.   Her special charisma and reputation for sanctity were noticed by her order.  The first publication of her story in 1931, made her famous throughout Italy.  During the Second World War (1939–1945) she shared the fears and hopes of the town people, who considered her a saint and felt protected by her mere presence.

A young student once asked Bakhita: "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" Without hesitation she responded: "If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today."

Her last years were marked by pain and sickness. She used a wheelchair, but she retained her cheerfulness, and if asked how she was, she would always smile and answer "as the Master desires". In the extremity of her last hours her mind was driven back to the years of her slavery and she cried out "The chains are too tight, loosen them a little, please!". After a while she came round again. Someone asked her: "How are you? Today is Saturday". "Yes, I am so happy: Our Lady... Our Lady!". These were her last audible words.  She died soon after in 1947 and thousands came to her funeral.

In May 1992 news of her beatification was banned by Khartoum which Pope John Paul II then personally visited only nine months later.  On 10 February 1993, facing all risks, surrounded by an immense crowd in the huge Green Square of the capital of Sudan, he solemnly honored Josephine on her own soil. "Rejoice, all of Africa! Bakhita has come back to you. The daughter of Sudan sold into slavery as a living piece of merchandise and yet still free. Free with the freedom of the saints."

Pope Benedict XVI, on 30 November 2007, in the beginning of his second encyclical letter Spe Salvi (In Hope We Were Saved), relates her entire life story as an outstanding example of the Christian hope.

The Nomadic Peacemaker

When all others failed, today's saint brought peace to conflicted political region.  Maybe we need to pray to him for guidance in our country split by political issues.

St. Moses

Feast day: February 7
Born:  ??
Died: 389
Arabia

Saint Moses, also known as the "Apostle of the Saracens" was a 4th century hermit living at the edge of the Roman Empire on the border between Egypt and Syria.  There is little known about his time prior to his hermitage years.

He spent much of his time traveling and preaching in the desert wilderness and caring for the local nomadic tribes. He gained a large number of followers among the Monophysites, and especially among Arabs.

When the Romans imposed peace upon the Saracens, Queen Mavia, the Saracen ruler, promised peace with the Roman Empire in exchange for the appointment of Moses as bishop over her people.  The Emperor Valens accepted the terms of the truce, and Moses was appointed bishop, but had no fixed geographic diocese, instead traveling with these nomadic people and converting a good number of them.

Moses refused to be ordained by the Arian patriarchal see at Alexandria (considered invalid because of his Arian beliefs), instead choosing to be consecrated by orthodox bishops living in exile. He worked to keep peace between the various tribes and with the Romans.

Japanese Martyr

Today's saint along with his companions gave the ultimate price for the spreading of the Christian faith in Japan.

St. Paul Miki and companions

Feast day:  February 6
Born: 1562
Died: 1597
Japan

Paul was the son of a Japanese military leader.  He was educated by the Jesuits and in 1850 joined the order himself. He became a well known and successful preacher - gaining numerous converts to Catholicism.

Paul and the others were arrested and forced to march 600 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki; all the while singing the Te Deum.  He preached his last sermon from the cross, and it is maintained that he forgave his executioners, stating that he himself was Japanese.

He was crucified with twenty-five other Catholics during the persecution of Christians in the name of the emperor.

Among the Japanese laymen who suffered the same fate were:

• Francis, a carpenter who was arrested while watching the executions and then crucified; 
• Gabriel, the 19 year old son of the Franciscan's porter; 
• Leo Kinuya, a 28 year old carpenter from Miyako; 
• Diego Kisai (or Kizayemon), temporal coadjutor of the Jesuits; 
• Joachim Sakakibara, cook for the Franciscans at Osaka; 
• Peter Sukejiro, sent by a Jesuit priest to help the prisoners, who was then arrested; 
• Cosmas Takeya from Owari, who had preached in Osaka; 
• Ventura from Miyako, who had been baptized by the Jesuits, gave up his Catholicism on the death of his father, became a bonze, and was brought back to the Church by the Franciscans
• Joan Soan (de Gotó), Jesuit 
• and Santiago Kisai, Jesuit

Little Pure Martyr

If you need a saint that did not waiver in her faith in spite of many days of torture, today's saint is the one for you.

St. Agatha

Feast day: February 5
Birth:  231
Death: 251
Patron: Bell-founders; breast cancer; against fire; earthquakes; jewelers; rape victims
Sicily

Born into a wealthy family, yet she showed humility and chastity at a very young age.  Agatha dedicated herself to God as a virgin when she was a young child.  Even in her youth, her parents had suitors come to ask for her in marriage.

One such suitor was Quintian, a man of high rank who felt he could force her to change her persistent resolve.  Knowing she was a Christian in a time of persecution, he had her arrested and brought before the courts where he would in fact be the judge.  He expected her to give in to when faced with torture and possible death, but she simply affirmed her belief in God by praying:

"Jesus Christ, Lord of all, you see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am. I am your sheep: make me worthy to overcome the devil."

She was then placed in a brothel in hopes that the seductions of those around her would change her mind.  When she continued to profess her faith in Jesus, Quintian had her tortured. He refused her any medical care but God gave her all the care she needed in the form of a vision of St. Peter. When she was tortured again, she died after saying a final prayer:

"Lord, my Creator, you have always protected me from the cradle; you have taken me from the love of the world and given me patience to suffer. Receive my soul."

Because one of the tortures she supposedly suffered was to have her breasts cut off, she was often depicted carrying her breasts on a plate. It is thought that blessing of the bread that takes place on her feast may have come from the mistaken notion that she was carrying loaves of bread.