St. Gemma Galgani

Gemma Umberta Pia Galgani
(1878-1903)

Gemma Galgani died on Holy Saturday, 1903 in Lucca, Italy. Her death should have been completely unnoticed. She was often sickly in her 25 years of life and had to be taken care of. She left no children or family/. No hospitals, schools or any human achievement bear her name. Disappointments marked her life at every turn. She never got her wish to enter the Passionist Nuns or any other religious community.

Yet, at the news of her death on Holy Saturday, her neighbors gathered quickly in the Lucca’s ancient streets proclaiming “A saint has died.” Today in the Easter season we’re celebrating her feast.

Holy Saturday, the day after Jesus suffered and died, is the day before Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples. They report that he ate and drank with them for some days before ascending into heaven. He showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. He appeared to them, not just to prove he was alive, but affirm his love for them and for the whole world. He promised life. 

Gemma knew the mysteries of Jesus’ death and resurrection in a special way. She spoke familiarly with the Risen Jesus, as we see from her writings, and in a unique way she bore his wounds in her body.

“Poor Gemma”, she called herself; but she was’t poor. Frail in body and mind, she wasn’t a  failure. In declaring her a saint, Pope Pius XII said that Gemma experienced what the great apostle Paul experienced: “I have been crucified with Christ and the life that I live is not my own: Christ lives in me.

The stigmata, the bodily experience of the wounds of Christ, is a rare experience. It was not reason Gemma was declared a saint. Her heroic life of faith, patience and humility revealed her union with Christ, living in her.

The stigmata is a rare experience given to individuals, but it’s not meant for individuals themselves; it’s given to strengthen the belief of many. In Gemma’s time, “enlightened” thinkers like Freud and Jung were beginning to explore the human person. They were little concerned with God’s presence in human life. They would likely have dismissed Gemma’s spiritual experiences as delusional. A number of  Lucca’s “enlightened” people had that opinion of her.

Gemma’s Passionist spiritual director, Father Germano, was introduced to her while preaching in Lucca. He saw God working in her. The church concurred in his judgment by declaring Gemma a saint in 1940.

Many today still define humanity in human terms and sees success here on earth as our ultimate goal. Gemma is a strong reminder of God’s presence in humanity, in ordinary people, even in unsuccessful, imperfect people. Her devotion to the Passion of Jesus gave her a deep sense that Jesus loved her and lived in her.  She saw her life fulfilled in him and she believed his promise of life beyond this. 

Many today think the spiritual world faraway; for Gemma it wasn’t faraway at all– saints and angels, Jesus himself, were ever at her side. She once wrote: “Often I seem to be alone; but really I have Jesus as my companion…I am the fruit of your passion, Jesus, born of your wounds. O Jesus, seek me in love; I no longer possess anything; you have stolen my heart.”

We’re not alone. Jesus Christ is our companion as well.

You can get St. Gemma’s Autobiography or a The Life of St. Gemma Galgani by writing to the Passionist Nuns, 1151 Donaldson Highway, Erlanger, Kentucky 41018
(859)371 8568

“Then one day I became very discouraged because I saw that it was impossible for me to become a Passionist, because I have nothing at alI: all I have is a great desire to be one. I suffer much seeing myself so far from realizing my desires. No one will be able to take this desire away from me. But when will it come about?” Letter to Germano

Gemm’a buried at the Convent of the Passionist Nuns in Lucca, Italy. The house where she lived before she died has been turned into a museum honoring her. Both places worth a visit.

Her feast day is May 16th.

Mystagogic Catechesis: Learning from Signs

This week we’re coming to the end of the Easter season and the time devoted especially to Mystagogic Catechesis. Mystagogic Catechesis is a big term for describing a catechesis for recognizing Jesus Christ in signs. It comes from the time when Jesus after his resurrection began to wean his followers away from knowing him physically to knowing him through signs, like water, bread and wine, like gathering together to remember him in the scriptures, like seeing him in the poor and suffering who are wounded like him, also seeing his plan in the signs of the times they were living in.

 Even though “they rejoiced at the sight of the Lord” the disciples of Jesus found this new way hard to understand. They saw Jesus physically less and less. We can see their uneasiness, their questioning, in the resurrection narratives and in the Last Supper Discourse we read in the Easter season. They find it hard to see him in another way, through signs.

In their catechetical sermons after easter, saints like Ambrose and Cyril of Jerusalem saw a similar unease in the newly baptized they’re talking to.  “Is this it?” St. Ambrose begins one his catechetical sermons to newly baptized Christians.  “Is this it? You’re saying to yourself.” The Christian life is not Paradise, the saint reminds them.  The Christian life here on earth is not seeing completely or knowing everything clearly. The Christian life is a life of signs, signs that come with the sign of the cross.

Following the Second Vatican Council, the church gave Mystagogic Catechesis a more prominent place in her liturgy. In the past, Mystagogic Catechesis took place in the one week after Easter and was focused on the newly baptized. 

In the church’s liturgy now Mystagogic Catechesis does not take place for just one week, but for all through the Easter season, and beyond the Easter season to every Sunday celebration. It is meant, not just for the newly baptized, but for the whole Christian community.

Mystagogic Catechesis is not limited to the seven sacraments, but is sacramental in the broad sense the early church understood the term. For example, it sees the church as a sacrament.  That’s why we read the Acts of the Apostles all through the Easter season, to understand the mystery of the  church. 

The church’s promotion of Mystagogic Catechesis also brings a shift in catechesis and preaching.  Mystagogic Catechesis is based on the scriptures, rites and prayers of the liturgy, not the catechism. It moves us into another way of teaching and praying. Not a new way, but a way found in the early church and in the church up to the Council of Trent. 

Mystagogic Catechesis puts an emphasis on the liturgy, its prayers, readings and signs, as the preeminent place where we learn and pray. “Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations…The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. (SC 7, 10)

St. Isidore, the Farmer: May 15

Usually the church celebrates saints’ feast days on the day of their death, but Isidore, the Farmer’s feast is celebrated May 15, when farmers begin sowing spring time seed in their fields. He is the patron of farmers and agricultural workers and also patron of Madrid, Spain.

Isidore was born into a poor family in Madrid about 1080 and worked for a rich landowner all of his life. He was a strong Christian who began his work with prayer, often at Mass, and prayed often during the day as he plowed the fields and cared for the farm.  With the little he had he took care of the poor. He and his wife, Maria, always had something ready in their home  for someone hungry and in need. 

Isidore loved God’s creation and the creatures that belonged to it. They say one winter day as he was carrying some grain from the storehouse he saw some hungry birds searching for food. He spilled out half the grain to feed them and, miraculously, when he arrived home the bags were still full.

You can see why he’s the patron of farmers and agricultural workers. In the United States he’s patron of the Catholic Rural Life Ministry started in 1923 to foster the spirituality of people living in rural America.

Lord God, all creation is yours, and you call us to serve you by caring for the gifts that surround us. May the example of Saint Isidore urge us to share our food with the hungry and to work for the salvation of all.. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Feast of St. Matthias: May 13

May 14th is the Feast of St.Matthias, chosen by lot to take the place of Judas. Appropriately, the feast falls in the Easter season, the time he was selected. Matthias brings the number of apostles back to twelve, symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel who await the promises of God. The Spirit comes after Matthias is selected in Luke’s account.

The qualifications for a new apostle seem simple enough. Peter says it should be someone “who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us. He joins us as a witness to his resurrection.”

Two have those qualifications. Joseph called Barsabbas and Matthias.

Then, they pray:
“You, Lord, who know the hearts of all,
show which one of these two you have chosen.”
Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias,
and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.” (Acts 1,15-17, 20-25)

Yet, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. To be a witness to Jesus it wasn’t enough to get all the details right about what Jesus did or said, as a reporter or witness at a trial might do. In John’s gospel read for Matthias’ feast, Jesus describes a disciple as one who abides in him, who remains in him– a friend committed to him. So, a disciple cannot be just an on-looker, but one who enters the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He’s one who weathers doubts and uncertainties as the disciples listening to Jesus’ Farewell Discourse did. He’s like Thomas who sees the wounds in the Lord’s hands and side and learns to trust and believe through them.

I think also that the disciples of Jesus were conscious of their own failures as they selected Matthias. They thought Jesus was the key to an earthly kingdom, but he was not. Surely, they wanted someone who looked beyond their vision as a successor for Judas. They were looking for someone with a new vision of things.

Rembrandt’s wonderful portrayal of Jesus showing his wounds to Thomas (above) presents Thomas, not as a lonely skeptic, but someone representing all the disciples. All the disciples must look at Jesus’ wounds.

Pope Francis in a homily  spoke of the importance of the wounds of Christ for a disciple of Jesus. We’re on an exodus beyond ourselves, he said, and there are two ways open for us. “one to the wounds of Jesus, the other to the wounds of our brothers and sisters.”

“If we are not able to move out of ourselves and toward our brothers and sisters in need, to the sick, the ignorant, the poor, the exploited – if we are not able to accomplish this exodus from ourselves, and towards those wounds, we shall never learn that freedom, which carries us through that other exodus from ourselves, and toward the wounds of Jesus.”

The wounds of Christ and the wounds of our brothers and sisters– we learn from both to see victory over death and to trust in the passion of Jesus.

Like Matthias, we’re called to be witnesses..

Mary’s Visits: Fatima

When Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth she said “all generations shall call me blessed, the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” All generations know her; occasionally over the years Mary visits some in apparitions. 

Three prominent apparitions of Mary have occurred in the last 500 years commemorated in major Marian shrines –in Mexico City, Lourdes and Fatima. In 1531, she appeared to the Mexican peasant Juan Diego on a hillside outside of Mexico City. In 1858 Mary appeared to 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes in France as she was gathering firewood. In 1917 Mary appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima in Portugal. These are major pilgrimage sites today. Three liturgical feasts in our church calendar honor these apparitions.

The depictions of Mary in art follow closely, if not perfectly, the accounts the visionaries gave of the apparitions. Mary, arms folded in prayer, prays for her children on earth and she encourages them to pray with her.  

The statue of Our Lady of Lourdes made by Fabisch in 1864 and placed in the grotto at Lourdes in France is a model for the many statues of Our Lady of Lourdes in churches and shrines throughout the world. We have one in our Lourdes Grotto in Jamaica, NY. (below)

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Various images of Our Lady of Fatima exist; we have one in our monastery chapel.(above) Her bright white garments witness to the glory the visionaries saw surrounding her. She brings the glory of heaven to brighten the earth, as Jesus did at his transfiguration. “And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” (Mark 9:2-3)

Images of Our Lady of Guadalupe show her in the native dress of the time; she identifies with the native peoples then under colonial subjugation.

Contemporaries of Bernadette and the children of Fatima faced trials of another kind than the native peoples of Mexico. Secularizing governments promoted unbelief in society and wars were increasing in number and intensity. Mary’s appearances were not only the occasion of physical cures and healing. To ordinary people then and afterwards Mary’s appearances brought reassurance and renewed faith in the promise of God’s glorious power and presence. Their faith was real.

In his letter Laudato si’ Pope Francis calls upon Mary to visit us today as we struggle to care for the earth we have neglected. I like this image of Mary, holding her Son, which we have in our Mary Garden. Creation seems to raise its voice in praise. Her Son, Jesus Christ, offers us life-giving Wisdom. “We can ask her to enable us to look at this world with eyes of wisdom,” the pope says. May she hold in her hand our wounded world.

7th Week of Easter: Readings and Feasts

The readings and feasts of this week are a wonderful preparation for the Feast of Pentecost on Sunday.

The Apostle Paul, in Luke’s readings from the Acts of the Apostles, hurries through the Roman world in answer to the command of Jesus:  “Go out into the whole world and preach the gospel. ”  He’s inspired by the Spirit, like Jesus.

Like Jesus, Paul bids farewell to his followers, the elders from Ephesus, and urges them to continue the ministry given to them by the Spirit. ( Tuesday and Wednesday) “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them. So be vigilant.”

Like Jesus, Paul must go up to Jerusalem (then to Rome). “ Compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know, except that in one city after another the Holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me. Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course.

Paul experiences the passion of Jesus as he clashes with the Jewish leadership and appears before the Roman tribunal where Festus, judging him innocent yet in a quandary over the religious issues that are raised, sends Paul, at his own request, to be judged by the Emperor in Rome. (Thursday and Friday)

In the gospel readings through the week  from John,  Jesus bids farewell to his disciples and promises to be with them, no matter what. “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world.” (Monday) He will send them his Spirit.

“I pray for them,” Jesus says.  “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you preserve them from the Evil One.” (Wednesday) “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (Thursday)

Friday and Saturday’s gospel readings from John takes us to the Lake of Galilee where Jesus commissions his apostle Peter to feed his sheep. Peter will stretch out his hands and be led where he did not want to go–“signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.” Paul too will be led to death like Peter. He will follow Jesus.

We’re called to go through our world and fulfill the mission God gives us, The Lord prays for us and helps us as we go.

7th Sunday of Easter

For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

Today’s Readings: www.usccb.org

If we look carefully at our readings at Sunday Mass we can always find ourselves and the world we live in. . Today, for example, in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we see a church rebuilding after the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, rebuilding from a failure.

They’re rebuilding from a scandal created by Judas, who betrayed Jesus and then killed himself. Peter says to the early Christian community, that it’s time to deal with Judas,

“who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was numbered among us and was allotted a share in this ministry. “ We need someone to take his place.

Judas must have been a problem for the early church. The gospels  put him at the end of the list of apostles and tell us  he’s the one who betrayed Jesus, but Judas must have been an important disciple, not one of the least. For one thing, the gospels indicate he was in charge of their money. Which means he was someone they trusted. He must have been a talented man.

He certainly knew what was going on at the time. He could see the handwriting on the wall. The enemies of Jesus were going to put him to death. Judas must have been a shrewd judge of the time, a smart man. Yet,  despite all the good he had seen Jesus do, despite all the words he had heard say,  whatever went on his mind, he betrayed Jesus. 

He wasn’t the only one. All of Jesus’ disciples failed him.  When his enemies arrested him and put him to death, they all left him and fled.  Peter, who in our first reading is calling for a replacement for Judas in our reading today, cursed and swore that he never knew Jesus.  He could have just as well call for a replacement of himself.

The other disciples also failed him.  They all knew they  were involved in the massive scandal of the Cross. I think that any corporation today experiencing a scandal like that  would fire its president and its board of directors and get somebody else. 

I wonder if we could see in the way they elected a successor to Judas the sense of  insecurity that all the disciples had.  They were all involved, they were all complicit, in the death of Jesus. They’re not sure who they should chose, so they cast lots.

But Jesus didn’t fire them, he gave them new life and new responsibilities and a new vision.

I said at the beginning, we can always find ourselves and the world we live in in our readings at Mass. This certainly can apply to our church with its scandals and failures.  

But also there are scandals and failures in our world and so many of the institutions in our world. Right now, for example, the world is spending trillions of dollars on arming itself with every kind of instrument of war and mass destruction. We’re perfecting the art of war and throwing peace away, while so many die of starvation and lack of the common supports of life. We are living in a world filled with scandals and failures.

That’s why it’so important to listen to our gospel today, another reading that tells us about ourselves and the world we live in.

Jesus prays for his disciples at the Last Supper, even as he knows they will fail him.  When he rises from the dead and ascends into heaven he still prays for them and for us and for all the world. When Jesus ascends into heaven he doesn’t forget us. “I will not leave you orphans,” he told his disciples and he tells us.  He remembers  the church he founded and the world he came to save. He prays and his restoring grace is given.

When we come to church to pray we enter into the prayer of Jesus. He is praying for us and the world we live in. He prays for us in heaven as he prayed for us on earth. 

“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me,

so that they may be one just as we are one…

I do not ask that you take them out of the world

but that you keep them from the evil one…

As you sent me into the world,

so I sent them into the world.

And I consecrate myself for them,

so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

Voice of the Faithful

Apollos is mentioned  in Saturday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (18,23-28).   He reminds us that Peter, Paul and the other apostles were not the only teachers in the early church. Others brought the message of Christ to the cities and towns of the Roman Empire. Apollos was one of them.

He’s an eloquent, learned teacher who came to Ephesus from Alexandria, one of the great centers of Jewish and Christian learning, and he drew a following by preaching about Jesus. But Apollos doesn’t know everything, so a Jewish couple, Priscilla and Acquila, “took him aside and explained to him the Way of God more accurately.”

They were disciples of Paul who supported him with a job in their tent business. They traveled with Paul and certainly listened to his teaching, but I don’t think they were ever considered teachers as he and Apollos were. They were considered “hearers of the word,” more likely. Well informed, for sure, but still among those we would call today “the faithful.”

Yet, let’s not forget what important teachers “the faithful” are, as Priscilla and Aquila remind us.

I remember a story a brilliant priest told me long ago about a baptism he was conducting for an infant born to a member of his family. His father was the baby’s sponsor and according to the rite then was expected to recite the Creed.

“Can you say the Creed, Dad?” the priest said to his father.

“Who do you think taught it to you?,” the father sharply replied.

Faith can’t survive in this world without the faithful, ordinary Priscillas and Aquilas explaining it and  passing it on. It begins with parents, godparents and family passing on the faith to children. It continues in daily life as ordinary Christians share their faith with others. The church today needs to strongly acknowledge this key mission of the laity.

Pope Francis is urging the laity to speak out in his call for a synodal church.

Seedtime in Our Mary Garden

Springtime is a busy time in our Mary Garden. Birds fly in to the fountain to drink, a stray cat wanders through occasionally ready to pounce on one of them. Insects, a solitary butterfly, flit through the spring flowers. But seeds are our main visitors these days, seeds in abundance, mostly from the Norway Maples, oaks and conifers, but there are others. Small seedlings we didn’t plant and don’t recognize are showing up all over our garden floor.

“We live in a world of seeds. From our morning coffee or bagel to the cotton clothes we wear and the cup of cocoa we might drink before bed, seeds surround us all the day long.” Thor Hanson writes in his delightful book, “Seeds” (New York, 2016) 

Seeds are the way plants reproduce, and this is that time. Hanson describes a seed as “a baby in a box with its lunch.” They come in all shapes and sizes. Seeds from our Norway Maples have wings; the conifers send our their seeds in armored cars. They come in abundance. Some of these babies will be grow to be maples and conifers.

 

Here we are in spring, seed time, an abundant time. The seeds tell us that. Do we also learn from them about God, a Springtime God, a Seedtime God? 

Seeds nourish, unite, endure, defend, travel, Hanson says in his book. They’re traveling now. Grasses, like wheat and rye and others, travel most. They’re built to travel far, every where.

Early Christian commentaries often speak of the Bread of the Eucharist made up of so many grains of wheat. They’re seeds gathered into Jesus Christ, and then scattered again to bring life wherever they go, everywhere. Our gardens and the earth at springtime are a book to learn from.

These days were rogation days in our previous church calendar. Today we shouldn’t forget to ask for God’s blessing by blessing our fields, our gardens, our backyards. There’s a beautiful blessing prayer in the church’s Book of Blessings, which begins by recalling scripture readings, like the parables of Jesus- the sower, the mustard seed, etc…

From despair in time of drought… Deliver us, O Lord.

From wastefulness in times of plenty…Deliver us, O Lord.

From neglect of those in need…Deliver us, O Lord.

From blindness to your presence in our world…Deliver us, O Lord.

From hunger and thirst…Deliver us, O Lord.

Lord of the harvest, you placed the gift of creation in our hands and called us to till the earth and make it fruitful, We ask your blessings as we place these seeds and plants in the earth, May the care we show them remind us of the tender care you give your people. Amen.

Reinterpreting Life

Reinterpreting life is at the heart of the Easter mystery. It calls us to see life differently. Like the artist who reinterpreted the Cross on Calvary and made it the glorious sign we see above, we’re called to reinterpret the Calvary of our world today. Listen to the 4th century Saint Ephrem the Syrian:

Glory be to you, Lord,
You raised your cross like a bridge to span the jaws of death, that we might go from the land of death to the land of the living.
Glory be to you, Lord,
You took on a human body that every human being might live.

You are alive. Those who killed you sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, and it sprang up and brought forth an abundant harvest of human beings from the dead.

Come, brothers and sisters, let’s offer our love. Pour out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered himself on the cross to enrich us all.”

Reinterpreting life through the mystery of the Cross is at the heart of the charism of my community, the Passionists. In our Mary Garden here at the monastery, Mary stands with her Son on the stump of a cedar tree. A dead tree, yet brought to life by the presence of Jesus carried in Mary’s arms.

The Cross of Jesus helps us see life in our world, a “Faithful Cross” it’s called in an ancient hymn. And it is.

There is so much death in our world today. We need to reinterpret our time by the light of the mystery of the Cross of Jesus.