Butler's Lives of the Saints Page 4

  Bosco’s doctors warned him that he was wearing himself out and needed to find time for total rest. He never took their advice. Two years later, before daylight on January 31, 1888, he died.

  FEBRUARY 1

  Brigid of Ireland (? 450– ? 525)

  Love is a spendthrift

  Brigid is a saint with almost no existing historical record. Most of what we have about her is legendary and rooted in Irish pagan folklore. Her fifth-century birthplace may have been near Kildare, Ireland, and it is possible that St. Patrick (see March 17) baptized her.

  Religion in Ireland was going through a radical transition from paganism to Christianity in the time of Brigid. The tales about her seem to reflect that tension. Her name is that of the Celtic sun goddess. Brigid exemplifies generosity and compassion with a feminine, nurturing slant. One story relates that when she was a slave girl she gave away her master’s money with such enthusiasm that he freed her in order to save a little of his wealth. If Christ turned water into wine, legend states that Brigid followed his example, supplying eighteen churches with beer from one barrel, and turned water into milk that cured a woman with leprosy. The sick and the poor thronged around her.

  Brigid became a nun and then the abbess of the monastery at Kildare. There is even a report that she became the first, and only, female bishop. Dublin’s national museum claims to have her jewelstudded silver and brass shoe.

  FEBRUARY 2

  Simeon and the Presentation of the Lord (first century)

  Expectations fulfilled

  Simeon lived to old age before Christ was born. He was waiting to see God’s Messiah. A devout man, Simeon lived with an awareness of the presence of God. He embodied the hope of his nation that God would one day send his anointed Christ. Rome occupied Israel with a heavy hand, and corruption was commonplace among people of all nationalities. Simeon had divine assurance that he would not die until he had seen the long-anticipated Messiah.

  At the temple in Jerusalem, Simeon saw a peasant couple from Galilee who had with them a baby boy less than two months old. Joseph and Mary had obeyed Jewish Law and had come for the ceremony of purification. This required a mother to offer a burnt offering of a lamb. If a lamb was too expensive, she could substitute a pigeon or a dove. The couple from Nazareth brought the offering of the poor. God revealed to Simeon that the child they held was the one he had been expecting.

  The old man took the baby in his arms and uttered a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving and a prophecy, interpreting for all time the significance of the birth of this holy child. Simeon’s horizons expanded, allowing him to grasp a larger concept of the work Jesus would accomplish, calling him “a light to the Gentiles” as well as the fulfillment of Jewish expectations. From the beginning when God made a covenant with Abraham, a universal blessing of the world through the Hebrew people was a part of the promise.

  Returning the baby to his mother, Simeon told Mary of things to come: Both joy and sorrow waited for her because of this child.

  FEBRUARY 3

  Blaise of Sebaste (d. ? 316)

  Healing ministry

  Most of our information about Blaise of Sebaste is unreliable. He may have been bishop of Sebaste in Armenia (part of modern Turkey) early in the fourth century. One persistent legend claims that he saved the life of a boy who had a fish bone stuck in his throat. Blaise prayed for the child who then coughed up the bone. As his reputation spread, people flocked to him for physical and spiritual healing.

  During a period of religious persecution, Blaise was arrested and imprisoned, but that did not stop his healing ministry. Even as he was on his way to jail, a desperate mother begged him to heal her child, and he did.

  Blaise became a Christian martyr about 316.

  FEBRUARY 4

  John de Britto (1647–93)

  Missionary effort

  In an effort to reach Indian nobility, John de Britto, a Jesuit from Portugal, dressed and behaved according to the tradition of the Brahmin caste. Unfortunately, his ministry was not welcomed. John and his students were severely persecuted and physically harmed.

  After a brief return home in Lisbon, John de Britto recovered enough to resume his duties in India. For three years he continued his difficult mission in hostile and threatening conditions. Eventually, the Rajah Raghunatha had him arrested for teaching what was considered to be subversive things regarding worship of the traditional gods of the nation. In a letter written the day before his execution, John wrote: “The only crime with which I am charged is that I teach the religion of the true God and do not worship idols. It is indeed glorious to suffer death for such a crime! That is what fills me with happiness and joy in our Lord. I await death, and I await it with impatience. It has always been the object of my prayers. It forms today the most precious reward of my labors and sufferings.”

  The next morning, February 4, 1693, a large crowd saw John de Britto decapitated. When news of his execution reached Lisbon there was a memorial service. John’s mother attended, wearing a festal gown instead of mourning garments.

  FEBRUARY 5

  Philip of Jesus (1575–97)

  Missionary hardship

  Mexico City was the birthplace of Philip de las Casas. His pious parents had moved to Mexico from Spain. As a teenager Philip experimented with the religious life at the Franciscan Convent of Santa Barbara in Pueblo, Mexico. But then his father sent him to the Philippines with funds to begin a shipping business. Still attracted to the religious life, he entered the Franciscan Convent in Manila during 1594. He became a friar and worked with the sick.

  Yielding to his family’s desire to see him again, Philip began a voyage home to Mexico, but a storm wrecked his ship on a reef off the coast of Japan as the boat attempted to enter a port. During this storm, Philip had a vision of a white cross over Japan, but the cross turned blood red. Japanese people seized the ship’s cargo, while a local warlord accused those on board of being pirates and of spying for Spain in advance of an invasion. All aboard were condemned and murdered. Young Philip’s death came by crucifixion on February 5, 1597, at Nagasaki, Japan. Philip embraced the cross on which he was to die, calling it a “happy ship” that would convey him to heaven.

  FEBRUARY 6

  Paul Miki and his Companions (1562–97)

  Vaith survives

  A group of Jesuit missionaries led by Francis Xavier (December 3) introduced Christianity to Japan in 1549. The labor of two years resulted in a tiny group of committed converts. More missionaries followed, and the Japanese Church began to flourish. The record claims as many as three hundred thousand new Christians, most of them living in and around the port city of Nagasaki. The future of Christianity in Japan looked promising.

  Human politics and power struggles prove a perennial hazard for secure and creative living, however. In the late sixteenth century, the rulers of Nagasaki grew suspicious of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism, and suspected missionaries as advance agents in that process. The work of Christian missions seemed a threat to their control. In 1587, one of the warlords (shoguns), Hideyoshi, gave an order to expel all missionaries. Most of them voluntarily complied, but a few remained and continued to work.

  Ten years after handing down his decree, Hideyoshi condemned three Japanese Jesuits, six Franciscans, and seventeen of the Japanese laity to death. He had all twenty-six of them crucified in public in 1597. Paul Miki, a Japanese native, was one of the Jesuit victims. From his personal cross, Paul cried out, “As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would think I want to deceive you. I tell you plainly: There is no way to be saved except the Christian way. My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do gladly pardon the Emperor and all who have sought my death. I beg them to seek baptism and be Christians themselves.”

  Following these executions, the authorities in Japan began a gruesome crackdown on Christianity. They demanded that people step on an image of Christ or Mary. The penalty of death awaited all w
ho refused, along with their families. The result was a Japanese Christian community that was familiar with martyrdom and suffering. The Passion of Christ became central in Japanese spirituality, with the cross as a symbol of endurance and faith. Kept alive in secret, the Christian church in Japan became virtually invisible for two hundred years. Tens of thousands of Japanese passed Christianity from generation to generation, practicing baptism, memorizing Latin prayers, keeping feast days. When Japan began to open to the Western world in the mid-nineteenth century, Christian spiritual descendants of Paul Miki and his companion martyrs emerged to rebuild Christianity openly in Japan.

  FEBRUARY 7

  Edigio Maria of St. Joseph (1729–1812)

  Simple saintliness

  Edigio began his life in Taranto, Italy. His poor father died when Edigio was eighteen, and it became his responsibility to care for his family. When these duties were fulfilled at the age of twenty-five, he joined the Franciscans and serve as a cook and porter for his remaining fifty-three years at a hospice in Naples. His concern and care for the poor earned him the title “Consoler of Naples.” He urged everyone he met to love God.

  FEBRUARY 8

  Josephine Bakhita (1869–1947)

  Discovery of faith

  The people of Africa’s Sudan know Josephine Bakhita as “ nostra Madre Moretta” (our black mother). Her parents did not give her the name Bakhita. The captors who sold her into slavery applied it, called her “Bakhita,” which means “fortunate.” The nine-year-old girl’s frightening abduction while working in the fields with her mother erased her memory of her actual family name. Arab slave traders sold her five times in the markets of El Obeid and Khartoum, and subjected her to all the moral and physical humiliation that accompanies human slavery. All her attempts to escape failed.

  Callisto Legnani, an Italian consul, bought Bakhita in Khartoum. With Legnani, life became extraordinarily different. No one beat her. Her overseers treated her in a civilized and gentle manner. She actually began to enjoy working in the consul’s house. When the consul returned to Italy, Bakhita asked to go with him.

  In Genoa, the consul transferred Bakhita to the Michieli family, which took her to Zianigo where she became a babysitter for their daughter. Then the responsibilities of ownership and management of a hotel on the Red Sea took the Michieli family away, and Bakhita went to live with the Sisters of the Institute of the Catechumens in Venice. Now Bakhita discovered that God was behind the pleasant behavior of the Italian families she had known. She found clear answers to the searching questions she had been asking herself. Following a few months of formal instruction, the Sisters baptized Bakhita in 1890 and gave her a new name, Josephine. That was a happy and memorable day for her. For the rest of her life others could often see her kissing the baptismal font and saying, “Here, I became one of the daughters of God.”

  Mrs. Michieli returned from her Red Sea enterprise and sought Bakhita. With complete confidence, Bakhita asked to remain with the sisters, serving God. A new Italian law abolishing slavery provided the young African with the freedom to choose, and Mrs. Michieli reluctantly concurred. Bakhita remained, giving herself to the service of the Lord for another fifty years; sewing, cooking, doing embroidery, and keeping the door. While on door duty, she would gently touch the heads of children as they came to school. Her lovely voice blessed them and made them feel loved. “Be good. Love the Lord. Pray for those who do not know him. It is a great grace to know God.” Her simplicity and smile were genuinely appealing. It took her twenty years to comply with a superior’s order to write her autobiography, which was published in 1930. She began to travel, telling others her remarkable life story.

  Bakhita’s mature years were disturbed with a painful illness, which confined her to a wheelchair. When asked how she was, she would reply, smiling, “As the Master desires.” The agony of her final illness caused her to relive her years as a slave. She asked those who attended her, “Please loosen the chains. They are heavy.” Bakhita died February 8, 1947. One of her comments summarizes her spiritual life. “If I was to meet those slave raiders who abducted me and those who tortured me, I’d kneel down to them and kiss their hands, because, if it had not been for them, I would not have become a Christian or a religious person.”

  FEBRUARY 9

  Miguel Cordero (1854–1910)

  Teaching ministry

  An Ecuadorian schoolteacher, Cordero had a distinguished academic career at the turn of the twentieth century. He specialized in languages and in writing textbooks for children. As the first indigenous de la Salle Brother, he was particularly adept at teaching religion to young people. He led an intense, personal prayer life and acquired a reputation for overflowing warmth and humor.

  He was never in good health, so his intense labor in Europe was Cordero’s undoing. He found the climate in Belgium and France uncomfortable and moved to Barcelona in 1909. Unfortunately, the political situation there resulted in anti-religious activity. The government safely evacuated Miguel Cordero and others, but his health steadily declined until pneumonia took his life. His remains were returned to Ecuador in 1936.

  FEBRUARY 10

  Scholastica (ca. 480– ? 543)

  Faithful kin

  Tradition states that Scholastica and Benedict of Nursia (July 11) were fraternal twins, and that Scholastica became the first Benedictine nun. Their parents had prayed for children for many years and when they came, they loved them dearly.

  Scholastica met with her brother once a year for prayer and spiritual conversation in a house some distance from Benedict’s monastery. Gregory the Great’s (September 3) book Dialogues contains the only biography of Scholastica we have, and provides us with some delightful narratives of these visits. When they met for their last time together, Scholastica begged her brother to remain after supper for more conversation regarding the delights of heaven. Benedict’s rule required him to return to his monastery for the night and he declined the invitation. Scholastica bowed her head and prayed that God would come to her assistance. Almost immediately, a violent storm began to rage outside. Benedict and his fellow monks were not able to leave. Benedict said, “God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” She replied, “I asked a favor of you and you refused. I asked it of God, and God has granted it.” Good and sensible rules yielded to human need. They stayed up all night, discussing holy things.

  It was the last time they met. Three days later, Scholastica died.

  FEBRUARY 11

  Benedict of Aniane (ca. 750–821)

  Revitalizing

  Benedict, a Visigoth who began life named Witiza, served royalty in Southern France before becoming a monk in Dijon at the age of twenty. He practiced asceticism, following the Benedictine Rule and taking the name of the saint. Returning home in 779, he built a little hermitage near a creek named Aniane. The hermitage grew into a great monastery with more than three hundred monks, and from that place. Benedict guided monastic reform throughout France. Earlier Viking attacks and secular ownership of monasteries had seriously wrecked both the physical structures and the quality of religious life. Benedict of Aniane dedicated his life to restoring the Rule of Benedict in France. The code he prepared radically and permanently altered Benedictine life. It became less severe, emphasizing art and education.

  Benedict wore himself out with his labor and died at the age of seventy-one.

  FEBRUARY 12

  Meletius of Antioch (d. 381)

  Earthly mediation

  In 313, Constantine officially recognized Christianity as a legal religion. The gruesome years of Roman persecution were over, but Meletius of Antioch still faced a difficult spiritual challenge as he confronted a popular heresy, Arianism, which taught that Jesus was less than divine. When Meletius became bishop of Antioch in 361 he began twenty years of intense struggle, championing the cause of Christian orthodoxy. His sincerity and gentle manner were good diplomatic tools, but the task he faced was enormous.

  In a remarkable incident, a
group of church leaders were instructed to deliver a sermon on Proverbs 8:22, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work.” It turned out to be something of a theological sparring match. George of Laodicea interpreted the text in an Arian sense. Acacius of Caesarea came up with a wildly heretical document, and when it came Meletius’s turn, he handled it as an explanation of the incarnation of Christ. The Arians were enraged with his response. They persuaded the emperor Valens to banish Meletius to Armenia. The split in the Church at Antioch was complete and lasted until Valens died in 378. With the emperor’s death, the Arian persecution ceased and Meletius was allowed to return.

  The ending of open hostility did not mean the end of controversy, because power struggles persisted. Meletius continuing to deal with them. In 381 the second ecumenical council met in Constantinople and Meletius presided. While this meeting was in progress, Meletius died. The painful schism in the church would continue for another generation.

  FEBRUARY 13

  Modomnoc O’Neil (sixth century)

  Taste of honey