WEEKLY E-MAGAZINE VOLUME:XXV/2020

September 27-Oct 3, 2020

“GIVE ME AN ARMY

SAYING THE ROSARY

AND I WILL CONQUER

THE WORLD.”

Pope Pius ix

Carlo Voice

A weekly E-Magazine, published in view of fostering True Teachings of

Chief Editors- Bro. Ephrem Kunnappally and Bro. John Kanayankal

Contributing Editors Rev. Fr. Sunny Kuttikkattu CMI Rev. Bro. Philip Kunnumpurath Patron Dr. Nicola Ghori, Postulator Cause of Carlo Acutis and Editor of L’Osservatore Romano

Spiritual Patrons HB Pierbattista Pizzaballa, of HE Luis Antonia Gokim Tagle, Prefect of Propaganda Fide HE Mar Prince Antony Panengadan, Bishop of Adilabad HE Mar George Madathikandathil, Bishop of Kothamangalam HE Mar Mathew Arackal, Bishop-Emeritus of Kanjirappally HE Thomas Dabre, Bishop of Poone HE Sebastian Theketecheril, Bishop of Vijayapuram HE Chacko Thottumarickal, Bishop of Indore HE Philiopose Mar Stephanose, Syro- Malankara Bishop of Canada

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Homily of His Beatitude Patriarch- Pierbattista Pizzaballa

September 27, 2020 XXVI Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

The context in which the Gospel passage of today’s Liturgy is found (Mt 21:28-32) is very different from that of the past Sundays. At the beginning of this chapter, Matthew recounts the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, with everything that follows it: Jesus enters the Temple and drives away “all those who were selling and buying” (Mt 21:12), while the morning after, re-entering the city, He curses the fig tree on which He found no fruit, and the tree withered.

After those episodes, the Jewish authorities take care to ask with what authority Jesus performs these gestures. From here, a discussion begins, in which Jesus, initially, tells three parables: the first is what we hear today, the second is that of the vineyard homicides (Mt 21:33-44), the third is that of the guests who did not show up to the wedding banquet (Mt 22:1-14).

The context is essential to enter the passage because now we are at the end of Jesus’ mission. The rejection that the leaders, priests, and Pharisees have shown to Him is apparent.

The parables that Jesus tells them are an extreme attempt, a further offer that they too might let themselves welcome the good news of the Kingdom. That is impossible if one does not know their heart and what lives there.

What lives there? What is required to enter the Kingdom?

In the heart of man, there is both ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ There dwell acceptance and rejection; good and evil. In both cases reported by Jesus in the parable, we find this mixture, this ambiguity. Neither of the two is only ‘yes’; neither of the two is only ‘no.’

Well, to enter the Kingdom, the first step is to become aware of this ambivalence that lives there. It is to realize that in no one is there an unfailing fidelity, a faithful ‘yes.’

One does not enter the Kingdom by one’s fidelity; indeed, as we saw in last Sunday’s parable, working in the vineyard from the first hour does not guarantee a proper and definitive encounter with the Lord and with His salvation.

Then, what is the way?

The way is all and only in a word that Jesus repeats two times in the verses reported today, or preferably in the phrase “changed his mind” (Mt 21:29,32).

There is an initial ‘no’ with a trivial reason: I don’t feel like it. And it is a ‘no’ spoken to a father, who, like any father, can only ask because he first gave so much.

But the important thing is this changed of mind.

The parable does not say how it is born; it only says that it happened because, after all, this change of mind is a gift. And it is only in starting from this gift that one can take the next step, saying ‘yes,’ knowing that it is something for which our strength alone is not sufficient.

Interestingly, the two times in which the term “changes his mind” occurs, the first referred to the son who initially says no and then, indeed, changes his mind. The second, on the other hand, does not refer to the publicans and sinners, as logic would have it, as the listener to the parable would expect. It does not refer to them, who Jesus cites in verse 32, but to the very interlocutors of Jesus, the Pharisees, and the leaders of the people. To those who, at least in appearance, immediately said “yes” and who, therefore, would not need to change their minds.

It is as if to say that whatever is the starting point, a change of mind, conversion, is required for all.

But to change one’s mind about what?

It is not necessarily repenting of who knows what grave fault, but of coming back to have an experience of God as Mercy, of restoring the logic of the Beatitudes to the heart of one’s life, of surrendering to the gift of unconditional love.

It is to let that love, as the parable of last Sunday reminded us, be given to everyone, regardless of one’s merit.

And perhaps, then, all this does not happen only once in a lifetime and is never entirely excluded that we can never again say no, to change one’s mind a new.

Biblical Reflection of this week:

Very.Rev.Fr.Dr.Joychen Paranjattu,Rajkot Diocese

Jesus cures a Boy with a Demon (Mt 17:14-21)

As Matthew writes to the Jewish Christian community, he is asking his audience to have deep faith in Jesus in order to experience his powerful intervention in their lives. The man who came to Jesus to request him to heal his son who was suffering from epilepsy had earlier approached the disciples for the same. They could not heal the boy and Jesus scolds them for their unbelief. Jesus cannot be physically present among his community always. It is important for the community to deepen their love for Jesus and have strong faith in him and experience the power of the name of Jesus in their lives. Jesus tells them that they should not expect his tangible presence amidst them every time and to bless everyone who comes to the disciples for help. The disciples themselves can help the people provided they have a deep faith in Jesus. Jesus calls them, “faithless and perverse generation”. This phrase could be directed towards the Jews who did not welcome Jesus.

If God has to be effectively present in the life of a person, s/he has to be open to the word of God and have total trust in Jesus. Without faith, ‘even the size of a mustard seed’, God himself will not be able to touch their lives. Faith can move mountains. Mountains are firmly established on the earth. However, an earthquake or great landslides can reduce those mountains into plains. Jesus’ words would mean that if we have strong faith in our Lord who is the author of Universe, he will do the impossible for us. He will transform our lives. He can remove every block. He can uproot the most difficult problem and turn them into a blessing. He is mighty. He is Almighty. Let us trust in his might to save us from every peril.

In order to have the power to heal, you need to be above the world. As long as you are attached to the world, you cannot be in the heavenly world. If you think like an earthly man, you cannot do heavenly things. In order to be filled with the heavenly graces one needs to conquer the evil one, the world and its passions. Jesus who had overcome the

evil one before he began his ministry now rebukes the demon and the boy is cured immediately. One needs to overcome the evil one first to rebuke the demon that prevents us from walking on the path of Jesus. We cannot have power over the evil one unless we leave our attachment to the world and remain united to Christ. He is the Lord of the universe. No demon can reign where the Lord reigns. The more united we are to Christ the Vine, the more we will be able to yield fruits that belong to Christ.

It is this union with Christ that enables us to free not only ourselves but also others from the clutches of the evil one. Jesus freed the boy who was falling often into the water and fire, and demon could no longer have any control over the boy. We need to invite Jesus into the lives of people that they be under his loving protection. We need to request Jesus to have mercy upon the people who are lured away by the evil one. We also need to give them the faith that Jesus can deliver us from the evil one. The key words that one needs to remember are: faith, trust and mercy; and Jesus will transform every curse into a blessing. Let us not bedistressedanddisheartened when people are not able to help us overcome the problems of life. Let us approach the throne of mercy and He is our powerful Lord and Almighty God who cares for us and loves us unconditionally. Lord, increase our faith!

VOX FIDEI-TRUE TEACHINGS

Carlo Brothers

“The more oftern we are mown down, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed” (, Apology, chapter 50) When the Church was founded and commanded to preach the Gospel, Christ did warn His disciples, “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them” (Mark 13:9). From the very first days of the Church up to her present days of existence, she endured sufferings from persecution and hatred from those who do not understand what she believes, teaches and fights for. That was His Master told her, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). Below is the timeline of the persections of the holy Catholic Church. It isn’t the complete history record but it clearly shows the fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy:“And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Mark 13:13a):

 AD 33: The One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church (moved to Rome by Peter after he fled from Jerusalem due to Christian Persecution) was founded by Jesus Christ.

 ca. AD 34: St. Paul led the persecution of the Church at Jerusalem but would be converted and become an Apostle. St. Stephen was stoned to death at Jerusalem; thus, venerating him as the first Christian martyr.

 AD 42: Persecution of Christians in Palestine broke out during the rule of Herod Agrippa. St. James the Greater was beheaded in 44 AD. St. Peter was imprisoned for a short time; many Christians fled to Antioch, making the beginning of dispersion of Christian beyond the confines of Palestine. At Antioch, the followers of Christ were called Christians for the first time.

 AD 49: Christians at Rome, considered members of a Jewish sect, were adversely affected by a decree of Emperor Claudius which forbade Jewish worship there.

 AD 64: Persecution broke out at Rome under Emperor Nero, the emperor said to have accused Christians of starting the fire which destroyed half of Rome. St. Peter was crucified upside down at Rome. He established his see there after preaching in and around Jerusalem, establishing a see at Antioch, and presiding at the council of Jerusalem.

 AD 95: Domitian persecuted Christians, principally at Rome.

 ca. AD 107: St. Ignatius of Antioch was martyred at Rome. He was the first writer to use the expression, “the Catholic Church.”

 AD 112: Emperor Trajan, in a rescript to Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, instructed him not to search out Christians but to punish them if they were publicly denounced and refused to do homage to the Roman gods. This rescript set a pattern for Roman magistrates in dealing with Christians.

 AD 117-138: Persecution under Emperor Hadrian. Many acts of martyrs date from this period.

 ca. AD 155: St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and disciple of St. John the Evangelist, was martyred at Rome.

 AD 161-180: Reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. His persecution, launched in the wake of natural disasters, was more violent than those of his predecessors.

 AD 165: St. Justin, an important early Christian apologist, was martyed at Rome.

 AD 202: Persecution under Emperor Septimus Severus, who wanted to establish a simple common religion in the Empire.

 AD 217-235: St. Hippolytus, the first antipope; he was reconciled to the Church while in prison during persecution in 235 AD.

 AD 249-251: Persecution under Emperor Decius. Many of those who denied the faith (lapsi) sought readmission to the Church at the end of persecution in 251 AD.

 AD 257: Persecution under Emperor Valerian, who attempted to destroy the Church as a social structure.

 AD 261: Gallienus issued an edict of toleration which ended general persecution for nearly 40 years.

 ca. AD 292: Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into East and West. The division emphasized political, cultural, and other differences between the two parts of the Empire and influenced different developments in the Church in the East and West. The prestige of Rome began to decline.

 AD 303: Peesecution broke out under Emperor Diocletian; it was particularly violent in 304 AD.

 AD 311: An edict of toleration, issued by Galerius at the urging of Emperors Constantine the Great and Licinius, officially ended the persecution in the West; some persecution continued in the East.

 AD 313: The Edict of Milan, issued by Constantine and Licinius, recognized Christianity as a lawful religion in the Roman Empire.

 ca. AD 342: Beginning of a 40-year persecution of the Church in Persia.

 AD 361-363: Emperor Julian the Apostate waged an unsuccessful campaign against the Church in an attempt to restore paganism as the religion of the empire.

 ca. AD 365: Persecution of the Church under Emperor Valens in the East

 AD 410: Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome and the last Roman legions departed Britain. The decline of imperial Rome dates approximately from this time.

 AD 452: Leo the Great persuaded Attila the Hun to spare Rome.

 AD 455: Vandals under Geiseric sacked Rome.

 AD 496: Clovis, king of the Franks, was converted and became defender of Christianity in the West. The Franks became Catholics.

 AD 622: The Hegira (flight) of Mohammed from Mecca signalled the beginning of Islam which, by the end of the century, persecuted the Christians and claimed almost all of the southern Mediterranean area.

 AD 711: Muslims began the conquest of Spain.

 AD 726: Emperor Leo III the Isurian launched a campaign against the veneration of sacred images and relics; called Iconoclasm (image- breaking), it caused turmoil in the East until about AD 843. This was condemned by Pope Gregory III and the Roman synod in AD 731, Lateran synod in AD 769, 2nd Ecumenical Council of Nicea in AD 787.

 AD 754: Pope Stephen II (III) crowned Pepin as ruler of the Franks. Pepin twice invaded , in 754 and 756, to defend the pope against the Lombards. His land grants to the papacy, called the Donation of Pepin, were later extended by Charlemagne in AD 773 and formed parts of the States of the Church.

 AD 755: St. Boniface (Winfrid) was martyred. He was called the Apostle of Germany for his missionary work and organization of the hierarchy there.

 AD 813: Emperor Leo V the Armenian revived Iconoclasm which persisted until about AD 843.

 AD 846: Muslims invaded Italy and attacked Rome.

 AD 915: Pope John X played a leading role in the expulsion of Saracens from central and southern Italy.

 AD 1097-1099: The first of several undertaken between this time and 1265. Recovery of the Holy Places and gaining free access to them for Christians were diverted to less worthy objectives in various ways. Results included: a Latin , 1099-1187; a military and political misadventure in the form of a Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1204-1261; acquisition, by treaties, of visiting rights for Christians in the Holy Land. East-West economic and cultural relationships increased during the period. In the religious sphere, actions of the Crusaders had the effect of increasing the alienation of the East from the West.

 AD 1118: Christian forces captured Saragosa, Spain; the beginning of the Muslim decline in that country.

 AD 1170: St. Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who clashed with Henry II over church-state relations, was murdered in his cathedral.

 AD 1208: Pope Innocent III called for a crusade, the first in Christendom itself, against the Albigensians; their beliefs and practices threatened the fabric of society in southern France and northern Italy.

 AD 1231: Pope Gregory IX authorized establishment of Papal Inquisition for dealing with heretics. It was a creature of its time, when crimes against faith and heretical doctrines of extremists like the Cathari and Albigenses threatened the good of the Christian community, the welfare of the state and the very fabric of society.

 AD 1309-1377: For a period of approximately 70 years, seven resided at Avignon because of the power struggles over the mixed interests of Church and state with the rulers of France, Bavaria, and England; factionalism of French and Italian churchmen; political as well as ecclesiastical turmoil in Italy.

 AD 1338: Four years after the death of Pope John XXII, who had opposed Louis IV of Bavaria in a years-long controversy, electoral princes declared at the Diet of Rhense that the emperor did not need papal confirmation of his title and right to rule. Charles IV later (1356) said the same thing in a Golden Bull, eliminating papal rights in the election of emperors.

 AD 1347-1350: The Black Death swept accross Europe, killing perhaps one-fourth to one-third of the total population; an estimated 40 per cent of the clergy succumbed.

 AD 1438: The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was enacted by Charles VII and the French Parliament to curtail papal authority over the Church in France, in the spirit of conciliarism.

 AD 1478: Pope Sixtus IV, at the urging of King Ferdinand of Spain, approved establishment of the Spanish Inquisition for dealing with the Jewish and Moorish converts accused of heresy. The institution, which was peculiar to Spain and its colonies in America, acquired jurisdiction over other cases as well and fell into disrepute because of its procedures, cruelty and the manner in which it served the Spanish crown, rather than the accused and the good of the Church. Protests by the failed to curb excesses of the Inquisition, which lingered in Spanish history until early in the 19th century.

 AD 1517: Martin Luther signaled the beginning of the by posting 95 theses at Wittenberg.

 AD 1519: Zwingli triggered the Reformation in Zurich and became its leading proponent there until his death in combat in 1531.

 AD 1524: Luther’s encouragement of German princes in putting down the two-year Peasants’ Revolt gained political support for his cause.

 AD 1533: Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon, married Anne Boleyn, was excommunicated. In 1534, he decreed the Acts of Supremacy, making the sovereign the head of the church of England, under which St. John Fisher and St. Thomas Moore were executed in 1535.

 AD 1549: Start of the five-year reign of Mary Tudor who tried to counteract actions of Henry VIII against the Catholic Church.

 AD 1555: Enactment of the Peace of Augsburg, an arrangement of religious territorialism rather than toleration, which recognized the existence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in the German Empire and provided that citizens should adopt the religion of their respective rulers.

 AD 1570: Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated. Penal measures against Catholics subsequently became more severe.

 AD 1571: Defeat of the Turkish armada at Lepanto starved off the invasion of Eastern Europe.

 AD 1605: The Gunpowder Plot, an attempt by alleged Catholic fanatics to blow up James I of England and the houses of Parliament, resulted in an anti-Catholic Oath of Allegiance.

 AD 1613: Catholics were banned from Scandinavia.

 AD 1648: Provisions in the Peace of Westphalia, ending the Thirty Years’ War, extended terms of the Peace of Augsburg (1555) to Calvinists and gave equality to Catholics and Protestants in the 300 states of the Holy Roman Empire.

 AD 1649: Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland and began a severe persecution of the Catholic Church there.

 AD 1673: The Test Act in England barred from public office Catholics who would not deny the doctrine of transubstantiation and receive Communion in the Anglican Church.

 AD 1678: Many English Catholics suffered death as a consequence of the Popish Plot, a false allegation by Titus Oates that Catholics planned to assassinate Charles II, land a French army in the country, burn London, and turn over the government to the Jesuits.

 AD 1682: The four Gallican articles, drawn up by Bossuet, asserted political and ecclesiastical immunities of France from papal control. The

articles, which rejected the primacy of the pope, were declared null and void by Pope Alexander VIII in 1690.

 AD 1689: The Toleration Act granted a measure of freedom of worship to other English dissenters but not to Catholics.

 AD 1724: The persection of the Catholic Church in China broke out.

 AD 1760’s: Josephinism, a theory and system of state control of the Church, was initiated in Austria; it remained in force until about 1850.

 AD 1764: Febronianism, an unorthodox theory and practice regading the constitution of the Church and relations between Church and state, was condemned for the first of several times. Proposed by an auxiliary bishop of Tier using the pseudonym Justinus Febronius, it had the effects of minimizing the office of the pope and supporting national churches under the state control.

 AD 1778: Catholics in England were relieved of some civil disabilities dating back to the time of Henry VIII, by an act which permitted them to acquire, own, and inherit property. Additional liberties were restored by the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 and sunsequent enactments of Parliament.

 AD 1789: Religious freedom in the United States was guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Beginning of the French Revolution which resulted in: the secularization of church property and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790; the persecution of priests, religious and lay persons loyal to papal authority; invasion of the by Napoleon in 1796; renewal of persecution from 1797-1799; attempts to dechristianize France and establish a new religion; the occupation of Rome by French troops and the forced removal of Pope Pius VI to France in 1798. This century is called the age of Enlightenment or Reason because of the predominating rational and scientific approach of its leading philosophers, scientists and writers with respect to religion, ethics and natural law. This approach downgraded the fact and significance of revealed reigion.

 AD 1809: Pope Pius VII was made captive by Napoleon and deported to France where he remained in exile until 1814. During this time, he refused to cooperate with Napoleon who sought to bring the Church in France under his own control, and other leading cardinals were imprisoned. The turbulence in church-state relations in France at the beginning of the century recurred in connection with the Bourbon Restoration, the July

Revolution, the second and third Republics, the second Empire and the Dreyfus case.

 AD 1820: Year’s-long persecution of the Catholic Church, during which thousands died for the faith, ended in China. Thereafter, communication with the West remained cut off until about 1834. Vigorous missionary work got under way in 1842.

 AD 1829: The Catholic Emancipation Act relieved Catholics in England and Ireland of most of the civil disabilities to which they had been subject from the time of Henry VIII.

 AD 1833: Start of Oxford Movement which affected the Anglican Church and resulted in some notable conversions, including that of John Henry Newman in 1845, to the Catholic Church.

 AD 1870-1871: Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, crowned king of Italy after defeating Austrian and papal forces, marched into Rome in 1870 and expropriated the Papal States after a plebiscite in which Catholics, at the order of Pope Pius IX, did not vote. In 1871, Pius IX refused to accept the Law of Guarrantees. Confiacation of church property and hindrance of ecclesiastical administration by the regime followed.

 AD 1871: The German Empire, a confederation of 26 states, was formed. Government policy launched a Kulturkampf whose May Laws of 1873 were designed to annul papal jurisdiction in Prussia under imperial control. Resistance to the enactments and the persecution they legalized forced government to modify its anti-Church policy by 1887.

 AD 1881: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated. His policies of Russification — as well as those of his two predecessors and a successor during the century — caused great suffering to Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, and Bessarabia.

 AD 1901: Restrictive measures in France forced Jesuits, Benedictines, Carmelites, and other religious orders to leave the country. Subsequently, thousands of Catholic schools were suppressed; religious orders and congregations were expelled; the concordat was renounced in 1905; church property was confiscated in 1906. For some years, refusing to comply with government demands for the control of the bishops’ appointments, left some ecclesiastical offices vacant.

 AD 1903-1914: The Pontificate of St. Pius X who removed ban against the participation of Catholics in Italian national elections.

 AD 1910: Laws of separation were enacted in Portugal, marking a point of departure in church-state relations.

 AD 1914: Start of World War I, which lasted until 1918.

 AD 1914-1922: The Pontificate of Benedict XV who devoted to seeking ways and means of minimizing the material and spiritual havoc of World War I. In 1917, he offered his services as a mediator to the belligerent nations, but his pleas for settlement of the conflict went unheeded.

 AD 1917: A new constitution, embodying repressive laws againts the Catholic Church, was enacted in Mexico. Its implementation resulted in persecution in the 1920s and 1930s. Meanwhile, Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and set up a dictatorship. The event marked the rise of communism in Russian and world affairs. One of its immediate, and lasting, results was persecution of the Catholic Church, Jews, and other segments of population.

 AD 1922-1939: The Pontificate of Pius XI who subsctibed to the Lateran Treaty in 1929 that settled the Roman Question created by the confiscation of the Papal States in 1871. He also resisted the efforts of Benito Mussolini to control Catholic Action and the Church.

 AD 1926: The Catholic Relief Act repealed virtually all legal disabilities of Catholics in England.

 AD 1931: Leftists proclaimed Spain a republic and proceeded to disestablish the Church, confiscate church property, deny stipends to the clergy, expel the Jesuits and ban teaching of the Catholic faith. These actions were preludes to the civil war of 1936-1939.

 AD 1933: Emergence of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany. By 1935, two of his aims were clear, the elimination of the Jews and control of a single national church. Millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The Catholic Church was subject to repressive measures, which Pope Pius XI protested futilely in the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937.

 AD 1936-1939: Civil war in Spain between the Leftist Loyalist and the forces of the rightist leader Francisco Franco. The loyalists were defeated and one-man, one-party rule was established. Many priests, religious and lay persons fell victim to Loyalist persecution and atrocities.

 AD 1939-1945: World War II.

 AD 1940: Start of a decade of communist conquest in more than 13 countries, resulting in conditions of persecution for a minimum of 60 million Catholics as well as members of other faiths. Persecution diminished in Mexico because of non-enforcement of anti-religious laws still on record.

 AD 1957: The communist regime of China established the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics in opposition to the Church in union with the pope.

 AD 1989-1991: The decline and fall of communist influence and control in Middle and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with the help of the Catholic Church under the pastoral leadership of Pope John Paul II.

 AD 2000: The holy Catholic Church, the true Body of Christ, celebrated the Holy Year 2000 and the Jubilee — the commencement of the third Christian millennium.

 AD 2014 to present: Christian persecution in Middle East by a terrorist group, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Thousands of Catholics were tortured or killed; and more Catholic churches were burned or destroyed.

AT PRESENT, the persecution and hatred towards the Church still continues in any way. However, despite those centuries of persecutions and attempts to destroy the very foundation of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, she remains undefeated. Christ promised, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18b). She will never be brought down by any anti- Catholics because her Groom once again promised her,“I am with you always, even to the end of the age”(Matthew 28:20b). But remember what the Lord has reminded His children: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Hebrew 13:3).

Saints Zone

St. Vincent de Paul, Priest 1581- 1660 September 27 – Memorial Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of all charitable societies, hospitals, & leprosy victims

A powerhouse priest organizes multitudes for charity & renews priestly formation

Today’s saint was one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of saintly men and women who rejuvenated Catholicism in seventeenth century France. Saint Vincent de Paul established charitable societies that have endured to this day. He also founded male and female religious orders that still thrive in the twenty-first century. He was a trusted counselor to bishops, cardinals, and royalty. His ideas and vision reformed how seminarians and priests were trained so fundamentally that this vision became normative for the world-wide Church. He was a close friend of Saint Francis de Sales, his own co-founder Louise de Marillac, and the almost-saint Pierre Bérulle. Saint Vincent had a great influence on Jean Jacques Olier, the founder of the Sulpician order and a prime mover behind the group of French Catholics who risked everything to found Ville-Marie de Montreal, the explicitly Catholic settlement at the farthest edge of French Canada. Our saint also inspired Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, the lay intellectual who established the Saint Vincent de Paul Societies so commonly found in parishes throughout the world.

Few saints achieved so much as Vincent de Paul. He stood at the core of an evolving group of similarly minded French saints who left an impact like a meteor on the face of the Church. So although he cannot be understood apart from the charitable Society that bears his name, nor can his achievements be confined to that eponymous Society alone. Saint Vincent tried to use his education and personal charm to correct the errors of Jansenism, an overly rigorous spiritual and moral approach to the Christian life that infected wide swaths of the French faithful. When his personal efforts were unproductive, he became more polemical and was instrumental in procuring a papal denunciation of Jansenism.

Our Saint’s contributions to the renewal of the life of the clergy were notable. He was a proponent and founder, along with Bérulle, of the so-called French school of spirituality, which has been so universally adopted in priestly formation that there is, in reality, no other approach. This spirituality combines rigorous asceticism, practical and active concern for the poor, a missionary drive to the unconverted, a sophisticated theological education, simple and direct preaching, and a total reliance on the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity in seeking to do the will of God. These high ideals, this total approach, inspired Vincent’s near contemporaries Saints John Eudes, Louis de Montfort, and Jean-Baptiste de La Salle to become who they were.

To be a man of action and contemplation. To be educated but also able to communicate with the simple. To focus on the salvation of souls but also on the material concerns of the needy. To be fully a priest but to have wide circles of lay friends and followers. This was the vision of Saint Vincent de Paul for all priests, and the vision he himself put into action in his own life. He was a force of nature who stormed through life for the glory of Christ alone. Devotion to Saint Vincent followed soon after his death. He was canonized in 1737. His remains are displayed for veneration in a glass coffin above the altar in the ornate chapel of the Vincentian Fathers in central Paris, not far from the chapel of the Miraculous Medal. A partially concealed staircase allows access for the faithful to see the great man up close.

Saint Vincent de Paul, you worked tirelessly for the poor, orphans, and widows. You gathered around yourself numerous helpers. Your primary motivation was not social justice, but the pure will of God. Inspire us to be so committed, so dedicated, and so faithful.

St. Wenceslaus, Martyr c. 907 – 929 September 28 – Optional Memorial Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

A young duke is killed by a jealous brother and becomes a Czech icon

When the famous die young, their unwrinkled faces, dark hair, and youthful vigor are frozen in time, forever vital, forever attractive, forever young. Time is not given its chance to run over their skin like water over rocks. No shaping, cracking, molding or shifting of the surfaces. Before the modern cult of celebrity held up athletes, movie stars, and musicians for supreme adulation, most cultures revered their royalty, soldiers, or holy men. Kings and princes, bishops and saints, chiefs and warriors served the common good by governing, praying for, and protecting the people. There simply was no class of entertainers to distract a populace from the leadership that mattered. Today’s saint, Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia, was felled in a fateful encounter with his brother Boleslaus the Cruel. Wenceslaus was already famous when he died so young and so dramatically. All the ingredients needed to guarantee a lasting legacy were present, and his memory did last. He was recognized by the Church as a martyr, posthumously given the title of King, and quickly became an iconic figure to the Bohemian people such that his Feast Day, September 28th, is a national holiday in the modern Czech Republic.

Wenceslaus lived as Christianity was still dawning in central Europe. German missionaries had been laboring for a few generations with success, but underneath the visible layer of a Christian culture there was a substrata of paganism that was rock hard. Central and Eastern Europe were passing through the normal stages of evangelization, as an age-old culture with all its customs and traditions was slowly pushed back by a greater force moving like a glacier. Catholicism had moved into Bohemia by the 900s, but the religious landscape was not yet monolithic. As our martyr’s death attests, religious and political divisions ran cracks through the culture.

The grandfather of Wenceslaus may have been converted by no less than Saints Cyril and Methodius themselves. His grandmother Ludmila was an ardent Catholic and oversaw Wenceslaus’ excellent education in which he learned to read and write both Slavonic and Latin. Wenceslaus’ mother, Drahomira, clung to the old ways, though she was nominally a Christian. When Drahomira thought Ludmila was encouraging Wenceslaus to assume power as a teen, Drahomira had her mother-in-law strangled to death with her own veil. Once he did take power, Wenceslaus banished his own mother, solidified control of western Bohemia, and became an honorable ruler. He followed the law, favored education, and promoted the form of Christianity practiced in Germany, not in the east. This was a fateful decision. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are Slavic peoples of the Latin Rite, unlike their Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Slavic cousins just to the east. Wenceslaus was pro-Western theologically and liturgically, while retaining his Slavic identity and independence in other essential matters. This pattern was to endure, giving Slavic Catholicism its unique features.

But for all of Wenceslaus’ brief successes, in the shadows lurked Boleslaus, creating a power center in eastern Bohemia. When Wenceslaus’ wife gave birth to a son, Boleslaus knew he would not succeed his brother, so he plotted his murder. Boleslaus and his henchman struck down the young duke Wenceslaus in 929 on the Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian and on the Vigil of Saint Michael the Archangel. “Brother, may God forgive you” were our martyr’s last words.

Saint Wenceslaus, you were the model of a just ruler in your brief reign. You saw it as your sacred duty to promote the true God and His religion. Help all rulers and leaders to see morality, liturgy, prayer, and catechesis as the bedrock of a just society.

Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels

September 29 – Feast Liturgical Color: White Patrons of soldiers & police (Michael) messengers & postal workers (Gabriel); travelers & the blind (Raphael)

The air between God and man is thick with mystical beings

It is a principle of Catholic theology that salvation is mediated, that individual man does not go to God alone, and that God does not come to man alone. This means that there are layers of words, symbols, art, priests, nuns, catechists, music, books, churches, shrines, and endless other things and places and people that channel God to us. Even using the name “God” or “Father” or “Jesus Christ” presupposes the mediation of language. So although someone may say they want to “cut out the middle man” of the Church and go directly to God, they can’t. At some point in their youth they absorbed who God was from others, so even the most basic, apparently innate knowledge we have of God is mediated, even if only by nature itself. Today’s feast is about the created spiritual beings known as angels who fill the space between God and man, communicating His message, protecting man from harm, and battling against the armies of Satan. The Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael transmit some of God’s most important messages.

Michael leads the war cry in a mysterious, metaphysical battle against the Devil and his minions in the Book of Daniel. “There is no one with me who contends against these princes except Michael, your prince” (Dan. 10:21), and “At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise” (Dan. 12:1). Michael means “Who is like God.”

Gabriel is an essential figure in the events surrounding the Incarnation. We first meet him in the Jerusalem temple, announcing the birth of Saint John the Baptist to his father Zachary: “I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news” (Luke 1:19). He later conveys the message of all messages to the Virgin Mary, eliciting her “Yes” to God’s sublime invitation. Gabriel means “the strength of God.”

Raphael appears in the disguise of a man in the Book of Tobit, guiding the young Tobiah along his journey. “… God sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord” (Tobit 12: 14-15). Raphael means “God heals.”

The Old Testament description of the angels worshipping before the throne of God is one of fierce power: “…each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6: 2-3). These beings are

far from the pudgy, pillow-soft, fat-cheeked baby angels so often depicted in art. Today’s feast is for the mighty six-winged angels, the deadly serious ministers of God’s messages. These Archangels engage in consequential spiritual battle, know that God and His word are not frivolous, and carry out their missions as emissaries of the Most-High. We invoke them now just as Saint Patrick did in the fifth century: “I arise today through the strength of the love of cherubim, in the obedience of angels, in the service of archangels, in the hope of resurrection to meet with reward.” Amen.

Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, we invoke your powerful intercession before the throne of God in heaven. By your spiritual assistance, protect us from harm, heal us of our infirmities, and convey to us God’s will for our lives.

St. , c. 345 – 420 September 30 –Memorial Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of archeologists, Bible scholars and librarians

A prickly scholar translates the Bible into Latin forever and always

Today’s saint was living in Antioch in the 370s when he had a vision. Jerome was standing in the presence of the seated Christ, who asked him who he was. “I am a Christian,” Jerome responded. “LIAR!” Jesus yelled. “You are a Ciceronian, not a Christian, for where your treasure is, there also is your heart.” Jerome indeed loved Cicero and other Latin stylists. Their works and fine prose gave him the greatest pleasure. But Jerome had also been reared in a Christian home, been baptized as an adult in Rome, and had frequently descended into the darkened catacombs to pray at the tombs of the martyrs and saints. His double identity as both a scholar of Latin and Greek rhetoric on the one hand, and as a committed Christian on the other hand, dueled within him. Jerome fervently loved God and the Catholic religion with all his soul, but it was a troubled soul. Jerome was full of spit and vinegar. He was a complex man and a complex saint.

Saint Jerome was born in an unknown year in a region northeast of Venice, Italy. His father sent him as a young man to Rome to perfect his education under a famous tutor. Jerome was a superb student and mastered Latin and Greek. At about the age of thirty, he decided to become a monk and traveled to the desert of Syria. For four years he lived a life of austerity, penance, and isolation. He fasted from the classics he loved so much and instead studied Hebrew from a Jewish convert. When he finally came out of the desert, he was ordained a priest in Antioch but never truly exercised any priestly ministry. He studied under the great Saint Gregory Nazianzen in Constantinople and began to publish some translations and biblical commentaries. Around 382 Jerome went to Rome with his bishop to serve as an interpreter and aide. Jerome impressed Pope Saint Damasus, who asked him to be his secretary.

At this point, in his forties and while living in Rome, Jerome began the monumental task of translating the entire Bible into Latin from original Greek and Hebrew texts. It would take him years. The existing Old Latin Bible was not cohesive, but a jumble of texts stitched together under one cover. Various scholars had generated divergent translations for purely local use. So the Gospel of John in a Jerusalem-based manuscript differed from the same Gospel in a manuscript in Gaul. The one Church, spread throughout the known world, needed one Bible to match its broad scope and theological unity. Jerome was the man for the job. After just a few years in Rome, after the death of his patron Pope Damasus, and due to the enemies his blunt words and fiery temper always seemed to create, Saint Jerome left Rome for the Holy Land. He lived in a cave near Bethlehem and focused on translating. Some holy and pious women from Rome followed him there and formed a quasi-monastic community around him.

Jerome’s translation, known as the , became the standard Latin version of the Bible over time, pushing the Old Latin version into oblivion. The formally stated that the Vulgate was the official Bible of the Catholic Church. So Catholicism has a “The Bible,” a claim which no other church can make. No “The Bible” ever floated down from heaven on a golden pillow. Except for Jerome’s, a “The Bible” doesn’t exist. There are thousands of ancient scraps of Scripture from hundreds of ancient texts from scores of libraries and monasteries in dozens of countries, but a publisher and its consultants ultimately choose which texts to include in any published Bible and which to exclude. Catholicism has

no such flimsy process. Its sacred word is not dependent on scholarly fashion and whim. It has a baseline. The Vulgate is like a dropped anchor resting on the ocean floor. It keeps the ship of the Church from drifting. Catholicism is a religion of the Word more than of the Book, but it has a definitive book, nonetheless. The fiery Saint Jerome died peacefully in 420, exhausted from his scholarly labors and life of penance. His remains can be found directly below the high altar of Saint Mary Major Basilica in Rome in a handsome porphyry sarcophagus.

Saint Jerome, you lived a life dedicated to studying the Word of God, to penance, and to prayer. You placed your knowledge and scholarly gifts at the service of the Church, which used them wisely. Help all the faithful to serve the Church as much as the Church serves them.

St. Thérèse of Liseux 1873 – 1897 October 1 – Memorial Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of florists, missions & aviators

A sensitive country girl confines herself to a convent and writes about spiritual truths

Thérèse Martin was a weepy child, as emotionally brittle as porcelain. She was easily offended and easily pleased. A furled brow or a sideways glance from her father would dissolve her into tears. A beautiful flower or a kind word and she would beam a smile. She grew up in a brotherless home. Her father, an uncle, and priests were the men in her life. Her parents were canonized in 2015, the only married couple ever raised to the altars. Thérèse and her four sisters all became nuns, with the cause for beatification and canonization of her sister Léonie being opened in 2015. The Martin home was totally absorbed in the mysteries of God, prayer, saints, the Sacraments, and the Church.

Thérèse grew up in Normandy, a region of Northern France. She left only once, to go on a month-long pilgrimage to Italy, where she met Pope Leo XIII at a public audience and

begged his special permission to enter the Carmelites before the required age. On this trip she was also the object of some tender male glances. Conscious of her delicate emotions and eager to flee the world’s “poisonous breath,” upon returning from Italy Thérèse pulled every lever to enter her local Carmel. She finally entered at the age of fifteen in 1888. She was given the religious name “of the Child Jesus” and received permission to adopt a second name too, “of the Holy Face.” Once the door of the convent shut behind her, it never reopened. Her short life ended there just nine years later. Thérèse was a dedicated nun who strictly followed the demanding Carmelite rule. She kept silence when required, avoided seeking out her blood sisters, fasted, ingratiated herself with nuns she did not naturally find sympathetic, and spent long hours in prayer and work.

In the convent, Thérèse’s childish sweetness matured into a more durable spirituality. Her sensitivity mellowed. She was able to accept criticism. Her youthful presumption that all priests were as perfect as diamonds became more realistic, and she prayed and sacrificed ardently for priests. The hard realities of convent life narrowed Thérèse’s spiritual goals. She no longer desired to be a great soul like Saint Joan of Arc. But with this narrowing came a deepening, a concentrated focus. She decided she would be God’s heart, not His hands or feet or mind. She decided that the only way she could fly close to the blazing sun of the Holy Trinity would be to become small. Her petite voie (“little way” or “by small means”) was to spiritually reduce herself to a tiny creature carried in the claws of the divine eagle, Jesus Christ. As Christ soared in the heavens, she would be in His grasp, going only where He could go, until she was burned up in the Father-Son-Spirit love of the fireball of the Trinity. This was no broad path or wide way, but a little way for a great soul. The goal was to reduce oneself to nothing so the Lord could transport you. The goal was to remove the “self” from “oneself.”

When Thérèse’s sister Céline entered the convent in 1894, she was given permission to bring her camera. Céline’s pictures of Thérèse would be among the first ever taken of a saint. They complimented Thérèse’s letters and spiritual writings perfectly, heightening interest in Thérèse after she died. The intriguing photos and profound writings hinted at the secret depths concealed behind a convent’s four walls. Saint Thérèse suffered intensely from tuberculosis and died at an age when many lives are just beginning to flower. She was canonized in 1925, declared co-patron of France in 1944, and named the thirty-third Doctor

of the Church by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1997, the youngest Doctor to date and probably the youngest the Church will ever recognize.

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, you discovered deep truths in a confined space. Your soul was fertile ground for the mysteries of our faith. Lend heavenly assistance to all who try to emulate your example of suffering, prayer, and tender dedication to God.

Guardian Angels October 2 – Memorial Liturgical Color: White

A personal spiritual bodyguard watches your back

Intuition is a fully formed way of thinking. It is more than just the occasional hunch or subtle perception. Native instinct, or “gut,” is used to calculate, discern, and decide on matters big and small throughout daily life. We think we are dryly logical about a decision to trust one accountant and not another, to frequent this store over that, or to confide in this new friend rather than that old one. But in reality it may just be a small mustard stain on the accountant’s shirt that convinces us that he is not the right man for the job. Squinty eyes, a weak handshake, a laugh, or just the way someone holds open the door or sips their coffee. We pay very close attention to the slightest nuances of facial gestures, body language, and tone of voice to draw immediate conclusions about people. We are not as coldly rational as we like to think. So when an atheist, for example, walks alone down a remote country road in the dark of night and hears a long lost voice in the whistling wind, or sees tree branches twist themselves into a bony finger, he grows frightened. If he were to feel the breathy presence of someone hovering just over his shoulder at that same moment, the atheist’s sober rationality would be worth nothing. His throttle of feeling and intuition would be fully open, the pores of his mind would absorb every ounce of strange reality, and a shiver of fright would run up his spine like an electrical charge. He would be in full contact with a reality as elusive to describe, yet as normal to experience, as intuition itself.

The holy guardian angels are created spirits, whereas God is an uncreated spirit. A man, however, is more than a spirit. He is an enfleshed soul procreated by parents who participate in God’s creative act. Though we are part spirit and part matter, we can nonetheless imagine what it would be like to be a pure spirit, like an angel. We close our eyes and imagine standing at the pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and suddenly we are there, gazing over the City of Lights. The mind travels, the imagination soars, the soul reflects. It’s our body that keeps our feet planted in one place and time. But if mind, soul, and imagination were not so tethered, then we would zip around the universe like an angel, a spirit unleashed, held back by nothing. God created the angels like He created us, out of nothing. God’s will is creative in the strict sense of that word. “Let there be light,” He said, and there was light. His will brings worlds into creation and maintains them there. God willed the angels into creation to communicate His messages, to protect mankind, and to engage in spiritual battle with fallen demon angels.

The age-old tradition of the Church is that every Christian, and perhaps every human being, has an angel guardian protecting him from physical and spiritual harm. Christ warned, “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:10). An angel was at Christ’s side in the Garden of Gethsemane, and an angel delivered from prison. The Fathers of the early Church wrote prolifically about the dense realm of the spirit inhabited by angels. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that the angels belong to Christ. “They are his angels” (CCC #331). The Catechism also quotes Saint Basil, “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” (CCC #336).

We intuit that the world was made for more than just us, whether those “others” are lit with holiness or obscured by darkness. Some people scan the skies for alien ships in Low-Earth Orbit. Others listen for strange patterns of speech transmitted like radio signals through the cosmos. Is there life on Mars? Are there colonies behind the sun? There is no need to search so far, to seek life in the cold blackness of space. There are spirits all around us. Some need to walk down a dark country road to finally touch the realm of the spirit. Others are more fortunate and know from childhood that our guardian angels are present and accounted for, standing right over our shoulder, at God’s constant command to serve and protect.

Holy Guardian Angels, we implore your continued vigilance over our lives. Keep us from physical and spiritual harm, increase our trust in your presence, and remind us to turn to you when our well-being is threatened in any way.

Our Lord of Mercy Señor de la Misericordia Memorial 3 October Profile

On Saturday 2 October 1847, a massive earthquake hit the region of the town of Ocotlán, Mexico; much of the city was destroyed, and 40 people died. The next day, Sunday 3 October, during Mass outside the destroyed parish church, an apparition of Jesus Christ crucified appeared in the sky for approximately 30 minutes, witnessed by over 2,000 people. Following multiple investigations, interviews and written statements, the incident received approval as a miracle from Archbishop José de Jesús Ortiz y Rodríguez, archdiocese of Guadalajara, Mexico on 29 September 1911.

News: ROME October 1-17, CarloAcutis's body will be exposed for veneration by the faithful for the first time since his death on October 15, 2006.

Carlo's body is found in the Santuario della Spogliazione in Assisi, #Italy. He will be beatified on October 10 in Assisi.

Announcements from Our Association

ANNOUNCEMENT from Associazione Amici di Carlo Acutis- Asia

It is necessary to inform the faithful that anyone who requests money in the name of the Venerable Carlo Acutis for any reason: both to open a foundation and for other purposes, is not authorised to do so. We repeat that no one is allowed – neither private individuals, nor secular or religious institutions – to use the name of Carlo Acutis to obtain funding or aid. The Associazione Amici di Carlo Acutis has never asked for money, therefore be aware of anyone who does so in his name.

Asian Countries no one is permitted to use the Name of Carlo Acutis without the consent of Asian Association of Amici Di Carlo Acutis.

No one is allowed – neither private individuals, nor secular or religious institutions – to use the name of Carlo Acutis without the permission of Association

The request to be made to [email protected]

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Any unlawful action will be pursued legally in the appropriate places.

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ASSIOCIATION DE AMICI DE CARLO ACUTIS