Spiritual Woman

Saint Francis (Christian Encounters Series)
by Robert West
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010

St. Francis, who lived and preached in the 13th century, is one of Christianity’s most beloved saints. Like many saints, however, time has served to separate him from the actual life he lived. In many minds, he is known only as the lover of animals. He is usually seen with birds, often as a statue in a garden. While St. Francis certainly had that side to him, he was much more than that. “Saint Francis” by Robert West, a book in the Christian Encounters series by Thomas Nelson, sets out to show Francis in all his complexity. He was a saint, yes, but like all saints, he was also very human.

This is a no-holds-barred biography of Francis. West does not gloss over Francis’ wild youth. In fact, he makes much of it in order to contrast it with the man he later became. Yet, the charisma that would make Francis such a compelling preacher and leader was already at root in the boy and young man. Francis was meant to be a leader.

West discusses Francis’s conversion and does his utmost to make his love of “Lady Poverty” understandable to the modern mind. He shows the battles Francis had with his own bodily desires and the lengths he would go to in order to overcome them. He wanted nothing to come between him and God. West also examines his relationship with the men that would come to join him as well as his relationship with St. Clare, who also gave up everything to follow him.

Francis’ life was certainly not without its challenges. His way of life was so austere that many begged him to relax his rules for those who followed him, but he would not relent. As a result, there was infighting among the brothers, especially when Francis was not physically present. It took considerable effort for his order to be recognized by the Pope. His dream of converting the Muslim Sultan during the crusades did not go the way he had hoped.

Yet, Francis is most known for his miracles, his communing with nature, and the stigmata he bore on his body. West examines some of the legends that grew up around the life of Francis, and despite a healthy skepticism, is willing to admit that at least some of them were possible.

West’s “Saint Francis” is a highly readable well-researched biography. It serves as a valuable introduction to the life of the man behind the statues.

2010 is the 10th Anniversary of the Canonization of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, who was chosen by God to help promote the importance of Divine Mercy. Her feast day is October 5th.

Prayer to St. Faustina

Saint Faustina,

Amen.

Saint Gianna, heroically Christlike wife, mother and physician, I ask the help of your prayers, as I strive to follow your holy example in my physical and spiritual trials.

by Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke

To purchase prayer cards with this prayer, please visit: St. Gianna Prayer Cards

Most of the saints we learn about and love lived a long time ago. As much as we can study their lives and, when available, read their writings, it can be difficult to imagine them as living, breathing human beings who struggled with life. That is one reason why it is so amazing to watch “St. Gianna Beretta Molla: A Modern Day Hero of Divine Love,” a new DVD about a saint who lived in our own time. The DVD is a visual delight, featuring photos and home movies of St. Gianna, who lived from 1922 to 1962. One gets to see her getting married and playing with her children and living out her career as a doctor. Viewers see her laughing and smiling and loving life. This is a real woman. She is someone like us. Sadly, one also has the opportunity to get a glimpse of the outpouring of mourners at her funeral. She was truly loved in her community and admired for her sanctity.

Here we get to know a woman like so many of us who struggled to balance work and family. She was highly intelligent, excelling in her studies. She also loved music and art and being in the mountains. She loved her family above all else, but saw her career as a physician as a calling from God. Not only did she run her own practice, she was an active volunteer and sought to bring medical care to those who needed it, especially mothers and children. She would tell other doctors that “when you have finished your earthly profession, if you have done this well, you will enjoy divine life ‘because I was sick and you healed me.’”

St. Gianna was raised in a Christ-centered family and sought to raise her children the same way. Her life was one of service and was deeply rooted in prayer. She attended daily Mass as often as possible and prayed her rosary daily. She was always ready to encourage others in their relationship with God. She was a woman who viewed life as a gift from God and trusted in the power of prayer. Totally pro-life, her ultimate sacrifice was to give birth to her last child, even though she was advised against it and knew it might result in her own death. After giving birth, she bravely bore her final suffering with grace and prayer. She died on April 28, 1962 at the age of 39. Beatified in 1994 and canonized in 2004, Pope John Paul II held St. Gianna up as a role model for mothers, physicians, and the pro-life cause.

Watching “St. Gianna Beretta Molla: A Modern Day Hero of Divine Love” is an opportunity to discover a wonderful woman devoted to God who can serve as a model for all of us struggling with life as mothers.

To order this DVD produced by Catholic Action for Faith and Family, please visit www.stgiannaphysicians.org.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla: A Modern Day Hero of Divine Love
by Thomas J. McKenna
San Diego: Catholic Action for Faith and Family, 2008

At the canonization of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, Pope John Paul II stated “The extreme sacrifice she sealed with her life testifies that only those who have the courage to give of themselves totally to God and to others are able to find fulfillment.” St. Gianna, who lived from 1922 to 1962, was a woman of our own time. A physician, she was a working mother who lived a life of service to her family and her community. In the booklet “St. Gianna Beretta Molla: A Modern Day Hero of Divine Love,” Thomas J. McKenna provides a brief biography that will help introduce readers to the life of this modern day saint.

Raised in a devout Catholic family, she was devoted to Christ and the Church from her earliest days. As a teenager, she was deeply affected by attendance at a retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Soon after, she became active in the Catholic Action movement, “a lay spiritual movement that helps its members follow Christ by emphasizing prayer, service, and sacrifice.” She chose to study medicine because she felt it was the best way she could help people in both body and spirit. She would ultimately choose to specialize in pediatrics. She always felt that her role as a doctor was a calling from God.

She was an active woman with many interests, among them painting, music, and mountain trips. In 1955, she married Pietro Molla and devoted herself to Christian marriage and motherhood. She gave birth to three children in quick succession, and then suffered two miscarriages. In September 1961, she was expecting her fourth child when doctors found a large fibroid in her uterus. She was given three choices: remove the tumor, the unborn child, and her uterus (the only sure way to save her life); remove the tumor and the unborn child; or only remove the tumor. Even though she knew it was the riskiest course of action, she chose the last option and instructed her husband that if he was forced to choose between herself and the child, to choose the child. April 21, 1962, Gianna Emanuela was delivered via Cesarean Section. After suffering for a week, St. Gianna died on April 28, 1962 at the age of thirty-nine.

This booklet also contains excerpts from St. Gianna’s own writings which allow readers to get real insight into her thoughts and observations, as well as a collection of prayers to ask for St. Gianna’s intercession.

Brief, easy to read, and full of information, “St. Gianna Beretta Molla: A Modern Day Hero of Divine Love” is a wonderful introduction to the life and spirituality of this saint.

To purchase, please visit: St. Gianna Booklet

Today (July 26th) is the feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Grandparents of Jesus. St. Anne is one of my patron saints as I took her name as my confirmation name. I pray to her daily for help in parenting and in teaching my children. When I was a little girl, there was a picture in my bedroom of her teaching Mary. It wasn’t a traditional holy picture. There were no halos. It was a simple picture of a mother teaching her daughter sitting outside their home. Somehow, though, that image has always stayed with me.

Prayer to St. Anne

Glorious and holy St. Anne, whom the Heavens admire, whom the Saints honor, and the earth revers. The just, the penitent, and the sinner consider you as their powerful advocate before God, for by your intercession the just hope for an increase of grace, the penitent for their justification, the sinners for the remission of sins. Be then, kind and generous to me. Pray for me in Heaven. Use in my favor the great influence you have before God, particularly for (here make your request). Obtain my request and grant that I may live always close to God.

Follow with an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.

St. Martha, whose feast day falls on July 29th, has something of a poor reputation. The first thing people tend to think about when they hear her name is her being chastised by the Lord. Her sister Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, hanging on his every word while Martha was busy doing housework and serving their guests. She asks Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me. But the Lord answered, ‘Martha, Martha,’ he said, ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.” (Luke 11:40-42) Indeed, there are whole books on how to be more like Mary and less like Martha. Yet, St. Martha is also held in high esteem by the Church. It is important to know all of her story and to appreciate her for who she was.

The Gospel of John shows a different side of her. Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus has died. Mary remains in the house, one can only presume she is paralyzed with grief. Martha, on the other hand, runs out to meet the Lord and holds him accountable for his delay. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.” (John 11:21-22) She is a take charge, practical-minded woman, but she also has complete faith in Jesus and His Father in heaven. Jesus then tells her that her brother will rise again, and Martha responds, “I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.” It is a statement of faith, but Jesus asks more of her. He asks her to affirm that he is, in fact the Son of God. “̔I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Sod of God, the one who was to come into this world.’” Her faith is rewarded and Lazarus is raised from the dead.

The last time we see Martha in the Gospels, she is once again serving. It is shortly before Jesus dies. “Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there; Martha waited on them and Lazarus was among those at table.” This time, her sister brings in a pound of costly ointment and anoints Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair. This time, Martha offers no complaint. She allows Mary to serve and love Jesus in her way while she serves and loves in her own way.

Saint Martha is the patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks. She is a role model for all of us who serve others (which should really be all of us.) Even with the limited information we are given about her in the Gospels, she grows as a person. She moves from a martyr-type attitude, to a position of complete faith, to a willingness to love and serve without complaint. She invites each of us to do the same. We should look up to St. Martha for her example of trust and service. While we should certainly strive to imitate her sister Mary as well, Martha stands on her own two feet as a spiritual role model. The beauty of having so many saints is that there is someone for each of us to look up to and identify with.

Catherine of Siena: A Passionate Life
By Don Brophy
New York: Bluebridge, 2010

Don Brophy’s new biography of St. Catherine of Siena is subtitled “A Passionate Life.” This is truly an appropriate description of how Catherine lived. The Latin root of “passion” means to suffer or submit. In our modern day English, it implies great intensity of feeling. Catherine lived all these definitions. She submitted her life totally to Christ; she suffered intensely, both through her self-inflicted sacrifices and penances as well as through the disapproval of others; and she always acted with great intensity. She lived only thirty-three years, but in that short period of time, she challenged the expected roles of a woman of her era, changed the course of history, and left a legacy remembered through the ages via her letters, prayers, and book, “The Dialogue” also known as “The Treatise on Divine Providence” (all of which were dictated to scribes). Canonized in 1461, she was named a Doctor of the Church in 1970, one of the first two women to receive this honor.

In his “Author’s Note,” Brophy states that “the main focus of this biography is Catherine’s ‘public’ life rather than her private, interior life that pious biographies have focused on in the past. To accomplish that, it has to describe the political and social world she moved in.” He acknowledges, however, that it is impossible to fully separate her public role from her spiritual core. “Her motivation for engaging in events of her day flowed out of her conviction that she was called to the task by God. There is simply no way to appreciate her life or guage her place in history without exploring that conviction.” Brophy succeeds in his task. While those who are searching for a full discussion of her spirituality would be better served elsewhere, those who are looking for a discussion and exploration of her role in political and Church events of her day will be well served by “Catherine of Siena: A Passionate Life.”

It is evident that Brophy did copious amounts of research in order to compile this biography. He provides very informative notes on the text. He also displays a solid understanding of the Italian world of the time period, as well as a thorough grasp of Catherine’s spirituality. The Catherine presented here is immensely human, a task not always achieved in biographies of saints. She is no less holy, but she is a woman who struggles, and with God’s help, perseveres. “Catherine of Siena: A Passionate Life” is a worthy addition to the body of literature about this remarkable woman.

When I was growing up, my mother would often make a spiritual communion and speak of its value. I didn’t really pay much attention. It was fine for her, I reasoned. After all, it couldn’t hurt. But like many of what I considered her “pre-Vatican II” practices, I didn’t put much stock in it. With time, maturity, and education, I am beginning to realize the value of many of my mother’s prayers and devotions.

I recently read “7 Secrets of the Eucharist” by Vinny Flynn. It is a wonderful book, designed to help increase devotion to the Eucharist. The last chapter focuses on spiritual communions. Flynn relies on the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. There are both sacramental and spiritual communions. Sacramental communion refers to the physical reception of the Eucharist. Spiritual communion involves “a real longing for union with Christ.” Ideally, reception of the Eucharist involves both dimensions. One must always want to receive regular sacramental Communion. However, St. Thomas tells us that a “complete spiritual Communion can even take place when we are unable to receive sacramentally, because ‘the effect of a sacrament can be secured if it is received by desire.’”

St. Catherine of Siena also testified to the value of spiritual Communion. “She had begun to question whether her spiritual Communions had any real value compared to sacramental Communion. Suddenly she saw Christ holding two chalices. ‘In this golden chalice I put your sacramental communions. In this silver chalice I put your spiritual communions. Both chalices are quite pleasing to me.’” In 2003, Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

In the Eucharist, “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: Here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union.” Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of “spiritual communion,” which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. St. Teresa of Jesus wrote: “When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you” [The Way of Perfection, Ch. 35.].

A spiritual Communion can be of value to anyone who desires a deeper union with Christ. It can be made at any time of the day or night. It is especially appropriate for those who find themselves unable to physically receive the Eucharist. For example, those who are not yet Catholic, those who have been away from the Church for a long time and who have not yet made a good confession, those who are living in a state of serious sin, as well as those who are sick or housebound.

How does one make a spiritual Communion? Simply by desiring it. One formal prayer is “O Jesus, I turn toward the holy tabernacle where you live hidden for love of me. I love you, O my God. I cannot receive you in Holy Communion. Come nevertheless and visit me with your grace. Come spiritually into my heart. Purify it. Sanctify it. Render it like unto your own.” One need not use a formal prayer, however. A simple “Lord Jesus. Come into my heart” is sufficient, as is imagining Jesus coming into one’s heart. As with any other spiritual habit, the more one does it, the easier it will become. There is no limit to the number of times we can ask Jesus to meet us. He desires to be with us.

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.