SAINTS: February 19 - 25, 2005 -- part 1

["Alfred de Tavares" <alfredtavares@hotmail.com>]

OBS: REPEATING DUE TO NON_APPEARENCE OF LAST NIGHT's POSTING

SAINTS:  February 19 - 25,  2005:

Saturday, February 19: St CONRAD OF PIACENZA.  B. 1290; d. 1350. Born of a 
noble family in northern Italy, Conrad as a young man married Euphrosyne, 
daughter of a nobleman.

One day while hunting he ordered attendants to set fire to some brush in 
order to flush out the game. The fire spread to nearby fields and to a large 
forest. Conrad fled. An innocent peasant was imprisoned, tortured to confess 
and condemned to death. Conrad confessed his guilt, saved the man?s life and 
paid for the damaged property.

Soon after this event, Conrad and his wife agreed to separate: she to a Poor 
Clare monastery and he to a group of hermits following the Third Order Rule. 
His reputation for holiness, however, spread quickly. Since his many 
visitors destroyed his solitude, Conrad went to a more remote spot in Sicily 
where he lived 36 years as a hermit, praying for himself and for the rest of 
the world.

Prayer and penance were his answer to the temptations that beset him. Conrad 
died kneeling before a crucifix. He was canonized in 1625.

Comment: Francis of Assisi was drawn both to contemplation and to a life of 
preaching; periods of intense prayer nourished his preaching. Some of his 
early followers, however, felt called to a life of greater contemplation, 
and he accepted that. Though Conrad of Piacenza is not the norm in the 
Church, he and other contemplatives remind us of the greatness of God and of 
the joys of heaven.

Quote: Pope Paul VI?s 1969 Instruction on the Contemplative Life includes 
this passage: "To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to 
associating themselves more intimately with Christ?s passion, and it enables 
them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the 
passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland"
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Other Saints Today: Sts. ALVAREZ OF CORDOVA; AUXIBIUS; BARBATUS; BEATUS; 
BELIANA; BONIFACE OF LAUSANE; MANSUETO; MESROP; ODRAN; VALERIUS; ZAMBDAS; 
Bl. LUCY.
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Sunday, February 20: Bls. JACINTA AND FRANCESCO MARTO, pastorinhos de 
Fatima. B. 1910; d.1920; b. 1908; d. 1919 resp. Between May 13 and October 
13, 1917, three children, Portuguese shepherds from Aljustrel, received 
apparitions of Our Lady at Cova da Iria, near Fatima, a city 110 miles north 
of Lisbon. At that time, Europe was involved in an extremely bloody war. 
Portugal itself was in political turmoil, having overthrown its monarchy in 
1910; the government disbanded religious organizations soon after.

At the first appearance, Mary asked the children to return to that spot on 
the thirteenth of each month for the next six months. She also asked them to 
learn to read and write and to pray the rosary ?to obtain peace for the 
world and the end of the war.? They were to pray for sinners and for the 
conversion of Russia, which had recently overthrown Czar Nicholas II and was 
soon to fall under communism. Up to 90,000 people gathered for Mary?s final 
apparition on October 13, 1917.

Less than two years later, Francisco died of influenza in his family home. 
He was buried in the parish cemetery and then re-buried in the Fatima 
basilica in 1952. Jacinta died of influenza in Lisbon, offering her 
suffering for the conversion of sinners, peace in the world and the Holy 
Father. She was re-buried in the Fatima basilica in 1951. Their cousin, 
Lucia dos Santos, became a Carmelite nun and was still living when Jacinta 
and Francisco were beatified in 2000. Sister Lucia died in February 2005 at 
the age of 97. The shrine of Our Lady of Fatima is visited by up to 20 
million people a year.

Comment: The Church is always very cautious about endorsing alleged 
apparitions, but it has seen benefits from people changing their lives 
because of the message of Our Lady of Fatima. Prayer for sinners, devotion 
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and praying the rosary?all these reinforce 
the Good News Jesus came to preach.

Quote: In his homily at their beatification, Pope John Paul II recalled that 
shortly before Francisco died, Jacinta said to him, ?Give my greetings to 
Our Lord and to Our Lady and tell them that I am enduring everything they 
want for the conversion of sinners.?
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Other Saints Today: Sts. AMATA; BOLCAN; COLGAN; ELEUTHERIUS OF TOURNAI; LEO 
OF CATANIA; SHAHDOST; ULRIC OF HASELBURY; VALERIUS; WULFRIC; MARTYRS OF TYRE
================================================================================

Monday, February 21: St. PETER DAMIAN, cardinal-bishop. B. 1007; d. 1072. 
Maybe because he was orphaned and had been treated shabbily by one of his 
brothers, Peter Damian was very good to the poor. It was the ordinary thing 
for him to have a poor person or two with him at table and he liked to 
minister personally to their needs.

Peter escaped poverty and the neglect of his own brother when his other 
brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took him under his wing. His brother 
sent him to good schools and Peter became a professor.

Already in those days Peter was very strict with himself. He wore a hair 
shirt under his clothes, fasted rigorously and spent many hours in prayer. 
Soon, he decided to leave his teaching and give himself completely to prayer 
with the Benedictines of the reform of St. Romuald at Fonte Avellana. They 
lived two monks to a hermitage. Peter was so eager to pray and slept so 
little that he soon suffered from severe insomnia. He found he had to use 
some prudence in taking care of himself. When he was not praying, he studied 
the Bible.

The abbot commanded that when he died Peter should succeed him. Abbot Peter 
founded five other hermitages. He encouraged his brothers in a life of 
prayer and solitude and wanted nothing more for himself. The Holy See 
periodically called on him, however, to be a peacemaker or troubleshooter, 
between two abbeys in dispute or a cleric or government official in some 
disagreement with Rome.

Finally, Pope Stephen IX made Peter the cardinal-bishop of Ostia. He worked 
hard to wipe out simony, and encouraged his priests to observe celibacy and 
urged even the diocesan clergy to live together and maintain scheduled 
prayer and religious observance. He wished to restore primitive discipline 
among religious and priests, warning against needless travel, violations of 
poverty and too comfortable living. He even wrote to the bishop of Besancon, 
complaining that the canons there sat down when they were singing the psalms 
in the Divine Office.

He wrote many letters. Some 170 are extant. We also have 53 of his sermons 
and seven lives, or biographies, that he wrote. He preferred examples and 
stories rather than theory in his writings. The liturgical offices he wrote 
are evidence of his talent as a stylist in Latin.

He asked often to be allowed to retire as cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and 
finally Alexander II consented. Peter was happy to become once again just a 
monk, but he was still called to serve as a papal legate. When returning 
from such an assignment in Ravenna, he was overcome by a fever. With the 
monks gathered around him saying the Divine Office, he died on February 22, 
1072. In 1828 he was declared a Doctor of the Church.

Comment: Peter was a reformer and if he were alive today would no doubt 
encourage the renewal started by Vatican II. He would also applaud the 
greater emphasis on prayer that is shown by the growing number of priests, 
religious and laypersons who gather regularly for prayer, as well as the 
special houses of prayer recently established by many religious communities.

Quote: ?...Let us faithfully transmit to posterity the example of virtue 
which we have received from our forefathers? (St. Peter Damian)
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Other Saints Today: Sts AVITUS ll OF CLERMONT; FELIX OF METZ; GUNDEBERT; 
PATERIUS; PETER THE SCRIBE; SEVERIAN;  VALERIUS; VERULUS & COMPANIONS; Bl. 
PEPIN OF LANDEN
===============================================================================

Tuesday, February 22: SOLEMNITY of the CHAIR of  PETER the APOSTLE. This 
feast commemorates Christ?s choosing Peter to sit in his place as the 
servant-authority of the whole Church (see June 29).

After the ?lost weekend? of pain, doubt and self-torment, Peter hears the 
Good News. Angels at the tomb say to Magdalene, ?The Lord has risen! Go, 
tell his disciples and Peter.? John relates that when he and Peter ran to 
the tomb, the younger outraced the older, then waited for him. Peter 
entered, saw the wrappings on the ground, the headpiece rolled up in a place 
by itself. John saw and believed. But he adds a reminder: ?..[T]hey did not 
yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead? (John 20:9). 
They went home. There the slowly exploding, impossible idea became reality. 
Jesus appeared to them as they waited fearfully behind locked doors. ?Peace 
be with you,? he said (John 20:21b), and they rejoiced.

The Pentecost event completed Peter?s experience of the risen Christ. 
?...[T]hey were all filled with the holy Spirit? (Acts 2:4a) and began to 
express themselves in foreign tongues and make bold proclamation as the 
Spirit prompted them.

Only then can Peter fulfill the task Jesus had given him: ?... [O]nce you 
have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers? (Luke 22:32). He at 
once becomes the spokesman for the Twelve about their experience of the Holy 
Spirit?before the civil authorities who wished to quash their preaching, 
before the council of Jerusalem, for the community in the problem of Ananias 
and Sapphira. He is the first to preach the Good News to the Gentiles. The 
healing power of Jesus in him is well attested: the raising of Tabitha from 
the dead, the cure of the crippled beggar. People carry the sick into the 
streets so that when Peter passed his shadow might fall on them.

Even a saint experiences difficulty in Christian living. When Peter stopped 
eating with Gentile converts because he did not want to wound the 
sensibilities of Jewish Christians, Paul says, ?...I opposed him to his face 
because he clearly was wrong.... [T]hey were not on the right road in line 
with the truth of the gospel...? (Galatians 2:11b, 14a).

At the end of John?s Gospel, Jesus says to Peter, ?Amen, amen, I say to you, 
when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; 
but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else 
will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go? (John 21:18). What 
Jesus said indicated the sort of death by which Peter was to glorify God. On 
Vatican Hill, in Rome, during the reign of Nero, Peter did glorify his Lord 
with a martyr?s death, probably in the company of many Christians.

Comment: Like the committee chair, this chair refers to the occupant, not 
the furniture. Its first occupant stumbled a bit, denying Jesus three times 
and hesitating to welcome gentiles into the new Church. Some of its later 
occupants have also stumbled a bit, sometimes even failed scandalously. As 
individuals, we may sometimes think a particular pope has let us down. 
Still, the office endures as a sign of the long tradition we cherish and as 
a focus for the universal Church.

Quote: Peter described our Christian calling in the opening of his First 
Letter, ?Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his 
great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead...? (1 Peter 1:3a).
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Other Saints Today: Sts. ARISTION; ATHANASIUS; BARADATES; ELWIN: MARGARET OF 
CORTONA; MAXIMIAN OF RAVENA; PAPIAS; RAYNERUS; THALASSIUS & LIMUNEUS; THE 
MARTYRS OF ARABIA; Bl. JOHN THE SAXON
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(SOURCES: An AmericanCatholic.org Web Site from the Franciscans and St. 
Anthony Messenger Press ?©1996-2004; The Penguin Dictionary of Saints and 
other.)

Alfred de Tavares,
Maltesholmsvagen 83,
SE-165 55 Hasselby, Sweden
Tel: 0046 8 759 6213; 0046 (0)70 295 4091

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