June 22nd: Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher

In 1534, Henry VIII of England locked John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, former Chancellor of England, in the Tower of London for their opposition to his seizure of control over the Church in England. After 14 months of imprisonment, Fisher knelt down for the last time -- not before the tabernacle, but before the executioner's block on Tower Hill, Tyburn. Pope Paul III had created Fisher a cardinal during his imprisonment in the hope that Henry would deal leniently with him.  But this time, the red had that symbolizes a cardinal's willingness to undergo martyrdom was more than a symbol: Henry forbade the hat to to be brought into England, undertaking instead to send Fisher's head to Rome.  The head fell on June 22, 1535.  Two weeks later, Sir Thomas followed his friend to the block.  Exactly four centuries elapsed before the pair was raised to the altar by Pope Pius XI, with a shared feast day.

In his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, set in Hungary on the eve of the Turkish invasion, and written in the Tower of London, St. Thomas More has this to say on the subject of martyrdom, for which he himself had not long to wait:

When we feel ourselves too bold, let us remember our own feebleness, and when we feel ourselves too faint, let us remember Christ's strength.  In our fear, let us remember Christ's painful agony -- that agony which for our encouragement He suffered before His Passion, to the intent that no fear should make us despair -- and let us ever call for His help, such as He Himself is pleased to send us.  Then we need never doubt but that either He will keep us from that painful death, or else He will not fail so to strengthen us in it that He will joyously bring us to heaven by it -- in which case He does much more for us than if He kept us from it.  God did, after all, do more for poor Lazarus by helping him to die patiently of hunger at the rich man's door than if He had brought to him at the door all the rich glutton's dinner.  So though He is gracious to a person whom He delivers out of painful trouble, He ye does much more for a person if through a right painful death He delivers them from this wretched world into eternal bliss....

I think, indeed, that almost every good Christian would be very glad today to have been cruelly killed yesterday for Christ's faith -- and glad simply for desire of heaven, even if there were no hell.  The problem is the fear while the pain is coming; that's what really holds us back.  But if we would at that time remember the hell pain that lies on the other side, that pain into which we would fall by fleeing from this one, then this short pain would be no hindrance at all.  And if we were full of faith, we would be spurred on even more by a deep consideration of the joys of heaven.  As Saint Paul says, "The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" [Romans 8:18].      

Because I Just Like Flowers

I've been a shutterbug since high school.  I used to develop my own film and make my own prints in a darkroom at school.  Being too sophisticated for color, I mostly did black-and-white pics.  I even won an award in a national competition: thirty bucks that I used to buy a polarizer filter.  Now that we have digital photography, and my computer is my darkroom, developing and printing are a lot neater and cleaner and less smelly (not to mention cheaper).  

My favorite subjects are scenes out of nature, and especially flowers.  I have hundreds of images -- and growing -- so I picked out some of my best ones and opened a store on Cafe Press.  Check out my stuff on Victory Works, where I'm gradually adding new stuff.  

And if you'd drop a little coin while you're there, I'd be extremely pleased.

The Trench Priest Goes Digital

And since Fr. Doyle used whatever technology he could lay his hands on to spread the Gospel, from print to primitive slide projectors, we can assume that -- having  been reconciled in heaven to God's will regarding the publication of his spiritual writings, which he never intended to be read -- he would approve.

From the very neighborhood where Fr. Doyle grew up comes Remembering Fr. William Doyle SJ, a blog about the heroic Dubliner who prayed for -- and, on the morrow of the Assumption, 1917, received -- the grace of becoming a Jesuit martyr.  "Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter to the Church in Ireland," says the blog owner, 

has wisely outlined the path of reform for the Church. It involves a return to the sources of our faith as well as acts of reparation and penance and a recognition of the need for holiness as the antidote to scandal in the Church. Significantly, it involves remembering the rock from which we have been hewn. We must remember, and emulate, the "generous, often heroic, contributions made by past generations of Irish men and women to the Church and to humanity as a whole". These heroes of the past show us the way to renewal of the Church and the way to Christ. They present a variety of modes of behaviour, and approaches to genuine spirituality that we can adapt for our own lives.

Fr Willie Doyle SJ was one of those heroes.

It is incredible that such a hero as Fr. Doyle was has largely been forgotten.  Our latest Ally for Victory thinks so too, and has set out to remedy the situation.  Check it out, and get to know this utterly courageous, staunchly patriotic and thoroughly lovable warrior of God.   

June 13, 1917: Promises and Predictions

The war raged on.  Europe was no stranger to war; but the ferocity and the scope of this war were unprecedented.  The slaughter proceeded on an industrial scale.  And there were the new horrors, beyond all description: the blood and mud of trench warfare; poison gas; primitive tanks, whose operators could not expect to survive more than a few minutes in an engagement; and air raids over cities.  While the three shepherd children of Fatima were keeping their appointment with the Mother of God in the Cova da Iria on June 13, 1917, 18-20 German bombers struck the city of London in broad daylight, in one of the worst air raids of the war.  Four hundred people were injured, and 162 -- including 46 children -- perished. 

The peace that had fled the world had also fled Fatima, particularly in the home of Lucia dos Santos.  After the first apparition of Our Lady at the Cova da Iria, her little cousin, Jacinta, promptly broke the children's firm resolution not to tell anyone what they had seen; and thus began in earnest the sufferings the children promised to undergo for the conversion of sinners.  From this point forward, the children were hounded by inquisitors, both pious and profane, and curiosity-seekers.  But Lucia bore the added burden of persecution right at home.  Her family treated her with contempt; and her mother, who had a great horror of lying, employed every means, including corporal punishment, to make her daughter admit that she was lying.  It was hoped that the children would forget about the alleged apparitions amid the festivities of June 13th, the feast of St. Anthony of Padua.

But the children did not forget.  At noon on the feast of St. Anthony, the children were not at the festa, but at the Cova.  Lucia records in her Fourth Memoir:

As soon as Jacinta, Francisco and I had finished praying the Rosary, with a number of other people who were present, we saw once more the flash reflecting the light which was approaching (which we called lightning).  The next moment, Our Lady was there on the holmoak, exactly the same as in May.

"What do you want of me?" I asked.

"I wish you to come here on the 13th of next month, to pray the Rosary every day, and to learn to read.  Later, I will tell you what I want."

Amid the rending torments of nations, heaven remembers individuals, even the least of them, down to the last detail.

I asked for the cure of a sick person.

"If he is converted, he will be cured during the year."

"I would like to ask you to take us to heaven."

"Yes.  I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon.  But you are to stay here some time longer.  Jesus wishes to make use of you to make me known and loved.  He wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart."

Some time longer...The Mother of God has a gift for understatement.  Jacinta and Francisco would both be dead within three years, but another 88 years would pass before Our Lady would come for Lucia. 

"Am I to stay here alone?"  I asked, sadly.

"No, my daughter.  Are you suffering a great deal?  Don't lose heart.  I will never forsake you.  My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God."

As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands and for the second time, she communicated to us the rays of that same immense light.  We saw ourselves in this light, as it were, immersed in God.  Jacinta and Francisco seemed to be in that part of the light which rose towards heaven, and I in that which was poured out on the earth.  In front of the palm of Our Lady's right hand was a heart encircled by thorns which pierced it.  We understood that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, outraged by the sins of humanity, and seeking reparation.

In her Third Memoir, Lucia looks back on the effects of this second apparition on her and her cousins:

...Our Lady told me on June 13, 1917 that she would never forsake me, and that her Immaculate Heart would be my refuge and the way that would lead me to God.  As she spoke these words, she opened her hands, and from them streamed a light that penetrated to our inmost hearts.  I think that, on that day, the main purpose of this light was to infuse within us a special knowledge and love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary, just as on the other two occasions it was intended to do, as it seems to me, with regard to God and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

From that day onwards, our hearts were filled with a more ardent love for the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  From time to time, Jacinta said to me: "The Lady said that her Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.  Don't you love that?  Her Heart is so good!  How I love it!"

In the Fourth Memoir, Lucia describes more particularly the effects of this apparition on Francisco:

...Francisco was deeply impressed by the light which, as I related in the second account, Our Lady communicated to us at the moment when she said: "My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way which will lead you to God."...

He remarked sometimes:

"These people are so happy just because you told them that Our Lady wants the Rosary said, and that you are to learn to read!  How would they feel if they only knew what she showed us in God, in her Immaculate Heart, in that great light!  But this is a secret; it must not be spoken about.  It's better that no one should know it."

But greater secrets -- and greater sufferings -- were to come.

Flower Power

Well, the clouds parted for a short spell earlier this afternoon, so that gave me an opportunity to capture a few images of our fleeting spring up by the Boise Depot.

Primitive yellow roses with raindrops still inside.

Poppies.

Heather.

I don't know what they call these abundant little white flowers, but they're pretty neat.

The Roses Are Coming

We continue to have unseasonably cool weather, storms and overcast skies, so spring hasn't put on much of a spectacle yet.  On the other hand, she hasn't exactly been idle, either.  The roses are starting to come up at the Rose Garden at Julia Davis Park.

 And I know these are weeds, but they are still beautiful in their way.

 And on the way back from Nyssa on Sunday, there was this explosion of yellow roses.

  Hopefully the sun comes out soon.  Until then, the yellow roses will have to fill in!

What Season IS It?

This somewhat grainy photo demonstrates a weird yet typical Idaho phenomenon: the juxtaposition of winter and late spring.  The snow in the foothills behind the Statehouse fell on the night of May 22-23.

Must be global warming. 

Pentecost

This is one of my favorite paintings of Pentecost.  Look at the guy in the fetal position at the bottom, with his hands folded over his head.  Notice the flame coming at him.  The Holy Spirit always gets His man, even though the man's afraid and hiding.

New Ally for Victory: Maria Stops Abortion

I was praying at the weekly vigil outside the abortion clinic recently when a young women passing stopped and came up to me with her young daughter.

“I came here to have an abortion over three years ago” she told me.

“I noticed there were people praying outside the clinic. I could not go in. This is my daughter and thank God I did not have the abortion that day” she told me with a smile. 

Maria Stops Abortion is the blog of the Good Counsel Network, a pro-life organization dedicated to assisting women in crisis pregnancies.  Stop in and take a look at the work they're doing. 

May 13, 1917: The Campaign Opens

May 13, 1917 dawned upon a world in turmoil.  The fratricidal slaughter that engulfed Europe had raged for nearly three years, and had now spread over the whole globe.  One month earlier, the United States stepped into the European fray with her declaration of war on Germany.  The social and political order of the Old World was being swept away.  Two months earlier, the Czar of Russia abdicated, as his country slid toward the abyss of communism.  Nor were the horrors of 1914-1918 the worst the world would ever see.  The veterans of the War to End All War would not reach middle age before the outbreak of another and even more terrible war.  On May 13, 1917, Pope Benedict XV consecrated as archbishop the man who would steer the Barque of Peter through the bloodiest period (to that point) in human history.  As this future supreme shepherd knelt before the Pope, three shepherd children in a small plot of pasture land near Aljustrel, Portugal fell to their knees before a luminous vision over a small holm oak.

In 1941, the oldest of these three children, Lucia dos Santos -- now a Dorothean sister -- wrote under obedience in her 4th Memoir:

High up on the slope in the Cova da Iria, I was playing with Jacinta and Francisco at building a little stone wall around a clump of furze.  Suddenly we saw what seemed to be a flash of lightning.

"We'd better go home," I said to my cousins, "that's lightning; we may have a thunderstorm."

"Yes, indeed!" they answered.

We began to go down the slope, hurrying the sheep along toward the road.  We were more or less half-way down the slope, and almost level with a large holmoak tree that stood there, when we saw another flash of lightning.  We had only gone a few steps further when, there before us on a small holmoak, we beheld a Lady all dressed in white.  She was more brilliant than the sun, and radiated a light more clear and intense than a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, when the rays of the burning sun shine through it.

We stopped, astounded, before the Apparition.  We were so close, just a few feet from her, that we were bathed in the light which surrounded her, or rather, which radiated from her.  Then Our Lady spoke to us:

"Do not be afraid.  I will do you no harm."

"Where are you from"

"I am from heaven."

"What do you want of me?"

"I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13th day, at this same hour.  Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want.  Afterwards, I will return here a seventh time."

The seventh time Our Lady came to the Cova da Iria was to give Lucia a private message in 1921, when she was was about to leave home to board at the Dorothean school in Vilar de Oporto.  Her bishop sent her there under an assumed name, among other reasons, to give her a chance at a normal life.  Lucia continues:

"Shall I go to heaven too?"

"Yes, you will."

"And Jacinta?"

"She will go also."

"And Francisco?"

"He will go there too, but he must say many Rosaries." 

Then I remembered to ask about two girls who had died recently.  They were friends of mine and used to come to my home to learn weaving with my eldest sister.

"Is Maria das Neves in heaven?"

"Yes, she is."  (I think she was about 16 years old.)

"And Amelia?"

"She will be in purgatory until the end of the world."  (It seems to me that she was between 18 and 20 years of age.)

If this young girl from rural Portugal, a place where the faith was still strong, had racked up enough offenses to merit purgatory until the end of time, what is to become of us in this time of weakened faith, with vastly greater opportunities for sinning and a culture that encourages us to yield to temptation rather than fight it?  

Lucia continues:

"Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?"

"Yes, we are willing."

"Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort."

As she pronounced these words, "the grace of God will be your comfort," Our Lady opened her hands for the first time, communicating to us a light so intense that, as it streamed from her hands, its rays penetrated our hearts and the innermost depths of our souls, making us see ourselves in God, Who was that light, more clearly than we see ourselves in the best of mirrors.  Then, moved by an interior impulse that was also communicated to us, we fell on our knees, repeating in our hearts:

"O most Holy Trinity, I adore You!  My God, my God, I love You in the most Blessed Sacrament!"

After a few moments, Our Lady spoke again:

"Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world, and the end of the war."

Then she began to rise serenely, going up towards the east, until she disappeared in the immensity of space.  The light that surrounded her seemed to open up a path before her in the firmament, and for this reason we sometimes said that we saw heaven opening.

Almost exactly ten years after this apparition, a boy was born to a policeman and his wife in Bavaria, where the future Pius XII -- consecrated archbishop on the very day the apparition took place -- had served as Papal Nuncio.  That boy was destined to become the fifth successor of the man who had once been the Pope's ambassador to the boy's place of birth, and to take the name of the Pope that had made the ambassador an archbishop; and to steer the Barque of Peter through seas no less turbulent and furious than those through which Benedict XV and Pius XII had to navigate.  

Now, on the 93rd anniversary of this first apparition, and the 10th anniversary of the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the younger two shepherd children, he is at the place of the apparitions -- the third Pope to make such a pilgrimage -- where he has entrusted and consecrated all priests to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  

Pope Benedict's prayer before the statue of Mary in the Chapel of the Apparitions:

Holy Father:
 
Our Lady,
Mother of all men and women,
I come before you as a son
visiting his Mother,
and I do so in company
with a multitude of brothers and sisters.
As the Successor of Peter,
to whom was entrusted the mission
of presiding in the service
of charity in the Church of Christ
and of confirming all in faith and in hope,
I wish to present to your
Immaculate Heart
the joys and hopes
as well as the problems and sufferings
of each one of these sons and daughters of yours
who are gathered in the Cova di Iria
or who are praying with us from afar.

Mother most gentle,
you know each one by name,
you know each one’s face and personal history,
and you love them all
with maternal benevolence
that wells up from the very heart of Divine Love.
I entrust and consecrate them all to you,
Mary Most Holy,
Mother of God and our Mother.
 
Cantors and Assembly: We sing to you and we praise you, O Mary (v. 1)
 
Holy Father:
 
The Venerable Pope John Paul II,
who visited you three times here in Fatima
and thanked the "unseen hand"
that rescued him from death
in the assassination attempt on 13 May
in Saint Peter’s Square almost thirty years ago,
wanted to offer to the Shrine of Fatima
a bullet which gravely wounded him
and was placed in the crown of the Queen of Peace.
It is a profound consolation
to know that you are crowned
not only with the silver
and gold of our joys and hopes,
but also with the "bullet"
of our anxieties and sufferings.

I thank you, beloved Mother,
for the prayers and sacrifices
that the shepherd-children
of Fatima offered for the Pope,
led by the sentiments
that you inspired in them in the apparitions.
I also thank all those who,
every day,
pray for the Successor of Peter
and for his intentions,
that the Pope may be strong in faith,
bold in hope and zealous in love.
 
Cantors and Assembly: We sing to you and we praise you, O Mary (v. 2)
 
Holy Father:
 
Beloved Mother of us all,
here in your Shrine at Fatima I consign
the Golden Rose
that I have brought from Rome
as a homage of gratitude from the Pope
for the marvels that the Almighty
has worked through you
in the hearts of so many who come as pilgrims
to this your maternal home.

I am sure that the shepherd-children of Fatima,
Blessed Francisco and Jacinta
and the Servant of God Lucia of Jesus,
are united with us at this hour of prayer and jubilation.
 
Cantors and Assembly: We sing to you and we praise you, O Mary (v. 5).