Odium virtutis et veritatis....

...expect more martyrs in the future to fall into that category.

John Allen explains:

3. A new patron for Christian martyrs

One unfortunate side effect of the fact that popes generally no longer preside over beatification ceremonies is that people don't pay as much attention, which caused the May 25 beatification of Fr. Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi, the great anti-Mafia priest of Sicily gunned down in 1993, to pass largely without comment.

I wrote at the time that it was the most important beatification of the early 21st century, and I'm sticking by that diagnosis.

That's because Puglisi is an ideal patron saint for today's new generation of Christian martyrs. The number of Christians killed for reasons linked to their faith is approximately 100,000 every year, with millions more facing other forms of violent persecution. Puglisi is a compelling symbol not just because he's one of them, but because his beatification represents a key theological breakthrough in how Catholicism understands the concept of martyrdom.

Puglisi was pastor of San Gaetano Parish in the rough-and-tumble Palermo neighborhood of Brancaccio. He became famous for his strong anti-Mafia stance, refusing to take their money for feast day celebrations and not allowing dons to march at the head of processions. He received multiple death threats and, according to the testimony of one of his hit men (who later confessed), Puglisi's last words were: "I've been expecting you."

The broader significance of the beatification is this: Historically, the church has recognized martyrs only if they were killed in odium fidei, meaning hatred of the faith. Puglisi, however, was recognized as a martyr who died in odium virtutis et veritatis, meaning hatred of virtue and truth.//

This seems like a great idea.

Bringing showers to the homeless.

Bless Doneice Sandoval.

The deviant saint.

The story of St. Mark Ji Tianxiang is a caution for us moderns. When we depart from objective truth, our strategy is to deny the existence of objective truth, perhaps by arguing that "our truth" is different form "other people's truth," rather than acknowledging that there is an objective truth and that we are departing from that truth. The inability of moderns to think that it might be possible that they are wrong is a wonder to behold.

Here is St. Mark Ji Tianxian's story:

A friend of mine recently sent me a unusual holy card. It honors St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, a Chinese layman who was murdered in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village, in the vicious persecution of Christians during the Boxer rebellion. That’s not the unusual thing. The Church has canonized many martyrs, including many Chinese martyrs. What’s unusual about St. Mark is that he was an opium addict who was barred from receiving the sacraments for the last 30 years of his life.

Mark couldn’t receive communion because his addiction was regarded as gravely sinful and scandalous. He prayed for deliverance from his addiction, but deliverance never came. Nevertheless he remained a believing Catholic. At his trial he was given a chance to renounce his faith, but he refused. It is said that he sang the litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary as he was led to his execution.

Saints are exemplary people. The Church creates them so we can learn from them. So what can we learn from St. Mark Ji Tianxiang?

For starters, he shows that anybody can become a saint—even a man who was kicked out of the church for giving public scandal. By canonizing him, the Church also signals a different attitude toward addiction than the one St. Mark’s pastors had a century ago. Drug abuse is sinful, but addiction is also a disease of the mind and body. Addicts today are not excluded from the sacraments because they are addicts.

I also marvel at St. Mark’s confidence in the mercy of God. He probably shared the village’s opinion of him—that he was serious sinner who was behaving terribly. He must have felt despair in his futile struggles and perhaps some bitterness too. But he persevered in his faith. I suspect that in his brokenness he met the suffering Christ. In the end, he went to his death confidently, trusting that love would receive him. May we all imitate St. Mark.

Amen.

Redemption.

Chuck Colson has died.

Saints.

Another story from the Titanic.

Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told.

Fr. Thomas Byles

It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

A 42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14th, 1912.

According to witnesses, as the ship went down the priest helped women and children get into the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution, and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.

Agnes McCoy, one of the survivors, says that as the great ship sank, Fr. Byles “stood on the deck with Catholics, Protestants and Jews kneeling around him.”

“Father Byles was saying the rosary and praying for the repose of the souls of those about to perish,” she told the New York Telegram on April 22, 1912, according to the website devoted to his memory, atherByles.com.

Bloodlands.

I've just run across the story of the Eleven Nuns of Nowogrodek.

The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth arrived in Nowogródek in 1929 at the behest of Bishop Zygmunt Lozinski.[1] The Sisters became an integral part of the life of the town. During the Nazi and Soviet occupation of Poland, the Sisters invested great effort in preparing for the religious services—for the residents of the town, liturgical prayer became a beacon of hope amid the hopelessness of the occupation.[1]

The Nazi terror in Nowogródek began with the 1942 extermination of the Jews. Of the 20,000 inhabitants of the town before the war, approximately half were Jews. The Germans murdered about 9,500 of the Jews in a series of "actions" and sent the remaining 550 Jews to slave labor camps. This was followed by a surge in Polish arrests, then the slaughter of 60 people, including two priests. This situation was repeated on 18 July 1943, when more than 120 people were arrested and slated for execution.[1]

The Sisters unanimously expressed their desire to offer their lives in sacrifice for the imprisoned.[1] Sister Maria Stella shared the Sisters' decision with their chaplain Father Zienkiewicz and rector, saying, "My God, if sacrifice of life is needed, accept it from us and spare those who have families. We are even praying for this intention."[1] Almost immediately, the plans for the prisoners were changed—they were deported to work camps in Germany, and some of them were even released.[1] When the life of Father Zienkiewicz was threatened, the Sisters renewed their offer, saying, "There is a greater need for a priest on this earth than for us. We pray that God will take us in his place, if sacrifice of life is needed."[1]

Martyrdom

Without warning or provocation, on 31 July 1943, eleven of the sisters were imprisoned, loaded into a van and driven beyond the town limits.[2] The eleven nuns were killed on 1 August 1943 in the woods 5 km (3.1 mi) beyond Nowogródek, and buried in a common grave.[1] After the execution, Sister M. Malgorzata Banas, the community's sole surviving member, located the place of the martyrdom, and remained the guardian of their common grave until her own death in 1966.[1] The Church of the Transfiguration, known as Biała Fara, or "White Church", now contains the relics of the eleven martyrs.[1]

In a barbaric time, murdering nuns is not a great stretch from murdering children, mothers and the elderly because of religion or ethnicity, but still one has to wonder what the people who carried out these atrocities were thinking.

See review of "Bloodlands."

Funny how this kind of thing never comes up as often as the "the Inquisition."

Today's saints are the 19 Martyrs of Gorkum:

On July 9, 1572, nineteen priests and religious were put to death by hanging at Briel, the Netherlands. They had been captured in Gorkum on June 26 by a band of Calvinist pirates called the Watergeuzen (sea-beggars) who were opposed to the Catholicism of the Spanish princes of the country.


During their imprisonment, the priests were tortured, subjected to countless indignities, and offered their freedom if they would deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the primacy of the pope. Despite a letter from Prince William of Orange ordering their release and protests from the magistrates of Gorkum, the men were thrown half-naked into the hold of a ship on July 6, and taken to Briel to be killed in the presence of a Protestant nobleman, Admiral Lumey, who was noted for his hatred of Catholicism. Their bodies, mutilated both before and after death, were callously thrown into a ditch.

The scene of the martyrdom soon became a place of pilgrimage. Accounts of several miracles, performed through the martyrs’ intercession and relics, were used for their beatification. Most of their relics are kept in the Franciscan church at Brussels to which they were secretly conveyed from Briel in 1616.

To be fair, though, give credit to the magistrates of Gorkum and Prince William of Orange who recognized this as outside the bounds of Christian conduct.
History - it's a mixed bag.

Augustine, Gregory and Aquinas on the medium by which the "blessed dead" know about the living.

James Swan at Beggar's All - which is a Calvinist site that has a particular mission of re-fighting the 16th Century - has a post which he thinks makes Jimmy Akins of Catholic Answers look ridiculous. The problem is that Swan doesn't recognize that Jimmy Akin - who is no slouch when it comes to Thomistic theology - is simply restating the position of various early church fathers, who could run Swan in circles if it came to a scripture quoting contest.

Swan's post:

On Catholic Answers Live, Jimmy Akin explains how Mary is aware of prayers:


Jimmy Akin: How does Mary Hear Prayer? (mp3)

If doctrine doesn't need to be grounded in Scripture, anything goes! Actually, Jimmy doesn't even bother to offer a Scripture, which in a way, is rather honest.

Anyone who listens to Akins' explanation, and has worked their way through the first part of the Summa Theologica, will recognize Akins' explanation as a fairly accurate restatement of Aquinas' description of the condition of "separated souls," which he extrapolates to Mary's embodied soul.  As for not providing "a Scripture," scriptural texts are found in the works of the early Church Fathers on whom Akin relies.

My response followed:

Akins was simply restating a position held by many Christian theologians, including St. Augustine. Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 89, article 8: 

Gregory and Augustine, however, seem to be divided in opinion as regards the souls of the blessed in heaven, for Gregory continues the passage above quoted: "The case of the holy souls is different, for since they see the light of Almighty God, we cannot believe that external things are unknown to them." But Augustine (De Cura pro Mort. xiii) expressly says: "The dead, even the saints do not know what is done by the living or by their own children," as a gloss quotes on the text, "Abraham hath not known us" (Isaiah 63:16). He confirms this opinion by saying that he was not visited, nor consoled in sorrow by his mother, as when she was alive; and he could not think it possible that she was less kind when in a happier state; and again by the fact that the Lord promised to king Josias that he should die, lest he should see his people's afflictions (2 Kings 22:20). Yet Augustine says this in doubt; and premises, "Let every one take, as he pleases, what I say." Gregory, on the other hand, is positive, since he says, "We cannot believe." His opinion, indeed, seems to be the more probable one--that the souls of the blessed who see God do know all that passes here. For they are equal to the angels, of whom Augustine says that they know what happens among those living on earth. But as the souls of the blessed are most perfectly united to Divine justice, they do not suffer from sorrow, nor do they interfere in mundane affairs, except in accordance with Divine justice.

Swan's demurrer was that Augustine had not said what Akins said, which is an odd response since it concedes that other early Church Fathers had.  Of course, for a Reformed Christian, Augustine may have a special authoritative cache.

Swan wrote:

Hi there- I had a few minutes to look up the text Aquinas cited from Augustine. I'm not sure you exactly understood what you quoted, particularly since you mentioned Augustine, as cited by Aquinas, saying the same as Akin.

As far as I can tell, the text of what Aquinas cited from Augustine is not what Mr. Akin is stating, but rather what Gregory is stating.

http://www.fourthcentury.com/on-the-care-of-the-dead/

Here's a breakdown:

Two opinions, Gregory & Augustine.

2. for Gregory continues the passage above quoted: "The case of the holy souls is different, for since they see the light of Almighty God, we cannot believe that external things are unknown to them."

Gregory says the things going on one earth are known to the dead.

3.But Augustine (De Cura pro Mort. xiii) expressly says: "The dead, even the saints do not know what is done by the living or by their own children,"

The dead don't know what's going on on earth.

4. as a gloss quotes on the text, "Abraham hath not known us" (Isaiah 63:16).

Augustine says, "The great patriarchs were ignorant of the deeds done by the people whom they themselves had begotten, even though, because they believed in God, this people was promised to come from their own stock. If that is the case, how can the dead be involved so as to either know or help with the affairs and actions of the living?"

5.He confirms this opinion by saying that he was not visited, nor consoled in sorrow by his mother, as when she was alive; and he could not think it possible that she was less kind when in a happier state;


Augustine says, "If the souls of the dead could indeed involve themselves in the affairs of the living, and if it were really they themselves who are speaking to us when we see them in our sleep, I cannot speak for others, but my pious mother, who followed me over land and sea in order to live with me, would never miss a single night in visiting me. For it cannot be right that in a happier life she would have become crueler to such an extent that when any thing troubles my heart she no longer consoles the sad son whom she loved with a special love and whom she never wanted to see grieving."

6.and again by the fact that the Lord promised to king Josias that he should die, lest he should see his people's afflictions (2 Kings 22:20).

Augustine says, "What then would have been the great benefit in what God promised to that most godly king Josiah when he said that Josiah would die beforehand so that he would not have to see the evils which God threatened would come to that place and people?"

7. Yet Augustine says this in doubt; and premises, "Let every one take, as he pleases, what I say."

Augustine says, "Let each person accept what I am saying as it pleases him. If the souls of the dead could indeed involve themselves in the affairs of the living, and if it were really they themselves who are speaking to us when we see them in our sleep, I cannot speak for others, but my pious mother, who followed me over land and sea in order to live with me, would never miss a single night in visiting me."

8. Gregory, on the other hand, is positive, since he says, "We cannot believe." His opinion, indeed, seems to be the more probable one--that the souls of the blessed who see God do know all that passes here.

Aquinas goes with Gregory.

9. For they are equal to the angels, of whom Augustine says that they know what happens among those living on earth.

Augustine says the angles know what's happening on earth. Gregory holds those in heaven therefore are like the angels.

10.But as the souls of the blessed are most perfectly united to Divine justice, they do not suffer from sorrow, nor do they interfere in mundane affairs, except in accordance with Divine justice.

Aquinas, builds on Gregory's position, those in heaven do not sorrow, and only interfere in human affiars by God's will.

I don't claim to be any sort of expert on Augustine, but I simply don't see how Augusitne, being quoted by Aquinas, is what Akin is saying.

This isn't a bad breakdown of the text. It seems methodical and like a real attempt to determine the "kernel" of the issue. The basic problem with the analysis, however,  is that Augustine and Gregory are not disagreeing about whether the blessed dead ever have knowledge of what happens on Earth - they both know that prayers are directed to the blessed dead for intercession - but whether such knowledge is an "ordinary" feature of being in the beatific vision or if it is an extraordinary aspect of that condition.  Gregory believes that saints in the beatific vision know by their connection with God through the beatific vision all that occurs on Earth, while St. Augustine suggests - but is not confident - that they don't.

That, by the way, is a "tell" with Augustine: when Augustine is "pushing the envelope" against the majority opinion or tradition, he will signal that this is his opinion and that other people are free to make up their own mind.  So, Augustine represents what we might call the "minority position" as to whether the blessed dead ordinarily know what happens on Earth.

My last post noted this from the source cited by James Swan:

Augustine, "On the Care of the Dead."


"18. So then we must confess that the dead indeed do not know what is happening in this life while it is taking place. Afterwards, however, they might hear of it from those who pass from here to there at their death; not indeed everything, but those things which they who are allowed to remember such things are permitted to make known – those things which it is proper for those they are informing to hear. It may be also, that the dead hear some things from the angels who are acting in what happens here, but he to whom all is subject judges what it is proper for each one of them to hear."

Cf. Aquinas, ST, Part I, Question Q. 89, a. 8, reply to objection 1:

The souls of the departed may care for the living, even if ignorant of their state; just as we care for the dead by pouring forth prayer on their behalf, though we are ignorant of their state. Moreover, the affairs of the living can be made known to them not immediately, but the souls who pass hence thither, or by angels and demons, or even by "the revelation of the Holy Ghost," as Augustine says in the same book.

Again, Akin was merely restating what many Christians, including Augustine - and as you concede, Gregory and Aqinas - have said in the past.

The point of your post confuses me.

1. Do you believe that it is impossible for angels or God to inform "separated souls" of the prayers of the living?

2. Do you have an opinion as to whether angels can hear or prayers and relay them to God, and, if so, how do they "hear" our prayers?

3. Is it your belief that "separated souls" have all the capacities of memory, reason, imagination as they did when embodied?

"There be Dragons."

Godstuff has a review of the new film "There be Dragons."

In Joffe’s at times uneasy cinematic marriage of a historical epic and an intimate character study, the audience does come away with a message. But it’s about human frailty and divine grace, not piety or religious zeal.


The film’s protagonist is the antihero Manolo Torres, a fictitious childhood friend of Escriva, whose story is woven with Escriva’s throughout their lives. The two start out more or less on even ground as children in pre-war Spain.

Escriva’s father, a tender and pious man, owns a chocolate factory before losing his business and going bankrupt. The family clings to a simple faith through the death of several children and the bankruptcy of his business. The first mass Escriva celebrates as a priest is for his father’s funeral.

Torres’ father also owns a factory, albeit a far more successful one, and is a far less gracious soul than the elder Escriva. The elder Torres is judgmental, violent and given to fits of rage. While Escriva’s father serves God and family, Torres’ father worships mammon and considers his workers to be “scum.”

“My dad had more money, more cars, more houses, but Josemaria had more dad,” Manolo Torres says in a voiceover early on in the film. “A seed of envy began to grow in me. In a child’s heart many seeds are planted. You never know quite what will grow.”

Both young men end up in the Catholic seminary — a short-lived career move for Torres, but a holy vocation for Escriva. That’s where their paths diverge, only to be brought together time and again by the unfolding of history.

Neither Torres nor Escriva is depicted as fully saint or sinner. Escriva, in particular, is portrayed as a man whose heart belonged to God but whose feet were firmly planted on earth. He possesses an immovable faith and steady moral compass. He also has a tempe, a great sense of humor, and ample joie de vivre.

You can get a real sense of that "sense of humor" and "joie de vivre" from this clip of St. Josemaria counseling a Jewish girl on conversion:

Just another unremembered act of courage - Anti-Nazi German Martyrs.

You get sense from the popular "Hitler's Pope" and "Hitler was a Christian" folderol that all Christians were uniformly carrying the water for the Nazis.  The subtext of this idea is the notion that all Christians - and particularly priests and pastors - were virulent anti-semites that supported the Nazi party on anti-semitic grounds.  This kind of mindset gets cemented by the attention that books like Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners," John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope" and  James Carroll "Constantine's Sword" from the popular media, which helps to cement a zeitgeist that acts in the place of real knowledge.

One of the problem with such broad-brush approach to history is that it is slanderous to the many Christians who opposed the Nazi party on the grounds of their faith and suffered the consequences.  When I read about such instances, I am honestly surprised because despite the fact that I know that there were such martyrs, conditioned by the zeitgeist, I'm surprised to see so many.

A case in point is this article from Huffington Post, which still manages to give the story a liberal, anti-catholic spin, which is probably the only reason that the story gets attention:

Beatification Of WWII Martyrs Divides Lutherans, Catholics

LUEBECK, Germany (RNS) Residents of this north German city have long taken pride in four native sons -- three Catholic priests and a Lutheran pastor -- who were beheaded in quick succession on Nov. 10, 1943 by the Nazi regime.


The commingled blood of Catholic priests Johannes Prassek, Hermann Lange, Eduard Mueller and Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink spawned an ecumenical cooperation between the city's majority Lutherans and minority Catholics that still lasts.

But the Vatican's decision to beatify the three priests on June 25 -- but not Stellbrink -- is testing that ecumenical spirit, and has some religious leaders worried that the event could drive a wedge between the two communities.

"People worry that the priests who are beatified will be seen as higher than Stellbrink, and that the focus will be on the three, not the four," said the Rev. Constanze Maase, pastor of Luther Church in Luebeck.

"We recognize that beatification is an important part of the identity of the Catholic Church. But there is a sadness, because it makes the ecumenical work more complicated," he said.

Prassek was a 30-year-old chaplain at Luebeck's Sacred Heart Catholic Church when he met Stellbrink, a 47-year-old pastor at the nearby Luther Church, at a funeral in 1941. They had a shared disapproval of the Nazi regime, and Prassek soon introduced Stellbrink to his two Catholic colleagues, Lange and Mueller.

The four clergymen were active but discreet in their anti-Nazi activities, speaking out against the Nazis and distributing pamphlets to close friends and congregants.

That changed when the British Royal Air Force bombed Luebeck on March 28, 1942. After Stellbrink spent the night tending to the wounded, he went to his church to celebrate Palm Sunday, and attributed the bombing to divine punishment.

Stellbrink was arrested a few days later, followed soon after by the priests. All four were sentenced to death. Rather than fear their executions, the four were said to have died as happy martyrs, confident that they were going to be with God.

"Who can oppress one who dies," Prassek wrote in a farewell letter to his family.

Just as Christian tradition sees the blood of the martyrs as the seeds of the church, many observers credit the four clergymen with spawning a German ecumenism that had been almost unheard of until then.

What an impressive story, and let's acknowledge that in many ways Pastor Stellbrink's strength is particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that at least the Catholic priests knew that their church opposed Nazism, whereas Pastor Stellbrink's church was divided between the "German Christians" - who supported the "nazification" of the Protestant church - and the "Confessing Church" - which didn't.

But the anti-Catholic angle is just weird. Are we supposed to assume that the Lutheran church and Lutherans now recognize the Catholic Church as the authority on who is in heaven?  Has the Lutheran church amended its position on intercessionarly prayer, and that Lutherans are really go to say, "St. Karl Stellbrink, ora pro nobis."  I certainly can say such a thing, and there are examples of non-Catholics who have been canonized - such as St. Nicetas the Goth - but I just don't see Lutherans bending their knee to a Catholic saint.

Moreover, we could just imagine the outrage we would be hearing if the Catholic Church decided to beatify a Lutheran pastor - assuming that its post-Trent rules for canonization even allow such a thing.  Such a move would be taken as an indication of the Catholic Church's "imperialism" and its condescension that Karl Stellbrink's sacrifice was meaningless unless he was Catholic.

It's just another convenient stick for the folks at Huffington Post.


One thing that this rather inane story shows is that the Catholic Church matters.  It is the one church that non-members believe that they have a stake in running.  Non-Catholics, and Non-Christians, are constantly interjecting their views on what doctrines and practices that the Catholic Church should have and follow, as if (a) their opinion mattered and (b) the Catholic Church's doctrines and practices mattered.

Let's face it, when was the last time you saw a news story about non-Methodists being concerned about some doctrine or practice of the United Methodist Church.

Ditto for Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc.

Apart from the modern political angle, the historical circumstance is fascinating. How often did this kind of thing happen? What motivated the Nazis to pick up the priests?  Did they preach an anti-Nazi or "defeatist" sermon?  Who knows?  But this kind of thing was all too common at the time, notwithstanding the view of people like Cornwell who wish to opine on the decision and courage of people on the spot from the safety and security of the offices.

"Father, I'm Jewish."

Saint Josemaria Escriva talks to a Jewish girl about honoring her parents' wish that she not convert as a way to Christ. 

It is a quietly fascinating moment, made more so by the saints obvious humanity.

St. Charles Lwanga - The Blood of the Martyrs.

Father Barron observes that when St. Charles Lwanga was killed by King Mwanga in 1886 it seemed that Christianity was dead in Africa.  Now, there are 400 million Christian Africans.

Venerable Luce, pray for us

This is a remarkable story about a girl, born in 1971, diagnosed with cancer when she was 17, who serenely accepted her suffering on the grounds that "Jesus takes away all my black spots with bleach, and bleach burns. So when I get to Heaven I'll be white as snow," and passed away at the too early age of 20, in 1991.

Now, a miracle has been confirmed in her name and she will be beatified.

As Mark Shea points out, if she were alive today, she would be 38.

Feast of St. Josaphat

From Catholic Culture:

St. Josaphat


Josaphat Kuncewitcz was born about the year 1580 at Vladimir, Volhynia, [part of the Polish province of Lithuania at the time] and given the name John at baptism. While being instructed as a child on the sufferings of our Savior, his heart is said to have been wounded by an arrow from the sacred side of the Crucified. In 1604 he joined the Ukrainian Order of Saint Basil (Basilians), lived as a monk in a very mortified life, went barefoot even in winter, refrained from the use of wine and flesh-meat, and always wore a penitential garb. In 1614 he was appointed archimandrite of Vilna, Russia and four years later archbishop of Polotzk; in this position he worked untiringly for Church reunion. He was a great friend of the poor, once even pledged his archepiscopal omophorion (pallium) to support a poor widow. The foes of union decided to assassinate him. In a sermon, he himself spoke of his death as imminent. When he visited Vitebsk (now in Russia), his enemies attacked his lodging and murdered a number of his companions. Meekly the man of God hastened toward the mob and, full of love, cried, "My children, what are you doing? If you have something against me, see, here I am." With furious cries of "Kill the papist!", they rushed upon him with gun and sword. Josaphat's body was thrown into the river but emerged, surrounded by rays of light, and was recovered. His murderers, when sentenced to death, repented their crime and became Catholics.

Excerpted from The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch

The 16th Century was a tough time to be a "papist" no matter where you were.

The reason that I'm posting this is because I thought that St. Josaphat was taken off the calendar.  I was thinking of the story about the canonization of Buddha as a Catholic saint under the name "Josaphat," which which seems to be a "Latinization" of a "Persianization" of Gautema Siddhartha's title of "Bodhisatva."

According to the he Catholic Encyclopedia:

The story is substantially as follows: Many inhabitants of India had been converted by the Apostle St. Thomas and were leading Christian lives. In the third or fourth century King Abenner (Avenier) persecuted the Church. The astrologers had foretold that his son Josaphat would one day become a Christian. To prevent this the prince was kept in close confinement. But, in spite of all precautions, Barlaam, a hermit of Senaar, met him and brought him to the true Faith. Abenner tried his best to pervert Josaphat, but, not succeeding, he shared the government with him. Later Abenner himself became a Christian, and, abdicating the throne, became a hermit. Josaphat governed alone for a time, then resigned, went into the desert, found his former teacher Barlaam, and with him spent his remaining years in holiness. Years after their death, the bodies were brought to India and their grave became renowned by miracles. Barlaam and Josaphat found their way into the Roman Martyrology (27 November), and into the Greek calendar (26 August). Vincent of Beauvais, in the thirteenth century, had given the story in his "Speculum Historiale". It is also found in an abbreviated form in the "Golden Legend" of Jacobus de Voragine of the same century.


The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat would seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle Persian Budasif (Budsaif=Bodhisattva). Still it is of historical value, since it contains the "Apology" presented by the Athenian philosopher Aristides to the Emperor Adrian (or Antoninus Pius). The Greek text of the legend, written probably by a monk of the Sabbas monastery near Jerusalem at the beginning of the seventh century, was first published by Boissonade in "Anecdota Graeca" (Paris, 1832), IV, and is reproduced in Migne, P.G., XCVI, among the works of St. John Damascene. The legend cannot, however, have been a work of the great Damascene, as was proved by Zotenberg in "Notices sur le livre de Barlaam et Josaphat" (Paris, 1886) and by Hammel in "Verhandl. des 7 internat. Orientalisten Congresses", Semit. Section (Vienna, 1888). Another edition of the Greek was made by Kechajoglos (Athens, 1884). From the original Greek a German translation was made by F. Liebrecht (Münster, 1847). Latin translations (Minge, P.L., LXXIII), were made in the twelfth century and used for nearly all the European languages, in prose, verse and in miracle plays. Among them is prominent the German epic by Rudolph of Ems in the thirteenth century (Königsberg, 1818, and somewhat later at Leipzig). From the German an Icelandic and Swedish version were made in the fifteenth century. At Manila the legend appeared in the Tagala language of the Philippines. In the East it exists in Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Hebrew.

Which is a nice example of cross-cultural influences in antiquity.

Incidentally, the Buddha was known by name to - I think it was - Clement of Alexandria in the 3rd Century, which makes one wonder whether any Buddhist missionaries every made their way into Europe and, if not, why not?

Celebration

Tomorrow, Father Damien of Molokai becomes St. Damien of Molokai.

Here is the Father Damien website.

St. Thomas Aquinas, ora pro nobis

The Angelic Doctor remains involved with his struggling brothers according to this story about how a Communist-raised abortion doctor became a pro-life advocate:

In describing his conversion, Adasevic “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn’t recognize the name”

“Why don’t you ask me who these children are?” St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.

“They are the ones you killed with your abortions,’ St. Thomas told him.

“Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions,” the article stated.

“That same day a cousin came to the hospital with his four months-pregnant girlfriend, who wanted to get her ninth abortion—something quite frequent in the countries of the Soviet bloc. The doctor agreed. Instead of removing the fetus piece by piece, he decided to chop it up and remove it as a mass. However, the baby’s heart came out still beating. Adasevic realized then that he had killed a human being,”

After this experience, Adasevic “told the hospital he would no longer perform abortions. Never before had a doctor in Communist Yugoslavia refused to do so. They cut his salary in half, fired his daughter from her job, and did not allow his son to enter the university.”

After years of pressure and on the verge of giving up, he had another dream about St. Thomas.

“You are my good friend, keep going,’ the man in black and white told him. Adasevic became involved in the pro-life movement and was able to get Yugoslav television to air the film ‘The Silent Scream,’ by Doctor Bernard Nathanson, two times.”

Adasevic has told his story in magazines and newspapers throughout Eastern Europe. He has returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood and has studied the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

“Influenced by Aristotle, Thomas wrote that human life begins forty days after fertilization,” Adasevic wrote in one article. La Razon commented that Adasevic “suggests that perhaps the saint wanted to make amends for that error.” Today the Serbian doctor continues to fight for the lives of the unborn.

Amazing story.

[Via Mark Shea.]