Archive for the ‘Saints’ Category

Thank you St Anthony!

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Saint Anthony of Padua

Holy Saint Anthony, gentle and powerful in your help, your love for God and charity for His creatures, made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Miracles waited on your word, which you were always ready to request for those in trouble or anxiety. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to obtain for me (request). The answer to my prayer may require a miracle. Even so, you are the Saint of miracles. Gentle and loving Saint Anthony, whose heart is ever full of human sympathy, take my petition to the Infant Savior for whom you have such a great love, and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours. Amen.

St Anthony by Salvador Dali painting above on right.

A great website to check out for your prayer to St. Anthony:

www.stanthony.org

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St Valentine

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

 

There are varying opinions as to the origin of Valentine’s Day. Some experts state that it originated from St. Valentine, a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity. He died on February 14, 269 A.D., the same day that had been devoted to love lotteries. Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it “From Your Valentine”.

Other aspects of the story say that Saint Valentine served as a priest at the temple during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for defying him. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honour St. Valentine.

Gradually, February 14 became the date for exchanging love messages and St. Valentine becamethe patron saint of lovers. The date was marked by sending poems and simple gifts such as flowers. There was often a social gathering or a ball.

The History of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.

The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl’s name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270.

At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine’s Day for the celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.

“Happy Valentine’s Day”

 

 

 

 

St. Valentine blesses (heals) an epileptic (St. Benedict’s Church, Steiermark, around 1520)

 

Not infrequently, the colour of the clothing also provides an interesting aspect: it is often red or yellow. Such “signal colours” are directed against demons, thus they should protect the pictured person from the demons of the disease or free him from them. Black clothing, which is also encountered fairly often in such portrayals, is a reference to debt, punishment and penance. Thus the sick person has burdened himself with debt and – according to mediaeval belief – has been punished with the “falling disease” as a penance. If children are shown clothed in black, this indicates that their parents are guilty in some way.


 

 

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SACRED ART MADE REAL FROM SPAIN AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

LANDMARK EXHIBITION TO EXPLORE IMPACT OF LIFELIKE RELIGIOUS SCULPTURES ON PAINTINGS FROM BAROQUE SPAIN, ON VIEW AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
FEBRUARY 28-MAY 31, 2010

Attributed to Juan Martinez Montañés
Immaculate Conception (la Purisma), about 1628
polychromed wood
University of Seville

(Updated December 11, 2009) Washington, DC— Arrestingly real sculptures and paintings of the saints, the Immaculate Conception, and the Passion of Christ are among some 20 Spanish masterpieces of the 17th century on view in a landmark exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from February 28 through May 31, 2010.The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700 will showcase major paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Francisco Pacheco, with painted and gilded sculptures carved by Gregorio Fernández, Juan Martínez Montañés, and Pedro de Mena, among others.

The exhibition will also reveal the dynamic and intricate relationship between two-dimensional pictures on canvas and painted sculptures that has long been noted by scholars but little known by the general public. Many of the sculptures have never been exhibited away from the Spanish churches, convents, and monasteries where they continue to be venerated and to inspire the faithful.

“We hope that this exhibition will convey the artistic excellence and spiritual profundity of Spanish art to our visitors,” said Earl A. Powell III. “We are grateful to the museums and Spanish ecclesiastical institutions that have agreed to lend these exceptional works of art, which together provide an illuminating and powerful experience.”

The Sacred Made Real is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and National Gallery, London, where it will be on view from October 21, 2009, through January 24, 2010.

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History Remembers Father Damien

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

AMBASSADOR SPEECHES

enlarge photo

 

History Remembers Father Damien

Ambassador Howard W. Gutman 
Tremelo, October 4, 2009   
 

Your Majesties. Excellencies, Ministers, Members of the Clergy, Fellow Belgians, Fellow Americans and Fellow Citizens of the World: 
I am honored and humbled to participate today after a Mass as glorious as the one we just witnessed in the unveiling of this statue to Father Damien.  

To represent a country I have long loved . . . in a country I am growing to love. . .  in a city and in a honoring a man that even the angels love  . . . and on behalf of a President in whom I believe to my core.  

I have recently arrived from my 27 year home in Washington, D.C,. We share so much in common.  We in fact share statues of Father Damien.  For I have visited the beautiful bronze statue of Father Damien that sits in Statuary Hall in the Capital Building of the United States of America.

But more important than even bronze and molds, we share the legacy of Father Damien and the values represented by that legend.

You see, Statues are one way that men and women remember history . . . and that history remembers great men and women.   

History remembers all sorts of men and women and we build statues for all sorts.   History remembers and we build statues to the truly brave  –  explorers, war heros, great leaders and yes priests, who set out without full knowledge of where they are going, but rooted in the belief that the justice of their cause will protect them whenever the path leads.  History remembers the truly righteous – men and women who understand that the rewards can never be measured by what someone has collected, but by what they have given back.  And history remembers and we build statues for the truly wise –  inventors, scientists, leaders and priests, who see a little further down the road and recognize that building a better tomorrow is the most important contribution to mankind today.

Father Damien of course was all three and far more:  a brave explorer; an ambassador from your then fledgling new country to what would someday be a part of my country; a healer; a righteous man, a hero and a saint.

But Father Damien was first and foremost a teacher . . .  a teacher for us all,. . . and for our children.  

You see, history remembers such men and women and we build statues not simply to honor the past.  Statues are also about the present and even more importantly about the future.  By reminding us from where we have come, they remind us who we are and where we need to be going.  By honoring the past, we pledge to try to replicate such action, such bravery, such righteousness to build a better future.  

The righteousness of Father Damien:

By crossing the water, when a beautiful farm awaited him here in wonderful Tremolo,

By choosing poverty, when relative wealth awaited,

By reaching out endlessly to his fellow man in a different land, 

By insisting, despite pressure on burying all who died, regardless of faith, nationality or religion,

By dying to do the right thing, 

Damien has taught us all.

He has taught kings and ministers, presidents and ambassadors, mothers and fathers, grandparetns and children,

He his has taught Americans and Belgians, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, 

He has taught people living in Hawaii, and New York, in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia,

He has taught us that we are all in this together . . . .

That to get it right . . . that to sail rather than to sink,

We have to get it right together.  That we will all find health, safety and prosperity, or none of us can.

That what happens in Washington or Paris or Honolulu, in Africa, Afghanistan or  Pakistan, in Mechelen or in Bree, where I travelled in my first two week, or in Charleroi where I travelled this past Wednesday, or in Molenbeek, where I visited a community center yesterday, 

Affects us all whether we live in Tremelo, or in Washington, in Brussels or New York, in Africa, Flanders or in Wallonia, in Tel Aviv, Rabat, or Ankara.

That this time, we have to get it right.  . . and we have to get it right together. 

Father Damien taught us that we all must become and remain better listeners, better learners and better partners.  

And not because it is politically expedient, not because of what we get, but because it is the right thing to do.  

We share the problems  . . . we must work together on the solutions.  

Father Damien taught us that the problems that we face that unite us are far greater than the differences and prejudices that have previously divided us.  That as our world gets  flatter, we must become better neighbors.  That given our mutual respect and mutual interest, no voice of opposition, no extremism, no economic hardship, and no threat to our health, or to the climate of our soul or of our planet can be allowed to separate us.  That there are no zero sum games – we all rise together – or none of us can truly prosper. That the world we will leave to our children must be safer and more harmonious than the one we were left by our parents.  And that we can never even appear to compromise the principles that we believe in for short term gains.

So what would be Father Damien’s leprosy colony today if he were alive.  For what mission would he leave that idyllic farm in Tremolo?

Would he be championing the cause of AIDS? Of drug addiction? Of poverty in third world countries? Or even in cities where half of our youth cannot find a job?

A champion for our safety and security whether challenged by health or by extremism? 

Father Damien would be a champion for them all…for a better planet tomorrow than the one we found yesterday.

He is and will remain an inspiration. To Belgians and Americans.  To us all.

And particularly a special inspiration to those who grew up in Tremelo and in Hawaii,

And so, when I called my White House to see if, because he grew up in Hawaii, our President knew about and had thoughts about Father Damien, I learned that in fact, even from his days as a little boy, President Obama had learned of the feats of Father Damien and that he was long admired and been inspired by him.

So from Hawaii to Washington, from the White House and our Embassy, we thank the citizens of Tremelo and of Belgium for your son Damien in 1840, and for your friendship and your partnership for the 170 years since.

     Thanks so much.
 

 

 

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Feast of St Agnes

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

St Agnes by El Greco

SAINT AGNES—VIRGIN, MARTYR (c. 314 AD)
Feast: January 21
Few legends of saints have been more cherished than that of the virgin martyr Agnes. She was held in high regard by the primitive Christian Church, and her name has remained a symbol of maidenly purity through the ages. According to tradition, Agnes was a Christian girl of Rome, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, when Diocletian began his persecutions. Like St. Lucy, she was sentenced by a judge to a house of ill fame, but a young man who looked upon her lustfully was stricken blind. Thereafter she was taken out to be burned, but whether she met her death by fire or sword we cannot know with any certainty. Although we have no contemporary sources for the facts of her life and martyrdom, there is little reason to doubt the main outline of the story. References to this young saint appear in many Church writings of later date. St. Ambrose, St. Damasus, and Prudentius all praise her purity and heroism. Her name occurs in the Canon of the Mass. Agnes’ crypt was in the Via Nomentana, and the stone covering her remains was carven with the words, <Agna sanctissima> (most holy lamb). A church in her honor is presumed to have been built at Rome in the time of Constantine the Great. In the apse of this basilica, which was rebuilt in the seventh century by Pope Honorius, there is still to be seen the large and beautiful mosaic depicting the saint. St. Agnes is the patroness of young girls and her symbol is, naturally, a lamb. On the anniversary of her martyrdom, the Pope, after high pontifical Mass in her church at Rome, blesses two lambs, and their wool is later woven into the <pallia> worn by archbishops.

This was taken from “Lives of Saints”, Published by John J. Crawley & Co., Inc.

PAINTING BY EL GRECO

The Feast Day dedicated to my Irish grandmother Agnes Moran Cox

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