I suppose it’s rather ridiculous that my favorite married Saints were only married for 30 days but, with apologies to Louis and Zelie, Luigi and Maria, etc, in my mind the witness of Timothy and Maura takes the cake.
St. Timothy1 was a third century Egyptian lector, an office which entailed far more than simply proclaiming the readings. He spent his evenings reading to the people of his village and preaching the Gospel. He married a pious young woman named Maura and was arrested for being a Christian only 20 days later. His captors, on the authority of Diocletian himself, demanded that Timothy surrender the books of Scripture to them. Timothy refused, saying he’d just as soon surrender one of his own children, and was horrifically tortured. When being blinded and hung upside down with a stone tied to his neck did nothing to weaken him, they chose to attack his heart instead of his flesh and brought in his blushing bride.
The governor, Arian,2 appealed to Maura’s hopes and dreams. After all, she’d only been married for 3 weeks. Didn’t she want to live the life she’d been promised? Didn’t she want to raise a family with her husband, to grow old with him? All he had to do was hand over the Scriptures and he’d be set free to live in peace to a happy old age. Maura listened intently and asked to speak to her husband.
Saints Timothy and Maura – Henryk Siemiradzki
When Maura was brought in to Timothy, she explained the governor’s offer. “But I, for my part, will never speak to you again if you deny Christ.” Timothy likewise encourage Maura to withstand the tortures she was facing and Maura walked out to Arius to declare her own faith and suggest that he give her the punishment that her crimes warranted. She too was tortured but refused to deny Christ.
Finally, Timothy and Maura were crucified facing each other and for 10 days they prayed together, sang hymns, and encouraged each other as they suffered for Christ. When one was weak, the other would be strong, reminding the beloved of what Christ suffered and the promise of future life. Ultimately, both found themselves welcomed into the arms of Christ, glorious martyrs. The witness of their courage and joy so inspired the governor that he, too, became a Christian and was eventually martyred himself. His feast day is on December 14 in the Eastern calendar.
Though they were married for only a month, Sts Timothy and Maura understood the purpose of marriage: to suffer together, encouraging one another in virtue as you seek to follow Christ. Like all martyrs, they gave up their lives; these two also gave up the beauty of a holy marriage. They gave up each other. May God bless all Christian marriages with the same spirit, that spouses may rejoice in suffering together, encouraging each other daily to live more fully for Christ!
But what does any of this have to do with mercy? Well, we’ve talked about people who experienced God’s mercy and who offered it to sinners. Here I think we have a couple who showed God’s mercy by refusing to allow each other to settle. It would have been entirely reasonable for a woman in love to ask her husband to apostatize for her. It would have been expected for Timothy to suggest that his wife run and hide, even if he wouldn’t do it himself. But God’s mercy doesn’t mean saying sin is okay or holding people to a low standard. In his mercy, God demands everything of us. And I think Timothy and Maura show the mercy of God because they loved each other too much to be content with mediocrity. God’s mercy is sometimes severe and here we see the mercy of a God who is too good to be nice, who loved these Saints too well to allow them to cave to the desires of their flesh.
You see, everything God does is mercy. I’ve been seeing this more and more this year. God’s mercy isn’t opposed to his justice, as though his mercy excuses sin while his justice delights in punishing. God’s mercy is simply his love in action. Which means that the consequences of our sin are a result of God’s mercy and the fear we feel is a result of God’s mercy and our desire to be more than we are right now and our hunger for greatness and our nagging guilt. Mercy takes addicts to rehab. Mercy sometimes issues an ultimatum. Timothy and Maura show us God’s generous mercy in allowing them to be martyrs and his severe mercy in demanding it.
Perhaps this week there’s somebody in your life who needs not the world’s mercy (“It’s cool, no big deal.”) but God’s mercy. This week, let’s pray not to be nice but to be merciful, to demand greatness from those we love and to suffer along with them as they seek to be transformed in Christ.
I wonder if there’s anything more compelling as a witness of God’s mercy than Christians who love those the world has deemed unloveable. Much like St. Vitalis, Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste had a ministry to women the world had written off. His work and witness continue to impact the life of the Church (and the lives of those far from the Church) to this day.
Born Alcide Lataste in 1832, he was raised by a Catholic mother and an atheist father and though he struggled with the faith in his youth, his devotion to Christ was cemented through the experience of serving the poor through the Vincent de Paul Society. When his parents opposed his engagement to a woman he loved very deeply, Alcide was unsure whether to wait for them to change their minds or to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a priest. When his beloved died suddenly, Alcide knew just what to do. He entered the Dominican order two years later, developing a strong devotion to St. Mary Magdalene and taking the name Jean-Joseph.
Soon after being ordained, Fr. Lataste was asked to go preach a retreat at a women’s prison. He went, but with strong reservations. After all, what hope could there be for these inveterate criminals? But the Holy Spirit was more powerful than his prejudice and as he was preaching the retreat, he found himself struck by how similar these women were to his beloved Mary Magdalene. He spoke tenderly to these women society had written off, pointing out how dearly God must love them. After all, he might have left them in their sin, but instead he had them sent to prison that they might be saved. Imagine seeing incarceration as a sign of God’s merciful love!
Nor did their past lives change how much God loved them, he insisted. “When Jesus looks at souls he does not look at what they were, but at what they are–not at their faults, but at how much they love. He judges them as they are, by the strength of their love.” This would become a hallmark of Fr. Lataste’s preaching.
When he had convinced them that they were loved, he went on to tell them that their life had meaning, that even in prison they could serve the Lord. Just as nuns lock themselves up as a gift to the Lord, these prisoners could offer their monotonous lives to God, consecrating their very punishment. The eyes that had been dead only an hour before were now filled with new hope!
As the retreat continued, Fr. Lataste began to worry. These women had been transformed by God’s mercy, but what would become of them when they re-entered a world that despised them? What, especially, could be done for those women who felt that God was calling them now to religious life? No religious community would overlook the stigma of prison and accept a convict, yet to leave them to fend for themselves was unthinkable. “Dishonored in the past but long ago rehabilitated before God, they must now be rehabilitated before humanity. They must be saved, not only from the past dishonor, but from that inevitable return to crime; they must be saved, not only for this life, but for eternity; they must be saved out of love for him who said: ‘The Son of man has come to seek and to save what was lost.’”
And so Fr. Lataste began a new community, a community that would welcome women with unsavory pasts, indeed that existed for their sake. The Dominican Sisters of Bethany, he called them, “because the Gospel tells us that at Bethany lived Martha, of inviolable virtue, and Magdalene, the sinner. And Jesus loved to come and rest in their home. When Jesus looks at souls, he does not look at what they were but at what they are–not at their faults but at how much they love. He judges them as they are, by the strength of their love.”
This order offered a home to modern Magdalenes, a contemplative house of prayer that sent a few Sisters to women’s prisons to console and encourage the inmates. Though he lived only long enough to see the order established, Fr. Lataste’s community has lasted 150 years and today has houses at least in France, Switzerland, Italy, Latvia, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
In today’s world, I think we need a reminder that God’s love isn’t just for the immaculate but also for those who’ve been made pure. To be merciful like the Father is to look at each human soul and see not what she’s done or how she’s fallen but who she can be in the love of Christ. Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste is a powerful witness of overcoming prejudices and seeing with eyes of mercy.
I honestly find the existence of this kind of community (as well as the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb, a French community that exists so that women with Down Syndrome can become religious) thrilling. There is nobody who is unloved, regardless of your past or your circumstances or your disability. The Dominicans of Bethany continue to draw women of all backgrounds. In their choir stalls, class presidents stand beside prostitutes, girls-next-door beside murderers; what a perfect foreshadowing of heaven, where the greatest sinners may wear the most beautiful crowns while petty sinners rejoice to call them friends. Mercy, indeed. To both.
Nobody’s really been linking up, but I don’t quit things, so….
In keeping with last week’s Irish theme, this week’s Saint is St. Serapion of Algiers. He spent his 12th century youth a crusader, fighting under Richard the Lion-Heart and Leopold VI to liberate the Holy Land, but a life lived by the sword didn’t satisfy him. When he met St. Peter Nolasco, founder of the Order of Mercy, he knew that his heart for liberating captive Christians was calling him out of the army and into religious life. Serapion asked to be received into the Order of Mercy, a religious order whose charism was the redemption of captives. In addition to preaching the mercy of God who redeems us from sin, Mercedarians proved that mercy by redeeming slaves from their Moorish captors.
Serapion took part in several of these missions of mercy before being sent to England to recruit new members to the order. On his way there, his ship was captured by pirates and Serapion was left for dead. Surviving, he continued on his mission, but his powerful preaching against the theft of church property in London got him in trouble. Ordered to leave the city, he spent some time wandering the British Isles as an evangelist1 before he resumed his work of ransoming captives.
In 1240, Serapion had brought a ransom to Algiers to release 87 Christians when their captors demanded more money. When he discovered that some of the captives were considering renouncing Christ, he volunteered to stay in their place. Better to be a slave than to allow souls washed by the blood of Christ to turn from him. Serapion watched his brothers and sisters released and turned to his captors, ready to preach the love of God.
The witness of his life, handed over without a thought for strangers, combined with the powerful message of a God who did the same was incredibly compelling to the Muslim people Serapion encountered and he began to make powerful enemies when several Muslims came to him to be baptized. Though his brother Mercedarian raced home and horses were sent throughout Europe begging for funds to ransom Serapion, the money didn’t arrive in time. He was nailed to an X-shaped cross and dismembered, a martyr of Christ and a martyr of mercy.
Serapion is certainly not the only Saint to have been involved in the ransom of Christians but I find his particular circumstances compelling. His entire life was animated by the love of God’s mercy and the desire to bring it to others. Initially this was through war, but eventually he realized that the most powerful witness to the love of God was offering his life in peace. As one who was rather bellicose as a young Christian, I’m inspired by his ability to put away his sword and witness to the Gospel in such a profoundly counter-cultural way. More than just saving lives, Serapion was saving souls, laying down his life for those at risk of losing Christ.
This week, keep your eyes peeled for those in your life whose faith might be hanging by a thread. How can you love them back into the arms of Christ?
It seems to me that the majority of hagiographies (Saint stories) fall into one of two categories: 1) he was so perfect his whole life that he practically walked on water, or 2) he bathed in a sea of his enemies’ blood until he met Jesus and became perfect. This can be discouraging for those of us who are just consistently jerks. We’re not holy enough or terrible enough to become saints, it seems, so we go on with our mediocrity.
But there are some–increasingly more, it seems, though perhaps I’m just meeting more Saints in general these days–who clearly struggled with sin and brokenness even after their conversion. Ven. Matt Talbot was an alcoholic, Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity was angry, and St. Mark Ji Tianxiang was an opium addict. Really.
Moderns, mostly, but leave it to the Irish to understand sinning Saints before the rest of us. St. Columba (or Columcille, but not, it seems, Columban or Columbanus, as that’s somebody else) is a dear friend of mine, a powerful witness to our ability to fall even when surrounded by grace–and then to be raised up again.
Descended from an Irish high king, Columba (who lived in the 6th century) was educated by monks before deciding to join them himself. He studied under St. Finnian of Moville and then under the great St. Finnian of Clonard, one of the fathers of Irish monasticism and the “tutor of Erin’s saints.” After his ordination, Columba wandered the country preaching and founding monasteries.
So there he was, all educated and inspiring and fancy with his preaching. Everyone was amazed by him, but he was still very human. His former teacher, St. Finnian of Moville (not Clonard–try to keep up) had recently acquired a copy of St. Jerome’s translation of the Psalms and Columba was drooling over it. A very skilled copyist, he asked Finnian if he could make a copy. Finnian, an abbot and a Saint, said no. Evidently he was also something of a greedy jerk, refusing to allow others access to God’s word. But he did allow Columba to read it, so he did–by day. By night, he snuck into the room where the Psalter was kept and made a secret copy. Another monk saw him doing it and reported it to Finnian, who allowed it to happen. After all, Columba was a very skilled copyist.
Caught in the act.
When Columba had finished his copy, he got ready to return to his monastery. As he was leaving, Finnian approached. “I believe you have something that belongs to me,” he declared, and demanded the copy Columba had so carefully made. He argued that a copy made without permission belongs to the owner of the original.
This became a nasty quarrel and eventually the two “men of God” appealed to the king. He sided with the miser over the thief and told Columba to leave the Psalter with Finnian. Ever obedient (ish), Columba did. And then went back to his clan and incited a revolution. The ensuing battle left 3,000 men dead and the holy abbot with blood on his hands.
Overcome with remorse at what he had done, Columba submitted himself to the judgment of the bishops of Ireland. Though they considered excommunication, they ended by exiling him instead. (Many Irish people would be hard pressed to tell you which is worse.) Columba sailed with 12 companions for Scotland, where he established a community at Iona and proceeded to evangelize nearly the whole of Scotland.
Bridgeman; (c) David Brangwyn; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
You would expect Columba to have spent the rest of his life doing penance for his terrible, murderous sin, but he didn’t. No more than anybody else, anyway. He fasted and prayed and lived a terribly austere life, but he didn’t spend the next 30 years begging God for mercy. He had already received it. He had been forgiven and received his penance and there was no more need to lament his youthful misdeeds. They had been washed away by the blood of Christ and he was made new. Even though he had known better, even though he’d been given every advantage, even though he’d had no excuse for what he did–getting men killed because he wanted his own copy of the Psalms!–he refused to allow that sin to define him. He knew he was fallen and he knew God was merciful and he let the mercy transform the sin.
Would that we could do the same! So many of us live in the shadow of our pasts, forgetting that God sees only who we are, not who we were. We wallow in our shame and refuse to let God transform us. But St. Paul–himself a murderer–will have none of it. “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”1 Columba is a powerful witness to me of the fact that Saints sin–sometimes dramatically, even after their conversions. I will sin, sometimes dramatically, even after my conversion. That doesn’t mean I’m SOL and I might as well resign myself to sliding into purgatory by the skin of my teeth. My sin will have consequences but by God’s grace I can start again and let him mold me into the image of his Son.
God’s mercy is bigger than your sin. I hope your past isn’t as ugly as St. Columba’s but I know your future can be as beautiful. Lord, have mercy. Let’s go be saints.
Cornelia Connelly is a woman who knew suffering and yet managed to live with joy. Born into a wealthy Philadelphia family in 1809, Cornelia Peacock married Pierce Connelly, an Episcopalian clergyman, when she was 22. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to frontier country: Natchez, Mississippi. Pierce was very unhappy at what seemed to be a dead end position and began to question his Episcopalian faith. Before long, he had decided to renounce his priesthood and enter the Catholic Church. But Pierce, always very focused on success and worldly recognition, felt convinced that he needed to become a priest, even though to do so would have required him to separate from his wife and small children forever. Despite his wife’s devotion (and misgivings), the family sold their home and belongings so that they could travel to Rome to pursue this dream of Pierce’s.
Portrait of Cornelia Connelly at age 22
On their way to Rome, the Connellys spent some time in New Orleans, where Cornelia’s attraction to Catholicism was confirmed. She was received into the Church, despite the opposition she knew she would experience, just before the family sailed for Rome. Pierce himself became Catholic in the Eternal City before the family returned to America a few years later, Pierce still a layman but desperate to do whatever it took to be ordained.
Deeply in love with her husband, Cornelia was distraught: “Is it necessary that Pierce sacrifice himself and me too? I love my husband and my darling children. Why must I give them up?” Nor would this be her only suffering during this time. Shortly after they moved to Louisiana, their fourth child, Mary Magdalene, died in infancy. Not long after, their third child, John Henry, was knocked into a vat of boiling sugar. Cornelia held him as he slowly died, 43 hours of agony. But her suffering had only begun.
Pierce had resolved to become a priest and asked Cornelia to agree to a separation and a life of perpetual celibacy. Mourning the loss of her marriage, Cornelia agreed to give all to God. Though she several times asked him to reconsider for the sake of their family, Pierce was blind in his insistence that he could not be happy if he weren’t ordained. So Cornelia moved to England, at the prompting of the Holy Father, to found the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. In order to do so, her bishop required that she put her two younger children, ages 10 and 5, in boarding school.1 In anguish, she obeyed, and made vows as a religious sister within the year, finding peace amid all her troubles.
Mother Cornelia, wearing her inexplicable (but constant) smile.
But Pierce was not at peace. He was becoming more and more unstable, eventually demanding to see Cornelia despite restrictions against it. Cornelia refused to see him. When he couldn’t influence her with persuasion, he chose to punish her by abducting her children and poisoning them against her and the Catholic Church.
Enraged by her resistance, Pierce brought a lawsuit against his wife demanding his conjugal rights, despite having relinquished them years before. He renounced his Catholic priesthood and his faith and declared that he was attempting to rescue her from the Church. The English press naturally had a field day with this court case, particularly when Pierce won. Mercifully, Cornelia was granted an appeal and never made to return to the husband who had forced her to leave him and then attempted to force her to break her vows as a religious. Her reputation ruined by allegations of improprieties with the bishop, her heart broken, her children stolen from her, Cornelia returned to life as a Sister.
Pierce ended his life an Episcopalian priest in Florence, bitter and cruel to his death in his attacks on the Catholic Church. Merty, their oldest, died at age 20; Ady returned to the faith after the death of her father; Frank died as angry and anti-Catholic as his father.
And what of Cornelia? Despite constant attacks from within her order2 and without,3 Cornelia was a woman of radiant joy. Asked once why she wasn’t miserable, with all she had suffered, Cornelia replied with a smile, “Ah, my child, the tears are always running down the back of my nose.” Cornelia grieved her suffering deeply but chose still to live in the joy of Christ risen.
From what I can tell, Cornelia wrote very little of the sufferings of her life except to offer them to the Lord and to remind her daughters in religion of the good suffering can do to the soul. “We have all a large share of suffering, and if we had not, we should never become Christlike as we ought,” she said, speaking volumes about her ability to forgive. Indeed, the joy Cornelia exhibited could only have been possible if she was a woman of great mercy.
I can’t think how I would react to the constant attacks Cornelia underwent, but I’m quite sure those who knew me wouldn’t describe me as radiant with the love of God. Most of us, I’m sure, would become terribly bitter in such circumstances. But Mother Cornelia was always a beacon of peace and full of smiles. She even viewed smiling as an offering to the Spirit: “Give to the Holy Ghost many smiles and offer each smile as an invocation–a fidelity–a cooperation with grace.” All this amid more suffering than most of us will ever experience.
Cornelia Connelly has become a dear friend of mine in recent months as I offer her witness of interior peace in a difficult marriage to friends who are suffering from difficult marriages themselves. Her ability to cling to the Lord and continue to trust him, even when trusting him seemed to have destroyed her happy life, is a witness to us all. More than anything, perhaps, I’m struck by her willingness to accept the circumstances of her life as a gift from God when I would have called them a curse.
Certainly Cornelia spent her life offering mercy to her husband, but I see in her also a desire, if it’s possible, to be merciful to God. Rather than curse, abandon, or resent him, Cornelia chose love. It seems silly to suggest that we ought to be merciful toward the Father as well as being merciful like the Father. And of course he’s done nothing wrong, nothing that could warrant our forgiveness. But many of us still harbor resentment against the Lord for suffering we see as his fault. Perhaps this week we can walk with Venerable Cornelia Connelly and ask her prayers that we might accept God’s will–even when it’s awful–and love him all the more for it.
St Vitalis of Gaza is one of my very favorites. He was a 7th century Egyptian hermit, so I imagine most of us expect to have nothing in common with him. And perhaps we don’t, but lots to learn.
When Vitalis was about 60 years old, after many years in the desert, he gave up the hermit thing and went to Alexandria. There he became a day laborer. He would work all day at back-breaking tasks to earn a wage and then proceed to the local brothel to spend it.
Every night, this former hermit found himself with a different prostitute. You can imagine what the local Christians thought! Vitalis was ridiculed and harassed. People even approached the Patriarch to try to have him excommunicated, but the Patriarch refused to act on hearsay. Vitalis’ life became rather miserable until one day he was attacked in the street and killed. When he was found, he was clutching a paper with 1 Corinthians 4:5 written on it: “Therefore, do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts.”
But the Christians of Alexandria had already judged. “Good riddance,” they thought, until his funeral. Dozens (if not hundreds) or former prostitutes attended his funeral, and each testified that she owed her soul to Vitalis.
As it turns out, Vitalis’ life wasn’t quite as debauched as people thought. Each night, after Vitalis had paid for a woman’s services, he would tell her he had bought her one night without sin. She was free to sleep. He, meanwhile, would hold vigil over her and pray for her. Naturally, some were curious. They asked Vitalis what he was about and he told them: God loved them and wanted them to be saved. He told them of God’s mercy, of his death on the cross, of the way he delighted in them. And when they were ready to accept this, he found them a way out. He worked to arrange marriages, provide dowries, even find monasteries willing to accept them. The only thing he asked was that they keep quiet about what he had done. If his good deeds had been known, after all, he would have been barred entry to the women he wanted to serve.
So he submitted to ignominy, willingly offering his reputation for the sake of their souls. Whether he was killed by someone who was angry at his success with a favorite prostitute or by a self-righteous Christian, we don’t know. Certainly he was a martyr, one who offered his life for the salvation of souls, and with great success.
There’s something so compelling to me about St. Vitalis’ story. Here was a man so concerned with the salvation of others that he offered not only his life but his good name. What humility, to be willing to be condemned as a lecher in order to save souls! It makes me wonder how willing I am to be shamed for the sake of the Gospel.
Then there’s the fact of his ability to see the dignity of these women who were considered scum. Long before people understood that victims of human trafficking are just that–victims–Vitalis was looking at them and seeing not fallen women but chosen daughters of the King. He wasn’t just trying to stop them from sinning, he was trying, whatever the cost, to show them what they were worth and how deeply they were loved. What if we took it as our life’s mission to convince people around us of the same thing? Even if they weren’t converted, their lives would be the more joyful because we chose to live like Christ.
When I tell people about great evangelists, Vitalis always ranks up there with Paul and Francis Xavier. His entire life was given over to preaching the Gospel and he chose to do it in ways that weren’t flashy. It’s all well and good to be a hobo missionary (like Paul! And Francis Xavier! And me!!) but the world needs people who are subtle, gentle missionaries as well. Vitalis went without sleep or food for the sake of telling broken, suffering women that they were loved and for his troubles he got a rock to the head. And a heavenly crown.
This week, I’m going to ask the Lord to give me his eyes so that I can see the suffering heart instead of the sinner. And in every encounter I have, I’m going to try to treat the other person with the gentle compassion that makes preaching the Gospel possible. St. Vitalis, pray for us!
It seems every talk I give this year the requested topic is mercy. Which is great–it’s one of my favorite things to talk about. But if I just say the same thing over and over, it’s going to get stale. Besides, the love of God reaching out to a sinner is never dull and never looks the same. So since my two current obsessions are Scripture and the Saints–and since we’re already hitting the Scripture thing pretty hard–I thought it would be helpful to spend Lent sharing how different Saints expressed or received God’s mercy. And I’d love it if you’d join me!
Each Monday this Lent, I’m going to be sharing the story of a Saint whose life reveals more about God’s mercy to me. For those of you who are bloggers and want to share your own Saint stories, I’m going to make it a linkup. You just write your post, then come back here for the post of the day and add your post to the list. Then–if you don’t mind–link back to my post in yours so that people can click over here to find more stories of new Saint friends.
Ideally, I’d love some more obscure Saints. St. Francis and St. Thérèse are great but we’ve got thousands of Saints you’ve never heard of, so let’s get to know them. Also, anyone whose cause for canonization is open is fair game. So I’m looking at St. Vitalis, Ven. Cornelia Connolly, St. Josephine Bakhita,1 and St. Columban to start. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to share your Saints of mercy in the comments!
You may have picked up on the fact that I’m a little bit obsessed with Saints (and those on their way to being declared Saints). There’s something about getting to know one of God’s best friends that just makes me love him that much more. I have this image of life as an obstacle course (think American Ninja Warrior) and Saints as competitors who’ve finished the course and come back to coach you through. Here I need the witness of someone with low stamina, like me, there the advice of someone with a short temper. I keep a pantheon1 of Saints in my back pocket to encourage me by means of their own particular weaknesses.
So when my beautiful friend Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda asked if I’d review her latest book, The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run, I jumped at the chance. Maria and I have been friends since I met her oldest son in college2 and I’ve long admired her work and her deep joy in the Lord. Plus, I can’t get enough of modern martyr stories. And this one did not disappoint. Impeccably researched and written with a clarity that allows Father Stanley to shine through, this first published biography of Father Stanley Rother is the perfect introduction to a simple man called to greatness.
Fr. Stanley Rother was a down-home Oklahoma farm boy who failed out of seminary because he was better at manual labor than book learning. But he persevered, taking John Vianney as a model, and was ordained and sent to rural Oklahoma to serve. It wasn’t long before he answered the call to missionary work, heading to Guatemala where he would overcome his difficulty with languages, mastering Spanish and Tz’utujil, and earn the love of his people by working side by side with them.
But Latin America was a tumultuous place in the the 1980s and Fr. Stanley knew that the powers that be didn’t appreciate his solidarity with the people. It became clear that his life was on the line if he stayed where he was, but Fr. Stanley loved his people too much to abandon them. “At the first signs of danger, the shepherd can’t run,” he said time and again, echoing Jesus’ words in John 10.
Fr. Stanley did leave Guatemala for a few months when things were at their worst. Back in Oklahoma, everyone urged him not to go back to Guatemala. The book details his Gethsemane experience, interviewing friends and family members and excerpting from Fr. Stanley’s letters. But while he was clearly suffering, he was not conflicted. He had promised he would return and return he did, arriving back at his parish just in time for Easter. Three months later, he was found dead in his rectory. He had been tortured but had taken it in silence–he knew that crying out would endanger those around him.
This past summer, the Vatican declared Fr. Stanley a martyr, a step that speeds his canonization process considerably. For the people of Santiago Atitlán, however, no canonization is necessary. Despite his temper and his other human weaknesses, Fr. Stanley had been a powerful witness of God’s love among them. He had lived as a Saint and died as a Saint. And while they will rejoice when he is canonized, as I have no doubt he will be, nobody will be surprised at the Oklahoma farm boy turned Guatemalan martyr raised to the altars.
Look at those eyes. Jesus eyes.
Fr. Stanley is a compelling figure, stern but animated by love of God and his people, but I must say that much about him didn’t resonate with me. After all, I’m basically the opposite of this taciturn country priest who was more comfortable with a spade than a textbook. So while I was quite impressed with how thorough the book was–imagine hearing from a Saint’s first grade teacher–Fr. Stanley was a little too ordinary for my liking. At first.
Until I realized that his ordinariness was exactly the point. The witness of his willing acceptance of torture and death is that much more beautiful because he’s a regular guy. He wasn’t a mystic, one foot already on the other side of the veil, or an activist, willing to sacrifice for the cause. He was a lover. And he knew that his people needed him. They needed to know that they mattered, to him and to the One he served. He made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want to die. But he wanted to live for his people more than he wanted to live, as he explained to his bishop: “My life is for my people. I am not scared.”
It’s this quiet determination that struck me. He went deliberately to his death because he loved those he would die for. Can I live with the same intentionality? Can I wash dishes and listen to sob stories and reply to emails with the same deliberate love? Can I be powerfully present in the ordinary? That’s what made Fr. Stanley able to live with extraordinary grace in the end: a determination to do the work of the day well.
If you’re from Oklahoma or you’re a farmer or you’ve struggled in school, Fr. Stanley’s your guy. If you wonder how to love the poor or face difficult mundane crosses, I think his witness will speak to you. If you live an ordinary life and long to be extraordinary, you’ll find that in Fr. Stanley. Grab a copy of this book, not just to support my friend Maria (who is amazing, so maybe for that reason, too) but because Fr. Stanley will remind you of the holiness of your everyday. He’ll show you how your life can transform the world around you. And he’ll probably be the first American-born man canonized, so it couldn’t hurt to join his fan club ahead of the rush.
If you want to keep up with Maria, you can follow her at her blog. I couldn’t find a picture of us together (though I have pictures of me with every one of her children and most of her grandchildren), so I’ll give you the official headshot instead. There, don’t you want to be her friend? Or at least buy her book? I thought so.
UPDATE: This is still in the works but moving very slowly. Sorry!
If you’re a parent or a godparent, the most important thing you can do for your children is to introduce them to Jesus and help them learn to love him. But while you parents are the primary catechists of your children, you aren’t meant to do it alone, especially not in the midst of a hostile and noisy culture. With everything this world has to offer your kids, it’s no great surprise that most of them are drawn to licensed characters more than to the things of God.
I know dozens of little girls who love Elsa and Sofia the First and little boys who’d give their right arms to spend the day with lycra-clad superheroes or smiling trains. They hunger for heroes and long for stories of glory and beauty and triumph over evil. And all we give them is absent parents and petulant mermaids, vigilantes and vapid cartoons. We whose lives are fixed on the greatest story ever told, whose heritage is a host of heroes and heroines, we have forgotten how to tell stories and we settle for fictional heroes when the real ones leave even Atticus Finch and Samwise Gamgee coughing in their dust. And this Church of Dante and Michelangelo, having forgotten how to make sacred art, has even forgotten how to tell stories. It’s no wonder our children are drifting away–we aren’t proposing the Gospel to them as an adventure and a romance but as a dull board book with saccharine pictures. Most of us probably see it that way ourselves.
Now I’ve seen a few beautiful Christian children’s books, and even a handful that were both beautiful and interesting, but the majority I’ve encountered leave a lot to be desired. For years I’ve been lamenting the dull Saint books I’ve found, wondering how you can make a story as riveting as the life of St. Josephine Bakhita into something humdrum. So instead of reading the books, I tell the stories to children who stare, mouth agape, as they listen to the lives of the lovers of God. And I wonder why people don’t just write the books this way.
A few weeks ago I realized: I am people. I could write those books. And I have a friend who is a brilliant illustrator. Five hundred emails later, we’re working on a first draft.
This first book is going to be about Princess Saints. I figure most little girls love princesses. And since we have plenty of princesses who are far more worthy of emulation than even Belle or Anna, why not capitalize on it? When our little ones want to play dress-up, why not teach them virtues along with it? And our princess Saints are just as diverse as Disney’s. The book’s current cast of characters includes an archaeologist, a hermit, a philosopher, a nun, a mom, a head of state, and a social worker–talk about girl power! No waiting around to be rescued by some man here, unless you’re talking about the God-Man. There’s an Egyptian, a Byzantine, a Moor, an Ancient Roman, two eastern Europeans and a Western. Two converted from paganism, one from Islam. Four were virgins, three mothers. Only one martyr in this bunch, but plenty of white martyrdom.
The color will be like this, though the images will be more lifelike, as you’ll see below.
Lindsey and I have been researching like crazy to try to get the pictures right with the right clothes and races and architecture. We’re throwing in subtle Biblical imagery and allusions to other Saints, all in images that are even more striking than the ones on her blocks. Our hope is that the stories and the pictures are interesting enough that your children will begin to love these Saints the way they used to love imaginary heroes. We want them emulating St. Casilda instead of Jasmine, adventuring with St. Damien instead of Iron Man. And in each story, we’re trying above all else to show how the Saints point you to Jesus. So many Christian books tell the story and miss the point–we’re trying to avoid that.
Because these books aren’t just for your kids. They’re for you. I’m writing them in a way that reading them aloud will (hopefully) challenge you to reflect on your own life. Each story is teaching you how to love Jesus better and they’re all followed by some questions to discuss with your kids (or pray about on your own) about how you can better imitate these far-away Saints. I know a lot of parents whose only devotion time might be with their kids, and “Thank you God for flowers so sweet, thank you for the food we eat” isn’t making you a saint. My prayer is that these books will at least nudge you that direction.
So we want to share the first draft of one chapter of the princess book–with rough sketches that will be brought to life with watercolors. Read it (to yourself or to your kids) and if you’re still interested in this project, read on to see what you can do to help.
St. Catherine of Alexandria (November 25)
(280-305)
Princess Catherine loved to read. She had so many questions: where the world came from and why it existed and what her whole life was about–Catherine wanted to know everything. Lucky for her, she lived by the biggest library in the whole world where she could read all day long. She read so much that she didn’t have time for anything else. Not clothes, not friends, and not princes. That was all fine when she was little, but as she got older people began to talk. “She’s going to be our Queen!” they said. “And a Queen needs a King.” “Besides,” they said, “how are we supposed to get new princes and princesses if she doesn’t get married?” “That settles it!” they said. “Princess Catherine must marry.”
This is what they think the Great Library in Alexandria looked like. And see those Egyptian symbols on the vase?
Catherine wasn’t interested in marriage, but she couldn’t exactly tell the whole country no. So she got a little tricky. “Oh, I’ll marry,” she said. “But I could never marry a man who didn’t deserve me. He must be richer than I and smarter than I and stronger and nobler and wiser than I. Much, much wiser.” Well, that was a tall order indeed! Catherine was rich and smart and strong and noble and the wisest woman in the land. Where could they ever find a prince who was good enough for her? Day after day, men came to seek her hand, and day after day she refused them. “Not handsome enough.” “Not kind enough.” “Not clever enough.” Until her people nearly despaired.
But one day, a hermit came to the castle gates. “I know a man who is stronger and kinder and better than any other man in the world,” he said, and the guards waited. “And he knows more than the most learned men,” he finished, and was led to the Princess. There, he told her about Jesus. Princess Catherine was a pagan, a person who worships false gods. In all the time she had been looking for truth she had never even heard of Jesus! The holy man told her that Jesus was King of heaven and earth, that He was merciful and loving and was the true answer to the question Catherine had been asking her whole life. Catherine knew then and there that she could marry nobody but Jesus. Away went her scrolls of history and science and philosophy and out came the Gospels and the writings of the Saints. The more she studied, the more the world made sense. Finally, she understood what her life was all about: to be loved and to love Him back. And the more she loved Jesus, the more she wanted to be His.
That’s the woman at the well from John 4 and frogs from the Egyptian plagues. This one is obviously very unfinished.
With all her study, though, Catherine wasn’t ready yet. One night, she had a dream. The Virgin Mary, Queen of angels and Saints, took Catherine to her Son and offered her to Him as His bride! But Jesus took one look at her and said just what she’d said about all her suitors: “Not beautiful enough. Not kind enough. Not wise enough.”
Catherine was heartbroken! She sent for the hermit who had told her about Jesus to ask him what it meant. “My dear,” he answered, “You must be baptized and your sins washed away.” That very day she was baptized and that very night she dreamed again. This time, Jesus came to her as her bridegroom, putting a ring on her finger and making her His own. At last, Catherine had found a Prince worthy of her—and been made worthy of Him.
But Catherine’s people were not pleased. This was a long time ago, before people were allowed to be Christians, and they reported her to the Emperor. “Well,” he thought, “it must be a very silly religion to say that God could be a man. We’ll just have to show her how silly it is.” So the Emperor called the smartest men in the city to explain to Catherine that Jesus couldn’t possibly be God. One by one, fifty philosophers argued against Jesus and one by one fifty philosophers found themselves convinced by Catherine. One by one they cried out that Jesus is God, the Savior of the world, and one by one they were put to death for their faith, glorious martyrs given heavenly crowns.
You would think the Emperor would think twice once all the smartest men in the smartest city in the world turned to Jesus, but it just made him mad. He decided to punish Catherine for her faith by starving her. But angels fed the bride of Christ, and she came out twelve days later, stronger and healthier than she had been. The people were amazed by this miracle—so amazed that many of them became Christians, even the Empress!
The Emperor hadn’t been able to argue Catherine away from Jesus and he hadn’t been able to threaten her away from Jesus, so he made one last attempt to bribe her away from Jesus. “Marry me,” he said, “and be Empress of all of Rome.” “I belong to Jesus,” Catherine declared, “And will have no other groom.” Oh, the Emperor was furious at that! He ordered Catherine to be killed. And so the brilliant and beautiful bride of Christ, who had searched for truth and found Him, went home to heaven where she prays that all those who love truth will find Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
I think she’ll be a little less stern in the final one, but doesn’t she look strong? That’s my kind of princess.
The End
When St. Catherine met Jesus, she wanted to learn everything she could about Him. What can you do to learn more about Jesus? How can you tell other people about His love?
Ask St. Catherine to pray for people who teach the faith, for people who seek the truth, and for all unmarried women.
“Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away. Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would be roundly mocked.” (Song of Songs 8:7)
What do you think? Are you as excited about this as I am? And do you want to help support us? Obviously, what we need most is your support in prayer. Please pray for God’s will to be done in our work. All either of us wants is for people to love Jesus better because of these books.
Then there’s the material support. Because we’ve gone about as far as we can on our own. You see, I have all the time in the world–or rather, I can if I want to. But Lindsey has 5 young children, with 3 who are still home all day. If she wants to work on these illustrations, she needs a babysitter to give her some time. So if you feel led to make adonation to support the illustrations, you can do that here.
One of the most challenging thing about this whole business is our attempt to make the details as accurate as possible. So if you happen to be a historical expert (particularly on clothes and ethnic makeup), we sure could use your input.
Finally, we expect the hardest thing about all this will be finding a publisher. Neither of us has any desire to try to self-publish. We know too well how valuable a good publisher can be, especially in terms of guidance as to word count and page layout and all that. So if you know a Catholic children’s publisher and want to pass this along, that’d be amazing!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do for the Kingdom! If I didn’t have such an incredible group of supporters (both online and in real life), I couldn’t do anything that I do and I certainly wouldn’t have dreamed this project could come to fruition. But I know you all are prayer warriors and I know that God’s Providence works through you. I’m so excited to see what God has planned for this project and I’m so glad you’ll all be coming along for the ride!
Because God knew how far I could fall, he reached in and saved me from myself awfully early. My conversion was when I was 13, and since I don’t generally do things halfway, I was pretty serious pretty fast. I started reading the Bible and the Catechism all the way through and praying daily. By the time I was 16, I was going to daily Mass and praying the rosary every day. If you’d asked me at the time, I would have told you I was a really good Catholic.1 But even at the time, I knew I was mostly going through the motions. I was doing what I knew was right, but my heart hadn’t been transformed. My approach to the faith was more competitive than contemplative–I wanted to be the best at Church so I could win. And given the “competition,” it didn’t seem to me that it would take much. So I patted myself on the back and continued judging and hating and ignoring the Lord. After all, I was good. There was plenty of time to be holy once I was grown. For a teenager, I was doing as much as the Lord could expect. Right?
Then when I was 16 I went to World Youth Day in Rome. And everything changed. Not because of the catechesis or the fellowship or the visit to my dear Claire in Assisi. Not because I went to Mass with a million other Catholics or saw the Holy Father for the first time. Not because of a powerful confession or a new best friend. Because of a stained glass window and a throw-away conversation.
I was walking through some church in Rome with a priest and saw a stained glass window of some 14-year-old kid.
“Who’s that kid?” I asked Father, rather more dismissively than I might today.
“Oh, that’s Saint Dominic Savio.”
“Cool. What’d he do?”
“Nothing,” Father answered. I’m sure he went on to explain more about Dominic Savio’s relationship with St. John Bosco and his work for the sanctification of his schoolmates, but I didn’t need to hear that.
Nothing.
He’s the youngest non-martyr ever canonized. He had no visions, no apparitions, worked no miracles. He was a regular kid who lived a regular life, died a regular death at age 14, and people raced to his coffin to make relics of their rosaries.
What have you been doing with your life?
For me, that was a wake-up call. I realized that I had to live for Christ in every moment, that it was never too early to strive for sanctity. In many ways, it transformed me. March 9th is the feast of St. Dominic Savio. Maybe on his feast day you could spend some time asking the Lord how you can live your regular life heroically.
Spoiler alert: if someone tells you she’s a really good Catholic, she’s probably not terribly holy. [↩]
St. Timothy1 was a third century Egyptian lector, an office which entailed far more than simply proclaiming the readings. He spent his evenings reading to the people of his village and preaching the Gospel. He married a pious young woman named Maura and was arrested for being a Christian only 20 days later. His captors, on the authority of Diocletian himself, demanded that Timothy surrender the books of Scripture to them. Timothy refused, saying he’d just as soon surrender one of his own children, and was horrifically tortured. When being blinded and hung upside down with a stone tied to his neck did nothing to weaken him, they chose to attack his heart instead of his flesh and brought in his blushing bride.
But what does any of this have to do with mercy? Well, we’ve talked about people who experienced God’s mercy and who offered it to sinners. Here I think we have a couple who showed God’s mercy by refusing to allow each other to settle. It would have been entirely reasonable for a woman in love to ask her husband to apostatize for her. It would have been expected for Timothy to suggest that his wife run and hide, even if he wouldn’t do it himself. But God’s mercy doesn’t mean saying sin is okay or holding people to a low standard. In his mercy, God demands everything of us. And I think Timothy and Maura show the mercy of God because they loved each other too much to be content with mediocrity. God’s mercy is sometimes severe and here we see the mercy of a God who is too good to be nice, who loved these Saints too well to allow them to cave to the desires of their flesh.
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