A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Robert Bellarmine

Saint Robert Bellarmine was born at Montepulciano, Italy in 1542, the third of tenchildren. After being educated by the Jesuits, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1560, andas a young man taught Greek, Hebrew and theology. While at Louvain University hebecame famous as a controversialist, and never afterwards did he cease to defendCatholic doctrine against its adversaries. He has enriched the Church with a largenumber of learned and valuable writings, among which are his Course of Controversy, hisfamous Commentary on the Psalms, and a treatise on The Seven Last Words of JesusChrist.

In 1598 Saint Robert was made a Cardinal and in 1602 was raised to the archbishopric ofCapua. In 1605 he was recalled to Rome and appointed head of the Vatican Library. Heserved as theologian and counselor to five Popes: Sixtus V, Innocent IX, Clement VIII,Paul V, and Gregory XV. He died in October of 1621, greatly mourned by the people ofRome as well as by the hierarchy, and was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930. Thefollowing year the same Vicar of Christ declared him a Doctor of the Church. His tombis in the Jesuit Church, the Gesù, in Rome.

St. John the Silent

Saint John was born of a noble Christian family of Nicopolis in Armenia, in the year 454,inheriting from the virtue of his parents a more illustrious nobility than that of theirstation. After their death, the young man built at Nicopolis a church in honor of theBlessed Virgin, as well as a monastery, which he himself entered when only eighteenyears of age, with ten fervent companions, all desiring to make the salvation and perfectsanctification of their souls their unique and earnest pursuit.

Not only to shun the danger of sinning by the tongue, but also out of sincere humility andcontempt for himself and love for interior recollection and prayer, Saint John very seldomspoke. When he was obliged to do so, it was always in very few words, and withdiscretion. He was greatly afflicted when, at the age of only twenty-eight, he was obligedby the Archbishop of Sebaste to quit his retreat in 482, for the Archbishop desired toordain him bishop of Colonian in Armenia.

In this new dignity Saint John always preserved the same spirit, and, insofar as wascompatible with the duties of his charge, continued his monastic austerities and exercises. But finding himself persecuted in his diocese and fearing to bring down on it still greatertroubles, he resolved to leave and go to Jerusalem, to live there unknown. While he waswatching one night in prayer, however, he saw before him a bright cross formed in theair, and heard a voice which said to him, “If you desire to be saved, follow this light.” Itseemed to move before him and finally point to the monastery of Saint Sabas, not faraway, which at that time contained one hundred and fifty fervent monks. Saint John wasthen thirty-eight years old.

After living there unknown for some years, fetching water, carrying stones, and doingother menial work, Saint Sabas, judging his monk worthy to be promoted to thepriesthood, presented him to the Patriarch Elias of Jerusalem. Saint John took thepatriarch aside, and, having obtained from him a promise of secrecy, said, “Father, I amalready a priest and have also been consecrated bishop; but on account of the multitude ofmy sins I have fled, and have come to this desert to await the visit of the Lord.” Thepatriarch was startled, but promised not to reveal the matter. God, however, through theministry of an Angel, revealed to Saint Sabas also while he was at prayer, that his monkwas a bishop. Then Saint John, finding himself discovered, wished to leave themonastery; Saint Sabas prevailed on him to remain, by a promise never to divulge thesecret.

In the year 503, Saint John withdrew into a neighboring wilderness, but in 510 returned tothe monastery, where he confined himself for another forty years to his cell. By hisexample and counsels, he guided many fervent souls to God and continued to emulate, asmuch as this mortal state would allow, the glorious employment of the heavenly spirits intheir uninterrupted exercise of love and praise. He passed to their blessed company soonafter the year 558, having lived seventy-six years in the desert, interrupted only by thenine years of his episcopal dignity.

Our Lady of Fatima

Much has been written concerning the six famous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Maryin a little town in Portugal between May 13 and October 13, 1917. Later it would besaid, and rightly so, that everything She predicted there to the three little shepherds hasbeen fulfilled point by point. The story is too long to tell in detail in a few words, andindeed it is not over yet.

Our Lady of Fatima was sent to warn the 20^th century that humanity had not followed thepath that had been indicated to it by her Son; humanity had not developed as Godintended, and the time of the last and worst enemy was fast approaching. She said that ifHer requests for prayer and penance were not heard, Communism would spread its errorsall over the earth. She appealed to the Apostles of the Latter Times to come forth, thosewho lived in humility, poverty and contempt for the world, repeating what She hadalready said at La Salette, France, in greater detail in 1846.

During the final apparition on October 13^th, She appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel,accompanied by Saint Joseph and the divine Child. Through Lucy of Fatima, Mary hadpromised a miracle to convince doubters of the reality of Her presence and the Will ofGod She had conveyed by Her words, and She fulfilled that promise. On October 13,1917, the great Miracle of the Sun occurred, witnessed by all who were present at Fatima,an international crowd of 70,000 spectators. The sun whirled about and seemed to beplunging down as it sent off multicolored rays; many cried out that it was the end of theworld.

A large shrine was built at Fatima, and in the 1940’s more than a thousand miracles hadalready been duly confirmed there. The famous “Secret of Fatima,” part of which wasdisclosed by the Vatican to certain heads of State in 1963, still remains largely a secretfor most of the people who have been waiting for it since 1960, the year that the Virginsaid it was to be made public.

St. Michael Garicoits

Saint Michael Garicoits was born in 1797 on a small farm in the south of France, near thetown of Ibarre, not far from Lourdes and from Betharram, an ancient pilgrimage site. Later the mother house of the Congregation which he founded, the Priests of the SacredHeart of Betharram, was established at that site.

He was ordained a priest at Bayonne in 1823, and spent two years as Assistant in theparish of Cambo, where he established the devotion and confraternity of the SacredHeart. He was summoned to the Major Seminary of Betharram to serve as a professor ofphilosophy and theology in 1825, and he became Superior there in 1831.

In 1832 he made a retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, whichstrengthened in him his desire to found a new Society of Priests, a desire confirmed byhis superiors’ approbation. He had been greatly impressed by the poverty he had seenpracticed by a holy Foundress of a Congregation of Sisters, herself compared to SaintTeresa of Avila, who during her lifetime saw 99 houses of her Congregation establishedin several countries. Saint Michael desired the same practice of poverty for his priests, ashe had seen instituted under the direction of Saint Elizabeth Bichier des Ages, whofounded the Daughters of the Cross, or Sisters of Saint Andrew. Saint Elizabeth was, bya singular disposition of Providence, later canonized the same day as Saint Michael. Both Saints taught the importance of the interior life as the unique and irreplaceablesource of any serious apostolate.

In his early efforts as founder, the fervent priest was faced with the opposition of hisbishop, who desired that the new Institute be placed more specifically under diocesanauthority than under that of its religious Superiors. Saint Michael, devoted to the Will ofGod, the point of departure to attain sanctity, remained in submission for long years. In1875, after a wholly supernatural intervention which occurred in the nearby Convent ofPau through the intermediary of the Arab Carmelite, Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified, theInstitute as he conceived it was approved in Rome under Leo XIII. This occurred afterthe holy Founder had already been called to his reward in 1863.

  Miracles by the dozens had followed his death, and the Priests of the Sacred Heart ofBetharram spread in the lands of South America, as well as in France, England and Italy,where they direct teaching activities.

At the canonization, Pius XII exhorted the religious of the Institute of the Sacred Heartand the Daughters of the Cross, present at the canonization of their respective Founders,to maintain the primitive spirit of their Congregations, saying: “Be deaf to the temptationto sacrifice your religious life and personal sanctification to the apostolate. That wouldbe similar to gathering beautiful flowers from a tree to form a bouquet, and afterwardswanting to find fruit on barren branches.”

St. Pachomius

In the beginning of the fourth century, great levies of troops were made throughout Egyptfor the service of the Roman emperor. Among the recruits was Pachomius, a youngpagan, then in his twenty-first year. On their way down the Nile the recruits disembarkedat a village near the Thebaid, whose inhabitants gave the strangers food and money. Marveling at this kindness, Pachomius inquired who they were; he was told they wereChristians, who hoped for remuneration only in the life to come. He then prayed God tomake the truths of that wondrous faith known to him, and promised in exchange to devotehis life to His service.

When he was discharged, he went to a Christian village in the Thebaid, where there was achurch; he joined the group of catechumens, was instructed and baptized. Desiring toconsecrate his life to God, he sought out Palemon, an aged solitary, to learn from him thepaths to perfection, and with great joy embraced the most severe austerities. Their foodwas bread and water, once a day in summer, and once every two days in winter;sometimes they added herbs, but mixed ashes with them. They slept only one hour eachnight, and this short repose Pachomius took while sitting upright without support.

Three times God revealed to him that he was to found a religious order at Tabenna. AnAngel then gave him a rule of life for a monastery which would require fewer corporalausterities, to accommodate persons whose fear of those practices prevented them fromadopting religious life. Trusting in God, he built a monastery, although he had nodisciples; but vast multitudes soon flocked to him, and he trained them in perfectdetachment from creatures and from self.

Pachomius opposed vanity and vainglory in all its manifestations. One day one of themonks, by dint of great exertions, contrived to make two mats instead of the one whichwas the usual daily task, and set them both out in front of his cell, that Pachomius mightsee how diligent he had been. But the Saint, perceiving the motive which had promptedhis act, said, “This brother has taken a great deal of pains, from morning till night, only togive his work to the devil.” Then, to cure him of his delusion, Pachomius imposed onhim as a penance to keep to his cell for five months, under a very severe regime.

The visions and miracles of the Saint were innumerable, and he read all hearts. His holydeath occurred in 348.

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