Catholic Fire

Today is the memorial of St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), one of the greatest missionaries of all times. He was a marvelous evangelizer, who was on fire for the faith, filled with zeal. The great missionary St. Francis Xavier was from a Basque noble family, like his beloved mentor St. Ignatius Loyola. When Francis met Ignatius in Paris, he was a proud, autocratic, ambitious man wanting to accomplish great deeds in the world. For three years Ignatius patiently encouraged Francis to look at his life differently. “What profits a man,” Ignatius asked Francis, “if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Francis joined Peter Faber as the first of Ignatius’s companions. Francis Xavier was ordained in 1537. In 1541 King John of Portugal asked Ignatius for priests to send to the missions in India. Despite knowing he would never see his beloved companion again, Ignatius chose Francis Xavier for the mission. Francis left for India, arriving at the city of Goa in 1542. For the nex...

October 1st is the feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a saint who is very dear to my heart. Over the years, she has been a close friend and a powerful intercessor for me. Let me share a little about one of my favorite saints with you and why she is so special to me. I first learned about St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus when I was 15 years old, a sophomore in a Catholic high school. In English class, her autobiography, Story of a Soul , was one of the options on our required reading list. As I read her love for Jesus and learned of her "Little Way", I couldn't help but admire and desire to emulate this beautiful saint, who expressed so much joy in the midst of suffering. I cheered when this young woman who was my age when she acted with such strong faith and determination and did the forbidden, speaking out when she was told to remain silent, pleading with the Pope to let her enter Carmel. I was fascinated with the poetic way she expressed herself (being a poet myself...

Today, September 9, is the memorial of St. Peter Claver, a Jesuit priest who dedicated his life to the service of African slaves. The son of a Catalonian farmer, Peter was born in Verdu, Spain in 1581. He obtained his first degrees at the University of Barcelona. At the age of twenty, he entered the Jesuit novitiate and was ordained in 1615. While Peter was studying philosophy at Majorca, he met St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, the door-keeper of the college, who learned from God the future mission of his young friend. St. Alphonsus, therefore, encouraged Peter to travel to South America to work with the African slaves. Peter obeyed, and in 1610 landed at Cartagena, where for forty-four years he was the “Apostle of the African slaves.” Cartagena became the chief slave-mart of the New World, where many thousands of African slaves were landed after crossing the ocean amid inhuman conditions, and then penned like animals in yards. A thousand slaves landed there each month.  There were ...