Catholic Fire

The typical religious who professed perpetual vows in 2013 is a 37-year-old cradle Catholic who has three or more siblings and who regularly prayed the Rosary and took part in Eucharistic adoration before entering religious life, according to a survey released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 460 (56%) of the major superiors of US religious institutes responded to the survey, which was conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). These 460 superiors reported that 107 men and women professed perpetual vows in 2013. Of the 107, 11 newly-professed brothers and 69 newly-professed sisters responded to the survey. 87% of the institutes reported no professions of perpetual vows, while 3% report two or more newly-professed religious. Among the survey’s findings: 28% of newly-professed men and women religious came from families with five or more siblings; 19% have four siblings, 14% have three siblings, 24% have two siblings, 11% have on...

O vos omnes -- Tenebrae Responsories -- (Tomás Luis de Victoria) Latin: O vos omnes qui transitis per viam: attendite et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus. Attendite, universi populi, et videte dolorem meum.Si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus. English Translation: O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see: If there be any sorrow like to my sorrow. V. Attend, all ye people, and see my sorrow: If there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.

Today is the optional memorial of St. Martin de Porres, the first black American Saint. He was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a young freed slave woman from Panama, who may have been black or of Indian blood. His father was repelled by the darkness of his son's skin at birth and abandoned him, leaving the child-raising to his mother. At age 12, Martin was apprenticed to a "surgeon," at that time a combination of barber, druggist, physician and surgeon. Once trained, he began to use his skills to serve the poor. At fifteen, he became a lay brother at the Dominican Friary in Lima, where he worked as a barber, a farm laborer, a clothier, and a care-giver for the sick. Each day Martin distributed food to the hungry, he was doctor to the sick, and he helped to establish an orphanage and a hospice for abandoned babies. Martin devoted himself to severe penances. In turn, God endowed him with many graces and an abundance of spiritual gifts: visions, ecstasies, bi...