A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Peter Nolasco

In the early thirteenth century the Moors still held much of Spain, and in sudden raids from the seathey carried off thousands of Christians, holding them as slaves in Granada and in their citadelsalong the African coast. A hero of these unfortunates was Saint Peter Nolasco, born about theyear 1189 near Carcassonne in France. When he went to Barcelona to escape the heresy thenrampant in southern France, he consecrated the fortune he had inherited to the redemption of thecaptives taken on the seas by the Saracens. He was obsessed with the thought of their suffering,and desired to sell his own person to deliver his brethren and take their chains upon himself. Godmade it known to him how agreeable that desire was to Him.

Because of these large sums of money he expended, Peter became penniless. He was withoutresources and powerless, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said to him: “Find for Meother men like yourself, an army of brave, generous, unselfish men, and send them into the landswhere the children of the Faith are suffering.” Peter went at once to Saint Raymond of Pennafort,his confessor, who had had a similar revelation and used his influence with King James I ofAragon and with Berengarius, Archbishop of Barcelona, to obtain approbation and support forthe new community. On August 10, 1218, Peter and two companions were received as the firstmembers of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, dedicated to the recovery of Christian captives.To the three traditional vows of religion, its members joined a fourth, that of delivering their ownpersons to the overlords, if necessary, to ransom Christians.

The Order spread rapidly. Peter and his comrades traveled throughout Christian Spain, recruitingnew members and collecting funds to purchase the captives. Then they began negotiations withthe slave-owners. They penetrated Andalusia, crossed the sea to Tunis and Morocco, and broughthome cargo after cargo of Christians. Although Peter, as General of the Order, was occupied withits organization and administration, he made two trips to Africa where, besides liberating captives,he converted many Moors. He died after a long illness on Christmas night of 1256; he wascanonized by Pope Urban VIII in 1628. His Order continues its religious services, now devoted topreaching and hospital service.

St. Francis de Sales

Saint Francis de Sales was born in 1567 near Annecy, of noble and pious parents, and studiedwith brilliant success at Paris and Padua. On his return from Italy he gave up the grand careerwhich his father had destined for him in the service of the state, and became a priest.

When the duke of Savoy resolved to restore the shattered Church in the Chablais, Francis offeredhimself for the work and set out on foot with his Bible and breviary, accompanied by onecompanion, his cousin Louis of Sales. It was a work of toil, privation and danger. Every door andevery heart was closed against him. He was rejected with insult and threatened with death, butnothing could daunt him or resist him indefinitely. And before long the Church blossomed into asecond spring. It is said that he converted 72,000 Calvinists.

He was compelled by the Pope to become Coadjutor Bishop of Geneva, and succeeded to that seein 1602. Saint Vincent de Paul said of him, in praise of his gentleness, “How good God must be,since the bishop of Geneva, His minister, is so good!” At times the great meekness with which hereceived heretics and sinners almost scandalized his friends, and they protested when he receivedinsults in silence. One of them said to him, “Francis of Sales will go to Paradise, of course; but Iam not so sure about the Bishop of Geneva: I am almost afraid his gentleness will play him ashrewd turn!” “Ah,” said the Saint, “you would have me lose in one instant all the meekness Ihave been able to acquire by twenty years of efforts? I would rather account to God for too greatgentleness than for too great severity. God the Father is the Father of mercy; God the Son is aLamb; God the Holy Ghost is a Dove; are you wiser than God?” When a hostile visitor said tohim one day, “If I were to strike you on the cheek, what would you do?” Saint Francis answered,with his customary humility, “Ah! I know what I should do, but I cannot be sure of what I woulddo.”

With Saint Jane Frances of Chantal, Saint Francis founded at Annecy the Order of the Visitationnuns, which soon spread over Europe. Though poor, he refused provisions and dignities, and eventhe great see of Paris. He died at Avignon in 1622.

St. Martina

Saint Martina, a Roman virgin, was the child of a noble Christian consul, of whom it was said thathe was extremely merciful towards the poor, and very zealous for faith in the Most Holy Trinity.His daughter lost both her parents while she was still very young, and for love of Christ shedistributed all she inherited to the poor, that she might be more free to hasten towards martyrdom,during the persecution which had recently begun.

Under the emperor Alexander Severus she was discovered in a church one day by three officers ofa search party, and commanded to follow them to a temple of Apollo. She cheerfully agreed,saying she would do so after praying for a short time and taking leave of her bishop. The officersreported their important capture to the emperor, believing she would readily renounce her faith.But when he ordered her to speak, she replied that she would sacrifice to none other than the trueGod, and never to idols, the handiwork of men. She was tortured by iron hooks, but herexecutioners were thrown to the ground amid a great light as she prayed, and arose converted,like Saint Paul, to the Christian faith.

She was tormented again the following day before the emperor, cruelly scourged while attachedby her hands and feet to posts. When, one day later, she was taken to a temple of Diana, thedemon left amid horrible screams. Fire from heaven fell and burnt the idol, which in tumblingcrushed many of its priests and pagan worshipers. Saint Martina, after suffering other tortures andbeing spared by an enraged lion and a fiery furnace, was finally beheaded. Her death occurred onJanuary 1^st during the fourth year of Alexander Severus.

Her relics were found in 1634, during the papacy of Urban VIII, near the Mamertine Prison, withthose of several other martyrs. All were placed in a beautiful church dedicated to Saint Martina inthe Roman Forum. Urban VIII spared no efforts in promoting her veneration; and through hissolicitude the Office was enhanced with hymns for Matins and Lauds. In these we read that hersoul rose to heaven, where she was seen afterwards upon a royal throne, while the Blessed sangpraises to God.

St. John Bosco

Saint John Bosco accomplished what many people considered an impossibility; he walked throughthe streets of Turin, Italy, looking for the dirtiest, roughest urchins he could find, then made goodmen of them. His extraordinary success can be summed up in the words of his patron Saint,Francis de Sales: “The measure of his love was that he loved without measure.”

John’s knowledge of poverty was firsthand. He was born in 1815 in the village of Becchi in thePiedmont district of northern Italy, and reared on his parents’ small farm. When his father died,Margaret Bosco and her three sons found it harder than ever to support themselves, and whileJohn was still a small boy he had to join his brothers in the farm work. Although his life was hard,he was a happy, imaginative child. Even as a boy, John found innocent fun compatible withreligion. To amuse his friends he learned how to juggle and walk a tightrope; but he wouldentertain them only on condition that each performance begin and end with a prayer.

As he grew older, John began to think of becoming a priest, but poverty and lack of educationmade this seem impossible. A kindly priest recognized his intelligence, however, and gave him hisfirst encouragement, teaching him to read and write. By taking odd jobs in the village, andthrough the help of his mother and some charitable neighbors, John managed to get throughschool and find admittance to the diocesan seminary of nearby Turin. As a seminarian he devotedhis spare time to looking after the ragamuffins who roamed the slums of the city. Every Sunday hetaught them catechism, supervised their games and entertained them with stories and tricks;before long his kindness had won their confidence, and his “Sunday School” became a ritual withthem.

After his ordination in 1841, he became assistant to the chaplain of an orphanage at Valocco, onthe outskirts of Turin. This position was short-lived, for when he insisted that his Sunday-schoolboys be allowed to play on the orphanage grounds, they were turned away, and he resigned. Hebegan looking for a permanent home for them, but no “decent” neighborhood would accept thenoisy crowd. At last, in a rather tumbledown section of the city, where no one was likely toprotest, the first oratory was established and named for Saint Francis de Sales. At first the boysattended school elsewhere, but as more teachers volunteered their time, classes were held at thehouse. Enrollment increased so rapidly that by 1849 there were three oratories in various places inthe city.

For a long time Don Bosco had considered founding an Order to carry on his work, and this ideawas supported by a notoriously anticlerical cabinet minister named Rattazzi. Rattazzi had seen theresults of his work, and although an Italian law forbade the founding of religious communities atthat time, he promised government support. The founder-priest went to Rome in 1858 and, at thesuggestion of Pope Pius IX, drew up a Rule for his community, the Society of Saint Francis deSales (Salesians). Four years later he founded an Order for women, theDaughters of Mary, Helpof Christians, to care for abandoned girls. Finally, to supplement the work of both congregations,he organized an association of lay people interested in aiding their work.

Exhausted from touring Europe to raise funds for a new church in Rome, Don Bosco died onJanuary 31, 1888. He was canonized in 1934 by Pope Pius XI. The work of John Bosco continuestoday in over a thousand Salesian oratories throughout the world. No modern Saint has capturedthe heart of the world more rapidly than this smiling peasant-priest from Turin, who believed thatto give complete trust and love is the most effective way to nourish virtue in others.

Daily Mass