Saint for the Day

• June 4 – St. Francis Caracciolo

  

  Francis was born in the kingdom of Naples, of the princely family of Caraccoilo. In childhood he shunned all amusements, recited the Rosary regularly, and loved to visit the Blessed Sacrament and to distribute his food to the poor. An attack of leprosy taught him the vileness of the human body and vanity of the world. Almost miraculously cured, he renounced his home to study for the priesthood at Naples, where he spent his leisure hours in the prisons or visiting the Blessed Sacrament in unfrequented churches. God called him, when only twenty-five, to found an Order of Clerks Regular, whose rule was that each day one father fasted on bread and water, another took the discipline, a third wore a hair-shirt, while they always watched by turns in perpetual adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. They took the usual vows, adding a fourth- not to desire dignities. To establish his Order, Francis undertook many journeys through Italy and Spain, on foot and without money, content with the shelter and crusts given him in charity. Being elected general, he redoubled his austerities, and devoted seven hours daily to meditation on the Passion, besides passing most of the night praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Francis was commonly called the Preacher of Divine Love.  But it was before the Blessed Sacrament that his ardent devotion was most clearly perceptible. In the presence of his divine Lord his face usually emitted brilliant rays of light; and he often bathed the ground with his tears when he prayed, according to his custom, prostrated on his face before the tabernacle, and constantly repeating, as one devoured by internal fire, “The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up.” He died of fever, aged forty-four, on the Eve of Corpus Christi, 1608, saying, “Let us go, let us go to heaven!” When his body was opened after death, his heart was found as it were burnt up, and these words imprinted around it: “Zelus domus Tuae comedit me.”- “The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up.”

  Reflection-It is for men, and not for angels, that our blessed Lord resides upon the altar. Yet angels throng our churches to worship Him while men desert Him. Learn from St. Francis to avoid such ingratitude, and to spend, as he did, every possible moment before the Most Holy Sacrament.

  

  Taken from the “Pictorial Lives of the Saints: with Reflections for Every Day in the Year”
  

Sunday Sermon

• Trinity Sunday

  

  In the name of the Father,
  and of the Son,
  and of the Holy Ghost.
  —St. Matthew xxviii. 19.

  To-day, my dear brethren, the church celebrates the greatest of all the mysteries of our religion: the mystery of the Holy Trinity; of the one God in three Divine Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

  We all believe it; we must believe it if we would be saved. But no one of us can perfectly understand it. St. Patrick, you know, is said to have illustrated it to his converts by showing them the shamrock with its three leaves on one stem; but, of course, he never pretended that this was a perfect explanation of it. No perfect explanation of it can be given to us.

  And why not? Is it because it really has no explanation? No, but because we are not able to understand the one which might be given. Explain the solar system to a child of five years: will he understand you? It is something the same with us and this greater mystery of God.

  Some people, especially at the present day, who consider themselves very wise, say to themselves and to others: “Oh! this doctrine of the Trinity cannot be true.” Ask them why not, and they will say: “Because we cannot understand it; it seems to us to be nonsense.”

  Well, what does their argument amount to? Just to this: “If the doctrine were true we should understand it; but we don’t understand it, therefore it is not true.”

  “If it were true,” they say, “we should understand it.” And why? “Why, of course, because we are so wise that we can understand everything. It is well enough for stupid people, like those benighted Romanists, to believe what they don’t understand, but such a proceeding would be quite below our dignity and intelligence. It is quite absurd to suppose that there is any mystery so deep that we cannot see to the bottom of it.”

  Now, I do not want to accuse these worthy people of any one of the seven capital sins; they are, no doubt, as good as they are wise. But there is something in what they say that looks just a little bit like one of those sins; like the first and most deadly of them all: that is, the sin of pride. And there is not much doubt that pride has in some form or other had something to do with all heresies; so I am afraid that those who deny the Holy Trinity are not quite free from it.

  You think so, my brethren, I have no doubt. But, after all, are you not perhaps guilty of a little of the same sin yourselves? You believe in the Holy Trinity, it is true, but are there not some other things which you do not fully believe, though you ought to, and for very much the same reason?

  God has given you the gift of faith; and you are willing to believe what you know to be of faith, even if it be beyond your reason, especially if it be something, like the Holy Trinity, beyond the reason of any one else. But are you not sometimes rather unwilling to believe other matters of religion, for which there is good authority, just because you, with your present lights, do not quite see through them? That is just the trouble with the heretics of whom I have spoken; is it not so with you, too, perhaps?

  Do you not say even about some of these matters: “Oh! I do not think the same about that as the priests do; they are welcome to their opinion but I claim the right to mine”? It may be some question of morals; then you say: “The priest say so-and-so is not right; but I don’t see any harm in it. I have got a conscience of my own.”

  Did it ever occur to you that as God knows more, and has told more to his church about himself than you could have found out, so he may have enlightened it rather more about some other matters in its own sphere than he has enlightened you, even though they are not of faith? And even setting that aside, is it not possible that those who have studied a subject know more about it than those who have not?

  I think there is only one answer to these questions. Try, then, to have the same humility which you have about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in other things too. You believe that the officers of a ship know a little more about her position and proper course than you do; make the same presumption in favor of those who are in charge of the bark of St. Peter. It is only reasonable to think so; only showing a little of the same common sense which you show in other things.

  ~Five Minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year