Saint for the Day

• August 31 – St. Raymund Nonnatus
  Saint Raymund Nonnatus was born in Catalonia, Spain, in the year 1204. Motherless from infancy, in his childhood he seemed to find pleasure only in his devotions and serious duties. He chose the Blessed Virgin for his mother, almost as soon as the light of reason made this choice available to him. His father, perceiving in him an inclination to the religious state and unwilling to give up his son, took him from school and sent him to take care of a farm which he owned in the country. Raymund readily obeyed, and, in order to enjoy holy solitude, kept the sheep himself and spent his time in the mountains and forests in holy meditation and prayer. He found there an ancient hermitage containing a portrait of his Blessed Mother, and made this his asylum. There the devil found him and, assuming the disguise of a shepherd, attempted to turn him away from his devotions; but Raymund turned his back on his visitor and called Mary to his assistance. The sole name of the Mother of God caused the demon to disappear, and the hermit prostrated himself and blessed Her for Her assistance. Some time afterward, he joined the new Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives, and was admitted to profession at Barcelona by the holy founder, Saint Peter Nolasco. Within two or three years after his profession, he was sent into Barbary with a considerable sum of money; in Algiers he purchased the liberty of a great number of slaves. When all his treasure was exhausted, he gave himself up as a hostage for the ransom of others, according to the Rule of his Order. This magnanimous sacrifice served only to exasperate the Moslems, who treated him with uncommon barbarity, until they began to fear that if he died in their hands, they would lose the ransom which had been asked for his deliverance. A crier announced in the streets that anyone who mistreated him would answer for it, if he died. Therefore he was permitted to go abroad in the streets, which liberty he utilized to comfort and encourage the Christians in chains, and to convert and baptize certain Moslems. Learning of this, their pasha, furious, condemned him to be impaled, but his barbarous sentence was commuted at the insistence of those who had an interest in the ransom payments for the slaves he was replacing. He underwent instead a cruel bastinade, but that torment did not daunt his courage. So long as he saw souls in danger of perishing eternally, he thought he had yet done nothing. Saint Raymund had no more money to employ in releasing poor captives; and to converse with those of the local beliefs on the subject of religion meant death. He enjoyed sufficient liberty nonetheless to continue the same endeavors, and he did so, hoping either for success or martyrdom. The governor, enraged, ordered our Saint to have his lips pierced and padlocked, then to be imprisoned until his ransom would be brought by members of his Order. He remained in jail for eight months before his brethren arrived with the required sum, sent by Saint Peter Nolasco. Upon his return to Spain, he was nominated Cardinal by Pope Gregory IX, and the Pope called him to Rome. The Saint was on his way, but had gone no farther than Cardona when he was seized with a violent fever. He died on August 31, 1240, in his thirty-seventh year. His face in death became beautiful and radiant like that of Moses when he descended from the mountaintop, where he had spoken with God. A heavenly fragrance surrounded his body, and cures were effected on behalf of those who came and touched him. Reflection: This magnanimous Saint gave not only his substance but his liberty, and exposed himself to the most cruel torments and death for the redemption of captives and the salvation of souls. But we, alas! do we not, merely to gratify our prodigality, vanity, or avarice, refuse to give even the superfluity of our possessions to the poor, who for want of it are perishing with cold and hunger? Let us not forget the terrible Judgment of the Last Day, awaiting those who neglect their brethren in need. (Cf. Matt. 25:31-46)

Sunday Sermon

• Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost ~ Correction for Faults

  

   “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.” — Gal. vi. I.

  Perhaps there is no duty so hard to perform well as that of correction ; and of course I refer chiefly to parental correction. Some parents are too lenient. They sin by petting their children. They over-praise them to their faces. They give them to understand that they are not loved, but worshipped. They believe them against school teacher, neighbor, or relative. They are the slaves of the child’s lightest whim. And long before old age comes such parents are apt to suffer from that very miserable infliction, a spoiled child. Children are said to be the crown of their parents ; the spoiled child is a crown of thorns. Others, on the contrary, are too severe. If they really love their little ones they have discovered how to disguise it. They are too exacting. They scold, and they scold often, and long and loud. They bring up past offences, long since atoned for. They dwell much on their own merits as good parents. They correct in anger. Impulse guides them, or rather drives them, in place of affection and a spirit of justice. The sudden slap and the rude shove for the smaller ones ; the blow of the fist, the kick for the larger ones. And oh ! the deadly curse, the evil wish connected with Satan’s name, the wish for eternal loss for one’s own child, the harsh name, the face flaming with rage, the shouting voice ; brethren, all this drives the boys to the saloon, and the girls to the dangerous companionship. Is it not, then, a difficult thing to avoid both extremes, to be neither too lenient nor too severe? Does it not show us how high a place in Paradise a faithful parent shall enjoy ? Does it not — this matter of parental correction alone — show us why our Blessed Lord raised the parental office to a sacramental state? St. Paul in the text — although speaking of correction in general — lays down two rules which good parents know by experience to be the two wings of their flight to heaven: first, parents should be spiritual, and second, they should be meek. Spiritual, because to be a good parent “is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy.” Brethren, lay this to heart : the married state is indeed happy, but only by the grace of God. Natural dispositions go before all supernatural life. But the natural man is clay which the potter moulds into a vessel of election. And how often do we see easy going, kindly-natured young people become crabbed enough after marriage. They lack the grace of God ; that is the reason of their difficulties in governing their children. They do not pray enough. They do not come often enough to the sacraments. They are unwilling to inconvenience themselves by joining the rosary society or the temperance society. The necessary spirit of sacrifice is absent from the family ; and that spirit is born of the practices of religion. Furthermore, the spirit o.f meekness is necessary : The true spirit of correction is not the spirit of authority, but the spirit of meekness. If one’s mind is all puffed up with the importance of one’s dignity and the greatness of one’s merit; if one is always itching to have his authority respected by his children, instead of seeking to be loved by them on account of his devoted affection ; if by his harsh voice, his exacting spirit, his cold and distant manner, his stinginess — if by such means he undertakes to keep ” his children in their place,” they will be neither virtuous nor happy. And least of all will he be happy himself. After all, dear brethren, there is but one object in bringing up a family : to train souls how to be good children of God. Now, if human beings can be kept out of sin in any other way but by much loving kindness, then the Christian religion is a mistake. Once St. Philip Neri was surrounded by a troop of noisy boys. Some of his friends, who were annoyed by their shouts and laughter and boyish clatter, complained of them to him. ” Why, Father Philip,” they said, ” how can you stand such a noise about you ? ‘ ‘ The saint smiled and answered, “They might chop wood on my back if it would only keep them out of sin.” Let it therefore be the one object of parents to so correct their children as to gradually remove the defects of character and nature which may cause them to sin. It may sometimes be good to punish with a certain severity, but always without passion; after a little time, at least, of deliberation, and especially in such a way that the child may know that the chastisement is inflicted by one who loves God and his child’s soul too much to neglect proper correction.

  

  Five-minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year By the Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul, 1893