Take Five for Faith

We work best when we work together. A society pulling in opposite directions tears itself apart. The final prayer Jesus offers at the Last Supper is for unity among his friends. Saint Paul likewise implores his communities to be of one heart. Today, on Respect Life Sunday, we soberly confess that we can't both honor the sacred gift of life and allow poverty, injustice, exclusion, and indifference to remain unchallenged. Coincidentally, it's the International Day of Older Persons, in a world where people over 60 outnumber children under 5. Make this world a welcome place for everyone.

Mother Theodore Guerin, whose feast is today, was a missionary to the United States who established schools, a pharmacy, and orphanages. But her love of Christ made her denounce injustices, too. She described a slave auction: “These Americans, so proud of their liberty, thus make game of the liberty of others. Poor negroes! I would have wished to buy them all that I might say to them, ‘Go! Bless Providence. You are free!’” Her mission continues today with her Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, who strive for peace and justice, particularly in the area of racial equality and equity, criminal justice reform, human trafficking, and immigration. Take to heart Mother Guerin's words as you work to transform the world: "Above all things; justice, justice. If any preference may be shown let it be to the poorest or most abandoned.”

The feast of Saint Francis of Assisi is a great date to reflect on one’s care for creation, as we are often wont to think all that matters in the spiritual life is our connection to God and other humans. The great Franciscan founder showed us by his life, including preaching to the creatures of the air and the field, that all of creation is listening to hear what we have to say. Is our message that of compassion and prudence, or rather convenience and the “throwaway culture”? Perhaps God himself is choosing to lend an ear by means of all God’s creatures, great and small. MEMORIAL OF FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Saint Faustina Kowalska is one of a long list of saints who held low status but whose intense relationship with God fueled a power that gained attention. A peasant who became a nun assigned low-level jobs, Faustina’s mystical visions of Jesus—at first doubted by church authorities—eventually were embraced widely. They are the foundation of Divine Mercy Sunday, characterized by an image of Jesus with rays of mercy emanating from his heart. Faustina’s focus on God’s mercy is a message that helped her native Poland through harrowing years of war and repressive government, and it continues to inspire. Commit yourself to an act of mercy today. MEMORIAL OF FAUSTINA KOWALSKA, RELIGIOUS

The stories of the founders of religious institutes most often begin with reluctant souls who feel unworthy to accept such an important task. But, luckily for the church and all blessed by their service and legacy, they eventually take up the mantle of leadership. The decision is not without its benefits, according to Saint Bruno, founder of the Carthusians: “God gives his athletes the reward they desire: a peace that the world does not know and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And, for Blessed Marie Rose Durocher, founder of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, prayer is key to finding the answers you seek when unsure of next steps: “I suggest that you pray to Our Lord that He assist you and give you the direction you need.” Gain strength from the witness of these two great leaders. MEMORIALS OF BRUNO, PRIEST; BLESSED MARIE ROSE DUROCHER, RELIGIOUS

Today’s celebration has seen a lot of changes over the centuries. It started out as the Feast of Our Lady of Victory to commemorate the Christian defeat of the Turkish army on this date in 1571. A few years later Pope Gregory XIII changed the name to the Feast of the Holy Rosary. Pope Clement XI in 1716 changed the date to August 5. Pius X changed it back to October 7. John XXIII changed the name to the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary. Then Paul VI changed the name to Our Lady of the Rosary. However you name it, today’s Joyful Mysteries invite you to celebrate Christ in your life. MEMORIAL OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY

Our country's second poet laureate, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), fought in the Second World War. It convinced him that writing verse was serious business: “One does not use poetry ... to organize oneself and the world, until one’s world somehow gets out of hand.” Wilbur explained: “I feel that the universe is full of glorious energy ... and that the ultimate character of things is comely and good. I am perfectly aware that I say this in the teeth of all sorts of contrary evidence, and that I must be basing it partly on temperament and partly on faith.” Believe in the ultimate goodness, regardless of any evidence to the contrary! TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

In the third century, Saint Denis evangelized the country that would come to be France (then called Gaul), and he is thought to have been the first bishop of Paris (then called Lutetia). He was so successful at making converts that the Roman governor beheaded him on the highest hill in the city, now known as Montmartre. It was said he picked up his head and kept preaching while walking many miles before reaching his burial site in a town later named after him. He is the patron saint of France and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Call on him for a missionary zeal that just won’t quit. MEMORIAL OF DENIS, BISHOP, AND COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

In 2021, Pope Francis used today, World Mental Health Day, to pray for those “affected by mental disorders and also the victims, often young, of suicide.” This June, Francis mentioned teen suicide again, decrying a “culture that leads young people to think that they are ‘losers.’” Francis also emphasized the basic human right to medical care and social services—so critical for mental health—but he also pointed to us individual Christians, who in our “haste” don’t often stop long enough to care for each other. “It is easy to delegate charity to others, yet the calling of every Christian”—according to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan—“is to become personally involved.” His advice? Learn from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who said, “charity must not remain locked in the depths of one’s heart.”

In America’s “first city,” St. Augustine, Florida, many Catholics today will celebrate the feast of Our Lady of La Leche, dedicated to a Marian apparition first recognized during the time of the Spanish colonial empire. The devotion, depicting Mary nursing the infant child Jesus, traveled with settlers to Florida in the 16th century, and a shrine to her was built at Mission Nombre de Dios in the new colony of St. Augustine. The shrine is the oldest in the United States, having received canonical coronation in 2021, and is a popular pilgrimage site for those seeking intercession related to a pregnancy. Maybe today is the day for you to offer a special prayer for someone in your own life.

Christians whose personalities would never be called pious or meek might take heart in Caryll Houselander (1901-54), whose death we commemorate today. She smoked, drank, and was said to have a sharp tongue. But people were drawn to her for good counsel, and Houselander’s spiritual writing persists. A sample: “Love is most likely to spring from another's need for us, and the fact of spending ourselves for another always generates new life in us.” With your own God-given personality, warts and all, take a step today toward building the Kingdom.

In an interview in Exorcists against Satan by Italian journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, Pope Francis was asked about the devil. “It is possible that I get on the Devil’s nerves,” he said, “because I try to follow the Lord and do what the Gospel says. And that annoys him. At the same time, he is certainly happy when I commit some sin. He seeks man's failure, but he has no chance if there is prayer.” It is a great mystery that God should permit diabolical activity, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “but we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (CCC 395). Take the simple steps of daily prayer and good works to keep the devil at bay.

There was a profound division in the church during the third-century pontificate of Callistus I. The pope believed and taught that even the most serious sins like murder and adultery could be absolved in a sincere confession. His position scandalized many church leaders in Rome who didn’t agree. They believed that some sins were too serious to be forgiven, and they accused Callistus of laxity and sympathizing with heretics. Eventually Callistus prevailed and Confession became the healing sacrament for all sin, even the most serious. Thank our merciful God for guiding the church toward an ethic of redemption. MEMORIAL OF CALLISTUS I, POPE, MARTYR

Your doctor says that even a little exercise is important to keep the body flexible. Joints that move regularly are body parts that can function well a while longer. Walking 20 minutes a day or taking a water aerobics class are easy ways to lubricate the joints we need to perform our daily tasks. Saint Paul reminds us that flexibility is also a significant aspect of the spiritual life. Can we accept good times and bad, seasons of plenty or want, with the same light grip? Moving through circumstances fluidly makes for a freer life, and a gentler death. TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Depicted as a flaming, shining, bleeding heart, pierced by a lance, encircled by a crown of thorns, and topped with a cross, the Sacred Heart of Jesus symbolizes Christ’s boundless, suffering love for humanity. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the best known and most practiced of all Catholic devotions, but the 17th-century French Visitation nun who received the revelation of this devotion, Margaret Mary Alacoque, was doubted in her lifetime, and the practice wasn’t officially recognized until 75 years after her death. Incorporate an aspiration, or short prayer, to the Sacred Heart each day to remind you that you are unconditionally loved. Examples are “Sacred Heart of Jesus, make my heart like yours," “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I believe in your love for me,” or "Sacred Heart of Jesus, may you be known, loved, and imitated!" MEMORIAL OF MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE, RELIGIOUS

Saint Ignatius Theophorus wrote seven epistles while trudging from Antioch to Rome. As Roman soldiers pushed him toward martyrdom in a coliseum, Ignatius decried a different enemy of Christian faith: docetism, whose Christian adherents claimed Jesus never existed physically on Earth—that he only appeared to. In denying the Incarnation, Ignatius says, such heretics also fail to see the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist and in the poor. “They have no concern for love, none for the widow, none for the orphan, none for the oppressed, none for the prisoner or the one released, none for the hungry or thirsty.” And “they abstain from Eucharist” because “they refuse to acknowledge the Eucharist.” Ignatius, help us to see Jesus—in all the places he said he’d be. MEMORIAL OF IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, BISHOP, MARTYR

Today we celebrate the feast of the evangelist Luke. Best known for his gospel, Luke was a dedicated disciple of Paul who goes so far as to join Paul in prison—twice. You can read Luke’s account of the early Christians in the Acts of the Apostles. But first, read what Luke says in today’s gospel, which gives Jesus’ directives to the disciples who are serving as his advance team. These directives are simple but not easy: “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals”—and they remain amazingly relevant to living a simple life of faith. How can you enact them in your own life? FEAST OF LUKE, EVANGELIST

Today is the memorial of several men who were killed for evangelizing native people in Quebec. The documentation of these encounters is almost entirely from the perspective of European American Christians, with missionaries as heroic martyrs and natives as murderous heathens. The truth is much more complicated. Pope Francis’ 2022 apology to indigenous people in Canada and the U.S. Catholic Indigenous Boarding School Accountability and Healing Project are two efforts to look at the bigger picture of Christian-Indigenous relationships with accountability and reconciliation as goals. Join these efforts by exploring Native American culture and history. MEMORIAL OF JOHN DE BRÉBEUF AND ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS, AND COMPANIONS, MARTYRS

Spiritual direction is a great tool for navigating with God the ups and downs of everyday life. The practice involves a one-on-one relationship with a spiritual director who helps us to see how God is moving in our lives. A director listens and offers wisdom such as that of Paul of the Cross: "Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest, if it were only to saunter through the garden or the fields, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe." In honor of Saint Paul cultivate the art of listening wisely. MEMORIAL OF PAUL OF THE CROSS, PRIEST

All of us run afoul of the law at some point or another, even if it’s as minor as a parking ticket. Laws, religious or secular, are there to set standards and impose order. They have their purpose, but if we hope to be released from all that afflicts us in this life, we’ll need a different kind of law—the law of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. As 20th-century monk and mystic Thomas Merton explains, "The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all empty forms of legalism" and "live by a higher law—the law of grace and love." Let faith lead you there.

Goal-setting is a normal part of life. We set a particular horizon in our education and profession, in domestic budgeting and in relationships. Pope Francis reminds us on this World Mission Sunday that sharing the Good News is the horizon for all church activity. Our aim isn't just to save our souls but to share in the rescue of the world God so loves. “Everyone has the right to receive the gospel. Christians have the duty to announce it without excluding anyone ... as one who shares a joy, signals a beautiful horizon, offers a desirable banquet” (Evangelii Gaudium, 14). Embrace the mission! TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME