The feast day of St. Mary di Rosa is celebrated on December 15. She founded the Handmaids of Charity of Brescia.
Paula Frances Mary di Rosa was born on Nov. 6, 1813 at Brescia, Italy into a wealthy family. Her mother died when she was eleven years old.
After being educated by Visitation Nuns, she returned home to manage her father’s estate. Having a great desire to enter the convent, she was inspired to volunteer at the Brescia hospital during the cholera outbreak in 1836. She also helped care for the spiritual needs of the girls working at her father’s mills and arranged retreats.
St. Mary di Rosa founded a home for girls and a school for deaf mutes. She founded a religious order called the Handmaids of Charity of Brescia. It was also known as the Servants of Charity. It began with four members and grew to twenty two. At this time, Paula took the religious name of Mary Crucifixa because of her devotion to the passion and crucifixion and suffering of Christ.
The Sisters ministered to the wounded on the battlefields of Northern Italy and in hospitals.
St. Mary di Rosa died peacefully at the age of 42 on December 15, 1855. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1954.
“I can’t go to bed with a quiet conscience if during the day I’ve missed any chance, however slight, of preventing wrongdoing or of helping to bring about some good.”
What Do The Saints Tell Us About Purgatory? Learn what the Saints believed about Purgatory. The quotes of the saints can teach us the beliefs of the early Church.
Halloween is celebrated on Oct. 31. Halloween stands for “All Hallows Eve.” It falls on the night before All Saint’s Day which is followed by All Soul’s Day on Nov. 2. On All Saint’s Day the Church celebrates the lives of the Saints. On All Soul’s Day the Church prays for the dead, who are on their pilgrimage to heaven (Purgatory).
Although the word Purgatory (as well as the words Trinity and Incarnation) does not appear in the Bible there are several references to it in both the New and the Old Testament. The Saints have testified to their belief in purgatory also.
The three main reasons Catholics believe in Purgatory are the following:
The Bible teaches us to “pray for the dead”.
(2 Maccabees 12:44-45). For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.
The Bible tells us of a cleansing fire.
(Hebrews 12:29) Our God is a consuming fire. Zechariah 13” 8-9 In the whole land, says the Lord, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire, refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say,
“They are my people”, and they will say, “The Lord is our God.”
St. Paul prayed for the dead. (2 Timothy 1: 17-18) St. Paul prays for Onesiphorus who has died.
The Church Fathers and early Saints believed in Purgatory: The Church Fathers have a long tradition of praying for the dead. St. Augustine was asked by his mother Monica to pray for him at the altar. St. Gertrude the Great had a devotion to the Souls in Purgatory, as did St. Pio, St. Bridget and St. Bernadette.
The following quotes from the saints of the Catholic Church show that purgatory is a belief that has always existed in the church.
“May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesephores, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain….. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord in that day!
2. St. Augustine of Hippo, Africa d. 430, Feast Day August 28
“Some suffer temporal punishments only in this life, others only after death, still others both in life and after death, but always before this most strict and most final court.”
4. St. John Chrysostom; Antioch 344-407 Feast Day Sept. 13
“Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their fathers sacrifices why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.”
5. St. Gertrude the Great; Germany 1256-1302 Feast Day Nov. 16
“Eternal Father, I offer Thee the most precious Blood of Thy Divine Son , Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the wold today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, those in the Universal Church, in my home and in my family. Amen“
Quote of St. Gertrude
St. Catherine of Genoa
6. St. Catherine of Genoa; Italy 1447-1510 Feast Day Sept. 15
“No one is barred from heaven. Whoever wants to enter heaven may do so because God is merciful. Our Lord will welcome us into glory with his arms wide open. The Almighty is pure however, and if a person is conscious of the least trace of imperfection and at the same time understands that Purgatory is ordained to do away with such impediments, the soul enters this place of perfection gladly to accept so great a mercy of God. The worst suffering of these suffering souls is to have sinned against Divine Goodness and not to have been purified in this life.”
Quote of St. Catherine of Genoa
St. Francis de Sales
7. St. Francis de Sales; France 1567-1622 Feast Day Jan. 24
“With Charity towards the dead we practice all the works of charity. The Church encourages us to aid the souls in purgatory, who in turn will reward us abundantly when they come into their glory.”
Quote of St. Francis de Sales
St. Margaret Mary
8. St. Margaret Mary; France 1647-1690 Feast Day October 16
“If only you knew with what great longing these holy souls yearn for relief from their suffering. Ingratitude has never entered Heaven.”
9. St. Gregory the Great; Italy 540-604 Feast Day Sept. 3
“Each one will be presented to the Judge exactly as he was when he departed this life. Yet there must be a cleansing fire before judgement because of some minor faults that may remain to be purged away.”
10. St. Thomas Aquinas; Naples, Italy 1226-1274 Feast Day Jan. 28
“The more one longs for a thing, the more painful does deprivation of it become. And because after this life, the desire for God, the Supreme Good, is intense in the souls of the just (because this impetus toward him is not hampered by the weight of the body and that time of enjoyment of the “Perfect Good would have come) had there been no obstacle, the souls suffers enormously from this delay.”
Quote of St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Faustina
11. St. Faustina; Poland 1905-1938
“O Jesus, I understand that your mercy is beyond all imagining, and therefore I ask you to make my heart so big that there will be room in it for the needs of all the souls living on the face of the earth. O Jesus, my love extends beyond the world, to the souls suffering in purgatory, and I want to exercise mercy toward them by means of indulgenced prayers. God’s mercy is unfathomable and inexhaustible, just as God himself is unfathomable. Even if I were to use the strongest words there are to express this mercy of God, all this would be nothing in comparison with what it is in reality. O Jesus, make my heart sensitive to all the sufferings of my neighbor, whether of body or of soul. O my Jesus, I know that You are toward us as we are toward our neighbor.”
Quote of St. Faustina
St. John Vianney
12. St. John Vianney; France 1786-1859 Feast Day August 4
“It is definite that only a few chosen ones do not go to Purgatory and the suffering there that one must endure exceed our imagination.”
“May the prayer of thy suppliant people, we beseech Thee, O Lord, benefit the souls of thy departed servants and handmaids: that thou may both deliver them from all their sins, and make them to be partakers of thy redemption. Amen
Eternal rest grant to them, O lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. Amen
May their souls and the souls of the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen“
The feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutta is celebrated on September 5. On September 4, 2016 Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa, proclaiming her a saint.
Mother Teresa was beatified on October 19, 2003, after confirmation of her first miracle. The miracle was reported that a woman who had a large and very visible tumor, had stayed with the Missionaries of Charity. After she and the Sisters had prayed for Mother Teresa’s intercession, the growth, six to seven inches in length, had disappeared within several hours. Finding no other medical explanation for the sudden cure it was declared her first miracle. Over 3500 other reports are being investigated as possible miracles.
After accepting a second miracle, Pope Francis cleared the way for Mother Teresa to be declared a saint. Pope Francis signed a decree declaring that the inexplicable 2008 recovery of a Brazilian man who suddenly woke from a coma caused by a viral brain infection was due to the intercession of the Albanian nun, who died in 1997.
The Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator spearheading Mother Teresa’s canonization case, stated that the man fully recovered following his wife’s prayers and he has since returned to work as a mechanical engineer. The couple also have had two children.
Mother Teresa, as the world knows her, was born to parents Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1916 in Skopje of Macedonia and named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was baptized on August 17, 1910 in Macedonia. She was the third child in her family, following sister Aga and a brother, Lazar. Her father, Nikola died, when she was eight years old. Her father was a traveler, an extrovert, and a businessman who spoke five languages. Her mother, Drana, was extremely pious, adopting several orphans. She was known as Gonxha (pronounced gon’KHA) which means “flower bud”.
Gonxha desired early to become a missionary. At the age of eighteen, she joined the Sisters of Loreto. Here she took the name of Sister Mary Teresa after St. Therese of Lisieux. She was sent to Calcutta, India to teach at St. Mary’s High School for Girls, which was run by the Sisters of Loreto. On May 24, 1937, she took her final Profession of Vows to a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. She then became known as Mother Teresa. In 1944, she became principal of the school.
While on a train, she received a second calling. Christ spoke to her, asking her to work in the slums of Calcutta, caring for the sickest and poorest of the people. Pursuing this calling changed her life forever. In one year, she received approval to do the work she was being called to do. After six months of basic medical training she went to the slums to aid the needy and dying. Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity with 12 members, most of them students from St. Mary’s. She established a leper colony, an orphanage, a mission house, and several health clinics. In 1971, Mother Teresa visited New York City, where she opened a soup kitchen and a home to care for HIV/AIDS sufferers. In 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1983, Mother Teresa suffered her first heart attack. After suffering from lung, kidney and heart problems for several years, she died on Sept. 5, 1997 at the age or 87. At the time of her death her Missionaries of Charity numbered over 4,000. She had 610 foundations in 123 countries.
In 2003, Mother Teresa’s private correspondence revealed she had experienced a “dark night of the soul”… feeling abandoned by God and lacking in faith. This lasted unusually long; for fifty years. Many saints have experienced such feelings, described by John of the Cross, in his book Dark Night of the Soul. She was filled with loneliness, and torture, due to this lack of consolation from God.
Mother Teresa is known for saying,
“The greatest poverty in the world, among the affluent, as well as the poorest of the poor, is to be unloved, unwanted, and uncared for.”
The world did not know that she spoke from her own experience.
There are many books written about Mother Teresa and her great love and service to the world. The following is one of my favorite quotes.
Suffering is a sign that we have come so close to Jesus on the cross that He can kiss us; that He can show that He is in love with us by giving us an opportunity to share in His Passion.
The feast day of St. Philip Neri is celebrated on May 26.
He is known as the Apostle of Joy because of his cheerful nature. St. Philip was born in Florence, Italy in 1515. After having a conversion experience when he was 18, his life changed radically. He went to Rome with no plan, totally trusting in God’s guidance.
For two years, he was a tutor for small boys. Eventually he took courses in philosophy and theology at the Sapienza and at St. Augustine’s Monastery. After three years he quite suddenly sold his books and began a mission to the people of Rome. He engaged in conversations with people on the street corners, often asking, “Well brothers, when shall we begin to do good?” He served the sick in the hospitals and prayed for them in the churches. His favorite place of prayer was at the Catacomb of St. Sebastian.
St. Philip had a special devotion to the third person in the Trinity. He prayed daily to the Holy Spirit. At night he was called to solitude and prayer. Ten years after beginning his ministry, with the help of his confessor, Father Rossa, a confraternity of laymen began meeting to pray together. He encouraged the devotion of the Forty Hours. Father Rossa finally convinced him that he should become a priest. He was ordained in 1551. The Congregation of the Priests of the Oratory was founded several years later by St. Philip. They had simple rules. They shared a common table and performed spiritual exercises together. They were not bound by any vows.
St. Philip died from a hemorrhage on the Feast of Corpus Christi after hearing confessions.
St. Philip Neri Public Domain
Many of the following short sayings of St. Philip Neri are still remembered today.
Do not grieve over temptations you suffer. When the Lord intends to bestow a particular virtue on us, He often permits us first to be tempted by the opposite vice. Therefore, look upon every temptation as an invitation to grow in a particular virtue and promise God that you will be successful, if only you stand fast.
Let us strive for purity of heart for the Holy Spirit dwells in candid and simple minds.
Bear the cross and do not make the cross bear you.
There is no purgatory in this world. Nothing but heaven or hell.
Sufferings are a kind of paradise to him who suffers with patience, while they are a hell to him who has no patience.
Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life. Therefore the servant of God ought always be in good spirits.
Watch me, O Lord, this day, for abandoned to myself, I shall surely betray thee.
My children, if you desire perseverance, be devout to our Blessed Lady.
It is an old custom with the servants of God always to have some little prayers ready, and to be darting them up to heaven frequently during the day lifting our minds to God out of the filth of this world. He who adopts this plan will get great fruit with little pains.
We are not saints yet, but we too, should beware. Uprightness and virtue do have their rewards in self-respect and in respect from others, and it is easy to find ourselves aiming for result rather than the cause. Let us aim for joy, rather than respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment as the all-wise God sees us.
Never say “What great things the Saints do”, but “What great things God does in His Saints.” Cast yourself in the arms of God and be very sure that if He wants anything of you, He will fit you for the work and give you strength.
Believe me, there is no more powerful means to obtain God’s grace than to employ the intercessions of the Holy Virgin.
The true way to advance in holy virtues is to persevere in a holy cheerfulness.
The cheerful are much easier to guide in the spiritual life than the melancholy.
Excessive sadness seldom springs from any other source than pride.
If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a crucifix, and think that Christ shed His Blood for him, and not only forgave his enemies, but prayed the Eternal Father forgive them also.
The fruit we ought to get from prayer is to do what is pleasing to the Lord.
He who runs away from one cross, will meet a bigger one on his road.
St. Philip Neri with Cross
The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.
The devil, who is a most haughty spirit, is never more completely mastered than by humility of heart and a simple clear undisguised manifestation of our sins and temptations to our confessor. Christ died for sinners; we must take heart therefore, and hope that paradise will be ours provided only we repent of our sins, and do good.
He who continues in anger, strife, and a bitter spirit, has a taste of hell.
Humility is the true guardian of chastity.
If you wish to go to extremes, let it be in sweetness, patience, humility and charity.
O Jesus, watch over me always, especially today, or I shall betray you like Judas.
