My Guardian Dear

It is a relentless saga when trying to find the truth but a quick renewal when truth itself finds you Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was once asked what book he would want to have with him if ever he found himself stranded on a desert island. Along with the Bible he chose St Augustine’s Confessions. Some might have found the choice surprising but I think I agree. Having just gone through the book again for the fourth or fifth time I found myself even more engrossed in it than ever before. The first half of the book which recounts his conversion story is especially engaging. Like The Story of a Soul by St Thérèse this book feels at once more familiar after several readings and yet somehow more filled with new lights. What St Augustine does is to instruct us in how to pursue something which is fundamental to spiritual growth, namely, the attainment of self-knowledge. He traces the thread of the working of God’s grace, as well as his own sinfulness, from his earliest memories right through to the time of his conversion and beyond. He even goes back further than his own memories can take him and writes of what he was told of his babyhood by others. The little detail about him being prone to laughter during his sleep as a baby is particularly endearing. After this fourth or fifth reading, I have been left pondering something which I would like to share with you in this short article. It has to do with the influence of his youthful friendships. Parents cannot be vigilant enough when it comes to the question of their children’s friends. So many of us have been drawn away from whatever little virtue we had in our youth by the example and enticement of our wayward companions. Augustine was no different. Life in the fourth century sounds surprisingly similar to life in our own day. Pears and Peers Augustine’s famous story of the stealing of the pears illustrates the point. He probes his memory for the motivation behind the decision to rob an orchard, even though he had better pears at home and wasn’thungry. Most of the pears ended up being thrown to the hogs. He knew full well at the time that what he was doing was an act of gratuitous injustice. Did he do evil then purely for the sake of doing evil? Yet, this is not the way that our heart is generally disposed. Sin in us is normally the perversion of some good. In this case, it was done out of a kind of rambunctious camaraderie and the mocking delight of a group of friends at the thought of the outrage of the owners of the orchard. It was friendship gone awry that was its motive. Augustine would never have done such a thing alone, but only because he was spurred on by his peers. He was desperate to impress them and to have his share in their act of mindless mischief. Friendship is one of God’s greatest gifts, but friendship warped by sin can have ruinous effects. The eloquent lament of the saint unmasks its danger, “O friendship all unfriendly! You strange seducer of the soul, who hungers for mischief from impulses of mirth and wantonness, who craves another’s loss without any desire for one’s own profit or revenge—so that, when they say, “Let’s go, let’s do it,” we are ashamed not to be shameless.” (Confessions. Book II, 9). Captivity There is a similar pattern in relation to the sin which would become fatal poison for Augustine’s soul and which could have led to his eternal perdition. The sin of lust also took hold of his heart as he journeyed with his friends ever further out upon what he calls the “stormy fellowship” of human life. In the company he kept during his teenage years it became the custom to want to outdo one another in lasciviousness. They would boast of their exploits and even exaggerate the real scale of their immorality to impress one another. The only thing that they were by now ashamed of was innocence and chastity. His holy mother had warned him sternly in his sixteenth year to avoid fornication and to stay away from other men’s wives. He would later write to the Lord about his arrogant dismissal of her admonitions, “These appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed to obey. Yet they were from Thee, and I knew it not.” (Confessions.Book II, 3) What began with one or two sins of the flesh became a habit before long, and sadly for Augustine, this evil habit would later begin to feel like a necessity. What started as a boast to his friends finally enchained his will and took on a life of its own within him. The demon of lust had found its doorway into the throne room of his soul through a vain longing to impress. The Spark of Truth After reading Cicero at age nineteen, the saving grace of his intellectual quest to discover wisdom was sparked off. This passionate search would lead him through the study of different schools of philosophy, gnosticism, and a prolonged pondering of the problem of evil. All the while, this journey ran parallel to the sexual immorality which had engulfed his life. His mind was groping upwards for light, but his will was still mired in the mud of sin. The climactic point of this journey, when both tendencies within him would at last clash violently, came at around the age of thirty-two. It was then that the struggle which would determine his eternal fate—and whether or not he would become a light for all subsequent generations of Christians or simply disappear into darkness—broke into a raging interior inferno. After listening to the sermons of the great Saint Ambrose and after reading the letters of Saint Paul, there could be no more doubt in his mind that in the Catholic Church alone would he find the truth he had always sought. It was clear to him now that Jesus Christ was his heart’s true desire and yet he was powerless to break the chains of lust which had shut that same heart up in a prison of vice. He was too sincere in the face of truth to think that he could ever come to life in Christ without a willingness to die to grave sin. War and Liberation The final battle which would decide the war for his soul followed upon a discussion with his friends about some illustrious Romans who had left everything behind to follow Christ. (Now the presence of good friends was beginning to right the wrongs of youth.) Seized with a holy desire to follow the example of the saints, and yet unable to do so because of his attachment to lust, an emotional Augustine stormed out of the house into the garden. Seeking out a place of solitude, he allowed the tears of regret and inner frustration to finally flow freely. They were to prove cleansing tears. The moment had at last come when he was ready to let go. He consented to release his grip on sin for good. No sooner had this holy spiritual desire overcome his inordinate desire for physical pleasure than he heard a child’s voice singing repeatedly, “Take and read.” He interpreted this as a command from Almighty God placed upon the lips of babes. Rushing back to the house to take up the book of Saint Paul’s letters which he had left on the table, he told himself that he would accept whatever words his eyes first fell upon as an expression of the will of God for his life. This was what he read, “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:13-14) Triumph Along with these words of Sacred Scripture, supernatural light was infused into his soul. Only moments after truly desiring to be delivered for the first time ever, deliverance was now his. The chains which had fettered his will for so long, subjecting it to the tempestuous rule of the passions, had been smashed to pieces by the grace of Christ the Liberator. His tormented soul was permitted to enter instantly into joy, peace, and the freedom of the children of God. In that momentous hour for the whole Church, the man once enslaved to lust through the unfortunate company kept as a youth had died and one of the most influential saints of all time had suddenly come to life. Looking back years later, it was hard for the saint to believe that he could have ever allowed such paltry trifles to hold him back from the Lord and the ecstatic joys that would be given him in Christ. He had been like one clinging desperately to worthless trinkets while priceless treasure was held out to him. The Protestant scholar R.C. Sproul sums up the consensus of all Christians about the monumental importance of what happened on that day, “If there is any giant that stands out in the history of the Church as the man upon whose shoulders the whole history of theology stands, it is a man by the name of Aurelius Augustine, Saint Augustine.”

We know the Nazis’ wickedness cowed many into silence, but not Blessed Maria Restituta. Born Helen Kafka, in a family of Czech extraction, she grew up in Vienna. After leaving school at 15, Helen tried her hand at various jobs before settling on a nursing career with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. After several months, Helen asked her parents’ permission to join the order. When they refused, she ran away from home. Ultimately, her parents relented, and so the congregation accepted her. Helen took the name Restituta after an early Christian martyr, and made her final vows in 1918 at age 23.  The top surgeon in the hospital where she worked was difficult. Nobody wanted to work with him…except Sister Restituta, and within a short time, she was running his operating room. Eventually, she became a world-class surgical nurse. Sister was tough and people called her “Sister Resolute”. Her vocal opposition to the Nazis proved she was also brave. After Sister Restituta hung a crucifix in every room of her hospital’s new wing, the Nazis ordered them to be taken down. She refused. The crucifixes stayed. But when the Gestapo found anti-Nazi propaganda on her, she was arrested on Ash Wednesday of 1942, and was imprisoned for more than a year. She gave her rations to other prisoners who were starving; it is said that she saved the life of a pregnant woman and her baby. On March 30, 1943 she approached the guillotine wearing a paper shirt, weighing just half her previous weight, and her last words were, “I have lived for Christ; I want to die for Christ.” Sister Restituta was the only “German” religious living in “Greater Germany” martyred during the Second World War.  Fearing that Catholic Christians would promote her as a martyr, the Nazis threw her body into a mass grave. In the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Tiber in Rome is a chapel dedicated to 20th century martyrs. The crucifix that hung from Blessed Restituta’s belt is kept there as a relic.

Is there such a thing as Eucharistic Sensitivity? Perhaps this anecdote regarding Pope John Paul II can answer the question.  During a trip to the State of Maryland, Pope John Paul II was scheduled to walk down a hallway in the archbishop’s residence. Along that hallway was the entrance to a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. The papal organizer ensured that nothing indicated the door led to the chapel as he knew John Paul would certainly step inside to pay a visit to the Lord, thus significantly derailing the schedule. On the day of the pilgrimage, Pope John Paul walked past the door and stopped. He wagged his finger at the papal organizer, opened the door of the chapel, entered and knelt to pray. One of the priests who witnessed the event commented in amazement, “He’s never been in this place before, never set eyes on the place, and there was nothing about the door that distinguished it in any way as a chapel. It was just one more door in a corridor of doors. But he turned right back around, he opened that door, and went into the chapel, and he prayed.” Out of his intense relationship with the Eucharist, came the incredible gift of Eucharistic sensitivity. The late Holy Father teaches us a lesson regarding the desires of our heart. When our desire is great, our awareness of, and sensitivity to, that which we desire increases greatly. Let us pray that the good Lord helps us grow in our desire for him and inspires us to make time regularly to spend alone with Him in the Blessed Sacrament.

As a gentle and kind-hearted woman, Mary Zhu Wu was esteemed for her exemplary faith. She was a mother of four and lived with her husband Zhu Dianxuan, a village leader in Zhujiahe village in the Hebei Province of China towards the middle of the 1800s. When the Boxer Rebellion broke out and Christians and foreign missionaries were massacred, the tiny village took in about 3000 Catholic refugees from neighboring villages. The parish priest, Father Léon Ignace Mangin, and fellow Jesuit, Father Paul Denn, offered daily Mass and heard confessions throughout the day during that troublesome time. On July 17, about 4,500 members of the Boxers and the imperial army attacked the village. Zhu Dianxuan gathered about 1000 men to defend the village and led them in battle. They fought bravely for two days but Zhu died when the cannon they had captured backfired. All those who were able, fled the village in terror. By the third day, the soldiers gained entry into the village and killed hundreds of women and children. Around 1000 Catholics had already taken refuge in the church where the priests gave them general absolution and prepared for a final Mass. Although grieving for her husband, Mary Zhu Wu remained calm and exhorted those gathered to trust God and pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary. When the soldiers finally broke down the church door and started firing randomly, Mary Zhu-Wu rose with amazing courage. She positioned herself with outstretched arms in front of Father Mangin to shield him with her body. Soon, she was struck by a bullet and fell at the altar. The Boxers then surrounded the church and set it on fire to kill the survivors, with Fathers Mangin and Denn burning to death as the church roof finally collapsed. Until her last breath, Mary Zhu Wu had continued to strengthen the faith of fellow believers and bolstered their courage. Her words spurred them to overcome fear and embrace martyrdom. Because of her powerful leadership, only two of the Christians of Zhujiahe apostatized. In 1955, Pope Pius XII declared her Blessed, together with the two Jesuits and several other martyrs. They were all canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

Sometimes it’s the little miracles that bolster our faith and prepare us for the hard moments in life. In our mid-twenties, when my wife and I were discerning a call to move from Chicago to Eureka Springs, Arkansas with members of our Catholic Charismatic community, we decided to visit Eureka to see what kind of housing was available. Two of our community members hosted us and showed us around. After a week, excited about our future in this picturesque town, we started our return trip to Chicago to make final preparations for our move to the Ozark mountains. Twists & Turns A few hours into our trip, engine trouble forced us off the road. The service station had good news—it was not a major problem, and bad news—they couldn’t get the replacement part till the next day. We had to get a room at a nearby motel. The next day, with our car in good working order, we headed out a good bit lighter—money-wise that is. The motel room and the repair work used up most of our cash. We’d barely have enough for food, and since Nancy was pregnant, skipping a meal was not an option. I had no credit cards in those days. We were sailing down the road when we were stopped by a state trooper. He flagged us down, along with five other cars, for speeding. One car after another, we pulled to the side of the road awaiting our tickets. I knew nothing about how to pay an out of state ticket nor, more importantly, how to dispute the speeding charge. Very politely, the officer said, “You can go to the courthouse if you want. Get off at the next exit, follow the signs into town, and you’ll see the courthouse.” Reminiscence The year before, Nancy and I took a delayed honeymoon to the Italian town where I was born. On the way there, we stopped at Assisi to visit our favorite Saints, Francis and Clare. In the basilica of Santa Chiara (Clare’s Italian name) we saw her actual golden yellow hair preserved in a glass case. Nancy turned to me and said, “If we ever have a girl, I want to name her Chiara.” I heartily agreed and looked forward to the day Saint Clare would have a namesake in our family. As we neared the exit, knowing we couldn’t pay the traffic ticket, Nancy and I turned to Santa Chiara. “Dear Saint Clare,” we prayed, “help us get out of paying this ticket. Please help us.” Half-jokingly I added, “Saint Clare, we’ll definitely name our baby after you… even if it’s a boy!” Immediately, the sign pointing to the town came into view. We could not believe our eyes. The officer had not told us he was sending us to St. Clair, Missouri! Not till recently did I learn it was named for a Revolutionary War general. But our naïve eyes saw the “St” followed by “Clair” and Saint Clare filled our hearts. We did not notice the difference in spelling of what we assumed was our beloved Saint’s name. This town of 4,000 in the American Bible-belt, we thought, was named for the Saint of Assisi! Overjoyed, we were convinced we had chosen well in turning to our dear Chiara. Edging Off I rushed toward the courthouse hoping to beat the other drivers so I could plead to the judge for mercy, but immediately the others pulled into the parking lot alongside us. When the courthouse clerk asked how I wanted to pay my fine, I said I didn’t think I was speeding and asked if I could speak with the judge. Though surprised, she said I could and nodded to a man seated at a desk across the room. As he took a long black robe from a nearby hat-stand, the clerk motioned us toward the courtroom where the man I had just seen was already sitting behind the bench wearing judges’ robes. He called the first “speeder.” She insisted she had not been speeding and, to my delight, the judge was understanding, even agreeing that sometimes police officers make mistakes and innocent drivers get wrongly ticketed. I was much encouraged until he said, but he is the police officer and I must take his word. Your fine is seventy-five dollars. The second defendant tried the opposite tack; all sugar and kindness, she explained the good officer must have made a mistake. Again, the judge indulged, conceding that officers are not perfect and sometimes even the radar equipment fails. But again, he turned on a dime reminding us that the officer is the duly appointed officer of the law. Her fee was eighty-five dollars. I was next, and I started with a question. “Your honor, is it possible for me to be found not guilty here today.” “Oh no,” he said. “The clerk said you wanted to speak with the judge, so I’m happy to listen. But no, I can’t find you not guilty. We would need a jury trial for that.” My only choices, it turned out, were to plead guilty and pay my fine or plead not guilty and pay my fine. There was no leaving without paying the fine. If I wanted a trial, I would have to return to St. Clair. When Hopelessly Lost “My wife and I are moving to the area in September,” I told him. “I’m willing to return for a trial.” The look on his face told me I was making progress. But suddenly Nancy rose to her feet, protruded her pregnant tummy, and called out for all to hear, “Oh honey, don’t try to reason with him. He doesn’t care about us. He doesn’t care that our car broke down and we spent all our money on a motel room and repair costs. Don’t try to reason with him, he just wants our money.” Try as I did to hush her lament, she forged on. When I turned back toward the judge convinced hope was lost, he motioned to me to approach the bench. As I neared, he asked, “You’re planning to move to this area?” “Yes, your honor. We’ll be moving to Eureka Springs in September.” He reached under his robe into his pants pocket and pulled out a business card. Handing it to me he said, “The next time you drive past St. Clair, give me a call.” I stood there, uncertain what to do. He gestured for me to go. I still did not understand. He motioned again, more forcefully. Tentatively, Nancy and I slowly left the courtroom. As we approached the counter, the clerk asked, “What did the judge say?” “He told me the next time we drive through town I should call him.” She looked annoyed. “What’s your fee?” she asked. “He didn’t give me one,” I said. She looked as befuddled as I had been. “This has never happened before,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with your ticket.” She looked at us and said, “Ok, I guess you can go.” Nancy and I entered our car in disbelief, stunned by what had happened. But we knew who to thank. When we are young and less mature in faith, God often blesses us with small signs, like this, that strengthen our faith and ready us for the challenges life inevitably brings. Nancy and I received many small signs in those early days with the Lord. They persuaded us that God cares even about the smaller things in life—not just the cancers or heart attacks, not just the foreclosure or lost job. And God uses his faithful ones, the Saints, to be channels of his grace. As we grow in the Lord and our faith matures, we may see fewer signs because those early ones have built a foundation of solid faith that enables us to “walk by faith and not by sight (or signs)” (2 Corinthians 5:7). But on that day long ago, in a town we were sure bore her name, we prayed that Santa Chiara would help us. And we have no doubt she did. Five months later our daughter was born in the Eureka Springs, Arkansas hospital. She was christened Chiara Faith.

Kim A-gi Agatha and her husband had no contact with Christianity or Catholic doctrine. They practiced Confucianism. But Agatha's older sister, a devout Catholic, came for a visit. Looking around at the trappings of their traditional faith, including a large rice chest with ancestral tablets, she asked her younger sister, “Why are you holding on to these things? They are nothing but superstition!” Her sister proclaimed that the one true ruler of the world is Jesus Christ. “Wake from your darkness,” she told her sister, “and accept the light of truth.” Her sister’s urging aroused a great longing in Agatha. Knowing it would be difficult to go against her husband and the tradition of her family, she nonetheless determined to accept Christ and to suffer willingly whatever difficulties might come her way. Agatha was not very bright and no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to memorize the morning and evening prayers. Eventually, she became known as the woman who knew nothing but "Jesus and Mary". Because of her inability to learn doctrine and prayers, Kim A-gi Agatha was not initially baptized. In September of 1836 Agatha and two other women were arrested for their Catholic faith. When interrogated Agatha remained firm and valiantly stood before her torturers saying, "I don't know anything but Jesus and Mary. I will not reject them." Her courageous witness led her to be the first to be baptized in prison during persecution. Along with other condemned Christians, Agatha was tied by arms and hair to a large cross erected atop an ox cart. On the crest of a steep hill, guards forced the oxen to run headlong down. The road was rough, with many stones. The carts stumbled, causing great agony to the courageous prisoners who hung on the crosses. Following this ordeal, at the foot of the hill, the executioners violently beheaded each of the holy martyrs. Agatha and eight other martyrs received their crown of glory at the same hour when Jesus breathed his last—three o'clock in the afternoon. Nearly one hundred years later Kim A-gi Agatha was beatified along with the other martyrs on July 5, 1925. They were canonized in their native Korea on May 6, 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

Do not mess with this face! The year 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Mary to three little children in Fatima. The youngest of the three, six-year-old Jacinta, died only a few years later, but spent the remaining time of her life on earth offering sacrifices in reparation for sin. On 13th of May 2017 Pope Francis canonized Jacinta along with her brother Francisco at Fatima. Saint Jacinta had a fierce, determined spirit and a heart for sinners, especially those furthest from God's love: those closest to damnation. She had been horrified when Our Lady granted her and the other children a glimpse into hell. It was vivid and heartbreaking, terrifying and cruel. After this vision of hell, Jacinta would sit on a rock or slump on the ground exclaiming, “Oh, hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls who go to hell! And the people down there, burning alive, like wood in the fire!”. She would then drop to her knees and pray the prayer Our Lady had taught them: O my Jesus! Forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in greatest need of Thy mercy. During a private apparition, Mary had told Jacinta: "most souls end up in hell because of the sins of impurity” and “if people knew what eternity is, they would surely do everything in their power to change their lives ...” Because of this, little Jacinta resolved to help keep as many souls as possible out of hell. This may be the reason why the presence of her photograph has proven to be a deterrent to demons, as one exorcist has attested. They hate being reminded of the many souls she pried from their grip. I think the firm brow in her photographs (though the expression of the day) tells demons that she means business! To me, she calls us all to step it up: in our own offerings, in showing more gratitude for the gift of receiving Christ in the Eucharist and in making better use of our lives (and time)—after all, she was able to give so much in the short time she had on earth. For this reason, I love sharing stories about this dear Saint with my little ones. One story I love in particular, related by Sister Lucia, reveals the beauty and wisdom of Saint Jacinta, who is the youngest non-martyr saint: One morning Jacinta begged Lucia to allow her to accompany her to daily Mass. “Do not come to Mass,” Lucia tried to counsel her, especially as Jacinta had become so ill, “it is too much for you. Besides, today is not Sunday.” “That does not matter. I want to go in place of the sinners who do not go even on Sundays ... Look, Lucia, do you know? Our Lord is so sad and our Lady told us that He must not be offended any more. He is already offended very much and no one pays any attention to it. They keep committing the same sins.” But Jacinta was told she was not strong enough to attend, so Lucia would drop by and visit her almost every day after she had returned from Mass. Jacinta was always so excited to see her cousin: “Lucia,” she asked, “did you receive Communion today?” “Yes, Jacinta.” “Then come very close to me for you have our Lord in your heart. I do not know how it happens but I feel our Lord in you and I understand what He says even if I do not see Him or hear Him. It is so good to be with Him.” I love the exchange Jacinta had with her cousin after she had been given the news of her impending death directly from Mary: “Lucia, our Lady told me that I am going to go to another hospital in Lisbon and that I will never see you again or my parents and that after suffering a great deal, I shall die alone. She said that I should not be afraid since She will come to take me with her to heaven.” She sought comfort from Lucia, reaching out her arms and sobbing, “I will never see you again. Pray a lot for me for I am going to die alone.” Jacinta seemed so troubled at the thought of being alone in the end. Lucia once heard her lamenting her fate while hugging a picture of Our Lady, “My dear little Mother, so I am going to die alone?” “Why do you worry about dying alone?” Lucia had asked her, “What do you care when Our Lady is going to come for you?” “It is true. I do not care. I do not know why, but sometimes I forget that she is going to come for me.” Lucia's own heart was filled with sorrow. “Take heart, Jacinta. You have only a little while to wait before you go to heaven. For me ...” She was brokenhearted knowing she would be left to live a long life on earth without her little cousin. “Poor thing. Do not cry, Lucia, I shall pray a lot in heaven for you. You are going to stay here, but it is our Lady who wants it.” “Jacinta, what are you going to do in heaven?” “I am going to love Jesus a lot, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and pray and pray for you, for the Holy Father, my parents, brothers, sisters and for everyone who asked me and for sinners. I love to suffer for the love of our Lord and our Lady. They love those who suffer for the conversion of sinners." What an incredible little soul! At the end of her life, Jacinta endured much suffering. She underwent surgery removing two ribs, in an effort to save her after an infection had caused vast swelling. She told the doctor plainly that she would be dying soon and that the surgery would not make a difference. She accepted it though, as she was determined to offer as much suffering as possible before her death. When it came time for the procedure, she was found to be too weak for the gas anesthetic so was offered only local anesthetic, which proved ineffective. She felt everything and was in complete agony the entire time, but offered it all for sinners. When I think of her offerings, I am almost embarrassed to think of all the times I have complained about minor inconveniences, so many lost opportunities to give as she gave, to love as she loved. Yet, God is good, and I know I can offer it now and greet future burdens with a determined spirit, with joy and a renewed zeal for souls. In the end, the prophecy of Jacinta dying alone was fulfilled. As many doctors and family members thought her health was improving, they were not with her the night she died. Her body was exhumed in both 1935 and 1951 and was found to be incorrupt (one among so many in our awesome Catholic faith). She is buried at the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal where Pope Francis and a number of Catholics (all pilgrimages were sold out) celebrated the 100th anniversary and honored the lives of the heroic children of Fatima.