Saints and commemorations

I’m not changing my header or SAINT sidebar during Lent, but remember, that even during Lent, saints march on.

Yesterday was the Memorial of St. Peter Damian, and Ian of Aquinas and More Catholic bookstore has a great post on St. Peter Damian on his blog.

In his lifetime, St Peter Damian battled kings and tyrants and anti-popes, heretics and wayward clergy. He did it all with a strong character, great moral authority and the sanctity of a true saint. He never resorted to violence or ill-means, only his faith in God and the eternal message of the Gospel of Christ were his “weapons at hand.”. St. Francis of Assisi, who lived some two centuries later, and who was himself known as a great reformer, viewed St. Peter Damian as the consummate hero of reform and renewal in the Church because of his witness and his accomplishments.

St. Peter Damian is truly a saint for all troubled times in the life of the Church. As Catholics who know our history, we must be thankful that the Lord always calls up saints to witness to the truth – especially in dark and difficult times. As Our Lord promised to the very first St. Peter regarding the Church, “the gates of Hell shall never prevail against it.”

Today is the Feast of the Chair of Peter. Michael reprints a pertinent section of one of his books, related to our trip to Rome 2 years ago. (sigh).

Not anywhere near his feastday of course, but on Wednesday, the Pope continued his General Audience catechesis on Augustine, in which he focuses on Augustine as author:

Within Augustine’s literary production — more than 1,000 publications subdivided into philosophical, apologetic, doctrinal, moral, monastic, exegetic, and anti-heretical writings, as well as the letters and sermons — are some exceptional works of great theological and philosophical intensity.

Above all it is necessary to remember the already mentioned “Confessions,” written in 13 books in praise of God between 397 and 400. It is a sort of autobiography in the form of a dialog with God. This literary genre reflects St. Augustine’s life, which was not a reclusive life, not dispersed in many things, but was a life mainly lived like a conversation with God, a life shared with others. Already the title “Confessions” shows the specificity of his autobiography.

In the Christian Latin developed in the tradition of the Psalms, the word “confessiones” has two meanings that are interlinked. In the first place “confessiones” is the confession of one’s own weaknesses, and of the misery of sins; at the same time “confessiones” means praise of God, gratitude to God.

Seeing one’s misery in the light of God becomes praise for God and gratitude because God loves us and accepts us, he transforms us and raises us toward him. In the “Confessions” — which were already largely successful during St. Augustine’s life — he wrote: “They exercised such action on me while I was writing them and do so even now when I reread them. There are many brothers who like these writings” (“Retractationes,” II, 6). I should also mention that I am one of these “brothers.”

Thanks to the “Confessions” we can follow step by step the inner journey of this extraordinary man who was fascinated by God.

Less well-known but equally important are the “Retractationes,” composed in two books around 427, in which St. Augustine, now an old man, puts together a “revision” (retractatio) of all his writings, thus leaving us a particular and precious literary document, but also a teaching of sincerity and intellectual humility.

Oh, and unrelated (sort of) to saints, I’ll just point you to a post that made me laugh, from someone who’s on my list of Catholic Bloggers Who Should Write a Book: Matthew Archbold at Creative Minority Report:

But man. The feeling is great to confess all your sins. Because there were tons of kids and family members I tried to give the short version of my transgressions. One particular sin came to my mind that I couldn’t articulate easily. Here’s what happened. A mother had come up to me at the mall fairly recently. I had all five kids with me. She had one. A little boy about my boy’s age. She gave a snarky comment out of the blue that I needed to get a hobby. At first I didn’t understand. But then it hit me that she was talking about my kids. I pretended to laugh a little.

Then she starts asking ages and my kids all pipe up at the same time with names and ages. Then this woman looks at me and says, “You’ve got to be crazy.”

I’m not kidding. She said it. And then she segues with saying that her little boy is her first. Now my boy is pretty tall and speaks pretty well for a two year old. She says her boy just turned two and she asks how old my boy is.

And this is my bad part. I say he just turned two as well. The truth is he just turned two about nine months ago. So this woman is looking at her tiny kid and comparing them. My boy then says how old he is and starts talking pretty well. She’s shocked that he’s speaking as well as he is for a boy that “just” turned two. She asks me if he’s potty trained and I out and out lied. I said, “Sure. Has been for months.”

Like I said this is the biggest lie ever told because at this point I’m pretty sure my boy will never be potty trained. We sit and chat and read books in the bathroom and he just loves the attention but him actually doing anything is just out of the question to him.