Of Silence, Saint Death and Saint John
Feel free to peruse an article I just finished on Shuasku Endo’s controversial novel Silence, published in 1966, and now soon to be released as a major Hollywood production. The book follows a Jesuit missionary, Sebastian Rodrigues, forced to choose between apostasy, and saving a whole group of people being tortured. The tale analyzes the nature of faith, evangelization and love. The ‘controversial’ bit is that Endo seems to imply that apostasy can in fact be the deepest form of faith and ‘love’ for others. Hmm. I would, and do, argue that the Church thinks most emphatically otherwise. Give it a read, and let me know your thoughts.
On that note, I read with interest this morning on the rapidly growing cult of Santa Muerte, ‘Saint Death’, a bizarre belief in the ‘deity’ of death, with a disturbing similarity to the Grim Reaper, who brings blessings (usually of the material variety) galore. This devotion, which apparently counts millions of adherents in Mexico alone, is syncretized with traditional Catholic devotions, but without some of the, well, moral strictures. One of the most significant sentences in the article was the following: (Saint Death) is (m)ore forgiving than the Catholic church – she is said not to punish traditional sins – she grew popular in Mexico’s prisons. In other words, a talisman, a good luck charm, perhaps even a demonic influence, guiding one to worldly success and a lax conscience, a wide and easy road to, well, who knows where? As the article goes on:
These actions have only further incensed the Catholic church, which already viewed the folk religion as a blasphemous threat to its standing in Mexico. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, has declared the faith the “degeneration of religion”
Not quite the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whom Santa Muerte now rivals in popularity. We can only hope that fair Mother of God, the defeater of heresy and idolatry through the ages, will triumph over ‘holy death’, for death, really, is the result of sin, and Christ has defeated both by His own death and resurrection.
And speaking of Christ, today is the feast of Saint John the Evangelist, also called the ‘Beloved’, as the one closest to the heart of Our Lord, likely the youngest, who lived to ripe old age, writing his Apocalypse (Revelation) towards the end of the first century. He is the only Apostle not celebrated as a martyr, witnessing to his faith in other ways, by his life and writings, and in his exile by Emperor Domitian to the lonely, barren isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, where tradition has it that he composed his treatises. His Gospel follows a different trajectory of Christ’s life from the other three ‘synoptic’ Gospels (literally, with the ‘same eye’), which all follow more or less the same events. John sees things from a more theological perspective, eternal, heavenly, with the greatest emphasis and clarity on Christ as the pre-existent Logos, always ‘with’ the Father (which is why his symbol is the eagle). But Saint John also portrayed Christ in His full humanity, the ‘Word made Flesh’, to deny which, as he declares in his first letter (4:3), is the very spirit of the Antichrist (shades of Silence?). So let us pray to the Apostle today, that we may see things from just such a perspective, far above the passing travails of this world, as time and history move ever onward to the end of the 2016, and, in a broader sense, to whatever personal or worldwide apocalypse we all must face, one day.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→