Saint Vincent the Deacon’s Silent Witness
Saint Vincent the Deacon (+304), who suffered grievous tortures witnessing to his Catholic faith under the Diocletian persecution (as did yesterday’s Saint Agnes) is a providential saint for this sombre anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision of the United States of America which legalized abortion across the nation. But we may also rejoice, that the infamous decision has now been struck down, we may suppose in part through the intercession of this great martyr.
Vincent spent most of his life in Saragossa, in the northeast of Spain, which was then a Roman province. He was ordained a deacon, preaching, catechizing, administering alms. When the Emperor Diocletian decided to enforce spiritual unity on the empire, one of a pagan variety, persecution was inevitable. Vincent and his bishop were cast into prison, being offered release if the deacon would cast the Holy Scriptures into the fire. Vincent refused so boldly and persuasively, that the pagan governor had him subject to the most painful of tortures, racking him, his flesh torn by hooks, salt rubbed in the gaping wounds, burned alive on a red-hot gridiron, and left to die in a dank prison cell. His body was cast into the sea, but retrieved by his fellow Christians. After some travail during the Islamic conquest of Spain, his relics now rest in the Lisbon cathedral, awaiting the resurrection.
The saint’s sufferings are – perhaps by God’s all-seeing providence – not dissimilar to those of the unborn killed by abortion who have their all-too-brief lives snuffed out by their own sufferings, which, like Vincent’s, are vicarious. They have no personal sin, and so may be likened to martyrs, their blood crying out to heaven.
And, like Vincent, they suffer silently. In fact, his jailer was so impressed by the saint’s quiet resolve and equanimity during his ordeal that he converted on the spot.
So too may we always be undergoing that metanoia – repentance of heart and mind – for which Christ calls in yesterday’s Gospel, turning our minds and hearts to Him each day, to accept our own much milder sufferings, for our own sins, and those of the world. As you may read in the accompanying post on Jane Roe and Bernard Nathanson, there is hope for each one of us, by the grace of the good God. May we meet one day merrily in heaven, when the travails of this earthly pilgrimage will seem but a distant memory.
In the meantime, keep up the good fight of the Faith, for love, and for life!
Saint Vincent, ora pro nobis!
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→
Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy
HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000 1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]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→