Deacon Eric's Favorite Saints
About the Prayer Cards Distributed at the Ordination and Parish Celebration
It is customary at ordinations of bishops, priests and deacons to distribute prayer cards, or what some of us remember from our youth as "holy cards." The prayer cards I offered as gifts to you had 10 different images of role models from our Catholic tradition that mean something special to me. Here I offer you brief profiles of each of the people depicted on those cards. These and many other images are available in many formats from Bridge Building Images and Trinity Stores.
Captive Daughter of Zion
For centuries Christians have called Mary the Ark of the
Covenant. As they used other Jewish titles for her, seldom
have they accepted the fact that she was a Jew.
If Mary had lived in Nazi Germany, she would have been thrown into a concentration camp with other members of her race. Jewish Mary is the archetype of the Christian church, a church that stood by silently while her people were being exterminated. This icon is an act of repentance for Christian indifference, then and now.
We shudder at what the Nazis did, but 1,000 years of forced conversions and violent persecutions by Christians paved the way for the Nazi Holocaust. When the exterminations began, most Christian leaders followed the example of Pius XII and kept silent, fearing that Hitler might attack Christian institutions if they spoke out.
In this icon Mary wears a large yellow Star of David with the word “Jew” on her left shoulder. The Nuremberg Laws forced all Jews in Nazi territories to wear this badge. Jesus is wearing a prayer shawl over his Byzantine garments and is holding the Torah. The Hebrew inscription at the bottom of the icon reads: “Captive Daughter of Zion,” and is taken from Isaiah 52.2, a text in which God promises to deliver Israel from bondage. In the background is the barbed wire fence of a concentration camp.
Anti-semitism is again growing in “Christian” countries, because it is easier to look for a scapegoat than it is to work for justice. The Madonna and Child stand before us as a challenge. We must never again stand by in silence. Never again can we claim not to know.
Damien the Leper of Molokai
Damien de Veuster volunteered to go as a missionary to Hawaii
when he was 23 years old. Blessed with physical strength,
he was also a skilled carpenter. Each place he was assigned
on the islands, he built churches, sometimes even hewing
the wood from jungle trees. He traveled great distances on
foot to celebrate Mass whenever he found new converts. After
nine years of his work he volunteered once again to go away –-
this time to love with the lepers on Molokai.
Leprosy was one of Europe’s many gifts to Hawaii. In Damien’s day the disease was enshrouded by ignorance and was seen as a punishment from God –- not unlike AIDS in our day. Lepers were torn from their families and quarantined on a rocky coast of Molokai. Once there, they could never leave. They lived in abject poverty, with no medical attention, surrounded by despair. By volunteering to be their parish priest, Damien cut himself off from the rest of the world.
On Molokai, he built a church and homes for the lepers. He brought music back to them and encouraged them to sing. He painted his buildings bright colors. He ate with the lepers and shared their life. He personally dug graves for those who died. He fought with the government for better conditions. In time he, too, contracted the disease. To his bishop he wrote, “I am calm and resigned and very happy in the midst of my people.”
By the time he died, Damien’s efforts among lepers had born fruit. They lived in dignity, with better food and medical attention. His death forced the Western world to re-examine leprosy, as well as its attitude toward the disease. Today many see him as a patron saint for those with AIDS.
Dorothy Day of New York
Dorothy Day helped found the Catholic Worker movement. She
spent the last 48 years of her life as a Christian anarchist
on the margins of society. In a church organized like a pyramid,
her Catholic worker houses were small, informal and decentralized.
She traveled alternative paths where other members of the
church often found it difficult to go. “The only way
to live in any true security,” she would point out, “is
to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do
not have far to drop, you do not have much to lose.”
She and her companions lived the beatitudes, embracing voluntary poverty. Their poverty included bedbugs, roaches and rats. She often spoke of foolishness for Christ’s sake, and like St. Paul, called herself such a fool. “To attack poverty by preaching voluntary poverty seems like madness,” she said. “But again, it is direct action.”
Bishop O’Hara of Kansas City once told her, “You lead and we will follow.” Dorothy did lead. When bishops were wrong, she told them so. As prophet she opposed any use of religion as a prop for nationalism, capitalism or militarism.
Even when religious leaders opposed her vision, and their lifestyles scandalized her, Dorothy remained fiercely loyal to the church. Because her deep faith was rooted firmly in the sacramental life and traditions of the church, she was not only a faithful follower of the Gospel but also perhaps this century’s most powerful witness.
“Don’t call me a saint!” she once said. “I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.” Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980. Now although Christians of many confessions easily recognize her as a saint and prophet, no one can dismiss the profound impact of her life and contribution.
John Henry Newman of London
Cardinal Newman represents the best in Roman Catholic scholarship,
which is the reason Catholic centers on college campuses
in the United States are named for him. He began his career
as an Anglican priest and a professor at Oxford. He ended
his life as a Roman Catholic cardinal. His conversion cost
him his position at Oxford, one of the greatest personal
sacrifices he could have made.
Newman has been called the patron saint of critics who love the church. As much as he loved the Church of Rome, he deplored its lack of theological liberty. He firmly believed that theological issues should be worked through by theologians, rather than settled peremptorily by the Vatican bureaucracy. “It is intolerable,” he wrote, “that we should be placed at the mercy of a secret tribunal, which dares to speak in the name of the pope, and which would institute, if it could, a regime of espionage, denunciation, and terrorism.”
The laity, according to Newman, were always the truest measure of Catholicism. “The Church would look foolish without them.” From his deep knowledge of church history and theology, he realized that the hierarchy needed the laity as much as it did theologians. In this icon he holds a scroll with another quotation from his writings. Even when the hierarchy does not listen to the laity or the theologians, their voice will emerge with the passing of time. Newman was a sensitive man who loved people. He believed that “the best preparation for loving the world at large, and loving it duly and wisely, is to cultivate an intimate friendship and affection towards those who are immediately around us.” At the end of his life he was buried at his own request in the same grave as one of his dearest friends, so that even death might not sever their companionship.
Mary Magdalene, Equal to the Apostles
According to the ancient tradition of the East, St. Mary
Magdalene was a wealthy woman from whom Christ expelled seven “demons.” During
the three years of Jesus’ ministry she helped support
Him and His other disciples with her money. When almost everyone
else fled, she stayed with Him at the cross. On Easter morning
she was the first to bear witness to His resurrection. She
is called “Equal to the Apostles.”
After the Ascension she journeyed to Rome where she was admitted to Tiberias Caesar’s court because of her high social standing. After describing how poorly Pilate had administered justice at Jesus’ trial she told Caesar that Jesus had risen from the dead. To help explain the resurrection, she picked up an egg from the dinner table. Caesar responded that a human being could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. The egg turned red immediately, which is why red eggs have been exchanged at Easter for centuries in the Byzantine East.
Mary did not end her days as a penitent hermit in a French
cave. She traveled the Mediterranean preaching the resurrection.
Like Peter and Paul, she died a martyr and she bears witness
to the important roles women play in the Church. This icon
was commissioned for Grace Cathedral in San Francisco to
commemorate the election of Barbara Harris, the first woman
bishop in the Anglican communion. As women begin reclaiming
their ancient rights in the Church, Mary Magdalene challenges
all Christians to reexamine their cultural prejudices about
sex and leadership.
The inscription at the bottom of the icon reads: “St.
Mary Magdalene” in Syriac, a dialect of the language
spoken by Jesus. The Gospel comes to us, not from Rome or
Greece, but from the deserts of the Middle East. We owe our
faith to Semetic Christians like Mary Magdalene.
John XXIII, Bishop of Rome
Bl. John XXIII confounded the stale prudence of Rome with
holy simplicity. After the long and austere papacy of Pius
XII, the aging John had been elected as a interim pope. Instead
he renewed the Church by replacing patterns of worldly policies
with an evangelical and pastoral commitment.
John had been a Vatican diplomat for 28 years, serving in Bulgaria, Turkey, and France. During the Holocaust, he provided false diplomatic documents to thousands of Jews so that they could escape the Nazis. He brought Gospel truth to human politics and conducted his diplomacy openly. John’s manner was always pastoral rather than political. Because of this, members of the Vatican curia considered him incompetent. As pope, the establishment attempted to neutralize his influence by calling him “good Pope John”-- the man too saintly to be pope. On his deathbed he would say to his secretary, “We did not stop to pick up the stones that were thrown at us from all sides...”
Through the Second Vatican Council John challenged the Church to be in dialogue with the modern world. His leadership enabled Catholics and members of the other faiths to break down barriers erected by centuries of hatred and mistrust. Although he died before the council finished its work, it carried his lifelong vision of a pastoral church to the far corners of the world.
“An old world disappears,” he said, “another one is being formed, and within this I am trying to conceal some good seed or other that will have it’s springtime, even if it is somewhat delayed, when I am dead.” (Turkey 1939)
The quotation on the scroll of this icon are words John said upon hearing of the death of Pius XII. The Greek inscription by his head reads: “Holy John of Rome.”
Juan Diego y el Milagro de Guadalupe
Ten years after the bloody Spanish conquest of Mexico, the
Mother of God appeared to an Aztec craftsman named St. Juan
Diego. She appeared as an Aztec herself and addressed him
in Nahuatl, the Aztec tongue, in a manner one would address
a prince. She appeared several miles outside Mexico City,
which had become the center of Spanish power. She insisted
that a shrine in her honor be built on that spot among the
conquered people. In order to convince the doubting Spanish
bishop of Mexico City, she caused an image of herself to
appear on Juan Diego’s cloak, an image preserved to
this day in her church.
She sent Juan Diego back to the Spanish clergy to “evangelize” them -- ones who felt they already had all the truth. In each of these ways she restored dignity and hope to native people who had been dehumanized by foreign oppression.
A shrine was later built where Mary appeared, and Juan Diego spent the remaining 17 years of his life there, repeating her message of hope and liberation to all who would come. About eight million Native Americans became Christians in response to this message.
In every age the miracle of Guadalupe should remind the Church that those the Church alienates are precisely the ones who have the gifts she needs so badly to grow and be reformed. No one is completely enlightened. We must each proclaim the Gospel -- and hear it proclaimed from one another.
Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa of Avila is one of the greatest teachers of the
spiritual life in the history of the church. She wrote four
major books about prayer and left three volumes of letters.
In her time and culture, women were expected to be quiet and obey men, the Inquisition held Spain in its grip, and the Roman Church was reacting to the Protestant movement by entrenching itself in rigid orthodoxy. Into this darkness Christ brought light through this woman who loved him passionately. Christ answered her love with gifts of leadership and great insight.
Teresa’s gifts were also Spanish gifts. She was a daughter of a stark windswept land, textured by the mix of many cultures. Christians, Muslims and Jews had lived there together for centuries. The blue Moorish tiles forming stars of David in the background of this icon bear witness to Teresa’s Jewish blood and the rich spiritual heritage of the east.
Her autobiography is considered one of the great classics of Spanish literature and one of the world’s foremost teachings on prayer. A stron woman who was not afraid to stand up to powerful men of her time, she was the first woman to be declared a Doctor (Teacher) of the Church.
St. Teresa reformed her Carmelite Order, founding seventeen convents throughout Spain. Her foundations were small, poor and strictly disciplined, with emphasis on contemplative prayer. Yet the nuns danced in their times of recreation, and Teresa herself played drums and the tambourine. “It is not a matter of thinking much,” she told her nuns, “but of loving much. So do whatever most kindles love in you.”
Teresa of Calcutta
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhui was born on August 26, 1910 at Skopje,
Macedonia into an Albanian Catholic community. Her family
was devout in prayer and generous in caring for the poor.
This profoundly influenced the young Agnes.
At eighteen, Agnes entered the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto in Dublin, Ireland and became Sister Teresa. The following year, she journeyed to a convent in Darjeeling, India where she took vows in 1936. She was assigned to Calcutta and served as a teacher and principal there for seventeen years.
Bl. Teresa had been increasingly moved by the intense suffering of the sick and dying in the slums of Calcutta when she received a “call within a call” on September 10, 1946. On that day, she perceived God beckoning her “to be poor with the poor and to love him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.”
In 1948, after a wrenching farewell to the Sisters of Loreto, Sister Teresa donned a simple white sari with a blue border and went out to seek Jesus with only a bar of soap and five rupies in hand. Eventually, others joined her. In 1950, they became the Missionaries of Charity. Subsequently their work has extended to five continents. Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979.
Bl. Teresa is portrayed here in contemplation, which was at the heart of her active ministry. She is holding a red lotus flower, symbolic of the one thousand-armed bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshavra, to which she and her congregation have been compared in certain religions of India. The border inscription is Bengali for Mother Teresa of Calcutta and honors the people of Bengal, Mother Teresa’s adopted homeland.
Sergius & Bacchus
Sts. Sergius and Bacchus are ancient Christian martyrs who
were tortured to death in Syria because they refused to attend
sacrifices in honor of Jupiter. Recent attention to early
Greek manuscripts has also revealed that they were openly
gay men and completely devoted to one another. These manuscripts
are found in various libraries in Europe and seem to indicate
an earlier Christian acceptance of homosexuality.
After their arrest, the two saints were paraded through city streets in women’s clothing, treatment that was meant to humiliate them as officers in the Roman army. They were then separated and each was tortured. Bacchus died first and appeared that night to Sergius who was beginning to lose heart. According to the early manuscripts, Bacchus told Sergius to persevere, that the delights of heaven were greater than any suffering, and that part of their reward would be to be reunited in heaven.
The inscription at the bottom of the icon is their names
in Arabic. The saints are particularly popular throughout
the Mediterranean lands and in Latin America and among
the Slavs. For nearly a thousand years they were the
official patrons of the Byzantine armies and Arab nomads
continue to revere them as their special patron saints.
Their feast day is October 7.
