This Friday, January 27th, the Church commemorates Saint Angela Merici, a lady from the north Italian lake country who in the year 1516 founded a group of teaching Sisters whom she called the Ursulines, in honor of a special favorite saint of hers, Saint Ursula. A little more than one hundred years later, the Ursulines of Europe sent a group of their Sisters to begin the religious instruction of the girls in the city of Quebec on the Saint Lawrence River in what is now Canada. They have been there ever since: from the year 1639 to the present: 373 years. Then, when the French government was asked to send women to educate the girls of the brand new settlement of New Orleans near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Ursuline Sisters were sent there, too. That was in 1727, 285 years ago. The Ursulines are still in Quebec and still in New Orleans. Their history in North America is one of the most glorious parts of the long saga of Catholicism and of education in the United States and Canada.

As we read the gospel of today’s Mass in honor of Saint Angela, I was struck by the importance of the words of Our Lord.  On one occasion, the apostles asked Jesus who among them was the most important—a question that indicates their pride and lack of understanding of the mentality of Our Lord.  Saint Mark tells us that Jesus took a small child, placed him in their midst and said to them, “Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me.  And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but him to sent me.”  This is a beautiful statement of Our Lord’s thoughts about those who are good to children.  And certainly true religious education is one of the highest forms of goodness to little ones.  It introduces him to them, and them to him.  So today we celebrate Saint Angela, the foundress of the Ursulines, and we also celebrate the 658 years of their goodness to the women of North America.  And that doesn’t include their teaching in Galveston and in Dallas and maybe other Ursuline schools in Canada or this country of which I’m not even aware.  These years of teaching are treasures in heaven which have been laid up, and for which Saint Angela certainly gets some of the credit and merit.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

I come to my computer to compose this message on the morning of Thursday, January 26.  In just a few minutes, I am scheduled to go with the other members of our community to a very nice retreat center here in Houston for a day of recollection, and don’t have time to record a real message.  The good Lord willing, I’ll be able to do it either this evening or tomorrow for the  weekend.

I am having computer troubles and may have to put the computer “into the shop” as they say.  If so, it may take several days to have it repaired or corrected.  Don’t be surprised if this message remains unchanged for that period.  In any case, please keep in mind that Friday, January 27, is the feast of Saint Angela Merici, the foundress of the Ursuline Nuns (who, by the way, have been teaching the young women of New Orleans for 285 years!), and then Saturday, January 28, we celebrate Saint Thomas Aquinas, our great Dominican philosopher, theologian, and doctor of the Church.  

May your weekend be a pleasant one. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

Today the Church celebrates the conversion of Saint Paul, one of the most important events in the history of the early church. Paul, whose name was originally Saul, was a deeply religious Jew and very fiery persecutor of the new Christian group which he saw as a threat to the Jewish religious community. He was on his way to Damascus with authorization from the Jewish high court, called the Sanhedrin, to arrest any Christians he found there and bring them back in chains to be imprisoned and perhaps killed in Jerusalem. But Our Lord had other plans. On the road to Damascus, Paul was enveloped in a bright light that blinded him; an unknown force knocked him to the ground, and in the midst of all this, a voice said to him: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? He didn’t recognize the voice, so he asked, Who are you, sir? The voice replied, I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. Actually, Jesus had risen to heaven some time before that; Saul was persecuting the followers of Jesus, whom Our Lord graciously identified with himself. Here we have a striking example of the truth of Our Lord’s words, “Whatever you do to my least brothers, you do to me.” Paul was persecuting the disciples of Jesus, so he was persecuting Jesus himself.

A devout Christian by the name of Ananias was instructed  by Our Lord to go and get the still blind Paul and lead him into the Christian community of Damascus.  When Ananias objected on the grounds that Paul had done the Christian community in Jerusalem much harm, he was told, “Go! This man is the instrument I have chosen to bring my name to the gentiles and their kings, and to the people of Israel.”

 Now we have a very touching example of humble obedience of a servant to his divine master.  Afraid of Paul as he was, Ananias did as Our Lord told him.  He went, found Paul, laid hands on him, and said, Saul, my brother—MY BROTHER— I have been sent by the Lord Jesus . . . to help you recover your sight and to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Not only does Ananias show humility and obedience, but love and total forgiveness of a former enemy.  No longer afraid of Saul, Ananias now eagerly goes to him, lays hands upon him in blessing and deliverance from blindness, and welcomes him into the Christian community.  

When Our Lord spoke of Paul as “the instrument I have chosen,” only Jesus knew all that that really meant.  It meant that this Paul would be placed on a par with the other apostles chosen during Jesus’s lifetime and he would become a tremendous force for good as apostle, bishop, and composer of a great part of the New Testament.  That is why today we celebrate his conversion, and we read from his writings almost every day in the Mass and the liturgy of the hours which are so important in our Catholic prayer life.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

There is a beautiful little city in the French Alps called Annecy; it is surrounded by the mountains; a stream flows through the town, and empties into the sparkling lake on whose shore the town is built. January 24th is the feast of Saint Francis de Sales who was born in that beautiful part of Europe and left his mark there to a remarkable degree.

He became a priest—the great desire of his young life—and soon his holiness and qualifications to be a bishop were recognized by the Holy See.  But the local diocese was that of Geneva, which is now in Switzerland, and that city had become the headquarters of the Calvinists, the most aggressive of the Protestants during that time of the so-called Reformation.  Francis could not even enter the city of which he was the bishop because of the danger of being killed by his enemies.  So he established himself in the town of Annecy, quite close to Geneva, in the hope of soon going to Geneva to take up his duties there.  He was never able to realize that dream; the wars of religion lasted longer than his own life, and thus he spent his entire episcopal life outside his own see of Geneva in the town of Annecy.  His great talent was writing, so he used his time to write all sorts of pamphlets, booklets, tracts, and his most famous book, “Introduction to the Devout Life.”  I was impressed when I visited Annecy and noted that above the door of the house where he lived during his years there, an inscription says, not “Saint Francis de Sales lived here,” but rather “in this house Saint Francis de Sales wrote Introduction to the Devout Life,”

In Annecy, he became acquainted with a noblewoman whom we know as Saint Jane Frances de Chantal.  The two of them collaborated in the foundation of the Nuns of the Visitation for the education of girls.  That community is still flourishing; its most famous member is Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Our Divine Lord appeared and revealed the devotion to his Sacred Heart. On a hill in the town of Annecy stands the Basilica of the Visitation where these two saints are buried side by side before the main altar. 

 It is a far cry from the days of writing with pen and ink on paper.  Now, we have all sorts of electronic devices to spread whatever word the user wishes to disseminate.  Saint Francis de Sales is the patron of all Catholic journalism, and we might well pray through his intercession that the truths of our holy faith will be well served by these new means of publication so that we may have a part in the mandate of Our Lord, “Go therefore, make disciples of all nations…” Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

Years ago, I knew a young man who had married and whose wife then became involved with another man. She left her husband to go and live with the other man, causing enormous grief to her lawful husband. I can remember him telling me time and again that his greatest suffering was his inability to stop arguing internally with her. When he was trying to concentrate on his work or on any other aspect of his life, he would find himself mentally composing conversations with her that would convince her of what a terrible thing she had done, and would persuade her to come back to him. I don’t think it ever happened.

 

During those very painful months, he read a number of books about marital separation and divorce; they agreed that infidelity within a couple who were once very much in love and who made permanent commitments to one another is one of the most devastating sufferings that we human beings can inflict upon one another.  And he was finding that out in fact as well as in theory.  

 

I am reminded of those two fairly often, because when we read the psalms in our daily prayer, we often come to the passages where God speaks of his people as his bride, and himself as their bridegroom.  He calls himself “a jealous God” who is enraged by the infidelity of his people.  This is symbolized very forcefully by the story of Moses who went up to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the commandments of the law from God.  On his way down, he is infuriated to see that the people have fashioned a golden calf which they are now worshipping in idolatry rather than the true God.  To indicate that the commandments were a covenant between God and the people, and that they had broken that covenant, Moses took the stone tablets on which God had inscribed the  commandments and smashed them on the ground, breaking physically what the people had broken in spirit.  

 

When you and I sin, we are being unfaithful to the Lord who loves us so much that he is jealous even of us, small and insignificant as we are. It’s almost incredible that God would become that interested in us.  But then, he made us IN HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS, and he does take us very seriously and love us very fervently.  Just as a very loving married couple are deeply devoted to one another and would never deliberately do anything to offend one another, so let us fear to offend God and do all we can to please and obey him, and thus carry out his holy will.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

In the very difficult days of the fifteenth century, a man was elected Pope who took the name of John XXIII. He was not, however, the validly elected pope and thus became one of the anti-popes of those days. He functioned as pope for part of the church from 1410 to 1415. In the year 1417, the Church was able to correct the scandalous affair of two or three men claiming to be pope at the same time. In that year, all the Cardinals agreed on the election of Cardinal Colonna who took the name of Martin V, since he was born on the feast of Saint Martin—November 11. But because there had been an anti-pope named John XXIII, that name was avoided until the election of a delightful old Italian peasant by the name of Angelo Cardinal Roncalli in 1958. I remember that day very well; we seminarians ran to our radio to hear the announcement of who the new

pope was, since white smoke was rising from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.  Someone had posted a page from the Chicago Catholic newspaper, with very small pictures of all the Cardinals, on the wall beside our radio.  Then came the name: Angelum Cardinalem Roncalli.  WHO?  We located his picture on the wall, but it was hard to believe that after many years of the aristocratic, ascetic, thin Pius XII, this fat little round-faced Italian peasant was our Supreme Pontiff!  And when they asked him what name he wished to go by as Pope, he answered “John”; it was his father’s name and he was very devoted to his father.  So now the avoidance of the papal name “John XXIII” was ended, and it may well happen that we will one day have a John XXIV, XXV, and so on. 

That was just one of the many changes that Pope John XXIII accomplished in his brief papacy of only five years.  He showed himself to be delightfully humorous.  When a reporter asked him how many people worked in the Vatican, he replied, “About half.” And as he was sitting for an official portrait as the new Pope, he remarked to the painter, “From all eternity, God has known that one day I would be Pope.  You’d think, wouldn’t you, that he would have made me better looking!”

 

I speak of him today because I’m reading a section of a book about him, and chuckling over some of those stories that circulated throughout the Church during his years as Pope, which was the time when my classmates and I were ordained to the priesthood.  1958-1963.  He is also said to have given a raise to the men who carried the portable papal throne, saying that since he weighed much more than Pope Pius XII, they had to work harder and so deserved an increase in pay.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth.  God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

On my bookshelf just above the computer on which I compose this message there is a piece of ancient masonry about the size of a small egg. Some years ago I brought it from my first visit to the capital city of Hungary. When I was there, I went out to the island called Margitsziget—Margaret’s Island—in the middle of the Danube river, between the cities of Buda and Pest which together compose one city now called Budapest. I went to that island because that is where the King, Bela IV, built a monastery of Dominican Nuns because his daughter, Margaret, wanted to become one. Not wanting her to go far away, he built a new convent right in the middle of the river. I don’t know what it was called before she came to live there, but from the time of Princess Margaret—now Saint Margaret—the island is Margitsziget and a small piece of the Dominican convent graces my bookshelf. That convent is now in ruins and the community of nuns have moved elsewhere, but each year on January 18, the Church and especially our Dominican Nuns throughout the world celebrate this royal Hungarian princess who is one of our canonized saints.

 

I also want to ask you today: do you know what a slingshot is?  It is the sort of weapon with which the young David, before he became king of Israel, killed the Philistine giant, Goliath.  The story of David and Goliath appeals to all boys, I suppose; it surely  ascinated me when I first came across it in my Bible history book when I was about seven or eight.

 

A slingshot is basically a square of leather with a long leather thong attached to each of its four corners.  The two thongs on one side of the square are wrapped around the lower arm of the person intending to use it.  The other two are held firmly in the hand of that same arm.  A skillful slingshot user places a stone in the square, then whirls it repeatedly over his head until it is traveling at great speed.  And then, he lets go the two thongs in his hand, and the stone flies with great force at the target.  Back in the days of the boy David, every shepherd in that part of the world became adept at using slingshots to defend his flock from the wolves, hyenas, jackals, and other predators always lurking around the flock for a free meal of lamb or mutton. And since the Holy Land is a very stony, rocky area, there is always an abundance of rocks which can be hurled with lethal precision at man or beast.  In today’s first reading at Mass, the boy David hurls a rock at a very tall, massive man belonging to the enemy army, who was planning to kill David.  The rock struck the giant Goliath right in the forehead and either killed him or at least knocked him unconscious.  And the boy David, to prove that Goliath was dead, took the giant’s sword from its scabbard and with it, cut off the giant’s head.

 

The boy David is a prophecy in action referring to Our Lord.  Our Savior was only one person, but he conquered the entire army of evil for the good of humankind, just as the boy David, by killing Goliath, won the war of Israelites against Philistines. To thank David for this victory, the Jewish nation made him their king.  To thank Our Divine Lord for his victory, God our Father has made him the universal King of the entire universe. Long live Christ our King! Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

Today the Church celebrates the famous Saint Anthony of the Desert, sometimes called Saint Anthony the Abbot. He was born into the Christian community of Egypt in about the year 250 and lived about a hundred years—remarkable for that period, the austerity of his life and the severe heat and aridity of Egypt. As a very young man, he felt the call to go out into the desert to live a contemplative life. He didn’t realize how many others had that same inclination but lacked the leadership to implement their desires. Anthony was the leader they needed, and by the time of his death as a very old man, he left colonies of hundreds of monks out in the Egyptian desert as the beginnings of Christian religious life. They are called “The Desert Fathers” by church historians, and have left us a rich heritage of spiritual writings and example.

In today’s Mass, one of the responsorial passages which can be used after the first reading in honor of Saint Anthony is taken from the 16th psalm.  In it, the psalmist reflects upon the fact that he has not inherited wealth or real estate or slaves or any material possessions.  He has inherited nothing less than God himself.  “O Lord,” he exclaims, “you are my allotted portion . . . you it is who hold fast my lot.”  The psalmist is saying that he and his fellow Jewish people are more fortunate than the gentiles, because God gives himself to them as their divine Lord, Guide, and Protector.  He goes on to say, “For me the measuring lines have fallen on pleasant sites; fair to me indeed is my inheritance.”  

This passages always brings to my mind a visit that Archbishop Leo Binz of Dubuque, Iowa, made to our seminary to confer Holy Orders on some of us on our way to the priesthood. He spoke of that passage in a way that struck me more forcefully than I had ever heard it explained before, and even now, when I hear “fair indeed is my inheritance” I think of Archbishop Binz and am grateful to him for his words and ideas.

Think of your own case, my dear friends.  You might have been born in some part of the world where there is poverty, famine, epidemics of deadly diseases, and where the very Name of Jesus has never been preached?  Do we realize how blessed we are, how grateful we should be, for all that we have in terms of material wealth, physical well-being, and above all, our spiritual wealth because of our holy faith which brings to us Our Lord Jesus Christ, his blessed Mother, and the saints?  Indeed, our inheritance is fair; we are God’s highly favored ones.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth.  God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.     

This morning in the New Orleans obituaries I found the name of an old friend of mine. Art Leto and I were students at Loyola University together, and became good friends.  In the summer of 1948, he and I were invited to go with another Loyola student and two of his relatives to go with them to Mexico.  It was a wonderful three-week trip which we all thoroughly enjoyed and about which I have very happy memories to this day.

After we graduated from college, Art and I went our separate ways.  He married five years later, and I went into the navy during the Korean conflict.  Only once after that did Art and I ever see one another again.  During the 70s, I was pastor of Saint Dominic parish in New Orleans, and was conducting a wedding rehearsal.  When I was introduced to the young people in the wedding party, there was a groomsman named Leto.  I asked if he was related to my old Loyola friend, Art.  Art was his father!  So I asked the young man to tell his dad that I wanted very much to see him when he came to the wedding the following night.  Art came back to the sacristy, and we had a great reunion after about 25 years. I remember so well that during our college days and the trip to Mexico, Art often teased me by calling me a rather vulgar name which amused me.  So that night, in the sacristy, Art, was a 47-year old man, talking to a priest whom he had known for years.  I couldn’t resist the temptation to remind him of that name that he used to call me those years ago.  And he seemed thoroughly embarrassed by it; but I assured him that he wasn’t going to hell because he used that expression about a college friend who was now a priest! 

 

That’s the last time I ever saw Art.  And now he is gone—to heaven, I trust.  And I am here praying for him and being grateful to God and to Art for lots of fun and very happy memories of those days when I was eighteen and Art was twenty. Art died two days ago, when he was 84 and I am 82.  I think you can imagine the kinds of thoughts and feelings that come to me as I think of this event.  Because he was of Italian extraction and we traveled together in Mexico and spoke some Spanish, I can say to him, “Arrivederci, Arturo” and “Hasta la vista, amigo.”  And I can also ask his prayers for me. Thank you for seeking God’s truth.  God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

Recently one of our friars said something that I had never thought of before, but which I find interesting and important. He pointed out that during Lent and the Easter season, we use in our churches, schools, and homes symbols of Our Lord’s suffering and resurrection, particularly the crucifix and the Easter candle. And they remain on display all year long. But during the Christmas season, we often put up a crib scene in church, school, and home, but then at the end of the Christmas time, we take it down and put it away until next year.

That brings to mind the fact that the great Saint Teresa of Avila, the reformer of Carmelite life and spirituality, specified in her rule for her nuns that in every one of their convents, there should be a crib set up all year long so that the Sisters could go there often to adore the infant Christ and venerate his blessed Mother.   During my years in the Navy, I visited a number of Carmelite monasteries of nuns on the west coast of our country: in San Diego, Carmel, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Reno.  And it was in one or several of them that I learned of the special devotion of the Carmelite nuns to the birth of the Divine Word.  And yet, we know that it was not Saint Teresa who originated our devotion to the Christmas crib, but rather Saint Francis of Assisi who first came up with the idea.  He went to the Holy Land and visited a number of the places associated with the life of Our Lord.  And he realized that many Christians would never be able to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, so he would try to bring those holy places to them.  Thus we have the Franciscan devotion to the crib at Christmas, to the way of the cross in practically every one of our churches and chapels all year long, and in Washington, D.C., we have the Franciscan shrine of the Holy Places where we can see facsimiles of a number of the holy places in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem to give us a clearer idea of what they look like and how inspiring they can be in our spiritual life.

It might be a very worthwhile idea to have in the home of each of us not only a crucifix but also a crib scene, either in the form of a picture or a three-dimensional representation of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.  Then, especially when there are small children in that home or who frequently come there, their attention could be called to these religious articles and their meaning for us in terms of how much God loves us.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth.  God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.