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Padre Pio: Cruciform Existence
Dear Parish Family,
Our Saint this week is Padre Pio, a beautiful example of the priesthood as we honor Christ the King of the Universe. Padre Pio is a saint for our times. He endured so much and never lost hope. We may have asked ourselves if God is punishing us with the pandemic. This crisis seems not so much a direct castigation, as an opportunity for reform and renewal. We are surely being shaken up, or resisting that turmoil. But resistance to the restrictive social guidelines only serves to prolong their duration.
Regarding trials, Padre Pio was an expert. He once said, “Thank and sweetly kiss the hand of God that strikes you, because it is always the hand of a Father who strikes you because he loves you.” These words from a man who bore the wounds of Christ in his body for 50 years! He was deeply united to Christ, making his advice uniquely powerful. Pio invites us to receive this world-wide contagion as from the hand of God who is Love.
The Martin Family: A Family of Saints
My Dear Spiritual Family,
This week we encounter not one Saint but a family of Saints. Thérèse of Lisieux, that powerful Doctor of the Church who reframed our spirituality by her doctrine of humble confidence and comes from a family of holy folk. Her parents, Louie and Zelie Martin were canonized in 2015 by Pope Francis. The same year the process began to discern the canonization of one of her elder sisters, Léonie Martin, now a Servant of God.
Pauline was the first sister to enter the Carmel of Lisieux. Three sisters followed: Louise, Thérèse and Celine. By contrast, Leonie sought out religious life several times but never remained in the convent. She finally gained the confidence to enter with the Visitation Sisters in 1899, two years after Therese had passed. She took the name Françoise-Thérèse, in memory of her baby sister Therese, who had taught her through letters the way of confidence and love. Léonie is sometimes known as the “difficult sister” but does not mean that folks with challenging personalities are not called to be saints.
