Baptism of Clovis, Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Since the 1950s, many people living what used to be called “Christendom” have fallen away from faith in Christ. The nation of France is no exception. Although up to 80% of the French population called themselves Catholic as late as the 1980s, that number has dropped sharply in the decades since. Some say (pre-COVID19) that only 5% of French Catholics even attend Mass on Sundays.
But it wasn’t always that way. After all, France has often been called the “eldest daughter of the Church”. Why? When the early Church began to spread outside Jerusalem, it spread to Rome, but it also quickly spread to Gaul (modern France). We have records of Catholic communities in Gaul dating all the way back to the second century. In the year 496, France’s King Clovis converted to the faith through the encouragement of his Christian wife, Saint Clotilde, with a corresponding growth in Catholicism throughout the country. There are still some ancient Roman buildings standing in France that were converted into churches in the sixth and seventh centuries. In the year 800, Pope Leo II crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, marking not only a strong relationship between the pope and the French king, but also between the Catholic faith and the French people.
Because there are so many French saints commemorated by the Church in the month of September, my blogs this month will focus on them. Note, however, that many of these holy men and women died as martyrs—at the hands of their fellow Frenchmen.
French saints of September, help me to remain faithful to Christ and His Church.
All the saints should make us uncomfortable when we compare our all-too-human laziness with their heroic efforts in prayer, penance, and service of others. But some saints make us squirm because of the difficult trials they endured at the hands of other people. Three saints from the month of August fit in that category.
On August 8, the Australian saint, Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), is celebrated by the Church. Few founders of religious orders have been so painfully tried by the Church herself as was Mary. As the founder of a teaching order of nuns, she discovered that a priest who was serving at one of her schools was sexually abusing children. She promptly reported him to Church authorities, who sent him back to his native Ireland. But because the reason for the dismissal was kept secret by Church leaders, another priest misunderstood her actions and motivations, and he found a way to take revenge through her bishop. His vindictiveness ultimately led to Mary being excommunicated from the Church and deprived of the sacraments for a year. It was a deeply painful trial, and not the only one she suffered as a founder and mother superior.
On August 14, the Church remembers the 813 men of Otranto, Italy, who were ordered to convert to Islam or die when their town was invaded by Muslim Turks in the year 1480. When the men said no, all of them were brutally killed. Since this was the last, and failed, attempt by the Turks to conquer Italy, these brave and faithful men are often credited with saving all of Christian Europe. Most of the relics of these martyrs are still in the city’s cathedral.
One could feel deep sympathy with Blessed Victoire Rasoamanarivo (1848-1894) of Madagascar on her feast day August 21 for many reasons. For example, she was persecuted by her family for converting to Catholicism and later faced persecution by the government when Catholic churches, schools, and orders were closed for political reasons. But her most painful trial had to have been the marriage that her family arranged for her; her husband was a womanizer, a heavy drinker, and violent. Only after twenty-four years of marriage, during which time she prayed, prayed, and prayed some more for her husband, did he repent, ask for her forgiveness, and accept baptism.
All three of these saints suffered heartbreaking trials in their lives. Thanks be to God, they can help us when we do the same.
When my book about saints first came out, a good friend who has a lot of grandkids encouraged me to write a book about teenage saints. Such a book is much-needed for Confirmation gifts, she said. Maybe someday I will write such a book, but August 6 is the perfect day to talk about two pairs of teens whose faith in Christ should put adults to shame.
Blesseds Daudi Okelo and Jildo Irwa were born and raised in Uganda and became Catholics when they were only eleven and fifteen, respectively. These two boys were so devoted to their faith that they even taught other children in their village about the Good News. But within a few years of their conversion, in the year 1918, local leaders ordered Christians to stop teaching the Gospel. When the two boys, still in their teens, refused to obey, they were executed with spears and knives.
But bravery in the face of violent persecution is not a modern invention. Sixteen centuries earlier, Saints Justus and Pastor were Christian schoolboys living in Spain. When the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered a crackdown against the Church in the year 304, Justus (who was only thirteen years old) and Pastor (who was only nine) not only refused to renounce their faith in Christ despite torture, they encouraged one another while they were being tortured. The man who had been sent by the authorities to locate and execute Catholics in their city was so humiliated by the public bravery of the two boys that he had them taken away and beheaded in secret. Was he afraid that their supernatural faith in God was contagious?
No one knows for certain, but as the Church celebrates Saints Justus and Pastor on August 6, it’s impossible not to imagine the four teenagers, good-naturedly comparing their experiences in Heaven.
Though Saints Justus and Pastor are commemorated by the Church on August 6, Blesseds Daudi and Jildo are commemorated on September 18.
Holy Martyrs, teach me your courage in standing up for the Gospel.
Most Americans know very little about the Spanish Civil War. During this violent time in Spain’s history, the anti-Catholic government openly persecuted Catholic churches, religious orders, and individuals. (For more information, see volume 6 of Warren Carroll’s excellent series, A History of Christendom) In August of 1936, this persecution was particularly brutal, which is why the Church’s calendar is particularly full of Spanish martyrs during that month.
On August 3, 1936, Blessed Salvador Ferrandis Segui* was arrested and shot because he was a Catholic priest. On August 8, 1936, Blessed Zephyrinus Jimenez Malla, a businessman and Dominican tertiary, was executed for hiding priests from the authorities. On August 19, 1936, nine Carmelite sisters were martyred together. On August 20, 1936, Blessed Maria Climent Mateu, a laywoman who was active in her church through the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and the Catholic Women’s Trade Union, was stabbed to death. The charges against these individuals had nothing to do with committing any serious crimes, but everything to do with their Catholic faith.
The Spanish Civil War and its persecution of Catholics lasted from 1934 to 1939, and it certainly was not limited August of 1936, although hatred of the faith was particularly virulent then. For example, the Church also celebrates Blessed Henry Morant Pellicer (a priest) on October 4, Blessed Joseph Llosa Balaguer (a layman) on October 7, Blessed Joaquin Pina Piazuelo (a religious brother) on November 10, and Blessed Jose Aparicio Sanz (a priest) on December 29, among many others.
Since some estimate that more than six thousand Catholic priests and religious were executed during the Spanish Civil War, along with many members of the laity, this list of blesseds is both too long (even one martyr is a tragedy) and too short (there are many more than can be listed here). But in the month of August we can remember that less than a century ago, it was a brutal time for the faithful Catholics of Spain.
* All the blesseds described in this post are included in my book, “Saints: Becoming an Image of Christ Every Day of the Year.”
Globetrotter19 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) A memorial site to the victims of Communism, Budapest, Hungary.
Should the people who have died during recent violent protests be considered martyrs of Marxism? To answer that question, it’s important to first define some terms.
Since riots began occurring—and recurring—in our country, the word “Marxist” has often popped up in the news. At least one prominent leader involved in these violent, destructive protests has described herself as a “trained Marxist.” But what is a Marxist?
What is a Marxist?
For those of us who are not experts in this field, I would recommend two books that have helped me understand the economic systems of Marxism, Communism, and Socialism. For an excellent but easy-to-read explanation of the topic, see Can a Catholic be a Socialist? [The Answer is No—Here’s Why] by Trent Horn and Catherine R. Pakaluk. For a detailed understanding of the history of Communism from a Catholic perspective, see the always brilliant Dr. Warren Carroll’s The Rise and Fall of the Communist Revolution. What is the bottom line? While the individuals promoting these economic systems may have lofty goals about eliminating poverty and helping those in need, the methods they use—abolishing private property and giving the government control over the economy (as described in the first book)—inevitably result in a brutal, dehumanizing way of life for those who live in such states (as described in the second book), particularly Christians.
What is a martyr?
The Church currently has a careful, detailed process by which someone is declared a martyr and/or a saint. That process involves documentation, testimony, and careful research into the life of the individual to ensure that the person truly lived a holy, heroic life of virtue, and in the case of most martyrs, died specifically because of “hatred of the Catholic faith.”
An exception proves the point: Saint Maria Goretti is considered a martyr of purity. She was not killed by Alessandro Serenelli because he hated her Catholic faith, but her Catholic faith inspired her to fight back when he attempted to rape her. To be declared a martyr by the Church today, it must be clear that the person was killed specifically because he or she was a faithful Catholic, typically because of a refusal to deny a personal faith in God through some physical and/or verbal act.
Martyrs under Marxism
In my book about saints, I only included three men who have been formally beatified and declared to be martyrs under Communism by the Church. Blesseds Aloysius Stepanic, Nicholas Tsehelsky, and Roman Lysko were all Catholic priests living in eastern European countries when they were arrested, imprisoned, and ultimately executed by the Soviets, precisely because they were faithful Catholics and faithful priests.
It is indisputable that many thousands (perhaps even millions) of Christian men, women, and children in the twentieth century suffered pain, starvation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death at the hands of Communist governments because of their faith. The true number of these faithful followers of Christ will never be known by us because totalitarian governments are so effective at hiding the evidence, though even mass graves cannot be hidden forever. For example, almost a hundred years ago, those who were sympathetic to Communism—most notably a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times—successfully hid the fact that the Soviet Union intentionally starved three million Ukrainian men, women, and children to death. Fake news is not a recent invention.
Because of the large numbers of Christians who have suffered and died under Communism because of their faith, it would be impossible for the Catholic Church for formally investigate them all. So while these men and women may not fit the formal definition of martyrdom, that doesn’t mean their sufferings are unimportant or that their faithfulness should be overlooked. Ultimately, the Church is the Bride of Christ, and she cares for all her members as children. She is particularly devoted to presenting examples of holiness to them, hoping that they too will be inspired by the martyrs and other saints to follow in the footsteps of Christ and live holy lives, even in times of persecution. The saints, blesseds, venerables, and servants of God are held up to us by the Church, not because we can add anything to their happiness in Heaven, but because we can benefit by their examples.
What we can learn from them
Therefore, while the Church may not be able to precisely identify every person martyred under Marxism and while it may be a stretch to give the title of martyr to victims of recent riots, that doesn’t mean we should forget them. We can honor the Christians who lived in fear, died in labor camps, or were executed outright for keeping the faith, now and in the past, by learning what Marxism, Socialism, and Communism really are, rather than just the slogans they use, and finding out how these systems treat people of faith. Then we can pray for all the martyrs to show us how to do what Jesus would do.
All you martyrs under Communism, show us how to respond to violence with the peace and truth of Jesus Christ.
Note: On July 31, the date on which this post is being published, the Church commemorates Blessed Cecilia Schelingova, a religious sister who endured arrest and torture and who ultimately died because of the mistreatment inflicted upon her by the Soviets. Her crime? As a nurse, she helped priests who were being persecuted by the government. See her story here.
Richard Whitney / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
Since my book only includes those who have been named saints or blesseds by the Church, I unfortunately had to omit Venerable Michael McGivney, the priest who founded the Knights of Columbus. But the Congregation of the Causes of Saints recently announced the beatification of this holy man; see the news article here.
But Michael McGivney isn’t about to be called “Blessed Michael McGivney” because a group he founded not only continued after his death, but expanded and currently serves the needy all over the globe. He’s being beatified because he lived a holy life.
For example, Michael’s father died when he was a young seminarian studying for the priesthood. He had to leave school to go to work so that he could support his mother and many siblings. When he was able to return to his studies and become a priest, he didn’t need anyone to tell him that fathers were important, including their ability to financially support their families. One of the perhaps lesser-known features of the Knights of Columbus is the life insurance they offer for fathers, in order to protect families like their founder’s from falling into poverty.
Venerable Michael McGivney, intercede for all the fathers I know, that they might be holy men and good fathers.
Saint Simeon Stylites; Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain.
As explained in a previous post, not all Catholic saints enjoyed peaceful, quiet lives. Several male saints commemorated in July also had life stories that would make them great subjects for the movies.
Saint Simeon Salus would seem a poor choice on the surface for a visual media like film because he spent almost thirty years living as a monk in the Sinai Desert in Egypt in the sixth century. It would be hard to turn that experience into an action picture. (Note that many Christian men and women had begun to live in the desert in the sixth century because of the inspirational example of Saint Anthony the Great. Anthony was not the first Christian hermit in the desert, but he was certainly the most famous.) But after decades of silent, penitential living, Simeon recognized that God was calling him to return to his native country of Syria and serve the needy. So he did. However, to avoid being treated as a living saint in the town, he humbly pretended to be very unintelligent. He was so successful that the people gave him the nickname “Salus”, which means “stupid”. One can imagine many humorous incidents occurred in Simeon’s life until his neighbors realized he was saintly, not stupid. He is commemorated by the Church on July 21.
Unlike Saint Simeon Salus, the biography of Saint Simeon the Stylite wouldn’t work as a comedy. This Simeon also lived a penitential life as a monk—in fifth century Turkey—but the penances he imposed upon himself were not funny or easy. He chose increasingly difficult places in which to live: first a hut, then a cave, and then on top of a small pillar. He also prayed for hours in difficult postures. This would seem flamboyant, rather than simple, if it wasn’t for the fact that he did all this in the middle of nowhere, and we only know about his penances because of the crowds who came to see him and to listen to him speak about God. All these penances, after all, were performed as an atonement for his own sins and those of others. That is, Simeon detached himself not only from sin but even from ordinary pleasures so that he could live entirely for God. And, one hopes, the people who came to see him went home resolved to let go of their own attachments to sinful pleasures too. His feast day is July 27.
If someone made a children’s movie about the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (also commemorated on July 27), it would sound like this: seven Christian men were walled up inside a cave during the days of the Roman empire, to execute them for their faithfulness to Christ. Two hundred years later, the cave was accidentally discovered and reopened, and the seven men miraculously woke up, Rip van Winkle style, from their long sleep.
A more realistic movie about these saints would follow the older tradition—rather than the later legend just described—that the seven men were martyred around the year 250 because they refused to renounce Christ and were buried in a cave near the city of Ephesus (modern Turkey). When their tomb was rediscovered in the year 479, inscriptions on the cave explained that they were martyrs. It appears that the inscription in the cave referred to the seven men as “sleeping in the Lord”, a not uncommon New Testament expression (for example, see Acts 7:60, 1 Cor. 15:6, 1 Thes. 4:13, 2 Pet. 3:4) to describe Christians who have died peaceful deaths. This may have led to the fanciful legend about their two-hundred-year-long sleep.
But only a believer could make a film about the life of Saint Sharbel Makhlouf (1828-1898), who is remembered by the Church on July 24. He was devout from an early age; his favorite book when he was a young man was The Imitation of Christ. (It is a spiritual classic; look it up.) Sharbel lived as a monk and then as a hermit, with only the barest necessities. But his profound love for God somehow attracted people to him even in his solitary life. He was so deeply devoted to our Lord’s Presence in the Blessed Sacrament that he spent hours preparing before he celebrated each Mass. When he prayed, people sometimes saw him levitating above the ground. He suffered from paralysis at the end of his life, but he accepted his painful condition with great peace. Death has not slowed him down either. Blood has been found to flow from his incorrupt body on multiple occasions, and he is greatly loved by the Lebanese people for the miraculous healings that have occurred through his intercession.
Ultimately, none of these holy men would care about being featured in a movie—unless that movie helped its audience learn how to seek humility, self-discipline, courage, and a love for prayer for the sake of the God who loves us so much.
John Salmon / Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Quidenham, Norfolk – Windows
In an ordinary year, summer movies would be a hot topic for conversation. But as movie theater seats have been replaced by couches and recliners for many of us, the Catholic saints celebrated in July provide us with extraordinary biographies that would be fascinating if told through the movies.
The dramatic martyrdoms of sixteen French nuns who were executed during the French Revolution are a perfect example. Actually, Francis Poulenc already proved that by writing an opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites, about them.
The basic story is very simple. Officials during the French Revolution executed a lot of people, for almost any reason or no reason at all, but the Catholic Church was a particular target. When sixteen nuns of the city of Compiegne were arrested and sentenced to be executed on July 17, 1794, it was nothing new or remarkable. Well, it wasn’t remarkable until these brave, faithful women marched, one by one, up to the guillotine with the peace and calm of Christ, as if they were renewing their religious vows rather than being brutally beheaded. Not only were the jaded onlookers in Paris moved by the sight, the Reign of Terror ended soon afterward, as if God had accepted their pure act of self-oblation and stopped the bloodshed Himself.
The life story of a saint commemorated on July 24 is less dramatic but contains a powerful object lesson. Saint Euphrasia (380-420) was related to the Roman emperor, but she grew up with her widowed mother in a convent in Egypt. When she reached the age of twelve, she was old enough to inherit her father’s considerable wealth, but she instead chose to give it all away and become a nun. Several years passed, and she began to be tempted by thoughts of the life she had left behind. Her superior was a wise woman, and she gave Euphrasia an interesting chore. She asked Euphrasia to move a pile of rocks from one place to another. When she was done, Euphrasia was ordered to move the same rocks back again. This happened several times, until Euphrasia recognized, through her acts of seemingly pointless obedience, that giving her life to Christ gave her greater joy than any amount of money or power. (The next time your boss or family member asks you to do something as stupid as moving rocks from one place to another and back again, remember Saint Euphrasia. Your chore will seem less pointless.)
If the life story of Saint Godelva, who died on July 30, 1070 in Gistel, Belgium, was made into a movie, it would be a tearjerker. Born into the nobility, she was married to a young nobleman when she was eighteen years old. But Godelva found out how bitterly she was hated by her mother-in-law even before the wedding reception was over. Her mother-in-law locked Godelva in a small room, and she later starved and mistreated the young woman for days, then months. When her mother-in-law won her husband over to her side, he too treated Godelva with cruelty. This abusive situation became publicly known, and the bishop tried to intervene, but not before Godelva’s husband ordered two servants to drown her in a pond. Everyone knew who was responsible for Godelva’s death, but of course it couldn’t be proved. However, that heartless husband remarried and eventually had children. One of his children, a girl, became blind. When numerous other people in the area claimed to be healed through Godelva’s intercession at the same pond where Godelva was murdered, he too prayed for his daughter’s healing at the site. The daughter’s miraculous healing is why this forgiving young woman is now known as Saint Godelva.
The biography of Saint Christina (1150-1224) would sound like outrageous fiction if there weren’t so many witnesses to tell us otherwise. She and her two sisters were young adult orphans living in Belgium when twenty-two-year-old Christina died. That is, everyone thought she died. During the funeral Mass, she not only suddenly sat up in the coffin, she flew out of it and (somehow) perched on the beams in the roof of the church. The priest finally convinced her to come down and explain what was going on. Christina said that she had truly died, but she had traveled to Heaven, Hell, and purgatory. She recognized friends and family members in all three places. Then, she said, God gave her a choice: come to Heaven now or go back to life on earth and do penance for sinners. Christina chose the latter, and for the remaining fifty-two years of her life, she did precisely that. She lived away from people, in part because she said she could smell their sins. She prayed in awkward positions as a penance. She did strange things, such as jump into a river in winter, climb trees, and escape under the mill race of a mill, which should have killed her. Any movie depicting her life would have to make a decision about her motivation: was she mentally unbalanced, merely pretending, or truly trying to humiliate herself as a penance to save souls? The Church would claim the latter. Christina begged for her food and lived alone for many years before she moved to a convent, where two women also considered holy women by the Church, Blessed Mary of Oignies and Saint Lutgardis, were convinced of Christina’s holiness. It’s not surprising that the title she’s most commonly remembered by today is Saint Christina the Astonishing. She’s commemorated on July 24.
Unfortunately, as astonishing as all these women’s lives were, our secular world could never make an accurate film about their lives, precisely because it would not understand the motivation behind their decisions. If you don’t believe that there is such a thing as truth, why give your life for it? If you have the chance to be rich and powerful, why would you ever turn your back on it? If someone treats you cruelly, why would you ever forgive them? If other people are suffering for their supposed “sins”, what does that matter to you?
For those who don’t believe in God, Christians will always seem astonishing.
Around the ninth century B.C., the great prophet Elijah challenged four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal to a spiritual duel on Mount Carmel (see 1 Kings, ch. 18), a mountain range currently located in Israel. Inspired by Elijah’s faith centuries later, a group of Christian hermits settled on Mount Carmel. The exact date of this foundation is debated, but the hermits had become known as Carmelites when they moved to Europe in the twelfth century.
Following the example of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, the Carmelites became a mendicant order around that time. Just as each religious order has its own unique charism—Franciscans for poverty, Dominicans for preaching—the Carmelites place a particular emphasis in their spiritual life on contemplation and on the Blessed Mother. Because of that devotion to the Mother of God, the Church offers us an optional memorial in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on July 16. But that’s not the only reason to think of the Carmelite order during the month of July.
Blessed John Soreth (1405-1471, celebrated on July 25) was the prior general of the Carmelites when he expanded the order to include women as well as the laity; before that time, the Carmelite order only included men. Blessed John’s decision opened the door for women to seek holiness in the Carmelite way of life. For that, we should be very grateful since some of the greatest female saints in the history of the Church, specifically Saints Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux, not to mention Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, lived quiet but very holy lives as Carmelite nuns.
Saints Louis and Zelie Martin were not Carmelites, but they deserve to be remembered with Carmelite saints all the same. This devout couple brought nine children into the world and raised each one to become a citizen of Heaven. They experienced every parent’s nightmare of having four of those children die even before reaching the age of five. Their faith was apparently only strengthened by such profound suffering, since four of their surviving children became Carmelite nuns, and the fifth became a Visitandine nun. Although it was their daughter, Saint Therese of Lisieux, who became a Doctor of the Church, her writings about her childhood show that the Carmelite spirit of joy, trust, and detachment from the world was first taught to her by her parents. This couple is commemorated on July 12.
Though Blessed Titus Brandsma (1881-1942) is not a well-known Carmelite saint, he should be. Titus was a brilliant man who was not only a priest, but knew several languages and had a PhD in philosophy. He was known all over the world, even outside his native Netherlands, traveling to America and Canada on a speaking tour in 1935. During World War II, he spoke out publicly against the racist anti-Jewish laws of the Nazis, and he encouraged Catholic newspapers to refuse to print Nazi propaganda. Unsurprisingly, the Gestapo began following him and finally sent him to the Dachau concentration camp in April, 1942. The Nazis starved and overworked all their prisoners, including Titus. Despite the brutality of the camp, Titus prayed for the camp’s guards and encouraged others to do the same. When his health deteriorated, the Nazis decided to perform medical experiments on him; he was executed when he was so ill that he was no longer useful for such experiments. He is remembered as a martyr on the Church calendar on the date of his death: July 26.
As these Carmelite memorials pass us by during the month of July, there’s one aspect of spiritual life for which our Blessed Mother and these saints can be particularly helpful: deepening our prayer life.
From British Museum / Public domain; see Wikimedia Commons.
Catholics who can remember attending Mass before the 1960s will remember feast days in honor of great figures from the Old Testament. Did those disappear along with Saint Christopher?
No, they did not. Although the Vatican II revision of the liturgical calendar may have changed the precedence and order of many commemorations of saints, the Church’s high regard for great Jewish leaders did not disappear. The simpler calendar that we are all now familiar with still includes holy Jewish men for us to remember, particularly in July.
For example, July 1 is the commemoration of first High Priest of God’s Chosen People, Aaron, Moses’ older brother. Although Aaron certainly hit a personal low when he helped the people create a golden calf to worship instead of God (Exo 32:21-24), nevertheless, he was the first High Priest. Other descriptions of Aaron in the book of Exodus are generally positive, though the poor man had the disadvantage of spending his life in the shadow of his gifted brother.
The Church recognizes the Prophet Elijah on July 20. How many people have had such profound trust in God that they were willing to ask Him for a public and miraculous event to disprove the existence of a pagan god? Yet that’s what Elijah did when he invited priests of Baal to a competition to prove to the Jewish audience that only God could miraculously light a fire in a water-soaked offering in broad daylight (1 Kings 18:20-40).
The Biblical book of Ezekiel records the visions and prophecies of one of the greatest Jewish prophets. The Prophet Ezekiel’s words provide us with some of the most famous images in the Old Testament: a valley of dry bones that God brings back to life through Ezekiel’s words and a vision of angels that are like “wheels within wheels”. Artists have done their best to try to show such a thing, but no one knows what he saw or what he meant by that. Presumably, what Ezekiel saw is so inexplicable to the physical world that words literally fail us. He’s commemorated on July 23.
The book of Ezra teaches how that brave Jewish leader led a remnant of the Chosen People back to the land of Judah after the Babylonian exile. After the Jews had spent several decades as slaves and servants of the people who had conquered them, Ezra led his people back to freedom. As may be imagined, the returning Jews had forgotten how to practice their faith while living their entire lives among pagans. Ezra (celebrated on July 13) had the unenviable task of telling them to make painful changes to their lifestyles if they wanted to be faithful to God.
All four of these men are still honored by the Church in part because they were “types” of Christ. That is, although they were imperfect men, they had faith in the one true God, and through their faithfulness, other people were led to the true God. As Christians, we can also see how each of these men acted as signposts, pointing forward in time to God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. What these four men did imperfectly, for the people of their time, Jesus accomplished perfectly.
For example, Jesus perfectly fulfilled the role of High Priest, as both priest and victim, on the Cross (see John 19:24; the High Priest wore a garment without a seam). Jesus proved the impotence of false gods by defeating death itself by rising from the dead (1 Cor 15:55). No sooner had Jesus died on the Cross than “dry bones” in nearby graves came back to life (see Matt 27:52-53). Jesus’ entire Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1-7:29) explains how to rise from a life of slavery to sin to the freedom of being children of God.
Like Saint Christopher, these men are still honored by the Church as holy men. May they help us grow in holiness today.
