{"id":441,"date":"2008-02-22T10:26:11","date_gmt":"2008-02-22T10:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/02\/saints-and-commemorations.html"},"modified":"2008-02-22T10:26:11","modified_gmt":"2008-02-22T10:26:11","slug":"saints-and-commemorations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/02\/saints-and-commemorations.html","title":{"rendered":"Saints and commemorations"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not changing my header or SAINT sidebar during Lent, but remember, that even during Lent, saints march on.
\nYesterday was the Memorial of St. Peter Damian, and Ian of Aquinas and More Catholic bookstore has a great post on St. Peter Damian on his blog. <\/a><\/p>\n

In his lifetime, St Peter Damian battled kings and tyrants and anti-popes, heretics and wayward clergy. He did it all with a strong character, great moral authority and the sanctity of a true saint. He never resorted to violence or ill-means, only his faith in God and the eternal message of the Gospel of Christ were his \u201cweapons at hand.\u201d. St. Francis of Assisi, who lived some two centuries later, and who was himself known as a great reformer, viewed St. Peter Damian as the consummate hero of reform and renewal in the Church because of his witness and his accomplishments.
\nSt. Peter Damian is truly a saint for all troubled times in the life of the Church. As Catholics who know our history, we must be thankful that the Lord always calls up saints to witness to the truth – especially in dark and difficult times. As Our Lord promised to the very first St. Peter regarding the Church, \u201cthe gates of Hell shall never prevail against it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today is the Feast of the Chair of Peter. Michael reprints a pertinent section of one of his books, related to our trip to Rome 2 years ago. (sigh).<\/a>
\nNot anywhere near his feastday of course, but on Wednesday, the Pope continued his General Audience catechesis on Augustine, in which he focuses on Augustine as author:<\/a><\/p>\n

Within Augustine\u2019s literary production — more than 1,000 publications subdivided into philosophical, apologetic, doctrinal, moral, monastic, exegetic, and anti-heretical writings, as well as the letters and sermons — are some exceptional works of great theological and philosophical intensity.
\nAbove all it is necessary to remember the already mentioned “Confessions,” written in 13 books in praise of God between 397 and 400. It is a sort of autobiography in the form of a dialog with God. This literary genre reflects St. Augustine\u2019s life, which was not a reclusive life, not dispersed in many things, but was a life mainly lived like a conversation with God, a life shared with others. Already the title “Confessions” shows the specificity of his autobiography.
\nIn the Christian Latin developed in the tradition of the Psalms, the word “confessiones” has two meanings that are interlinked. In the first place “confessiones” is the confession of one\u2019s own weaknesses, and of the misery of sins; at the same time “confessiones” means praise of God, gratitude to God.
\nSeeing one’s misery in the light of God becomes praise for God and gratitude because God loves us and accepts us, he transforms us and raises us toward him. In the “Confessions” — which were already largely successful during St. Augustine\u2019s life — he wrote: “They exercised such action on me while I was writing them and do so even now when I reread them. There are many brothers who like these writings” (“Retractationes,” II, 6). I should also mention that I am one of these “brothers.”
\nThanks to the “Confessions” we can follow step by step the inner journey of this extraordinary man who was fascinated by God.
\nLess well-known but equally important are the “Retractationes,” composed in two books around 427, in which St. Augustine, now an old man, puts together a “revision” (retractatio) of all his writings, thus leaving us a particular and precious literary document, but also a teaching of sincerity and intellectual humility.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, and unrelated (sort of) to saints, I’ll just point you to a post that made me laugh, from someone who’s on my list of Catholic Bloggers Who Should Write a Book: Matthew Archbold at Creative Minority Report:<\/a><\/p>\n

But man. The feeling is great to confess all your sins. Because there were tons of kids and family members I tried to give the short version of my transgressions. One particular sin came to my mind that I couldn’t articulate easily. Here’s what happened. A mother had come up to me at the mall fairly recently. I had all five kids with me. She had one. A little boy about my boy’s age. She gave a snarky comment out of the blue that I needed to get a hobby. At first I didn’t understand. But then it hit me that she was talking about my kids. I pretended to laugh a little.
\nThen she starts asking ages and my kids all pipe up at the same time with names and ages. Then this woman looks at me and says, “You’ve got to be crazy.”
\nI’m not kidding. She said it. And then she segues with saying that her little boy is her first. Now my boy is pretty tall and speaks pretty well for a two year old. She says her boy just turned two and she asks how old my boy is.
\nAnd this is my bad part. I say he just turned two as well. The truth is he just turned two about nine months ago. So this woman is looking at her tiny kid and comparing them. My boy then says how old he is and starts talking pretty well. She’s shocked that he’s speaking as well as he is for a boy that “just” turned two. She asks me if he’s potty trained and I out and out lied. I said, “Sure. Has been for months.”
\nLike I said this is the biggest lie ever told because at this point I’m pretty sure my boy will never be potty trained. We sit and chat and read books in the bathroom and he just loves the attention but him actually doing anything is just out of the question to him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not changing my header or SAINT sidebar during Lent, but remember, that even during Lent, saints march on. Yesterday was the Memorial of St. Peter Damian, and Ian of Aquinas and More Catholic bookstore has a great post on St. Peter Damian on his blog. In his lifetime, St Peter Damian battled kings and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSaints and commemorations - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/02\/saints-and-commemorations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saints and commemorations - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m not changing my header or SAINT sidebar during Lent, but remember, that even during Lent, saints march on. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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