{"id":5317,"date":"2006-10-12T09:28:12","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T09:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html"},"modified":"2006-10-12T09:28:12","modified_gmt":"2006-10-12T09:28:12","slug":"saints-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Saints of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can read biographies of all those to be canonized on Sunday here – and it’s worth doing. <\/a> The lives of these men and women show so clearly that the life of holiness – of a saint – is anything but quiet, conformist passivity – the stereotype of one deeply committed to God. We know the stereotype is a lie, but sometimes even we need reminding, don’t we?  We forget that the goal of spiritual growth, as our culture defines it that even creeps into our churches – that it’s all about finding a space where I’m feeling comfortable and accepted and okay and am basically getting along with the world – is just a lie. At least for Christians.  <\/p>\n

Filippo Smaldone<\/a> ministered to the disabled, particularly the deaf and mute, in the political turmoil of 19th century Naples, at times fighting his own wishes to go elsewhere (the missions) and do other work.<\/p>\n

Rosa Venerini began a mnistry of teaching lay women, especially their catechism – <\/a> a movement that was resisted by both clergy and others, all of whom thought it was unseemly and inappropriate for a woman to be doing anything of the kind.<\/p>\n

Rafael Guizar Valencia<\/a> was a late 19th and early 20th century Mexican priest and bishop (d. 1938) – as a clergyman in Mexico he endured persecution:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

In 1911, to counteract the persecution of the Catholic Church, he founded a religious newspaper in Mexico, but shortly thereafter it was unfortunately put out of business by the revolutionary movement. Persecuted until his death, he lived a number of years with no fixed home. He suffered loss of privacy and faced many dangerous experiences. To continue his ministry, he disguised himself as a street seller, a musician, and a doctor of homeopathic medicine. In this way, he was able to heal the sick, continue to console and administer the sacraments to the dying.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Untiring missionary<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

He was pursued by his enemies and was unable to remain permanently in placecountry-region Mexico due to the constant danger of being captured. He remained in the southern part of the United States until the end of 1915. The year after, he went to Guatemala where he conducted a large number of missions. His reputation as a missionary reached Cuba where he was later invited to conduct missions for the people. His work was very productive on the island. His charitable work with the victims of the black plague in 1919 was exemplary.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Miguel Pro also disguised himself in order to minister)<\/p>\n

Mother Guerin had her own share of problems, which included the serious meddling of Vincenne Bishop Hailandiere, who answered Mother Guerin’s resistance to his attempt to change the Rule of her order by excommunicating her. Briefly – for he retired to France, and his successor lifted the excommunication. Hailandiere apparently made life difficult for Fr. Sorin in his attempts to start a school near the South Bend of the St. Joseph’s River, as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

Courage, persistence, fidelity, persecution from within and without – and complicated relationships with superiors. All a part of the lives of the saints…<\/p>\n

\nBishop Valencia was also a member of the Knights of Columbus – so look for them in full force on Sunday, as well:<\/a><\/p>\n

While in Cuba, he was consecrated Bishop of Veracruz, Mexico. The end of the revolution enabled him to return to Mexico in January 1920, and he joined Knights of Columbus Council 2311 in Jalapa, Veracruz on August 16. 1923. As bishop, he founded a clandestine seminary to train future priests, noting that \u201cA bishop can do without a mitre, a crosier, and even a cathedral, but never without a seminary, because the future of his diocese depends on the seminary.\u201d <\/p>\n

\nBishop Guizar Valencia was forced to flee Mexico once again in 1927, during the persecution of the Church under Mexican President Plutarco Calles. He returned in 1929, the year the Church reached an accord with the Mexican government, reached in part because of successful lobbying by the Knights of Columbus to get the U.S. government to take an active role solving the crisis. After his return to Mexico, Bishop Guizar Valencia continued his ministry, and became known as \u201cthe bishop of the poor.\u201d He died of natural causes on June 6, 1938, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on January 29, 1995.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can read biographies of all those to be canonized on Sunday here – and it’s worth doing. The lives of these men and women show so clearly that the life of holiness – of a saint – is anything but quiet, conformist passivity – the stereotype of one deeply committed to God. We know…<\/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-5317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSaints of the Day - 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\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saints of the Day - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You can read biographies of all those to be canonized on Sunday here – and it’s worth doing. The lives of these men and women show so clearly that the life of holiness – of a saint – is anything but quiet, conformist passivity – the stereotype of one deeply committed to God. We know…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-12T09:28:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Saints of the Day - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Saints of the Day - Via Media","og_description":"You can read biographies of all those to be canonized on Sunday here – and it’s worth doing. The lives of these men and women show so clearly that the life of holiness – of a saint – is anything but quiet, conformist passivity – the stereotype of one deeply committed to God. We know…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-10-12T09:28:12+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html","name":"Saints of the Day - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-10-12T09:28:12+00:00","dateModified":"2006-10-12T09:28:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/saints-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Saints of the Day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. 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. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}