Shades of Gray

Monday of the Twenty ninth Week in Ordinary Time &
Saint John of Capistrano, Priest

Biographical Information about St. John of Capistrano

Readings for Monday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 Eph 2:1-10

Responsorial Psalm Ps 100:1b-2, 3, 4ab, 4c-5
R. The Lord made us, we belong to him.

Gospel Lk 12:13-21

Reflection:
The internet is an amazing tool for anyone who wishes to expand their knowledge on a given subject, even the Saints. If you have some time in the next couple days, just search for information about one of your favorites and see what you find, but be careful, check the base theology of the site you find – it may surprise you to learn that many people spend a lot of time putting false or misleading information on line. I use Butler’s Lives of Saints as an off line source and it is packed with historical information which puts many of the Saints into historical context.

Today is the Memorial of Saint John of Capistrano and he is another of those saints that can be called “defenders of the faith”. Speaking of on lines sources, I did find a really good break down or categorization of the saints in the Communion of Saints at a site called Tradition In Action. The name scared me a little only because I try to stay main-stream and there is so much out there from the ultra-conservative to the ultra-liberal (I saw a story a short time back about a group of “supposedly” religious sisters who got themselves ordained as Priests out in the middle of Lake Ontario, as if being on a boat, somehow conferred validation to the event.) The article on St John was written by a Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and while I did not check his credentials I did like what he had to say about saints in general;

One could try to make a classification of the saints. Some were founders of nations, others were organizers of nations, still others were founders of religious orders. Then, there is a category of saints who were the defensive walls of the House of God. They constitute a kind of saint whose principal goal is to fight, to destroy the enemies of God. They have the capacity to put fire in souls to stimulate them to the defense of God, to lead them to combat. And in the combat they know how to sustain the courage of the good as well as how to attack the enemies. Doing this, they defend the walls of the House of God. Such is the mission of this category of saints. St. John of Capistrano was one of these saints.

As I said about St. John could be classified as a “defender of the faith” and there is always a trap laid at those of us who try vehemently to defend tradition. The trap is perhaps exemplified by a situation from my own parish community some years ago. It was before young ladies were allowed to be acolytes (alter servers) and our parish priest at the time, having recently returned from Rome, had seen young ladies serving at some of the cathedrals there. He decided to invite girls to participate at our parish. This infuriated a small minority of our congregation who considered themselves traditionalists. They probably first challenged our Pastor privately, I don’t know, but when that had no effect, they went after the girls who did volunteer very publicly. The harassed before and after Mass, telling them, in front of parishioners, that they were committing mortal sins and that they were going to hell for their behavior.

Since I am running long today, I will leave you with this question to be prayerfully considered; Is it better to defend what you think of as our “great tradition” by violating the spirit of love, central to Christ’s teachings, or is it better to support those traditions some other way – and how far do we go before we proclaim; “Crusade” as St. John did?

Pax