“The silent contempt with which one meets slander or injustice is usually a more salutary antidote than sensitivity, strife, or revenge.” —Francis de Sales
It is evil when people speak ill of one another. It can go so far that more sensitive souls suffer so deeply that their lives seem destroyed. In today’s world, with modern means of communication, slander can become a real plague.
How rich are the stories of the saints, which introduce us to people who lived their faith to the utmost and followed Our Lord with total conviction! Undoubtedly, many of them show us a radicalism that could frighten us. As Saint Francis de Sales said, some saints are more to be admired than imitated. However, there is something we must always keep in mind—and something each of them would attest to: it was the grace of our Heavenly Father that enabled them to do extraordinary things. Whether they were tireless missionaries who spared no effort to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth, saints who practiced works of mercy to the point of total self‑denial, or monks who lived the monastic life with great discipline and asceticism and contributed to the building up of the Church.
But we cannot forget the many others who, in a more discreet but no less fruitful way, served God in the heroic fulfillment of their duties. It was always the holy presence of the Lord that shaped and sanctified them. In this sense, the life of each saint is also a message from Christ addressed to us, exhorting us to follow the path that God has laid out for us and encouraging us to respond to the universal call to holiness.
“Don’t wait for a more opportune moment, because you can’t be sure you’ll live to see it. Time slips away without us noticing. Therefore, the prudent do not waste time or squander the present moment, which belongs to them, in exchange for a moment that is not yet in their hands” (St. Catherine of Siena).
The Church is rich in missionaries and martyrs in whom the victory of faith and love was accomplished. This is true of the Japanese blood witnesses Paul Miki and his companions, whose memorial day we celebrate today.
In 1542-1543 the Portuguese had discovered Japan and in 1549 St. Francis Xavier had begun his missionary work there. Thus, in 1590 there were approximately half a million Christians in Japan.
The initially tolerant Japanese ruler increasingly turned against Christianity and in 1596 arrested twenty-six Christians in Osaka: 3 Japanese Jesuits, 6 Spanish Franciscans, among them Peter Baptist, and 17 Japanese Franciscan Tertiaries, i.e. lay people who belonged to the Third Order of St. Francis, including 3 altar boys aged 12 to 14.
Today we meet again a young saint, who, under terrible persecution, became a martyr for the love of Christ. In St. Agatha we discovere a loving soul, as well as in St. Agnes, whom we recently commemorated. They, having put into practice the words of today’s Gospel, are a model for us in following our Lord.
Since the saints are not only there for us to admire and invoke, but also to imitate, we can ask ourselves: What could a burning love like hers work in me? I do not mean that each of us should feel the longing to suffer martyrdom for Christ and to endure tortures like those of St. Agnes and St. Agatha. But each one of us must be filled with that same spirit in which God glorifies Himself and also grants us the strength for martyrdom. It is the virtue of bravery and, even more so, the spirit of fortitude.
“This is precisely what the blessed life consists of: rejoicing in view of You, in You, and for You” (St. Augustine).
In today’s quote, St. Augustine invites us to anticipate here on earth—even if not yet in its fullness—the blessed life that he himself found after his conversion.
“I am your source” (Inner Word).
We can turn to this source at any time, from which the water of divine life always flows to enlighten and heal our lives, to quench our thirst for love and truth. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:14)
The life of today’s saint shows how many obstacles are sometimes placed in the way of those destined for a great mission by God. In the story we will hear today, it was not so much external enemies — although these also joined in later — but rather his own family who resisted. Such resistance can be even more challenging to confront, given that these are people with whom one has grown up and is bound by blood or friendship, yet who oppose God’s plans due to their lack of comprehension. This was the case with Saint Joseph of Leonisa in the 16th century.
His family had high expectations for the brilliant career the young man could achieve in the world. His marriage to a noble lady of extraordinary beauty and great fortune had already been arranged. However, Joseph fled his father’s house and requested admission to the Capuchins in Assisi, the birthplace of St Francis. But even in the convent, where the young man had begun his novitiate, his relatives did not give him any respite.
Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Blaise, bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, who performed great miracles and suffered martyrdom in the year 316. In his honor, we will hear the reading from the second Mass for a martyr and bishop in the traditional rite.
2 Cor 1:3–7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
“How I wish that men would listen to my Son and thus glorify the Father who is in heaven!” (Interior word)
We are in this world to serve our Father and glorify Him by following His Son. For this deeper meaning of human existence to become a reality, the Gospel must be proclaimed with authority. Indeed, how could people come to know their Father in heaven during their earthly life if not through the one who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6)?
