Blessed Marcel Callo: The nerd’s alternative to Pier Giorgio!

The following comes from the Denver Catholic and Melissa Keating:

Blessed Marcel Callo just needs to be more famous. His story is equal parts Pier Giorgio, Maximilian Kolbe,  Romeo Montague, and something that is uniquely his own. He also totally looks like a French Urkel, which I think we can all agree is amazing. In honor of his feast day on October 4, here is his life in blog form:

That kid at youth group

Marcel as a Boy Scout. Image from the Diocese of Fresuj-Toulon

Marcel was the second of nine children. His family was French and poor, but happy, and raised him in the faith. He started working when he was 13, which is when we get one of my favorite insights into him: He was kind of an obnoxious Christian.

His coworkers would make jokes about women, so Marcel refused to have anything to do with them. He also refused to date, saying, “I am not one to amuse myself with the heart of a lady, since my love is pure and noble,” among other things that kind of make me want to take his lunch money. Most of his (very few) biographers try to pass this off as piety, but I think he was just your typical overzealous young Catholic. He would have been the modern equivalent of the teenager who wears 50 saints medals at once and has the techno remix of “Oceans” as their ringtone. He even spent all of his time with his equivalent of a youth group, the Jeunesse Ouvriere Chretienne (JOC), or Young Christian Workers.

The JOC is where Marcel learned to stop being so obnoxious. They stressed the importance of community and intellectual formation, as well as a robust prayer life. Marcel played sports through them, and began to spend 15 minutes a day in quiet prayer and went to Confession every other week. He still wasn’t perfected, as he was known for losing his temper with people who questioned Church teaching. And yet, as he became a leader within the JOC, he started to lighten up. For example, he shocked many elderly parishioners when he and his friends decided to go see a movie on All Soul’s Day. The older people thought the JOC should spend the day in prayer. However, Marcel and his friends managed to see the movie and still get into the Church before the liturgy started.

A very long engagement

Marcel and Maurgerite. Photo from Blessed Marcel Callo Parish in the Diocese of Arras.

However, the JOC wasn’t just a place for Marcel to sass old ladies. It was also where he met the love of his life, Marguerite Derniaux. He waited to ask her out, because he said, “One must master his heart before he can give it to the one that is chosen for him by Christ”. They were engaged, but World War II and his subsequent martyrdom prevented them from ever getting married.

Rennes was bombed on March 8, 1943. Marcel and his JOC friends volunteered to recover bodies and help the injured. Marcel was sifting through the debris of an office building when he recognized his little sister’s leg and shoe sticking out from a pile of debris. He had to break the news to his family.

A few weeks later, Marcel learned that he was being sent to a forced labor camp in Germany. His family would be arrested if he resisted, which would have been especially horrible since his older brother was about to be ordained a priest.  So he went. He told his family that he was going as a missionary, because there was an urgent apostolate waiting for him in the barracks.

Jesus in the barracks

Unfortunately, the reality of forced labor was harder than he had anticipated, but this last round of suffering was what made him a saint. He was sent to a town without a single Catholic Church and forced to help make rockets that were used against his countrymen. He went three months without his family, his fiancee, or the Eucharist, all the while living on starvation rations and recreating the weapons that had killed his own sister. In other words, legalistic lip-service Christianity wasn’t going to work. He developed infected teeth, boils, and headaches from the deplorable conditions.  He sunk into a deep depression.

And then, just when everything seemed hopeless, he encountered Christ. Marcel discovered that Sunday Mass was offered in an obscure room of the barracks. He received the Eucharist for the first time in months and appreciated it like never before. He wrote to Marguerite, “Finally Christ reacted. He made me to understand that the depression was not good. I had to keep busy with my friends and then joy and relief would come back to me.”

Marcel the Missionary

And that’s exactly what he did. He rededicated himself to the prayer life he and Marguerite had established before the war. He also began to organize JOC-inspired activities for his friends in the barracks. They would play sports and cards, perform plays, and pray together. He found a French priest to say Mass for them once a month. In short, he stopped looking at his awful life and instead focused on choosing to love his God and his community. His hope and joy came back and spread to his fellow prisoners.

The S.S. also noticed the change in Marcel. They arrested him on April 19, 1944. While the officers search through his belongings, his friends asked for a reason for his arrest.  One of the officers replied, “Monsieur est trop Catholique” (translation: He is too Catholic).

Martyrdom

The Germans interrogated him. He admitted to being a part of the JOC, which the Germans had banned as a clandestine organization. He was sent to the concentration camp at Mathausen. The conditions were even worse than in the forced labor camp, but Marcel knew how to keep his joy. He continued to pray and encourage his fellow prisoners, even as he suffered from bronchitis, malnutrition, dysentary, fever, swellings, and generalized weakness, all in addition to his previous ailments. One prisoner had smuggled in a box of consecrated hosts and was able to give him his final Eucharist, also known as Viatacum.

His joy and hope were present to the end. The latrines at Mathausen were designed so that weaker prisoners would fall into them. Marcel nearly drowned in one, but was pulled out by a Colonel Thibideux. Marcel was too weak to even speak at this point. However, the colonel remembered that even covered in human waste and dying, “there was a holiness in [Marcel’s] eyes. I had never before seen anyone look that way!”

Beatification

Marcel died on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1945. It was exactly two years after he left France.  The last time he had seen Marguerite was at the train station, when she told him he was going to be a martyr. He told her that he would never be good enough for that. St. John Paul II disagreed, and declared him a martyr for the faith on October 4, 1987. The pope said that like Christ, Marcel “loved until the end, and his entire life became the Eucharist.

“Received into the everlasting joy of God, [Marcel] testifies that the Christian faith cannot separate Heaven from Earth. Heaven is prepared on Earth through justice and love,” the pope said.

“Nourished by prayer, the sacraments, and apostolic action….he built the Church with his brothers, the young Christian workers. It is in the Church that we become Christian, and it is with the Church that we build a new humanity.”***

A man for our generation

And that’s why I love Marcel. He started off as the kind of Christian so many of us are early in our conversion: overzealous, obsessed with vocation, and more interested in looking Catholic than cultivating a deep relationship with Christ.

But then he was stripped of absolutely everything. His little sister was killed, his vocation was snatched away, and he was forced to take the place of German workers who had killed his family. He couldn’t even maintain the prayer and sacramental schedule of his former life. Yet his response was simply to find Christ already present in those dismal surroundings and dedicate himself to bringing others to the Lord. He offered his sufferings for the sake of his brother’s mission as a priest. Even when he was too weak to speak, he changed something in the colonel just by looking at him.

You don’t get that kind of radiance from simply following the rules. It comes from falling deeply, irrevocably in love with Christ, and knowing that his peace and joy are available no matter what happens to you. That’s the kind of twentysomething our world needs.

The Prophetic Ratzinger

In 1969 Fr. Joseph Ratzinger gave a series of interviews on the future of the Church.  These interviews can be found in the book Faith and the Future by Ignatius Press.  The following comes from Vultus Christi:

The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. 

To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are! 

How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but but the priest who is no specialist; who does not stand on the sidelines, watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of men, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future. 

Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge a Church that has lost much She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she loose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision . As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship. 

The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. 

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

Ralph Martin: A Second Chance for the Church

A Second Chance for the Church from Renewal Ministries on Vimeo.

Saint John Paul II on Vocations and Holiness

Pope John Paul II, Compostella, Spain, 1989
What do you seek, pilgrims? Each one of us here must ask himself this question. But you above all, since you have your life ahead of you. I invite you to decide definitively the direction of your way. With the very words of Christ, I ask you: “What do you seek”? (Jn 1:38). Do you seek God? The spiritual tradition of Christianity not only underlines the importance of our search for God. It highlights something more important still: it is God who looks for us. He comes out to meet us. Our way to Compostela means wanting to give an answer to our needs, to our questions, to our «search»; it also means going out to meet God who looks for us with a love so great that we can understand it only with difficulty. This meeting with God is achieved in Jesus Christ. It is in him, who has given his life for us, in his humanity that we experience the love which God has for us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

Lent: A Time For Review of Life Aimed at Growing in Holiness

The following comes from the blog of Bishop Paul Etienne:

Lent is clearly a time to examine our holiness of life.  Some have recently asked for greater detail in terms of what exactly holiness entails.  In short, holiness is found through our relationship with God.  That is why Jesus instructs us “to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matthew 5:48)  In other words, our holiness exists in God, who is Supreme holiness; Holiness itself. 

St. Thomas Aquinas saw holiness as our capacity to receive God.  “For nothing is worthy to receive God unless it be pure, according to Psalm 92:5: ‘Holiness becomes your house, O Lord.”  (Summa II-II Q. 81)  This is why the readings for Ash Wednesday plainly call us back to God.  The prophet Joel says: “Return to the Lord, your God.”  (2:12-18) St. Paul similarly stated: “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:20)

God’s will is that we be holy.  (1 Thessalonians 4:3)  And God has provided for this high calling through the Incarnation and Redeeming work of Christ.  We know this from St. Paul’s teaching: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.  In love, he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.”  (Ephesians 1: 3-6)

How does one grow in holiness?  Basically, growth in holiness occurs in two ways.  First, since our holiness is attained through Jesus Christ, we must draw near to him.  This is done through prayer, receiving the Sacraments, growing in our knowledge of Sacred Scripture, and practicing charity.  Second, and perhaps this needs to be first, we must remove from our day-to-day lives all that is crass. In other words, there are things in our life that can and do block our ability to receive Christ, and thus to be drawn into the very holiness that is God.

Perhaps a practical starting point is to think about the kind of television programming we watch, or the music we listen to, the places we search on the internet, the video games we play, the conversations we have or the mindless thoughts we may entertain.  Do these things lift our spirits to God?  Do they respect the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life?  Or do they leave us feeling empty, mindless, unfulfilled?  Good discernment tells us: “do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God.” (1 John 4:1)  If of the Holy Spirit, embrace it.  If of the counter spirit, (Satan) reject it. 

Once you identify a bad or questionable habit, take the risk and eliminate it from your routine for a while.  (This is what Lent calls us to do.)  Let God show you what a difference it makes when we make more room for him in our lives.  I have talked to several people over the years that stopped watching TV during Lent and were amazed after Lent when they began watching TV again, how offended they were by some of the shows they used to watch. 

Stated more positively, how much do we allow ourselves to experience beauty in sacred or classical music or art or even the simple beauty of nature?  Things that are beautiful naturally lead our heart, soul and mind to God.  (Philippians 4: 8)  Make a resolution to practice greater charity in just one relationship.

Perhaps finding a weekday Mass time is in order?  Spending more time with Jesus is absolutely necessary if we are going to grow in holiness, and there is no more privileged means of receiving Jesus than in the Eucharist.

I believe Abbot Marmion, OSB summs these points up nicely: “Our holiness will be the higher according as there is in us more loving dependence on God and conformity of our free will to our ultimate end (which is the manifestation of the Divine Glory).  The more we adhere to God by detaching ourselves from all that is not God, the more this dependence, conformity, adhesion, and detachment are firm and stable.”  Christ The Life of the Soul, p.28

These are just a few starting points to consider regarding holiness.  I’ll post more tomorrow.

 +pde

Saints Among Us

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

We have heard it often enough, “I don’t need to go to church. I don’t need organized religion. I can just worship God in my own time, in my own way.”

If I would have chosen that path–which is often tempting on Sunday morning–to just roll over and pull the covers over my head and ignore the chaos and confusion of getting breakfast on the table and everyone dressed, presentable and to church on time, I would have been the one who would have suffered for it, for I would have been the one who would have missed out on friendships that have nudged me–if not catapulted me–in the right direction, the direction of holiness.

I would have been the one who would have missed knowing “x.” No matter how difficult life is she is cheerful, not in a bubbly pop-the-cork champagne way, but in a smiling calmly Mona Lisa way. Her serene demeanor is one that invites the other to unburden the cares and worries of the heart to an empathetic ear.

Her compassionate concern for others brings to life those saint stories of long ago, making them real and not just fairy tales. At the same time, knowing someone who strives to be good and kind offers refreshing hope in a world that seems to have gone bonkers.

She is one person of so many others who has touched my life for the better, stretching me outside of my box of self-complacency, fear, and withdrawal. I can dwell on those who are unkind, self-centered and mean-spirited or I can remember those who are kind and loving–often expressing their thoughtfulness with nothing more than a simple gesture, an opening of a door, a welcoming invitation or a grateful thank you.

I can act like those who have impacted my life in a positive or negative way. I can emulate her who has little by the world’s standards but has given much to others by God’s standards, or I can follow the example of those who are consumed with having more and more, especially power and prestige.

Life is full of choices. I can follow my self-centered will and repartee unkindness with unkindness or strive to be the better person, trying to control my volcanic temper when it is churning into an all out eruption–an eruption that never benefits anyone. Witnessing someone else who exhibits self-control in the midst of adversity, awakens admiration and inspires like-mindedness.

A priest once told me that he knew of more than one young man who entered the priesthood because of Blessed Mother Teresa’s smile, nothing extraordinary, just her smile. But in many ways her smile was extraordinary. It was a reflection of her soul beaming through her joy-filled eyes. Those joy-filled eyes are like the eyes of my friend who takes the time out of her busy schedule to say hello, how are you? I have time for you! When we are engaged in a conversation, she could be self-absorbed and monopolize the conversation talking heedlessly about herself, but she does not. Those little acts of kindness, which appear to go unnoticed, can mean the most, especially in times of stress.

At the same time, going to church is not just about the friendships that encourage, but also about the grace that sustains us in the midst of sorrow and weakness. There are plenty of churches that offer a lively Christ-filled community. But there is only one Church that offers an intimate union with Christ, a union that offers the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. There is only one Church that offers the grace to overcome all obstacles to holiness. There is only one Church, rich in God’s love and mercy, which offers us the opportunity to cleanse us of our sins to begin anew.

Read the rest here.

What is Holiness?

The following comes from Catholic Spiritual Direction:

Above my desk where my MacBook, printer, and lamp share their home, hangs a large framed print of one of my favorite saints, Ignatius of Loyola. He’s dressed in a red chasuble and stole, the traditional vestments for the celebration of Mass. His eyes gaze heavenward; there is a glow on his face and an aura of light around his head. His right arm is bent upward; his hand, fingers and palm also pointing upward, is open in a gesture of praise. His left hand rests on the top of an open book and on the left page are written the words “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam”: For the greater glory of God. It is the image of a saint, an image of holiness.

As much as I love this painting of St. Ignatius and how it can inspire me to stay focused on the Lord, looking at it can also make me forget that he was imperfect. Of course, that may be what the artist’s intention was: images of saints are supposed to reveal their holiness, not their imperfections. However, does being holy mean that we are perfect, that we never sin?

Listen to the words of Pope Benedict XVI:

“Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness… Consequently, it is not the fact that we have never erred but our capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness which makes us saints. And we can all learn this way of holiness” (See Pope Benedict’s catechesis on the Apostles p. 157).

I don’t know about you, but these are some of the most encouraging words that I have ever read about what it means to be holy. Holiness doesn’t mean that we’re perfect. Holiness doesn’t mean that we don’t sin. Holiness means possessing the habit of beginning again and again in our walk with the Lord, the habit of daily conversion. And what happens is that this habit of beginning again, this habit of asking for and receiving God’s forgiveness every day, eventually becomes stronger than our sinful habits. As we begin again and again, the capacity of our hearts to receive God’s forgiveness and to live in friendship with Him expands. We begin to desire God more than we desire sin.

Yes, this is very encouraging indeed. For, as the Pope says, we can all learn this way of holiness. We can all learn to persevere and walk in an intimate friendship with God.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis and His Confessor's Cross

The following comes from the AP:

Pope Francis confessed Thursday that he took the rosary cross of his late confessor from his casket and wears it to this day in a fabric pouch under his cassock. He said he did so telling the late priest, "Give me half your mercy."

Francis made the revelation Thursday during an informal chat with Roman priests about the need to be merciful to their flocks. He told the story of the "great confessor" of Buenos Aires who had heard confessions from most of the diocesan priests as well as from Pope John Paul II when he visited Argentina.

When the priest died, Francis went to pray by his open casket and was stunned that no one had brought any flowers.

`'This man forgave the sins of all the priests of Buenos Aires, but not a single flower ...?" Francis recalled. So he went out and bought a bouquet of roses, and when he returned to arrange them around the casket, he saw the rosary the priest still held in his hand.

"And immediately there came to mind the thief we all have inside ourselves and while I arranged the flowers I took the cross and with just a bit of force I removed it," he said, showing with his hands how he pulled the cross off the rosary. "And in that moment I looked at him and I said `Give me half your mercy.'"

Francis said he kept the cross in his shirt pocket for years, but that the cassock he wears now as pope doesn't have a pocket. He now keeps it in a little pouch underneath.

"And whenever a bad thought comes to mind about someone, my hand goes here, always," he said, gesturing to his heart. "And I feel the grace, and that makes me feel better."

Father Benedict Groeschel: ‘A Heart for the Poor’

The following comes from the NCR:

“St. Vincent de Paul said: If you love the poor, your life will be filled with sunlight, and you will not be frightened at the hour of death,” Father Benedict Joseph Groeschel, a founder of the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, once wrote. “I wish to witness that this is true.”

Those words encapsulated the remarkable priestly ministry of Father Groeschel. He lived and worked in a small converted garage, even as he maintained a tireless pace as a popular preacher, counselor and author who expressed himself with the accent and edgy humor of a New Jersey native.

Now, following his death at the age of 81 on Oct. 3, the vigil of the feast of his patron, St. Francis, those same words sustain his community and the many souls he touched in his rich and fruitful life.

“He had a heart for the poor. While he was brilliant, wrote 46 books and was on television, his love for the poor kept him rooted,” Father Glenn Sudano, a co-founder of the Franciscan Friars, told the Register, expressing both sadness at his friend’s death and “gratitude for his life.”

“If there is anything he would want to go with him to heaven, it is that he served Jesus in the poor.”

Father Groeschel died after an extended illness. He had worked primarily in the New York area, serving as the first superior of the Friars of the Renewal after their founding in 1987, and also as the long-time director of the Office for Spiritual Development of the Archdiocese of New York, among other duties. 

He also was the author of many popular books, including Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development and Arise From Darkness: What to Do When Life Doesn't Make Sense.

Iconic Presence on EWTN

But he drew greatest national and international attention through his work with the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), hosting a live weekly show beginning in the 1980s, and often appearing on the network.

Michael Warsaw, the chairman and chief executive officer of ETWN, expressed sadness at the news of Father Groeschel’s death, remarking on the decisive role he played as a presence on the network, and as a supporter, during the rocky early days of EWTN. 

“Like Mother Angelica herself, Father Benedict was an iconic presence on EWTN. His gray beard and Franciscan habit were known to network viewers around the world and he had a profound impact on the lives of countless individuals who knew him only through his television and radio presence,” said Warsaw, who is also the Register’s publisher.

“In many of the most difficult days in the history of EWTN, Father Benedict was a strong and vocal supporter of Mother Angelica.”

Doug Keck, EWTN’s president and chief operating officer, worked with Father Groeschel for many years and attested to the priest’s influence. “He contributed the deep wisdom of Catholic spirituality and the ability, similar to Mother Angelica, to reach people where they were hurting,” Keck told the Register.

“Our audience loved him: He had the likability factor. But he was a man on a mission: He stood up for the truth of the faith when others didn’t, but he taught the truth in love.”

EWTN’s chaplain, Father Joseph Mary Wolfe of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, who first met Father Groeschel more than 25 years ago, said the priest served as a model for his own vocation and was “a father to our community at the beginning of our community’s life.”

“When he began visiting EWTN in the 1980s, I was usually his chauffeur, and it was a workout to keep up with him, even in his 70s,” Father Wolfe told the Register.

“He would do his series and then visit or counsel people. He didn’t sleep much; he spent himself for others. He was and remains a model for me of sacrificial generosity.”

Drawn to the Priestly Life

Born in Jersey City, N.J., in 1933, the future Franciscan priest attended Catholic elementary and high school, before he entered the province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order in Huntington, Ind., in 1951. He was ordained in 1959.

In one of his many humorous stories told in books and public forums, he recalled the first time he was drawn to the priestly life and to service of the poor.

As a young child, he said he saw a nun bringing food every day to a poor widow. He followed the nun, and looked in the window to see a woman, who looked like a witch in a fairy tale. Frightened, he ran away to church, but he realized that he wanted to do the same. 

After ordination, Father Groeschel’s first priestly assignment was to serve as the interim Catholic chaplain at Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. His service to troubled children placed in the residential program led him to pursue graduate studies in psychology. But he sought to combine his chosen discipline with a distinctively Christian compassion for those in need.

In 1967, he opened St. Francis House in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, as a new residential program designed to help adolescent boys prepare for a successful adult life. He was inspired to do so when two boys from the Children’s Village had no place to live. After struggling to find a suitable location, he found the right building on his birthday. 

Joseph Campo, the longtime director of St. Francis, recalled the priest’s great love for the boys in the program, and said that he “naturally saw the good in people” and they responded to that. 

In 1970, he received his doctorate in psychology at Columbia University, and would teach pastoral psychology for almost 40 years at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers. 

Trinity Retreat House

In 1973, Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York appointed him the founding director of Trinity Retreat house in Larchmont, N.Y. At the facility on the shores of Long Island Sound, he provided a respite for priests and religious.

There, Father Groeschel counseled priests thinking about leaving their vocation, and others struggling with addiction or depression. 

Trinity Retreat became a hub for a range of Catholic leaders and groups who sought the priest’s counsel.

Sister of Life Mother Agnes Mary Donovan remembers visiting Trinity at the invitation of Father Groeschel, two months after the Sisters of Life was founded in 1991. 

“He took us on a hike on the shore of Long Island Sound. When we got to the end of the trail, he pulled me over, and said, ‘Sister, this will be a difficult undertaking, but I will be there for you,’” Mother Agnes told the Register.

“It turned out that whether it was 10pm or 4am, I could call Father to find help for a sister in distress or a troubling situation — apostolically or for the community. He always answered the phone and followed up.”

Looking back, the superior general of the Sisters of Life said the priest played a decisive role in the survival and success of her order, which has thrived over the past two decades, drawing many vocations to advance its apostolate.

“It was in no small part thanks to his wisdom that we are still here,” she said. “The friars are very close to us. We are often serving the same people, and they will provide for sacramental needs of women we are serving, or those who come on our retreats. They are a vital part of our ministry.”

Inspiration in a Time of Confusion

In 1974, Cardinal Cooke asked him to direct the Office of Spiritual Development for the archdiocese, and he attended to a range of education forums, including weekly afternoons of recollection, which were designed to revive and inspire the faith of Catholics in a time of confusion and uncertainty.

During the turbulent years in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, Father Groeschel was troubled by some of the policies and practices of his Capuchin province, and disturbed by what he viewed as a piecemeal approach to the faith that lacked a deeper prophetic witness.

The example of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta inspired his spiritual path, stirring a deep desire to be closer to the poor. And as he saw young women flock to her order, he concluded that young Catholics were yearning to embrace a life of distinctive sacrificial witness to Christ’s love for the poor.

“An invitation to conduct a retreat for the Missionaries of Charity in India was the beginning of Father Groeschel’s long relationship with that community and his deep friendship with its founder,” noted the official obituary of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. 

In March 1987, he met with seven other Capuchin Franciscan friars and with their agreement asked Cardinal John O’Connor for permission to establish the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and the New York archbishop approved that request. Later, he was elected the order’s first community servant.

Father Sudano was part of the small group of Capuchins who began the renewal in spring of 1987, and he still can recall the first time he heard Father Groeschel preach in the 1970s.

“Storms were brewing, and the barque of Peter was taking a lot of water. He would speak candidly about the need for renewal in the Church and for personal renewal, but with a tremendous humility, focus and verve,” recalled Father Sudano. “It was the Catholic faith in its fullness, there was nothing provincial or marginal in his approach.”

A Radical Witness

Father Andrew Apostoli, another of the co-founders, recalled that Father Groeschel “had courage and deep concern for the Franciscan way of life.”

In the mid-1980s, Father Apostoli said, Father Groeschel saw religious communities “weakening because they had lost their way in the spiritual journey by adapting many secular ways and values.” He knew that “when we began the community he would be criticized, but he still went forward with what he truly believed God was calling him to.”

Father Sudano said the eight Capuchins who ultimately founded the Friars of the Renewal had not intended to leave the Capuchins. 

“Our desire was to be a reform group within the order. After three years of fraternal dialogue, it became evident that the province didn’t know what to do with us.”

As the group considered their next step, Father Groeschel pointed to “a small group of third order Franciscans living in the South Bronx in a radical way,” recalled Father Sudano. “He told me, ‘We should do something like that.’”

Today, there are 115 brothers and priests in the Friars of the Renewal, and 31 sisters of the Community of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal.

“We have 15 friaries. There are two houses in England, two in Ireland, two in Central America and seven in the U.S., in New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas,” said Father Sudano.

The friars are quite active in the New York area, especially the South Bronx where they work extensively with the poor in various ways, running two homeless shelters for men, one for men actively working for healing and recovery; a food pantry; a neighborhood youth outreach started by Father Groeschel to help youth learn their Catholic faith; a free medical clinic; weekly lunch in Harlem; and in Yonkers an outreach to the Latino community.

The friars also conduct prayer vigils at abortion businesses and sponsor evenings of music, prayer and fellowship for young adults.

Sister Lucille Cutrone, who serves as superior of the Community of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, told the Register that her community could not have been formed “without the gifts of Father Benedict’s vision. His heart was very much like St. Francis: he loved God, he loved the Church, he loved religious life and he loved the poor.”

Said Sister Lucille, “I’ll never forget one of our first Christmas celebrations at our shelter in the South Bronx. We were very few then, just a few friars and sisters and the homeless men. Father Benedict was singing Christmas carols with them and joyfully handing out the most beautiful gifts to the men who were so deeply moved.

“They didn’t expect to receive anything and there was Father Benedict, making them feel like they were the most important people in the world. And they were.”

Near-Fatal Car Accident

On Jan. 11, 2004, Father Groeschel was hit by a car, in a near-fatal accident that shattered his left arm and put him in a coma for days. The accident left him in a permanently weakened condition, but after an extended recovery, he returned to his work.

Campo from St. Francis House remembers visiting his friend in the hospital after the accident.

“He couldn’t speak much, but I was holding his hand and talking to him. He could see I was crying. 

“When it was time to leave, I looked at him. He turned and looked at me and managed to say, ‘Joe, coraggio, — courage in English,” said Campo.

  

“He is the one we thought was dying and he told me to have courage. And you know what, I did after that.”

In 2012, Father Groeschel retired from public life, following a minor stroke, and was welcomed by the Little Sisters of the Poor in Totowa, N.J. 

In September of that year, Father Groeschel stepped down as host of EWTN’s Sunday Night Prime, after he made statements in the Register suggesting that a minor is “the seducer” in “a lot” of sexual abuse cases, and that many abusers on their first offense should not go to jail “because their intention was not committing a crime.”

He subsequently apologized for the comments, as did his religious community, the Register and EWTN, who stressed that the priest’s physical health and mental clarity were both declining, noting that these comments did not reflect his life’s work.

Father Groeschel’s death on Oct. 3 came in the wake of a recent fall that affected the same arm that had been shattered after he was hit by the car. 

His physicians believed he was too weak for surgery and sent him home.

Following St. Francis

Father Groeschel’s death occurred as his community celebrated the vigil of the feast of St. Francis, founder of the Franciscans, whose feast day is Oct. 4.

Father Apostoli noted that Father Groeschel died late in the evening of Oct. 3, the same date St. Francis died during vespers.

“I see it as a blessing that he died on the feast of St. Francis to whom he was so dedicated,” he said. “After all, through his leadership and under his guidance a new Franciscan family came into existence — the Community of Friars of the Renewal.”

Details for Father Groeschel’s wake and funeral will be forthcoming.

“He poured himself out for others no matter what the cost — and sometimes the cost to him was very great,” said the Community of the Friars of the Renewal in a statement.

“To have known him was to have been helped by him and even loved by him.”

Cardinal Van Thuan: Model of hope

(Romereports.com) The life of late Cardinal, Francis Xavier Van Thuan was unique, and perhaps even saintly. From being imprisoned for over a decade to becoming one of the main prelates of his native Vietnam. 


WALDERY HILGEMAN
Van Thuan Cause for Canonization “Saints stand out from the rest, not because they were perfect but because they made it a point, despite the challenges, to follow Christ closely. It's about living one's Christian vocation at a heroic level.” 
The first stage of his canonization process,  known as the Diocesan Process, has come to a close. It involved thousands of pages that include testimonies, his own writings and accounts on his life and how he carried out his faith.

LUISA MELO
Cardinal Van Thuan Canonization “The presence of Cardinal Van Thuan is alive. He may not be here physically, but spiritually he is. I feel it.”
He served as a Cardinal and as the President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Justice and Peace.  But, perhaps the period that stands out the most, are the 13 years he spent behind bars, nine of them in solitary confinement.  The communist regime, arrested him in 1975, when he was ordained a Bishop.  He was never tried or sentenced. Even so, he always encouraged people, to leave the past behind. 

CARD. François-Xavier VAN THUAN
September 2002“As I said the other day, the future is much more exciting than the past.”
During that time, the government actually had to replace the prison guards, because one by one, they too became Catholic. His signature cross, he wore even after being released, was made with the help of the guards. 

WALDERY HILGEMAN
Van Thuan Cause for Canonization “The prison guards helped him out. They gave him some electrical wire. He cut out the plastic covering and made a chain out of it. He placed his handmade cross on that chain and wore it around his neck.”
Those who knew him best, say he was always cheerful. Even in the last days of his life, he would crack jokes, laugh and mimmick those around him. He would often say that if he wasn't a priest, he would have been a comedian. 

LUISA MELO
Cardinal Van Thuan Canonization “He would imitate John Paul II, Cardinal Sodano, and all of us, really. Each one of us. He was very good at it. He combined his simple spirit with his great sense of humor.” 
Cardinal Van Thuan died on September 16th, 2002. His canonization process began in 2007, on the fifth anniversary of his death.