Rich
2020-05-16 07:07:44 UTC
-- 1 John 5:14-15 –-
And this is the confidence which we have towards him: That, whatsoever
we shall ask according to his will, he heareth us. And we know that
he heareth us whatsoever we ask: we know that we have the petitions
which we request of him. DRB
=================================
"I woke up early this morning
And paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I had to take time to pray"
Stop this morning and take time to discuss with God what he wants for you.
When we align our days with what he wants us to do--he listens and will give us
the direction and power to do his will.
<<>><<>><<>>
May 16th - St. Andrew Bobola
Also known as
Andrzej Bobola
Apostle of Lithuania
Hunter of Souls
Memorial
16 May
21 February in Poland
23 May (Jesuits)
(1591-1657)
For most martyrs, one persecution is enough. St. Andrew Bobola, who
died for his Catholicism in 1657, was, in a sense, doubly persecuted.
Long after his death his body was again grossly mistreated by enemies
of his faith.
Andrew, the scion of a distinguished Polish family, was born in
Sandomir, Poland, in 1591. In 1611 he entered the Society of Jesus at
Vilna, in the present Lithuania. Ordained to the priesthood in 1622,
he was appointed pastor at Niewiez. There he won great favor, not only
for his pastoral efforts but also for his heroic care, in 1624, of the
victims of plague.
Father Bobola spent his whole active priestly career working in Vilna
and elsewhere as a missionary. He enjoyed great success in bringing
back lay Catholics to the practice of the faith, and in persuading
whole villages of separated Orthodox to return to union with the pope.
In the concurrent political and religious struggle between Poland and
Russia, the Jesuits became marked men, Bobola in particular. When he
entered a town that had a large non-Catholic population, the townsfolk
made a practice of sending their children out to insult him and try to
shout him down as he preached. Andrew did not allow himself to be
discouraged by them, or even impatient.
Eventually, however, the Polish Jesuits were driven from their
churches and colleges and had to take refuge in the forests and
wetlands. In 1652 Prince Radziwill invited them to live in one of his
residences at Pinsk, in White Russia. Bobola accepted the invitation,
although he knew that Pinsk was an even more perilous location.
In May 1657, Cossack cavalry raided Pinsk and the surroundings. Near
Janow they seized Father Andrew and gave him a severe beating. Then
two of them, tying him by a rope to the pommels of their horses, made
him stumble back to Janow behind them.
At Janow the priest was interrogated and ordered to abjure his
Catholicism. When he gave a firm reply, the officer nearly cut off his
hand with a sword. The barbarity with which he was then treated was
almost unbelievable: scorched and skinned by his tormentors, his nose
and lips were sliced off and his tongue torn out. The prayers he
uttered to Jesus and Mary seemed to make his bitter executioners all
the more furious. Finally, they beheaded him. They cast his mutilated
body on a manure pile.
The dead missionary was buried in the crypt of the Jesuit church in
Pinsk. Forty years passed. Then in 1697 his tomb was rediscovered in
the ruined church and found to be perfectly incorrupt, even though it
had never been embalmed. Still clearly visible on the fair flesh were
his wounds and mutilations. It was as if God, by this miraculous sign,
had wished to preserve the evidences of his cruel martyrdom. Father
Andrew’s tomb at once became a center of pilgrimage and many miracles
were reported. The cause for his canonization was soon introduced,
although circumstances prevented his being declared a saint until
1938.
Over a decade before the canonization, the treasured relics of Blessed
Andrew were submitted to new indignities. The Bolsheviks came to power
in Russia in 1917. In 1922, Soviet troops took over the shrine church
(it was then in Polotsk) and, knowing of the reputation of Bobola’s
body for being incorrupt, broke open the tomb. Unimpressed,
apparently, they stripped the body of its clothing and threw it on the
floor. It was then taken to Moscow and put on exhibit in an atheist
medical museum as an illustration of religious credulity. Thus did the
saint undergo his 2nd persecution.
When he learned of the desecration, Pope Pius XI asked the Russian
government to consign the relics to him. Once the whereabouts of the
body were discovered, Father Edmund A. Walsh, an American Jesuit, as
an emissary of the pope, succeeded in bringing it to Rome in 1923.
After the canonization, the relics were carried back in triumph to
Poland. Today they are finally at rest in the church of St. Andrew
Bobola in Warsaw. The martyr’s frame is now rigid and his skin is
dark, but the body is still well preserved and bears even today the
marks of his hideous tortures.
–Father Robert
Saint Quote:
Let us therefore give ourselves to God with a great desire to begin to
live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin,
and to establish His life within us.
--St. John Eudes
Bible Quote:
Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations;
Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. And let
patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire,
lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4) DRB
<><><><>
QUESTIONING HEART
Mary is crying!
I care...do you?
Jesus is bleeding anew,
And I care...do you?
Do you ever say "I love Thee?"
He cares for you--
Will you love Him till the end time?
There's Heaven then for you!
And this is the confidence which we have towards him: That, whatsoever
we shall ask according to his will, he heareth us. And we know that
he heareth us whatsoever we ask: we know that we have the petitions
which we request of him. DRB
=================================
"I woke up early this morning
And paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I had to take time to pray"
Stop this morning and take time to discuss with God what he wants for you.
When we align our days with what he wants us to do--he listens and will give us
the direction and power to do his will.
<<>><<>><<>>
May 16th - St. Andrew Bobola
Also known as
Andrzej Bobola
Apostle of Lithuania
Hunter of Souls
Memorial
16 May
21 February in Poland
23 May (Jesuits)
(1591-1657)
For most martyrs, one persecution is enough. St. Andrew Bobola, who
died for his Catholicism in 1657, was, in a sense, doubly persecuted.
Long after his death his body was again grossly mistreated by enemies
of his faith.
Andrew, the scion of a distinguished Polish family, was born in
Sandomir, Poland, in 1591. In 1611 he entered the Society of Jesus at
Vilna, in the present Lithuania. Ordained to the priesthood in 1622,
he was appointed pastor at Niewiez. There he won great favor, not only
for his pastoral efforts but also for his heroic care, in 1624, of the
victims of plague.
Father Bobola spent his whole active priestly career working in Vilna
and elsewhere as a missionary. He enjoyed great success in bringing
back lay Catholics to the practice of the faith, and in persuading
whole villages of separated Orthodox to return to union with the pope.
In the concurrent political and religious struggle between Poland and
Russia, the Jesuits became marked men, Bobola in particular. When he
entered a town that had a large non-Catholic population, the townsfolk
made a practice of sending their children out to insult him and try to
shout him down as he preached. Andrew did not allow himself to be
discouraged by them, or even impatient.
Eventually, however, the Polish Jesuits were driven from their
churches and colleges and had to take refuge in the forests and
wetlands. In 1652 Prince Radziwill invited them to live in one of his
residences at Pinsk, in White Russia. Bobola accepted the invitation,
although he knew that Pinsk was an even more perilous location.
In May 1657, Cossack cavalry raided Pinsk and the surroundings. Near
Janow they seized Father Andrew and gave him a severe beating. Then
two of them, tying him by a rope to the pommels of their horses, made
him stumble back to Janow behind them.
At Janow the priest was interrogated and ordered to abjure his
Catholicism. When he gave a firm reply, the officer nearly cut off his
hand with a sword. The barbarity with which he was then treated was
almost unbelievable: scorched and skinned by his tormentors, his nose
and lips were sliced off and his tongue torn out. The prayers he
uttered to Jesus and Mary seemed to make his bitter executioners all
the more furious. Finally, they beheaded him. They cast his mutilated
body on a manure pile.
The dead missionary was buried in the crypt of the Jesuit church in
Pinsk. Forty years passed. Then in 1697 his tomb was rediscovered in
the ruined church and found to be perfectly incorrupt, even though it
had never been embalmed. Still clearly visible on the fair flesh were
his wounds and mutilations. It was as if God, by this miraculous sign,
had wished to preserve the evidences of his cruel martyrdom. Father
Andrew’s tomb at once became a center of pilgrimage and many miracles
were reported. The cause for his canonization was soon introduced,
although circumstances prevented his being declared a saint until
1938.
Over a decade before the canonization, the treasured relics of Blessed
Andrew were submitted to new indignities. The Bolsheviks came to power
in Russia in 1917. In 1922, Soviet troops took over the shrine church
(it was then in Polotsk) and, knowing of the reputation of Bobola’s
body for being incorrupt, broke open the tomb. Unimpressed,
apparently, they stripped the body of its clothing and threw it on the
floor. It was then taken to Moscow and put on exhibit in an atheist
medical museum as an illustration of religious credulity. Thus did the
saint undergo his 2nd persecution.
When he learned of the desecration, Pope Pius XI asked the Russian
government to consign the relics to him. Once the whereabouts of the
body were discovered, Father Edmund A. Walsh, an American Jesuit, as
an emissary of the pope, succeeded in bringing it to Rome in 1923.
After the canonization, the relics were carried back in triumph to
Poland. Today they are finally at rest in the church of St. Andrew
Bobola in Warsaw. The martyr’s frame is now rigid and his skin is
dark, but the body is still well preserved and bears even today the
marks of his hideous tortures.
–Father Robert
Saint Quote:
Let us therefore give ourselves to God with a great desire to begin to
live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin,
and to establish His life within us.
--St. John Eudes
Bible Quote:
Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations;
Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. And let
patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire,
lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4) DRB
<><><><>
QUESTIONING HEART
Mary is crying!
I care...do you?
Jesus is bleeding anew,
And I care...do you?
Do you ever say "I love Thee?"
He cares for you--
Will you love Him till the end time?
There's Heaven then for you!