Christ’s Resurrection Raises Saints!
Dear Parish Family,
The power of Jesus’ Resurrection gives us all the calling and capacity to become all that God desired for us to be: SAINTS. The power of Jesus’ Resurrection makes God’s command to us possible: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” The power of Jesus’ Resurrection gives us mere mortals the divine life to become God’s adopted sons and daughters and to love as Jesus loved!
The saints that artist Joseph Macklin is depicting in the upper apse of our sanctuary reveals to us that the saints come from all walks of life and, as the Book of Revelation reveals, “from every nation, race, people, and tongue” (Rv 7:9). They remind us that God calls each of us to be nothing less than a saint. The French novelist Leon Bloy recognized: “The only real sadness in life is not to become a saint.”
Over the last month, I’ve been quite spotty in revealing to you two saints each week who will be depicted in Joe Macklin’s mural. I had already revealed the first dozen, and so I thought that Easter would be a great time to reveal to you the last of the 24 selected saints, but for the last two (which I will mention on Divine Mercy Sunday):
- St. Therese of Lisieux (d. 1897), also known as “The Little Flower, is a big favorite in our parish and around the world! She is the patron saint of missions and missionaries, which may strike many as strange, given that she was a cloistered nun who died at the tender age of 24. Yet it was her cavernous desire for the salvation of souls and the reality that the essential foundation for the success of missions is prayer, as ultimately Jesus Christ is the one who brings souls to the grace of conversion and gives the gift of faith to all.
- St. Faustina Kowalska (d. 1938) is the Polish nun to whom Jesus appeared to reveal to her God’s unfathomable mercy for a broken and sinful humanity. She records in her famous Diary these words of the Lord: “The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy…. He who trusts in My mercy will not perish.”
- St. Maximilian Kolbe (d. 1941), a fellow Pole and neck and neck in popularity among our parishioners with St. Faustina, is the saint of Auschwitz, who is also one of the biggest promoters of Marian consecration. He is known for the sacrificial offering of his life in place of one of the prisoners who had been one of the ten sentenced to death for the escape of a prisoner from the Nazi concentration camp.
- St. Josephine Bakhita (d. 1947) is the saint of South Sudan who had been trafficked at the young age of 7 or 8, sold two or three times over the course of the next dozen years, and finally liberated by the last family who had purchased her. She became a Canossian nun who expressed gratitude for her enslavement because that was the path by which she discovered her beloved Jesus Christ.
- St. Gianna Beretta Molla (d. 1962) is the Italian pediatrician and mother who, during her final pregnancy, encountered life-threatening complications. She refused the hysterectomy that would have resulted in the death of her preborn child. That daughter, Emanuela Molla, is now a physician herself. We honor her prolife witness in days when too many children in the womb are killed each day, even with no threat to the life of the mother.
- St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (d. 1968) is the Italian Capuchin friar and mystic who received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ. Many of the lives he affected and who witnessed firsthand his miracles are still alive today. He was known for his countless confessions, in which he would reveal to penitents knowledge of parts of their lives that they had kept secret.
- St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (d. 1997) is one of the two most popular saints who lived in the lifetime of many of us. She was known for an untiring dedication to the care of the forgotten and the poorest of the poor.
- St. John Paul the Great (d. 2005) is the other one of those two most popular saints of our age. The list of accomplishments is way too long to list here. His funeral gathered millions from around the world, among them ten sovereigns, over 80 heads of state, and dignitaries from over 200 countries.
- Blessed Michael J. McGivney (d. 1890) is the founder of the Knights of Columbus. Given all the good work that our Knights do for our parish and for the legacy of all the works of mercy done throughout the world, we honor their founding father.
- Blessed Solanus Casey (d. 1957) is our very own Michigan saint and Capuchin friar! The counsel from this simple priest and porter and the miracles that occurred both when he was alive on earth and after his passing are numerous and have affected many lives of fellow Michiganders!
The last two will be revealed next Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday! These wide variety of saints are meant to inspire us to be saints ourselves! And lest you think that sainthood is out of reach, remember St. Josemaria Escriva’s reminder that “a saint is a sinner that keeps trying.” If you do that, God will complete the good work he has begun in you!
Happy Easter! Praying for an abundance of the Lord’s Resurrection Power for all of us!
Father Chas