Dying Young

I came across this account of today’s saint, John Berchmans SJ, one of a whole multitude of Catholic saints who died young, and I was interested because the author, a fellow Jesuit named Fr John Hardon (1914-2000), compares him to St Therese of Lisieux.  ‘St. John Berchmans was born in 1599 in Berbont, Belgium and died in Rome in 1621 at the ripe age of twenty-two. Unlike Saints Stanislaus and Aloysius who were members of the nobility, aristocratic, wealthy – John was from a very ordinary family. His father was a shoemaker … . His mother was never well, which mainly explains why he was brought up by a Premonstratensian priest by the name of Father Peter Emerick who taught him his religion, other subjects, and was in the habit of visiting shrines … At thirteen, as the younger children were coming along, the father told John to leave school, stop his education, and work in the shoemaking shop. John protested that he wanted to become a priest and shoemaking is not the usual apprenticeship to the priesthood. In any case the father compromised by getting John a job working in a rectory, cleaning, waiting on table, washing dishes and being paid for his education at a local seminary. … I would say the first prominent feature of his spirituality was his simplicity of life. There are no reports of ecstasies or raptures. There was not even a report of anything extraordinary that he ever did. You might say he was a 'little flower' before his time; she a Carmelite, he a Jesuit. The implications for us, if we think about them, are breath taking. The secret is to see God's will in everything. Now that everything in Berchman’s vocabulary meant not just, well, the things that occur in a given day … For him, seeing God's will in the circumstances in everyday life went down to the smallest, even trifling details.’ [Courtesy of the Real Presence Association website]

Intercessions

RIP Fr Jon Bielawski, Jacqui, Sister Maisie, Ann Widdecombe (her funeral was yesterday)

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Catherine, Alex (43 with five children), Theresa K, Elena

Sophie – newborn having heart surgery; Sianna, young child in the post-operative phase; James, recovering from heart surgery

Ivy – sick child

Brian (recovering from Pneumonia)

Kevin (heart attack)

William Gove (in recovery)

Illness:  Katy Keeling

Siena, Elara – sick children

David OCDS – housebound

Grace – troubling ailments, job difficulties, family (deceased mother and health of father)

Mark – brain infection

Michael, Kira – vulnerable youngsters

Defence of the unborn and the elderly

We are asked to pray for the Diocese of Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand, as the Northern Mission celebrates its centenary. The process of selecting a new bishop continues.