My Debt to the Saints

There have been a number of Saints who have influenced or even completely changed the course of my life.  Chief among them are my dear "little sisters in Heaven": Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, Saint Bernadette Soubirous, and Blessed Jacinta Marto of Fatima.  Also there are the Saints like the great Doctors Saint Alphonsus Ligouri, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Francis de Sales who have impacted me greatly though their teaching.  

Therese is especially beloved by the Irish people.

And of course there is Saint Louis Marie de Montfort and Saint Maximilian Kolbe who (along with Saint Alphonsus) taught me how to love our Lady and to consecrate myself to her Son Jesus Christ through her.  

Our Lady of Knock, Ireland.  A unique apparition of modern times in which our Lady did not call for penance for the people of Ireland as she did in France at La Salette and Lourdes, at Fatima in Portugal, and Akita in Japan.  Rather she came for the purpose of consoling the Irish people who were suffering greatly at that time by an economic disaster and famine orchestrated by the Protestant English.

And then there are those like Saint Josef Damien de Vuester, Saint Gabriel of our Lady of Sorrows, Blessed Bartolo Longo, Venerable Father Augustine of the Most Blessed Sacrament OCD, Venerable Leon Dupont, and Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen who have inspired me immensely by the witness of their lives.  The last of these of course being one of Saint Patrick’s greatest sons and a immense blessing given by him via the Irish people to the United Sates.  And he now rests, most fittingly, in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.  When I was in High School I had the great privilege to go down into the crypt and see the tomb, though I did not appreciate it at the time it was a great blessing indeed.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen giving a lecture series on Saint Therese in Ireland (1973)

But there are three Saints to whom I owe everything.  If it were not for these three Saints I would not be Catholic and I very well might not have even existed, and nor might you.  These great men are Saint Patrick, Saint Benedict, and the much lesser known (most unjustly) Saint Columbanus (whose feast is celebrated on November 24^th in Ireland).

The great Apostle to Ireland, Patrick who was born in Scotland in 387 and died in Ireland in 493. The end result of the work of Saint Patrick is so astounding that there is no equal to it in history.  No other Saint who single handedly converted a nation: not Saint Remigius (France), nor Saint Boniface (Germany), Saint Leander of Seville (Spain), and not even the glorious Apostles Saints Peter and Paul (Italy) and has it remained on the whole actually Catholic to this day.  For more than one and half millennia the work Saint Patrick did has endured.  It is no wonder that it is said that one Lent he went up on top of a mountain in Ireland and stayed there until Easter praying and doing penance, and at the end of which he was given a choice by God to have whatever he wanted and he asked to have the privilege of judging the Irish people himself at the end of time and it was granted to him.

Now just a few years before the death of the Apostle to Ireland the great Father of Western Monasticism, Saint Benedict, was born in Italy in the year 480.  He would see the entrance of the barbarians into Italy and even into Rome which was in the midst of its final collapse during his childhood.  His great contribution to Europe and ultimately to the world was his great Monastic Rule.  This rule has proven to be the basis of more houses of religious life than probably any other throughout history because of its incredible wisdom and prudence and the fact that it is not to strict and nor is it too mild but suited to turning ordinary men and women in saints without fail for century upon century.  The impact this one single document has had on the world is incalculable and has been the basis of more religious orders than any other Rule of religious life.  

The great Patriarch of Western Monasticism would die in 543 and in the same year would be born one of the greatest and most influential sons of Saint Patrick, and this is of course Saint Columbanus.  He was raised devoutly by his mother and grew to be good Catholic man, but like all of us he struggled with temptations.  This was partly due to the temptations put before his eyes by some of his less devout countrywomen who found him attractive and attempted to entice him to themselves.  He was at last delivered from this perilous situation by the council of a holy religious woman who told him:

Twelve years ago I fled from the world, and shut myself up in this cell. Hast thou forgotten Samson, David and Solomon, all led astray by the love of women? There is no safety for thee, young man, except in flight.

And at this point he was given a great grace to see his path in life and that was the monastic life.  He entered one of the many monasteries of Ireland and placed himself under the tutelage of a holy old monk who instructed him in the ways of sanctity.  He great greatly in holiness and after a number of years he began to feel the tugging of his heart by God to take all that he had learned and the holiness he acquired and share it with the world.  He then discerned that he was called to be a missionary to the European continent which had became overrun with barbarians and had greatly been diminished in the faith.  And so after obtaining permission from his superiors he set out with 12 companions and crossed the channel to Gaul (modern day France).  From there they traveled through the land re-evangelizing the people and as they moved the began to spread out and the apostles of Ireland set about saving Europe.  Our dear Holy Father (Emeritus) Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the work of Saint Columbanus in his Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland of 19 March 2010, on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph as follows:

Historically, the Catholics of Ireland have proved an enormous force for good at home and abroad. Celtic monks like Saint Columbanus spread the Gospel in Western Europe and laid the foundations of medieval monastic culture. The ideals of holiness, charity and transcendent wisdom born of the Christian faith found expression in the building of churches and monasteries and the establishment of schools, libraries and hospitals, all of which helped to consolidate the spiritual identity of Europe. Those Irish missionaries drew their strength and inspiration from the firm faith, strong leadership and upright morals of the Church in their native land.

Thus the holiness of Saint Patrick still so very strong in those days as if he was even still among them personally was infused into these 13 apostles to Europe.  One of these disciples, Saint Gall, would travel as far as the alps in an area that would one day become Switzerland.  There he would work and he would die.  Near where he was buried would be erected a monastery which bears his name (as does the entire Canton or “state” that surrounds that area) and was known as the Abbey of Saint Gallen.

This monastery and many others that would be established by Saint Columbanus and his disciples would initially follow the monastic rule written by that Saint, but the rule was incredibly severe and after the death of the Saint many of these monasteries chose to take the Rule of Saint Benedict.  Thus many count Saint Columbanus as a Benedictine saint even though technically he is not.  You can read more about his life here.

The Apostle to Europe would die in 615.  But his legacy and that of Saints Patrick and Benedict would endure.  Just a little over 13 centuries later a young boy and his two sisters would attend the Abbey school in Saint Gallen, and there they were instructed in the Catholic faith by the Monks living there and became devout and good people. 

Years later after the birth of his first son this young man would travel by sea with his wife and child to the new world.   Eventually he would settle in an old town near a Benedictine Monastery.  It was in the school taught by these monks that he placed his son (and later his second son) and there they were instructed from Elementary School through High School. 

When his first Grandson was born to his elder son some years later there was a strong possibility that he was not to be baptized Catholic (or even at all), but strong in his faith he insisted that his first grandchild would be Catholic.  And so he was on the Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great one of the greatest Benedictine Saints in all of history.  At his grandsons first communion he would come with great joy to celebrate the day and gave his grandson a most precious gift: a medal of Saint Benedict.  From this day the great Father of Europe would be watching over this young boy.  When it came time for his confirmation again his now very elderly grandfather was his Confirmation sponsor. 

Two years later on the 31^st of March in the month of the Feasts of Saint Patrick and Saint Benedict on Easter day of that year he would pass to his eternal reward.  A few days later at the Traditional Requiem Mass offered for his funeral his grandson sat in the front pew pouring tears from his eyes.  But it was at that very moment that God reached down into the soul of this young boy and by an incredible and entirely unmerited movement of His grace converted the boy, and placed an unquenchable fire in his soul to work perseveringly for the rest of his life to attain salvation, and to one day in Heaven see his Grandfather again.

I am that boy.

I would beg you in your charity to please pray for the repose of the soul of my grandfather Otto. Requiescat in pace.