Oct. 10 Saint Daniel and Companions, martyrs

Martyrs: Saint Daniel Fasanella and Companions died 1227

October 10

Martyrs remind us of the high price that Jesus paid for preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. Remembering the martyrs helps us to persevere in living out the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is this gospel that Francis and his followers vowed to observe and spread through their witness and preaching.

Inspired by the example of the first set of Franciscans martyred in Morocco (St. Berard and Companions honored on January 16^th), seven Friars Minor went to preach the gospel in Muslim North Africa. They were led by Daniel Fasanella, OFM provincial of Calabria in southern Italy. They ended up in the city of Ceuta, Morocco, where the Christian merchants of the city warned them against preaching.

The friars, however, spoke openly and were thus imprisoned for eight days. Bribes and threats to make them renounce their faith were useless. Like the early Christians persecuted by Rome, they went to their deaths singing hymns. They were beheaded and their bodies were taken to Spain. They were canonized in 1516.

A note as we are now ten days into the month of October: The Pope's intention for the month of October is that mental health ministry be established throughout the Church, helping to overcome the stigma and discrimination of persons with mental illness. 

Oct. 6 St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds

St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds (1734-1791)

October 6

A young girl by the name of Anna Maria faced a familiar situation when she turned sixteen. Her father wanted her married, but she wanted to stay an unmarried virgin. So her father whipped her and locked her in her room. He later relented and allowed her to become a Franciscan tertiary in the Order of St. Peter of Alcantara and to be a consecrated virgin still living at home. Her religious name is Mary Frances.

Gallo family life was not easy, in a house filled with brothers and sisters. Mary’s time was absorbed by prayer, penance, and doing works of charity. She befriended the sick and needy of Naples, caring for the poor. She was especially devoted to praying for souls in purgatory and in meditating on the passion of Christ. She received the stigmata on her hands, feet, and side. (Curiously, most stigmatists are female). Mary Frances of the Five Wounds not only was gifted with visions of Jesus, but she also reportedly had frequent visits from her Guardian Angel. She was canonized by Pope Pius IX on June 29, 1867, and is a patroness of Naples, Italy. 

Oct. 4 St. Francis of Assisi-800 years Transitus!

St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

October 4

Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone to prosperous cloth merchants, Pica and Pietro.  His mother baptized him Giovanni in honor of St. John the Baptist. His father was away in France on business when the boy was born. “Frenchy” was the nickname his father gave him, perhaps because his mother was of French descent or it might reflect his father’s  love for French culture and commercial success in France. Francesco’s youth was filled with some carousing and engagement with troubadour culture. It was a time of chivalry and knighthood. He lived during the rise of city-states in Italy, who frequently clashed for power and prestige. After setting off to war as a knight, Francis endured a year’s imprisonment, followed by a long illness. This led him to reassess his life and ambitions and dedicate himself to God’s service. He would eventually describe himself as “the herald of the great king.”

There was a dilapidated chapel on the hillside near Assisi named for of San Damiano where Francis retreated to find solitude and prayer. One day Christ spoke to him from the crucifix, saying “Rebuild my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis took this quite literally and repaired San Damiano, as well as two other nearby churches. This however took on greater meaning as it applied to Francis’ influence and effect on the larger Catholic Church.

An encounter with a leper left a great impression on Francis. Instead of avoiding the person, Francis embraced and kissed them. He wrote, “What had previously nauseated me became a source of spiritual and physical consolation for me.” (Testament.) Francis overcame his fear, his hesitation, and his own ego on that road and afterwards was ready to care for the poor and suffering. Francis and his followers ministered to people suffering from leprosy.

Some of his friends joined him and he attracted others, so much so that in 1209, twelve of them went to Rome to seek approval from the Pope, Innocent III. They initially called themselves “Penitents from Assisi” but later came to be known as the Friars Minor or Lesser Brothers. They dedicated themselves to prayer, manual labor, and preaching the gospel. Living in poverty and simplicity were actually part of a broader religious movement at this point in history. Francis wanted to be sure and show loyalty and obedience to the Catholic Church and differentiate from other “spirituals.” Francis exhibited classic Catholic devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He showed great respect towards those in authority, especially priests and was concerned for their formation, education, and well-being. He was ordained a deacon in order to proclaim the gospel. He had great respect for the Bible, so much so that he admonished the friars to take care of any scrap of paper they might find, lest it contain the words of Scripture.

In response to Chiara of Assisi’s desire to live out the gospel as Francis and his followers were, Francis helped her organized the “Poor Ladies of San Damiano” as the Second Order of Franciscans or “Poor Clares” is known. There is a great tradition of complementarity between men and women within the Franciscan family, which began with this friendship between Saint Clare and Francis, but can also be found in his relationship with Lady Jacopa and others. Laity also asked Francis to be able to join in his vision and way of following the gospel, and so the Third Order or Secular Franciscans was also formed. Later developed Third Order Religious, as other men and women took up the Franciscan way to live in consecrated life. You might even say there is a “Fourth Order” of those who just love and admire and respect Saint Francis of Assisi, but do not take a vow or join in any official way.

He is credited with establishing the tradition of Christmas crèches and manger scenes in homes and churches. Francis set up a living nativity scene on Christmas Eve in 1223 in the Italian village of Greccio to help people visualize the humble, impoverished reality of Jesus' birth. It included a hay-filled manger, a live ox and a donkey, but no human actors portraying Mary or Joseph initially stood in the scene; it centered on the empty crib, to highlight the poverty of the child born in Bethlehem.

Francis was canonized in 1228, less than two years after his death, by his one-time advisor, the former Cardinal Hugolino, who was then Pope Gregory IX.

About a hundred years later, a wonderful collection of stories about Francis and his followers was written in Latin and then translated into Italian: Fioretti or Little Flowers.  Most famous are how Francis preached to the birds, befriended the wolf of Gubbio, his encounter with the Islamic Sultan, and one whole section devoted to the apparition of the seraph. In September of 1224 while Francis was on retreat praying on Mount La Verna, he received the marks of Christ’s passion in his hands, feet and side, known as the stigmata. This is celebrated on the Franciscan calendar on September 17^th.  Much of the Fioretti however, tells of the actions of the other friars, such as Brother Juniper and Brother Giles, and the growth of the movement.  The earliest definitive or authoritative biographies of Francis were written by Thomas Celano and Saint Bonaventure.

In California, the sixth mission and the city on the bay that grew up around it were dedicated to San Francisco de Asis in 1776.

Sept. 29 Feast of the Archangels-CA Missions

 

While in our time September 29^th is the Feast of the Archangels, to St. Francis of Assisi it was Michaelmas, the Feast of St. Michael. Raphael was honored on October 24, and Gabriel on March 24, the day prior to the Solemnity of the Annunciation. There is actually a total of seven (7!) archangels and there are various names assigned to the other four.  The 1960’s calendar revisions brought the three Biblically-named angels together on the same day. Each of the three has a California mission named after them. Rafael in the North, Gabriel in the South, and San Miguel in the center. Here are postings on two of them:

Sept. 23 Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, OFM Capuchin

St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, OFM Capuchin (1887-1968)

September 23

            “The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against ego; there is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain.” (a saying of Padre Pio) Padre Pio was able to see his personal suffering as his response to the call to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ.

            Francesco Forgione was born to peasant farmers in southern Italy. His father traveled twice (in 1898-1903 and again in 1910-17) to Jamaica, New York, to provide for the family. Francisco joined the Capuchin order at age fifteen and took the name Pius/Pio. Even early in his life as a Franciscan, Padre Pio experienced both serious illness and religious ecstasy. Other friars would report that they heard strange, concerning noises coming from his room. Padre Pio frequently spoke about how he was attacked by the devil, and it was in his cell that these battles took place. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1910.

When drafted during World War One, he served in the medical corps.  He had extreme stomach pain and was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis. He was eventually permanently discharged. In 1917 he was assigned to San Giovanni Rotundo friary, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Padre Pio had great devotion to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus and to His Sacred Heart. As he was making his thanksgiving after Mass one day on September 20, 1918, he had an encounter with Jesus that left him with the signs of the crucifixion on his hands, feet, and side. He would actually bleed from the wounds. Referred to as the “odor of sanctity,” the blood that came from Padre Pio’s wounds is said to have smelled like perfume or as having a floral aroma.  In the beginning, Padre Pio was embarrassed and humiliated by the wounds on his body. The visible stigmata brought him intense and severe pain, but he welcomed it. He offered this pain for the good of all humanity. The authenticity of his stigmata was questioned with official investigations in 1924 and again in 1931. During this time of inquiry, he was not permitted to say Mass publicly or hear confessions. That decision was soon reversed.

Church authorities, doctors, and spectators by the busloads came to see the good father. He then became the most famous stigmatist of the twentieth century. Over time his ministry of reconciliation became legendary. His typical daily schedule went like this:

            1. Each morning after a 5AM Mass in a crowded church, he heard confessions until noon.

            2. He would take a break to bless the sick and all others who came to see him.

            3. In the afternoon, he would continue to hear confessions. Sometimes he would spend up to 12 or even 15 hours a day in the confessional! Many have claimed that Padre Pio could read souls and knew details of their lives which they had not revealed to anyone.

            The saint once said: “Confession is the soul’s bath. You must go at least once a week. I do not want souls to stay away from confession more than a week. Even a clean and unoccupied room gathers dust; return after a week, and you will see that it needs dusting again!”

Those who participated at his Masses came away edified; even curiosity seekers were deeply moved by experiencing him, his preaching, and his example.  However, like St. Francis, Padre Pio sometimes had his habit torn or cut by souvenir seekers.

He had the gift of bilocation, meaning that he could be in more than one place at a time. Multiple eyewitness accounts attest to the ability of Padre Pio to be in multiple places at once. Fellow friars remember seeing him in prayer outside when they knew he was still in his room. Some accounts come from others who claim to have seen him on different continents all over the world. As to how Padre Pio experienced such feats, the closest he ever came to an explanation of bilocation was to say that it occurred “by an extension of his personality.”

            Padre Pio also had great compassion for the sick and suffering. In the 1940’s he established a “House for the Alleviation of Suffering” (Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza) that had 350 beds near Mount Gargano. The hospital is now known for its state-of-the-art facilities and services.

Miraculously, a few days before his death in September 1968, all these wounds on Padre Pio’s body disappeared. Countless experts and doctors who carefully and closely examined the wounds were unable to provide any medical or scientific explanation.

Pope John Paul II presided over both his beatification on May 2, 1999, and three years later, Padre Pio’s canonization as a saint on June 16, 2002.

 

Pope Saint Linus, the second after St. Peter, is also honored on Sept. 23^rd.

In 2026, this marks the fifth anniversary of the death of LA artist John August Swanson. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. 

Sept. 18 St. Joseph of Cupertino

 

St. Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1663)

September 18

Was chosen as the patron of aeronautics, astronauts, pilots, and flying because he levitated when at prayer!

QUOTE: “Clearly, what God wants about all is our will, which we received as a free gift from God in creation and possess as though our own. When a person trains themselves to acts of virtue, they do this with the help of grace from God from whom all good things come. The will is what a person has as their unique possession.” (St. Joseph of Cupertino)

            Levitating and ecstatic visions may be extraordinary signs of holiness, but Joseph is also remembered for the ordinary things he did: He prayed even in times of inner darkness. He lived out the Sermon on the Mount. He used his free will as a “unique possession” to praise Divinity. For 35 years of his adult life as a priest, he practiced severe asceticism, usually eating solid food only twice a week. He was humble, patient, and obedient, even though at times he was tempted greatly and felt forsaken by God.

            He began his Franciscan life as a Capuchin, but then joined the Conventuals. Following a brief assignment caring for the friary mule, Joseph then began his studies for the priesthood. He was a terrible student. He struggled immensely with the required academic studies. Joseph’s strength was in a prayerful spiritual life. He was ordained a priest in 1628.

            70 incidents of levitation are documented in the official records leading to his canonization. Joseph’s tendency to levitate during prayer, which could occur during Mass or the praying of the Divine Office, gained him a reputation for holiness but also piqued people’s curiosity and amusement. Due to the disruption the levitation caused, he was sometimes confined to a small cell and forbidden to join in any public gathering of the community. Because the phenomenon of flying or levitation was widely believed to be connected with witchcraft, Joseph was denounced to the Inquisition. He was exonerated, but this led to his being transferred several times.

His final years were spent at a Conventual community in Osimo, where he died on the 18^th of September 1663, at age 60. Joseph was beatified in 1753. On July 16, 1767, he was canonized by Pope Clement XIII. The Reluctant Saint, a 1962 movie, is based on the story of Joseph of Cupertino. Although he’s a native of Cupertino, Italy, many people recognize “Cupertino” because Apple, Inc. is headquartered in Cupertino, California, a city near San Jose and Santa Clara that is indeed named for this St. Joseph. The geography also demonstrates the relationship between missions and towns.

Keeping the differences between the two Josephs in mind, I also use this occasion to post about Mission San Jose, named after the "foster" father of Jesus.

Sept. 17 Stigmata of Francis

STIGMATA: On September 17, Franciscans celebrate the Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi, to recall Francis's body being wondrously marked with the wounds of Christ. The Chapel of the Stigmata at the Franciscan Sanctuary of La Verna in Tuscany, Italy, is perched on the edge of the same sheer precipice where St. Francis stood two years before his death and was swept up into the mystery of God’s overwhelming love for him and for humanity. He had made the journey in the summer of 1224 to a favorite hermitage on Mount Alverna in preparation for the feast day of St. Michael. His purpose was to go apart at this critical stage in his life with a few companions to observe the "Lent of St. Michael" — a forty-day retreat devoted to prayer and fasting from the Assumption to the feast of the Archangel. On one particular day, Francis had gone apart from the others to meditate more intently on the Passion of Christ when something happened.

St. Bonaventure, in his Life of St. Francis, describes Francis as being more inflamed than usual with the love of God as he began a special time of prayer: “His unquenchable fire of love for the good Jesus,” Bonaventure writes, “was fanned into such a blaze of flames that so many waters could not quench so powerful a love” (see Song of Songs 8:6–7).

Vision of a Seraph

Bonaventure goes on: “While Francis was praying on the mountainside, he saw a Seraph with six fiery and shining wings descend from the height of heaven. And when in swift flight the Seraph had reached a spot in the air near the man of God, there appeared between the wings the figure of a man crucified, with his hands and feet extended in the form of a cross and fastened to a cross. Two of the wings were lifted above his head, two were extended for flight, and two covered his whole body.”

“When Francis saw this, he was overwhelmed, and his heart was flooded with a mixture of joy and sorrow. He rejoiced because of the gracious way Christ looked upon him under the form of a Seraph, but the fact that he was fastened to a cross pierced his soul with a sword of compassionate sorrow.”

When the vision disappeared, writes Bonaventure, Francis was left with a “marvelous ardor” in his heart. At the same time, there “was imprinted on his body markings that were no less marvelous.”  These markings were the stigmata, the wounds of Christ crucified.

More about the Seraph

There are two things to dwell on here. First is the Seraph. Seraphs are angels closest to God, burning with love as they bow before God, shouting, “Holy, holy, holy!” Their fiery wings suggest the flaming intensity of God’s love that Christ communicated to Francis, which, in turn, set Francis’ heart afire. The word seraphic is often used to describe Francis’ passionate style of relating to God and is often applied to the Franciscan Order, which is sometimes called the Seraphic Order.

Second, we focus on “the gracious way that Christ looked upon him.” This is something of a repeat of the vision Francis had in the beginning of his spiritual life in which “Jesus appeared to him fastened on a cross. Francis’ soul melted at the sight, and the memory of Christ’s passion was so impressed on the innermost recesses of his heart that from that hour whenever Christ’s crucifixion came to mind, Francis could scarcely contain his sighs…” (Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis).

Suffering for Christ

In themselves, sickness and suffering are tragic and senseless. But Christ has sanctified even the wounds of human nature. This terrible scourge can be changed into a blessing by being united to the sufferings of Christ. Many people feel that this sublime privilege does not count for them. They are not good enough. Their sickness is not that important. They believe it is a punishment. But Christ wants to take your individual suffering and unite it to his.

Of all the statements about our continuing Christ’s life, none is more astounding that this: “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). Francis received the highest proof of Christ’s love and need of him when his body was literally put on a cross with Christ by the reality of the five wounds of the stigmata.

The stigmata of St. Francis stands as a powerful reminder of the transformative power of the Cross. It is a call to each of us to embrace the suffering in our lives as a means of growing closer to Christ and to bear witness to God’s love in the world. The wounds that Francis bore on his body were not signs of defeat but of victory—victory through suffering, victory through love.

 As we reflect on this profound event in the life of St. Francis, let us ask for his intercession, that we might learn to embrace the Cross in our own lives with the same spirit of humility, joy, and love. May we, too, become living witnesses of Christ crucified, bringing the light of Christ to a world in need of healing and hope. Through the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, may we be granted the grace to live more fully in the spirit of the Cross, finding in it not only the source of our redemption but the path to eternal glory. Amen.

Mostly by Leonard Foley, OFM. Retrieved from https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-tradition-and-resources/the-stigmata-of-st-francis/

Also on 9/17 Doctor of the Church and mystic: Saint Hildegard of Bingen