Venerable Pierre Toussaint

The Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766 – June 30, 1853) was an Haitian slave who, upon his emancipation, became New York City's top hairdresser during the Federal Period. Pope John Paul made him Venerable, the step before Beatification, in 1996.

Once the Bérard family emigrated to New York City with Pierre, he was apprenticed to one of New York's leading hairdressers. He was so successful that he fed and clothed the Bérards out of his own pocket once the family had fallen on hard times.

After his emancipation, Pierre became a very popular hairdresser among the upper echelon of New York society. He fell in love with Juliette Noel, a Haitian slave, and purchased her freedom. Together they financed several philanthropic organizations for New York City's poor. They created an orphanage, a credit bureau, an employment agency and refuge for priests and poor immigrants and travelers.

Toussaint also helped raise money to build Old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street; New York City's first cathedral.

Two years later after his wife's death, Pierre died on June 30, 1853, at the age of 87. He was buried alongside his wife and adopted daughter, Euphemia in the cemetery of Old St. Patrick's on Mott Street.

Once his cause for sainthood was furthered, his remains were re-interred in New York City's new cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral's crypt on 5th Avenue. He is the only lay person so honored.

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

Happy Feast Day Everyone!!!

Today we honor Sts. Peter and Paul, the first pope and Paul of Tarsus who was responsible for a considerable portion of the New Testament.

Simon Peter (d. AD 67), was the son of John or of Jonah and was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee. His brother Andrew was also an Apostle.

Paul the Apostle, (c. AD 5 – c. AD 67), was one of the most influential First century Christian missionaries. His influence on Christian thinking has been extremely important due to his role as a prominent disciple of Christ during the spreading of the Gospel through early Christian communities throughout the Roman Empire.

The Trappist monks of the Tre Fontane (Three Fountains) Abbey raise the lambs whose wool that is used to make the pallia of new metropolitan archbishops. Though they are blessed by the Pope on the Feast of Saint Agnes (January 21), the Pope presents the pallia to the monks on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.

Happy Corpus Christi Everyone!!!

Corpus Christi (Latin for Body of Christ) is a feast which celebrates the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass. It is held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday or, in some places, on the following Sunday. Its celebration on a Thursday is meant to associate it with the institution by Jesus of the Eucharist during the Last Supper.

Francis had a great devotion to the Eucharist and recommends it as a focus for prayer.

Holy Family's noon Mass on Sunday, June 19th will culminate with a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

The feast was started through the petitions of a 13th century Augustinian nun named Juliana of Liège who had always had a devotion to the Eucharist since her childhood.

A vision she reported involved the appearance of the full moon having one single dark spot, which she interpreted the absence of such a feast on the Catholic liturgical calendar.

Today is Trinity Sunday!!!

Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost.

The feast celebrates the Christian dogma of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is one of the many concepts unique to Christianity. We believe that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinctly coexisting in unity as co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial and are of one being. It is the central mystery of our Faith.

The doctrine developed from passages such as the baptismal formula in the Book of Matthew:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19 (New American Standard Bible)

Some modern heresies deny the idea that God is Three and One and claim there is no historical evidence that ancient Christians believed this. Such are the opinions of Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Modalism belief, (the idea that God "changes" from one mode to the other when dealing with humanity,) Islam, (which teaches that Jesus wasn't God,) and the Mormons' view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than essence. Similar heresies are promulgated by Jehovah's Witnesses, The Way International, Christadelphians and other churches influenced by New Ageism and Islam.

This is far from the truth as is evidenced by the following quotes from Early Church Fathers:

Polycarp (70-155/160). Bishop of Smyrna. Disciple of John the Apostle.

"O Lord God almighty... I bless you and glorify you through the eternal and heavenly high priest Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom be glory to you, with Him and the Holy Spirit, both now and forever" (n. 14, ed. Funk; PG 5.1040).


Justin Martyr (100?-165?). Christian apologist and martyr.

"For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water" (First Apol., LXI).

Ignatius of Antioch (died 98/117). Bishop of Antioch.

"In Christ Jesus our Lord, by whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever" (n. 7; PG 5.988).

"We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For ‘the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts." (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The ante-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975 rpt., Vol. 1, p. 52, Ephesians 7.)

Irenaeus (115-190). (Bishop of Lyons; Studied under Polycarp, the disciple of John.

"The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father ‘to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, ‘every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...'" (Against Heresies X.l)

Tertullian (160-215). African apologist and theologian.

"We define that there are two, the Father and the Son, and three with the Holy Spirit, and this number is made by the pattern of salvation... [which] brings about unity in trinity, interrelating the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are three, not in dignity, but in degree, not in substance but in form, not in power but in kind. They are of one substance and power, because there is one God from whom these degrees, forms and kinds devolve in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit." (Adv. Prax. 23; PL 2.156-7).

Origen (185-254). Alexandrian theologian.

"If anyone would say that the Word of God or the Wisdom of God had a beginning, let him beware lest he direct his impiety rather against the unbegotten Father, since he denies that he was always Father, and that he has always begotten the Word, and that he always had wisdom in all previous times or ages or whatever can be imagined in priority... There can be no more ancient title of almighty God than that of Father, and it is through the Son that he is Father" (De Princ. 1.2.; PG 11.132).

"For if [the Holy Spirit were not eternally as He is, and had received knowledge at some time and then became the Holy Spirit] this were the case, the Holy Spirit would never be reckoned in the unity of the Trinity, i.e., along with the unchangeable Father and His Son, unless He had always been the Holy Spirit." (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975 rpt., Vol. 4, p. 253, de Principiis, 1.111.4)

"Moreover, nothing in the Trinity can be called greater or less, since the fountain of divinity alone contains all things by His word and reason, and by the Spirit of His mouth sanctifies all things which are worthy of sanctification..." (Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 255, de Principii., I. iii. 7).

G.K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) - Dies Natalis

On this day, in 1936, died G.K. Chesterton, writer and journalist, died.

His writings – stories, essays, poems, books, journalism – are infused with an unequalled joy and love of truth.

In youth, he went through a crisis of nihilistic pessimism and it was his recovery from this that led him to God and ultimately to conversion. “The Devil made me a Catholic,” he said – meaning that it was the experience of evil and nothingness that convinced him of the goodness and sanity of the world and his creator. His poem “The Ballade of a Suicide” celebrates the salvific value of ordinary things; his novel, “The Man who was Thursday,” narrates the fight for sanity in an insane world and ponders the paradox of God; and “Orthodoxy”, written long before he became a Catholic, highlights orthodoxy not as a dead and static thing but as the only possible point of equilibrium between crazy heresies any one of which would drive us mad.

He took part in all the major controversies of his age, and was a lifelong adversary and friend of socialists and atheists such as George Bernard Shaw. These controversies were conducted with passion but with unfailing charity: he never sought to defeat his opponents, only to defeat their ideas. He would never cheat to score a point: and his love for the people he fought against is something that all controversialists should imitate, however hard it may be.


From Universalis.com

Thursday, June 16th Meeting @ 7:00 PM

Anyone interested in joining our next meeting of the Secular Franciscans at Holy Family Church, here are the particulars:

Holy Family Roman Catholic Church
7415 175th St, Fresh Meadows, NY 11366
(Cross Streets: Between 74th Ave and 75th Ave)

Tel: (718) 969-2124

The Relics of the Patron of Lost Objects are Now Lost!

Here's an unfortunate story that took place in a Franciscan parish in Los Angeles on St Anthony Day:

CLICK HERE

St Anthony Day Bread

Happy Feast Day Everyone!!! And a Happy Name-Saint Day to all Anthonys, Tonys, Antonettes and Tonis!!! Holy Family's Third Order Community dispensed 400 loaves of bread to people who attended our Mass this morning. Holy Family School's 3rd & 4th grades were in attendance. Fr Casper Furnari pleasantly surprised everyone by offering the bread blessing in Italian.

Happy Birthday, Everyone!!!

Today is Pentecost!!!

The birthday of the Church!

This important holiday is recognized and celebrated by Christians throughout he world. It's wonderful to know that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are celebrating the feast on the same day.

Today, we are celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and Mary as described in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-31.

The word "Pentecost" means "the Fiftieth Day" and refers to the fiftieth day after His Resurrection and the tenth day after Ascension Thursday.

The feast is also called Whit Sunday, Whitsun, or Whit, especially in the United Kingdom.

Pentecost is historically and symbolically related to the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, which commemorates God giving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai fifty days after the Exodus.

Being Both Catholic & a Blogger

Here's the video clip for the NBC broadcast from the Vatican specifically discussing the use of social media (e.g.. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc)

CLICK HERE

G. K. Chesterton - "The Prince of Paradox"

There comes a time in every Catholic author's career when he stops making references to Chesterton and instead, writes about him.

Today is my D-Day.

Or maybe that should be my G. K. Day.

G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton, a prolific English writer who converted to Catholicism, was born on May 29, 1874 in Kensington, London, England.

When the greatest writers of the 20th century (eg. John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, T.S. Eliot, Jack Kerouac, Virginia Wolf, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis) were asked who they thought was the greatest writer of the 20th century, the overwhelming percentage of them said Chesterton. He wrote 80 books, several hundred poems, 200 short stories, 4000 essays and several plays. He wrote for the Daily News, the Illustrated London News and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly. In addition, he contributed articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica, including one on Charles Dickens and contributed to the one on Humor.

There were very few things Chesterton didn't know about or couldn't do well. He was an expert in theology, philosophy, spirituality, Christian apologetics, ontology, poetry, playwrighting, public lecturing, debating, history, economics, ethics, biography, journalism, literary, art and social criticism, fiction writing, fantasy and detective fiction.

Aside from his Christian apologetics and Christian Personalist ethics, Chesterton's greatest contribution to Christendom is his development of Distributivism, a mid-way point between unbridled capitalism and stifling communism. He developed his opinions with the help of another orthodox Catholic, Hilaire Belloc. Chesterton is often associated with his close friend. George Bernard Shaw coined the word "Chesterbelloc" referring to their partnership.

Chesterton was neither a liberal nor a conservative. Relying instead upon Christ as a model for his social, economic and political opinions writing:

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

As a young man, Chesterton was fascinated by the occult and experimented with ouija boards and tarot cards. As he grew older, he came to a better understanding, and eventually, appreciation of Catholicism. He ultimately converted to the Church in 1922 at the age of 48.

There are few Catholic authors who can be said to have greatly contributed to the murder mystery genre but Chesterton is one of them. His Father Brown series is considered a classic of the genre. The 52 short story series is based upon the exploits of Father Brown, a fictional character based the on Fr. John O'Connor (1870–1952), a parish priest in Bradford who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism. The real Father Brown described his friendship with Chesterton in his 1937 book, Father Brown on Chesterton.

Chesterton was a huge man who stood 6'4" and weighed 290 lb which gave rise to two famous anecdotes. During World War I, a woman in London asked why he was not "out at the Front." Chesterton replied, "If you go round to the side, you will see that I am." On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw who had always been on the skinny side: "To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England". Shaw replied, "To look at you, anyone would think you have caused it."

Chesterton often engaged in public debate with George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow who argued against Christianity and Western culture in general.

Near the end of his life he was invested as Papal Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory with Star. G. K. Chesterton died on June 14, 1936, at the age of 62, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England. The Chesterton Society has proposed that he be beatified.

I've yet to find any evidence that Chesterton was a Franciscan tertiary but he was fascinated by St. Francis of Assisi even writing an eponymously entitled book on him. To read this book, click here.

Ascension Thursday

The Feast of the Ascension is one of the Church's great feasts. It commemorates the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven. It's celebrated on a Thursday which is the fortieth day from Easter.

Though there is no documentary evidence of the feast being celebrated prior to the 5th century, St. Augustine of Hippo, who was born in the 4th century, assures us that the feast is not only of Apostolic origin but also universally recognized by all ancient Christians. Sts John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa and the Constitution of the Apostles all support this contention.