Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell

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King St. Brychan of Wales (5th century)

If you check Catholic Online for the saints of April, you’ll find this curious entry for today: “St. Brychan. King of Wales, undocumented but popular saint. Brychan is credited with having twenty-four children, all saints.”

So, we have a holy royal with no official pedigree, but an ostensible following – both in terms of fans as well as blessed progeny. It's a tantalizing hagiographic tidbit that invites further investigation.

The cloud that obscures the true biography of this acclaimed Celtic figure is virtually impenetrable, but his name sure is linked to all kinds of history and piety. The story goes that Brychan was an Irish prince that landed in South Wales as a youth after his family took charge of the kingdom of Garthmadrun – now known as Brycheiniog in honor of the saint. After his father’s death, Brychan inherited the mantle of leadership and was said to have developed into a godly and just ruler, as well as a firm supporter of the Church.

He was also a fierce opponent when threatened and tenacious in combat. It is said that a rival, King Gwynllyw, sought to wed Brychan’s beloved daughter, Gwladys, but that Brychan turned him down. After Princess Gwynllyw was kidnapped, a tremendous battle between the two monarchs ensued which required the intervention of King Arthur himself to produce a peace. St. Gwladys did go on to marry King Gwynllyw (also a saint), and, according to a 11th-century chronicle, their children included yet another holy personage, the abbot St. Cadoc.

And that’s the thing about Brychan’s legacy: It’s brimming with saints. They’re practically strewn about in Brychan’s story like plush occasional pillows in a redecorated living room – here, there, so many that you no longer notice them. It’s mainly his many saintly children, borne of his three (or four) successive marriages, not to mention his saintly grandchildren and on down the luminous line. There’s Ss. Adwen and Keyne, Wenna and Menefrida. Even his childhood tutor, Drichian, was known to have been a saint.

On the other hand, it’s also likely that some folks in the Middle Ages were inclined to associate their lineage with Brychan’s as a shortcut to pious respectability. So many, in fact, that although the number 24 (as quoted by Catholic Online) is the most commonly mentioned, there’s really no way of telling how many kids were sired by the king – 50? 60? Who knows?

Yet even that fudging of family trees is a backhanded compliment to the Brychan narrative, regardless of how accurate it is. It’s been said that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and it appears that such was assumed to be the case with King Brychan – or at least his name. Why else would so many want to be in on his heritage? He might not be a canonized – or official – Saint, but Brychan certainly has left his mark of sanctity on the British Isles and beyond.

As befits a man associated with so much godliness, the annals tell that he eventually surrendered his crown to one of his sons and lived out his remaining years as a hermit. Although his April 6 commemoration might be unofficial, he can hardly be overlooked on all the feast days of his saintly descendants, both real and imagined.
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A version of this reflection appeared on Catholic Exchange.

St. John Ogilvie (1579-1615)

You gotta’ love a sense of humor on the scaffold.

Take St. Thomas More, for instance, who famously jested with his executioner. “My neck is very short,” said More from the chopping block. “Take heed, therefore, thou not strike awry for saving thine honesty.” Court records also note that “he bid the Executioner stay till he had put his Beard aside, for that had committed no Treason.”

Today is the memorial of another such saintly joker in extremis: St. John Ogilvie, S.J.

Born in Scotland, Ogilvie grew up in a devout Calvinist home. His education in continental Benedictine and Jesuit institutions afforded him broad exposure to the glories of the ancient Church, and he eventually was persuaded that Protestant critiques of Catholicism weren’t sound.

At age seventeen, Ogilvie became a Catholic, and he joined the Jesuits a few years later. He was ordained in 1610, and, after serving in various capacities on the continent for a few years, Ogilvie finally received permission to return to his homeland and surreptitiously minister to the persecuted Catholic minority there.

Fr. Ogilvie, disguised as a horse trader, arrived back in Scotland in 1613. He immediately began his underground service to the tiny Catholic flock around Glasgow, secretly saying Mass and administering the sacraments despite the threat of imprisonment and death. Just a year later, an informer, posing as a would-be convert, betrayed the Jesuit to the authorities. Ogilvie was arrested, tried, tortured, and sentenced to hang.

There’s a hint in the trial proceedings that Ogilvie held his precarious predicament lightly. When interrogated about his loyalty to King James as head of the English church, the Jesuit retorted that he’d no more acknowledge a king who played “runagate from God” than he would “this old hat.” Then, just before mounting the gallows, a clergyman asked him if he was afraid to die, Ogilvie shot back, “I fear death as much as you do your dinner.”

G.K. Chesterton observed that the “the martyr is noble, exactly because…he sets his heart outside himself.” Maybe it’s that selflessness, borne of a martyr’s total surrender of self to God, which also makes possible his mirth.

Fr. John Ogilvie, S.J., was executed by hanging at Glasgow Cross on March 10, 1615. Pope St. Paul VI canonized him in 1976.
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Blessed Tommaso da Olera (1563-1631)

Sometimes holy people are declared saints right after they die. Take Benedict Joseph Labre for instance. Within minutes of his death, the youth of Rome were running through the streets shouting, “The saint is dead! The saint is dead!” – an assessment later affirmed by unanimous acclaim.

On the other hand, sometimes canonizations grind on and on...and on. Like Joan of Arc, whose sainthood wasn’t recognized until 500 years after her death.

Brother Tommaso da Olera’s cause falls into the latter class, which is in line with other delays that pepper his life story.

Born in 1563 in northern Italy, Tommaso labored as shepherd in his youth to help support his family. With no resources and no schools nearby, he missed out on an education, but eventually he did acquire a rudimentary literacy after joining the Capuchins at age 17.

Tommaso flourished in his vocation and advanced quickly in the spiritual life. A collection of his mystical writings, Fuoco d’amore (“Fire of Love”), was published 50 years after his death, and it reveals a sublime grasp of ascetical theology. It was among Pope St. John XXIII’s favorite spiritual works, and the Pontiff had portions of it read to him on his death bed.

The humble friar’s daily tasks included washing pots, collecting alms, and visiting the sick, but he also joyfully shared the Gospel with everyone he met. His reputation for holiness spread, and in 1619 Archduke Leopold V of Austria requested Tommaso’s assistance in confronting the spread of Lutheranism. Barely literate, Tommaso avoided disputation. Instead, with great success, he simply witnessed to Christ’s impassioned love for his Church.

Br. Tommaso died in Innsbruck in 1631, and it took another 356 years before Pope John Paul II proclaimed the friar Venerable in 1987. Pope Benedict XVI authorized Tommaso's beatification in 2012, and the beatification Mass was finally celebrated by a representative of Pope Francis in 2013.

Franciscans observe Bl. Tommaso's feast on May 4.
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A shorter version of this reflection originally appeared in Franciscan Magazine, Franciscan University of Steubenville. 

Eucharistic Living: Daily Mass

I go to Mass every day because I want to be with him – to be there where he is, to talk to him and to listen (although, to tell the truth, I do more talking than listening, but I’m working on that). That is, I want to commune with him whether or not I can receive communion. It’s like being at home with him, even when I, out of respect, have to forego inviting him to take up residence in me.

That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I’ll find my way to my usual spot on Mary’s side, between Simon of Cyrene and St. Veronica, throw my arms across the back of the pew, and bask in the liturgy. Such days are unanticipated little gifts that hearken back to my youthful Romance of Eucharistic fasting. I get to briefly relive the anticipation of my eager Catholic-wannabe days and I’ll leave all the more eager to properly anticipate actual communion with my Lord the next day.
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St. Edmund Campion and the Advent of Advent

It’s the First Sunday of Advent – it’s finally here! But, in truth, it actually started late on Saturday.

That’s because, liturgically, Sunday always begins late on Saturday. It’s a ritual reckoning of the Sabbath – sunset to sunset – that we inherited from Judaism, and it’s why we celebrate Sunday Mass as early as Saturday afternoon.

It’s also why Sundays have two celebrations of Evening Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours: First Vespers is prayed on Saturday in the p.m., and Second Vespers on Sunday itself. Thus, even when we don’t attend the Vigil Mass, our corporate Sunday observances are initiated by priests and religious (and laity) who intone Evening Prayer I the night before.

And here’s how Evening Prayer I kicks off the First Sunday of Advent every year: “Proclaim the good news among the nations: Our God will come to save us.” It’s the antiphon that heralds the first psalm of First Vespers for the First Sunday of Advent. In a sense, it’s the advent of Advent, the first little liturgical hint that something big is on its way.

It’s also an appropriate bridge this year between Advent Sunday #1 and the day that precedes it – Saturday, December 1 – which marked the feast of the English Jesuit martyr, St. Edmund Campion (1540-1581), a true proclaimer to the nations.

Campion came of age during the English Reformation and his studies at Oxford led him to question the Crown’s usurpation of papal authority. At great risk, he threw away a career in the Church of England and traveled to Rome to pursue a Catholic vocation in the Society of Jesus.

After ordination, Campion taught for a time, but in 1580 he returned to his homeland to surreptitiously serve the persecuted Catholic minority. As a priest-outlaw, St. Edmund was always on the lam, and he regularly made use of disguises so that he could better minister to the faithful.

Betrayed by a spy and convicted of treason in 1581, Fr. Campion suffered a brutal martyrdom on Dec. 1. Yet that wasn’t the end of the story. Campion’s heroic efforts and courageous example helped the English Catholic Church survive its period of persecution, and it emerged intact and vibrant in the modern era.

St. Edmund’s life was an advent of proclamation. May his prayers aid us in imitating his resolve to proclaim the Good News.
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A version of this meditation appeared on Catholic Exchange. It originally appeared in the Sunday bulletin of St. Joseph Catholic Church, Mishawaka, Indiana. 

Veterans Day 2018

Although I get (and distribute) the New York Catholic Worker newspaper, I rarely read it all the way through – as I used to do when I was hanging around Chicago’s St. Francis CW House. But I’m older and cranky and tired most the time now. When the CW bundle arrives in our mailbox every month or two, I’ll usually lay the pile out flat, scan the headlines for names I recognize, and then distribute them in our church’s vestibule the next time I’m there for Mass. “I’m sure somebody will benefit from these,” I’ll mutter.

Last week, however, for some reason, some providential reason, I leafed through a copy of the latest issue, page by page. That’s when I came across Dan Jackson’s moving testimonial, “Dorothy Was Right All Along.” He’s referring to CW founder Dorothy Day’s pacifism, which was unequivocal. Like Jackson, I found Day’s Christianity inspiring in my youth, but I held back from her call to total nonviolence. “I might get married and have children someday,” I argued (with anyone who’d listen), “and I’d have responsibility for protecting them, even if it required returning violence for violence.” And I am married, and I do have children today, and I would do whatever was necessary to protect them.

But war is another matter altogether. It seems impossible to reconcile modern, total war with the relative niceties of just war criteria. The aims of today’s wars are especially elusive and fungible, yet the costs are always incalculable. Jackson’s poignant reflection was a stark reminder of the latter. He describes an epiphany he had while working at a Catholic cemetery one summer. He’d witnessed numerous military burials, but one in particular jarred his soul.

No one spoke. No one coughed. The twenty-one gun salute reverberated under the arches of the nearby Whitestone Bridge. The only sound at the gravesite was the uncontrolled sobbing of this boy’s father. As they never had before, my eyes filled with tears. That was the day I stopped doubting Dorothy. That was the day I became sure that she was right all along.

I had Jackson’s testimonial in mind as Veterans Day arrived this year – the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. A friend of mine posted a recording from that day in 1918 when the guns went silent along the front. It’s surreal: one moment Europeans bent on slaughtering each other across stretches of land, the next moment there was calm. You can even hear the birds begin singing after the pause.

But it was a calm arranged by the very parties who’d initiated the conflict in the first place, and it prompted me to track down a movie that depicts a different, more organic ceasefire that preceded the Armistice by several years. The movie is Joyeux Noël (2006), and it tells the tale of the Christmas Truce that spontaneously occurred along the French battle lines in 1914. German, French, and British soldiers put down their arms and fraternized across enemy lines. They ate and drank; they shared photos and played soccer.

We watched it tonight, and I couldn’t help thinking that this silencing of guns was accomplished by those who were most directly affected. The men who were killing and being killed themselves decided to stop the slaughter. In time, their superiors compelled them to take up arms again against each other, but the men had chosen, even for a brief period, to choose against killing as a way of solving problems. It didn’t make sense to them. The cost was too high.

It’s still too high.

Veterans Day is the day we honor the living, and I do thank vets for their service and sacrifice. I’m also committed to praying for peace so that fewer of those who follow them in service will have to be commemorated on Memorial Day.
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