Thursday, February 13, 2020
Saints of Courage and Resilience
Saints of Courage and Resilience
This past Friday was Valentine
’s Day, but not everyone knows that this day is named after the third century
Roman priest and martyr, St Valentine, who was imprisoned for presiding at
weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry, among other acts of
courageous charity during a time of persecution of Christians in Rome.
May St Valentine pray for
those of you who are married, that you may have the courage to keep working on
your connectedness, cherish your spouse, and come to agree on your differences,
especially when communication turns more difficult, and when trust may be
strained.
Resilience is a valuable
virtue not only in relationships, but also for any number of areas in life.
When something bad happens, we may ruminate over and over about it in our
minds, digging a deeper hole for ourselves, or we may acknowledge it, reframe
it in light of something positive, and choose to adapt and grow.
St Methodius and St Cyril
can teach us about resilience. These two saints were brothers and they are
celebrated also on February 14th. They were born in Greece, and sent to the
modern day Czech Republic, when Prince Ratislav of Moravia asked for
missionaries. The brothers were ahead of their time, because rather than
teaching the roman alphabet, they devised the first slavic alphabet. This
innovation was not quickly accepted by Rome, but thanks to their perseverance
in bridging two cultures, it eventually was.
Another saint we
celebrated this month who can teach us about resilience is St Josephine
Bakhita. She was born in Sudan in the late 1800s, and was abducted by slave
traders as a young child. Under captivity, she was tortured. The trauma erased
the memory of her family given name. Yet by the Providence of God, she ended up
as a religious sister in Italy, and she lived over 40 years of religious life
as a Canossian sister.
Research suggests that
cultivating forgiveness is a skill resilient people have. When St Josephine was
asked what she would do if she met her captors again, she responded: "If I
were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would
kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not
have been a Christian and a religious today."
God bless, Fr. Carlos, OSA
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