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Saints
Aug 10, 2017 8:09:37 GMT
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 10, 2017 8:09:37 GMT
Today we have a very popular saint in earlier times who is now largely forgotten, the Roman deacon and martyr St Laurence. Howth Castle is owned by the St.Laurence family who are Catholics and I remember a now deceased PP of Howth telling me one of his unexpected duties was to say Mass in the castle oratory every year on 10 August. A brief glimpse of Brideshead Catholicism in Ireland.
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Saints
Aug 10, 2017 21:49:02 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Aug 10, 2017 21:49:02 GMT
Indeed - it was one of the St Laurences who precipitated the Flight of the Earls by reporting to the government a suspicious conversation he allegedly had with Hugh O'Neill. One of the many features we fail to grasp about post-1880s Ireland is that it grew out of a populist revolt against aspiring "Brideshead Catholicism" as represented by the late Victorian IRISH MONTHLY with its suggestions that all might be well if we had Catholic landlords instead of Protestant ones! I always associate St Laurence with the legend that when asked to deliver "the treasures of the church" he displayed the poor people it helped - a point that should never be forgotten.
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Saints
Aug 14, 2017 10:59:21 GMT
Post by Young Ireland on Aug 14, 2017 10:59:21 GMT
Today is the feast day of St. Maximillian Kolbe, who sacrificed his life for another inmate in Auschwitz. As he is also a patron saint of the pro-life movement, I also ask for his intercession during the coming campaign, that the Eighth Amendment might be saved.
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Saints
Aug 14, 2017 12:45:50 GMT
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Post by annie on Aug 14, 2017 12:45:50 GMT
Today is the feast day of St. Maximillian Kolbe, who sacrificed his life for another inmate in Auschwitz. As he is also a patron saint of the pro-life movement, I also ask for his intercession during the coming campaign, that the Eighth Amendment might be saved. Amen.
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Saints
Aug 14, 2017 20:49:15 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Aug 14, 2017 20:49:15 GMT
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Saints
Mar 3, 2018 22:13:26 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Mar 3, 2018 22:13:26 GMT
A CATHOLIC HERALD contributor offers an interactive map of the Martyrs of England and Wales. I wish we had something similar - with a few exceptions such as St Oliver Plunket our martyrs don't seem to be as well documented or well-known. BTW if you visit St Augustine's Church in Cork offer a prayer at the shrine of Bl. William Tirry, martyred in Clonmel under Cromwell. There are portraits of two Cromwellian-era Dominican martyrs, Bl. Fr Higgins and Bl. Bishop Power [MY MISTAKE - THIS SHOULD BE O'BRIEN], in St Saviour's Dublin, and St Brigid's on the Malone Road in Belfast has a stained glass window showing the martyrdom of Bl. Bishop O'Devanny. And of course there are the statues of Bl. Francis Taylor and Bl. Margaret Ball outside the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2018/03/02/you-can-now-access-a-map-of-englands-catholic-martyrs/
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jaykay
Junior Member
Posts: 65
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Saints
Mar 12, 2018 13:06:28 GMT
Post by jaykay on Mar 12, 2018 13:06:28 GMT
Our local Dominican church used to have portraits of the Irish Dominican martyrs Bishop Terence Albert O'Brien (+1651) and Father Peter Higgins (+1642)on either wall of the nave just before the sanctuary, but they never had any explanation of who they were. Also, they were quite high up and right beside the first and last Stations, so the impact tended to be minimised. They were taken away some years back, during a redecoration, and not since reinstated. I thought that was a pity as they could have presented a very valuable "teaching moment" and even, if placed elsewhere in the church, have formed an actual shrine. The pictures were as shown in the link - I was always struck by the Bishop O'Brien one particularly: stdominicsparish.ie/dominican-saints/
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Saints
Mar 19, 2018 22:03:13 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Mar 19, 2018 22:03:13 GMT
There are no authentic likenesses of Bishop O'Brien and Fr Higgins - the paintings (there are replicas in St Saviour's in Dominick Street, just north of the Rotunda Hospital in north inner-city Dublin) are by Thomas Ryan RHA and are probably based on friends of his. If I'm not much mistaken, the model for Bishop O'Brien is Ryan's teacher Sean Keating RHA - who came from Limerick,where Bishop O'Brien was executed. Here is a webpage from St Augustine's Cork about the Augustinian martyr Bl William Tirry: www.staugustinescork.ie/augustiniandevotions/blessedwilliamtirryosa
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 23, 2018 20:05:36 GMT
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 7, 2018 21:37:03 GMT
I have just finished reading Fr. Solanus Casey by Catherine Odell, an excellent book. Fr. Solanus Casey was an American Capuchin priest and friar, Irish by descent, who was beatified last year. He died in 1957.
His story is truly fascinating. He struggled with his studies because all teaching at his seminary was through the German language. It was decided to make him a simplex priest, which meant he couldn't hear confessions or give sermons. Nevertheless he gained an extraordinary reputation as a healer and miracle-worker. His reputation grew to the extent that the Capuchins had to keep moving him to far-flung monasteries to keep the crowds away, but people actually came in chartered bus-loads anyway. Thousands of people came to pay their respects when he died. His story is very similar to that of St. Charles of Mount Argus.
His spirituality was similar to G.K. Chesterton's in that he placed enormous emphasis on gratitude, and on thanking God for everything (good or bad).
Interestingly, he was a passionate Irish nationalist at one stage, even writing a letter to the newspapers denouncing the Irish Free State at the time of its foundation. Later on, apparently, he wondered if he had been right to do this (according to another source I read).
He was very devoted to the book The Mystical City of God by Venerable Mother Agreda-- rather controversially so, as his superiors didn't like him recommending it to the extent that he did. Indeed, he was forbidden to keep in contact with a study group which had begun to study it. The book is a massive tome which purports to describe the life of Our Lady.
I found the book interesting not only as a glimpse into the life of a saint, but as a window into monastic life of the time-- I presume it has not changed beyond recognition. Is is interesting that the Capuchins did not milk Fr. Solanus's celebrity but actually made strong efforts to downplay it. He was teased for his bad violin playing and his tendency to mash all his breakfast together in one bowl (including coffee and orange juice).
He's an extremely attractive saint and many of the stories of his life are amazing.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 9, 2018 14:37:16 GMT
The Cure d'Ars and St Joseph of Cupertino might be parallel examples. Both were academically undistinguished and only ordained with difficulty (and the Cure's devotion to St Philomena included acceptance of a questionable account of her life based on supposed private revelations) and were models of sanctity. Areminder that it was not by dialectics (or at least not by that alone) that God chose to save his people. Quite a few saints got persecuted by superiors or confreres - St Joseph of Cupertino spent much of his later life in quasi-detention, and the Cure d'Ars acquired a curate who thought that he would be much more suitable to handle this major site of pilgrimage than the Cure was,so he tried to get him transferred elsewhere - quite oblivious to the fact that the only reason the pilgrims came was to see the Cure. I recently read an account of visiting Mount Argus in the late C19 by a Catholic who later turned Protestant. He met Fr Charles, and sneered at him as a simpleton. There are none so blind...
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Saints
Jun 9, 2018 16:35:31 GMT
Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 9, 2018 16:35:31 GMT
Indeed, Fr. Solanus was even predicted to be another Curé d'Ars by the superior who recommended he be ordained despite his academic shortcomings.
Interestingly, the biographer says that ordaining him a simplex priest was almost as painful for his superiors as it was for him. He was not the only simplex priest in his class, another seminarian was also ordained to this level.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 6, 2018 20:34:54 GMT
Several of the potential C19 English saints mentioned have Irish connections - Bl. John Henry Newman with the Catholic University in Dublin (he must be displeased to see UCD adorning Belfield with rainbow flags recently and the students' union producing its own set of YES posters in the recent abortion referendum.) Ven. Frances Taylor wrote a book on Irish convents - recently republished by UCD Press. One of the major early backers of Ven. Mary Potter's religious order was Count Plunkett, father of Joseph Mary Plunkett. Fr Ignatius Spencer visited Ireland several times to promote his crusade of prayer for the conversion of England. (He recorded meeting an old Irish woman who told him she said the prayers to gain an indulgence, then solemnly and repeatedly cursed the English to make sure they got no benefit from it. This indicates a certain confusion.) catholicherald.co.uk/issues/aug-3rd-2018/whos-next-saint/
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Saints
Aug 6, 2018 22:32:47 GMT
Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 6, 2018 22:32:47 GMT
Fr Ignatius Spencer visited Ireland several times to promote his crusade of prayer for the conversion of England. (He recorded meeting an old Irish woman who told him she said the prayers to gain an indulgence, then solemnly and repeatedly cursed the English to make sure they got no benefit from it. This indicates a certain confusion.) catholicherald.co.uk/issues/aug-3rd-2018/whos-next-saint/But it's pretty funny.
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Saints
Aug 12, 2018 21:40:08 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Aug 12, 2018 21:40:08 GMT
I know - though it's sad too. I was trying for gentle irony.
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