| Home | Holy Hombres by Father J. Patrick Serna “I have come to light a fire on the earth. How I wish the blaze were ignited!” Luke 12:49 “Hombre’ – noun. A man. A fellow. A man among men.” There lived, and there live today, Holy Hombres. Since Holy Hombres will be the focus of this light reflection, we must first look at the greatest lady who stood behind the most important man of all time, and even non-time. “Behind every great man, there is a woman,” says the adage, and we can certainly apply this adage to the God Man, Jesus Christ. We Catholics recently celebrated a great Marian Feast and dogma, namely, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One week later, we celebrated the Queenship of the Virgin Mary. Go forward six weeks to October 7, when we celebrate Our Lady of the Rosary, which was originally introduced to us by Pope St. Pius V in 1572 as festem BMV de Victoria (Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mother of Victory). We Catholics recognized the Mother of God’s intercession as the real force behind the victory of the Christian Armada over the Turks on October 7, 1571. The mindset of today’s Catholic is difficult to generalize or gauge, but before being “open minded” became chic and before self deprecation of Christians and the West came into vogue, we Catholics liked to celebrate joyful memories, like our victory over the Turks at Lepanto. Now, many Catholics won’t even know who the players were in that battle, why it was fought, or what was at stake. Why is the Worldwide Universal Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary a Universal Feast? What is a Catholic Feast, and what festive things should a Catholic do on festive days? We seem to have lost the answers to those questions. Catholics who don’t worry about political correctness or fall into the pride of self deprecation are able to celebrate the joyful memories of historical victories over infidels without shame, excuse, or embarrassment. Holy men and women in times past had no problem with calling an infidel an infidel; they had no qualms about referring to our Church as “the one, true, holy Catholic and apostolic Church” in public, above and beyond Sunday Mass when it is easily said amongst friends. Although the victory at Lepanto did not bring ultimate victory on land for us Christians, approximately 15,000 Christian rowers and slaves on the Turkish galleys were liberated, and it was the first great defeat of the infidels at sea. Thank you, Virgin Mary! And thank you for inspiring those Holy Catholic Hombres to put it all on the line, for God and for patria! Hilaire Belloc said that “Lepanto” was Chesterton's greatest poem. The poem reminds us of valor, bravery, courage, and wholesome Catholic pride. Here are some tidbits from the great poem, which you should read in its entirety at your earliest convenience: …the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.…The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall…. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war…. then the cannon, and he comes. Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. Love-light of Spain— hurrah!....Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria! Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships….Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)…. he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.... (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.) Belloc and Chesterton are great literary and intellectual figures…not only by Catholic standards, but even by worldly and pagan (in the classical sense of the term) standards. How many Catholics are familiar with their works today? How many of you who are reading this, and you represent a minority of the “well read” Catholics out there, were already familiar as familiar can be with Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto,” or the book of the same title edited by Dale Ahlquist (a compilation of commentary/essays accompanying the poem --ed.)? Did Jesus look at times of ignorance and apathy, the times we live in now, when these words fell off His Divine lips? “I have come to light a fire on the earth. How I wish the blaze were ignited!” (Luke 12:49) Thousands of Catholic sons were killed or maimed in the Battle of Lepanto, but because Catholics of those days did not believe in isolationism, apathy, or false and improper interpretations of ecumenism, the Ottoman Empire was prevented from reigning supreme in the Mediterranean. Because of that Catholic victory over the infidels, the Mediterranean remained, by and large, Christian. Are we to be ashamed of this victory, or is this victory something to be festive about? What kind of men fought in this battle? Holy Hombres, like Miguel Cervantes. This Catholic son of literary fame responded to the loss of his left arm with the casual remark that the loss “was for the greater glory of my right hand.” Such a response is reflective of how the Holy Hombre thinks. Everything is colored with the backdrop of eternal life in mind. Do I promote war or killing in the name of God or religion? No. Does God promote war or killing for the sake of religion or belief systems? No. We have been taught, and accurately so, that war is one of the consequences of original, and actual, sin. War is not of God. However, when God is attacked, when Christian culture is attacked, does the God who loves not war or killing want His people to sit idly by? This is where St. Thomas Aquinas and his just war theory come into play, along with the principle of double effect. Men who understand the official Catholic teaching on Just War will never feel guilty about protecting wife or children with the most drastic of measures, if criteria are met, from a would be murderer, rapist, or criminal in general. Are we not supposed to protect Mother Church and the True God in the same way, or do True Church and True God hold a lower place than a wife and children? Another saint who I look up to as a Holy Hombre is the prophet Elijah: “Then Elijah said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal. Let none of them escape!’ They were seized, and Elijah had them brought down to the brook Kishon and there he slit their throats.” (1 Kings 18:40). The Old Testament must be read in light of the New, so interpret that passage as you are supposed to. I do, however, ask: “In what way did God respond to Elijah’s behavior?” Well, aside from the Virgin Mary who was assumed into Heaven, along with Enoch (Gen 5:24) and possibly Moses (Jude 9), God tells us in Holy Writ: “….a flaming chariot and flaming horses came between them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind” (2 Kings2:11). Maybe Elijah and his passionate love are not so much to be scorned. On a much later occasion, another Holy Hombre saved the day, during his time in the seminary no less. In 1860 St. Gabriel Possenti saved a young woman from being raped, and he saved the village of Isola, Italy, by removing the revolver from the hip of one of Garibaldi’s thugs. After more drama unfolded, Possenti took the opportunity to shoot a small running lizard with the pistol as the band of terrorists was coming upon him. These ruffians obeyed St. Gabriel Possenti and dropped their weapons, and then he escorted them out of town at gunpoint, telling them never to return. People of the region still refer to him today as “the Savior of Isola.” Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925) is another great example of the Holy Hombre. This Blessed was born on Holy Saturday, and loved to ski, climb mountains, ride horses, wrestle, pull practical jokes, and swim. It has been reported that Pier Giorgio was involved in many fights, primarily with anti-Catholic Reds. Wouldn’t you know it… some holy rollers want to digitally remove the pipe from Pier Giorgio’s mouth which is in that famous picture of him on top of a mountain! Such folks want all the sizzle, but no steak. Pietests who would remove that pipe would probably synonymize sanctity with stupidity, if asked to define. In a Church-organized demonstration against the Fascists, anti-Catholic police attacked both demonstrators and their banner. Pier Giorgio used that same banner to teach these police a lesson or two, and gave them what Hank Williams Jr. referred to as an “attitude adjustment on top of the head.” He did the same thing to another group of Fascists who broke into his family’s home with the intent to hurt him and his father. They too received an attitude adjustment from Pier Giorgio. A German news reporter once wrote: “One night in Berlin, with the temperature at twelve degrees below zero, he gave his overcoat to a poor old man shivering with cold. His father scolded him, and he replied simply and matter-of-factly: ‘But you see, papa, it was cold.’” The majority of mourners there for his funeral were the thousands upon thousands of the poor and needy whom he had served for seven years. At the beatification for Pier Giorgio on May 20, 1990, Pope John Paul the Great said in the homily: “In him faith and daily events are harmoniously fused, so that adherence to the Gospel is translated into loving care for the poor and the needy in a continual crescendo until the very last days of the sickness which led to his death. His love for beauty and art, his passion for sports and mountains, his attention to society's problems did not inhibit his constant relationship with the Absolute. Entirely immersed in the mystery if God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor: thus we can sum up his earthly life!” Upon reading more of Pope John Paul the Great’s poetry and his passionate love for nature and the outdoors, I have come to believe that he would have made Pier Giorgio’s words his own: “Every day I love the mountains more and more and if my studies allowed me I should spend entire days in the mountains contemplating in that pure air the greatness of the Creator.” Fellow Christians, I obviously had to leave out several other great saints. But you get the picture. These saints I have made mention of knew not the words “apathy,” “moral indifference,” or “compromise.” Instead, these saints and thousands more have come to know and believe these words of Jesus Christ: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. But because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Apocalypse 3:15-16). No, the souls who come into God’s Glory are the apples of His eye, His lilies of the valley. The day of judgment for those who live and die loving God is a happy day, a day of Festival. Fr. J. Patrick Serna is a priest for the diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas. You can e-mail him at Krakalese@yahoo.com. To read more great articles from CMQ and to subscribe click here... |
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