St. Aloysius Gonzaga

 

St. Aloysius Gonzaga – Washington, DC

 Since it’s Holy Week, I thought I’d like to do daily Mass all week.  It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for years but never had the chance.  This is the lucky year! 

In the District of Columbia, there is a high school with the same name as the well-known university, Gonzaga.  It’s an all-boys school; college prep, I believe.  Theirs is a huge, old church there (founded in 1859) that has daily mass at noon.  The parishioners fondly call it St. Al’s.  It’s old, it’s beautiful and it got me wondering, just who was St. Aloysius Gonzaga.

St. Aloysius – Washington, DC

Well, turns out St. Al was the eldest son of a wealthy family in Castiglione near Mantua, Italy.  He was born in 1568.  His father’s name was Ferrante.  How about that, my maiden name!  And they were part of the court of the Medici’s.  My nephew married a Medici.  So maybe I’m related to St. Aloysius!

Anyhow, when Aloysius, then know as Luigi (Aloysius is the Latin form of Luigi), was around 16, he decided he didn’t want to be a Marquis.  He wanted that right to go to his brother so that he could enter the seminary.  Ferrante wasn’t pleased and apparently there was a disagreement.  Now, I come from an Italian home and I can assure you, there is either peace or war but there are no ‘disagreements’.  I’m sure the Gonzaga household was a war zone.  Luigi won out and began to study under a newly founded religious order, The Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits.  (The Jesuits have founded both Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA and Georgetown University in Washington, DC.) 

He studied for the priesthood in Rome.  It was there that he would go out into the streets of the city to care for victims of the plague. and where he contracted the disease himself.  He died on June 21, 1591, at the age of twenty-three, six years short of his ordination.  Pope Benedict XIII canonized Aloysius a saint in 1726, and three years later declared him to be the patron of youth in the Catholic Church.  His feast day is June 21.

Now when I attend daily Mass at that beautiful church in downtown DC, the painting behind the altar will mean much more to me! 

You can read more detailed information about St. Aloysius Gonzaga on Wikipedia –> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Gonzaga

Happy Easter!

Deneen

The ‘Other’ Sheens

We’ve been sick here in my home.  The flu bug bit all of us and we have not functioned, at all.  I haven’t posted since February 25th!  It’s been all I could do to get a bit of supper on the table and keep the kitchen sink from filling to the brim with dirty dishes.  And if I see another bowl of chicken soup, I’ll grow feathers and lay an egg!  LOL!

Speaking of a full kitchen sink…..my sink is painfully full of the ‘stuff’ coming out of my television in regards to one very misguided moviestar; Charlie Sheen.  This post, however, isn’t about the pornstar-lusting, drug-loving, very lost child of God.  Nope, this post is about the other two men of the Sheen family; Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez. 

Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez

Did you know that the Sheen family is of Spanish, Roman-Catholic descent?  And not only are they Catholic, they appear to practice their faith.  How refreshing!  But of course, a practicing Christian isn’t newsworthy – it’s clean laundry as opposed to the filthy, dirty laundry the public likes to hear about.  (Sorry Charlie.)

Emilio and his father Martin have just finished a movie called ‘The Way’.  It’s about a 500 mile pilgrimage route that begins in the French Pyrenees and ends at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. 

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

Martin’s own father, Francisco, followed the route, locally called ‘El Camino’, many years ago.  Five hundred miles!  Can you imagine walking that far?  It apparently takes about 40 days to complete and has been a pilgrimage route since the Middle Ages.  The Cathedral is reported to be the burial-place of Saint James the Greater, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ.  Wikipedia reports that the route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe in October 1987; it was also named one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites.  The full name in English is called The Way of St. James.

The movie, ‘The Way’, is a story about a man, who is estranged from his son, and finds out that that son dies in a storm in the Pyrenees on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.  The rest of the film is about this man’s journey, along with 3 others, to find himself.  There’s a great article in the Arlington Catholic Herald, March 3-9, 2011, http://www.catholicherald.com/detail.html?sub_id=15233, about how the Sheen’s feel that the whole making of the movie had so many ‘coincidences’ that it had to be divine providence.  That certainly wasn’t Charlie talking! 

Well, I plan on seeing the movie.  I want to see about this pilgrimage that the God-following Sheens have taught me about.  I never heard of it until today.  Instead of wanting to watch a porn movie (again, Sorry Charlie), I want to see a movie that will help to strengthen my faith, maybe take a moral inventory of my soul, and receive God’s light into my life.  I wish the media would put THAT on the news!

Dear Jesus, please deliver people from the chains of addictions and help them to see The Way back to you.  Amen.

– Deneen

Our Lady of the Snows

This evening, I was quietly looking out the window at the beautiful snowfall and thinking how clean it made everything look. “What will I write about this evening on my blog?”, I wondered.  As I sat and daydreamed, it came to me, Our Lady of the Snows!  I knew that I had heard of her, but didn’t know much about this particular Marian apparition. I began clicking around the internet and found a website with some great information: http://campus.udayton.edu/mary//meditations/Summ99.html

Our Lady of the Snows
Rev. Matthew R. Mauriello

The most important church in the city of Rome dedicated to Our Lady is the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, erected around the year 352, during the reign of Pope Liberius. (352-366) According to legend, a member of an aristocratic family, John and his wife were childless and prayed that the Blessed Mother might designate an heir to bequeath their wealth. They were favored with a dream in which Our Lady appeared to them on the night of August 4-5. She requested that they build a church in her honor on the Esquiline hill and the sign to accompany this dream is that the exact location would be marked out in snow.

During that hot summer evening, a miraculous snowfall traced the form of the basilica on the hill. Our Lady also appeared to Pope Liberius in a dream that same night so that he too could arrive at the location to see the miraculous snowfall. Many people gathered to see the unusual event of snow glistening in the August sun. Upon awakening, John and his wife rushed to the site and Pope Liberius arrived in solemn procession.

Realizing that the snow marked the exact location of the church, the people staked off the area before the snow melted. The basilica was completed within two years and consecrated by Pope Liberius; that is why it is sometimes referred to as the Basilica Liberiana, after the Pope who consecrated it.

When the Council of Ephesus defined Mary as Theotokos, the God-bearer, in 432 A.D., Pope Sixtus III (432-440) rebuilt and embellished the basilica. From the seventh century onward, it was referred to as St. Mary the Great or Major. The Basilica has also been called Our Lady of the Snows in commemoration of the miraculous snowfall. The imposing facade was built by Pope Eugene III (1145-1153).

Among its great treasures is a painting of the Madonna and Child known as the Salus Populi Romani, the Protectress of the People of Rome, which is attributed to St. Luke. This image had been brought back from the Holy Land by St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, who also located the true cross and other relics of the Passion in Jerusalem. The venerable picture hung in the private chapel of Pope Liberius and he ordered that it be brought to the Basilica for public veneration by the faithful. 

Salus Populi Romani

Throughout the centuries, there has been a special devotion to this famous picture of Our Lady. During the pontificate of Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604) a plague attacked the people of Rome and the Pope carried the image in procession to pray to their Protectress for an end to the plague. In 1837, Pope Gregory XVI (1830-1846) also carried the image in procession throughout Rome to ask Our Lady for an end to an epidemic of cholera. When it soon ended, the Pontiff solemnly placed crowns of gold and gems on the heads of Mary and the child Jesus on the miraculous image.

Pope Paul V (1605-1621) arranged that a magnificent Chapel be built for the veneration of the image. On January 27, 1613, it was removed from the high altar and placed in the new chapel. The manger from the stable of Bethlehem is venerated under the high altar of the basilica.

The liturgical feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major is celebrated each year on the fifth of August. On that day, a beautiful custom is kept each year to commemorate the miraculous snowfall. At the conclusion of the Solemn Mass a shower of white rose petals falls from the dome of the Chapel of Our Lady.

The above article appeared in the Fairfield County Catholic January 1996. Reprinted with permission of the author and publisher. 

 

 

 

Basilica of Saint Mary Major

This is the largest church in Rome dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

 So, Mary got her church, but did that aristocratic couple, John and his wife, ever get their son or daughter?  I need to do more research!  There’s no surname in this article, so my work is cut out for me.  Wish me luck!  Until then, curl up with a nice warm cup of tea or cocoa, hug the one you love, and enjoy the snow!

 Blessings,

 Deneen