St Lorenzo Ruiz Feast Day: Sept 28 - Saint of the Week

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Pray with Rosary and Chaplet or just read the meditations.

Chaplet: 1. On an auspicious day some thirty four years ago, Lorenzo Ruiz and companion martyrs were beatified by Pope John Paul II in February 1982 at Luneta Park, Manila. Five and a half years later, Lorenzo was canonized at the Vaticanby the same pope as the first Filipino saint and named "Patron Saint of the Laity".

2. Lorenzo Ruiz, after more than 37 years after his beatification, his life continues to inspire devotion and love of Mary and Jesus. He was an ordinary layman, doing ordinary layman's work but with an extraordinary devotion to Mary and the catholic faith.

3. Lorenzo's life was full of lessons for us, the faithful, which are relevant during his time and up to now. He was a good husband, family man and provider. He was a devoted member of his church, a conscientious church worker, a prayerful person and devout follower of the Blessed Mother.

4. Lorenzo's life: First, we, are not only “worth dying for”. We are also capable of dying for a godly cause and for God Himself. We are not always found at the receiving end. Many of us are not only willing but are also actually giving. Many are dying a thousand deaths each day for their families, for their country, and, most importantly, for God. Yes, graft and corruption, regionalism, mediocrity, and a host of other social menaces continue to be our curse, but voluntarism, generosity, and godliness are also just a few of our intrinsic goodness. Heroism is innate in us. Let us focus on our positive values that make the heroes and heroines in us shine brightly. Let us use every opportunity to bring out the heroic qualities in each of us. Let us be heroes, not celebrities.

5. Second, having a lay person – with a wife and three children – as the first Filipino canonized saint puts across the clear message that holiness is not the exclusive domain of priests and religious. We are all called to holiness. Holiness is our common vocation, whether we are priests, people in consecrated life, or lay. Our dignity is not in the titles that come before or after our names. Those who are addressed to as “Cardinal”, “Bishop”, “Monsignor”, “Father”, “Sister”, and “Brother”, or given salutations such as “Your Eminence”, “Your Excellency”, and “Your Reverence” are not first class citizens in the Church. Titles attached to names such as “Doctor of Divinity”, “Doctor of Sacred Theology”, “Doctor of Canon Law”, and “Licensed in Sacred Theology” do not guarantee personal holiness which is the only fulfillment of our ultimate calling. The greatest among us is the one who serves the least. We do not need titles and salutations to serve the least. He or she who loves in the pattern of Jesus Christ who laid down His life for others is the truly holy man or woman, for holiness is the perfection of charity.

Rosary: 1. Just as the heroic quality is inherent in us, the virtue of holiness is likewise not found wanting in us. We have many holy, even saintly, Filipinos in our midst. They are those who serve with utmost charity without fanfare. Hidden from the lenses of cameras, but not from our clear sight, many of them are simple lay people. We must admit that many of them are the ones who serve us, rather the ones we serve. Like Lorenzo Ruiz, they make us examine the veracity of our claim, perhaps not vocal but nonetheless actual, to holiness.

2. We are capable of holiness not because of our ecclesiastical titles and positions. We can be holy, and many of us are indeed holy, because that is what we are called to be. – whether priests or laypersons – can be saints. Canonized by the Church or simply known to God alone, we are a saintly people. Let us be saints together.

3. Third, heroes and saints are not produced overnight. Lorenzo Ruiz was steadfast in his faith because throughout his life he was attached to the Church, to God and to the Blessed Mother. He was able to give his life for the Church because he was always at the service of the Church. As a young boy, he was a sacristan. As a young man, he was an “escribano”, a parish secretary. And though he went with the missionaries not primarily to do mission, he answered the need of the situation when he was actually with them. He assisted the missionaries when they were in Japanto spread the Gospel of Christ. In the same way, we become heroes and saints only if we keep our selves attached to what is heroic and saintly. Service to others through the Church is heroic. Love of Jesus and His Blessed Mother is saintly.

4. In this regard, the home and the school are two important training grounds of heroes and saints. Let our homes be homes of saints. Let our schools be schools of heroes. Keep our families attached to Jesus and His Blessed Mother. Make our schools always remind the young of our heroes and train them well so as to be able to respond when the ultimate sacrifice is demanded of them.

5. Lorenzo Ruiz said, “I shall die for God, and for Him I will give many thousands of lives if I had them.” He died once for God, for one life was all that he had. We die our thousand deaths for God each day, for martyrdom begins with living for God, not dying for him. To die for the Faith is a gift to some, but to live for it is a call for all. That gift may never become ours. But that call is always certainly ours. Have you died for God today?

         In every respect other than her death, Maria Goretti’s brief life seems a story repeated over and over again across the globe. The third of seven children, she was born in 1890 in Corinaldo, Italy, to a poor family. By the time she was five, her parents had lost their farm and hired themselves out to work for others as tenant farmers. The family moved often, finally ending up in Nettuno, not far from Rome.
When Maria was nine, her father died, and her mother and siblings threw themselves into work to feed the family. Maria kept house, cooked and watched her baby sister. It was a hard life. There was no time for school, for the family was too busy trying to survive. Like many of the poor, the Gorettis could not afford a home of their own, so they shared living quarters with another family, the Serenellis. And like many young girls in similar circumstances, Maria was the victim of unwanted sexual advances on the part of Alessandro, the Serenellis’ 20-year-old son. She said nothing about his unwelcome invitations, which she refused, for she was a frightened child and he was a grown man threatening to kill her if she told.

In 1902, 11-year-old Maria was sitting on the steps mending a shirt when Alessandro grabbed her and dragged her into the house. He held an awl and threatened to stab her if she refused him again. Maria did just that. She had been a bit behind the other children in catechism class, but everything she needed in this moment came to her with absolute clarity. “No,” she cried as he tried to choke her, “It is a sin! God doesn’t want it!” She struggled and tried to run for the door. He caught her, and when she said that she would rather die than give him what he wanted, he stabbed her fourteen times with the awl before running away.
Her family heard the baby crying and ran into the house to find Maria bleeding on the floor. In the hospital, the doctor operated on her without anesthesia. “Think of me in Paradise,” he suddenly said in the middle of the surgery. “Which of us will get there first?” she mused. “You, Maria,” he answered. “Then yes, I will remember you,” she promised.

She knew she was dying now, and so still more came to her with astonishing clarity. There was someone who needed something from her, indeed, who needed the greatest gift she could give before dying. Alessandro Serenelli needed her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God. She told the police the name of the man who had harmed her, but she added, “I forgive him, and I want him with me in heaven!”
Alessandro took a long time to accept that forgiveness. Sentenced to thirty years in prison, at first he showed no remorse. Years later, he had a dream, which he recounted to a bishop who came to visit him in jail. He saw the little girl he had killed handing him lilies she had gathered, but they burned in his hands. He woke and he knew that the forgiveness she had given him was a power mightier than he could conceive, and that this power was at work in him. Alessandro’s heart broke open, and he began to accept the forgiveness of God.

Twenty-seven years after Maria’s murder, Alessandro was released from prison. He went straight to Maria’s mother, Assunta, and begged her forgiveness. Who was she to refuse, the mother said, what her daughter had given so readily? The next day, they went to Mass together as if they were mother and son. Alessandro became a Franciscan lay brother, working in the garden of a monastery until his death.
It was this miracle of forgiveness and conversion that sealed what many had already begun to suspect: that illiterate child who died was a martyr filled with divine charity. In 1950, Pope Pius XII canonized this “20th century St. Agnes” in the presence of her mother, her siblings, and her erstwhile neighbor, who had killed her only to discover in her an intercessor, a sister and a friend.

In the homily for her canonization, Pope Pius XII of venerable memory pointed to Maria Goretti as "the sweet little martyr of purity" (cf. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, XII [1950-1951], 121), because she did not break God's commandment in spite of being threatened by death.

     Over the next couple days we’ll hear a series woes from Jesus that are directed towards the hypocrisy of the Scribes & Pharisees. This is really a major theme in scripture. In the Old Testament God tells his people to “rend their hearts, not their garments.” However, Scripture is filled with people that rend their garments and not their hearts. In the Book of Jeremiah the Lord tells Jeremiah that “Both prophet and priest are godless. In my very house (or temple) I find their wickedness.” People like this are far from God. Their acts of piety are really just for show; they’re outward acts that make them appear holy, but as our Lord so often says in scripture their hearts are far from him.

St. Rose of Lima is different. She’s someone who lived with conviction in her love for God. She was born in Lima, Peru and at young age took a vow of virginity. Like so many parents with daughters during her time Rose’s parents wanted her to marry, but Rose refused. She wanted to join a convent, but her parents told her no. So out of obedience to them she lived a life similar to Catherina of Siena; a life of penance & prayer at her family house and she assisted them with work where she could. Also like Catherine of Siena she became a third order Dominican.

In the quasi-monastic life she was living, Rose rendered her heart to God and the fruits of this had lasting effects. Her charity, one time even opening a room in the house where she cared for homeless children, elderly & sick, was the start of social services in Peru. And then many people throughout the years since her death have turned to her for her intercession.

We turn to St. Rose today and ask that she’ll help us to rend out hearts to the Lord as she did, so that we don’t remain on surface level in our spiritual lives, but are converted and leave fruit that will last.  - Fr Joseph Hastings St Faustina Shrine