Learn about our Saint of the Day, the patron of bricklayers! 🙂
August 16, 2024
Dear John,
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Let me simply invite you, now, to consider how else you might share in this great mission of rebuilding and renewal that we are undertaking.
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We at Franciscan Media will aim to provide faithful, inspiring, and challenging resources that call individuals, families, and communities to participate in the work of rebuilding and renewal. We want to help people identify the “stones” that need to be stacked in their lives, while offering gentle guidance on how to stack them in ways that lead to greater wholeness, holiness, and connectedness with God and one another. Â
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Please pray for us at Franciscan Media. We are praying for you!
With profound gratitude,Â
Deacon Matthew Halbach, PhD President & Publisher,
The Church is universal, but its expression is always affected—for good or ill—by local culture. There are no “generic” Christians; there are Mexican Christians, Polish Christians, Filipino Christians. This fact is evident in the life of Stephen, national hero and spiritual patron of Hungary.
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Born a pagan, he was baptized around the age of 10, together with his father, chief of the Magyars, a group who migrated to the Danube area in the ninth century. At 20, he married Gisela, sister to the future emperor, Saint Henry. When he succeeded his father, Stephen adopted a policy of Christianization of the country for both political and religious reasons. He suppressed a series of revolts by pagan nobles and welded the Magyars into a strong national group. He asked the pope to provide for the Church’s organization in Hungary—and also requested that the pope confer the title of king upon him. He was crowned on Christmas day in 1001.
Stephen established a system of tithes to support churches and pastors and to relieve the poor. Out of every 10 towns one had to build a church and support a priest. He abolished pagan customs with a certain amount of violence, and commanded all to marry, except clergy and religious. He was easily accessible to all, especially the poor.
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In 1031, his son Emeric died, and the rest of Stephen’s days were embittered by controversy over his successor. His nephews attempted to kill him. He died in 1038 and was canonized, along with his son, in 1083.
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Reflection
God’s gift of holiness is a Christlike love of God and humanity. Love must sometimes bear a stern countenance for the sake of ultimate good. Christ attacked hypocrites among the Pharisees, but died forgiving them. Paul excommunicated the incestuous man at Corinth “that his spirit may be saved.” Some Christians fought the Crusades with noble zeal, in spite of the unworthy motives of others.
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Today, after senseless wars, and with a deeper understanding of the complex nature of human motives, we shrink from any use of violence—physical or “silent.” This wholesome development continues as people debate whether it is possible for a Christian to be an absolute pacifist or whether evil must sometimes be repelled by force.
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Saint Stephen of Hungary is the Patron Saint of:
Bricklayers Hungary
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Clare’s love song came out of her own sufferings. Although this serious and mysterious ailment often kept her bedridden, she nevertheless continued to minister faithfully to the needs of her sisters; she was the first woman to write a Rule of Life for vowed religious that was approved by the pope, and she sought approval from four successive popes for the perpetual privilege of perfect poverty for her order.
St. Clare’s canticle, then, is not a sentimental love song, though it was filled with feeling. Hers was a tough love that brought her joy because her lover was Christ, whose own tough love was the elegy of his own passion, death, and resurrection.
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And Clare herself was to the very end the personification of the poverty of Christ, who emptied himself, as St. Paul says, becoming a slave, obedient to the very end (see Philippians 2:7). The poverty that Christ embraced in becoming human St. Francis dubbed Lady Poverty—the only one, as Dante says, who ascended the cross with Jesus. Clare lived this image of gospel poverty in her own time and place. In many ways, she was the Lady Poverty whom Christ himself had embraced.
Sometimes, the hardest person to forgive can be yourself. We’re often ready to let go of the wrongs others have committed against us but stubbornly hold on to our guilt about our own sins. Ask God to guide you to healthier place.
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Pray
I’m angry, Lord. Not at a family member, coworker, or friend, but at myself. In ways big and small, I’ve sinned throughout my life, and I can’t seem to let go of the guilt. I ask for your forgiveness, but also for the peace and strength that comes with forgiving myself. Amen.
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Act
Identify a wrong you’ve done that you can’t seem to get past, and allow these words to sink in to your mind: “God loves me and wants me to be happy. Forgiving myself allows me to accept his love and desire for me to live joyously.”
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Today's Pause+Pray was written by Daniel Imwalle. Learn more here!
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