April 15, 2024

Hello John,

Perhaps like me, lately you are feeling a little rushed, stressed, and overburdened. I feel many outside pressures and influences on my life. Each day, I am so grateful to receive Franciscan Media’s newsletter because I can take a moment to pause and remember who I am—a child of God. And for a moment, I enter a sacred space and feel God’s loving embrace. Renewed through this experience, I can go forward and accomplish the day’s work.

Thank you for being a part of our Franciscan Media family. I pray that today’s email brings you peace, joy, and an experience of God’s love. 

If you are inspired, please consider supporting the friars through this important work with a gift to Franciscan Media at: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/newsletter.  

With profound gratitude, 

Christopher Meyer
Director of Development 

Saint of the Day for April 15: Caesar de Bus

(February 3, 1544 – April 15, 1607)

Saint Caesar de Bus’ Story

Like so many of us, Caesar de Bus struggled with the decision about what to do with his life. After completing his Jesuit education he had difficulty settling between a military and a literary career. He wrote some plays but ultimately settled for life in the army and at court.

For a time, life was going rather smoothly for the engaging, well-to-do young Frenchman. He was confident he had made the right choice. That was until he saw firsthand the realities of battle, including the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacres of French Protestants in 1572.

He fell seriously ill and found himself reviewing his priorities, including his spiritual life. By the time he had recovered, Caesar had resolved to become a priest. Following his ordination in 1582, he undertook special pastoral work: teaching the catechism to ordinary people living in neglected, rural, out-of-the-way places. His efforts were badly needed and well received.

Working with his cousin, Caesar developed a program of family catechesis. The goal—to ward off heresy among the people—met the approval of local bishops. Out of these efforts grew a new religious congregation: the Fathers of Christian Doctrine.

One of Caesar’s works, Instructions for the Family on the Four Parts of the Roman Catechism, was published 60 years after his death. He was beatified in 1975 and canonized in 2022.

Reflection

“Family catechesis” is a familiar term in parish life today. Grounded in the certainty that children learn their faith first from their parents, programs that deepen parental involvement in religious education multiply everywhere. There were no such programs in Caesar’s day until he saw a need and created them. Other needs abound in our parishes, and it’s up to us to respond by finding ways to fill them or by joining in already established efforts.

I have populated my world with thinly clothed memories of life. Absent of real people. My saints’ pictures and Sacred Hearts decorate my room. Would that they would spring to life and speak as the San Damiano cross did.

—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing

"Our culture presents men with the illusion of making decisions, but it effectively castrates them from charting actual new directions beyond and outside of the rat race. Men hardly ever have a chance to make decisions that make a real difference in their own lives or in the world around them, except in a minor  diversionary way. They have to play the game, or they won’t be rewarded."

—From Wild Man to Wise Man

This newsletter is not free to produce! Please consider making a donation to help us in our efforts to share God's love in the spirit of St. Francis.