Our Saint of the Day was martyred in North Africa spreading the good news. đź“Ł
June 26, 2024
Hello John,
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Today's Saint of the Day highlights Blessed Raymond Lull's unwavering dedication to promoting missions and advancing knowledge resonates with Franciscan values of service, learning, and outreach.
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His commitment to missionary work and his pivotal role in establishing colleges for future missionaries serve as a testament to the power of one individual's impact on the world. Raymond's life and legacy remind us of the importance of supporting initiatives that further the mission of spreading compassion and understanding across cultures.
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Raymond worked all his life to promote the missions and died a missionary to North Africa.
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Raymond was born at Palma on the island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea. He earned a position in the king’s court there. One day a sermon inspired him to dedicate his life to working for the conversion of the Muslims in North Africa. He became a Secular Franciscan and founded a college where missionaries could learn the Arabic they would need in the missions. Retiring to solitude, he spent nine years as a hermit. During that time he wrote on all branches of knowledge, a work which earned him the title “Enlightened Doctor.”
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Raymond then made many trips through Europe to interest popes, kings, and princes in establishing special colleges to prepare future missionaries. He achieved his goal in 1311, when the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of chairs of Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca. At the age of 79, Raymond went to North Africa in 1314 to be a missionary himself. An angry crowd of Muslims stoned him in the city of Bougie. Genoese merchants took him back to Mallorca, where he died. Raymond was beatified in 1514 and his liturgical feast is celebrated on June 30.
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Reflection
Raymond worked most of his life to help spread the gospel. Indifference on the part of some Christian leaders and opposition in North Africa did not turn him from his goal. Three hundred years later Raymond’s work began to have an influence in the Americas. When the Spanish began to spread the gospel in the New World, they set up missionary colleges to aid the work. Saint JunĂpero Serra belonged to such a college.
Begin a transformative journey with Franciscan Media as we introduce a 28-day meditation series,
“Go and repair my house,” Jesus says to Francis as he prayed before the San Damiano Crucifix. “Go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruins.” He not only repaired the little house of San Damiano, but the larger house where God dwells, Earth itself. He repaired Earth by starting first with a church, which was for Francis the new ark of the covenant, the dwelling place of God among us. A crumbling church yes, but also the earth upon which it rests and all creatures who dwell upon it and within it, and the seas whose waters Jesus himself calmed and from whose depths fishes of all sorts fed and nourished God’s people and other creatures. Everything was from God, of God, and in God, blessed and sustained in its existence. That is what needed renewing and rebuilding by listening to and heeding the words of the Gospel.
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The Gospel was for living, and to skew it otherwise was to betray Love who is Jesus Christ. Learning to love each person for the sake of the God who has come among us in the person of Jesus Christ is how the house of God is repaired. The fruit of this love of Christ is joy. The price of such love is grief over the betrayals, our own and that of others, of so great a love.
St. Bonaventure described God as an ever-flowing fountain of love giving life to all things and inspiration to humankind. God’s love flows in you filling you with energy and insight. God’s love also flows through you to bring joy and healing to those with whom you will interact today. You can go with the flow of God’s love wherever God takes you and know that you will always find your way home.
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Pray
Everlasting fountain of love, I give thanks for the ever-flowing streams Of joy and justice that flow into my life. Help me become a channel of love to everyone I meet. Let me share in your ministry of renewal and refreshment. Amen.
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Act
Today, I will pause to feel the flow of God’s love in my life. I will experience the refreshment and restoration that comes opening to God’s fountain of love. I will a commitment to share the energy, inspiration, and love I’m receiving with everyone I meet.
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Today's Pause+Pray was written by Bruce Epperly. Learn more here!
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