Today's Saint of the Day is the patron of juvenile delinquents! đźš”
March 10, 2025
Dear John,
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This week we are highlighting our second theme of Rebuilding God’s Church: Healing Our Relationships with God and Others. We are in the process of organizing our resources around these themes to better accompany you on your faith journey. St. Francis began to relate to others in a more Christ-like way only after God helped him see himself and others as children of God. Francis’ encounter with the leper is a great example of how a new way of seeing things can lead to newfound respect and new relationships.
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With profound gratitude,Â
Deacon Matthew Halbach, PhD President & Publisher,
So many holy persons seem to die young. Among them was Dominic Savio, the patron of choirboys.
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Born into a peasant family at Riva, Italy, young Dominic joined Saint John Bosco as a student at the Oratory in Turin at the age of 12. He impressed Don Bosco with his desire to be a priest and to help him in his work with neglected boys. A peacemaker and an organizer, young Dominic founded a group he called the Company of the Immaculate Conception which, besides being devotional, aided John Bosco with the boys and with manual work. All the members save one, Dominic, would, in 1859, join Don Bosco in the beginnings of his Salesian congregation. By that time, Dominic had been called home to heaven.
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As a youth, Dominic spent hours rapt in prayer. His raptures he called “my distractions.” Even in play, he said that at times, “It seems heaven is opening just above me. I am afraid I may say or do something that will make the other boys laugh.” Dominic would say, “I can’t do big things. But I want all I do, even the smallest thing, to be for the greater glory of God.”
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Dominic’s health, always frail, led to lung problems and he was sent home to recuperate. As was the custom of the day, he was bled in the thought that this would help, but it only worsened his condition. He died on March 9, 1857, after receiving the Last Sacraments. Saint John Bosco himself wrote the account of his life.
Some thought that Dominic was too young to be considered a saint. Saint Pius X declared that just the opposite was true, and went ahead with his cause. Dominic was canonized in 1954. His liturgical feast is celebrated on March 9.
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Reflection
Like many a youngster, Dominic was painfully aware that he was different from his peers. He tried to keep his piety from his friends lest he have to endure their laughter. Even after his death, his youth marked him as a misfit among the saints and some argued that he was too young to be canonized. Pope Pius X wisely disagreed. For no one is too young—or too old or too anything else—to achieve the holiness to which we all are called.
The divisions of the world can only be overcome by a unitive consciousness at every level: personal, relational, social, political, cultural, in interreligious dialogue, and particularly in spirituality. This is the unique and central job of healthy religion (re-ligio means “re-ligament”). As Jesus put it in his great final prayer, “I pray that all may be one” (John 17:21). Or, as my favorite Christian mystic, Lady Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) wrote, “By myself I am nothing at all, but in general, I am in the oneing of love. For it is in this oneing that the life of all people exists.”
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As Julian wrote, “The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another person,” and “In the sight of God, all humans are oned, and one person is all people, and all people are in one person.” This is the whole point: it was, indeed, supposed to usher in a new age—and still will and can. This is the perennial tradition. Our job is not to discover it, but to retrieve what has been discovered—and enjoyed—again and again, in the mystics and saints of all religions.
 Margaret Carney weaves together the story of Clare and Francis and draws special attention to Clare’s significant contribution to the Franciscan world in the many years following
A few years ago, Pope Francis reflected, “Always, even today, the temptation is to follow a Christ without a cross, rather, to teach God the right path.” The hubris of us showing God the way, instead of accepting that we desperately need guidance, is stunning, yet we all too easily fall into the exact trap that the pope described in our daily lives. As devastating and painful as the cross was for Jesus to bear, it was inextricably tied to his resurrection—and our salvation.
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Pray
Jesus, I say that I want to follow you, But when it becomes too challenging, Too uncomfortable, Too real, I flinch, closing my eyes and pretending That the cross isn’t before me. My cross, a blessing in disguise, Awaits my embrace. Can you help me carry it for a while?
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Act
What causes you heartache, keeps you up at night, or otherwise nags your mind and soul in your everyday life? These struggles make up the wooden beams of your cross. How can you take ownership of the cross that is yours to bear?
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Today's Pause+Pray was written by Daniel Imwalle. Learn more here!
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