FEAST OF ST. JOHN OF CAPISTRANO
Job, Chapter 21,
Verse 28
And to mortals he
said: See: the fear of the Lord is
wisdom; and avoiding evil is understanding.
The moral of the story is that wisdom lives with God. To fear
the scope and power of this divine wisdom is to be truly wise in a human sense.
Kind of how a truly wise man knows that he knows nothing.[1]
St. John of Capistrano[2]
St. John was born in 1386
at Capistrano in the Italian Province of the Abruzzi. His father was a German
knight and died when he was still young. When war broke out between Perugia and
Malatesta in 1416, St. John tried to broker a peace. Unfortunately, his opponents
ignored the truce and St. John became a prisoner of war. On the death of his
wife he entered the order of Friars Minor, was ordained and began to lead a
very penitential life. John became a disciple of Saint Bernadine of Siena and a
noted preacher.
·
The
world at the time was in need of strong men to work for salvation of souls.
·
Thirty
percent of the population was killed by the Black Plague, the Church was split
in schism and there were several men claiming to be pope.
·
As
an Itinerant priest throughout Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary,
Poland, and Russia, St. John preached to tens of thousands and established
communities of Franciscan renewal.
·
He
reportedly healed the sick by making the Sign of the Cross over them. He also
wrote extensively, mainly against the heresies of the day.
·
He
was successful in reconciling heretics.
Things to
Do
·
St.
John struggled with finding his vocation. Younger people can pray to St. John
for help in discerning God's will for their lives.
·
Learn
more about the times that St. John Capistrano lived, such as the Crusades, the
Black Plague, anti-popes.
·
St.
John is the patron of jurists. We can turn to him to help discern major
decisions. We can also follow his example of strict self-discipline in order to
think more clearly.
·
In
1776 in Southern California, Father Junipera Serra founded the Mission of San Juan Capistrano,
named for St. John, for mission work to the Indians. The mission is a
historical site and has both a Catholic Basilica and the original smaller
chapel that are still used for Catholic liturgy. See the Wikipedia page. There is also a tradition of the swallows returning
to San Juan every March 19. Find out more about this annual event.
Many
people who are unmarried are not only devoted to their own family but often
render great service in their group of friends, in the Church community and in
their professional lives. Sometimes their presence and contributions are
overlooked, causing in them a sense of isolation. Many put their talents at the
service of the Christian community through charity and volunteer work. Others
remain unmarried because they consecrate their lives to the love of Christ and
neighbor. Their dedication greatly enriches the family, the Church and society. ” Virginity is a form of love. As a
sign, it speaks to us of the coming of the Kingdom and the need for complete
devotion to the cause of the Gospel. It is also a reflection of the fullness of
heaven, where “they neither marry not are given in marriage.” Saint Paul
recommended virginity because he expected Jesus’ imminent return and he wanted
everyone to concentrate only on spreading the Gospel: “the appointed time has
grown very short.” Nonetheless, he made it clear that this was his personal
opinion and preference, not something demanded by Christ: “I have no command in
the Lord.” All the same, he recognized the value of the different callings:
“Each has his or her own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of
another.” Reflecting on this, Saint John Paul II noted that the biblical texts
“give no reason to assert the ‘inferiority’ of marriage, nor the ‘superiority’
of virginity or celibacy” based on sexual abstinence. Rather than speak
absolutely of the superiority of virginity, it should be enough to point out
that the different states of life complement
one another, and consequently that some can be more perfect in one way and
others in another. Alexander of Hales, for example, stated that in one sense
marriage may be considered superior to the other sacraments, inasmuch as it
symbolizes the great reality of “Christ’s union with the Church, or the union
of his divine and human natures”. Consequently, “it is not a matter of
diminishing the value of matrimony in favor of continence.” “There is no basis
for playing one off against the other… If, following a certain theological
tradition, one speaks of a ‘state of perfection’; this has to do not with
continence in itself, but with the entirety of a life based on the evangelical
counsels.” A married person can experience the highest degree of charity and thus
“reach the perfection which flows from charity, through fidelity to the spirit
of those counsels. Such perfection is possible and accessible to every man and
woman.” The value of virginity lies in
its symbolizing a love that has no need to possess the other; in this way it
reflects the freedom of the Kingdom of Heaven. Virginity encourages married
couples to live their own conjugal love against the backdrop of Christ’s
definitive love, journeying together towards the fullness of the Kingdom. For
its part, conjugal love symbolizes other values. On the one hand, it is a
particular reflection of that full unity in distinction found in the Trinity.
The family is also a sign of Christ. It manifests the closeness of God who is a
part of every human life, since he became one with us through his incarnation,
death and resurrection. Each spouse becomes “one flesh” with the other as a
sign of willingness to share everything with him or her until death. Whereas virginity is an “eschatological”
sign of the risen Christ, marriage is a “historical” sign for us living in this
world, a sign of the earthly Christ who chose to become one with us and gave
himself up for us even to shedding his blood. Virginity and marriage are, and must be, different ways of loving. For
“Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for
himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him.” Celibacy can risk becoming a comfortable
single life that provides the freedom to be independent, to move from one residence,
work or option to another, to spend money as one sees fit and to spend time
with others as one wants. In such cases, the witness of married people becomes
especially eloquent. Those called to virginity can encounter in some marriages
a clear sign of God’s generous and steadfast fidelity to his covenant, and this
can move them to a more concrete and generous availability to others. Many married couples remain faithful when
one of them has become physically unattractive, or fails to satisfy the other’s
needs, despite the voices in our society that might encourage them to be
unfaithful or to leave the other. A wife can care for her sick husband and
thus, in drawing near to the Cross, renew her commitment to love unto death. In
such love, the dignity of the true lover shines forth, inasmuch as it is more
proper to charity to love than to be loved. We could also point to the presence
in many families of a capacity for selfless and loving service when children
prove troublesome and even ungrateful. This makes those parents a sign of
the free and selfless love of Jesus. Cases like these encourage celibate
persons to live their commitment to the Kingdom with greater generosity and
openness. Today, secularization has obscured the value of a life-long union and
the beauty of the vocation to marriage. For this reason, it is “necessary to
deepen an understanding of the positive aspects of conjugal love.”
Daily Devotions
[1]
https://www.shmoop.com/book-of-job/chapter-28-summary.html
[2]http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2017-10-23
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