Pastor's Corner
September 16, 2019
Willy Taggart the “one year wonder” football coach at Oregon is famous for the none-to-specific pep phrase, “Do Something.” I believe God is “doing something” in response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis.I was reminded of this by my friend Sherry Weddell, who wrote to monthly donors of the Catherine of Siena Institute the following. It deals with the dark time between 1531-1538.
“In 1535 King Henry VIII of England was made Supreme Head of the Church in England and St. Thomas More was executed. The next year, the King began the destruction of all the monasteries in England, Wales, and Ireland. But in the midst of disaster, the grace of God was already at work preparing men and women to transform and restore the Church.
1531: Our Lady of Guadalupe appears in Mexico
1533: 18 year-old Philip Neri goes through a major conversion and moves to Rome
1534: 42 year-old Ignatius of Loyola and his six companions, including Francis Xavier and Peter Claver – make their first vows
1535: 20 year-old Teresa of Avila enters the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation
61 year-old Angela Merici, a single lay woman and educator of girls, founds the Company of St. Ursula
1536: A 60-something priest bribes a few boys off the streets of Milan with an apple and teaches them how to make the sign of the cross. It is the unlikely beginning of the “Schools of Christian Doctrine” or CCD.
1537: The Pope creates a Reform Commission dominated by members of the Oratory of Divine Love, a confraternity inspired by Catherine of Genoa, a lay woman
1538: Charles Borromeo is born. Philip Neri begins his evangelizing apostolate in the streets of Rome as a layman, starting conversations with people and raising spiritual topics.”
God hasn’t stopped working. The “something” He’s doing is what He always does. He is inviting each of us to respond to His grace, become His instruments, and become saints ourselves. Especiallynow, what “something” is He asking you to do?