Catholic Saints & Feasts Podcast Por Fr. Michael Black arte de portada

Catholic Saints & Feasts

Catholic Saints & Feasts

De: Fr. Michael Black
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"Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black.

These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.Copyright Fr. Michael Black Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • March 19: Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    March 19: Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    Mar 19 2025
    March 19: Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    First Century
    Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of the Universal Church, fathers, and a happy death

    Jesus and Mary lived under his gentle, fatherly authority

    The husband of Mary had a perfect spouse, untouched by original sin. He was also the foster father to a boy who was the Son of God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Yet Saint Joseph, the least perfect member of his household, was still the head of the family. Authority does not always flow from moral or intellectual superiority. Authority in the Church, in particular, is God given. Because God chooses a certain person to fulfill a task in His household of faith, that person acts with a divine mandate to teach, sanctify, and govern the people and things entrusted to him. Saint Joseph is a model for how God uses imperfect instruments to exercise His perfect will. God does not want robots, machines, or zombies to mindlessly implement His plan for mankind. The history of the Church is replete with imperfect tools who have caused scandal and division. Wayward leaders have cost the Church entire countries. Yet despite all these unworthy instruments in the hands of the Divine Master, truth and shelter and grace continue to be provided to those baptised into the Church, the Master’s family.

    God wants personality. God wants us to have character. God’s angels, created spirits, lack the restrictions imposed by a human body. But in not having a body, the angels also lack what makes us unique. They lack the spit, vinegar, and spark that make a man a man. Every man is an enfleshed soul, the coming together of a body and a spirit. This coming together is not half soul and half body, like the mythical centaur with the body of a horse but the torso and head of a man. When copper and zinc are welded together, they are superficially united into one larger piece of metal. But the union is not total and does not create something new. The copper is still copper, and the zinc is still zinc. But when copper and zinc are each melted down and then mixed together, they form brass. Brass is not just the joining of copper to zinc but an entirely new material with unique properties. In a similar way, the union of a body and a soul together composes a human person with unique properties, a child of God unlike any other. The saints, in particular, were unique people often possessing hot tempers, forceful personalities, and unbending wills. They placed their uniqueness at the service of God and His Church and helped to change the world. God did not make, and does not want, just vanilla ice cream. Everyone likes vanilla. But no one likes only vanilla. God wants flavor.

    Saint Joseph was, like all the saints, unique. He probably had personal traits which were less than perfect. These imperfections were absolutely no obstacle to Mary and Jesus obeying him, loving him, and ceding to his authority in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Mary and Jesus would have happily bent to the will of their God-given guide, despite their metaphysical, moral, spiritual, and intellectual superiority.

    Ancient traditions hold that Saint Joseph was considerably older than the Virgin Mary. Other traditions tell that he was married previously and that the “brothers” of Jesus were half-brothers from Saint Joseph’s previous marriage. Scripture tells us Jesus was a carpenter and was known as the “carpenter’s son” (Mt 13:55). Joseph may have been more precisely a builder who worked with the native stone so common to Palestinian construction. A Jewish ritual bath made of stone discovered beneath the church of Saint Joseph in Nazareth, a church which long tradition says was built over the Holy Family’s home, may be Joseph’s very own handiwork. A firm tradition teaches that Saint Joseph died long before his Son’s death. This is based not on biblical evidence but on the lack of it. It can be reasonably presumed that Saint Joseph would have been present at his Son’s crucifixion, as was Mary. Yet no mention is made of him being there. From this absence, biblical scholars have, from the beginning of the Church, surmised that Saint Joseph was by then dead. Thus, Saint Joseph is the Patron Saint of a Happy Death, because he presumably died with Jesus and the Virgin Mary at his side. This is how all of us want to die, with Christ holding our hand on one side of the bed and the Virgin Mary seated beside us on the other side. Saint Joseph died in the best of company. May we do so as well.

    Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, guide all those under the care of their pastors to see not their imperfections but their God-given obligation to fulfill God’s plan. May your humble and faithful service inspire all fathers to lead their flocks with tenderness, wisdom, and strength.
    Más Menos
    6 m
  • March 18: Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor

    March 18: Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor
    Mar 18 2025
    March 18: Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor
    c. 315–386
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Violet (Lenten Weekday)

    A wise and persevering bishop teaches his flock

    It is the Christ-given obligation of every Catholic bishop, and the priests and deacons who share in his ministry, to teach, sanctify, and govern all people under their spiritual care. Regarding teaching, the letters of Saint Paul, as well as the writings of early Christian theologians, abundantly attest to the duty of the Apostles and their appointed successors to ensure that false doctrine never infects their flocks. The episcopal duty to teach was not a charism or gift of the Holy Spirit such as speaking in tongues, performing miracles, or healing the infirm. Teaching correct doctrine might be aided by the Holy Spirit, but it was first a mandate from the Lord Himself. To not teach, to teach incompletely, or to teach falsely, was for the shepherd to ignore, neglect, or scatter the sheep entrusted to his care and protection.

    Today’s saint, Cyril, the Bishop of Jerusalem in the late fourth century, was a model teacher of right doctrine. He did not just teach teachers what to teach. He did not deputize or delegate others to teach on his behalf. He was the local Father, and, concerned for Christian formation in the household of faith, he personally taught the faith. How do we know this? Two reasons: First, because a holy woman named Egeria went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 380s. She documented her travels in a journal identifying the bishop, known to be Cyril, as the catechist in the domed mausoleum covering the tomb of Christ (part of today’s church of the Holy Sepulchre). Second, we know of Bishop Cyril’s talks because many of them were dutifully recorded and preserved, presumably because of their high caliber. The talks are rich, early testimony to the perennial, consistent doctrines of the Catholic Church.

    Egeria states that the bishop of Jerusalem taught about Lent and Easter to catechumens and neophytes (the newly baptized) by going through the entire Bible and the Creed, article by article. He taught for three hours each day, every one of the forty days of Lent and during Easter week. In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul wrote, “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?” (Rm 10:14). Bishop Cyril admirably fulfilled his apostolic duty to teach and to proclaim so that others would know the Lord.

    Among the profound teachings of Saint Cyril on the Mass, Baptism, and the Sacraments are his extended reflections on the nature of the Holy Eucharist. He is explicit: "Since He Himself has declared and said of the bread: This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any more? And when He asserts and says: This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate and say it is not His Blood?...Do not think it mere bread and wine, for it is the Body and Blood of Christ, according to the Lord's declaration" (St. Cyril Catechetical Lecture XXII). Cyril notes that if Christ could change water into wine, why could He not change wine into His own Blood? Reading these words of Cyril, it is perplexing that any modern Christian could doubt the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. As Saint John Henry Newman wrote: “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant” (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Introduction, Ch. 5).

    Bishop Cyril was deeply involved in various consequential theological controversies of his day, was banished from Jerusalem, and participated in the First Council of Constantinople. He lived a long, complicated, and impactful life in the heart of the Church. He is in many ways a model to all bishops for his zealous yet tender care of souls, especially those preparing to be washed in the saving waters of baptism at Easter. Saint Cyril fortified the content of the Church’s teaching with his personal presence, and by extension, the presence of the Sacrament of Holy Orders in his very person. He is a bishop remote in time, yet near in doctrine. Far removed from us historically, he is still close at our side when we stand to recite the same Creed he recited at every Sunday Mass.

    Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, through your generous dedication to teaching the faith, come to the assistance of all catechists, ordained and lay, to be equally committed to teaching those under their care, in season and out of season, knowing that fidelity to the Lord and His Church is what counts the most.
    Más Menos
    6 m
  • March 17: Saint Patrick, Bishop

    March 17: Saint Patrick, Bishop
    Mar 16 2026
    March 17: Saint Patrick, Bishop
    Fifth Century
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Violet (Lenten Weekday)
    Patron Saint of Ireland

    The black arts of pagandom bowed to this one-man fortress

    Today’s saint, the Patron of Ireland, was English. He was born in an unknown year to Catholic parents in an educated home in Roman Britain. His father was a deacon and his grandfather a married priest. When he first went to Ireland, he did not go willingly. He was kidnapped by pirates at the age of sixteen and enslaved. He went from the warm embrace of his home to herding pigs, exposed to sleet and cold, starving on the rain-soaked coast of rural Ireland. Times of great danger and deprivation are often times of great grace. In young Patrick’s years of isolation, cold, hunger, and loss, prayer was his only nourishment and comfort. His captivity turned a boy into a man and transformed a tepid Christian into an ardent soul burning with love for the Holy Trinity.

    After six years of torturous enslavement, Patrick escaped his captors and made the difficult voyage back to his own nation, family, and language. But the Irish were never far from his mind. One night, he had a dream. Patrick sees a man he knew in Ireland named Victoricus approaching from the west. Victoricus holds countless letters and hands one to Patrick. It is titled “The Voice of the Irish.” As he begins to read the letter, Patrick hears a multitude of voices rising, as if one, from a forest near the Western Sea: “We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more.” Patrick is deeply moved. Unable to read any more, he wakes up.

    Patrick decides to be a slave of Christ and to return as a missionary to Ireland. Feeling himself unprepared, he first studies for many years at monasteries in France. After receiving an excellent education in the faith, he receives priestly and episcopal ordination. He then embarks as a fully equipped missionary for his adopted homeland. There he finds a rustic people steeped in paganism. It is not today’s paganism—well read, superior, and too sophisticated to believe in religious “mythology.” Real paganism, the paganism of remote Ireland, called upon dark forces to conquer the white spirits and angels of God. Real paganism casts spells, calls down lightning from the night sky, mixes potions to poison its enemies, and forms flames into swords for battle. Real paganism invokes the devil because it knows Satan keeps his appointments. This is the dark paganism Patrick finds lurking in the foggy hills and bogs of his new land. Fifth-century Ireland had a deeply entrenched, richly layered culture of pagan worship. And Bishop Patrick used his crozier, like a dagger, to stab it right in the heart.

    Saint Patrick converted the Irish, one tribe after another. He matched the tribes’ preternatural forces with supernatural powers. There are numerous anecdotes, of dubious historicity, describing how Patrick turned an enemy into a fox, converted his walking staff into a tree, or drove all the snakes out of Ireland. These tales illustrate a deeper point—Saint Patrick had command over creation itself and used that power to communicate the truth of the Christian God who created creation. There is no doubt that Saint Patrick harvested an immense number of souls.

    For the Church to send a bishop to Ireland in the fifth century was to land a man on the moon. Beyond Ireland there was no one and nothing. Patrick evangelized a rugged, clever people in a rugged, clever way. He conquered their witches, wizards, and warlocks with the Holy Spirit. He vanquished their incantations, potions, demons, and sorcery with a powerful brew, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Son of God in the Mystery of the Altar we call the Blessed Sacrament. He overcame the “black laws of pagandom” with a protecting God who walks always and lovingly at our side. Many centuries of saints, abbots, missionaries, scholars, and monks set sail from tiny Ireland to traverse the globe in service of the Gospel. They owe the rich Catholic culture of their homeland to that mighty pillar of faith known as Saint Patrick.

    Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, assist us through your intercession to trust in the raw power of God to conquer evil. Give us confidence to confront evil spirits, however they may show themselves, so that the peace of true religion may reign where it does not reign now.
    Más Menos
    6 m
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Impressive storytelling. Humanizes the exceptional faithful people who have lived among us. These truly are models for all of us.

Enlightening

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I enjoy the episodes… Just wish it was possible to reflect on tomorrow’s episode the evening before…

Fabulous find

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