As we approach the end of the year, let’s deepen our encounters with the people God places on our path
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I am disappointed that Amendment 3 did not pass. Not surprised, but disappointed. Fortunately, we celebrate the feast of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne this week, on Nov. 18, and I think we might look to her for some guidance.
She lived through hard times in the history of France. She entered the convent of the Visitation just a few years before the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror shut down all Catholic institutions in France. She had to live a consecrated life in the world for nine or 10 years before the Visitation convent could reopen. When it did, the few sisters left merged with a new order — the Religious of the Sacred Heart.
As one book notes, it was a time of cultural and ecclesiastical wreckage in France. In 1808, there were only 12,300 religious sisters in France; in 1830, there were only 3,000 priests. Religious renewal didn’t look likely. But, by 1878, there had been a ten-fold increase in both numbers! What happened?
That kind of growth is primarily God’s work, to be sure. But, just as surely, it comes about because individuals are willing to cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit and make personal sacrifices to make room for the Spirit’s work. Mother Duchesne was certainly among those. She sacrificed a comfortable family life for religious consecration. Then, in religious life, she sacrificed her dearest human friendship and her home country for the sake of a mission to a seemingly insignificant outpost on the Western frontier. But her life was a perfect example of those who planted and nurtured in small places and small ways so that Catholic life in France could recover, and Catholic life in the United States could take root and flourish.
So, if you ever feel desolate about the state of American culture, take some hope and a lesson from the life of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne. Our times and challenges are different, but no harder than hers.
As we celebrate this feast, so dear to us in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the Church also has us turning toward a consideration of end times. One thing we can notice in the readings from Luke this week is that, as Jesus draws near to Jerusalem — where His mission will find its culmination — He has a series of encounters, and He makes the most of each one of them. There’s a kind of intensity building as he approaches Jerusalem. There’s a corresponding intensity in his encounters with the blind man, with Zaccaheus, with the money changers and with the Sadducees.
As we consider our own personal “journey to Jerusalem,” there’s a kind of fear that’s helpful, and a kind of fear that’s not. The theological tradition names them “filial fear” and “servile fear.” But we might also name them experientially. The kind of fear that’s unhelpful is known because it distracts us from the encounters we’re having — we get locked up in our heads and miss the people in front of us. The kind of fear that’s helpful actually sharpens our attention — we don’t want to squander the opportunities we have to meet these people more deeply.
As we consider troubled times, and end times, let’s set aside the wrong kind of fear, embrace the right kind of fear and deepen our encounters with the people God places on our path.
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, pray for us!
