God's Gifts: Distributed to Each for the Good of All

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The Epistle read on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost is taken from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 12. St. Paul writes about how the Holy Spirit gives different gifts to different members of the Church, and how all the gifts come from the same Spirit. He also writes that each of us is given different ministries to serve the Church, and how all ministries are all from the same Lord.

Gifts and ministries are distributed by God’s Holy Spirit to each according to the will of God, and always for the good of all.

Later in the same letter to the Corinthians, in Chapter 13 St. Paul makes it clear that no gifts or ministries are worth anything without charity.                                 

The meaning of the word charity has changed over time. It simply means love. St. Paul says, “Charity is patient, is kind: it does not envy, it dealeth not perversely.”

What does it mean to not deal perversely?  It means to avoid such faults as telling lies, speaking badly about others, speaking angrily, making fun of others, using cutting words, or mulling over resentments in our hearts.

St. Paul goes on to write that charity is not puffed up, which means it is not proud or touchy about real or imagined insults. 

“Charity is not ambitious, and seeketh not her own,” —which means that love is not always trying to get its own way.

     

“Charity is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil. It believes all things, hopes all things. Charity never dies.”

    

Charity must be always the central virtue of a Catholic.

Three of the Gospels tell of the time a sinful woman anointed Jesus. Jesus says in her defense, “Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much.” This makes it clear that charity has the power to remit many sins and restore a sinner’s friendship with God.

But we very often find it difficult to fulfill the precept of universal charity because our love for our neighbor is often very self-centered and very self-seeking. We are loving only to those who please us and make us happy.

English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) argued that we never value anything unless we associate it in some way with pleasure or happiness. So, we value beauty because it gives us pleasure. We value knowledge because, usually, it is useful to us in coping with the world, and hence is linked to happiness. We value love and friendship because they are sources of pleasure and happiness.

Followers of Christ must practice a more universal charity that includes love for others who are not sources of pleasure and happiness.

For example, if our neighbor likes and respects us, shows consideration for us, and lends us his services, we find no difficulty in loving him. But it is harder if our neighbor is hostile toward us or does not get along with us.

In the gospel of St. Luke Chapter 6, verse 32, Jesus said “. . . if you love them that love you, what thanks are to you? For sinners also love those that love them.  And if you do good to them who do good to you, what thanks are to you? For sinners also do this.” 

Jesus went on to say, “ Love your enemies .  . . “and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the sons of the Highest. For he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”

To love our neighbor as God wants us to do, we must overcome our egocentric point of view, our personal selfish view.

Remember that Jesus also said that at the last judgement we will be judged by what we have done to Him, because whatever we do to the least of his brothers—no matter how unimportant that person is in our eyes--we do to Him.

We have to realize that when we love others even if we have no use for them and even if they do not please us, we are loving God. And without love of God in the person of our neighbor, we will not be saved.

(Adapted from a homily delivered by Canon Raphael Ueda on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 18, 2019, at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Oratory at the Five Wounds Portuguese National Church in San José, CA) 

Saint Clare: Patron Saint of Silicon Valley

"Saint Clare holding a Lily," from a 1325 fresco by Giotto, Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, Italy

The place most people nowadays think of as Silicon Valley is actually Santa Clara Valley, which is located in the south San Francisco Bay Area. The valley was dedicated to Saint Clare of Assisi when Mission Santa Clara was founded in 1777, and the county still bears her name. Some say Silicon Valley is only a concept, while Santa Clara Valley is an actual place.

The borders of the Diocese of San José are the borders of Santa Clara County, and so Saint Clare is also the patron of the diocese, along with Saint Joseph. She is also the patron of Santa Clara University and of the city of Santa Clara.

During the early 20th century, when the valley was full of orchards whose fruit trees flowered with intoxicating fragrance in the spring, it was also known as the Valley of Heart's Delight.

But then, in the 1950s, computer component manufacturing companies followed by other computer-related businesses moved in, the valley was covered with business parks, mostly one-story family homes, townhouses, and shopping malls, criss-crossed by roads, intersected by freeways, and the orchards pretty much disappeared.

Because silicon is the main ingredient in computer chips, Ralph Vaerst, who was the founder of a company called Ion Equipment Corporation, came up with the nickname of Silicon Valley in 1971, and after he suggested it to journalist Dan Hoefler, Hoefler wrote a series of articles in Electronic News that popularized the term.

Saint Clare Portrayed in the City Called By Her Name

In the early 60s, the city of Santa Clara asked for bids for a statue of St. Clare. The statue was erected by the winner, who was lowest bidder.

The first photo below shows a pigeon on the statue's head and gives an idea how bleak the statue looks nowadays.

Medium Close Up of Saint Clare Statue in Santa Clara

I asked on Facebook today, "Who knows what the 'iconography' of this rough statue holding some twiggy things was supposed to mean?" And a friend told me the twiggy things are supposed to be the palm branch that the local bishop gave Clare on Palm Sunday, just before she ran off to meet up with St. Francis. See more about the iconography here. Really though, I don't think I can be blamed for not being able to recognize the twiggy thing as a palm branch.

In this 1966 snapshot, the statue was surrounded by water and potted flowers

The water was drained during a drought and never refilled, the flowers are gone, and the current plaza looks stark.

In this old postcard maybe from the 1970, although the water was drained away, the plantings were more abundant, and the scene was much more inviting than it is now.

Saint Clare's Garden in the University Named for Her

At Santa Clara University, a project was conceived in 2001 to develop a medieval garden, and the president donated a plot of land for the project on condition that it be dedicated to Saint Clare.

The description of Saint Clare on the webpage was written by Nancy Lucid, Ph.D., the garden's designer and the author of the website. The saint is portrayed with a definite radical feminist slant, as a girl who saw following Francis as an escape from the oppression of the male-dominated society.

"Clare, a beautiful young girl from a wealthy and powerful family, was expected to function as a financial and social asset for that family. She should marry well, bear many children, and thus create more wealth and power for the Favorone clan." According to Lucet, nineteen-year-old Clare escaped that oppressive male dominated society, marriage, and the mothering of many children by running away to follow Francis. "Her sister soon ran away from home and joined her, as did many other well-born women of the town, and eventually her widowed mother. . . .These women left their proud and violent male relatives to live with each other and for each other and God, forsaking earthly riches, comforts, and power."

As the politically adept often say, no further comment at this time. :-(

Anguished Saint Clare statue in the medieval garden on the campus of the
university that bears her name

Sometimes by the grace of God mistaken artistic choices of the past are remedied.  Two beautiful statues of St. Clare and St. Joseph, which are described in the linked Liturgical Arts Journal article, were created as replacements for two ill-chosen statues added during a renovation during the 1980s of St. Joseph Cathedral in San José.

New Saint Clare Statue Holding a Gilded Monstrance Carved to Resemble the Cathedral

When the writer of the article stated that the earlier statues were "ill suited to the scale of the cathedral," he was being more tactful than I could be. When I first visited the newly renovated cathedral when it reopened in 1990, soon after I was recruited to move to Santa Clara valley to work at Sun Microsystems computer company, I was horrified by the ugliness of the statues, and I wondered who could have commissioned or approved them. They were rough hewn and monstrous, and even the iconography of St. Clare's statue was capricious, with her holding a gilded cup instead of the more traditional monstrance. Did I say those statues were ugly? Yes. Yes. They were.

See this story written by Tommaso da Celano, a Franciscan friar who lived at the time of St. Francis, of how Saint Clare turned away Saracen invaders with the help of the Blessed Sacrament. And see the snide caption on this photo I took of the St. Clare statue, which I am grateful is no longer there.

If Saint Clare looked like this, she could have scared away the Saracens without supernatural help

Dear Saint Clare, pray for the people in this valley that is called by your name.

Close-up of the new statue

From Matins on the Feast of St. Clare, Virgin, August 12 (Traditional Calendar)
Clare was a virgin of noble birth, born at Assisi in Umbria. Imitating St. Francis, her fellow-citizen, she gave all her goods in alms to aid the poor. Fleeing from the noise of the world, she went to a country chapel and there received the tonsure from St. Francis, strongly resisting her kindred who were trying to bring her back. Then he led her to the church of St. Damian, where she founded an Order of nuns, the government of which she undertook, yielding to the repeated requests of St. Francis. She governed her monastery with care and prudence for forty-two years. When the Saracens tried to invade it, she commanded that the Blessed Sacrament be brought and prayed most humbly, and they at once took to flight. She went to heaven on the 12th day of August, and was enrolled among the holy Virgins by Pope Alexander IV.

Amazing Things About St. Mary of the Snows

Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, at the Quirinal Palace, Rome

Today August 5 is the feast of the dedication of Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Snows (St. Mary Major) in Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore is amazingly rich in historical and spiritual significance. Here are some of the fascinating things about this great church: 


+ The column in front in Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore was one of the first Marian columns and is still one of the most impressive. The column had supported the vault of the Basilica of Constantine, destroyed by an earthquake in the 9th century. The column was transported to Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore and crowned with a bronze statue of the Virgin and Child. 

+ St. Maria Maggiore is called S. Maria ad Nives and is also called Basilica Liberiana because of the traditional account of its foundation, which is described in the Matins for the feast.

Reading 3 

When Liberius was Pope, a Roman patrician named John, and his wife, also of noble birth, having no children to inherit their goods, vowed their inheritance to the most holy Virgin Mother of God. The blessed Virgin heard their prayers and approved their vow by a miracle. On the 5th of August, which is that time when the heat of summer waxeth greatest in the City, a part of the Esquiline Hill was covered by night with snow. And on that same night, the Mother of God told John and his wife separately in dreams that they should build a church on that place. When John told this to Pope Liberius, he said that he had had the same dream. The Pope therefore went to the snow-covered hill and there marked out a site. The church was built with the money given by John and his wife, and was later restored by Sixtus III. It hath been given various names; but, so that its title may indicate its excellence, it is called the Church of St. Mary Major.

Every year the snow is recalled by a shower of white flower petals. According to Joan's Rome article, "THE AUGUST SNOWFALL IN ROME," "in late afternoon during a liturgy, usually vespers, thousands of white flower petals, symbolizing the miraculous snowfall, are released through one of the square panels of the basilica’s glorious gilt ceiling. In the evening, about 9 pm, outside the basilica, white flower petals are showered down on the faithful who have gathered to commemorate that event."  You can see one such shower here (not sure if a Facebook account is required). Other views are on Youtube by googling "St. Mary of the Snows rose petals."

"The Blessed Virgin Mary overlooking Pope Liberius as the Pontiff scrapes the foundation of the basilica into the snow" by Masolino da Panicale, at the Museo di Capodimonte, in Naples, Italy

"The Miracle of the Snow," Jacopo Zucchi (Pinacoteca vaticana)

+ The painting of Salus Populi Romanum (Salvation of the People of Rome) that is honored at the basilica is said to be painted by St. Luke and is said to have saved Rome during a time of plague. 

Salus Populi Romani with crowns and jewels no longer used

Salus Populi Romani after 2018 restoration

This image is said to have been carried by Pope St. Gregory the Great in a procession when Rome was suffering with a plague, when the Regina Coeli was first sung by angels. St. Michael sheathed his sword, and the plague came to an end. 

The Golden Legend, which was compiled around 1260, relates the story this way. "The people of Rome were walking in procession and chanting the litanies to ask heaven to remove a plague that was killing ninety men an hour, while Pope St. Gregory walked with them holding a perfect likeliness of Our Lady that had been painted by St. Luke. 'And lo, the poisonous uncleanness of the air yielded to the image as if fleeing from it . . .' Angels were heard around the image singing the first three lines of the Regina Caeli, “Regina caeli, laetare, alleluia: Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia, Resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluia.” Pope Gregory added a fourth line that is slightly different from the version we sing today: ‘Ora pro nobis. Deum rogamus. alleluia’. When the pope then saw St. Michael standing on the top of the castle/mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian sheathing his sword, he knew that the plague had ceased." 

At the head of the procession, St. Gregory the Great sees St. Michael atop the castle putting his sword into its scabbard

Read more about the Salve Regina and the image of Salus Populi Romani at "Queen of Heaven Rejoice, Alleluia!"

For more about Santa Maria Maggiore (Santa Maria ad Nives) see S. Maria Maggiore at A Rome Lover's Art Page.