Saints & Feasts June

Feastday: June 1

The doors of the Abbey church quote the Letter to the Ephesians: "You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." You can read more about our church here. 

Feastday: June 2

"(Justin) said that these two realities, the Old Testament and Greek philosophy, are like two paths that lead to Christ, to the Logos. This is why Greek philosophy cannot be opposed to Gospel truth, and Christians can draw from it confidently as from a good of their own Therefore, my venerable Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, described St Justin as a "pioneer of positive engagement with philosophical thinking - albeit with cautious discernment.... Although he continued to hold Greek philosophy in high esteem after his conversion, Justin claimed with power and clarity that he had found in Christianity 'the only sure and profitable philosophy' (Dial. 8: 1)" (Fides et Ratio, n. 38) Overall, the figure and work of Justin mark the ancient Church's forceful option for philosophy, for reason, rather than for the religion of the pagans. With the pagan religion, in fact, the early Christians strenuously rejected every compromise. They held it to be idolatry, at the cost of being accused for this reason of "impiety" and "atheism." Justin in particular, especially in his first Apology, mercilessly criticized the pagan religion and its myths, which he considered to be diabolically misleading on the path of truth. Philosophy, on the other hand, represented the privileged area of the encounter between paganism, Judaism and Christianity, precisely at the level of the criticism of pagan religion and its false myths. "Our philosophy...": this is how another apologist, Bishop Melito of Sardis, a contemporary of Justin, came to define the new religion in a more explicit way (Ap. Hist. Eccl. 4, 26, 7). In fact, the pagan religion did not follow the ways of the Logos, but clung to myth, even if Greek philosophy recognized that mythology was devoid of consistency with the truth. Therefore, the decline of the pagan religion was inevitable: it was a logical consequence of the detachment of religion - reduced to an artificial collection of ceremonies, conventions and customs - from the truth of being. Justin, and with him other apologists, adopted the clear stance taken by the Christian faith for the God of the philosophers against the false gods of the pagan religion."
- from General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, March 21, 2007

Feastday: June 3

Charles Lwanga and his companion martyrs were converts to Christianity at a moment when the faith was being introduced into parts of central Africa. The group was burned to death by the king, Mwanga, in 1886, for their refusal to adhere to his demands, particularly immoral sexual acts. Seeking to assert his rule and control, Mwanga ordered their death, intending to crush the nascent Christian community. The witness of this group, all adhering to their faith in the face of torture and death, planted the seed of a continued faith. Charles Lwanga is the Patron of the African Youth of Catholic Action.

Feastday: June 5

"... Boniface's courageous witness is an invitation to us all to welcome God's word into our lives as an essential reference point, to love the Church passionately, to feel co-responsible for her future, to seek her unity around the Successor of Peter. At the same time, he reminds us that Christianity, by encouraging the dissemination of culture, furthers human progress. It is now up to us to be equal to such a prestigious patrimony and to make it fructify for the benefit of the generations to come. His ardent zeal for the Gospel never fails to impress me. At the age of 41 he left a beautiful and fruitful monastic life, the life of a monk and teacher, in order to proclaim the Gospel to the simple, to barbarians; once again, at the age of 80, he went to a region in which he foresaw his martyrdom. By comparing his ardent faith, this zeal for the Gospel, with our own often lukewarm and bureaucratized faith, we see what we must do and how to renew our faith, in order to give the precious pearl of the Gospel as a gift to our time." -from General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, March 11, 2009

Feastday: June 9

Columba was a 6th-century Irish abbot credited with founding the important abbey of Iona, which became an influential monastery in the northern British isles for centuries. He is considered crucial to the establishment of Christian faith in Scotland, and is called "The Apostle to the Picts."

Feastday: June 11

Barnabas means "son of encouragement" (Acts 4: 36) or "son of consolation". He was a Levite Jew, a native of Cyprus, and this was his nickname. Having settled in Jerusalem, he was one of the first to embrace Christianity after the Lord's Resurrection. With immense generosity, he sold a field which belonged to him, and gave the money to the Apostles for the Church's needs (Acts 4: 37). It was he who vouched for the sincerity of Saul's conversion before the Jerusalem community that still feared its former persecutor (cf. Acts 9: 27).

...The two, Paul and Barnabas, disagreed at the beginning of the second missionary journey because Barnabas was determined to take with them as a companion John called Mark, whereas Paul was against it, since the young man had deserted them during their previous journey (cf. Acts 13: 13; 15: 36-40). Hence there are also disputes, disagreements and controversies among saints. And I find this very comforting, because we see that the saints have not "fallen from Heaven". They are people like us, who also have complicated problems.

Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness. ...it is not the fact that we have never erred but our capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness which makes us saints. And we can all learn this way of holiness. In any case, Barnabas, together with John Mark, returned to Cyprus (Acts 15: 39) in about the year 49. From that moment we lose track of him. Tertullian attributes to him the Letter to the Hebrews. This is not improbable. Since he belonged to the tribe of Levi, Barnabas may have been interested in the topic of the priesthood; and the Letter to the Hebrews interprets Jesus' priesthood for us in an extraordinary way.
- from General Audience of Pope Benedict XVI, January 31, 2007

Feastday: Friday after Corpus Cristi

"The Son is one in substance with the Father. He is God from God. At the same time, everything that is created has its divine beginning in him, as the Eternal Word. In him all things were made and in him they have their existence. (5.) This is our faith. This is the teaching of the Church about the Divinity of the Son. This Eternal Son, true God, the Word of the Father, became man. These are the words of the Gospel: "The Word was made flesh, he lived among us" (Ibid. 1, 14). In the Creed we profess: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man". Here we more directly touch upon the reality of the Heart of Jesus. For the heart is a human organ, belonging to the body, belonging to the whole structure, to the spiritual and physical makeup of man: "And the Word was made flesh". In this make-up the heart has its place as an organ. At the same time it has a meaning as the symbolic centre of the inner self, and this inner self is, by nature, spiritual. The Heart of Jesus was conceived beneath the heart of the Virgin Mother, and its earthly life ceased at the moment Jesus died on the Cross. This is testified to by the Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus with a lance. During the whole of Jesus’ earthly life, this Heart was the centre in which was manifested, in a human way, the love of God: the love of God the Son, and, through the Son, the love of God the Father.

"What constitutes the greatest fruit of this love in creation? We read it in the Gospel: "He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God . . ." (Io. 1, 11-12). Here is the most magnificent, the most profound gift of the Heart of Jesus that we find in creation: man born of God, man adopted as a son in the Eternal Son, humanity given the power to become children of God. " from a homily of Pope Saint John Paul II in votive Mass  of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Feastday: Day after the feast of Sacred Heart

"It is worthy of note that the Decree by which Pope Pius XII instituted for the universal Church the celebration in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary states: "With this devotion the Church renders the honour due to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, since under the symbol of this heart she venerates with reverence the eminent and singular holiness of the Mother of God and especially her most ardent love for God and Jesus her Son and moreover her maternal compassion for all those redeemed by the divine Blood".  Thus it can be said that our devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart expresses our reverence for her maternal compassion both for Jesus and for all of us her spiritual children, as she stood at the foot of the Cross." - from an address of Pope Saint John Paul II, September 26, 1986

Feastday: June 22

John Fisher's path to martyrdom passed through the priesthood, while Thomas more remained a layman. Fisher served as Bishop of Rocester and Chancellor of Cambridge University. He resisted signing the Oath of Spuremacy recognizing Henry VIII as head of the church in England. He was the sole English bishop to do so. Thomas More similarly refused, despire having risen to the role of chancellor of England. In 1535, both having suffered extended imprisonment, they suffered martyrdom by beheading.

Feastday: June 24

We commemorate John the Baptist on his death and on his birth. Jesus has told us that "among those born of women, none is greater than John." (Lk 7), though birth within the kingdom of God is yet greater. John was the prophet of this new kingdom, preaching repentence in the desert. May we hear his voice today, and turn our face with him to this heavenly kingdom.

Feastday: June 27

Cyril of Alexandria was deeply involved in the Christological controversies of the fifth century, defending the position of orthodoxy at the Council of Ephesus. He understood Christ to be true God and true Man, and Mary to be the God-bearer, against Nestorius. .Cyril died in 444, having served as bishop for nearly 32 tumultuous years.

Feastday: June 29

While the church celebrates the "Chair of Peter" and the "Conversion of Paul", these two principle saints of the apostolic age share their feastday, as tradition has them martyred in Rome on the same day. Pope Leo XIII writes: "There must be general rejoicing, dearly beloved, over this holy company whom God has appointed for our example in patience and for our confirmation in faith. But we must glory even more in the excellence of their fathers, Peter and Paul, whom the grace of God has raised to such a height among all the members of the Church that He has set them like twin lights of eyes in that Body whose head is Christ." (Sermon 54.82)

Feastday: June 30

Today we recognize the dedication of the cathedral of Providence. An extended history can be found here.