To the Band of Brothers: January 6, 2021
Good morning,
When you think about the United States of America what are the first things that come to your mind? Is it baseball, or apple pie, or the Statue of Liberty, or democracy? Well, how about saints? Not the New Orleans Saints, who for so many years when I was a kid were commonly referred to as the ‘Aints. Nor the “saints” you are related to or who live in your neighborhood that as a kid you heard your grandmother refer to by saying, “esa mujer es una santa” when speaking about her husband or kids.
I mean real, God-honest, red-blooded, 100% Vatican approved saints that have been canonized and are actually venerated by the Church. Saints may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the United States because Catholic saints are those far and distant individuals who barely walked the earth because they floated over it with grace and did so only in places like Italy or Spain. Or maybe you don’t connect Catholic saints and the USA because this is predominantly a Protestant nation founded on a strict principle of separation between church and state. Yet, this land, from California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, is now in the business of churning out Catholic saints.
On Monday and Tuesday, we celebrated the lives of two important American saints. January 4th is the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. She’s the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Catholic Church. Born in 1774 in New York City and raised in the Episcopal Church, she converted to Catholicism after her husband passed away. She worked tirelessly to educate poor children and founded schools for them. She also founded a religious order called the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph that still exists to this day.
Yesterday, January 5th, we celebrated the feast of St. John Neumann who, although born in Czechoslovakia, came to the United States as a missionary, was naturalized an American citizen, and ordained the third bishop of Philadelphia. He is also the first canonized American bishop of the Catholic Church. St. Neumann was the first bishop to create a parochial school system and helped found over 100 Catholic schools in his diocese alone.
So here is the clincher. On Sunday we celebrated the feast of the Epiphany. We remember the three kings who traveled to Bethlehem and bowed down before the baby Jesus and adored him. Their presence was especially significant because they each represented a different continent (Africa, Asia, and Europe) and thus expressed the fact that Jesus did not come into the world to save only the people of Israel, but all people, from all nations, from all over the world.
Now, there was obviously no king representing the Americas that night in Bethlehem (people didn’t know we existed yet), but it goes without saying we too are saved by that very same infant. It was saints like Elizabeth Ann Seton and John Neumann who helped bring to this country a more profound understanding of Jesus. They were the wise men and women of this nation who taught us to recognize Christ through their words and actions. They are the ones who encourage the great and mighty U.S. of A. to bow down before the baby Jesus and adore him.
So, add to your American vernacular the word “saint”. Put it right there next to the apple pie and baseball because Jesus is the king of the United States, from sea to shining sea.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba, by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the school's property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit is situated on a 34-acre site in western Dade County, just minutes away from downtown Miami.