To the Band of Brothers: January 6, 2022

Fr. Willie ‘87 | President
When you think about the United States of America, what are the first things that come to mind? Baseball? Apple pie? The Statue of Liberty? Democracy? How about saints? Not the New Orleans Saints, who since Drew Brees retired have reverted to being referred to as the ‘Aints’ because they’re terrible. Not saints that you are related to or live in your neighborhood that as a kid you heard your grandmother say “esa mujer es una santa” when they would speak about her husband or kids.

I mean real, God-honest, red-blooded, 100% Vatican-approved saints, canonized and venerated by the Church. It 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 radically strict separation of church and state. But this land, from California to the New York islands, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters, is now in the market of churning out Catholic saints.

For the last two days, the Church has celebrated the lives of two important American saints. On January 4th we celebrated the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, 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 what we know today to be the parochial school system. 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 then ordained the third bishop of Philadelphia and the first canonized American bishop of the Catholic Church. St. Neumann was the first bishop to create a parochial school system in Philadelphia 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 remembered 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 helped understand that Jesus does 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 America because they didn’t know about us back then, but it goes without saying we too are saved by that very same infant. And, 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 women and men of this nation who taught us to recognize Christ through their words and actions. They helped the United States bow down before the baby Jesus and adore him. So, add to your vernacular Americana the word “saint,” put it right there next to apple pie and baseball because Jesus is king of the US of A, from sea to shining sea.

Auspice Maria
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BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@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 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 sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.