 30/08/2012 16:51 |
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Thursday, August 30, 2ist Week in Ordinary Time
ST. MARIE DE LA CROIX (JEANNE JUGAN)(France, 1792-1879), Founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor
Jeanne was one of eight children in a family in Brittany who lost their father at sea. They were so poor that Jeanne learned to read and write from religious women belonging to the Third Order of St. John Eudes. She was a shepherd until at age 15, she was hired to be a maid with a wealthy family. She went on to become an assistant nurse at a local hospital but she had to resign because of health problems. By then, she had joined the lay order of St. Jean Eudes, and was hired by one of the order's wealthy ladies to be her companion. She worked with her and in their common apostolate until the lady died 12 years later. In 1837, Jeanne found herself sharing rooms with two companions aged 72 and 17. An encounter with a blind old lady to whom she gave her own bed crystallized her mission to attend to abandoned old people who were numerous in post-revolutionary France. Begging for everything they needed, her work soon attracted other women. They banded into a community for which she wrote the rules. She took the name Marie de la Croix (Mary of the Cross). Ironically, even if Jeanne had been elected, the local bishop named a 21-year-old to be the Superior of the new order - a rebuff that Jeanne accepted humbly and did not deter her from carrying on her organizing work away from the motherhouse. The Little Sisters of the Poor would not be formally recognized by the Vatican until 1852, but meanwhile, Jeanne's work won for her a national prize in 1845 awarded yearly to a 'poor man or woman for meritorious social work'. The prize money seeded the order's first house and soon she had set up four more in other French cities. When the order was formally recognized, Jeanne, now 60, was recalled to the motherhouse where she worked with younger members who never realized she was the foundress of the community until after her death. She would live for another 27 years. By the time of her death, her Congregation numbered 2,400 Little Sisters in 177 homes on three continents. The Little Sisters, a semi-contemplative order, have remained faithful to Jeanne Jugan's original mission. She was beatified in 1982, and canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 19, 2009.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/083012.cfm
AT THE VATICAN TODAY
No events announced for the Holy Father.
- Carlo Fusco, Paolo Gabriele's childhood friend and chief attorney in Vatileaks so far, has announced he is quitting as Gabriel's lawyer, because of 'disagreements [with Gabriele] over defense strategy". That leaves Cristiana Arru as Gabriele's remaining lawyer weeks before the disgraced ex-valet to the Pope goes on trial for aggravated theft. [What defense strategy is there to dispute? What defense strategy can there be against the truth - at least as self-confessed by Gabriele? No psychiatric test exists that will show he was 'infiltrated' by the Holy Spirit, as he claims! For him to dispute his own lawyer-friend's legal counsel, which is his right, of course, would seem to be another indication of Gabriele's delusions about himself!]
Meanwhile, assistant Vatican Press Director Fr. Ciro Benedettini made this statement about recent filling-the-Vatileaks-vacuum news reports in the Italian media: "News reports circulated these days speculating that there are 20 - or around 20 - under investigation for crimes related to Vatileaks, are unfounded". He asked the media "not to confuse people who have been questioned so far to be under investigation themselves".
[The arbitrary number of 20 is apparently based on the fact that Gabriele, in his camouflaged interview with his media accomplice Gianluigi Nuzzi aired about two weeks before he was arrested, claimed that he was working with about 20 other supposedly well-meaning malcontent whistleblowers in the Vatican, and the fact that the witnesses identified only by letters of the alphabet in the Vatican reports indicting Gabriele number around 20.
The Vatican has said that the continuing investigations into Vatileaks would involve the more serious crimes associated wit the unauthorized appropriation, release and dissemination of private documents belonging to a head of state, but it is strange that none of the reporting has pointed out that the first and principal person besides Gabriele who would be under investigation for these more serious crimes would be Nuzzi himself.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/08/2012 20:19] |
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