Saint Joseph Catholic Church

"While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, 'Take it; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.'"

Today is the Optional Memorial of St. Norbert (1080-1134). Norbert was born at Xanten near Cologne about the year 1080. As a young cleric he resided at the court of the Archbishop of Cologne and then at that of the emperor where he allowed himself to be influenced by the spirit of the world. But he was won back by grace; caught by a storm during a journey on horseback he made up his mind to take his clerical obligations seriously. After ordination to the priesthood he devoted himself to itinerant preaching.

The Church celebrates the Memorial St. Boniface (c. 673-680-754). Boniface was a monk of Exeter in England. Boniface is one of the great figures of the Benedictine Order and of the monastic apostolate in the Middle Ages. Gregory II sent him to preach the Gospel in Germany. He evangelized Hesse, Saxony and Thuringia and became Archbishop of Mainz. He well earned the title of Apostle of Germany, and Catholic Germany in our own times still venerates him as its father in the faith. He was put to death by the Frisians at Dokkum in 754 during the last of his missionary journeys. The famous abbey of Fulda, where his body lies, has remained the national shrine of Catholic Germany.

The Roman Martyrology today commemorates St. Francis of Caracciolo (1563-1608). Three things made him stand out from his wealthy Neapolitan friends: he was powerfully drawn to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, he fasted every Saturday in honor of the Virgin Mary, and he had a generous love for the poor. When he was seriously ill at the age of twenty-two, he vowed that if he were cured he would devote himself to the service of God and his fellow men. He became a priest and in 1588 joined the order of Minor Clerks Regular. Francis instituted perpetual adoration as one of the works of his Order.

Today is the Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions (d. 1886), the companions numbering twenty-one other Ugandan martyrs. They are the first martyrs of Sub-Saharan Africa and true witnesses of the Christian faith. Charles Lwanga, a catechist and a young leader, was martyred in 1886 with a group of Catholic and Anglican royal pages, some of whom were not yet baptized. King Mwanga, who despised the Christian religion, gave orders that all the Christian pages in his service be laid upon a mat, bound, placed onto a pyre and burnt. This took place at Namugongo, just outside Kampala.

Today is the Optional Memorial of Saints Marcellinus and Peter (d. 304) who were two Roman martyrs who suffered under the Diocletian persecution. The first was an exorcist, the second a priest. Their cultus was so important that after peace was restored to the Church, Constantine built a basilica in their honor. Their names are mentioned in the Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer I).

Today is the Memorial of St. Justin, Apologist and Martyr (c. 100-165), who was one of the most important Christian writers of the second century. Justin himself tells how his study of all the schools of philosophy led him to Christianity, and how he dedicated his life to the defense of the Christian faith as "the one certain and profitable philosophy."

The fundamental dogma, on which everything in Christianity is based, is that of the Blessed Trinity in whose name all Christians are baptized. The feast of the Blessed Trinity needs to be understood and celebrated as a prolongation of the mysteries of Christ and as the solemn expression of our faith in this triune life of the Divine Persons, to which we have been given access by Baptism and by the Redemption won for us by Christ. Only in heaven shall we properly understand what it means, in union with Christ, to share as sons in the very life of God.