St. Rose of Lima

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Rose of Lima. She is the first citizen of the new world to be canonized. I feel compelled to write, but, at the same time inadequate. St. Rose endured great mortification. She offered these to Our Lord in atonement for those souls suffering in purgatory. Such determination was rewarded with visions of Our Lord.
I have been consecrated to Blessed Mother for over a year now, and for some reason, I thought that would be the end of my own sin and suffering, and yet it has not. I remain hard pressed to avoid certain sins, even with the grace pured out freely by Blessed Mother.  I have committed to the purgatory project as well, and yet I am again hard pressed to live up even to this small commitment.  My weak efforts pale in comparison to our celebrated St. Rose.  I wonder how many Saints live among us today?  This Saturday i listened to and watched Fr. John Corapi on EWTN.  He pondered similarly, although he had met two such people,  He was ordained by Pope John Paul II. John Paul II is in the beginning of his canonization.  I do not wonder at all about the validity of his sainthood.  We saw him as a young man, and then he showed us how to die with dignity, Fr. Corapi had also met and spent some time with Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  She certainly  lived each day Matt: 25:31-46.  I am moved to use as and email signature one of her quotes, "If I judge people, I have no time to love them."  This is the spirit of Matt: 25:31-46 distilled into a line.
Just as I fall short of the example of St. Rose, so do I fall short of the examples of these coming Saints, with whom I have shared some of my own earthly time.
Against her parents wishes to marry, St. Rose remained a virgin throughout her life, and at the age of twenty entered the Domincan order.  There she fasted three days a week.  When was the last time I skipped a meal?  When was the last time I thought of doing penance for the sins of the world, and those who suffer in purgatory.
Often times I feel more like the woman who washed Jesus's feet with her tears, and was thus forgiven of my many transgressions, back sliding and failings.  But of course I cannot focus on those. I can go to confession, and start anew to live up to my faith, and the example of Saint Rose.
My hope and prayer is to get through graduate school and become a teacher, for this is my calling.  But to give up a meal or to think of the mortifications that St. Rose endured for the salvation of others including myself.  No I must admit, though I often think of Sainthood, I do not act like a Saint.
How many of us truly do?  How many of us go to Mass and confession once per year at Easter time to preserve our Catholicism?  Is this really living the faith?  Often times it seems a duty, and Sainthood an unreachable goal.  It is not that I have not suffered in my life.   All who are Catholic have suffered in some way or another for our faith, but yet to choose mortification, and endure it for others goes against everything we are socialized in the US to seek after.  I look for comfort.  I look for a good salary and retirement eventually.  Although perhaps that is not true.  I don't much believe in retirement.  The older we get the more so we should be contemplating the things of the spirit and God, and His Blessed Mother.
Having lost my way when I was younger, I have no chance at being like St. Rose.  I am more like the prodigal son (70x7).
I think of my friend Fr. Paul and his cheerfulness and kindness as he fasts.  You can see it in his eyes and his work and his emaciated frame.  Sometimes he as St. Rose subsist only on the daily meal of the Eucharist.  Sainthood frightens me.  As with many Americans, I want an easy comfortable life and then to ease into heaven, wtihout have done much.  dying in grace for sure, because I need all I can get, but not too much discomfort in this life.  It is true I think of my family and those I love, and long to do more for them.  But do not the pagans themselves do as much.
Leaving a lucrative career and teaching; this is how I've been moved.  But even that has it's comforts, even these days when schools are cutting back, and children are asked to bring their own toilet paper to school.  I know I am rambling a bit, but recently for my studies I read and article by a New York city school teacher, called New Jack.  He compared his work to that of a friend of his who was a correctional officer.  I know that in jails and prisons toilet paper is a coveted commodity, and yet some of our public school children are being asked to bring it to school.
This day I am also reminded of another priest.   It is not often that I get to Sacramento, but when I do I have the honor of attending St. Rose parish there for Mass.  And in that church and school and thrift store and home for the orphaned labors a man in his 80s now.  He has been at St. Rose longer than Vin Scully has been the voice of the dodgers. And perhaps he is a Saint among us.  I have had the benefit of his living the Gospel Matt 25:31-46.  I have heard his homilies and met with him individually.  Once he even heard my confession late at night, and drove me back to where I was staying in Sacramento.  He was interested in me.  where I grew up.  Where I went to school.  At the time though I was not present enough to tell him.
Today as I think of Saint Rose the Saint and the parish in Sacramento, I wonder too if I have met Saints, as Father Corapi.
I think of two Monsignors this day Irish both -- Kavanagh  and O'Brien.  Monsignor Kavanagh continues to labor on this earth for others. Monsignor O'Brien has long since passed.  He was my pastor at Our Lady of perpetual help in Clovis, Ca.  Both of these priests helped me when no one else would, and I am richer in grace for having been able to spend time with them both.
But are they so different from th vast majority of our priests.
Who is your pastor?  whom do your remember on this feast of St. Rose?
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copyrught 2010 Fred Celio.