Dear Rick, I am glad that you have decided to run that boys’ camp again this summer.  I am sure those internships were quite alluring, but your choice to serve needy boys instead of serving yourself will certainly add to your treasure in heaven – more than you’ll ever know in this life.  As you finish up your exams and get ready to take up your charge, I would encourage you to use one of today’s saint’s admonitions as material for your personal prayer and meditation. St Richarius, you will remember, hailed from northern France (he started a monastery close to the English Channel – the body of water, not the satellite station).  His fellow townsmen (none of whom were Christians) were about to give a couple of Irish missionary monks a nice, pagan welcome when the saint intervened to save them from torture and death. He received instruction at their hands and heard the call to become a priest himself. After spending some time in England to study the science of holiness, he returned to his native land to preach.  He did so with the zeal of one who was truly in love, and his love set fire to the hearts of many and welcomed them into the family of God. His conversations with King Dagobert were filled with warnings against the traps and vanities of the world and one particularly apt piece of advice about responsible leadership: “He who has to obey will only have to render account to God of himself, but he who commands will also have to answer for all his subjects.”  Those wild 10 and 11-year-olds may hardly seem like “subjects” to you, but your words and example can have a big effect on them, for good or for ill. Besides, keep in mind that although this summer it’s a few hundred kids, a few summers down the roads it may be a few million citizens. Be true, my good nephew; be strong; be like Christ. God love you. Uncle Eddy  

Dear Marcia, If they ever let me out of this absurd confinement, I would very much like to take you and your brother on a pilgrimage to Venice.  Three cities in Italy defy description: Florence, Rome, and Venice. I won’t tell you which is my favorite. But I will tell you that I think Venice would be your favorite.  The Mediterranean sun plays gleefully with the waters of the lagoon upon which the city is built, giving Venice two sources of light, the sky and the water. It makes you feel like you’re floating between heaven and earth, especially at sunset and sunrise.  The whole city is built around St Mark’s square, an immense promenade leading into the glittering Byzantine basilica of the same name, where St Mark the Evangelist is buried. (We won’t go into how the Venetians stole his remains from Alexandria in Egypt, where St Mark had planted the Christian faith and been tortured and martyred for it.)  Every inch of the ancient basilica’s interior shimmers with a gold-leaf mosaic depicting scenes from the life of our Lord and portraits of countless saints. The monument is lusciously extravagant and breathtakingly and mysteriously magnificent, inspiring awe even among us jaded post-moderns. The really arresting thing about a visit there, however, is the contrast.  Amidst the invaluable splendor lies the plain, unadorned coffin containing the relics of the man who wrote the shortest, simplest Gospel of them all. I think there is a lesson for us there. God sees the inside of every person’s heart, whereas most of the time we humans are deceived by mere appearances. Someone who is beautiful and talented and popular seems to us more worthy than someone who isn’t; but for God, what matters is the virtue of each person’s soul.  In heaven, the truth will shine forth. The external appearance of everyone will perfectly show forth the beauty of his or her soul (watch out – beggars might end up looking like movie-stars, and movie-stars like beggars). I think St Mark’s basilica gives us a foretaste of that experience. Mark himself spent his few years assisting St Peter and St Paul and gathering small groups of Christians here and there throughout the Roman world. He wrote down what St Peter and the others told him about the life of Christ (the Holy Spirit gave him a hand), and we don’t know much else about him.  But his faith was mighty, and his love for Christ was immense, and now we see a bit of his greatness unveiled. It makes me quite curious to behold the heavenly mansions… May God grant that you and I can tour them together.   God bless. Uncle Eddy

Dear Fidelity, Don’t change majors for the wrong reasons.  You have always wanted to be a lawyer (and for the right reasons, too: to defend justice), and pre-law is a logical way to attain such a goal.  If you abandon it for physical education just because it’s more fun and requires fewer papers, you may regret it later. Take a lesson from your namesake, today’s saint.  Fidelis (his name was Mark before he became a Capuchin) began his professional life as a brilliant and effective lawyer. From the way he practiced law, he accrued a reputation for honesty, integrity, and effectiveness.  He was beloved by rich and poor alike. But his colleagues’ habitual dishonesty and self-seeking disgusted him so much that he left the bar and donned the Franciscan habit. He thought he was out of the fray but soon discovered otherwise.  He put his lawyering skills to work in his heavy load of preaching, hearing confessions, and organizing care for the sick, many of whom he cured with miracles. Everywhere he went whole towns were renewed in an energetic adherence to Christ and his Church.  When he and eight companions were sent to bring the Zwinglians (a branch of early Protestantism) of western Switzerland back into the Catholic fold, his mission met with similar success. Too much success, perhaps. Soon the local leaders had had enough and roused the peasants against him.  They attempted to shoot him while he was preaching, but missed. Then they ambushed him on the road and beat him to death when he wouldn’t renounce his Catholic faith. The prayers for his attackers that escaped from his dying lips converted a Zwinglian minister who witnessed the martyrdom. For St Fidelis, leaving the practice of law was a good decision, I’d say.  For you? Perhaps. It depends on the why.  Keep praying, and make your namesake’s prayer your own: “Woe betide me if I should prove myself but a half-hearted solder in the service of my thorn-crowned Captain!”   Your faithful Uncle, Eddy.