Dear Julie, The Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur were founded by a paralyzed French girl who had to be smuggled from house to house in the aftermath the French Revolution in order not be burned alive for her faith.  No joke. Her secret transfers aggravated a mysterious illness that had affected her for years, so much so that she could barely talk. Friends who helped take care of her caught the fire of her divine love and joined her efforts to teach the catechism to the poor, who had been left without instruction when the revolutionaries tried to extinguish the true faith.  Something St Julia said to her first group of followers as she began the Institute (which soon expanded to include a religious order and many schools dedicated to the Christian education of girls) reminded me of your recent letter (which is why I am emailing you today, of all days): “My daughters, think how few priests there are now, and how many poor children are sunk in the grossest ignorance.  We must make it our task to strive to win them!” I see from your own thoughts on the needs of the Church today that our Lord has laid a similar burden on your heart. Believe me when I tell you that you will never regret putting the interests of the Kingdom of God before all else. Of course, I don’t mean that you should stop studying, or quit the orchestra, or abandon your other responsibilities – maybe God is calling you to do something so radical, it is not for me to say, I just mean that your concern to make Christ known and loved in these difficult times is a gift from God, and he gives no gift in vain.  We haven’t had a violent revolution lately, but our young people still desperately need the light of true Christian values. Therefore, I wish you every blessing in your efforts to bring those values back to your campus and will ask St Julia to intercede for the success of your efforts. By the way, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart in 1804 Julia was miraculously cured of her 22-year long illness – God’s timing can be quite unfathomable. Love, Uncle Eddy.

Dear John, Well, today the Church celebrates the fellow to whom you owe your early education, St John Baptist de La Salle, patron of teachers.  His Christian Brothers were once the largest teaching order in the world, and have done incalculable good for innumerable souls. As you are still undecided about what you will be doing after college, I think you should reflect a little bit on how St John discovered his vocation.  The intelligent, good-looking boy was of noble birth, from Rheims, France (just northeast of Paris – if you know where Paris is). He had a knack for the things of God, and began preparing for his ordination at age eleven. (Which just goes to show you that God doesn’t invent our vocations at random; he creates us with them in mind, and that’s why even kids can feel the call.)  He did well, was ordained, and was appointed to a chic position in the Cathedral – nothing but velvet gowns, sumptuous meals, and comfortable circumstances for this blue-blooded cleric. Then a layman who wanted to start a school for poor boys came into the scene. St John helped him get two schools going, and got interested in helping the teachers be more effective. He began spending more and more time with this first group of teachers.  Then he invited them to live in his family palace. Working with them, he developed an entirely new method of teaching – using classrooms instead of individual instruction, French instead of Latin, and other innovations. Soon he gave up his cushy position at the Cathedral, gave away his inheritance to the poor, and dedicated himself 100% to creating a religious order totally dedicated to Christian education. One project piled onto another – more schools for poor children, a school for noble children accompanying the English King James II in exile, a school for young men who wanted to be teachers back in their parishes, novitiates for members of his own congregation, a junior novitiate for boys who wanted to join his growing community of Christian Brothers… Nothing was planned out ahead of time; God simply propelled this great work forward because St John was willing to take one step at a time in whatever direction the Holy Spirit led him.  I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t weigh your options and make prudent decisions and try your best to come up with sensible plans, but I do mean to say that God’s plans for you may not be exactly what you have in mind right now. The Church has many needs, and one young man united to God’s will can make a big impact – if he has a bit of faith. Count on my prayers. Uncle Eddy.

Dear Sal, With spring in the air and summer around the corner, you are probably getting antsy.  We humans are part of this biosphere, and our bodies and emotions really do react to the change of weather and seasons, sometimes violently – just like the trees and flowers that burst out of their winter slumber with new buds.  You know from past years that it’s a time when you find it difficult to keep your good resolutions and stick to your priorities. It is the season when the world renews its worship of the “fun god”; but you, my dear niece, should take a lesson from today’s saints: have plenty of healthy fun, but prefer to suffer death itself before you let the “fun god” draw you into temptation.  The martyrs we commemorate today (we don’t know any of their names, but about 100 of them were decapitated in Seleucia, near modern-day Turkey) refused to worship the Persian sun god. The king, who believed his power depended on appeasing this god, left them in dark, damp, filthy, smelly dungeons for six months to see if they would change their minds. (That “semester” was probably not too fun.)  But they stuck to their guns, and emerged just as resolute in their proclamation that Christ alone was God as they had been when they went in. And they lost their heads for it. So ask them to say a little prayer for you as you go into spring exams, so that you don’t lose your head over something much less worthy than martyrdom. Much love, Uncle Eddy.  

Dear Vinnie, Let nothing deter you from following your vocation. If you think God may be calling you to be a Dominican, then go knock on the Dominicans’ door.  Your continual struggle with chastity means nothing. I will remind you of your namesake, the great Dominican preacher, St Vincent Ferrer, as energetic a Spaniard as there ever was.  Like you, he was an extraordinary youth, gifted with exceptional intelligence, deep faith, and devastating good looks. Early on in his vocation he met with remarkable success – prophecies, miracles, and huge numbers of conversions.  But he was also beset with temptations. The devil and his minions assailed him from within (unspeakable torments from the powers of darkness), while some women who had fallen for him assailed him from without (this was an age full of clerical infidelities, remember).  When he resisted their advances they lashed out in response, viciously slandering his unblemished reputation. What a trial it must have been! But he kept faith in his divine calling, and for the next forty years he was constantly on the move, preaching to immense crowds, from Turin (that’s in northern Italy, my geographically-challenged nephew) to Flanders, from Barcelona to Brittany, and everywhere in between.  Not only did he and his band of followers have to set aside “office hours” so he could miraculously heal the hundreds of sick and maimed who crowded around him, but God did wonders with his voice: when he preached, you could hear him clear as a bell at half a mile away (and this was before fancy sound engineering), and even though he only spoke Spanish and a tinge of Latin and Hebrew, Germans, Dutch, French, and Italians all understood his rousing sermons.  (His favorite sermon topic, by the way, was the fast-approaching Day of Judgment.) On one occasion, 8000 Muslims in Grenada (that’s in Spain, you know) asked to be baptized after hearing one of them. Eight thousand! And to top it all off, he was instrumental in ending the Great Schism (and if you don’t remember what that was, well… well… well you should remember!). So you see, when we focus on what God wants us to do, and not on how hard it may be to do it, truly great things can happen.  Happy Saint’s Day. Uncle Eddy.