Integrity

A Just Man

Given the day on which it landed this year, many Catholics are probably not aware that this past Saturday was the Solemnity of St. Joseph. 

Unfortunately, St. Joseph tends to be the overlooked member of the Holy Family.  Which I think is a shame, as he is an incredible example for the laity.  Although I have grown to appreciate and understand the Blessed Mother more over the years, the truth is I have never been that Marian.  Personally, I am drawn far more to St. Joseph.  I am sure there are many others out there like me.  Explore some of the links below for more on St. Joseph, but I would like to expand a bit upon why I think he is such a great example for the laity.

St. Maria Goretti

In case you haven't noticed the change in the left-hand column, I'm featuring a new lay saint, St. Maria Goretti.   Click on the picture to learn more about St. Goretti.

Pio And Moscati

I have often commented that the Church needs to showcase the example of lay saints more.  As I commented in this early post:

"Ask someone to describe the vocation of the priest and they can give you a pretty good description by talking about the things a priest does. Not exactly the same thing as the vocation itself, but a rough proxy that has its uses. But the laity fill all of life’s spheres and occupations. Accordingly, it is significantly harder to back your way into an understanding of the character and mission of the laity by trying to identify things that all laity do. Yet, that presents quite a dilemma, because at the end of the day most of us are struggling with connecting who we are to be with what we do."

(Is quoting myself a no-no? :-) )

This is one of the main reasons why I have been interested in and advocate spotlighting the lay saints. All saints can teach us about living the Gospel, but the lay saints may help us better understand how holiness might be realized in our own station of life, given that they at least share our secular character.

So I thought people might find interesting this piece,  Two Sons of Benevento Region: Different In Style, Equal In Love,  from Il Gesu Nuovo.  It compares two saints -- Padre Pio and Integrity's patron, Dr. Joseph Moscati -- who are about as close as we get to having saints who were contemporaries of each other.  What is interesting about the piece is how it shows the similarities in difference of how these two holy men lived out the Christian vocation. 

Once you have read through it, I would be interested in your thoughts on these questions:  which did you find easier to recognize as a saint and an example of holiness?  And why?

Blessed Frassati

In case you haven't noticed the change in the left-hand column, I'm featuring a new lay saint, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.   Click on the picture to learn more about Blessed Frassati or click here to go to a site on him maintained by Dom (of Bettnet).

About Featured Lay Saints

Before we continue, let me say a word about one of the resources you will find in the sidebar columns of Integrity: the Featured Lay Saint.

I have mentioned my frustration with the lack of attention our lay saints are given and how much investigation a lay person has to undertake to learn about them. So I would be remiss if I didn't try to improve things here at Integrity. So from time to time, Integrity will feature a different lay saint for your encouragement and inspiration. Our current featured lay saint is St. Stephen of Hungary. Click on his picture to learn more.

Of course, there are several lay saints that the Church promotes frequently to the faithful as models for living the Christian life. For example, the Blessed Mother. But for me, I have always found the more hidden witness of St. Joseph powerful. St. Joseph's example will often serve as a source for reflections here at Integrity. If you have never explored St. Joseph's life, you might want to read this collection of homilies by St. Escriva.

About St. Joseph Moscati

Some of you may have noticed that Integrity is dedicated to St. Joseph Moscati. He may be unfamiliar to most of you, so here's a little background on him and why I have dedicted this blog to him.

As I mentioned before, Pope JPII's exhortation, Christifideles Laici, was one of the original inspirations for starting Integrity. In paragraph 17 of CFL, the pope writes:

It is appropriate to recall here the solemn proclamation of beatification and canonization of lay men and women which took place during the month of the Synod. The entire People of God, and the lay faithful in particular, can find at this moment new models of holiness and new witnesses of heroic virtue lived in the ordinary everyday circumstances of human existence.

Written in the margin of my copy of CFL is the following: What are their names?!

Stop checking the footnotes. The names aren't listed there. To me, it seems hard for the laity to look to these new lay saints for example if they aren't told who they are. This is my common complaint about the Church's approach to the saints. In reality, JPII has made incredible strides in raising to the glory of the altars many laity who have lived lives of heroic virtue. Still, take a look at any report of those to be beatified and canonized by the Church, and I will bet you that no less than eighty-five percent of them are priests, religious brothers or nuns.

Sure, we can learn from all of the saints. But the laity can learn different things from a saint who shares the lay state of life. The laity need concrete examples of what it is to live the Gospel in the ordinary places of life.

A few years ago, I decided I couldn't stand it any longer. I did some investigation to find out the identity of the lay men and women whe were canonized during the Synod. It turns out there was only one: St. Joseph Moscati. He has become one of my favorite saints and I thought I would share a bit about him.