St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen

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Friday, 24 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr, Tenth Anniversary of the Inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard again about the giving of our Lord’s own Body and Blood, the Flesh and Blood of our Lord Himself as the spiritual nourishment and sustenance for us, as the Bread and Food that brings about life and renewal of the body and soul, as well as salvation for all of us. This is our faith and this is what we believe in, that we are all members of the one and same Body of Christ, by the sharing of this heavenly meal.

And that is the one desire of the Lord, that we repent from our sins and our waywardness, and walk from now on in the path which He had shown us all, the path to salvation and eternal life. And it is exactly what we heard in our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, which told us about the entire meaning of God’s love and care for us all.

The conversion of Saul, the great enemy and persecutor of the Church and all its faithful, to be later known as St. Paul the Apostle, the Apostle to the Gentiles and the brave Defender and Champion of the Faith is nothing less than extraordinary indeed. How God chose His greatest tool and champion from the worst and the most steadfast enemy of His Name, is a proof how God does things in ways often beyond our understanding, and yet, in the end, it brings about great good for us.

Saul was a young man with much zeal and energy, but unfortunately, he was grossly misled and too fanatical and unbending on his ways, to the point that he persecuted the faithful so harshly, rounding up and causing great sufferings for untold numbers of the people of God. But it is exactly the same qualities present in Saul, which God knew and which He recognised, as a great asset waiting to be used and to be awakened from the darkness, to be a servant of the Light.

In the same way therefore, God called us all out of the darkness, each of us in our own way, with our own personal background and history. He called us to be saved and to become one of His chosen, to abandon forever our sinfulness and our wickedness and instead forever to remain in God’s grace and love. This is what the Lord wants with us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, a priest and martyr of the faith. He was a faithful servant of God, a priest and monk of the Capuchin religious order, who was one of the most important figures in the Counter Reformation efforts about five hundred years ago. During that time of great upheaval and confusion caused by Satan, many have turned away from the faith to seek the false teachings of the agents of Satan and those tricked by Satan’s influence, that they fell into heresy.

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen went around many places to preach the true faith in God and revealed to many people the errors of their ways. Eventually many of them were converted back to the faith and thus returned to the holy Mother Church. But as more and more were touched by his works and were converted back into the faith, there were increasingly more people who were set in their heresy that threatened St. Fidelis and called for his death.

St. Fidelis knew about this and accepted his death willingly at the hands of his enemies, forgiving them for their deeds, and praying for their eventual repentance and return to the Church. Many converted after his death and the faith also eventually triumphed, with many thousands after thousands more returning to the truth that is in Christ and abandoning all the falsehoods and lies of Satan.

Brethren, let us also therefore renew our faith and commitment to the Lord in the same way. If we are already faithful, then we should become even more faithful, and if we have lapsed in our faith, then we should find our way back to the Lord and obey His ways again. We have to make the effort to do this, or else we are likely to be drawn back again into the sins which we had committed and thus drift away from the salvation in God.

To be united with God through the Most Holy Eucharist, by sharing His Body and Blood should be our ultimate goal in life, that we may have life in Him as Christ is in us and dwells within us, by the giving of Himself, His own Body and Blood for us as food to eat, food that does not just satisfy our needs but also transform us into the Temple of His Holy Presence and make us worthy of Him.

May Almighty God be with us all, and may He grant us strength and courage to carry out our faith in life with great devotion. May He lead us to life everlasting, a life filled with His grace and blessings. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 24 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr, Tenth Anniversary of the Inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)

John 6 : 52-59

At that time, the Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this Man give us flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

“My flesh is really food, and My blood is truly drink. Those who eat My flesh and drink My blood, live in Me, and I in them. Just as the Father, who is Life, sent Me, and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats Me will have life from Me. This is the Bread which came from heaven; not like that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this Bread will live forever.”

Jesus spoke in this way in Capernaum when He taught them in the synagogue.

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Friday, 24 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr, Tenth Anniversary of the Inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 116 : 1, 2

Alleluia! Praise the Lord, all you nations; all you peoples, praise Him.

How great is His love for us! His faithfulness lasts forever.

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Friday, 24 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr, Tenth Anniversary of the Inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)

Acts 9 : 1-20

Meanwhile Saul considered nothing but violence and death for the disciples of the Lord. He went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus that would authorise him to arrest and bring to Jerusalem anyone he might find, man or woman, belonging to the Way.

As he travelled along and was approaching Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute Me?” And he asked, “Who are You, Lord?” The voice replied, “I am Jesus whom you persecute. Now get up and go into the city; there you will be told what you are to do.”

The men who were travelling with him stood there speechless : they had heard the sound, but could see no one. Saul got up from the ground and, opening his eyes, he could not see. They took him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. He was blind and he did not eat or drink for three days.

There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias, to whom the Lord called in a vision, “Ananias!” He answered, “Here I am, Lord!” Then the Lord said to him, “Go at once to Straight Street and ask, at the house of Judas, for a man of Tarsus named Saul. You will find him praying, for he has just seen in a vision that a man named Ananias has come in and placed his hands upon him, to restore his sight.”

Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man and all the harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem, and now he is here with authority from the High Priest to arrest all who call upon Your Name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go! This man is My chosen instrument to bring My Name to the pagan nations and their kings, and the people of Israel as well. I Myself will show him how much he will have to suffer for My Name.”

So Ananias left and went to the house. He laid his hands upon Saul and said, “Saul, my brother, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me to you so that you may receive your sight and be filled with Holy Spirit.” Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he could see; he got up and was baptised. Then he took food and was strengthened.

For several days Saul stayed with the disciples at Damascus, and he soon began to proclaim in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God.

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Wednesday, 24 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are reminded today that Christ had come into our world as our salvation, to save us from our condemnation to death by our rebellion against the love of God. He came into our world as light that shed off the darkness that is in our world, and most importantly, the darkness that is within our hearts.

He had been sent into this world that it, together with all of us who lives in it, can be saved rather than cast off together with Satan and his angels into the sea of fire and eternal damnation and separation from God. God’s love desires that all mankind be reunited into Himself, and Christ, whose birth was announced by the prophets, did exactly just that, by serving as the bridge that spans heaven and earth, and linked mankind back to God their Father, providing the only path to salvation and eternal life.

Today, we also commemorate the feast day of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, who was a priest, and also a martyr, and while St. Adalbert whom we commemorated yesterday preached the Good News to the pagans, St. Fidelis who lived during the height of the Protestant Reformation and rebellion had to contend against the heretical Protestants, particularly the Calvinists in the region now known as Switzerland.

St. Fidelis fearlessly waged into the Calvinist strongholds and preached the true faith of the Church, against the erroneous beliefs of the Protestants of the era. Despite the harassment and hatred of those to whom he had ministered, and under the threat of death, St. Fidelis pressed on, and was finally martyred when he rejected outright the persuasion of Calvinist soldiers who pressed him to renounce his Catholic faith, and prayed for them, for the salvation of their souls.

In St. Fidelis, and in St. Adalbert, we saw the truth that is in God, which was revealed through Christ and made manifest in this world. Truth is hard, and it is difficult to be taken in by many, who preferred the lies of Satan to the truth of God. Yet, these saints strived to open the eyes of many who had been fooled by Satan and his earthly minions set to destroy God’s people by false prophets and ideas, and even braved martyrdom in the process.

In our modern day world, we may not see such similar scenario and condition as what the two saints had witnessed in their own times, but in fact, in our present day world, the need for the light of Christ to illuminate the hearts of many had never been greater. Many had abandoned God for the relative comfort of this world’s allures and temptations. The evil one has many ways to seduce mankind into his fold, and to abandon the path of God.

We can do our own part in evangelisation, and we do not even need to brave death as what the two martyrs had done, but most importantly, we begin from our own surroundings, that we show the truth of the Lord through our words and actions, to show the light of Christ through our own beings, and through what we are doing in our lives.

May God guide us always in our lives, and make us into lights for all mankind, that in us, those who have yet to believe in Christ or those who had abandoned Him will once again see the true Light that is Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

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Wednesday, 24 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

John 12 : 44-50

Yet Jesus had said, and even cried out, “Whoever believes in Me, believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me. And whoever sees Me, sees Him who sent Me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness.”

“If anyone hears My words and does not keep them, I am not the One to condemn him; for I have come, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects Me, and does not receive My word, already has a judge : the very word I have spoken will condemn him on the last day.”

“For I have not spoken on My own authority; the Father, who sent Me, has instructed Me in what to say and how to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life, and that is why the message I give, I give as the Father instructed Me.”

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Wednesday, 24 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (Psalm)

Psalm 66 : 2-3, 5, 6 and 8

May God be gracious and bless us; may He let His face shine upon us, that Your way be known on earth and Your salvation among the nations.

May the countries be glad and sing for joy, for You rule the peoples with justice and guide the nations of the world.

May the peoples praise You, o God, may all the peoples praise You! May God bless us and be revered, to the very ends of the earth.

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Wednesday, 24 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (First Reading)

Acts 12 : 24 – Acts 13 : 5a

Meanwhile the word of God was increasing and spreading. Barnabas and Saul carried out their mission and then came back to Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.

There were at Antioch – in the Church which was there – prophets and teachers : Barnabas, Symeon known as Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod, and Saul. On one occasion while they were celebrating the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for Me, Barnabas and Saul to do the work for which I have called them.”

So, after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. These then, sent by the Holy Spirit, went down to the port of Seleucia and from there sailed to Cyprus. Upon their arrival in Salamis they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogue.