Catechesis

In this sermon for the Feast of the Ascension, St Leo the Great reflects on Christ’s triumph over death, the transformation of the Apostles after the Ascension, and the call for Christians to lift their hearts above earthly things and towards eternity The mystery of our salvation, dearly beloved, which the Creator of the universe valued at the price of His blood, has now been carried out under conditions of humiliation from the day of His bodily birth to the end of His Passion. And although even in the form of a slave many signs of Divinity have beamed out, yet the events of all that period served particularly to show the reality of His assumed Manhood. But after the Passion, when the chains of death were broken, which had exposed its own strength by attacking Him, Who was ignorant of sin, weakness was turned into power, mortality into eternity, contumely into glory, which the Lord Jesus Christ showed by many clear proofs in the sight of many, until He carried even into heaven the triumphant victory which He had won over the dead. As therefore at the Easter commemoration, the Lord’s Resurrection was the cause of our rejoicing, so the subject of our present gladness is His Ascension, as we commemorate and duly venerate that day on which the Nature of our humility in Christ was raised above all the host of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father. On which Providential order of events we are founded and built up, that God’s Grace might become more wondrous, when, notwithstanding the removal from men’s sight of what was rightly felt to command their awe, faith did not fail, hope did not waver, love did not grow cold. For it is the strength of great minds and the light of firmly faithful souls unhesitatingly to believe what is not seen with the bodily sight, and there to fix one’s affections whither you cannot direct your gaze. And whence should this Godliness spring up in our hearts, or how should a man be justified by faith, if our salvation rested on those things only which lie beneath our eyes? Hence our Lord said to him who seemed to doubt Christ’s Resurrection until he had tested by sight and touch the traces of His Passion in His very Flesh: “Because you have seen Me, you have believed: blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). In order, therefore, dearly beloved, that we may be capable of this blessedness, when all things were fulfilled which concerned the Gospel preaching and the mysteries of the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection in the presence of the disciples, was raised into heaven, and terminated His presence with us in the body, to abide on the Father’s right hand until the times Divinely foreordained for multiplying the sons of the Church are accomplished, and He comes to judge the living and the dead in the same flesh in which He ascended. And so that which till then was visible of our Redeemer was changed into a sacramental presence, and that faith might be more excellent and stronger, sight gave way to doctrine, the authority of which was to be accepted by believing hearts enlightened with rays from above. This Faith, increased by the Lord’s Ascension and established by the gift of the Holy Ghost, was not terrified by bonds, imprisonments, banishments, hunger, fire, attacks by wild beasts, or refined torments of cruel persecutors. For this Faith throughout the world not only men, but even women, not only beardless boys, but even tender maids, fought to the shedding of their blood. This Faith cast out spirits, drove off sicknesses, and raised the dead; and through it the blessed Apostles themselves also, who after being confirmed by so many miracles and instructed by so many discourses, had yet been panic-stricken by the horrors of the Lord’s Passion and had not accepted the truth of His Resurrection without hesitation, made such progress after the Lord’s Ascension that everything which had previously filled them with fear was turned into joy. For they had lifted the whole contemplation of their mind to the Godhead of Him that sat at the Father’s right hand, and were no longer hindered by the barrier of corporeal sight from directing their mind’s gaze to That Which had never quitted the Father’s side in descending to earth, and had not forsaken the disciples in ascending to heaven. The Son of Man and Son of God, therefore, dearly beloved, then attained a more excellent and holier fame, when He betook Himself back to the glory of the Father’s Majesty, and in an ineffable manner began to be nearer to the Father in respect of His Godhead, after having become farther away in respect of His manhood. A better instructed faith then began to draw closer to a conception of the Son’s equality with the Father without the necessity of handling the corporeal substance in Christ, whereby He is less than the Father, since, while the Nature of the glorified Body still remained, the faith of believers was called upon to touch not with the hand of flesh, but with the spiritual understanding the Only-begotten, Who was equal with the Father. Hence comes that which the Lord said after His Resurrection, when Mary Magdalene, representing the Church, hastened to approach and touch Him: “Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to My Father” (John 20:17): that is, I would not have you come to Me as to a human body, nor yet recognise Me by fleshly perceptions: I put you off for higher things, I prepare greater things for you. When I have ascended to My Father, then you shall handle Me more perfectly and truly, for you shall grasp what you cannot touch and believe what you cannot see. But when the disciples’ eyes followed the ascending Lord to heaven with upward gaze of earnest wonder, two angels stood by them in raiment shining with wondrous brightness, who also said: “You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven? This Jesus Who was taken up from you into heaven shall so come as you saw Him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11). By which words all the sons of the Church were taught to believe that Jesus Christ will come visibly in the same Flesh wherewith He ascended, and not to doubt that all things are subjected to Him on Whom the ministry of angels had waited from the first beginning of His Birth. For, as an angel announced to the blessed Virgin that Christ should be conceived by the Holy Ghost, so the voice of heavenly beings sang of His being born of the Virgin also to the shepherds. As messengers from above were the first to attest His having risen from the dead, so the service of angels was employed to foretell His coming in very Flesh to judge the world, that we might understand what great powers will come with Him as Judge, when such great ones ministered to Him even in being judged. And so, dearly beloved, let us rejoice with spiritual joy, and let us with gladness pay God worthy thanks and raise our hearts’ eyes unimpeded to those heights where Christ is. Minds that have heard the call to be uplifted must not be pressed down by earthly affections; they that are foreordained to things eternal must not be taken up with the things that perish; they that have entered on the way of Truth must not be entangled in treacherous snares, and the faithful must so take their course through these temporal things as to remember that they are sojourning in the vale of this world, in which, even though they meet with some attractions, they must not sinfully embrace them, but bravely pass through them. For to this devotion the blessed Apostle Peter arouses us, and entreating us with that loving eagerness which he conceived for feeding Christ’s sheep by the threefold profession of love for the Lord, says: “Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). But for whom do fleshly pleasures wage war, if not for the devil, whose delight it is to fetter souls that strive after things above with the enticements of corruptible good things, and to draw them away from those abodes from which he himself has been banished? Against his plots every believer must keep careful watch that he may crush his foe on the side whence the attack is made. And there is no more powerful weapon, dearly beloved, against the devil’s wiles than kindly mercy and bounteous charity, by which every sin is either escaped or vanquished. But this lofty power is not attained until that which is opposed to it be overthrown. And what so hostile to mercy and works of charity as avarice, from the root of which spring all evils? And unless it be destroyed by lack of nourishment, there must needs grow in the ground of that heart in which this evil weed has taken root the thorns and briars of vices rather than any seed of true goodness. Let us then, dearly beloved, resist this pestilential evil and follow after charity, without which no virtue can flourish, that by this path of love whereby Christ came down to us, we too may mount up to Him, to Whom with God the Father and the Holy Spirit is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Brother René Stockman reflects on St Francis of Assisi, “Sister Death” and the Christian tradition of memento mori There comes a moment in our lives when we will have to let go of everything and we will appear before God. During our lives, we are afraid to show who we truly are. We erect so many façades that we try to keep standing with great effort. Eventually, however, they will all collapse, like a house of cards swept away by the wind. It reminds me of St Francis of Assisi, who stripped himself of his clothes twice. The first time was when he bade farewell to his lavish life and left his home. In the market square of Assisi, in the presence of his parents, the bishop and a whole crowd, he returned his clothes to his parents. For him, it was a sign of a radical break with his past and, at the same time, the start of a completely new life that he himself called his marriage to Lady Poverty. The bishop covered his nakedness with his cloak to protect him from the covetous eyes of the crowd, but also to welcome him into the Church through this symbolic act. From then on, through his radical living out of the Gospel, he would rebuild the Church of Jesus, which he had received as a special calling from the Lord Himself. What he had initially understood purely in material terms, he would later experience as a spiritual calling and, as a friar, he would travel about to proclaim the Good News everywhere. With this act, a new religious order was born: the mendicant friars, who simultaneously became urban Religious and set in motion an entirely new movement within the Church. By divesting himself of his clothes, he sought to embody the evangelical virtue of poverty in the most radical way and, from then on, to walk through the world as an authentic human being, in the footsteps of his and the world’s only Master, Jesus Christ. In doing so, he broke with a part of the Church that lived behind a façade of wealth and was far removed from the ideal of the Gospel. Later Francis divested himself of his clothes for the second time. This time, not of the lavish costume he wore before his conversion, but of his meagre habit. This time he need not fear covetous glances, for his body had been completely emaciated by illness. He wanted to return to the place where it all began, to his Assisi, to end his hymn of praise to life there and to embrace Sister Death with total surrender. Francis wanted to appear before God as we know humanity from the story of creation: naked and without any form of desire. As soon as he had made the Lord the sole centre of his life he began a process of purification that brought him into total harmony with God, with himself, with his fellow human beings and with all of creation, so that he was ready to appear before God as He had originally created humankind. Before the Fall, humankind was naked, yet felt no shame. Shame arose when desire made its entrance, as described in the Book of Genesis: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves” (Gen. 3:7). They had lost the innocence of their origin and hid themselves even from their Creator: “I heard your thunder in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked; so I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10). A little further on, we read how God Himself gave clothes to man to cover him: “And Yahweh God made garments of skin for the man and his wife, and He clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). This repeated emphasis on the fundamental change in the perception of the body has a profound meaning. It constitutes the turning point at which the original human is transformed into the historical human, to use the terms of Pope St John Paul II. With the Fall comes a rupture in the original harmony in which man was created, and selfishness makes its entrance. The worm of pride has turned man’s natural desire and his innate passion for the good into a covetous gazing and grasping at one another. The original inner peace is disrupted, and the other becomes a threat. From then on, humanity must protect itself from its fellow humans and also cover its nakedness. Its unguarded relationship with God is also disrupted. We can truly speak of a broken harmony on all levels. Was this harmony then fully restored in Francis? No, for we know from history how, in the last years of his life, he truly had to struggle with his fellow brothers, who were taking a different path. Perhaps he watched with pain as the radicalism of the early beginning was gradually abandoned. What had begun as a protest against the way the Gospel was being violated, both in society and in the Church, gradually grew into a greater conformity with what he had prophetically renounced. But even in the struggle he waged against this, an inner resignation came over him, and he saw that he had to relinquish that as well. Ultimately, it was not he who had founded his order; this was the work of God, for which he was merely an instrument. He even accepted temporary care in the bishop’s palace, where the bishop spared no effort in his good care. On the surface, his stay with the bishop seemed to contradict his ideal of radical poverty, but even that became relative in light of his total surrender to God’s will. We thus see in Francis a total internalisation and a further purification of all his relationships, through which they also grew in harmony. The moment he wished to lie completely naked on the ground to welcome death is therefore the moment he was able to surrender his life in a completely harmonious way into the hands of God. He lay there as Christ hung naked on the Cross, and as Adam had been created by God. He could echo Job: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21–22). We can learn much from Francis, but perhaps most of all from this moment, in which he was able to surrender himself completely and entrust himself to God without reserve, without pretence, in his full reality as a naked human being. For that is the path we must all take and for which we must prepare ourselves. It is always about that total self-emptying, through which we grow towards the image that God has placed within us of Himself and that we were allowed to behold in a completely clear and perfect way in Jesus Christ. It is only through the imitation of Christ, by conforming ourselves to Him, that the likeness to the image of God can grow within us. Everyone is called to do this in his or her own way, from and with his or her own personality, in his or her own time and in the concrete circumstances of life at that moment. For Francis, this was in Assisi, at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. For him, it was about that radical following of Christ. His radical experience of poverty was his way of becoming totally conformed to Christ and ultimately appearing before his Creator as a new Adam. There are many aspects of Jesus Christ that can inspire us to follow in his footsteps. Within religious life, this is expressed through the many and highly diverse charisms lived out by the members of various orders and congregations. They are like different windows through which one looks out at the world from a large apartment building. Each charism has its own distinct character, and every member of the order or congregation is called to live out this charism as a radical following of Christ. No one charism is better than another, provided it is lived out in a consistent and radical way. But this is not reserved solely for Religious. Every believer is called to take Jesus Christ as his or her model and to follow Him from within his or her own reality. The ultimate goal is that we prepare ourselves for that final encounter with the Lord, in which our death becomes the transition to full life with and in God. We must view our lives as a journey towards this final destination, and we will constantly have to make choices about which path to follow to get there. Sometimes we will lose our way and stray onto wrong paths, but then there is always the Lord who, through His example, can bring us back onto the right path. Here God’s mercy comes into view, which, through His forgiveness, continually encourages us to leave the wrong steps of the past behind, so that we may set out on the right path with renewed courage. We all know that we will eventually arrive at our destination, but we do not know how or when. That is why it is important to prepare ourselves thoroughly and not let death take us by surprise. We should actually become friends with our death, thinking of it daily, not as a terrifying fate looming over us, but as a friendly guest whom we look forward to with a reassuring and even longing heart. This need not be a macabre message, but we realise that for many death is seen as a threatening bogeyman and is therefore truly detested. It is telling that Francis was only able to complete his famous “Canticle of the Sun” in the final phase of his life, concluding with the greeting to “Sister Death”. For him, too, this was a process of growth, through which he became fully reconciled with death and truly welcomed it as a redemptive moment in his life. We, too, will have to go through that process, and it may take a few years, and for some many years, before we, like Francis, can greet death as our sister. But we must dare to set that process in motion and not run away from it, as many unfortunately do. For one day we will have to let go of everything, and leave behind everything that was dear to us on this earth. We must not let this take us by surprise, but cultivate it within ourselves as a positive process and allow it to evolve.

The Church has long dedicated the month of May to Mary. Br René Stockman, former Superior General of the Congregation of the Brothers of Charity, reflects on how Catholics can use the month to renew their devotion to Our Lady and let her example transform their lives It remains a pious devotion to honour Mary in a special way during the month of May. Pilgrimages, praying the rosary together, reciting her litany, giving a special place to a statue of Mary: these are time-honoured customs that we would do well to uphold. Even in the most austere church, a statue of Mary will never be missing. The presence of debates on whether or not to officially recognise the title of Mary as Co-Redemptrix says something about the importance she had in the work of salvation. Even if it is not desirable to enshrine this in dogma, we can hardly deny her cooperation. There is only one person who may bear the title of Mother of God, because she brought the God-man Jesus into the world at the Incarnation. From this, a rich popular devotion has developed around the person of Mary, and countless images of her have been created. Pilgrimages to Lourdes, Fatima and other places where Mary once appeared continue to draw large crowds, and there we encounter the most diverse people. This is not a matter that attracts only simple, devout souls, or the sick who hope for a cure. It is striking that dioceses, which struggle to keep their parishes alive, with church closures and the repurposing of churches as an almost logical consequence, see remarkable success in their Marian shrines. After all, it is there that they can most easily and directly reach their faithful. Just as Mary was once the link between heaven and earth, she continues to connect us today. Here she certainly deserves a renewed understanding of her title as Mary Mediatrix. Mary enables people who are completely estranged from their church and parish life to reconnect with the faith through her. She never intended to be the end goal, but always the path to her Son: through Mary to Jesus. What St Louis de Montfort emphasised in his devotion to Mary at the end of the seventeenth century, Pope St John Paul II sought to depict on his coat of arms with the “M” of Mary pointing to the “cross” of Jesus. “Totus tuus,” entirely yours, was his motto, also a phrase from that same St Louis de Montfort with which he sought to express his total devotion to Jesus through Mary. The fact that the Reformation criticised the place Mary occupied in the Church – and that Vatican II therefore cautiously devoted only a chapter to Mary in its constitution “Lumen Gentium” and did not grant her a separate document – had precisely to do with the danger of forgetting Mary’s proper place and placing her alongside or even above her Son. That is why the expression “through Mary to Jesus” is the best formulation one can conceive of when speaking of Mary in our life of faith. From this we come to the question of what Mary can and may still mean today in our life of faith and, more broadly, in our lives as such. This will, of course, be interpreted by each person in their own way, but we may already cite a number of words and virtues that are particularly applicable to her. At the Annunciation, we encounter Mary as the devout woman who is open to the word of the Lord, listens to it patiently and manages to give this totally unexpected event a central place in her life. Her “yes” will sound to many today like a threat to personal freedom, and a curtailment of the self-determination that has become so important to so many. It puts an end to the myth that we can have total control over the course of our lives. We must indeed dare to take our lives into our own hands, actively participate in social life and strive to respond positively to the expectations placed upon us, but at the same time we must remain open to the unexpected that, as it were, befalls us, and discover new perspectives and challenges within it. In the language of faith, this means that, like Jesus himself, we must constantly ask ourselves what God’s will is in our lives, and realise that what unexpectedly befalls us may well be precisely what God is asking of us at that moment. Mary teaches us to recognise God’s hand in our lives and not to flee from events that occur outside our plans. People, circumstances and even setbacks can be placed in our path to help us discover our true calling. But often we only see in hindsight the positive impact this unexpected event has had on our lives. Mary accepts without seeing everything and without even understanding everything, but she trusts that God will not abandon her. Mary receives a special mission when she learns that she will become the Mother of God, but that does not affect her humility; quite the contrary. She calls herself the humble handmaid who lets it be done “according to Thy word.” Is humility not the most threatened virtue, and is the world not being damaged by people who consider themselves better than others? The pride and lust for power that stem from this are corrupting our society, and we see the consequences of this on both the micro and macro levels. What we see magnified in today’s tyrants, we also see all around us and, in all honesty, must often recognise in ourselves as well, or at least the tendency towards it. Pride, envy and arrogance are the dangerous trio that claim so many victims today. There is only one remedy capable of countering this: namely, humility, the antithesis of pride. With her boundless humility, Mary brings us back to the human being as we were created by God and of whom He said it was good. She helps us on our way to restoring the broken harmony within us and to truly becoming what we were created to be and what we are called to be: human beings in whom the likeness of God’s image may rise up within us. At the foot of her Son’s cross, Mary receives the commission to become the mother of all who wish to walk with Him. She is a mother who does not flee from suffering but excels in compassion. Entering St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the first thing one encounters is Michelangelo’s famous Pietà. Beyond the immense artistic value of this sculpture, it radiates above all the compassion of a woman who takes her dead son into her arms and wordlessly calls on us to become compassionate people as well. Extreme suffering can only be eased by the presence of fellow human beings who do not abandon those who are suffering. The greatest suffering experienced by the elderly stems from the feeling that they no longer matter in society and have been abandoned by everyone. It is a loneliness that leads them to the desperate question of whether they are still wanted in this society and whether it would not be better to end their lives. When, as a child, I regularly visited an elderly great-aunt at the nursing home where she lived, I was deeply moved by an even older woman whom I always saw sitting with a rosary in her hand and who told me that Mary was her only comfort. In addition to the example of compassion that Mary radiates, she has evidently taken very seriously the mission she received from her Son to become the mother of many, of all, and has given and continues to give shape to this in many ways. For that elderly woman who had no one left, there was only Mary, who remained close to her in a mystical way and kept her company. The encounter with that woman left a deep impression on me and also strengthened my devotion to Mary. Perhaps this month of May can be an excellent opportunity to give Mary a place in our lives in a renewed way. Through Mary to Jesus.

Fr Jeremy Davies, a former doctor who became a priest, spent 35 years as an exorcist, carrying out his ministry with quiet discipline, intellectual conviction and pastoral care If you entered Our Lady Help of Christians in Luton town centre for the 7am Mass on a weekday morning in the 2010s, you were one of few. Luton, a town about an hour’s drive from England’s capital, is known for its poverty and its history of extremism. An outpost of Al-Muhajiroun, radical Muslims famously held Islamist rallies there to protest the return of fallen British soldiers from Afghanistan. It is also home to the English Defence League, founded by Luton native Tommy Robinson, who has become one of the most recognisable faces of Britain’s hard right. There are many more mosques than Catholic churches in Luton. A parish priest in Bury Park, the town’s most densely Muslim area, once told me there were 16 mosques within his parish boundaries. Evangelicals also maintain a strong presence, particularly in High Town, an area with a large white working-class population. Hope Church, a Newfrontiers congregation, is particularly active in serving the town’s more marginalised residents. However, if you did enter Our Lady Help of Christians for the 7am Mass, you would likely have found yourself at a liturgy celebrated by Britain’s leading exorcist, Fr Jeremy Davies. Born in 1935 on the solemnity of the Annunciation, it was not expected that he would enter the priesthood. His father, a senior officer at RAF Fighter Command, left his wife and children to remarry, and there was still a healthy amount of anti-Catholic sentiment in civilised English society. Raised in the last ripples of the Victorian era, he had the manners, etiquette and genteel disposition that was expected of his upper-middle-class background. He attended the King’s School, Canterbury, then studied English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, before training in medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. At the age of 31, having found life lacking in meaning, he converted to the Catholic faith. At 32, he left London to work as a doctor in missions in Guyana, Nigeria, and Ghana. Sensing a call to the priesthood, he went to study in Rome at Beda College as a seminarian for the Diocese of Westminster and was ordained at the age of 39. His vocation was in part an intellectual effort which led him to a profound conviction in the truths of Catholicism. But it was also in reparation for doing something he described as “very wrong” and desiring to make atonement. Upon ordination, he was sent to Westminster Cathedral, the centre of English Catholicism, as a chaplain. He spent almost 20 years as an assistant priest at St James’s, Spanish Place, one of London’s most prominent Catholic churches, where Edward VII attended the requiem Mass for King Carlos I of Portugal, the first British monarch to do so since James II. It was there that he trained as an exorcist. In 1994, together with Gabriele Amorth, he founded the International Association of Exorcists to encourage greater awareness among dioceses of cases of demonic possession. The association now has more than 200 members. Of the 48 years Fr Davies served as a Catholic priest, 35 were spent as an exorcist in the Archdiocese of Westminster, where he became widely regarded as one of the leading figures in the field. As an exorcist, Fr Davies was known for bringing his medical precision to the spiritual realm, freeing hundreds of people from demonic bondage. He was pragmatic in his approach and wrote a book for the Catholic Truth Society entitled Exorcism: Understanding Exorcism in Scripture and Practice . After many years as a parish priest, his role as assistant priest in Luton brought him to a quieter life, but nonetheless still carrying out his priestly ministry, offering spiritual direction to anyone who asked for it and waiting patiently in the Church’s sacristy to meet troubled souls. In 2021, he retired to Walsingham, England’s Nazareth, indicative of his devotion to Our Lady. He is buried within the confines of the national shrine. Fr Davies gave instructions for his funeral Mass that the congregation should be told that no one should assume that he was already in heaven. A sobering thought for such a holy man. He was insistent that salvation should not be presumed, but rather hoped for and prayed for. He died on 5 November 2022, a date long associated with anti-Catholic hostility in England following the Gunpowder Plot. For a gentleman priest, thoroughly English and able to navigate such apparent contradictions with finesse, he would have found the timing of his departure quietly amusing. Fr Jeremey Davies(25 March 1935 – 5 November 2022)

The canonisation process is now a structured system handled by Rome. Reforms have allowed more causes to move forward, but questions over scrutiny and rigour remain In a recent interview with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Daniel Beurthe explored a number of contested questions surrounding the modern canonisation process, particularly in the wake of post-conciliar reforms. Among the key themes discussed were longstanding criticisms that procedural changes have, in the eyes of some observers, diminished the traditional rigour once associated with the examination of causes, as well as the rationale behind the suppression of the office of the so-called “Devil’s Advocate”. For much of the Church’s early history, the recognition of saints was a local matter, exercised principally by bishops and, in some regions, by primates and patriarchs. Martyrs and confessors could be granted public ecclesiastical honour within the territories over which these authorities presided. Such recognition, however, did not extend beyond those local boundaries. Only the acceptance of a cultus by the Pope gave it universal force, since the Pope alone possesses authority over the whole Church. Even at this early stage, the distinction between local veneration and universal recognition was clearly understood, though not always consistently observed in practice. Over time, difficulties emerged within this decentralised system. Popular enthusiasm sometimes outpaced careful discernment, and in certain cases bishops were criticised for insufficiently rigorous inquiry into the lives of those whom they permitted to be honoured publicly. These tensions gradually prompted appeals to the Church, particularly in the medieval West, where the papacy was increasingly asked to intervene in order to ensure uniformity and credibility in such decisions. A significant moment in this development came in 993, when Pope John XV formally canonised Saint Ulrich of Augsburg, marking the first clear instance of a papal canonisation of a saint from outside Rome intended for the veneration of the universal Church. From the 11th century onwards, recourse to papal authority became more frequent, and the Roman Pontiffs began to assert a more direct role in regulating the recognition of sanctity. Figures such as Pope Urban II, Pope Calixtus II and Pope Eugene III insisted that claims of sanctity, including the verification of virtues and miracles, should be subjected to structured examination, often within the context of ecclesiastical councils. This was a decisive move away from purely local determination towards a more centralised and juridically grounded process, laying the foundations for later formal procedures. The transition to exclusive papal authority was gradual but decisive. One of the last known instances of canonisation carried out by a non-papal authority in the Western Church occurred in 1153, when the Archbishop of Rouen declared the sanctity of Walter of Pontoise. Within a generation, however, this practice had effectively ceased. In 1170 and 1173, Pope Alexander III issued decrees that strongly curtailed episcopal autonomy in this area, insisting that no one should be venerated as a saint without the authority of the Roman Church. This consolidation of authority was further developed under Pope Innocent III, whose pontificate saw the increasing elaboration of investigative procedures submitted to Rome. His involvement in canonisations reinforced the principle that such judgments required thorough examination at the highest level of the Church’s authority. Nevertheless, questions about the precise extent of papal reservation continued for some time, as earlier customs did not disappear immediately. A definitive settlement came in the 17th century under Pope Urban VIII, who formally reserved both canonisation and beatification to the Apostolic See. Through the apostolic letter Caelestis Hierusalem cives in 1634, and subsequent decrees in 1642, he established detailed norms governing the entire process. These measures not only centralised authority but also introduced a more systematic and regulated framework, addressing earlier inconsistencies and abuses. From this point forward, the recognition of saints became firmly embedded within the juridical structures of the Roman Curia. The system reached its classical form in the 18th century through the work of the eminent canonist Pope Benedict XIV. His monumental study, De Servorum Dei beatificatione et de Beatorum canonizatione , published between 1734 and 1738, synthesised existing legislation and practice into a comprehensive and authoritative guide. Lambertini’s work codified the procedures in a manner that would shape the Church’s approach for generations. These norms were later incorporated into the Code of Canon Law, ensuring their continued application into the modern era. The essential structure remained largely unchanged until the late 20th century, when reforms initiated under Pope Paul VI began to simplify certain aspects of the procedure, paving the way for the more comprehensive revisions enacted in 1983. Even so, the historical trajectory, from local episcopal recognition to exclusive papal authority, and from informal devotion to codified juridical process, remains fundamental to understanding how the Church has sought to discern and proclaim sanctity across the centuries. It is this background that lays the foundation of the current process. Prior to 1983, the early phases of a cause involved a series of diocesan inquiries. These included informative processes into the reputation for holiness and miracles, investigations to confirm the absence of illicit public cult, in accordance with the decrees of Pope Urban VIII, and examinations of the candidate’s writings. These inquiries could take place across multiple dioceses, depending on where witnesses or documents were located. Once completed, the findings were sealed and transmitted to Rome for further examination. At the Roman stage, the material was opened, translated where necessary, and organised into a formal dossier known as the positio . A cardinal relator was appointed to oversee the cause, and theologians were tasked with reviewing the writings of the Servant of God to ensure doctrinal soundness. Only after this scrutiny could the Congregation consider whether the cause might proceed. If no doctrinal impediments were found, the question of formally introducing the cause was debated in a meeting of the Congregation. A favourable decision led to the candidate being declared Venerable, following papal approval. This marked recognition that the individual had lived a life of heroic virtue, though public veneration remained prohibited at this stage. The demonstration of heroic virtue was itself the subject of extensive deliberation. It was examined across three successive congregations: ante-preparatory, preparatory and general, each requiring detailed reports and responses to the objections of the Promotor Fidei. Only after a majority of consultors and cardinals had resolved these objections could the Pope confirm the decree affirming heroic virtue. Miracles formed the next crucial stage. Their number and nature depended on the strength of the evidence already established. In cases supported by eyewitness testimony, fewer miracles were required; where evidence was indirect, more were demanded. Each alleged miracle underwent a process as exacting as that applied to virtues, including medical evaluations and theological assessments. The discussions again unfolded across multiple congregations, culminating in a decree confirming their authenticity. Only after both virtue and miracles had been established did the Congregation consider the question super tuto , whether it was safe to proceed to beatification. A favourable judgment led to the solemn beatification ceremony, at which the Pope authorised limited public veneration of the newly declared Blessed. This was accompanied by a papal brief and often by liturgical celebrations specific to the individual. Canonisation required further miracles attributed to the intercession of the Blessed after beatification. These too were subjected to the same layered scrutiny. Only then would the Pope issue a Bull of Canonisation, not merely permitting but commanding the universal veneration of the saint throughout the Church. The solemn proclamation, accompanied by a Pontifical High Mass, represented the definitive act of the process. The complexity of the system was reflected in its slowness, as causes could take decades or even centuries to complete, not least because the Congregation was limited in how many major questions it could consider at any given time. The same officials were required to participate in each stage, and the schedule of meetings was constrained. The result was a process that prioritised certainty over speed. In the modern period, reforms to the canonisation process were introduced in 1983 under Pope John Paul II through the apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister . It retained the essential structure of investigating virtue and miracles but significantly altered the manner in which these elements were assessed. The responsibility of the diocesan bishop was expanded, and the role of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints was streamlined. The Promotor Fidei was effectively replaced by a less adversarial role, and the number of formal congregations was reduced. Under the current system, a cause may be opened no sooner than five years after the candidate’s death, though this requirement can be waived. The diocesan phase focuses on collecting documentation and testimony, which are then transmitted to Rome. There, a relator works with theological experts to prepare a positio summarising the life and virtues of the Servant of God. This document is examined by a theological commission and subsequently by the cardinals and bishops of the dicastery. A favourable judgment leads to a decree of heroic virtue and the title Venerable. The verification of miracles remains essential, involving both scientific and theological commissions. However, the overall structure is less juridically complex than its predecessor, with fewer formal debates and a greater reliance on written documentation rather than adversarial proceedings. Beatification follows the recognition of a miracle, unless the candidate is a martyr, in which case the requirement may be waived. Canonisation requires a further miracle, examined through similar procedures. The final decision rests with the Pope, who, by the rite of canonisation, declares the individual a saint of the universal Church. Overall, the older system relied on a judicial model based on checks and balances, formal contradiction, multiple congregations, and the prominent role of the Promotor Fidei, whose task was to challenge the cause at every stage. In contrast, the contemporary process reduces the number of formal stages, removes the strictly adversarial structure, and places greater responsibility on diocesan investigations and the preparation of the positio . While scientific and theological scrutiny of miracles remains, the overall procedure is less cumbersome and more dependent on documentary synthesis. The modern reforms have enabled a far greater number of causes to be examined within a shorter timeframe, driven in part by practical considerations and the desire to present contemporary models of holiness. This shift has altered the balance between procedural thoroughness and efficiency, with the removal of certain institutional checks. These changes ultimately represent a continuing tension between rigour and accessibility that shapes the debate today.

To follow Christ is to hold together strength and gentleness in a world that resists both. Br René Stockman, former Superior General of the Congregation of the Brothers of Charity, reflects on how in the face of conflict and confusion, the Gospel calls for courage shaped by grace, not force Those who try to follow Jesus Christ radically and put His message into practice have never had it easy in this world. His person and His message met with resistance in His time and led Him to the Cross. It would therefore be surprising if this resistance were to disappear today, for that would mean we had watered down the Gospel message into a pleasant story for our times. Christ brought us the Good News, a message that leads to true life, but that is not always the life the world holds up as an ideal. On the contrary. If we take the Sermon on the Mount, the heart of the message Christ wanted to impart to us, it would take a great deal of manipulation to reconcile it with what the world prioritises. We therefore often hear that, in the business world, one would not get very far with a message like the Sermon on the Mount. But even in our own lives, it is very difficult to remain consistently faithful to the radical message of the Gospel. Are we willing, like Christ, to take up our cross and follow Him all the way to Calvary, or do we give in to the temptation to fabricate our own interpretation of the Gospel, one that offends no one and grants us an easy life? The Gospel message, brought to us by Christ, calls on us, on the one hand, to be forceful in fulfilling it, yet at the same time not to lose our gentleness. These are two seemingly contradictory qualities that we must strive to hold together. If we act only forcefully, we run the risk of turning the Good News into something harsh, a spirituality that amounts to us being strict with ourselves and equally strict with others. It is a spirituality that actually takes us back to the mindset of the Pharisees, who were Our Lord’s chief opponents. But do we not then miss the joy that a life centred on God can bring us? Do we not run the risk of narrowing the message of the Gospel down to a strict rulebook? And do we not place burdens on our own shoulders and those of others that are difficult to bear, burdens that are often regarded as the exclusive result of our own efforts? It then seems as though we want to live for God, but at the same time without God. It is a spirituality that can even make us arrogant, self-satisfied in the thought that we are, after all, good Christians and much better than others. With such an attitude, we leave no room for God’s grace and rely exclusively on our own efforts. Our forceful actions then become strained behaviour that will have little positive impact on others. We view the Gospel message as intended for an elite, and we are glad to belong to this elite. Forcefulness alone will not get us there, and then we are very far from the basic attitude that Paul describes when he says: “When we are weak, then we are strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). In the teaching of St Paul a very different tone is struck, and we are called to adopt a meek attitude. But here too we must be careful about what we understand by this meekness and how we interpret the weakness that Paul describes. Paul was not a figure who radiated weakness. Rather, he was forceful and full of courage. Before his conversion, he did not spare the sword in persecuting Christians. And after his conversion, with similar zeal and strength, he travelled with boundless dedication to proclaim the Good News everywhere. He was not a man of compromise. Yet in his letters we also discern a genuine concern for those with whom he lived and worked. We need only read the letter he wrote to Philemon to see the tenderness with which he speaks of his relationship with him. In his Song of Love (1 Cor. 13) he reveals the warmth that was in his heart: “Set your heart on love” (1 Cor. 14:1) is the command he gives to us all. It was love that drove him and channelled his intense character into the almost incomprehensible zeal that marked him. From Paul, we learn that we do not have to set aside our individuality when we want to follow Christ, but that we must entrust ourselves to His grace. We must truly become instruments in His hands and therefore be willing to surrender ourselves to Him, until we can say with that same Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). It is Christ who must become the reference point in our lives, He alone. Christ did not change the characters and professional skills of His Apostles, but He did give them a new orientation. “From now on I will make you fishers of men” (Mt 4:19). But in this new mission, they will allow themselves to be guided by Christ and will also obey Him when He commands them, against all reason, to cast their nets on the other side (cf. John 21:6). It is Jesus who becomes their shepherd and who carries this out with both strength and gentleness. He sends them out as sheep among wolves, but as the good shepherd, He will never abandon them. That is the heart of the matter: in Jesus Christ we have a good shepherd, to whose guidance we may entrust ourselves. We pray this in the well-known Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures … Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me …” Indeed, if we follow Him, we have nothing to fear, even if our path leads through dark valleys and we face situations that seem hopeless from a purely human perspective. To stay with the image of the shepherd and his sheep, we recall the words of St John Chrysostom, in which he urges us to resist the temptation to become wolves ourselves. “As long as we remain sheep, we will prevail, and even if we are surrounded by countless wolves, we will succeed in overcoming them. But if we become wolves, we will be defeated, because we will lack the shepherd’s help. He does not tend wolves, but sheep” (St John Chrysostom, Homily 33 on the Gospel according to Matthew). Here the question arises of how we behave in the face of resistance and persecution. Do we maintain our strength without losing our gentleness, or do we become hard-hearted and use the same weapons with which others try to attack us? In the latter case, we become like wolves and think that only through violence can we wage the battle in the world. There are no moments in history, including our own, when we are not confronted with unjust conditions and situations that are completely at odds with the great principles of the Gospel. We are regularly confronted with direct attacks against the Faith. We live in a time when people are quick, too quick, to reach for weapons in order supposedly to combat injustice. We see this today on the international stage, where so many flashpoints of war are flaring up and where we have fallen into a spiral of violence. All around us, we see wolves devouring the sheep and taking the place of the shepherd. The image of the wolf also brings to mind a story of St Francis of Assisi in the town of Gubbio, where a wolf struck fear into the population but ultimately brought peace. Francis entered into dialogue with the wolf and reached a mutual agreement: he would ensure that the wolf had enough food every day, on condition that the wolf would henceforth leave the people in peace. Is this not a powerful image of how one should try to address injustice and persecution? Instead of immediately resorting to arms, one must give absolute priority to dialogue and strive to reach a feasible compromise, without abandoning moral principles, in the conviction that there is Someone who blesses and guides this dialogue, like a good shepherd. St Francis was able to face that wolf alone because the peace of the Lord was present in his heart. It is this peace that we wish upon one another during the celebration of the Eucharist, and it is with this peace that we must go out into the world. It is therefore regrettable that the wish for peace has often degenerated into an enthusiastic greeting of one another, without a deep realisation that it is the peace of the Lord that we wish upon one another. It is that peace we need in order to stand in the world as sheep and face the confrontation with the wolves we will encounter. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid” (John 14:27). With the peace of the Lord in our hearts, we will not be troubled or lose heart, but will receive the inner strength to face the wolves, like Francis, in a forceful yet gentle manner. Pope Leo XIV has often repeated lately that peace cannot be achieved through weapons. How relevant here are the words of Chrysostom urging us to resist the temptation to act and behave like wolves. This naturally requires humility and the trust that there is still a shepherd who leads us along the right paths and makes us lie down in green pastures (Psalm 23). What we are witnessing today worldwide should prompt us to look into our own hearts, remove all traces that lead to violence and plant there the seeds of God’s peace. In this way, we can truly remain as sheep among wolves, keeping in mind the words of the Lord Jesus: that He will never forsake us (cf. Mt 10:19).