November 24 Colman Mac Lenine [son of Lenin] b. ~510 d. 601 Kenen d. 500 November 26 John Berchmans, SJ b. 1599 d

Thommy and John

Good morning
I love you

Happy thanksgiving….
Getting closer – t-minus two days and counting down … with feeloughts about Snoopy’s Joe Cool and flashbacks to my college days’ thanksgivings…. More people, more places, same essence…. Deo Gratias and thanks to you, too….

I made it up today, tho I’m not sure if it went down yesterday. Am very tired at the moment but bright sunshine and more to do than time to do it keeps me muddling along…. Maybe I’ll take a nap under my desk….

Doing these saints is one way for me to pray, to avoid what I’m suppose to be doing, to write to you. Last night I read a book I wrote to John [written by me in 2004 in response to something John wrote in 2001]. Lots of ways to communicate with you – starting with cards and letters and diaries from pre-1994 and enhanced with pictures, letters, diaries, stories since. To touch you. To record some history for you and yours/ours: absent stories in person, which is the best way to leverage God’s gift of family, these writings will have to do….




November 24
Colman Mac Lenine [son of Lenin] b. ~510 d. 601

This Colman was born in Munster. It does matter where you are born, especially when you get a chance to grow up some in that place. Regardless, there’s probably a genetic zeitgeist, a homing dna, that makes our place of birth, and the places of our lineage, more important than any others in our lives. Don’t fight it. Embrace Nashville; and NYC; and back to the homeland….

Colman was an extraordinary poet and royal bard of Cashel. Think maybe he touches all performers; moreso, all the preservers of history.

Brendan baptized Colman when the bard was fifty! Best bet, when Brendan had converted the king of Cashel, the good bard, then fifty years old, was also converted and baptized. See, here’s another saint to give us reason for hope in your reviving your Catholicness; Colman and Augustine, a potent combination of saints in your corner. Baptized by Brendan! Mighty fine company at the birth of our faith in Ireland.

You were each baptized by Kevin G. O’Connell, SJ. Also the priest who witnessed the wedding your mother and I had together [her being married to Rick Redmon, not having followed through on getting an annulment, meant/means that it was a wedding but not a marriage… I am sorry for all three of us about not doing the pre-cana process more diligently. I wish Kevin had but it was in the hands of the Newman Center priest and your mother to take care of the annulment before the wedding. Trust but verify!] Kevin is a friend of mine. He was in theology when I met him; I was a novice at the time. ‘A camaraderie of conceit’ a friend of mine described us as….  Kevin is an extraordinarily talented [and holy] man – an average Jesuit, I’d say….

Colman was the first bishop of Cloyne, county Cork [home of Nolans and Gavins]. [Cloyne is about 20 miles east south east from cork south off of the highway to Youghal.] Even the 21st century allows for firsts. And being first is a mighty advantage as well as superior accomplishment – even marketing research supports that. Pursue firstness.

I just found my 11-24-07 Colman SaintsandSons – you can flip back through to read it.







November 24
Kenen d. 500

Kenen was a disciple of Martin of Tours (France). It does matter from whom we learn; it does matter whom we select as mentor; it does matter whom we emulate. Choose someone like Martin of Tours…. Follow the bouncing relatives – related by blood and in faith. Conchessa. She the Gallic mother of St. Patrick (387 – 493). Conchessa was a close relative of Martin of Tours. St. Kenan we are told was a disciple of Martin of Tours with Patrick. Imagine what dinner around that table was like? ! .

Kenen became bishop at Duleek, in Meath.

See also last year’s entry about Kenen….






November 26
John Berchmans, SJ b. 1599 d. 1621 bl. 1865 c. 1888
That’s right, John Berchmans was 22 when he died….



John Berchmans was the oldest son of a shoemaker from Diest, Brabant. When we draw the trajectory of our lives, starting with our place and circumstance of life, it seems that where we are today is inevitable. But, go back to 1987/89 Nashville – how/who woulda predicted where you are today, doing what you are doing, in the circumstances you’re in/we’re in….

John Berchmans was naturally kind, gentle, and affectionate towards his parents, a favorite with his playmates, brave and open, attractive in manner, and with a bright, joyful disposition. The boy was dealt all the dispositional high cards - - and he pursued his blessings…. And not perfect - he was also impetuous and fickle as a young child; but isn’t that the definition of a young child?

What, however, distinguished John Berchmans most from his companions was his piety. When he was hardly seven years old, he was accustomed to rise early and serve two or three Masses with the greatest fervor. He attended religious instructions and listened to Sunday sermons with the deepest recollection, and made pilgrimages to the sanctuary of Montaigu, a few miles from Diest, reciting the rosary as he went, or absorbed in meditation.

How do you nurture your piety? The occasional daily Mass? Religious instruction – yes, and especially, even as an adult, until way beyond your college years, beyond your golden years if you’re so blessed, religious education is for us always as we pursue the optimization of the gifts we’re given to best knowloveserve God. Say the rosary daily? (weekly? In May and October? On Saturdays? How better to become close with Mary and to become intimate with the mysteries of Jesus’ life?) How much do you practice and enhance your meditation?

Early in life, John Berchmans wanted to be a priest – early, like before ‘junior high school’. In the seventeenth century, aspirations of priesthood did not uncommonly reflect a desire to step up the social ladder. This son of a shoemaker, as we are certain with hindsight, had a true vocation – one he pursued against the odds of making it out of his station. In order to step up to his calling, John Berchmans first stepped down - - at thirteen John Berchmans became a servant in the household of one of the Cathedral canons at Malines.

[At thirteen, I too, wanted to become a priest, to enter the junior seminary. Our parish priest dissuade that pursuit at that time – he suggested that it was possibly an avoidance tactic instead of the following of a call. Maybe, if only he had said yes, where would that road not taken have taken me?]

Eager to learn, and naturally endowed with a bright intellect and a retentive memory, John Berchmans enhanced the effect of these gifts by devoting to study whatever time he could legitimately take from his ordinary recreation. Know your gifts, talents, resources: and, fulfill your duty to enhance them with devotion….

In 1615 [at 16], John Berchmans entered the Jesuit College at Malines. In 1616, John Berchmans became a Jesuit novice. John Berchmans was known for his diligence and piety - - his pursuit of perfection in little things [think Teresa!

I know, your mother has dissuaded you from the pursuit of perfection. You have assimilated her position that the pursuit of perfection is unrealistic, unreasonable, and even counterproductive. I suppose she and you know better than John Berchmans and St Teresa…. Models for a fundamental teaching of our Catholic Christian faith; not to mention what Bear Bryant preached….]

John Berchmans enrolled in the Society of the Blessed Virgin at the Jesuit College. Grandma expressed her devotion to our Blessed Mother through the Rosary Altar Society. Me, especially after two high school years with the Marist Brothers and long time Knight, the Rosary is an integral part of my devotions. Mary qua mother. Mary qua spouse. The rosary informs you about Mary and, thus, how to see your mother, your [possible] spouse.

In 1618, John Berchmans passed on to his philosophate in Rome – a long walk via Antwerp [300 leagues]

In 1621, John Berchmans began his third year of philosophy. [Jesuit training, from the beginning, included two years of novitiate, four years of college/philosophy, three years of scholastic service, e.g., teaching, serving in a parish, three years of theology, ordination, then another one/two years continued study after ordination.]

In August 1621, the prefect of studies selected John Berchmans to take part in a philosophical disputation at the Dominican Greek College – where John Berchmans did quite well.

Unfortunately, when John Berchmans returned to the Jesuit College, he was overtaken by a violent fever and died on August 13.

During the second part of his life, John Berchmans was the type of man who strove to perform ordinary actions with extraordinary perfection. In his purity, obedience, and admirable charity he resembled many religious, but he surpassed them all by his intense love for the rules of his order. His love of Jesus. His devotion to Mary. The nurturance he received from parents and mentors and community. John Berchmans put it all together in his perfection in small things. John Berchmans lived to attain the ideal of observing the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus exactly - - “if I do not become a saint when I am young, I shall never become one”, a very one-day-at-a-time approach to becoming all that God created us to be, made in his image and likeness.

It, of course, doesn’t have to be the constitutions of the Jesuits that is the guiding light in your pursuit of perfection in small things, all small things. It doesn’t have to be (initially) a religious based spark that drives you. Let it be the drive for perfection that swells in you when you engage in your vocation – e.g., at the moment, student, maybe for John for finely crafted in theatre. It is the pursuit of optimizing God’s grace in your life that is at the core of saintliness. Conforming to obedience, to the rules, to the wisdom of God’s gifts of people for us. As John Berchmans said, “I will pay the greatest attention to the least inspiration of God.” Be faithful in this way as you do all of your duties.

Many miracles were attributed to him after his death.

John Berchmans is the patron of altar boys.



I love you
dad
11-25-08