The poet, Rainer Marie Rilke, at the height of his fame, was once contacted by a young man from a small, provincial town. The young man expressed his admiration for Rilke’s poetry and told him that he envied him, envied his life in a big city, and envied a life so full of insight and richness. He went on to describe how his own life was uninteresting, provincial, small-town, too dull to inspire insight and poetry. Rilke’s answer was not sympathetic. He told the young man something to this effect:
“If your life seems poor to you, then tell yourself that you are not poet enough to see and call forth its riches. There are no uninteresting places, no lives that aren’t full of the stuff for poetry. What makes for a rich life is not so much what is contained within each moment, since all moments contain what’s timeless, but sensitive insight and presence to that moment.” (Rilke, Letter #1)
Thought for the day: Poetry is about being sufficiently alert to what is in the ordinary. “Open our eyes, Lord, help us to see.”
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St. Junípero Serra, whose Feastday is celebrated today in the Church’s calendar, was canonized by Pope Francis in a Mass in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 23, 2015—the first canonization to take place on American soil. He is patron saint of vocations to Church ministry, and he played an instrumental role in building the Church on the west coast of our continent when it was still “mission territory.”
Though some controversy has arisen around St. Junípero because of the connection between his missionary activity and the Spanish colonization of Mexico and California, the many investigations into his life show a saintly man who was absolutely dedicated to the indigenous people he served.
At the age of 37, he traveled to the New World to teach at a university in Mexico City. He was bitten by a snake during this journey, and suffered from a swollen leg for the rest of his life, though it did not stop him from making other trips by foot. At 55, he was given responsibility for a number of missions in what is now the Baja peninsula and California. He worked tirelessly, converting thousands, and building 21 new missions. Frequently an advocate for the Native people, he implored the Spanish authorities to adopt policies that would recognize the dignity of everyone, even walking over 2,000 miles to Mexico near the end of his life to champion this cause.
Let us pray. “O God, who by your profound mercy have been pleased, through the labors of your priest Saint Junipero Serra, to gather many American peoples within your Church, grant by his intercession that we may so join our hearts to you in love, as to carry always and everywhere the image of your Only Begotten Son. Who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever. Amen.”
For much more: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-junipero-serra
