The Saints of Compiègne and martyrs of Catholic France

You may not realize it, but the Catholic faith was one of the great targets of the French Revolution, birthing martyrs and saints from persecution and bloodshed. Sixteen Carmelite nuns were beheaded in 1794 for remaining true to their vows, and nothing more. During the so-called Reign of Terror which saw revolutionaries sniffing out real and imagined conspiracies, these nuns were expelled from their monastic life and offered a choice: renounce their faith, and submit to extreme secularism, or be deemed enemies of the state.

The prioress Mother Teresa of St. Augustine proposed the sisters offer their lives for the salvation of France, fulfilling a prophetic dream from another sister a hundred years before. The act of sacrifice was offered while the nuns sang hymns and prayed, guillotined in front of a crowd faced with the consequence of madness.


Jonathan O’Brien: “I feel like this part of history has been so either misrepresented or just glossed over. If there’s basically a genocide against Catholics and thousands of martyrs that are being killed just for their faith you would think it might have at least been mentioned in history class, but it wasn’t.”

In this episode we’ll learn more about the martyrs of Compiegne who have just been declared saints by Pope Francis in December 2024. We’ll hear from Jonathan O’Brien, author of the book Called to Compiègne, who explored this tremendous story.

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Gratitude and (almost) house fires

My house almost caught fire, and I had no idea of the danger until it was over, pieced together by burn marks on a wall and other clues around an old boiler system. I called a specialist to look at it. He said bluntly: he’s come to believe things happen for a reason, and our house is still standing for a reason.

I always try to express gratitude to others and to God. But as we come into the holiday season I thought this story was especially worth bringing to you all. 

Today, I’ll tell you how I found out about the fire that could’ve taken my home, and what St. Therese of Lisieux might teach us about gratitude in the face of danger.

https://youtu.be/05cl7uUsxdQ

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The tomb of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the faith of Mohawk Catholics

It’s been 12 years since St. Kateri Tekakwitha was declared a saint by the Catholic church, in October 2012. She was a Mohawk/Algonquin woman who lived in the late 17th century in present-day New York and Quebec, declaring herself a virgin for Christ. Her sainthood has sparked both pride and soul-searching within and beyond Canada’s First Nations.

Beverly Anna Sky Delormier: "I thought it would never happen in my lifetime, but it did and there was a… there's a person I know who didn't always come and told her grandmother that she'll come back to church all the time if Kateri gets canonized and she did, so now she's back in church!"
Fr. Richard Saint-Louis: "All that time we we recognize that the church is built with men and women who are sinners and (thank God) we are sinners so it's a challenge for us to be able to recognize that first of all, and recognize also the mercy of God for all sinners and knowing that we are able to spread the Gospel around by the way we live, by the way we act."

St. Kateri’s earthly remains are entombed in St. Francis Xavier Mission Catholic Church in Kahnawake on the banks of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal. The church is not far from the Kateri school and Kateri Memorial Hospital, visible reminders that she lived here, or nearby, in a Catholic community before her death, at age 24.

In this episode we are not retelling St. Kateri’s life story, but rather we’re bringing you voices from a few members of the present day Catholic community in Kahnawake. We will hear about what her sainthood means to them.

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Montreal’s Oldest Church: Our Lady of Good Help (Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours)

As a Catholic, there’s something comforting about facing the windswept contours of Canada’s St. Lawrence River, in all its power, and then seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary keeping watch from atop a chapel, leading us to her Son, Jesus Christ.

The chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (Our Lady of Good Help) is Montreal’s oldest stone church, sitting for hundreds of years as a beacon of hope. It celebrates a special milestone this year…having acted as a refuge for residents, pilgrims, sailors and travelers arriving by the Seaway.


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Panhandling and Christian Duty: the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s approach to works of mercy

Christian duty and panhandlers. What’s the right thing to do? For a long time I’ve struggled when approached by panhandlers, people on the street asking for money. I want to help, but I don’t want to be taken advantage of, or feed an addiction, or endanger myself.

As a Catholic, as a Christian, I know helping the less fortunate is central to my faith. In one of the most famous passages from Scripture, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says in a parable ‘whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

So on the street, someone asks you for change…what’s the answer? In this episode we explore this issue with Gary Sole, CEO for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the Diocese of Cleveland.

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Why Catholics should think about “aliens”

Just to mention aliens turns some people off, but to a Christian, to a Catholic, thinking about extraterrestrial life can hold tremendous value. If you replace the word “alien” with “the other” then we start down a familiar path.

Does “the other” exist in the universe? Would “the other” mean us peace or harm? Should I will the good of “the other?” Some of the greatest Catholic thinkers wrestled with this question of “the other.” Whether you’re thinking about so-called aliens, people who live in the center of the earth, or maybe creatures at the end of the world, how we approach our theoretical brothers and sisters of the universe might tell us a lot about what our faith really means to us.

This episode features a conversation with Paul Thigpen, author of “Extraterrestrial Life and the Catholic Faith.”

“From earliest times people have looked up into the heavens especially at night and seen the stars in that and though they had no idea just how vast it is, that we’re beginning to get a sense of still, those who are of faith you know able to say the one God I know who loves me, and created me, also created all this, and so it presses them to become even more full of wonder and adoration toward God and appreciation of who He is.”

Paul Thigpen

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Your quality known among your enemies

War, Catholicism, and quality.

On today’s episode we’ll hear from a Catholic Bishop and a former member of the British armed forces talking about how our duties as Christians, striving to walk the path to Heaven, and how does that square with the hell of war?

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“That’s what they say war is hell, you know, so it’s a terrible scenario for anybody to be placed into. It should always be the last resort.”

Bishop Neal Buckon, Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA

This is a big topic with many twists in turn so we’ll attempt to somewhat narrow our conversation today, and it will be driven by a single line of dialogue from the movie Kingdom of Heaven: “your quality will be known among your enemies before ever you meet them.”


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Wisconsin Wonder: Wayside chapels and everyday pilgrims

Standing on the shore of a mountain lake at sunrise, you may not think you’re necessarily on a pilgrimage, but then you’re drawn toward a prayerful moment. You gaze into the raspberry and amber skies, as the lapping waves try to sing you back to sleep.

But you’re called to be present and aware of the awe.

Or maybe you hike toward an Alpine peak when you’re serenaded by birdsong; nature’s hallelujah. Again you’re very present in the moment; thankful and introspective, like a pilgrim. And then on the trail you literally see Christ on the cross.

A traveler, a pilgrim, before you thought to install a wayside chapel—a small, wooden structure to draw you even further toward God. These things are common in Europe, and in Wisconsin chapels created by European immigrants still pepper the countryside.

Today we round out our series on the Marian Apparition site in Champion, Wisconsin with a few more thoughts on making pilgrimages wherever you are. You don’t have to go far to travel deeply in prayer. Sometimes you just need to look closely around you and decide to spiritually get away.

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8: Blind Catholics Keeping the Faith in a Pandemic

Fr. Jamie distributes Communion

For some Catholics who are blind, the experience of the Mass can be very different than for sighted people. In normal times, it can be a tactile experience.

But not during the pandemic.

In Scripture, Jesus is recorded as saying where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He is in the midst of them. And that goes for times when the two or three need to be two or three meters apart for social distancing. As with many Catholics, those who are blind have found technology as a way to continue to express their faith even when so much of life is disrupted. Many are also helped by an organization in New York, the Xavier Society for the Blind, which for 120 years has kept coming Catholic and inspirational materials in Braille and audio formats.

We’ll learn more on this episode of Faith Full.

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(In this episode we hear from four people: Skip to Donna Slivoski, Roger Erpelding, Fr. Jamie Dennis, or Malachy Fallon)

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7: Blessings on a German Breeze

The world remains gripped by a pandemic; an unseen, but very present coronavirus has caused us to rethink a lot of things: how we work, how we spend time, how we show respect and communicate. I’ve been sitting on a fun anecdote (from a German news site) for a while, and thought these dark days are as good a time as any to share. So coming up: the story of a giant Jesus Christ balloon and the two German monks, in this short episode of Faith Full.

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