Blessed Peter Donders – Feast Day January 14
Peter Donders was born in Tilburg, Holland, on October 27, 1809, and as a boy he felt called to the priesthood. His family was poor, and his schooling was cut short so that he could learn weaving, which was his father’s trade. At the age of 22, he entered St. Michael-Gestel Seminary. Ordained a priest on June 5, 1841, Donders set out for Paramaribo, Surinam, a Dutch colony.
For 14 years he ministered to the city’s 2,000 Catholics, and regularly visited the plantation slaves, the military garrisons, and the indigenous people who lived along the rivers. In 1856, he volunteered to minister to people with leprosy at Batavia, where he remained for the next 28 years.
In 1866, he joined the Redemptorists, professing his vows on June 24, 1867. These vows gave him a more vivid sense of the apostolic missionary community, and he left Batavia more often to minister to other pastoral needs.
Donders died among his lepers on January 14, 1887. He was mourned as their benefactor and invoked as a saint. Pope John Paul II beatified Donders on May 23, 1982. Blessed Peter Donders is buried in Batavia, Surinam.
Blessed Kaspar Stanggassinger – Feast Day September 26
Kaspar Stanggassinger entered the Congregation with the intention of preaching the Gospel to the most abandoned. Instead, his superiors appointed him to form future missionaries. In addition to teaching, he gave pastoral assistance at churches in neighboring villages, especially by preaching. He was deeply devoted to the Eucharist, and in his preaching he invited all to have recourse to the Blessed Sacrament in times of need and anxiety.
He was 28 when he arrived at the seminary in Gars, Bavaria, in 1899. He preached the opening retreat of the year to the students, but he soon fell victim to a fatal case of peritonitis.
Kaspar used to say, “The saints have a special intuition. For me, who am not a saint, what is important are the simple eternal truths: the Incarnation, the Redemption and the Holy Eucharist.” He was declared blessed by John Paul II on April 24, 1988.
Source: Sacramentary and Lectionary Supplement, The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. (North American Redemptorist Spirituality Commission, 2007)
Blessed Gennaro Maria Sarnelli – Feast Day June 30
Gennaro Sarnelli was born in Naples, Italy, on September 12, 1702. Son of the Baron of Ciorani, he had a solid cultural and spiritual formation. Dedicating himself to the study of jurisprudence, he gained a doctorate in civil and canon law at age 20. Caring for the sick in the Hospital for the Incurables, he felt the call to the priesthood. During this time he also came to know Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, who was his first biographer.
Ordained a priest in 1732, he dedicated himself especially to the catechesis of young boys and to the rehabilitation of girls at risk of becoming prostitutes. In June of the following year, he entered the Redemptorists. He dedicated himself to the preaching of the Word of God to those who were most destitute of spiritual help.
For reasons of health, in 1736, he returned to Naples, where, while continuing the missionary activity of the Redemptorists Congregation, he resumed his previous pastoral and charitable activities, especially among the sick, the old, those in prison and the young boys forced to work as dock-laborers. He also initiated a fervent movement against the spread of prostitution.
A prodigious writer, he published more than 30 books on a wide range of subjects, including socio-juridical studies, moral issues, mysticism, pedagogy, pastoral practice, Mariology, and ascetical theology.
In 1741, he organized and took part in the great mission among the spiritually abandoned areas in the outskirts of Naples. Spent by his burning zeal, he died in Naples June 30, 1744, at the age of 42. John Paul II beatified him on May 12, 1996.
Source: Sacramentary and Lectionary Supplement, The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Raymond Corriveau, C.Ss.R., editor. (Liguori, Missouri: North American Redemptorist Spirituality Commission, 2007.)
Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky and companions (Four Redemptorist Martyrs of Ukraine) – Feast Day June 28
Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky (1884-1959)
Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky (1903-73)
Father Zenon Kovalyk (1903-41)
Father Ivan Ziatyk (1899-1952)
Nicholas Charnetsky was born in Semakivci in Halychyna, Western Ukraine, in 1884. He completed his theological studies in Rome and was ordained a diocesan priest in 1909. After obtaining his doctorate in theology, he was spiritual director and professor of theology at the major seminary in Stanislaviv.
He entered the Redemptorist novitiate in Zboisk in 1919 and was professed in 1920. During his early years he was assigned to teach in the minor seminary and subsequently to the giving of popular missions. He was ordained bishop in 1931 and appointed the Apostolic Visitor to the Ukrainian Catholics of Volyn. From 1931-39, he ministered to the people of Volyn, Polisia, Pidliasia, and Belorussia. During World War II he was in Lviv, ministering pastorally and teaching at the theological academy. From 1945-56, he was imprisoned in about 30 Soviet labor camps and prisons. Following his release in 1956, he returned to Lviv and acted as bishop of the suppressed Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. He died in 1959.
Vasyl (Basil) Velychkovsky was born in Stanislaviv, Western Ukraine, in 1903. He studied at the Major Seminary in Lviv and was ordained a deacon in 1923. He entered the Redemptorists as a deacon, professed vows in 1925, and was ordained a priest shortly after. After teaching at the minor seminary in Zboisk, Vasyl worked as a missionary for the next 20 years in rural Ukraine. He was arrested in 1945 and was condemned to death, but the death sentence was commuted to 10 years imprisonment. He was released in 1955.
He was consecrated bishop by Metropolitan Slipyj in a hotel room in Moscow in 1963. He became the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukraine. Arrested once more in 1969, he spent three years in prison. In the spring of 1972, near death, he was exiled from Ukraine. He died in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1973. It is believed that his death was caused by a slow-acting poison administered prior to his release from prison.
Zenon Kovalyk was born in 1903 in Ivachiv Horishniy near Ternopil in 1903. He joined the Redemptorists and professed vows in 1926. He studied philosophy and theology in Belgium and was ordained in 1932. He went with Bishop Charnetsky to Volyn as a parish missionary and subsequently to Stanislaviv where he also conducted missions. Zenon was a fearless preacher of God’s Word and love of the Mother of God. He was arrested by the Soviets in 1940. While in prison he continued his pastoral ministry among the prisoners. When the Soviet prisons were opened on the arrival of the invading German army, Father Zenon’s body was found crucified to a wall of the prison of Zamartynivska in 1941.
Ivan Ziatyk was born in 1899 in Odrekhova, southwest of Sanok (now part of Poland). He entered the Ukrainian Catholic Seminary in Peremyshl in 1919 and was ordained in 1923. He became prefect of the seminarians and taught theology and catechetics. He joined the Redemptorists in 1935, professing vows in 1936. He taught Scripture and dogmatic theology at the Redemptorist seminary in Holosko (near Lviv). Subsequent assignments were to the monastery in Ternopil as well as to the minor seminary in Zboisk (near Lviv) where he was superior of the community. The difficult situation in which the Ukrainian Catholic Church found itself (with all its bishops arrested and with the Belgian Provincial expelled), resulted in Father Ivan holding the posts of the Provincial of the Redemptorists and the Vicar General of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. He was arrested in 1950 and condemned to 10 years imprisonment, but died of a savage beating in 1952.
The four Redemptorists were among 25 Ukrainian martyrs beatified during the papal visit to Lviv in 2001.
Source: Sacramentary and Lectionary Supplement, The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Raymond Corriveau, C.Ss.R., editor. (Liguori, Missouri: North American Redemptorist Spirituality Commission, 2007.)
Blessed Methodius Dominick Trčka – Feast day August 25
On April 24, 2001, in the presence of the Holy Father, the Decree of Martyrdom was promulgated for five Redemptorists, four Ukrainians and one Czech.
The Czech, Blessed Methodius Dominick Trčka, was born July 6, 1886, in Frydlant nad Ostravici, in Moravia, now the Czech Republic. In 1902 he joined the Redemptorists and began his novitiate in 1903.
He made his profession August 25, 1904. Having completed his studies, he was ordained in Prague, July 17, 1910.
He spent his early years as a priest preaching parish missions. In 1919 he was sent to work among the Greek Catholics in the area of Halic, in Galizia, and then in Slovakia in the Eparchy of Prešov, where he carried on intense missionary activity. In March 1935 he was appointed by the Congregation for Oriental Churches as apostolic visitor of the Basilian monks in Prešov and in Uzhorod. When the vice-province of Michalovce was founded, Fr. Trčka was appointed vice-provincial on March 23, 1946. He began to work zealously to found new houses and to form young Redemptorists.
During the night of the April 13, 1950, the Czech government suppressed all the religious communities. After a summary trial, Fr. Trčka was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment, during which he was subjected to lengthy interrogations and torture. In 1958 he was transferred to the prison of Leopoldov. He was suffering from pneumonia contracted during solitary confinement, which was imposed on him for singing a Christmas hymn. He died March 23, 1959.
He was interred in the prison cemetery, but after the liberation of the Greek-Catholic Church his remains were transferred to the Redemptorist plot in the cemetery of Michalovce on October 17, 1969.
Pope John Paul II proclaimed him to be Blessed Methodius Dominick on November 4, 2001.
Blessed Francis X. Seelos – Feast Day October 5
Francis Xavier Seelos was born in Fussen, Bavaria, on January 11, 1819. He studied philosophy at the University of Munich and began theology as a diocesan seminarian. After visiting the Redemptorists in Allotting, where he heard of their missionary work in North America, he decided to join them.
With their approval, he set off for the United States in 1843 where he made his novitiate. He made his profession in Baltimore in May 1844 and was ordained a priest there in December. His first assignment was to St. Philomena’s in Pittsburgh where he served for six years as assistant under the leadership of John Neumann, who was pastor and superior of the community. Father Seelos went on to serve as superior of the community and novice master for three more years.
He was appointed pastor of St. Alphonsus in Baltimore, 1854; pastor and prefect of students at Sts. Peter and Paul in Cumberland, MD, 1857; and pastor and prefect of students at St. Mary’s in Annapolis, MD, 1862.
Replaced as prefect of students, he preached missions in German and English throughout the Northeast and Midwest. Father Seelos was always an active and highly successful missioner. He was particularly devoted to the confessional, and was revered as an exceptional confessor and spiritual director. After a year as assistant pastor of St. Mary’s in Detroit, MI, in 1866, he was assigned as pastor of Assumption Parish in New Orleans, LA. There he made a great effort to care for the poor, sick, and neglected. While caring for victims of yellow fever, he contracted the disease himself. Only a year after being assigned, he died in New Orleans on October 4, 1867. He was beatified in 2000.
The National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos is located in New Orleans, LA.
Source: Sacramentary and Lectionary Supplement, The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. (North American Redemptorist Spirituality Commission, 2007)
