Lacrosse, Thunder and Consecration

James and John, the “Sons of Thunder”

Father John P. Cush Priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn

James and John certainly at times were Boanerges, thundering. They could get so angry and indignant that they asked the Lord to call down fire on a Samaritan village in Luke’s Gospel. They were among the first chosen and they were among the inner circle of the Lord. They could “thunder,” but I think, in reality, they received this nickname because they were anything else but tough guys.

Recall that, in Matthew 20, James and John had their mother, the wife of Zebedee ask Our Lord if her two precious boys could sit one and the right and the other of the left of the Lord in his Kingdom. Now, she might have done this on her own accord, but I’m sure that her sons not so casually mentioned it to her and perhaps did not discourage her when she falls to her knees in front of the Lord Jesus.

Getting your mother to ask the Teacher and Master for what they themselves could not muster up the courage to ask. At parent-teacher conferences when I was teaching high school, I’ve seen this action and it’s never pleasant. And I always, if the student is sitting there with the parent, turn, as Our Lord does in Matthew 20, and address the child in front of the parent to articulate the question or demand that he, not the parent, is actually asking.
(3 Minute Read)

“You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.”
– Matthew 20:22

Saint John de Brébeuf, Patron of Lacrosse

CatholicSaints.Info Notes about your extended family in heaven

Saint John de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit. He wanted to enter the priesthood from an early age, but his health was so bad there were doubts he could make it. His posting as a missionary to frontier Canada at age 32, however, was a literal god-send. He spent the rest of his life there, and the harsh and hearty climate so agreed with him that the Natives, surprised at his endurance, called him Echon, which meant load bearer, and his massive size made them think twice about sharing a canoe with him for fear it would sink. Brebeuf had great difficulty learning the Huron language. "You may have been a famous professor or theologian in France," he wrote in a letter home, "but here you will merely be a student, and with what teachers! The Huron language will be your Aristla crosse." However, he eventually wrote a catechism in Huron, and a French-Huron dictionary for use by other missionaries.

According to histories of the game, it was John de Brebeuf who named the present day version of the Indian game lacrosse because the stick used reminded him of a bishop's crosier (la crosse).

Saint John was martyred in 1649, tortured to death by the Iroquois. By 1650 the Huron nation was exterminated, and the laboriously built mission was abandoned. But it proved to be "one of the triumphant failures that are commonplace in the Church's history." These martyrdoms created a wave of vocations and missionary fervor in France, and it gave new heart to the missionaries in New France.

Learn more about Saint John de Brébeuf and, if you feel so inclined, the history of Lacrosse (5 Minute Read).

Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine. What's that mean?

The Pillar Catholic investigative journalism

The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary March 25, and that a papal envoy will conduct the same consecration in Fatima.

The consecrations - performed by Pope Francis and papal almoner Cardinal Konrad Krajewski - come after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and are connected to the 1917 apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima urging that Russia be consecrated to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

Not sure what this is all about? Here’s what you need to know.
(5 Minute Read)

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