Pilgrimages to the founding places of the Redemptorists in Southern Italy and
the Sanctuary of St. Anne de Beaupré, Canada

A little info on some of the places scheduled for visiting during the pilgrimages is given below. 

                 Italian Pilgrimage

Marianella

This is the birthplace of St. Alphonsus Liguori.  It is now a suburb of Naples but 300
years ago was in the countryside.

Alphonsian Naples

Visits to places connected with St. Alphonsus: Duomo (The Cathedral) where he was
ordained and celebrated his First Mass. 

Via dei Tribunali: Here you are in the heart of Old Naples, for St. Alphonsus this Main
Street.  You may be surprised to find how congested the streets are in this part of the city,
also that they are so narrow, often without footpaths with scooters and cars whizzing by,
you may be inclined to think that they are side streets rather than main thoroughfares. 
At one end of the street is the courthouse and at the other end the chapel of Our Lady of
Ransom.  Most of the places encountered on this walkabout are within a relatively short
distance of one another but involve a fair amount of walking and, at times, climbing.

Courthouse: Here Alphonsus had his earlier legal triumphs, and here he lost the case that changed his life.

Cathedral (duomo): Branch off Via dei Tribunali along Via Duomo.  It was here that
Alphonsus was ordained a priest in 1726.

Santa Maria dei Vergine: The Liguori family parish at the time of Alphonsus’ birth and
where he was baptised.  You may see the font where he was baptised, also the baptismal
register with the other entries stating when he was ordained both priest and bishop as well
as the entry of his canonisation.

Vincentians: This church and monastery is close by to the church of Santa Maria where
Alphonsus made an enclosed retreat during Holy Week 1772.

Hospital of the Incurables (Ospedale Incurabili): Even after 300 years it still goes by
this name though it is now a general hospital.  Here Alphonsus used to come with other
young men to take care of the sick as most of the patients at the time were abandoned. 
He came here after losing the crucial case down at the courthouse.  It was here that he
heard the words: “Leave the world and give yourself entirely to me.”

Our Lady of Ransom: This chapel is at the opposite end of Via dei Tribunali to the
courthouse.  After hearing the words “leave the world …” he made his way down the
hill to this little chapel where he fell on his knees before Our Lady’s altar and as a sign
that he was ‘giving up the world’, he unfastened his sword and presented it to Our Lady. 
That same year he began his studies for the priesthood.

Usually this chapel is only open on a Sunday morning and that, maybe, only once a month.

Scala

Cathedral: The twelfth century Cathedral of San Lorenzo where St. Alphonsus and his
companions are said to have gathered on 9th November 1732, the day the Congregation
of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists) was founded.

Casa Anastasio: First “monastery” of the Redemptorists, 1732-1738.  Reluctantly
Alphonsus had to abandon Scala in 1738, but it proved to be only a temporary suppression
of the foundation, temporary, in the sense that it was to last only 200 years.  In 1930, due
in great measure to the Redemptorist, Cardinal van Rossum, the Redemptorists returned to
Scala and so we have a house there now.

Before leaving Casa Anastasio in 1738 Br. Vito Curtzio, the first Redemptorist Brother and
faithful companion to Alphonsus when all of the other early companions deserted him,
scratched the Coat of Arms of the Redemptorists in the damp mortar beside the oven
and you may be able to discern the date, A.D. 1738 beneath the coat of arms.

The Casa Anastasio still stands but within the past twenty years or so refurbishment has
changed the character of the building which has been modernised and is now used by
youth groups for retreats and other events.

At the time of the refurbishment a well known Redemptorist was of the opinion that it would
have been better to have maintained the building in its ruinous condition, as has been done
with the Coliseum in Rome, rather than ‘modernising’ it.

Redemptoristines: The Redemptoristine Nuns, a contemplative Order, were founded on 13th
May 1731 a year and a half before the foundation of the Redemptorists, by Maria Celeste
Crostarosa with the support of Alphonsus.  They strive to follow the Redeeming Christ
through a life of prayer and sacrifice.  Because of the strong ties between the two
Orders the Sisters pray daily in a special way for the apostolic works of the Redemptorists.

At present the Redemptoristines number about 500 and are to be found in some twenty
countries in all five continents.  Their monastery in Ireland is in Drumcondra, Dublin.

The Grotto: This was a cave to which Alphonsus retreated for quiet prayer and
contemplation.  Later in life Alphonsus admitted that Our Lady had appeared to
him here.

Statue of Santa Maria dei Monti: In the chapel of the Redemptorist house is the
Statue of Our Lady of the Mountains, it is an interesting statue from the point of view that
Our Lady holds the Christ Child in one hand and the Bible in the other.  In 1730 Alphonsus
suffering from what we, today, call “burn out” as a result of the intense pastoral activity in
which he was engaged, had arrived here with a group of priest friends to ‘recharge their
batteries’.  They were directed to a hermitage in the hills above Scala, near Amalfi (Scala
itself is about 1,300 feet above sea level).  Next to the hermitage was a small chapel where
the statue of Our Lady of the Mountains was venerated. 

Ciorani

If Scala is like Bethlehem for the Redemptorists; then Ciorani is our Nazareth and Pagani our
Jerusalem.  This because the Congregation was born at Scala; it grew to maturity at Ciorani;
and it died and rose again at Pagani.

At the time of the 1980 earthquake in southern Italy our house at Ciorani suffered badly
but church and monastery have now been restored.  While Ciorani still retains much of
its original atmosphere still the renovations have introduced some modern elements.

This foundation begun in 1736 is the first permanent Redemptorist foundation.  In the little
chapel here the first chapters were held; the Rule of Pope Benedict XIV (approving the
Congregation) was promulgated here; and this is where Alphonsus was elected Rector
Major.  Following the changes introduced by the Vatican Council II this title was dropped
and our major superior is now known as the Superior General.

Here you will see the room where Alphonsus wrote the first edition of his Moral Theology,
Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, the Glories of Mary and other works.

Following the beatification of Gennaro Sarnelli (one of the first Redemptorists and friend of
St. Alphonsus) in 1996 a special shrine was built to house his remains.

Alphonsus preached a mission at Ciorani in 1734.  The people were so moved by the
preaching and example of the missionaries that the begged them to establish a foundation
here.  The local baron, Andrew Sarnelli and father of Gennaro, even volunteered to
donate the land and to provide for the construction of a church and monastery.  It was
an offer Alphonsus couldn’t refuse and he started living here in 1736 and apart from two
years spent in Deliceto in the 1740s, he stayed here until 1751.

Pagani

This was the second permanent foundation of the Redemptorists and was constructed in the
1740s.  Alphonsus came to live here in 1751.  He stayed here until 1762 when he was made
bishop of St. Agtha of the Goths and returned again in 1775 after resigning his see and
remained here until his death in 1787.  He is buried in the church that he built.

Pope Pius IX after having fled Rome said Mass here in 1849.  After the Mass, from the
balcony of the monastery, he gave his blessing to the people in the square below.

Pagani, too, suffered from the 1980 earthquake but the resulting renovations permitted
the erecting of an Alphonsian museum within the monastery.

Materdomini

After preaching a mission in Caposele in 1746 Alphonsus agreed to accept a foundation
here.  The monastery, situated on a hill overlooking the Sele river, was to be attached
to an ancient shrine dedicated to the Mother of the Lord – Materdomini.

Materdomini has become one of the three principle places of pilgrimage in Southern Italy. 
The others are the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Pompei and Our Lady of Montevergine. 
During the season thousands of pilgrims come to Materdomini every Sunday, while
there isn’t a day passes without some pilgrims coming here.

Materdomini is of course where St. Gerard Majella spent his last days and where he is buried.

Gerard was born in 1726 I the town of Muro Lucano on a rocky outcrop about 50 kms. from
Materdomini.  On the occasion of a mission in Muro in 1749 Gerard, a tailor, asked to be
admitted to the Institute as a Brother.  The superior of the mission, Fr. Paul Cafaro, took one
look at him and decided that he was too weak and sickly for the life of a Brother. 
Furthermore Gerard’s mother pleaded with the missionaries not to deprive her of her son. 
When the Redemptorists were leaving the town his mother locked Gerard in his room but he
escaped through a window.  He eventually caught up with the missionaries and kept up his
entreaties.  Fr. Cafaro finally relented and sent him to the novitiate with a note for the
superior that read: “I am sending you a useless Brother.”

Gerard arrived at Deliceto in 1749, he took his vows in 1752, died in 1755 and was canonised in 1904.

Materdomini suffered very badly in the 1980 earthquake and the old monastery was reduced
to rubble.  The modern basilica had been built to withstand earthquakes and remained unscathed.
The old monastery and old basilica have been reconstructed and St. Gerard’s remains are
once again interred in a newly built shrine.

In Materdomini a Congregation of Sisters called the Gerardines have the care of an
orphanage and they also have a number of other foundations in Southern Italy.

http://en.sangerardo.eu/?mc_tk=aiBzbX5xKCkneHNzan5UVUs=

                                 Canadian Pilgrimage

Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré

This Shrine has been a place of pilgrimage for the past 350 years.  It is located in Sainte-Anne
de Beaupré a tiny town on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, 20 miles from Quebec City.

The first chapel was built on this site by early settlers in 1658 to house a miraculous statue of
St. Anne.  By 1688 it had become a site of local pilgrimage, and by 1707, Native Americans
(who in Canada are called the First Nations) were coming to venerate the saint they
called "Grandmother in the Faith."

The present-day basilica is the fifth church to be erected on this spot, and was completed
in 1926.

Contact information:

Basilique Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré
10018, avenue Royale
Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, QC,
Canada  G0A 3C0

To call from outside North America

Tel: 00-1-418 827-3781

For further information:
http://www.shrinesaintanne.org/eng/index.htm

http://www.google.ie/search?q=sainte+anne+de+beaupre+basilica&hl=en&prmd
=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=
r5UWT9fxIdKGhQeg0ODyAg&ved=0CGcQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=688

http://www.ssadb.qc.ca/eng/index.htm

http://www.ssadb.qc.ca/  (Basilique Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré)

http://www.moytura.com/stanne.htm

Cap-de-la-Madeleine

Formerly a city in the Province of Quebec, at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice
River and the St. Lawrence River.  In 2002 it was amalgamated into the City of
Trois-Rivières. (Three Rivers)

Cap-de-la-Madeleine is famous for its basilica dedicated to Our Lady of the Cape. 
It is considered to be the place where two miracles were performed by the Blessed
Virgin Mary, the first being the Miracle of the Ice Bridge (1879) and the other
being the Miracle of the Eyes (1888).

For further information:

http://www.moytura.com/madeleine.htm

Grosse-Île

Located on northern shore of the St. Lawrence River Grosse Île was a quarantine
station for the Port of Quebec from 1832 to 1937.  The island was the main point of
entry for immigrants coming to Canada.  In the 1830s the unprecedented immigration
on the St. Lawrence River took place at a time when major cholera and smallpox
epidemics were sweeping through Europe.  In order to help control the spread of the
diseases, the quarantine station at Grosse Île, located in the St. Lawrence River down
stream from the City of Québec, was established.

In the Irish cemetery on the island lie over 6,000 Irish souls of the 7,480 officially
reported people buried on the island.

For further information:

http://www.moytura.com/grosse-ile.htm

Quebec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is the second most
populous city in the province after Montreal.  Founded in 1608 it is one of the oldest
cities in North America.

St. Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal

In 1904, Brother André Bessette, C.S.C., (Congregation of Holy Cross) now Saint André
Bessette, was born in 1845 and died in 1937.  Pope Benedict XVI canonised him in 2010.

In 1917 he constructed a small chapel to St. Joseph for his own personal devotion on the
wooded slopes of Mont Royal.  Gradually with a growing number of visitors chapel was
enlarged.  In 1924 the building of the present basilica of Saint Joseph's Oratory was
inaugurated and finally completed in 1967.  Normally when we hear the word ‘oratory’
we think of a small intimate chapel but this is an enormous building and its dome is the
world's second largest, after St. Peter's in Rome.

For further information:

http://www.saint-joseph.org/en_1001_index.php

Notre Dame, Montreal

In 1657 French priests of the Sulpician Society arrived in Ville-Marie, now known as
Montreal; the parish they founded was dedicated to the Holy Name of Mary, and the
parish church of Notre-Dame was built on the site in 1672.  The present building goes
back to the 19th century; the main construction work took place between 1824 and
1829.

It is known for its intricately designed interior, including the stained glass and its large rose
windows let in muted light.  Much of the interior is carved from rare woods - which are
gilded or painted.  The sky-blue colour of the walls is unusual but provides visitors with
the startling feeling of being out in the open under a clear sky.

Montreal Catholic Cathedral

The present Catholic Cathedral replaces the former cathedral which was destroyed by fire in
1852.  It is a scale model of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.  Building work began in 1875 and
the new church was consecrated in 1894.

Instead of the statues of the twelve apostles as on the façade of St. Peter's, the front of the
church is topped by statues of the patron saints of thirteen parishes of Montreal, including
St. John the Baptist and St. Patrick.  The interior, which is also copied from St. Peter's,
includes a baldachino over the High Altar and is a scale model of Bernini's as in the
Roman bascilia.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

A life rooted in God: the story of St. Gerard Majella

Robert McNamara CSsR tells the story of St Gerard Majella, a young 18th century
Italian who 'eloped', so to speak, in order to join the Redemptorists.

Fintan O'Toole's After the Ball makes for compelling reading if you're an economist. In fact, it
makes for compelling reading even if you aren't.  O'Toole offers a complex and yet accessible
account of the rise, stabilisation, and decline of the Celtic Tiger, citing Ireland as an extreme
case of that most talked about phenomenon: globalisation.  In a definition memorable for its
tidiness and accuracy, O'Toole defines globalisation as "a complex process, in which
economic liberalisation, speed of communication and cultural homogenisation are
intertwined." ⁽¹⁾  

This process, he adds, affects everyone on earth, creates winners and losers, and turns
citizens into consumers.

To O'Toole's excellent analysis of why the economic boom began to decline – he lays the
blame particularly on the shoulders of the government's privatisation programme – we
could add that there was a spiritual dimension as well.  In the midst of unprecedented
wealth, people began to notice a spiritual hunger previously hidden from them.  As Fr
Harry Bohan prophetically wrote at the height of the boom: "In our headlong rush to
economic nirvana, we are in danger of losing touch with people, place, roots, and soul."

And indeed, as the boom receded on the economic horizon, we began to cast around
for heroes, inspirational figures at a time when meaning was lost, when the scales had fallen
from our eyes, and we had begun to see that the Celtic Tiger had inveigled us into settling
for the imitation brand of everything from toothpaste to friendship.  Despite her survival
skills, Kerry McFadden just didn't do it for us, because while she had the luxury of
surviving the jungle, many of us were just trying to survive.

Into all this comes the life and witness of a man the Redemptorists are celebrating in a special
way this year (2004): St Gerard Majella, one of Ireland's best-loved saints, known here
particularly as the mothers' saint.  He was canonized 100 years ago this year.

Obvious frailty

Gerard was born on Saturday, April 6, 1726, in the picturesque southern Italian town of Muro.
His parents Domenico and Benedetta had him christened on the day of his birth, because of
his obvious frailty.  They had already lost a baby boy, also called Gerard, who only lived a
week.  Twelve years later, Benedetta would be left a widow, with four young children to
support.  Gerard's education was cut short; he was apprenticed to a local tailor, and later
became valet to the temperamental bishop of Lacedonia.

Gerard's piety was evident from early on.  He seems to have been blessed with a real
hunger to know the Lord better, and spent many hours in prayer.  At the same time, as recent
research shows, he was anything but the tortured aesthetic portrayed by pictures circulated
after his death.  We have it on good authority that he was immensely charming, had a
great sense of fun, and loved to play practical jokes.

Stuff of romance

The circumstances of Gerard's entry into religious life are legendary in Redemptorist circles,
and are the stuff of romance.  In 1749, the Redemptorists came to Muro to give a mission.  
Gerard was then 23 years old.  He met with the superior of the mission, Fr Cafaro, and begged
to be admitted to the Redemptorist Congregation.  Though impressed by Gerard's obvious
sincerity and holiness, Gerard's bad health – he looked "more a ghost than a man," said a
witness – and lack of formal education put Fr Cafaro off.  He refused to accept Gerard,
and told him to forget about the idea.

Meanwhile, Benedetta had found out about the plan.  On the day the missioners were
leaving town, she locked Gerard in his bedroom so he could not follow them.  But
Gerard made a rope from the sheets, lowered himself down, and pursued the missioners
out of town.  A note left behind declared that he had gone off to become a saint.

Twelve miles later he caught up with the mission team.  On a country road that May
afternoon, Gerard knelt before Fr Cafaro and again begged to be allowed to join the
Redemptorists.  Eventually, Fr Cafaro gave in, sending Gerard to the Iliceto community
with some of the most famous words in the Redemptorist annals: "I am sending you a
useless brother."

Love of God and neighbour

Gerard's witness as a Redemptorist could be summed up in his living out what Jesus
termed the two hinges of good religion: love of God and love of neighbour.  For Gerard,
these were simply two sides of the same coin.

He had an amazing capacity for pure, simple, agenda-free friendship.  If there was any
agenda, it was simply to share the liberating message of Jesus Christ, who can make all things
new.  Gerard had an almost psychic ability to sense the suffering of another and try to
alleviate it, to let passion become compassion.

Fr John Carr recalls an incident when Gerard, on the way to the city of Sant' Agata di
Puglia, found himself at a crossroads.  There he met a man who looked deeply troubled,
with "a face with the melancholy and despair of sin." ⁽²⁾

Just to make conversation, Gerard asked him where he was headed, and was abruptly
told to mind his own business.  Gerard kept chatting, the man continued to ignore him, and
tried to pass him out.  Gerard reached out, gently held the man by the shoulders, looked
him in the eye, and said: "I know what you're going through.  God has sent me here for you.  
Don't doubt it."  This hit home, and the man broke down.  They sat there by the road, and
years of pain came pouring out in the presence of Gerard's healing heart.  Surely, we cannot
miss the overtones here of the Jesus of the Emmaus road who meets each of us at our
particular crossroads, asking us, "What things are going on in your life?"

Even considering the exuberance of the southern Italian temperament, Gerard's literal
invasion of the man's space would be most politically incorrect for us today.  We
value privacy at all costs.  However, in the wake of the Celtic Tiger, this privacy has
come at a high price.  It is often a privacy without compassion, the privacy, to recall
O'Toole, not of the citizen but of the consumer.  I walk on by because the other is
of no value to me personally.  It's what he can do for me that matters.

Bedrock of Christianity

Gerard's witness calls us back to that bedrock of Christianity and, indeed, humanity:
community.  He challenges us to join him in stumbling on to that mysterious paradox
at the heart of Christianity: that it is in losing myself that I will find all, that I should
care, that it is through showing compassion for others that I will live an even more rich
and varied life.  That said, Gerard asks us, how will people know we care if we don't
risk reaching out to them?  There are worse fates then being told to mind your own
business.  Christians are their brothers' and sisters' keepers.

Gerard's devotion to the passion of Christ enabled him to see the suffering Christ
reflected in broken humanity.  His love of neighbour was thus the flip side of his love
of God.  He was obviously a person of prayer from early on.  This means that he was
someone blessed with the courage to take time to tap into the centre, to listen to
deeper rhythms and truer motivations.  As he himself often said, "We cannot talk
about God unless we first talk to God."

Deep longing

If, as Richard Rohr says, spirituality is what you do with your "deep longing", Gerard's
witness speaks to a world which seems increasingly resistant to depth.  This is a
resistance which takes many forms.  In an increasingly technocratic society, for example,
the skill of reflective thinking is not encouraged, because it is not "practical".  What you
see is what you deal with.  The tawdry, the vulgar, and the shallow rule the day.  
Idealism is equated with foolishness.  Even our conversation is affected, with a great
paucity of vocabulary becoming more evident.

We are afflicted with a surfeit of shallowness, and are often running on empty from
surface-level living.  We're tempted to get tired of life early, for "what more is there?" we
ask.  We have it all, know it all, have done it all.  In Patrick Kavanagh's apt phrase:
"through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder."

Gerard's warm relationship with the Lord dares us to wonder again, speaks
volumes to contemporary people simultaneously longing to be centred and yet
fleeing from such an encounter.  While we know that living on the surface will not
sustain us, we can be afraid of what we'll find when we go deeper.

Homing device for God

Gerard's experience reassures us of the truth of something Karl Rahner would say centuries
later, that every human being comes complete with a sort of inbuilt homing device for God,
and that we need not be afraid to respond, because in the silence we will receive not
condemnation, but hospitality, a welcome home to the heart of the Father.  As Pope John
Paul II put it so beautifully in Tertio Millennia Adveniente: "The whole of the Christian life
is like a great pilgrimage to the house of the Father, whose unconditional love we discover
anew each day."  Gerard was not afraid to visit and revisit the place of the centre, and, in
the best Christian tradition, those visits spilled over into social responsibility, the flip of the
coin again.

Invited to the splendid feast

On Sunday, August 31, 1755, Gerard returned to the Caposele monastery so exhausted,
according to Fr Tannoia, that he looked more like a dead than a living man.  Never healthy
at the best of times, his final journey had begun.  He took to his bed, suffering from sustained
bouts of haemorrhaging and dysentery.  The pain was terrible.  A letter he dictated at the time
contains the following lines: "I am writing this from my cross ... the pain is so very, very
severe ... I was to die by the lance, but the lance seems to have been mislaid, so I must go
on suffering..."  Despite such sentiments, there were times, witnesses recall, that Gerard
looked like one invited to some splendid feast.  This generous sharer of Christ's
redeeming love passed to eternal life on the night of October 16, 1755 aged 29.

In a letter to a nun, Gerard once wrote the following wise lines: "There is no need to dwell
on the surface of daily events, but rather, to scrutinise them with the eyes of faith.  
The project and the loving presence of God are real, even beneath the crust of events that
at first glance seem to be harsh.”  When we can see that, "it is possible to live always in
serenity, knowing well that in God's plan lies our happiness and fulfilment.” ⁽³⁾

The beat of 'the living goodness

In the last few months, we lost one of the great prophets of the church, Columban Fr Niall
O' Brien.  Fr Niall and the 'Negros Nine' gained international headlines in the mid-1980s
when they were falsely imprisoned on a trumped-up murder charge in the Philippines.  
It was a covert way of silencing Fr Niall's voice, a voice constantly raised on behalf of the
oppressed sugar workers.

Fr Niall's books, Revolution from the Heart, and Seeds of Injustice make for fascinating
reading.  They tell the story of a young, raw Irish missionary who left these shores in the
1960's to go and "convert" the Filipinos.  After awhile, Fr Niall stumbled on the joyful and
liberating discovery that the Holy Spirit was there already, and all he had to do as a priest
was to "discover, share, and affirm" the Spirit's gifts.

While he had always tried to live in a way that shared the experience of the Filipino people,
imprisonment opened up a whole new dimension to that.  Fr Niall recalled the kindness and
sympathy of many prison guards, who were as much victims of the system as their Charges.  
In one memorable passage, he recounts how he and his colleagues were advised to install
chicken wire to prevent grenades from being lobbed in.  And yet, in the midst of all this
uncertainty, Fr Niall was still able to declare that “deep in the heart of the universe there
beats a living goodness.”

What defines a saint

It is precisely this double-edged ability to engage with the messiness of human existence
and to see deeper dimensions to it – in religious terms, God shining through it – that defines
any saint or inspirational figure.  This is because the lessons gleaned from such engagement
are timeless, and speak to us as much today as when they happened.

Two such experiences from St Gerard's life are cases in point: Gerard as victim of false
accusation, and Gerard as peacemaker.

In Gerard's day, if a young woman wished to enter the convent, she needed a substantial
dowry.  This presented a problem in the cases of young women from poorer families.  
In such cases, Gerard would often discreetly raise the money from wealthy contacts.

Such was the case in the spring of 1754, with a young woman called Neria Caggiano.  
It was a name Gerard would never forget.  Gerard raised the money for her, Neria entered
the convent, got homesick, and left three weeks later.  She was embarrassed and angry at
having to leave, and, unfortunately, this was taken out on Gerard.

She began to gossip about him in a way which implied that he was not the saint people
thought he was, particularly with regard to his relationship with a certain Nicoletta.  
Neria fabricated a story about Gerard and Nicoletta, told it to a priest, who promptly
reported it to Alphonsus de Liguori, the Rector Major of the Redemptorists.

Alphonsus summoned Gerard, read him the accusation, and asked him if he had anything
to say.  Like the Lord before Pilate, Gerard remained silent.  Alphonsus ordered him to
stay in the monastery, with no contact with the outside world, and, worst of all, Gerard
was forbidden to receive the Lord in Holy Communion.  However, as he said at the time,
"it is enough to have Jesus in my heart."  They could not take that away from him.

Three months later, Neria was seriously ill.  She wrote a letter retracting everything, and
Gerard's name was cleared.  A distraught Alphonsus summoned Gerard again, and
asked him why he had not spoken in his own defence.  Gerard simply replied that to do
so was forbidden by the Rule of Redemptorist religious life, and that he knew that the Lord
would work things out.

In a world where the rights of the individual are primary, and where we loudly and vocally
assert our autonomy at every turn, such blind trust seems laughable, until we remember that
the constant, desperate assertion of our individuality masks the number one heresy around
today: that I am in sole control of my own destiny.  Gerard's blind trust calls us back to
a radical dependence on God's providence, a massive act of faith of which most of us
today would be incapable.

Also, Gerard's experience shows us that part of the pursuit of justice in Ireland today lies
in not assuming that all priests and religious accused in abuse cases are guilty as charged.  
Some of them may be the casualties of the bush fires of gossip.

Gerard, the peacemaker

In 1753, the year before Gerard met Neria, the Carusi family was split down the middle by a
blood feud which made The Godfather look like child's play.  Twenty-year-old Francesco had
had a row with his cousin Martino, challenged him to a duel, and been killed in the process.  
Francesco's parents had never forgiven or forgotten.  In the words of an early Redemptorist
commentator, they had "entrenched themselves within that most formidable of fortresses, a
hating heart."

Gerard was called to the scene.  Signore Carusi welcomed him politely, but made it clear
that he was not interested in a reconciliation.  Gerard tried again a few days later, and this
time he seemed to be making progress until Teresa, Francesco's mother, burst into the room
holding a bundle of cloth: the bloodstained clothes in which her son had been murdered.  
Flinging them down before her husband, she screamed: "Look at these clothes and then go
and be reconciled!  The blood of our Francesco cries out for vengeance!"  Signore Carusi
began to backtrack.

But if the Carusis had a blood stained relic, Gerard had one as well.  Placing his
Redemptorist mission cross on the floor, he asked them to walk on it.  They refused to
do so.  Then he said to them: "Don't you see the inconsistency in your position?  You
refuse to tread on the crucifix, yet by your refusal to forgive, you are continuing the
crucifixion of Christ and his people!"  They got the message and were reconciled
with Martino's family.

Gerard's witness here is a gospel one: that the way of peace and reconciliation is the way of
Christ the Redeemer, that peace can break out in even the most unpromising situations, and
that the cross shines through all human suffering, giving it meaning, and linking us all.
Christ's passion is compassion.

A lesson we may be learning

In the midst of the U.S. war on Iraq, in the wake of those shocking photographs of torture
perpetrated by both Americans and Iraqis, we could be tempted to despair, and ask
ourselves, do we ever learn?  I dare to believe that we are learning.

I spent most of the past year and a half studying in the United States, and was there
when the war against Iraq broke out.  What was most striking to me, and what seems
not to have been well reported here, was the sheer volume of American resistance to that
war.  On February 14 last year (2003), for example, three million people descended on
Washington to protest against the war.  Considering that this began as a regional conflict
and not as a global war, such a level of resistance was remarkable.

When I look at it through Christian eyes, I can only put it down to the hope that the
awareness of the common destiny of humanity is finally dawning upon us, that truth that
organisations like Greenpeace and Ploughshares have been telling us all along: that we're
all in this together, that along with the animals and plants we share this sacred earth, that
what divides us is far outweighed by what we have in common.

Scripture advises us to praise illustrious men, a sentiment from which Gerard would have
instinctually shied away.  Nevertheless, it is only right that we celebrate the centenary of the
canonisation of this young man who was wise beyond his 29 years.  His humble but
courageous witness teaches us timeless lessons in the Christian life.  By following his
example, we can be guaranteed to see Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly, and
follow him more nearly, day by day.

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^1. O’Toole, Fintan. After the Ball. Dublin: New Island, 2003, p. 3.

^2. Carr, John, C.Ss.R. St Gerard Majella. Dublin: Clonmore, 1959, 170.

^3. From a letter to Sr Maria de Jesus, April 25, 1752, quoted in: Londono, Noel (ed).
Saint Gerard Majella- his Writings and Spirituality. Liguori: Missouri, 2002, p. 110.

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This is a combination of two articles that appeared in Reality
(June and July/August, 2004), a publication of the Irish Redemptorists.