Saturday, November 4, 2023

Homily for Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo

Homily for the Memorial of
St. Charles Borromeo

Nov. 4, 2023
Collect
Provincial House, New Rochelle

In today’s collect, we prayed that God’s Church might “be constantly renewed” and show the face of Christ to the world.  St. Charles Borromeo is generally regarded as the paragon of the Church’s absolutely needed renewal in the 16th century.  St. Francis de Sales held him in the highest regard.

Intercession of Charles Borromeo supported by the Virgin Mary
(Johann Michael Rottmayr)

Charles, born into a noble family in 1538, was related to the infamous Medicis and thus was an unlikely candidate for the role of reformer.  He benefited immediately from nepotism when his uncle became Pope Pius IV in 1559 and, following a common practice, immediately made his nephew a cardinal, administrator of the vacant archdiocese of Milan, and secretary of state.  He was 21 years old and only in minor orders.

Altho he had his faults, Pope Pius did promote church reform, reconvening the Council of Trent in 1562 after a suspension of 10 years.  He entrusted its direction to Charles, who guided it for 22 months to a successful conclusion in December 1563.  In that period, Charles himself experienced something of a conversion—tho he’d never been corrupt or immoral—and went ahead with priestly and episcopal ordination and a firmer commitment to asceticism and prayer.  He bore special responsibility for the catechism that the Council published.

Pius IV kept Charles in Rome, however, until he died in 1565.  The new Pope, St. Pius V, finally allowed him to take possession of his archdiocese in 1566; it had not had a resident bishop for 80 years.  That bishops should actually be in their dioceses and not just collect the revenues was one of Trent’s reforms.  Milan’s 600,000 souls, 3,000 priests, and thousands of religious were sadly in need of reform:  moral, catechetical, formational.  Charles undertook all that, meeting such initial opposition that one monk even tried to assassinate him during a Vespers liturgy.

He promoted the establishment of seminaries thruout his ecclesiastical province, compelled his priests to reform their lives, likewise the religious, organized catechism classes in every parish, made his own household a modest one, convened regular diocesan synods—almost annually—and practiced charity to the poor and the sick, even at times personally nursing plague victims.  He constantly urged prayer and perseverance.  He told priests, religious, spouses, and all the baptized to “be what you promised to be.”  Worn out by his work, he died at age 46 in 1584.

Pope John Paul II, whose personal name was Charles (Karol), called St. Charles “a servant of souls.”  To help Christians be conformed to Christ was the purpose of all Charles Borromeo’s reforms.

And that is the purpose to which Fr. Angel Fernandez is calling us thru GC29:  that all Salesians might “transmit more light, be more and more passionate about God and about the Lord Jesus. . . .  We have a wonderful opportunity to seek to live more and more in fidelity, simply and authentically, enthusiastically and with commitment, and at the same time, with deep faith and prayer … convinced as we are that God accompanies us. . . .  It will only be important to serve in the name of the Lord, to do everything for Him in love, and to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to those to whom we are sent, their families, and those who have no family, no voice, and no opportunity.  So we will be a bit more prophetic (or very prophetic).”[1]

 



[1] “Letter of Convocation of General Chapter 29,” AGC no. 441, p. 14.

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