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St. Faustina Kowlaska and Divine Mercy

Who Is St. Faustina? St. Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938 ) was a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. On September 13, 1935, Jesus revealed himself to her in a vision. Her feast day is on October fifth. Born as the third of ten children of a family of poor Polish peasants on August 25, 1905, Helena Kowalska felt the call to religious life from an early age. She lacked her mother’s permission and spent some time working as a housekeeper in order to provide her family financial support. At age nineteen she went with her sister to a dance at a local park and had a vision of the Suffering Jesus who spoke these words to her: “How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting me off.”       Helena made arrangements immediately to leave by train for Warsaw, eighty-five miles from her home. There she went into the first Catholic Church she saw and asked a priest for advice on which convent she might enter. Only the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy accepted Helena, provided that she first earned enough money to pay for her religious habit.       Taking the name Sr. Maria Faustina, her life as a religious would have been ordinary except for Jesus’ choice of her to be his “Apostle of Mercy.” She recorded Christ’s words in her diary, which she titled Divine Mercy in My Soul: “I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to my people. Today I am sending you with my mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart.”[1]       Sr. Faustina also wrote that Jesus told her to paint an image according to the pattern revealed in a vision to her, with the words “Jesus, I trust in You.” She was not an artist, and three sisters in the convent refused to help her draw. In 1934, her spiritual director, Fr. Michael Sopoćko, introduced her to artist Eugene Kazimierowski, who painted the image of Jesus and Divine Mercy as she described it to him.       Fr. Sopoćko had Sr. Faustina evaluated by a psychiatrist who was associated with the convent to gauge her mental health. She was declared mentally sound, and Sopoćko fully trusted her visions. On September 13, 1935, Sr. Faustina wrote about a vision of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Jesus also revealed to Sr. Faustina mystical visions of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. These, too, are recorded in diary entries.[2] For example: On Heaven I saw its unconceivable beauties and the happiness that awaits us after death. I saw how all creatures give ceaseless praise and glory to God. I saw how great is happiness in God, which spreads to all creatures, making them happy; and then all the glory and praise which springs from this happiness returns to its source; and they enter into the depths of God, contemplating the inner life of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, whom they will never comprehend or fathom. This source of happiness is unchanging in its essence, but it is always new, gushing forth happiness for all creatures.   On Hell Today, I was led by an Angel to the chasms of hell. It is a great place of torture; how awesomely large and extensive it is. The kinds of torture I saw: the first torture that constitutes hell is the loss of God; the second is perpetual remorse of conscience; the third is that one’s condition will never change; the fourth is the fire that will penetrate the soul without destroying it, a terrible suffering, since it is a purely spiritual fire, lit by God’s anger; the fifth torture is conditional darkness and a terrible suffocating smell, and all the evil, both of others and their own; the sixth torture is the constant company of Satan; the seventh torture is horrible despair, hatred of God, vile words, curses, and blasphemies. These are the tortures suffered by all the damned together, but that is not the end of the sufferings. There are tortures designed for particular souls. These are torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned.   On Purgatory I saw my Guardian Angel, who ordered me to follow him. In a moment I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls. They were praying fervently, but to no avail, for themselves; only we can come to their aid. The flames, which were burning them, did not touch me at all. My Guardian Angel did not leave me for an instant. I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was. They answered me in one voice that their greatest torment was longing for God. I saw Our Lady visiting the souls in Purgatory. The souls called Her “The Star of the Sea.” She brings them refreshment. I wanted to talk with them some more, but my Guardian Angel beckoned me to leave. We went out of that prison of suffering. [I heard an interior voice which said] “My mercy does not want this, but justice demands it.” Since that time, I am in closer communion with the suffering souls.       St. Faustina died from complications of tuberculosis on October 5, 1938. She was only thirty-three years old. When a sister asked St. Faustina if she was afraid of death, she replied, “Why should I be? All my sins and imperfections will be consumed like straw in the fire of Divine Mercy.”   The Chaplet of Divine Mercy The Chaplet of Divine Mercy was revealed to Sr. Faustina Kowalska comes from a vision of Jesus in which he told her to offer to God the Father the gift of his Body and Blood as a way to appease God’s wrath, specifically over a “most beautiful” Polish city which had fallen into sin. Jesus told Sr. Faustina to “unite yourself closely to me during the sacrifice of Mass and to offer my Blood and my wounds to my Father in expiation for the sins of that city.” Sr. Faustina prayed the following words, given to her by Christ: “Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world; for the sake of his sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us.” This prayer remains central to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, today prayed on the beads of a rosary.       Sr. Faustina was questioned by her spiritual director, Fr. Michael Sopoćko, about the visions, and he recorded her response. When the Chaplet was printed on a holy card of Sr. Faustina after her death, Catholics around the world began to pray it for the benefits promised by Christ, specifically that everyone who recites it will receive great mercy at the hour of death. Sr. Faustina had written these words of Jesus in her journal: “When they say this Chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand before my Father and the dying not as the just judge but the Merciful Savior.” Sr. Faustina also prayed in her own words to Jesus, “to be mindful of Your own bitter Passion and do not permit the loss of souls redeemed at so dear a price of Your most precious Blood. O Jesus, when I consider the great price of Your Blood, I rejoice at its immensity, for one drop alone would have been enough for the salvation of all sinners.”       Pope John Paul II, the first Polish pope, opened an investigation into the life of Sr. Faustina in 1965 while he was the archbishop of Krakow. Pope John Paul II would eventually beatify Sr. Faustina in 1993 and canonize her in 2000. He also established the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. Praying the Chaplet on the nine days before this Feast of Divine Mercy brings, in the words of Jesus to St. Faustina, “every possible grace to souls.”   How to Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet You can use Rosary beads or special Divine Mercy Chaplet beads to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet.   Opening 1. Make the Sign of the Cross 2. Pray an Optional Opening Prayer St. Faustina’s Prayer for Sinners O Jesus, eternal Truth, our Life, I call upon you and I beg your mercy for poor sinners. O sweetest Heart of my Lord, full of pity and unfathomable mercy, I plead with you for poor sinners. O Most Sacred Heart, Fount of Mercy from which gush forth rays of inconceivable graces upon the entire human race, I beg of you light for poor sinners. O Jesus, be mindful of your own bitter Passion and do not permit the loss of souls redeemed at so dear a price of your most precious Blood. O Jesus, when I consider the great price of your Blood, I rejoice at its immensity, for one drop alone would have been enough for the salvation of all sinners. Although sin is an abyss of wickedness and ingratitude, the price paid for us can never be equaled. Therefore, let every soul trust in the Passion of the Lord, and place its hope in his mercy. God will not deny his mercy to anyone. Heaven and earth may change, but God's mercy will never be exhausted. Oh, what immense joy burns in my heart when I contemplate your incomprehensible goodness, O Jesus! I desire to bring all sinners to your feet that they may glorify your mercy throughout endless ages (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 72). You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty yourself out upon us. O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in you! (Repeat three times.) 3. Pray the Our Father 4. Pray the Hail Mary 5. Pray the Apostles’ Creed Body 6. On a large bead pray the Eternal Father Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.   7. On the ten small beads of each decade say: For the sake of his sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. (Repeat for the remaining four decades.)   Concluding Prayer 8. Pray the Holy God  Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world. (Repeat three times.)   9. Pray the Closing Prayers Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.   O Greatly Merciful God, Infinite Goodness, today all mankind calls out from the abyss of its misery to your mercy—to your compassion, O God; and it is with its mighty voice of misery that it cries out. Gracious God, do not reject the prayer of this earth's exiles! O Lord, Goodness beyond our understanding, who are acquainted with our misery through and through, and know that by our own power we cannot ascend to you, we implore you: anticipate us with your grace and keep on increasing your mercy in us, that we may faithfully do your holy will all through our life and at death's hour. Let the omnipotence of your mercy shield us from the darts of our salvation’s enemies, that we may with confidence, as your children, await your [Son’s] final coming—that day known to you alone. And we expect to obtain everything promised us by Jesus in spite of all our wretchedness. For Jesus is our Hope: through his merciful Heart, as through an open gate, we pass through to heaven (Diary, 1570).   [1] St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1588. [2] The following three quotations are taken from St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, entries 777, 741, and 20, respectively.

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Was There a Catholic Conspiracy to Kill Abraham Lincoln?

February 12, 2023 is the 214th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 15. 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate spy from Maryland. Did you know that many Americans thought that Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was a Catholic conspiracy? Author and historian  Kevin Schmiesing this and several other unique events in his book A Catholic Pilgrimage through American History: People and Places that Shaped the Church in the United States. Share the story with your students. See also a Teacher Resource Guide that accompanies the book.   Bryantown, Maryland, is an unincorporated community located on State Route 5, a major thoroughfare that leads north to Washington, DC, and south toward the peninsulas of southern Maryland, where the Calverts and other Catholic settlers founded St. Mary’s City (see chapter 2). Bryantown is dominated by its Catholic church, St. Mary’s. The current parish dates to 1793, but there was Catholic liturgy in Bryantown as early as the 1650s.  On the grounds of St. Mary’s is a large cemetery, a testament to the Catholic history of the region. Among the tombs is an unremarkable gray stone engraved with the names Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd and Sarah Frances Mudd. The date of the earlier deceased—Samuel, 1883—belies the contemporary look of the stone. In fact, the original tombstone was replaced in 1940, and it can be viewed at the Samuel Mudd House in nearby Waldorf. Dr. Mudd is the most famous area resident because, in 1865, he participated in what has credibly been called “the most sensational crime in American history.” He helped to kill the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.  Or maybe he didn’t. The guilt of Samuel Mudd is one of the great, unsettled debates of American history, and the Lincoln assassination connects a bewildering array of political, social, and religious factors in a complex web of intrigue. Catholics were in the thick of it. Samuel Mudd and Jack Booth Samuel Mudd was born December 20, 1833, in Charles County, Maryland, the fourth of ten children. He was educated at Georgetown College, the Jesuit school in the District of Columbia, and obtained a degree in medicine from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In the 1850s, Mudd began practicing medicine in Charles County, married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Frances Dyer, started a family that would eventually consist of nine children, and began managing a small tobacco farm, where he owned five slaves.  A few years later, the nation was torn apart by the Civil War. Maryland was a border state where loyalties were divided, but Mudd was a proslavery stalwart and thus a southern sympathizer. In 1862, he wrote a letter to the well-known Catholic convert and intellectual Orestes Brownson, explaining his reasons for canceling his subscription to Brownson’s Quarterly Journal. Brownson had written vigorously against slavery and in defense of the war aims of the North, affirming the Catholic Church’s disapproval of human enslavement. Mudd objected strenuously to Brownson’s assertions and declared that the South was fighting to defend states’ rights. Ominously, in light of later events, Mudd targeted Lincoln as the source of the conflict that roiled the nation: “I confidently assert, that if there was any other man at the head of the government of true conservative and constitutional principles, the Revolution would immediately cease so far as the South is concerned.” He further predicted that the South was capable of standing up to the northern bullies. “She is possessed of every ingredient to make her self-sustaining and powerful—all she wants is a little more time,” he insisted, “and if the war should be protracted, all the better for her future, because her resources will be brought out.”  Like many southerners, Mudd’s optimism concerning the capacity of the Confederacy to keep pace with the war machine of the North proved unfounded. His belief in the threat posed to slavery, however, was accurate. In 1864 the state of Maryland abolished slavery, costing him his labor force and undermining the financial viability of his farm. He decided to sell the property and rely on his medical practice. There was at the time a young actor who was wandering the area, ostensibly intending to purchase real estate. His name was John Wilkes Booth, and he was in fact planning an escape route from Washington, where he and his collaborators intended to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and force the Union to release southern prisoners. In December 1864, Booth and Mudd met after Mass at St. Mary’s Church. Was their connection innocent, with Mudd merely courting a prospective property buyer—or was it more sinister, with Booth recruiting the doctor to assist in the conspiracy? This is the critical question in the mystery of Dr. Samuel Mudd. It wasn’t their only meeting. The government’s star witness in its prosecution of the conspirators after the assassination, Louis Weichmann testified that Mudd rendezvoused with Booth at a Washington hotel in January 1865, and there was spotty evidence that they got together on other occasions. Booth had been active in creating a small circle of dedicated conspirators, including John Surratt, the son of a widowed boardinghouse proprietor. Mary Surratt, whose story was told in the 2010 major motion picture The Conspirator, was the first woman to be executed by the federal government. She and her son were Catholics from southern Maryland. (Mary’s tavern was the main attraction in the town of Surrattsville—which was promptly renamed following the proprietor’s conviction and execution.) The Surratts were not one of Maryland’s old Catholic families. Much of their ancestry is unclear, but John Surratt’s biographer guesses that the first American Surratts may have been Huguenots fleeing persecution in Catholic France—one of many ironies in this story. As a child, Mary Surratt, born Mary Elizabeth Jenkins, attended the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia, a school operated by Mother Seton’s Sisters of Charity. Mary decided to convert from Episcopalian to Catholic during her time there. She married John Surratt Sr. in 1840, and their third child, John Jr., was born in April of 1844. Like the other children, he was baptized at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in the District of Columbia. “From all indications,” historian Kenneth Zanca writes, “Mary Surratt took her Catholicism very seriously.” Through Mary’s influence, her mother, her mother-in-law, and her brother and his family all entered the Church. Priests were among Mary Surratt’s close friends and confidants. She aided Fr. Joseph Finotti, SJ, as he raised funds for the building of a new church in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Fr. Bernadine Wiget helped with her sons when she grew concerned about the influence of their alcoholic father. In 1859, John Jr. enrolled at St. Charles College, an institution founded by Charles Carroll of Carrollton as a preparatory school for future priests. The young Surratt was there in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected president and sectional politics raged in Maryland. A classmate later recalled that the young Surratt “was a pronounced friend of the Southern cause from the start, yet I do not recall that he ever made himself offensive to anyone by the persistency of his views.” In August 1862, John Sr. died, leaving Mary a widow. She asked her son to come back home, and he left his classmates at St. Charles, never to return. Mother and son devoted themselves to their farm and tavern. Failing to make ends meet, they decided to move into the District and manage a boardinghouse on H Street, not far from Ford’s Theater. Priests and sisters were among its patrons. It was a popular gathering place. The final meeting between Booth and Mudd occurred on April 15, 1865. On the previous day, Good Friday, Booth had entered Ford’s Theater and shot Abraham Lincoln as he watched the play Our American Cousin. With the surrender of the Confederate Army on April 11, the motive of prisoner exchange had evaporated. In its place welled the frustration and fury of defeat. Booth had vowed to destroy the man who symbolized the end of the Confederacy and the southern way of life. When Booth leapt from the viewing box—or perhaps in a riding accident during his escape—he broke his leg. He managed to make his way to Mudd’s house in Maryland (the place, now a museum, where the original tombstone is preserved). After Mudd treated Booth, the assassin and his coconspirator David Herold resumed their flight from the relentless manhunt. Booth would be cornered and shot by federal troops a few days later. Samuel Mudd and Mary and John Surratt were among those implicated and captured in the dragnet of the federal investigation of the assassination. A total of eight conspirators were tried and found guilty. Four, including Mary, were hanged. Four, including Mudd, were imprisoned. A Catholic Conspiracy? The Catholic connections of some of the accused were not lost on a distraught, conspiracy-minded public. David Herold, who accompanied Booth on his escape, had attended Georgetown College. The Jesuit link was a suggestive one. Members of the Society of Jesus, champions of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, had been antagonists of Protestantism since the sixteenth century. Shortly after the assassination, a letter addressed to War Secretary Edwin Stanton from a former Protestant Civil War chaplain tried to connect the dots and helpfully suggested where the fugitive might be found: John M. Surratt is a Roman Catholic, once patronized . . . by the priests of Georgetown. . . . As the Papal government only has shown favor to the Southern Rebellion, and the loyalty of a large proportion of the Catholic clergy is, to say the least, questionable, is not the presumption fair, that Surratt is harbored in some of their secret sanctuaries, more likely in Georgetown? Surratt was in fact in Canada at the time. He had fled immediately and was the only major conspirator to escape punishment. Stanton’s tipster, though perhaps motivated by irrational anti-Catholicism and not quite accurate as to either the position of the Catholic Church on the Confederacy or the geographical location of Surratt, did shrewdly guess somewhat close to the mark. Surratt in fact had the assistance of priests during his exile from the United States. Stanton, for his part, directing the search for Booth and his accomplice, had already issued orders to scour the “counties of Prince George, Charles and St. Mary’s” in Maryland, a region “noted for hostility to the Government and their protection to Rebel blockade runners, Rebel spies and every species of public enemies.” Southern Maryland happened to be both the historic heart of American Catholicism and also a hotbed of Confederate sympathy. There was plenty of grist for the mill of those who were determined to view the Lincoln conspiracy as a Catholic plot. The anti-Catholicism of the 1850s—manifested in the Bedini riot and the affair of the pope’s stone (see chapters 13 and 14)—had been tempered by the Civil War. Indeed, part of the motivation for the nativism of the Know-Nothings—the “American” Party—was to solidify a national American identity and preserve the Union. It didn’t turn out that way, as the pioneering historian of nativism, John Higham, notes: “The division between North and South, which nativists endeavored to submerge, soon submerged nativism.” Nativism, including its anti-Catholic component, would not long remain under water, however. Even as northern Catholic opposition to the war and emancipation kept northern Protestant suspicion toward Catholics kindled during the conflict, Catholic involvement in the Lincoln assassination furnished fresh fuel for antipapist fires afterward. Mary and John Surratt’s Catholic connections were not merely historical. In Canada, John lived in the house of a priest in a remote village in the province of Quebec. In September 1865, he fled to England, where he lodged at a Catholic oratory in Liverpool. The following spring, he moved again, this time to Italy, where he joined the Papal Zouaves, a short-lived military unit composed of volunteers from around the world who banded together to defend the territorial claims of the papacy as the Papal States were besieged by Italian nationalists during the 1860s. The anti-Catholic narrative had problems, though. While Maryland was the cradle of Catholicism in the British colonies, it was also a den of anti-Catholic sentiment. Secretary of State William Seward, the other victim of the April 14 plot, was a detested figure in southern Maryland, in part because of his friendliness to Catholics and other immigrants. There is also the fact that, once papal authorities learned the identity of Surratt, they placed him under arrest with the intention of extraditing him for trial in the United States. But the desperate Surratt escaped from his Roman captors, scrambled into the Italian countryside, and eventually ended up in Egypt. There he was at last apprehended by American officers. In what some continue to view as a miscarriage of justice, the jury—on the strength of testimony that insisted Surratt was not in Washington on the day of Lincoln’s assassination—failed to convict Surratt and he went free. He got married, had children, and taught at a Catholic school in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He lived until 1916 and was buried at a Catholic cemetery in Baltimore. The Conspiracy Theory Lives On During Mary Surratt’s trial, five Catholic priests appeared as character witnesses for the accused. Fr. Jacob Walter, her parish priest, joined Mary’s daughter in a frantic final attempt to stay the execution. “You cannot make me believe,” he wrote later, “that a Catholic woman would go to Communion on Holy Thursday and be guilty of murder on Good Friday.” Their efforts failed. On the morning of the hanging, Mary appeared in the company of Frs. Walter and Wiget. They spiritually and physically supported the middle-aged woman, who fainted as she approached the scaffold. They were present as the trap door opened and her mortal life ended. Her body, with those of the other conspirators, remained in government custody for several years but was finally interred in 1869 at Mount Olivet, a cemetery of the Archdiocese of Washington. Protestant disgust at Catholic involvement in the plot prompted Congress to take action as well. It passed a ban on funding for an ambassador to the Vatican that stood for over a hundred years. The beleaguered Pope Pius IX was in the process of losing the Papal States—the Church’s sovereign possessions for over a thousand years (the efforts of the Papal Zouaves came to naught)—and thus the need for a diplomatic mission to the pope seemed diminished in any case. The notion of a Catholic assassination conspiracy, far from petering out, actually gained momentum in the postwar era. One of the most flamboyant anti-Catholics of the nineteenth century, ex-priest  Charles Chinquy was its chief proponent. His 1885 screed, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, has been called the “main witness” for the prosecution against the Church and the first “systematic development” of the assassination as a “Catholic grand conspiracy.” There had been rumblings of an unseemly affinity between Catholicism and Confederacy during the war. The southern government made overtures to Pope Pius IX, and he replied in a friendly though diplomatically noncommittal way. The supposition of natural alliance between what they saw as two enemies of freedom was confirmed in the minds of papal detractors by Pius’s sympathetic gesture of sending a letter to Jefferson Davis, the imprisoned former president of the Confederacy, after the war. Chiniquy heated this simmering controversy to a boil by fabricating Lincoln quotations, which in turn became stock items in the anti-Catholic literature of subsequent decades. “I do not pretend to be a prophet,” the president allegedly said, “but though not a prophet, I see a dark cloud on our horizon. And that dark cloud is coming from Rome.” During the war, Chiniquy claimed, Lincoln declared, “It is not against the Americans of the South, alone, I am fighting, it is more against the Pope of Rome.” In Chiniquy’s telling, Lincoln thought the First Amendment would need to be curtailed for Catholics because they are “sworn and public enemies of our constitution, our laws, our liberties, and our lives.” The editors of one Lincoln collection describe Chiniquy as “the biggest liar in Lincoln literature,” but no matter: Fifty Years was a huge success. It reached forty editions by 1891, and among its publishers was the major evangelical press Fleming H. Revell. Chiniquy spread his message by spoken as well as printed word. He was a popular draw on the lecture circuit until his death in Quebec in 1899. A Chiniquy pamphlet summarizing the case for a Catholic conspiracy made the rounds during the election of 1890. The secular Los Angeles Herald denounced it as “too silly for any sane man or woman’s attention,” but conceded that it was “widely circulated.” The nativist American Protective Association rehashed Chiniquy’s claims in its magazine in the same decade. The tale long outlived the teller. In the 1910s, an abridged version of Chiniquy’s account, titled “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Romanists,” was published in the anti-Catholic periodical The Menace, circulation 1.5 million. The fundamentalist Jack Chick Publications republished the story once again as “The Big Betrayal” as late as 1981, and both Fifty Years and the Jack Chick article remain easily available online, preserving the Catholic conspiracy theory for generations to come. His Name Was Mudd Samuel Mudd was sent to an American prison in the Dry Tortugas, west of the Florida Keys. At first he tried repeatedly to escape, but he eventually submitted to his fate. He distinguished himself by his service as a physician during a yellow fever outbreak, and this among other factors was cited in President Andrew Johnson’s pardon decree of February 8, 1869. Mudd returned to his family in Maryland and lived out the rest of his days in peace. When he died in 1883, he was buried in the parish cemetery. One granddaughter, Cecilia, joined the Congregation of Holy Cross, taking the name Sr. Samuela. She died at the congregation’s convent at Notre Dame, Indiana, in 2003. A grandson, Richard, devoted himself to clearing his grandfather’s name, going so far as to petition Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Both responded similarly, expressing their personal opinion that Mudd was innocent of any serious wrongdoing but also insisting that they had no power to formally overturn a federal conviction. “As President,” Reagan wrote, “there is nothing I can do. Presidential power to pardon is all that is in a President’s prerogatives and that, of course, was done by President Andrew Johnson.” Did Mudd willingly participate in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln? The definitive answer will likely never be known. It’s a secret Mudd took to his grave—the one that lies in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bryantown, Maryland.   Grave of Dr. Samuel Mudd St. Mary’s Catholic Church 13715 Notre Dame Place Bryantown, Maryland 

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Catholic Colleges in March Madness 2022

Eleven Catholic colleges are in this year’s March Madness NCAA field of 68 men’s teams beginning play on Wednesday, March 16. Enjoy having your students research information about these colleges as a way to spur interest in their applying to one or more of them!   WEST REGIONAL   Gonzaga University Founded: 1887 Religious sponsorship: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Location: Spokane, Washington Conference: West Coast Seeding: 1     University of Notre Dame Founded: 1842: Religious sponsorship: Congregation of Holy Cross Location: Notre Dame, Indiana Conference: Atlantic Coast Seeding: 11     EAST REGIONAL   Marquette University Founded: 1861 Religious sponsorship: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Conference: Big East Seeding: 9   St. Mary’s College Founded: 1863 Religious sponsorship: De La Salle Brothers Location: Moraga, California Conference West Coast Seeding: 5   University of San Francisco Founded: 1855 Religious sponsorship: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Location: San Francisco, California Conference: West Coast Seeding: 10   St. Peter’s University Founded: 1872 Religious sponsorship: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Location: Jersey City, New Jersey Conference: Metro Atlantic Athletic Seeding: 15   SOUTH REGIONAL   Seton Hall University Founded: 1865 Religious sponsorship: Archdiocese of Newark Location: South Orange, New Jersey Conference: Big East Seeding: 8   Loyola University Chicago Founded: 1870 Religious sponsorship: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Location: Chicago, Illinois Conference: Missouri Valley Seeding: 10   Villanova University Founded: 1842 Religious sponsorship: Augustinians Location: Villanova, Pennsylvania Conference: Big East Seeding: 2   MIDWEST REGION   Creighton University Founded: 1878 Religious sponsorship: Society of Jesus (Jesuits) Location: Omaha, Nebraska Conference: Big East Seeding: 9   Providence College Founded: 1917 Religious sponsorship: Dominican Province of St. Joseph Location: Providence, Rhode Island Conference: Big East Seeding: 4     Note: There are five Catholic colleges in this year’s Women’s Basketball tournament: DePaul, Creighton, Gonzaga, Villanova, and Notre Dame.

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Celebrate Black Catholic Americans

February is Black History Month in the United States, which is an opportunity to focus on Black American Catholics. (Another opportunity is Black Catholic History Month  in November.) Recently, several Catholic high school theology teachers shared some excellent resources and lessons to on Black Catholic Americans on the Ave Maria HS Theology Teachers Facebook page. To make sure that these resources are searchable in years to come, we have also included them here on this platform. Feel free to add any other links you might have in the comment section of this post or on the Facebook page linked above. Also search “Black Catholics” on the Engaging Faith blog for other resources.   Black Catholic Messenger Notre Dame’s Grotto Network Catholic University of America Three resources courtesy of Deacon Ned Berghausen’s Foot-Washer Blog are listed below. Deacon Berghausen is director of campus ministry at Mercy Academy in Louisville. Black and Beautiful The Catholic Church Alone Can Break the Color Line Envisioning a World that Has Never Existed   The photo in this posting is of Daniel Rudd, the founder of the Black Catholic Congress and the first Catholic newspaper in America.

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100th Anniversary of Our Lady's Apparitions at Fatima

Will you offer yourselves to God, and bear all the sufferings He sends you? In atonement for all the sins that offend Him? And for the conversion of sinners? "Oh, we will, we will!" Then you will have a great deal to suffer, but the grace of God will be with you and will strengthen you. Lucia relates that as the Lady pronounced these words, she opened her hands, and we were bathed in a heavenly light that appeared to come directly from her hands. The light's reality cut into our hearts and our souls, and we knew somehow that this light was God, and we could see ourselves embraced in it. By an interior impulse of grace we fell to our knees, repeating in our hearts: "Oh, Holy Trinity, we adore You. My God, my God, I love You in the Blessed Sacrament." The children remained kneeling in the flood of this wondrous light, until the Lady spoke again, mentioning the war in Europe, of which they had little or no knowledge. Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war. After that she began to rise slowly in the direction of the east, until she disappeared in the immense distance. The light that encircles Her seemed to make a way amidst the stars, and that is why we sometimes said we had seen the heavens open. This conversation between the Blessed Virgin Mary and three children--Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco--took place one hundred years ago, May 13, 1917. This Saturday's anniversary of the first of Mary's six apparitions to the children on the thirteenth of each month from May until October 13 are worthy of study and prayer. Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to the Fatima site this weekend and will canonize sister and brother, Jacinta and Francisco, who were ages seven and nine at the time of the apparitions. Take some time to explore with your students the remarkable history and message of Our Lady of Fatima that is offered in great detail at a website prepared by EWTN. Prayer to Our Lady of Fatima O Most holy Virgin Mary, Queen of the most holy Rosary, you were pleased to appear to the children of Fatima and reveal a glorious message. We implore you, inspire in our hearts a fervent love for the recitation of the Rosary. By meditating on the mysteries of the redemption that are recalled therein may we obtain the graces and virtues that we ask, through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer. Amen. 

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St. Mary Magdalene

Pope Francis has raised the liturgical memorial of St. Mary Magdalene, the woman from the Gospels who, according to the pope, "so loved Christ and was so greatly loved by Christ, to a feast day. The text of Pope Francis' announcement, "Apostle of the Apostles," is available here. As you find an occasion to share this news with your students, find time to also: A news announcement on the lifting of the memorial to a feast Information on the differences between a solemnity, feast, and memorial Some background on the life of St. Mary Magdalene Background on the possible location of Magdala A reflection by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles on the meaning of the life of St. Mary Magdalene

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Annual Fortnight for Religious Freedom Announced

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has announced the dates for the annual Fornight for Freedom, an occasion to pray, promote, and work for religious liberty. The year, the Fornight for Freedom will be held from June 21--the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More--to July 4, Independence Day. The USCCB has articles, documents, videos, prayers, and suggestions for Catholics to involve themselves in this effort at a special Fortnight for Freedom link on its homepage.   Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty O God our Creator, from your provident hand we have received our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You have called us as your people and given us the right and the duty to worship you, the only true God, and your Son, Jesus Christ. Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit, you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world, bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel to every corner of society. We ask you to bless us in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty. Give us the strength of mind and heart to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened; give us courage in making our voices heard on behalf of the rights of your Church and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith. Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father, a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters gathered in your Church in this decisive hour in the history of our nation, so that, with every trial withstood and every danger overcome— for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and all who come after us— this great land will always be "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Black History Month: Fr. Augustus Tolton

The child of slaves, Fr. Augustus Tolton (1854-1897) was the first African American priest ordained to serve the Church in the United States. Facing predjudice and discrimination in his hometown of Quincy, Illinois, Fr. Tolton was assigned to the Archdiocese of Chicago. There, Fr. Tolton first led a missionary effort to African American Catholics in the basement of St. Mary's Church. Later, he founded St. Monica's Catholic Church at the corner of 36th and Dearborn on Chicago's South Side. The Church grew to have 600 parishioners. Fr. Tolton's cause for canonization has been presented by the Archdiocese of Chicago. He has now been honored as a Servant of God. In the month of February, as the nation celebrations Black History, take some time to share the story of Fr. Augustus Tolton with your students. Several resources, including a detailed biography and videos on his life and the cause for sainthood, are available at a website devoted to his canonization. The video Father Augustus Tolton: The Cause for Canonization was prepared by the Archdiocese of Chicago.

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