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11 September 1984 My dear Sisters, This evening we are celebrating the feast of Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre, the missionary who at thirty-eight years of age and after only thirty-eight months of work in China, endured extremely painful tortures and was finally executed by strangulation. In 1982 I met in the United States a young Vincentian priest who is firmly convinced that he was cured of cancer through the intercession of Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre. He was a patient in one of the hospitals of the Daughters of Charity in Chicago, and during his serious illness there, he began, at the suggestion of a Daughter of Charity, to make a novena to Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre. Shortly after he finished the novena, he got better quickly. Today he enjoys good health and the doctors confess that his cure is to them a mystery. On the other side of the world, in China, you will find another type of miracle. From time to time, Mother Rogé receives letters written with great discretion from Sisters in the heart of China. They write to her to assure her that they are devoted to St. Vincent and St. Louise and are loyal to the Company here on earth. They live lives of great poverty and treasure the teachings of our Founders and the traditions of the Company. After so many years of persecution of the Church in China, that is a miracle, and I am certain that the prayers of Blessed John Gabriel have something to do with it. Let us remember often in our prayers the two Communities of St. Vincent which are still alive in the Church of Silence. Today we join with the entire Vincentian Community throughout the world in celebrating the feast day of one of St. Vincent's outstanding disciples. The Gospel of today's Mass tells us that "Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, spending the night in communion with God." (Lk 6:12). Only prayer and constant union with Christ, especially in the Holy Eucharist, enabled Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre to lay down his life for Christ, and enabled the Church some fifty years after his death to proclaim him Blessed. It is from the Eucharist that we, too, draw the strength to withstand the storms of temptation that beat from time to time on the house of our souls. It is from the Eucharist that we draw strength to be martyrs, that is, witnesses to Christ present in His poor in our daily lives. It is from the Eucharist that we draw strength to be sacraments ourselves, that is, signs of Christ's love to each other in Community. I pray that you will never lose confidence in the power of the Mass and that you will never lose faith in His living Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Let me end by quoting part of a prayer composed by Blessed John Gabriel: "May my hands be the hands of Jesus. May my tongue be the tongue of Jesus....I pray you to destroy in me all that is not of you. Grant that I may live only in You, by You and for You, so that I may truly say with St. Paul: `I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.'" |
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