Blessed Ghebre Michael
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15 July 1988
Naples, Italy

My dear Friends of Jesus Christ,

I would like to introduce you this evening to our special guest who is celebrating his two hundredth birthday. Before he left this life for heaven, he was aware that the Vincentian family was a large one, comprising priests and Brothers of the Congregation of the Mission, Daughters of Charity, the Vincentian Volunteers, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and other religious sisters and groups of laity who look to St. Vincent de Paul today as their special heavenly Patron. Our guest is a priest, dark-skinned, with the features of an Ethiopian, and his name is Ghebre Michael. In greeting us, he might begin by first clarifying a small point of truth. All his life, from the time he was a young student, Blessed Ghebre Michael had a passion for the truth and at times suffered much for it. "The truth," Blessed Ghebre Michael might say, "is that although I wanted to join the Vincentian Community and had been told I could, I was taken away to prison before I could formally enter it." Our Beatus might also go on to explain to us that it was only in the final years of his life that he had come to know St. Vincent's Community. He would describe himself as a late vocation to the Vincentian Community, for he was a man in his late fifties when he experienced the call of God.

Ghebre Michael had been attracted to the Vincentian Community, not by anything he had read about St. Vincent de Paul nor by anything he had heard about the large Vincentian family. He was drawn to the Community by a man who was a living commentary on what it meant to be a Vincentian.

It was in Cairo in the year 1841 that Blessed Ghebre Michael first met St. Justin De Jacobis, a Vincentian of the Province of Naples. By that time Blessed Ghebre Michael was a monk, belonging to the Coptic Church which was separated from the Roman Catholic Church. Some years were to pass and through his contact and conversations with St. Justin De Jacobis, Blessed Ghebre Michael was to discover, not only that the fullness of truth was to be found in the Roman Catholic Church, but he was to experience also a strong desire to live his life according to the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul. He had found that spirit incarnated in the humble Vincentian, St. Justin De Jacobis. It was from St. Justin De Jacobis, who had been ordained a bishop in January 1849, that Blessed Ghebre Michael received the priesthood on New Year's Day, 1851. It was the first ordination to the priesthood which St. Justin had performed.

Looking around at us all this evening, this gentle Ethiopian priest might go on to say to us: "I appreciate very much the place you have chosen for this celebration of my two hundredth birthday, for within the walls of this church there has gone up to heaven the incense of countless prayers which many saintly Vincentian priests and brothers have in the past two hundred years offered to God. The walls of this church have seen also countless Daughters of Charity and other members of the Vincentian family come here on the feast days of St. Vincent and St. Louise. I know, too, that the walls of this church have seen the youthful Justin De Jacobis at prayer. They have also seen a steady stream of hard-working diocesan priests come here to make retreats and to receive the Sacrament of Penance and spiritual direction from such saintly Vincentians as Father Micalizzi. For all that I am deeply grateful to God, to His Mother and to St. Vincent de Paul."

Were we to ask Blessed Ghebre Michael how he felt as a priest and convert to Roman Catholicism, he might reply: "It is like Ethiopia." He would then go on to explain that his country is one of great natural beauty. It is also one through which travel is very difficult because of the high mountains that crisscross the land. "The Catholic faith," he might say, "is like that. It has special beauty and brings with it an indescribable joy and peace. But in living the Catholic faith, I met mountains of difficulties. Because I adhered fully to everything that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, I had to undergo torture and public floggings on numerous occasions. But I can assure you that, despite the pain, I experienced an extraordinary inner strength which only God could have given me. To you all, I can say with St. Paul, 'You have observed...my sufferings, what persecutions I endured: but from them all the Lord rescued me.'" (2 Tim 3:10-11).

Looking at the color of the vestments I am wearing this evening, Blessed Ghebre in his passion for truth could say gently:"Are you sure you are wearing the right color? I mean, I did not actually die from soldiers' bullets, even if on one occasion I was sentenced to death and would have died were it not for the kind intervention of an English official. I died in chains all right, and from exhaustion. However, I think I could say I died a natural death." When we would tell Blessed Ghebre Michael that the Church considered him, because of his sufferings, to have been a martyr, he would accept that judgment because the Church, for Blessed Ghebre Michael, was the pillar of truth. I think Blessed Ghebre Michael might appreciate a distinction that was made in my country during times of persecution. The people would speak of red martyrdom and white martyrdom. Every baptized person is called to martyrdom, that is, to give witness to others of his faith. Some are called to red martyrdom, that is, to shed their blood because of their Christian convictions. Others, and they are in the majority, are called to white martyrdom, that is, to witness by the good quality of their lives that Jesus Christ is real, that He is risen and that He lives on in His Church. Sometimes it is more difficult to be a white martyr than a red martyr, because white martyrdom can last for decades. The Church and the Vincentian Family have need today of authentic white martyrs. The Church and the Vincentian Family have need of men and women who have the courage to live profoundly what each of us professes every Sunday of the year: "I believe in one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church."

At the present time, perhaps more so than at any time in recent centuries, the Church has been the subject of much criticism, not only from those who are its professional enemies, but also from men and women within it. The Church today has many enemies within its own household. It is a phenomenon of our times and one which Blessed Ghebre Michael, who suffered so much for one single article of the Catholic creed, would find hard to understand. His exhortation to us on his two hundredth birthday might very well be: "Be faithful to Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Be loyal to the visible head of the Church on earth, the Pope. Defend the doctrinal and moral teaching of the Church, the pillar of truth, and lastly, remember that 'you have not yet resisted,' as I and so many others have done, `to the point of shedding your blood.'" (cf. Heb 12:4).

For the life, death and beatification of Blessed Ghebre Michael, we rejoice and are glad. For the example, zeal and holiness of St. Justin De Jacobis, we rejoice and are glad. For the blessings and graces given to all who prayed in this Church, we rejoice and are glad. Through the intercession of Mary, the Mother of God, of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Louise de Marillac and all the Saints of the Vincentian Family, may each of us be witnesses on earth to the Resurrection of Christ and share in His glory in heaven.

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