July 9th the Passionists honor Mary, the Mother of Jesus, under the title of Mother of Holy Hope. The devotion was promoted by the great missionary, Father Thomas Struzzieri, who later became a bishop. He carried a picture of our Mother of Holy Hope with him on missions, and we honor the same picture as a reminder that Mary helps us in our needs.

 Mary supports our hope. Here’s what Blessed Dominic Barberi, CP wrote:

 “One title that belongs rightly to Mary is that of Mother of Holy Hope.  Hope is that virtue that anchors the ship of our soul in the stormy sea of this troubled world. It is a comfort left to us after the fall of Adam, a support in our weakness encouraging us to practice all the virtues.

 Theologians say hope is a virtue planted in us by God enabling us to confidently expect eternal life and all that leads to it. Since Mary was hopeful to an heroic degree, she is appropriately called Mother of Holy Hope.

Though endowed with extraordinary graces and unstained by original sin, Mary never counted on any resource of her own. Rather, she knew God is the author of every good thing and the source of everything. She confided in God fleeing from persecution from her own country. She hoped in God even when she saw her divine Son die on cross and his disciples left him.

She stayed firm in what seemed like disaster, and strengthened those discouraged who turned to her as to a mother. She encouraged the weak, lifted up the fallen and urged the strong to ever greater trust.

We must not think Mary is not our mother now.  No! Even now, enthroned in glory, she reaches with a mother’s hand to those who go to her. She is always a mother of holy hope.”

A global church celebrates saints from everywhere, and that’s why saints from Africa and Asia have been added to our church calendar after the Second Vatican Council. In them we see fulfilled the command of Jesus to his disciples to go “to all nations.” We are a Catholic Church.

On July 9th, we remember Saint Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs from the church in China, who were canonized in October 2000. On November 24th we remember Saint Andrew Dung– Lac and 117 other Vietnamese martyrs killed in the 18th century in a cruel persecution of Christians They were canonized by Pope John Paul II in  June 1988.  On September 20th, we remember the martyrs of Korea. Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs. All together, 103 martyrs were canonized by Pope John Paul II on 6 May 1984 in Seoul, Korea. 

These churches have remarkable histories. Take a look at the history of the church in China. 

The recent feasts of Asian churches celebrate, not only individual missionaries from elsewhere who brought the faith to these lands, but natives who accepted the gospel and died for their belief in it. The feasts recall centuries of missionary work that sowed the seeds of faith in these countries and the strong faith that blesses these churches now.

 As numbers decline in places like Europe and North America we should recognize the growth of our church elsewhere. “The harvest is great, “ Jesus told his first disciples. He tells us that today.  

In our cemetery here in Jamaica, New York, we have a monument to a young Chinese priest, Fr. John Nien, who died in the Communist persecution of the church in the 1950s and graves of Passionist missionaries who served in Hunan China during that time.  I put Fr. Nien’s monument at the beginning of this entry because he belongs among the martyrs of China. I put the graves and monuments to the Passionist missionaries below because they worked for a harvest that is now here and still to come.

God’s plan is mysterious, but the church will be blessed by the church in China. 

The Old Testament readings about Jacob, his wives and sons in our lectionary from Genesis begin on Saturday of the 13th week and continue through the 14th week. Saturday’s reading explains how Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, stole Isaac’s blessing from Esau. (above)

Through the 14th week the stories of Jacob include his dream of God showing him a stairway to heaven at Bethel, his struggle in the dark wrestling with a mysterious stranger, and his son Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt after being betrayed by his brothers. We learn of Jacob’s entry into Egypt with his sons and finally, on this coming Saturday, his death and burial. 

We only read a few sections from the longer biblical account. They tend to be somewhat edifying. But looking at the whole biblical account of Jacob and his wives and his sons you wonder. Should we admire and imitate them? So many of these stories are complicated and unedifying–like real life.

A recent commentary on Genesis by Robert Alter approaches the story from the Jewish tradition. I like his approach to Jacob and his wives and his sons.

His name, Jacob, “can be construed as meaning ‘he who acts crookedly.’” Alter writes. “He’s willing to lie and cheat to get what he wants. He’s a suspicious bargainer, even with God. He’s a sharp dealer with others, like his father-in -law Labon. He’s leery of people. Wrestling with the mysterious stranger on his journey mirrors the way he wrestles with life. He doesn’t measure up to someone like Abraham. Yet “God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” 

Can the Jewish scriptures help us face our own complicated and usedifying times? I think they can. God engages humanity, sinful as it is, and mercifully guides it towards the Promised Land. “In you and your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing. Know that I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land. I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you.”

Those short, significant stories from the Jewish scriptures are what we need to hear. A merciful God is with us. Otherwise, life becomes a grim story, meaning nothing.

We’re reading the biographies of Jewish Saints these days– stories of the patriarchs, their wives and times, from the Book of Genesis. The story we read today about Abraham, Sarah and Hagar is not the story you think of when you think of saints.

It’s a shocking story. After arranging for Hagar to become the concubine of Abraham and Hagar bearing him a son, (Genesis 16) Sarah turns on Hagar and demands that Abraham drive her away. She wants Isaac, her son, to be without a rival.

Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian
had borne to Abraham
playing with her son Isaac;
so she demanded of Abraham:
“Drive out that slave and her son!
No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance
with my son Isaac!”
Abraham was greatly distressed,
especially on account of his son Ishmael.
But God said to Abraham: “Do not be distressed about the boy
or about your slave woman.
Heed the demands of Sarah, no matter what she is asking of you;
for it is through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name.
As for the son of the slave woman,
I will make a great nation of him also,
since he too is your offspring.”

Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water
and gave them to Hagar.
Then, placing the child on her back, he sent her away.
As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba,
the water in the skin was used up.
So she put the child down under a shrub,
and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away;
for she said to herself, “Let me not watch to see the child die.”
As she sat opposite Ishmael, he began to cry.
God heard the boy’s cry,
and God’s messenger called to Hagar from heaven:
“What is the matter, Hagar?
Don’t be afraid; God has heard the boy’s cry in this plight of his.
Arise, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand;
for I will make of him a great nation.”
Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.
She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up.(Genesis 21:8-20)

No one looks good in this story.

The Jewish biographies of saints don’t hesitate to tell their dark sides in the scriptures.. Even God’s words and actions are puzzling here..

Pope Francis offers a caution in “Gaudete et exultate”:  “Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel; not everything he or she does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person.” (22)

Saints are imperfect people; the world is imperfect. God is a potter who works in mud.

The readings from the Old Testament these weeks at Mass are made for questions. For example, today’s reading from Genesis 19,15-29. Why was Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra? Was she overly curious, or overly regretful? Jesus has some harsh things to say about people who look back. Or maybe it’s just a piece of human caution– watch out where you’re going when you’re in a hurry.

Lot himself is slow to leave the place he’s chosen for his own. He asks to go to a town close by. Is he hoping to get back soon to the place he wants to be? Then why isn’t he turned to a pillar of salt? 

In these Genesis stories God often seems to be on the side watching it all like everyone else. Isn’t that what we think at times? God is a spectator as human events unfold, watching it all like everyone else. But that’s not true, is it?

Questions like these have kept Jewish commentators busy for centuries. We tend to pass them by for stories more easily understood. Or, we’re convinced the answers are there in some book we haven’t read,, and so we don’t give them much thought. 

But the scriptures are meant to raise questions. We go to God through questions.