In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady, Queen of Virgins, St. Joseph.
St. Colette, our patron saints and guardian angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
St. Colette, who we celebrate today in the Franciscan Order,
is truly one of those kind of saints that has even, you know,
more stories, you might say, associated with them
than you might say the ordinary saint, if you can say such a thing.
Because she had some rather miraculous,
things happen to her in her life.
First was that she was born rather stunted in growth,
and she knew that her father was greatly distressed,
that she was not tall like she should be for her age.
And she prayed, and God made her grow miraculously
to be a rather tall woman, and rather beautiful.
And she was afraid that her beauty might become a source,
of temptation, or a snare for herself.
So she prayed to God that he would do something about it.
And it's said that after that, she had a rather stern look on her face.
Wherever she went, she had a rather stern expression,
which I guess made her less attractive.
But she was unusual in that she was an anchoress.
She closed herself.
She closed herself up as a young woman to serve God as an anchoress.
She was literally attached to a church,
with a little room built off to the side,
where she could look out and see the Blessed Sacrament.
And she had no way to exit,
because they closed up the door after she entered into it.
And that was a life of cloistered contemplation.
And she thought that that's what God wanted her to do for her whole life,
was to be a cloistered anchoress.
But she began getting these inspirations
that she wasn't sure they were from God,
because they were telling her that she needed to go and reform,
and start a new branch of the Poor Clare's nuns.
And she said, well, that can't be from God,
because I'm an anchoress.
I'm enclosed in this cell.
I can't get out.
And so she finally felt so tormented,
by this inspiration that it kept giving her uneasiness.
She said, okay, I can't do this because I'm enclosed,
so it must not be from God.
If it's from you, Lord,
then you have to show me in some way that you want me to do this.
And after she prayed,
the wall of her little enclosed cell collapsed,
and she was able to exit.
So she took that as a sign from God that she was to go,
and start a Poor Clare reform.
And she did so,
and she was very successful in attracting young ladies
to the more austere form of her contemplative life.
There are many Colettine Poor Clare monasteries out there today.
They are known for their great zeal and their poverty,
and for their...
being quite successful in obtaining graces
through their prayerful witness.
One of the things that St. Colette said to her sisters
when she gave them instructions and gave them,
you might say, her wisdom of religious life,
she said the importance of obedience.
It's the greatest of the virtues in one sense,
because it's...
that virtue is what...
you might say is the hallmark of God's faithful ones.
It's disobedience that caused the whole problem
with the human race and the condition that it fell into.
It's disobedience which caused the devil to fall from,
you know, the angel of light to become an angel of darkness.
And it's obedience, she says,
which obtains for us really the graces that we need.
She says, if you obey God,
God will obey you.
In other words, if we do what God wants us to do
in fidelity to our vocation,
to the graces that God gives us,
then God will obey us in prayer.
You can obtain.
You know, the prayer of an obedient soul,
as she says, is...
one prayer of an obedient soul is more powerful
than thousands of prayers from an unfaithful one.
And this is something we must always keep in mind.
It's probably why, in many cases,
Our Lady at Fatima said that
one of the things that needed to be done
to help bring about, you might say,
the renewal of the church and the world,
when she told the children,
was to be faithful to your state in life.
Fidelity to your state in life
is a very important means of obtaining grace.
And so, if we're faithful to our vocation
as a married couple,
or as a priest or religious,
or faithful to whatever God has called us to,
we observe the commandments,
we try to live a virtuous life,
that is the best thing that we can do
to help bring about renewal and conversion of the world.
For it's fidelity that is really
the thing that brings down upon the world grace.
And if we're faithful to what God has asked us to do,
then our prayers will be heard.
And we can be an effective means of evangelization
in the world.
We can see what unfaithfulness can do,
especially of Catholics who don't follow
the teaching of the church,
and especially those in public office.
They can do great damage to society
and to the world.
So, we need to be faithful.
We need to follow and obey,
because that's where obedience is.
Obediere, to hear.
We need to hear and to listen
and to put into practice
what the church teaches.
And if we do that,
then we can be,
then we will bring grace down upon the world.
Otherwise, if we're not,
we'll only bring wrath,
the wrath of God down upon us
and upon the world around us.
Today in the gospel,
our Lord, you know,
sent out his apostles,
the twelve that he chose.
And because they were obedient
to his command to go out and do this,
you know, he even told them
that the demons would be obedient to them
when they would drive them out.
And the importance that was attached
to their faithful duty
in carrying out the task
that our Lord gave them to do
and help already preach
and to heal and to cure the sick.
Thank you.
to his apostles the same gifts,
the same work that he worked. Our Lord was
curing the sick. He was preaching the good news. And already
he sent the twelve out on a little test run, you might say,
while he was still with them, before he
endured the cross and the passion.
He sent his apostles, the twelve, out to
preach and to do that which they would do later on
after he would send them out
when he ascended into heaven, to carry on that task
with truly the grace and the
success that he would accompany with them.
Today as we look to St. Colette, you know, we can maybe look at our
own lives and say, well, am I obedient to what God wants me to do?
I've asked him to
listen to my prayers. I've asked him to do
something for me, and it seems he doesn't listen.
Well, maybe the thing we need to look at is, are we listening to God?
Are we obeying what he wants us to do?
And are we doing it faithfully and with zeal
and with love and concern to carry out his task?
And then, if we find that we are, then we
just persevere and continue to pray.
And ask God to show us the way. But if we're
being unfaithful, if we're not doing all that we ought to do,
that may be the reason why our prayers are not heard.
It says in Scripture somewhere that a just man's prayer is
powerful indeed, that it can obtain the conversion of many
sinners. So we need to do what our
Lord asks us to do, and as St. Colette says, he will
then do what we ask him.
Let us pray that, like Our Lady,
that we will be that faithful servant. And because
we are faithful, we also will be heard by our
God in heaven. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.