In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Truly profound, both in explaining and spreading devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus,
and he also did much to promote writing on the purity of Our Lady,
and help establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
He was born in 1380 to a noble family, but his parents died when he was at the age of seven.
He was orphaned, and he grew up with the care of a very devout aunt,
who taught him his religion, and taught him a great love for purity.
It is said that even as a little boy, he did not like to hear impure speech,
you know, innuendos, or foul language, and so much so that his friends,
whenever they saw Bernadine coming, they would say, watch out, Bernadine's coming, you know.
He was one who could not, it just even made him physically ill when he heard that.
He was one who could not hear such talk.
One time when he was an older man, probably a young man,
someone tried to maybe test him by saying some kind of impure joke or something in his presence,
and he, and St. Bernadine of Siena hauled off and hit him.
And the man was a very prominent man in the city, but didn't bother Bernadine from,
chastising him for his impure speech.
Isn't it interesting that, you know, that's one of the things that is so prevalent in our world today,
innuendos that have an impure nature, or bad language, especially in the movies, cinema, TV.
It is not entertaining, it offends anyone's ears when they hear it,
yet it's considered to be rather sophisticated.
I guess today, or somehow fashionable, to speak foul language and impure jokes,
especially the humor seems to be so riddled with such things,
and we know that it's truly the best kind of humor is the kind that doesn't even go in that direction.
You're not very funny if you have to resort to that.
But St. Bernadine of Siena only,
not only did he have a distaste for impure speech,
he had a great love for the holy name of Jesus, for the two go together.
You might say, if you love the name of Jesus and our Savior because of his most holy name,
you will not like to see our Lord's name taken in vain,
or even other speech which is uncharitable or impure,
because you will have a great respect for the gift of speech.
The fact that God gives us the gift of speech is to adore him, first and foremost,
so that we don't want to use our tongues to tell lies,
or even worse, to blaspheme God,
or to speak of things which are not to be spoken of,
that are to be held in greater reverence.
And St. Bernadine of Siena was truly a great model of that.
He became a Franciscan, kind of a late vocation in his days.
Maybe in his twenties he entered the Franciscans.
And he had a very frail voice and a very weak voice,
so much that many times people had a hard time hearing him.
But Our Lady gave him the special grace that at certain times
his voice would become very powerful and very melodious,
very pleasant to hear, and he would preach.
And his preachings would take, you know, he would preach for a whole day,
out in the public squares.
And people would hear his voice,
and sometimes there would be a hundred thousand people gathered
in an open field and listen to him preach.
And the other interesting thing is that he had only one tooth in his mouth
at his older age.
And he would, as he would preach, his little tooth would wiggle,
and the people called it Bernadine's Bell.
But he preached very strongly, and he was well known for his preaching,
and miraculous that he had that gift of preaching.
And he would go from town to town, became known as the Apostle of Italy.
So well did he become.
He was well known among the people because of his great preaching.
One day when he was preaching, a woman, a prostitute,
was walking through the crowd of the people,
trying to find customers, even in the middle of his preaching.
And he publicly excoriated her for her sinful ways,
and struck her heart so, did he strike her to conversion
that she changed her ways.
He was not afraid to point out these things
and to address them when he saw them.
It is because of St. Bernadine of Siena that we have the great devotion
to the Holy Name of Jesus and the emblem that you see,
even in the window here, of the Holy Name,
because St. Bernadine would preach that wherever he went.
And one of the places where he preached, one of his parish missions,
they had the custom of,
the custom of people bringing things that they had in their homes
that were either not pleasing to God or sinful things.
And many of the people in this one town had tarot cards
and gambling cards that they had in their possession,
and they burned them all.
And he preached so strongly against these things
that the man who printed these gambling cards and tarot cards
was out of business.
And he went to St. Bernadine and said,
what am I going to do?
I don't have any living.
I can't, they won't buy these things anymore
because of your preaching.
So he instructed him to make holy cards
with the Holy Name of Jesus on it.
And it's because of that that we have,
from that sprang other holy cards of saints and holy things.
But first he had the man print cards with the Holy Name of Jesus on it
as a way of reminding people of the Holy Name,
of our Lord and Savior.
St. Bernadine of Siena,
because he was so well loved by the people
and his preaching was so powerful,
was offered the bishopric three times and he refused.
He said he did not want to be a bishop.
His vocation was to be a lowly friar.
And he refused it three times.
And we looked to St. Bernadine
and asked him to,
to pray and to assist us from heaven today,
especially that the Holy Name of Jesus
will be much more revered,
adored,
and truly respected in public
and especially in the media.
That they will,
you know, truly,
people will call the media to task
whenever it errors something.
Or someone who speaks foul language,
you know,
we need to become more assertive about that.
You know,
even Pope Francis recently said
Christians should become more obnoxious.
They should not be afraid of being obnoxious.
And the tendency is that we want to be maybe
thinking that we're being polite
or being charitable
and that we're maybe being rather lukewarm
is rather the reason why many don't say anything
or they're cowardice.
But he says it's better,
maybe,
for Christians to side
or to err on the side of being obnoxious.
So maybe it's something we need to become more assertive
about the things,
you know,
when people take the name of Jesus in public in vain,
to politely say to them,
you know,
that's not pleasing to God.
And,
or to,
you know,
write to the,
to the media if they err some program
or some comedian who thinks it's cute
to tell foul language or,
you know,
we need to boycott these things,
I guess,
or to at least become more active in responding to them
and not just letting them go
or taking them for granted.
But really to become more defensive
about what is,
not proper use of speech
and that our speech is to also be holy.
St. Paul says,
tell one another the good things people need to hear.
And we know in the past,
there have been very funny comedians and humorists
who have never resorted to foul language
or to impure jokes.
And they've been probably the greatest humorists
in the history of,
the history of telling jokes
or being funny.
To me,
that is,
they're great examples to us
and we need to look to the saints
and to ask them to assist us
to be examples today
of the proper use of speech
and reverence for the holy name of Jesus
and the name of God.
In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
.