Studying the Scriptures with humility

[Rich]

Studying the Scriptures with humility

"My ambition as a youth was to apply to the study of the Holy
Scriptures all the refinement of dialectics. I did so, but without the
humility of the true searcher. I was supposed to knock at the door so
that it would open for me. Instead I was pushing it closed, trying to
understand in pride what is only learned in humility. However, the
all-merciful Lord lifted me up and kept me safe."
--St. Augustine--(excerpt from Sermon 51,6)

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10 May – Blessed Enrico Rebuschini MI

Priest of the Camillians [Clerics Regular, Ministers to the Sick,
also known as the “Hospitallers” the Order founded by St Camillus de
Lellis’ (1550-1614)] – born on 28 April 1860 at Gravedona, Como, Italy
and died on 10 May 1938 in Cremona, Italy of pneumonia. Patronage –
against depression.

Enrico was born in northern Italy, in Gravedona on the northwest shore
of Lake Como, on 28 April 1860. His father, Domenico, an
administrative clerk, before becoming head tax inspector for Como
province, was not in favour of religion. He would accompany his wife
to the church door but remained outside. His mother, Sophia, a model
Christian, was a native of Livorno in Tuscany. Enrico was the second
of five children. After finishing his secondary school studies,
Enrico, who because of his father’s opposition could not follow his
call to religious life, enrolled at the university in Pavia to study
mathematics. A calm boy of good upbringing, he stayed only one year at
the university, where anticlericalism aroused in him bitterness and
disgust.

Upon his return to Como, he completed his military service with a year
of volunteer work. In his free time, he was glad to isolate himself in
prayer and good reading. A student at the Military School of Milan, he
emerged from it a Reserve Second Lieutenant, esteemed by his superiors
who encouraged him to make a career for himself in the army. But when
he got home to his family, he opted to pursue studies in accounting,
in 1882 receiving a diploma with honours.

His sister, Dorina’s husband, who managed a silk business 45 km north
of Como, welcomed him into his home and entrusted to him a job in
administration. Harmony prevailed between Enrico and the household.
Nevertheless, at the end of three years, there were signs that the
young man was in trouble. Sadness could be read in his eyes. He
confided to his father that this work in industry and commerce didn’t
suit him. He was 24 years old when he wrote to his brother-in-law:
“The thought of forever remaining a burden rather than being a good
assistant,… the fact of knowing at the same time, that my parents will
never be at peace, as long as I remain in a path that doesn’t suit my
nature (and which makes me unhappy), has finally persuaded me that I
have to give it up, for my Mom and Dad’s good, for your good and for
mine. I am telling you this with a painfully heavy heart.” (9 August
1884).

Enrico’s difficulties were not caused by his choice of a profession
that matched his talents and inclinations but, by his persistent
attraction to religious life, an attraction his father was opposed to.
Soon, despite all his efforts to accept his fate, he fell into a state
of moral dejection. He was so thin that he looked like he was
recovering from illness. At last, in the summer of 1884, after long
discussions with his son, his father finally gave up, in part through
the intervention of St Luigi Guanella (1842-1915) (a priest who
initiated social institutions), who had all the monasteries in Como
pray for this vocation. His life here:
https://anastpaul.com/2018/10/24/saint-of-the-day-24-october-st-luigi-guanella-1842-1915-servant-of-charity/

Three months after leaving his job, Enrico enrolled in the Gregorian
University in Rome to pursue ecclesiastical studies. There he won the
esteem of his professors. He received the Minor Orders with this
distinction: “Edifying conduct, with a very good spirit of the
Church.” Towards the end of 1885, his parents and his Aunt Magdalena
came to Rome and were happy to find him pleased and calm. Magdalena
noted in her diary: “Enrico is content and at peace. I understand how
he can feel this way. He is sure he is on the way that God has
prepared for him.”

But an unexpected obstacle suddenly arose—from March 1886 to May 1887,
Enrico was overcome by a profound nervous depression. A very generous
soul, with a sense of duty that never allowed half-measures, Enrico
was prompted to perform excessive penances, without taking his frailty
into adequate account. He needed to eat more but he forced himself to
imitate, even go beyond, the examples of mortification he saw around
him and thus was brought to a state of nervous and mental exhaustion,
a frequent cause of depression. Before his time, when Saint Teresa of
Avila arrived at a Carmel and found tensions and spiritual battles
there, she first asked everyone to get an extra hour’s sleep! Indeed,
fatigue diminishes our capacity to resist, weakens us and increases
our vulnerability. One of the weapons the devil uses in spiritual
combat, is to overburden us under the appearance of good.

Enrico returned to his family. He also made a stay in a clinic . In
Magdalena’s diary can be found the following notes : there are
“moments when the hand of God has weighed down on us and has plunged
us into suffering… What a month of silence and what suffering at this
time. May God at least put an end to this and give us back our
treasure.” Eight years later, in recalling this period, Enrico would
write, “I was sent to a spa. There God restored my health by giving me
total confidence in His infinite goodness and mercy.”

In May 1887 the depression receded and Enrico fully recovered his
health. He experienced relapses but they were less prolonged and less
serious. Specific remedies for his illness did not exist at that time.
The trial was overcome by a progressively more correct understanding
of God, which brought about a filial relationship based on trust. The
best feature of our Blessed’s spirituality would from then on, be the
consideration of the infinite ocean of mercy found in the Heart of
Jesus, of the maternal tenderness of our Mother, the Most Blessed
Virgin Mary, whom the Church invokes by the consoling title of Health
of the Sick.

During the summer of 1887, Enrico was employed at the hospital in
Como. But shortly thereafter, he was graciously dismissed because,
instead of working in his department, he spent his time in the
hospital wards at the bedside of those sick who were the poorest, the
neediest, the isolated, for whom he sacrificed his last dime and even
his own clothes. He also made numerous visits to the poor and the sick
in their homes. His contact with these sufferings gave birth to his
vocation as a Hospitaller.

In a notebook he jotted down his spiritual program, which was inspired
by the ways of perfection proposed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He
also wrote there: “The Most Blessed Virgin, to whom I have abandoned
myself in order that she might find me a task suited to my weakness,
obtained a position for me in the administrative department of the
civil hospital, where I was working several hours a day. I spent the
rest of the time alone, in pious exercises. Seeing as how I could not
continue in this way and feeling called to embrace religious life, my
spiritual father (when I revealed to him my attraction to the
religious family of Saint Francis) suggested to me that of Saint
Camillus, which seemed to him more suited to my circumstances and also
because he feared for my health. I did it without discussion—I
embraced it immediately.” Reading the life of Saint Camillus confirmed
Enrico in his choice.

On 27 September 1887, Enrico Rebuschini, 27 years old, entered the
Camillians in Verona. The first attitude that he proposed to have was
that of friendliness. This most necessary virtue did not come easily
to him. He already had experience in professional work, while his
companions in the novitiate were still in adolescence and loved
freedom, recreation and noise, quickly turning serious thoughts into
amusing puns. He, therefore, made a point of having a positive opinion
of others, in spite of their faults or irritating attitudes.

His good-naturedness attracted the esteem of his superiors who, in
consideration of the studies he had already completed in Rome, had him
Ordained a Priest during his novitiate, on 14 April 1889. The bishop
of Mantua, who conferred on him the sacrament of Holy Orders, was
Bishop Sarto, the future St Pope Pius X, a friend of the Camillians.
Enrico’s perpetual profession took place on 8 December 1891. But
Father Rebuschini was prone to relapses of nervous depression. These
relapses were a consequence of his predominant fault—a perfectionist
nature which led him to spiritual undertakings that did not take his
nervous frailty into sufficient account. In the years 1890-1891 he
experienced another depression and suffered greatly from a spiritual
trial. Too concerned with thoughts of eternity, he was strongly
tempted to believe he was damned. His appointment as Chaplain to the
hospital allowed him to recover his balance and calmness by helping
him to forget himself in attending to the afflictions of his
neighbour. But in 1895 the beginnings of another depression could be
seen. He had been named Vice-Novice master and Professor of Theology.
However, because of a lack of self-confidence, he considered himself
incapable of taking on these tasks. A state of constant tension
ensued. His superiors had to release him from these responsibilities
and, thanks to God, he quickly regained his stability. Finally, in
1922, a long spell of difficult responsibilities and an overload of
work brought about a final depression which he overcame in a few
months.

In light of these manifestations of depression, one might be tempted
to think that Father Enrico had a gloomy and wavering nature. But it
must be observed that between the attacks of 1895 and 1922, over 25
years of normal activity passed, during which he admirably took upon
himself heavy responsibilities with great generosity. Then, from 1922
until his death in 1938, for over 16 years, he more than ever showed a
stable equilibrium and complete serenity. Father Joseph Moar, who
worked alongside him during the last seven years of the Blessed’s
life, affirmed in the Beatification process that it was only through
biographies that he had learned of the depressions Father Rebuschini
had experienced. “When I knew him, he was utterly balanced and always
his same old self. It had never occurred to me that he might have been
able to suffer from depressions.”

In 1890 Father Enrico was named Chaplain for the military and civil
hospitals in Verona. The clerics and religious, as well as the
soldiers, considered him a saint. His holiness was of itself the
quietest that can be imagined for a chaplain. It was not based on
dazzling deeds but first and foremost, on the exemplarity of his life
in the service he rendered to the sick. In his Apostolate, he had the
gift of touching the most hardened hearts. The parish priest in
Vescovato testified to this: “On more than one occasion, I was at the
bedside of a sick person with Father Enrico. My parishioners, to whom
I had been unable to administer the Sacraments back home, (the parish
of Vescovato had at that time a reputation for being «difficult»)
often would confess and receive Communion with serenity and joy when
they were at the clinic. When I asked them how they came to this
decision to receive the Sacraments, they answered that with a Priest
like Father Enrico, they couldn’t resist because he had the words and
the attitudes to convince them.”

Father Rebuschini’s success with souls can be explained by his union
with God, especially by his pious celebration of the Holy Mass, his
fervent recitation of the breviary, his Adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament and his remarkable love for the Most Blessed Virgin. His
genuflections were marked with great respect. At the elevation of the
Host during the Mass, he would stop for a moment in Adoration. The Our
Father, which is prayed with the very words Jesus used, seemed to him
the most moving moment of the Holy Sacrifice.

At the beginning of May 1899, Father Enrico was sent to the convent in
Cremona. The first charge entrusted to him was that of serving as
Chaplain to the Camillian Sisters. The following year his Superior
also named him the Bursar of his community. A man of interior life and
prayer, Father Enrico carried out this responsibility, which was not
to his liking, in order to do the will of God. He had at his disposal
neither office nor secretary. But he could rely on the cooperation of
active and intelligent Brothers. As part of his regular routine, he
had to buy various goods, fix any plumbing or electrical failures,
keep the clinic’s operating room functioning, make the vegetable
garden and henhouse at least marginally profitable, oversee the
production of wine in the cellars and prepare the salary budgets. But
the extraordinary labours continued over the course of the
years—renovating the kitchen, connecting to the city electric system,
roof repairs, installation of central heating, not to mention
difficulties caused by the insolvency of the bank in which the
community’s modest savings were kept…

Father Rebuschini exercised the duties of Bursar for 35 years, until
1937. But starting in 1938, his strength began to fail. He was 78
years old. “Father Enrico’s last days were marked by exemplary
serenity and perfect abandon to Divine Providence,” a
neuropsychiatrist who studied the saint’s life from a medical
standpoint reported during the Beatification proceedings. In the first
days of May, having received the Sacrament of the Sick, Father Enrico
asked forgiveness of everyone for the bad examples he might have
given, for his imperfections, for everything that might have offended
anyone. He also asked that they pray for him, leaving to God any
judgement on his life on earth. On 9 May at 6 o’clock in the morning,
Father Vanti celebrated Mass in Father Enrico’s room. At the moment of
receiving Communion, the dying man stretched out his arms, received
the Body of the Lord with great piety, then folded his arms and was
absorbed in prayer. The supreme meeting with his beloved Lord took
place on 10 May at 5:30 in the morning. His funeral and burial were
held on 12 May.

On 4 May 1997, after the approval of a miracle, St Pope John Paul,
Beatified Blessed Enrico at Peter’s Square. “His example,” said the
Holy Father during the Beatification celebration, “constitutes for all
believers an urgent invitation to pay attention to the sick and to
those who suffer in body and spirit.”

Through the intercession of Blessed Enrico Rebuschini, let us pray for
ourselves in this time of great tribulation, for our loved ones, for
all those who are ill, for all those who find themselves faced with
nervous weaknesses or diseases, so common in the modern world and for
all your intentions.

https://anastpaul.com/2020/05/10/


Mary’s Patience

She knew that her divine Son had it in His power to spare both Himself
and her, all this suffering and humiliation.
Even, when they lived in Nazareth, she knew that He had power to
multiply loaves of bread, change water into wine, or annihilate His
enemies.
But she never asked Him to do any of these things.
All she ever asked for, was a life of intimacy with Jesus.
She was happy to co-operate patiently with Him, in the work of
redeeming the human race.
By humbly following Him as far as Calvary, she merited to follow Him
triumphantly into Heaven on the day of her Assumption.”
by Antonio Cardinal Bacci


Saint Quote:
It is not possible ever to exhaust the mind of the Scriptures. It is a
well that has no bottom.
--St. John Chrysostom

Bible Quote:
"There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless
their mother. A generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet
are not washed from their filthiness. A generation whose eyes are
lofty, and their eyelids lifted up on high. A generation that for
teeth hath swords, and grindeth with their jaw teeth, to devour the
needy from off the earth, and the poor from among men." (Prov.
30:11-14) DRB


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Prayer:
"Lord Jesus, you are the living bread which sustains me in this life.
May I always hunger for the bread which comes from heaven and find in
it the nourishment and strength I need to love and serve you
wholeheartedly. May I always live in the joy, peace, and unity of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both now and in the age to come."