KNOWING ST.  CLEMENT  HOFBAUER -

KNOWING YOURSELF IS TOUGH ENOUGH

INTRODUCTION

Our Redemptorist General Government recommends that we say something about Saint Clement Hofbauer today – since yesterday was the actual anniversary of his death – but it was a Sunday.

Moreover,  it’s the 200^th Anniversary of his death in Vienna, Austria, March 15, 1820.

So,  I began reading up and thinking about St. Clement Hofbauer a bit yesterday. After St. Alphonsus – San Alfonso in Italian – St. Clement is our second founder. Without them we wouldn’t be here together this morning.

After a bit of thinking, I came up with a title for some thoughts: “Knowing St. Clement Hofbauer – Knowing Yourself Is Tough Enough.”

KNOW YOURSELF

Most of us have heard the old Greek saying, “Know Yourself.”  In Greek it’s “GNOTHI  SEAUTON.” It shows up in literature and in advice columns and on the wall of the temple of Apollo in Delphi. It’s been in Greek and then Western thought since at least the 10^th Century B.C.

‘GNOTHI SEAUTON”!   Say those Greek words a few times and you’ll be begin to hear the English word, “know” in the Greek word, “GNOTHI” and “auto” in “SEAUTON”.

We spend much of our life trying to figure ourselves and others out – and much of the time, we scratch our head in frustration.

In a divorce and in a hurt how many times have we said of another, “I thought I knew him or her” as well as, “I didn’t realize I could be so stupid.”

A SAINT WALKED INTO A BAR

I was reading in a book on St. Clement Hofbauer yesterday that the number one story about St. Clement is the story about him going into a pub.  It’s in all the biographies of Clement.  He’s running an orphanage and he needs money so he goes into a pub and asks for money.  A guy - seeing he’s a priest spits in his face and ridicules him and gets a laugh.  And Clement says, “Okay the spit is for me. Thank you. I deserve it. What I want is money for my orphans.” And he gets a hat full of coins.

Well, Otto Weiss,  the author of an article, “The Changing Image of Clement Hofbauer,”   says it’s a common story and is told about  different  holy people.

Otto Weiss then says that he checked it out and the odds are good that this actually happened to Clement – based on his track record of helping kids, raising money, and his great concern for the poor. [Confer page 166 in “The Changing Image of Clement Hofbauer,”  in the book, Saint Clement Hofbauer, His Writings and Spirituality, edited by Raymond Corriveau, CSSR

A LOT MORE

Then I read an eyeful and a mindful of information about Clement.

Otto Weiss, the author of article I mentioned, said that authors used the life of Clement in various ways based on their theology and their agenda – and how they saw the church in Europe from 1820 to our times.

My knowledge of who St. Clement was is based on how two writers presented him: Jim Galvin who wrote Listen Vienna and John Hofer who wrote St. Clement Maria Hofbauer: A Biography.

I realized last night – once more - that I can say of Clement Hofbauer what the authors of a biography of John F. Kennedy said, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”.  That’s a 1972 memoir of JFK written by David Powers, Kenneth O’Donnell with collaboration help from Joe McCarthy.

Every time I have done a funeral I ask people about the deceased. I get details about their life. And that’s only one part of biography. Character – personality is another. I love eulogies – because I know so little about the person who died.

I know there are jokes about eulogies at times:  People say things like, “Are we at the right funeral?”

CONCLUSION

If we read the live of St. Clement Hofbauer or St. Alphonsus or how the Redemptorists came to the United States, we hear about their plans for starting in a certain place, but that plan doesn’t work – and we start somewhere else.

This March 15^th – plus today Monday March 16^th – we celebrate a saint named Clement Hofbauer – who came down to Italy – gets ordained with a guy named Thaddeus Hubl – and is sent immediately back over the Alps to Austria – but ends up in Warsaw.  However, if all else fails they say we might go Sweden.

Life has many broken plans and many conflicts and different chess moves. Isn’t that true in most lives?  

We hear about saints, so we might become saints – and do the good they did – hopefully.

Redemptorists never did get to Sweden – but I did. Surprise!