“If you want praise, die. If you want blame,
marry.”
Irish saying
Monday, March 16, 2020
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
200th 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 “GNOTHISEAUTON.” 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 10th 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
aboutdifferent 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 15th – plus today Monday March 16th
– 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!
