St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

This is why faithful Christians are always courageous defenders of peace, in all its forms: since Christ has established His own peace in their hearts, they are able to become peacemakers for others. Take St. Genevieve, for example. She lived in France, in the 400s. Paganism was still strong at that time, and so when her bishop allowed her to follow her vocation to become a consecrated virgin, she stirred up a storm of opposition. Calumny, slander, and abuse accompanied her on her many charitable journeys. At one point her enemies even plotted to drown her. She persevered by uniting her sufferings to Christ's - by taking His yoke upon her, she found rest for her soul.

She spent most of her time doing for others what Christ had done for her: bringing them the peace that comes from experiencing the power of God's unconditional love. For example, when Frankish warrior tribes (they were barbarians) laid siege to Paris, Genevieve risked her life by leading secret excursions out of the city at night in order to gather provisions for the starving Parisians. When Paris eventually fell, it was Genevieve who courageously persuaded the pagan conqueror to release his prisoners and newly enslaved Christians.

Later, when Attila the Hun and his devastating army were approaching Paris, the people and city leaders panicked with fear. It was St. Genevieve who rallied the populace, encouraged the Christians to pray for deliverance, and arranged for a prayer vigil in the Cathedral. For no apparent reason, Attila changed his course and the city was spared. Six hundred years after her death, her relics were carried in procession through Paris as the city prayed for an end to an outbreak of the plague - and the plague ended. It's no wonder she is the Church's official patron saint for disasters. Good to ask her intercession during this Corona virus disaster. When we are filled with Christ, like St. Genevieve, we overflow with His peace to everyone around us.

In St Genevieve we see a woman of faith, trust, and humility. We are all vulnerable to the sin of pride in our actions and our intellect. Arrogant judgmentalism is just as common at the barbershop and the truck stop as it is in the ivory tower of academia. And the older we get, the more likely we are to put everything the Church teaches, and everything everyone else says, on trial, with our limited and prejudiced intelligence as the sole judge. But whenever we do that, we are following in the footsteps of the Pharisees, cutting ourselves off from God's light and wisdom, turning off our "childlike" wonder.

So how can we avoid falling into this temptation? Besides staying close to Christ through personal prayer and the sacraments, we need to adopt the Sherlock Holmes Policy. Sherlock Holmes was a great detective because he never rested until he discovered the full meaning of every clue.

We should do the same with our faith. The things God has revealed to us, that we profess in the Creed and read in the Catechism, are not meant to be the end of our search for understanding; they are meant to be its beginning!

The wonders and beauty of God are inexhaustible; there is always more to discover about God and His Creation. And so, it's easy to keep our childlike wonder alive and well, if we just act like Sherlock Holmes, constantly, actively delving into all the truths of faith and nature.

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God is a mystery Who wants to be solved, a lover Who wants to be known. Today, let's stir up our sense of childlike wonder and curiosity, and commit ourselves anew to knowing God better every day, so we can love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.