Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and other speakers at a Steubenville Youth Conference inspired 1,800 Catholic teenagers to live their faith openly. Cardinal Dolan charmed the youth with his trademark sense of humor early on in his homily.
"I'm a little uncomfortable today having Mass in a gym," he said, gesturing toward his stomach, "because I don't go to gyms very often. That's all right, because nowhere are we more at home than to gather around the table of Jesus Christ."
The cardinal preached about St. Dominic's work with the Albigensians, a 12th-century sect.
"They had such a lofty concept of God, and they just went off the wrong track," he said. "(They thought), 'How could God leave heaven and enter this stupid, sinful, corrupt, dirty world?' They said, 'This Incarnation is a big, fat lie, and we don't believe it. God could not have been conceived in the womb of a woman. God could not have sweated and cried and been nailed to a cross.'"
Eventually, St. Dominic convinced the Albigensians the Incarnation was real.
St. Dominic also created the rosary, Cardinal Dolan said, to let Mary complete his task for him.
"If we could restore Mary to the minds and imaginations of people, then we'll have no trouble restoring the truth of the Incarnation," he said. "Mary prevents God from being a myth or just a nice idea or a concept."
Born during the turbulent era of the French Revolution, Saint Jeanne Jugan rose above hardship and a lack of formal schooling to become a profound vessel of Christ’s mercy. After losing her father at a young age and working through her youth as a kitchen maid and nurse, her life radically changed one freezing night when she encountered a blind, paralyzed elderly woman with nowhere to go. Jeanne carried the woman back to her own home, placed her in her own bed, and began a lifelong mission of radical hospitality. This act of profound love blossomed into the Little Sisters of the Poor , a thriving community dedicated to sheltering and honoring the destitute elderly. Despite later facing heavy trials—including being unjustly sidelined and stripped of her leadership by a controlling chaplain—Jeanne accepted her obscurity and exile with a joyful spirit, resting her complete trust in God's hidden providence until her death in 1879. In our daily lives, Saint Jeanne Jugan invites us to lo...