St. Robert Bellarmine - Patron of Catechists - May 13th
Robert was born in Italy. As a boy, he was not much interested in playing games. He liked to spend his playtime in repeating to his younger brothers and sisters the sermons he had heard and in explaining the lessons in catechism to the little farm children of the neighborhood. Once he had made his first Holy Communion, he used to receive Jesus every Sunday.
Robert’s father hoped to make a famous gentleman out of his son. For this reason, he wanted him to study many subjects and music and art, too. Whenever a song had words that were not nice, Robert would make up holy words of his own. “My voice is no good for singing things that are not pure,” he would say.
It was his great desire to become a Jesuit priest, but his father had quite different plans for him. For a whole year, Robert worked to persuade his father and at last, when he was eighteen, he was permitted to enter the Jesuits. As a young Jesuit, he did very well in his studies and was sent to preach even before he became a priest. When one good women first saw such a young man, not even a priest yet, going up into the pulpit to preach, she knelt down to pray that he would not become frightened and stop in the middle. When he finished his sermon, she stayed kneeling, but now she was thanking God for the magnificent sermon this brilliant preacher had given!
St. Robert Bellarmine became a famous writer, preacher and teacher. He wrote thirty-one important books. Three hours every day he spent in prayer. Because of his great knowledge of sacred matters, he was declared a Doctor of the Church. Yet, even when he had become a Cardinal, he considered the catechism so important, that he himself taught it to his household and to the people.
Let us not miss through our own fault even one religion class, and let us make up our minds to get the best marks in this subject.