Do You Celebrate Your Baptism Birthday?

[ExCorde]

It's fascinating you bring this up because I discovered what my baptism day was a few days ago and this thought of celebrating it by going to Mass or knowing more about the saint of the day came to my mind!

It's July 17th for me, I can't see any saint in the universal liturgical calendar, but thanks to catholic.org I found a huge list of them, including a group of carmelite nuns martyred during the French Revolution.

In the Portuguese Divine Office there's also a group of jesuits who were martyred on a boat by anti-catholic corsairs near the Canary islands.

It's funny that I consider my spiritual sensitivity mainly as both ignatian and carmelite (although I think I'm more drawn to dominicans than jesuits because of some recent great authors among the former and the current troubles among the latter). So this is a bit providential, I think!

[vee]

Ive never celebrated my baptism day before but have found out its Feb10 the feast of St Scholastica, which is rapidly approaching, so I might do something this year. I dont know much about her but my fav story is how she prayed for a storm so her brother (St Benedict) could stay to visit longer as she was enjoying the conversation so much.

[JenDeMaria]

[quote name='ExCorde' timestamp='1296916438' post='2209008']

It's July 17th for me, I can't see any saint in the universal liturgical calendar, but thanks to catholic.org I found a huge list of them, including a group of carmelite nuns martyred during the French Revolution.

It's funny that I consider my spiritual sensitivity mainly as both ignatian and carmelite (although I think I'm more drawn to dominicans than jesuits because of some recent great authors among the former and the current troubles among the latter). So this is a bit providential, I think!
[/quote]

Ohh! That's the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne! A contemporary of St. Edith Stein, Gertrud Von Le Fort, wrote a novella called "Song at the Scaffold" which is about the beautiful story of these nuns and their desire to follow the Lamb even to the guillotine (it's wonderful and I highly recommend it). The novella, wildly popular in its day, was then turned into an opera "Les Dialogues des Carmelites" by Poullanc. After a recent anniversary of the Revolution and the martyrdom of the Carmelites, ICS (the Institute for Carmelite Studies) published a wonderful short history of these nuns and their martyrdom titled To Quell the Terror. I highly recommend this, too.

They are all blesseds now and I pray that they will be cannonized.

To be slightly more on topic, I always celebrate the anniversary of my conditional-baptism by attending Mass at the Easter vigil, but I also celebrate my decision to enter the Church every year on August 15th.

[tinytherese]

[quote name='vee8' timestamp='1296924224' post='2209031']
Ive never celebrated my baptism day before but have found out its Feb10 the feast of St Scholastica, which is rapidly approaching, so I might do something this year. I dont know much about her but my fav story is how she prayed for a storm so her brother (St Benedict) could stay to visit longer as she was enjoying the conversation so much.
[/quote]

I found St. Benedict's reaction to that hilarious and it so shows how they are siblings!

[ExCorde]

[quote name='JenDeMaria' timestamp='1296959591' post='2209193']
Ohh! That's the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne![/quote]

Yes they are! Wow I need to check that stuff, I got the list handy:

Song at the Scaffold - Sophia Institute Press 2001, ISBN:978-1928832348

To Quell the Terror: The Mystery of the Vocation of the Sixteen Carmelites of Compiegne Guillotined July 17, 1794 - ICS Publications 1999, ISBN:978-0935216677

Dialogues des carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) - Francis Poulenc (1957) [can't find it but there's some references at the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogues_of_the_Carmelites"]Wikipedia page[/url]]

[tinytherese]

[quote name='ExCorde' timestamp='1296916438' post='2209008']

It's funny that I consider my spiritual sensitivity mainly as both ignatian and carmelite (although I think I'm more drawn to dominicans than jesuits because of some recent great authors among the former and the current troubles among the latter). So this is a bit providential, I think!
[/quote]

Funny, because I think like an Ignatian and yet I consider myself to pray like a Carmelite and am drawn to that spirituality, especially the Carmelite saints.

[JenDeMaria]

[quote name='ExCorde' timestamp='1297010286' post='2209336']

Dialogues des carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) - Francis Poulenc (1957) [can't find it but there's some references at the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogues_of_the_Carmelites"]Wikipedia page[/url]]
[/quote]

Oops, sorry, spelled his name wrong.

If you don't mind watching it in French sans subtitles, you can see it on Gloria tv here: http://gloria.tv/?media=88487

[ExCorde]

[quote name='tinytherese' timestamp='1297012865' post='2209346']
Funny, because I think like an Ignatian and yet I consider myself to pray like a Carmelite and am drawn to that spirituality, especially the Carmelite saints.
[/quote]

Exactly! Back when these orders got started (Jesuits and Discalced Carmelites), around the same time, they sort of got specialized in two essential modes of action: a movement towards the outside of the chapel by "finding God in all things" (which is why discernment is key) and a movement directly towards heaven, begging the Lord for a "shower of roses (graces)" (because they were acutely aware of the needs and demands of the secular world as well, even for the survival of this way of life). What I find the most curious is that Ignatius was never declared a Doctor of the Church, whereas both O.C.D. founders and then later the Little Flower were (they learned more "straight from above", while Canisius and Bellarmine, the two Jesuit Doctors, were man of great science, pedagogy and also secular influence).

We can look at Thérèse de Lisieux as the corollary of this: a young, cloistered girl that became the patron of missions. The way I look at it is that since then, for the last four centuries, we still didn't have the need for something much different than those and these spiritualities are very fruitful: rooted in the contemplative life but also with a clear vocation to bring out the best from creation, in our families, our work, our studies, and the needs of everyone around us. So I find them to have been quite complementary from the start! Not to mention that the spiritual directors to Carmelites were often Jesuit priests and that families often had siblings going into both orders (Jesuits being the "active manly" order).

[quote name='JenDeMaria' timestamp='1297037194' post='2209484']
If you don't mind watching it in French sans subtitles, you can see it on Gloria tv here: [url="http://gloria.tv/?media=88487"]http://gloria.tv/?media=88487[/url]
[/quote]

That's great, thanks a bunch! Although they talk really fast..

[Maria]

In my family we celebrate baptismal anniversaries (bap. days for short). Whomever's baptismal anniversary it is gets to choose the meals (as with birthdays and name days), and at supper desert we light the baptismal candle, sing a song, & everyone's supposed to honour the person for something. That's also when the parents give their present, rather than at the birthday. Um... and sometimes the person also renews their baptismal promises. That's what I did here at school.

The saints of my baptismal anniversary are:
* St. Jude Thaddaeus
* St. Simon of Zealot
* St. Abraham
* St. Anastasia II
* St. Anglinus
* St. Salvius
* St. Eadsin
* St. Ferrutius
* St. Fidelis of Como
* St. Godwin
* St. Faro
* St. Honoratus of Vercelli
* St. Joachim Royo, Blessed
* St. John Dat
* St. Remigius

Maybe I'm a hopeless case?

Edited February 10, 2011 by Maria

[ExCorde]

That sounds pretty amesome Maria! St. Faro, cool name!