We customarily begin and end our novenas on important feasts of Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother or an important saint. We call to Our Lord, Our Lady under their title honored in the feast, or take the Saint as our patron. The novena that is ending today on the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, one of the great lights of the Counter-Reformation. To demonstrate his relevance to our time, we include the following story that is taken from the Saint of the Day feature in the Tradition In Action website. St. Charles Borromeo teaches something about true humility that is often lost in our present day.
A Cardinal, as you know, is supposed to dress with
pomp, grandeur, and solemnity to glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ before men. In
addition to being a Prince of the Church, St. Charles Borromeo was a temporal
Lord in Milan, born into a great and noble Italian family. In his 20s, he was
entrusted with the responsible post of Papal Secretary of State. Therefore, he
used to dress and appear in great style.
Once his carriage was on its way to one of his
appointments when a simple friar, who was walking on the road, approached it.
St. Charles Borromeo ordered the driver to stop the vehicle. The friar greeted
him and said:
“Your Eminence, how nice it must be to live the life
of a Cardinal, to wear such splendid clothes and travel in a magnificent
carriage! Surely it is much more agreeable than to be a simple friar like me,
and walk by foot.”
Cardinal Borromeo kindly invited the friar to
accompany him. The friar seated himself next to the Cardinal and the journey
re-commenced. Shortly the friar began to cry out in pain, because the beautiful
cushions of the benches were placed over a board of sharp iron nails of penance
that the Cardinal normally used to mortify himself. The pain became more acute
with every movement of the vehicle. The friar could not support such
mortification, and begged that the carriage stop for him to get out. Relieved,
he returned to his "walk by foot."
That is to say, the silks and crystals of the
luxurious carriage were meant to be seen by the people to glorify God and the
dignity of his post. Underneath the splendid appearance of a Cardinal, the
Saint continued to practice penance for his sins and those of his flock.
We can ask St. Charles Borromeo to intercede with Our
Lord and Our Lady for several things on his feast day:
for the reform of today’s Bishops who so often are
very different from the model he represented,
for the restoration of the seminaries, so immersed in
bad morals and false doctrine,
and finally, for the restoration of the entire Holy
Catholic Church today as he helped to restore her in his times.
For ourselves personally, we might ask him to give us
his vigilance against heresy and his heroic sense of sacrifice.
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