Fortitude for Living

You may have never heard of this guy: Francis Xavier Seelos. He was a priest who volunteered to work in New Orleans in 1866 at the height of the yellow fever epidemic there. He only lasted one year before he died of the disease. Now he is on track to be canonized a saint and there is a shrine to him at St. Mary's Assumption Church in the Irish Channel (sometimes also known as the Garden district) of New Orleans. Today, October 5, is his feast day.

Fortunately, the church and the shrine did not sustain much damage from hurricane Katrina. You can check it out at this site: Seelos Center News and Updates. The whole site is quite interesting and informative if you surf around on it.

We have heard mostly about the cities of New Orleans and Gulfport since the hurricanes. But another place I am familiar with is St. Stanislaus High School in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I know a couple of the teachers there and have visited the place. Here are two sites that desctibe and show how devastating the hurricane was there, too: Letter from the President; and photos.

Now back to Seelos. He's called the cheerful ascetic because no matter what faced him, he smiled. In a small booklet called, Befriended, (Byron Miller, C.Ss.R., Liguori Publications) Seelos is quoted as saying, "Have a reason to live, and know how to sacrifice yourself for it." Certainly the folks who are trying to rebuild their cities and their lives after the two hurricanes the south has just endured will have to have strong wills to live, to rebuild, and to carry on.

While I do not live in the path of the hurricane, I still have to ask myself at times, "What is my reason for living?" and "What am I willing to sacrifice for that?"