TEXT: The Solemnity of St. Raymond Of Peñafort, January 12, 2025

January 12, 2025 Father De Celles Homily


The Solemnity of St. Raymond of Peñafort

January 12, 2025

Homily by Fr. John De Celles

St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church

Springfield, VA


Today we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Raymond of Peñafort,

the patron of our parish.

His feast is normally celebrated on January 7,

but this year, so we could all celebrate it together,

the Church allows me to transfer the celebration to the next Sunday, today.


Most Catholics don’t know much about St. Raymond, if they’ve heard of him at all.

Most of those who are familiar with him know him only as great canon lawyer,

the “father” of “canon law.”

Which he is, and that is the direct reason this parish was named after him:

the bishop at the time of our founding, good Bishop John Keating, was

himself a renowned canon lawyer, and so St. Raymond was his patron saint.

But being the father of canon law and the patron of all lawyers,

            both canon and civil,

                        doesn’t automatically make you a saint.

And this was not the main reason Keating named him our patron.

Rather, as a canon lawyer, Bishop Keating came to know Raymond of Peñafort

            as a holy, zealous, brilliant, and humble man–an amazing saint.

And so he gave him to us as our great patron not to make us all good lawyers,

            but to help make us saints.


There is so much to know about St. Raymond.

He was born in 1194, the son of the Count of Barcelona, Aragon (now Spain).

He began his ecclesiastic career at twenty years old,

            and after ordination and earning doctorates in both canon and civil law,

he became a professor at the famous University of Bologña.

There, he soon became famous for his preaching and teaching.


He gained even more fame

            when he was about forty-three and Our Lady appeared to him.

At that time, Muslim pirates would raid Christian ships and capture

            the Christians onboard, forcing them to convert and/or selling them as slaves.

So the Blessed Mother, or Our Lady of Ransom,

            asked Raymond to help one of his students, Peter Nolasco,

            to establish a new religious order,

                        which we know today as the Mercedarians,

            to ransom these Christian captives of Muslims 

            either by raising money to buy their freedom,

            or even exchanging their own lives for the lives of the captives.


Strangely, though, Raymond did not become a Mercedarian.

Rather, Our Lord called him

            to use his tremendous intellectual and preaching talents

            by joining the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans.

So, at age forty-seven, he gave up  

all his ecclesiastic and academic honors and all his family wealth

to become a poor, humble, obedient novice friar.


But knowing the gift God had given them in Raymond,

            his Dominican superiors soon ordered him

to write a book laying out his tremendous knowledge

of the sacrament of Confession for use by confessors, priests.

And so he wrote the Summa de Casibus Poenitentiae,

            which was very quickly recognized

            as the most authoritative and helpful book on Confession,

            and was used in all the universities for centuries.


Not surprisingly, the pope at the time, Pope Gregory IX,

read the Summa Casibus

and called Raymond to Rome to be his personal confessor and theologian.

He eventually appointed him “grand penitentiary,”

the chief judge of the Church over all moral questions and confessions.

This is what the silver key we see Raymond usually depicted as carrying means

            in so many pictures: St. Peter’s key to bind and loosen sins.


The Pope also gave him another historic task:

to pull together all the various laws that existed in the church,

issued over eleven centuries, in different decrees, bulls, and other legislations,

and to synthesize and coordinate them into one book, or code.

He was able to finish this huge project in less than four years,

            and the Pope ordered that this would be the primary source of Church law

—which it remained for 700 years until it was updated in 1917.


This is why he is known as the Father of Canon Law and the patron of lawyers.

Now, you might say, “That’s nice, but who cares?”

I mean, what does canon law have to do with

            being Catholic, being holy, or loving Jesus?

But people have the wrong idea about canon law.

We have to remember that truly just laws are meant

            to protect people’s rights and well-being,

            define responsibilities, and help a society live in true justice.


The Canon Law is meant to do exactly that:

            to help a billion-plus Catholics to have a common set of rules

            so we can live together in true peace and justice.

And rather than being merely arbitrary ideological or political rules

            made at the whim of partisan politicians or dictators,

            canon law is meant to flow from and be imbued with the justice of Christ,

            to “order our days in His peace,” so to speak.

Yes, some get very technical.

But you have to have that when you deal with different people living in society.

And the most fundamental rule in canon law, and it’s actually there on the books,

is this:

“The salvation of souls…must always be the supreme law in the Church.”


So, really Raymond should be called

            “The Father of the rules that help us to live in justice and peace

                        and for salvation.”

But that’s kind of a mouthful, so we just say the “Father of Canon Law.”

____

So, St. Raymond completed this monumental task of organizing all the laws of the Church, and wearied of all the attention and life in the curia, at the age of sixty years old,

the Pope allowed Raymond to retire and go home to Barcelona.

But the Dominicans wouldn’t let him rest,

            and quickly elected him to be the head of the order,

            3rd Master General after St. Dominic and Bd. Jordan.  

Raymond reluctantly accepted this in humble obedience.

But, after making a much-needed reorganization of the rapidly expanding order,

            he again retired.

At sixty-five he was too old, he said; his time was over…

Then he proceeded to live thirty-five more years to the age of 100,

all the time continuing to preach and write,

            especially dedicated to the conversion of non-Christians.


Now, at the time, many in the Church and civil government wanted to

            force Jews to convert to Christianity by imprisonment or torture,

            or even to banish Jews from their countries entirely.

But Raymond stood against that,

            defending the religious rights and human dignity of the Jews.

In particular, he became a leader in articulating and promoting

            the very different approach that became known

            as the Catholic teaching of “tolerantia” or tolerance.

He defined tolerance as

            “when lesser evils are permitted in order to prevent greater evils.”

And then he clarified, “Quod ea quae permittimus, non approbamus” or

            “That which we permit, we do not approve.”

This is still the basic teaching of the Church on tolerance.

Note that this is very different from the modern woke definition of tolerance,

            which equates tolerance with total approval, acceptance, and promotion.


Also, in those days many wanted to burn all the copies of the Talmud,

            the rabbinic writings that, with the Old Testament,

            had formed the basis of Judaism in the Middle Ages.

But Raymond used his moral and scholarly authority to convince the Pope

            to ban the burning of the Talmud

            and permit only the censoring of those texts that were perceived

            as the most offensive to Christianity.


Now, there’s a huge debate about “censorship” today.

But basically, prior to the American Bill of Rights,

            government censorship was common everywhere,

So, in Raymond’s time, this was considered a huge act of tolerance and

            merciful compromise compared to burning the whole book.


You see, Raymond believed in converting non-Christians, not by force and fear,

but by reason and persuasion.

For example, he famously organized what history calls

            the “Disputation of Barcelona,”

            where a distinguished Rabbi was allowed absolute freedom

            to publicly debate a Dominican theologian

            in the presence of, among others, the King of Aragon.


It’s interesting that in the 13th century, many tried to force people to convert,

            but today many, even at the highest levels of the Church,

            say we shouldn’t even try to convert non-Christians,

            especially by debating with them.

But St. Raymond follows the middle way, the truly Catholic way,

            outlined by Paul in today’s second reading:

            “Proclaim the word;

            be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;

            convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.”

This, in turn, reflects the mandate of Jesus:

            “Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them.”


Raymond didn’t do this just with the Jews;

            he also preached and debated with the Muslims

            and is personally credited with converting over 10,000 of them.

Again, not by coercion, but by reason and persuasion.

To help him do this, he convinced his young friend and fellow Dominican,

            the Great St. Thomas Aquinas,  

            to write his book Summa Contra Gentiles

            to address the theological issues raised in debates with Muslims.

And he convinced the Spanish Dominicans to learn Hebrew and Arabic

            so they could preach to the Jews and Muslims.


And it was during one of his evangelizing efforts

            that he performed what was to be his greatest miracle,

            depicted in our mural.

When he was ninety-five years old Raymond traveled with King James of Aragon

            to the newly conquered Muslim island of Majorca.

He came to preach to the Muslims, but discovered that

            the married and supposedly devout Catholic King James

            had brought his mistress on the trip.

Raymond chastised the King for his adultery and insisted he repent,

            threatening to go back to Barcelona immediately if he didn’t.

But James refused and ordered the captains of all the ships in the harbor

            not to take him aboard.

So our beloved saint, went down to the seaside,

            bowed his head in prayer,

            made the Sign of the Cross over the water,

            and then, tying one end of his long black cloak to his walking staff,

            he threw the other end of his cloak onto the water,

            and, filled with faith in Christ, stepped on it.

The cloak filled with wind, becoming a sail, carrying him miraculously

            160 miles back to Barcelona.

____

This is our patron,

            a great saint and example for people of all ages and every class of life.

Consider how he was saintly as a young man,

            with the courage and humility to pursue the priesthood.

And then in middle age, at age forty-seven,

            humbly accepting God’s call to reject his titles, wealth, and prestige

            to become the lowest ranking novice of the Dominican order.

Then, in his sixties, taking on and accomplishing grand projects

            affecting the life of the whole Church.

And, finally, he courageously continued his preaching till his death at the age of 100.


He is a great saint for us—a great patron for our parish.

Turn to him as an example and as an advocate and intercessor

to teach us to love and serve Jesus Christ, placing nothing before Him;

to love and be guided by the Blessed Mother;

to love our neighbor and our enemies;

to have faith and unwavering hope in Christ and the power of His merciful love;

to have the courage, in Christ, to proclaim truth, justice and mercy,

            and to call even kings and popes to account for their errors and sins;

to strive for true freedom, especially from the chains of sin;

And to offer the love of Christ to all,

at all stages of life, in all occupations,

in riches and in poverty,

in power and in oppression.


Praised be Jesus Christ…

St. Raymond of Peñafort, pray for us.