John de Britto was born into an aristocratic family in Portugal in 1647. Inspired by the famous Jesuit missionary to Asia, St Francis Xavier, de Britto joined the Jesuit religious order at the age of 15 with a desire to become a missionary. He traveled to southern India as a missionary in 1673 where he was given the name Arul Anandar in Tamil, which means ”filled with grace.” He gained many converts to the Christian faith. He was imprisoned in 1684 by governmental officials in India and returned to Portugal several years later. He returned to India in 1690 with 24 more missionaries. He was executed in 1693, due to anger about the converts he was bringing to the Christian faith. He was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1947. He is an example of faith for all of us in our evangelization efforts for his courage and perseverance in bringing the Gospel message to the people of India.
In a psalm attributed to King David, we hear today: Lord, forgive the wrong I have done. In a verse from psalm 32 that is omitted in today’s reading, it states: “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (Psalm 32:3–4). Our guilt can crush us. God wants us to be contrite for our sins, to make amends for what we have done, to repent and turn away from our sins, and to try to resist temptation. In my different ministries over the years, I have worked with individuals who are trying to deal with substance abuse addictions, and even in their guilt and remorse, it is so difficult for them to leave those addictions behind and to resist temptation. May we open our hearts to God’s mercy and forgiveness.
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