When others ran away

Peter was a prodigy: he earned his Master’s degree by the time he was 19. He could have been successful at many different things, but he chose to commit his life to a disaster.

Scandal after scandal had rocked the Catholic Church. The priests seemed either totally detached from the real lives of people or openly indulging in earthly things. Walking into a church and listening to what was being said, one sometimes needed a tremendous leap of faith to imagine that it had anything to do with the Christ of the Gospels. Many people were running away from the Church and many others were attacking it.

But Peter had faith and he felt called to do what he could to rebuild the Church as a community of faith in Jesus Christ. He became a Jesuit. He traveled and spoke widely and wrote extensively. He defended the Church vigorously against its attackers and worked to reform the lives and education of the Catholic clergy, even at its highest levels. He preached Christ to the multitudes and consoled victims of sectarian strife.

Many would later say that he almost single-handedly saved the Church in his adopted country.

St. Peter Canisius, sometimes called the “Second Apostle of Germany,” died on this very day in 1597.