Surfer Dude!!!
Way to go, Pope Francis!
You’ve picked such great winners this time, we can hardly wait to see your next Fantasy Football line-up.
For those who are (or are not) following the Argentinian pope’s latest selections – neither futbol (soccer) or Australian or American football (Yes! They’re different!), here’s the story.
On May 20, Pope Francis quietly named his latest “Top Nine” [We’re kidding.] candidates for future sainthood.
While an Italian priest murdered for protecting Italian Jews topped the first-round list [Hey, we’re caught-up in the sports talk. Please pardon us for the moment; we can’t help it.], it’s a Brazilian surfer who would make the covers of Surfing Magazine and Surfing Illustrated, as well as People.
And it’s a good bet that Guido Vidal França Schäffer will make it to the Surfing Hall of Fame in California’s Huntington Beach.
Born in 1974, this son of a doctor (his father) and an active member of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement (his mother), Guido grew up on the beaches of Copacabana, where he learned to surf. [Please pardon us for calling him by his first name. He looks and surfed like a “dude” and calling him “Guido” just seems natural.] He studied Medicine at Brazil’s Technical Educational Foundation Souza Marques (1993-1998) and, while still a student, dedicated himself to the care of HIV patients at the Evandro Chagas Hospital
Following his residency, Guido joined the staff of the House of Mercy in Rio as a general practitioner in order to serve his patients as complete persons rather than parts in a medical specialty.
During a retreat in 1999, a priest quoted
“Never turn your face from the poor,
and God will never turn his face from you.”
The Book of Tobit (Tobias) 4:7
Guido’s prayerful response was simple: “Jesus, help me take care of the poor.”
Appropriate quotes for what happened next might be:
“Coincidences are God’s way of getting our attention.”
Frederick Buechner
or
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
Albert Einstein
Nonetheless, a week later, Guido encountered Sisters from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, whose commitment is to care for the “poorest of the poor.”
His prayerful petition was answered and he found the direction for his medical career – volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity and serving the homeless on the streets of Rio. He also organized other physicians to assist at the House of Mercy and engaged young people in prayer groups before setting out together to surf.
By some reports already engaged to be married, a chance [?] encounter with Ignacio Larranaga’s The Brother Francis of Assisi provoked a new direction for young Guido, who began preparations for the priesthood at the Rio Institute of Philosophy and Theology – combining seminary studies with his volunteer medical work and lay preaching ministry among the surfers of Copacabana. At one point, he told a surfing buddy, “I want to live the experience of surrendering myself to the hand of God.”
Sister Caritas of the Missionaries of Charity recalled that, in treating patients, Dr. Guido took care of “both their body and their soul. He used to pray with and for each of them.”
Big wave surfer Rodrigo Resende told the Brazilian publication Veja Rio, “I have never seen someone treat the marginalized with such respect. The inner peace that he radiated was impressive.”
The anonymous author of a brief biography noted:
“Guido had once confided to some friends
that if God allowed, he would like to die in the sea,
where he could feel God speaking to him through Nature.”
On at May 1, 2009, at Rio’s Recreio dos Bandeirantes beach, at age thirty-four and just weeks before he was to be ordained a priest, this physician, healer, dynamic leader of young people and his fellow professionals, and enthusiastic surfer led a group of young people whom he was teaching how to surf in prayer before dashing into the sea. Shortly afterward, he hit his head on his surfboard, injured his neck and drowned.
Archbishop – now Cardinal – of Rio de Janeiro Orni Joao Tempesta presided at the Mass of the Resurrection in the Church of Our Lady of Copacabana. It is reported that 1,7000 people, including approximately seventy priests and three bishops, were there to pay tribute to the healer and surfer. Before the coffin was closed at the end of the Mass, the archbishop declared, “This church so full shows me how this young man was a good shepherd, and as I know of his desire to become I priest, I will put the stole [that is the symbol of the priestly office] in his hands.” The archbishop then place a priestly stole in the hands of the young surfer.
Following his death, reports quickly emerged of cures attributed to young Guido’s intersession. With permission from the Vatican, the – too long – road to sainthood was initiated by Cardinal Tempesta, who officially bestowed the title “Servant of God” on the young doctor and surfer.
Tempesta has called Guido’s life an inspiration, saying: “You can be young, like the beach, surfing, singing, and at the same time have a heart set on God, being a witness to him in front of people, being an example of Christian life.”
The Brazilian priest popularly known as Father Jorjao and Guido biographer has written, “I have never seen someone with so much faith and at the same time so normal. Anyone who knew him was sure they were dealing with someone from God.”
With his signature on May 20, Pope Francis declared that this surfer dude, who had already been named a “Servant of God” by the Cardinal and “Anjo Surfista” or “Surfer Angel” by the people of Brazil, is to be known as “Venerable Guido Vidal França Schäffer.”
Way to go, Pope Francis!
Guiseppe Beotti was born in 1912 in a small town just south of Naples; three years later his father, a farm laborer, was forced to leave his family to fight in World War I. Despite his family’s lack of financial resources, he managed to attend seminary in northern Italy.
At age 25, he was ordained a priest in April 1938, immediately distinguishing himself through his charitable work on behalf of the poor and his commitment to the formation of young people. Two years later, he was named pastor of the parish in Sidolo, a tiny town in the Apennine Mountains in northwestern Italy. He was completely nonpartisan – helping partisans, Jews, soldiers, and the wounded of World War II – and was zealous in his defense of his parishioners.
After the German invasion of Sidolo in Operation Wallenstein, a series of partisan roundups by Nazi-Fascist forces, and despite threats, Father Beotti remained - “To give them [approximately 100 Jews] refuge,” the Vatican Dicastery [Office] for the Causes of Saints noted. The priest “mobilized all the parishioners” and helped them hide and feed the refugees. “The Germans searched his house, but found nothing.” Nonetheless, they kept him in custody while they pushed for more information.
Together with another priest and six others, Father Beotti was arrested and murdered on July 20, 1944 – one month shy of his thirty-second birthday; he died while holding his breviary and making the Sign of the Cross. Italy had already surrendered to Allied forces on September 8, 1943 and Germany would surrender on May 7, 1945.
The help Father Beotti “offered to many Jewish people persecuted by the Nazi-Fascists played a decisive role in his death,” according to the report released by the Vatican Dicastery.
The pope’s formal recognition of Father Beotti as a martyr clears his way to beatification – the penultimate step toward being declared a saint.
With Pope Francis’s May 20 signature declaring that Italian Capuchin Sister Edda Roda (1940-1996), who lived in Bergamo, had lived a life of “heroic virtue,” she was declared a “Servant of God” – the initial step on the road to sainthood – and was cited for bearing witness to perseverance in the Faith despite suffering. Sister Edda experienced “asthenic syndrome” – today it may be referred to as “a syndrome of chronic fatigue,” characterized by constant fatigue and apathy, difficulties with concentrating, decreased ability to work and learn, and the rapid exhaustion of nervous processes.
Nonetheless, she bravely attempted to bring a smile to the families she visited, organizing prayer meetings and accompanying people in painful situations
During one of the “popular missions” she carried out in Italy between 1980 and 1995, Sister Edda was beaten and raped by three men – a trauma she kept secret and shared only with a cousin and would not allow to stop her missionary activity.
In the last year of her life, she was diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer and offered her suffering as an act of prayer for those whom she loved.
She was honored for her heroic virtue in the face of great personal suffering.
Too many mistakenly believe that Anglican/Episcopalian and Roman Catholics “pray to” and “worship” the saints of our Churches.
We understand the mistake.
Our Churches do not worship the saints.
Perhaps a healthy understanding of our relationships is that the saints are just plain people. People who dug deep into their own souls and served, sometimes heroically. They are folks with whom we form relationships and with whom we carry-on prayerful friendships. These friends are People of Faith who, like the “surfer angel,” are men and women – and more than a small crowd of children and teens – who have known our day-to-day struggles and remained faithful. They’re friends we can turn to in the quiet of our hearts and minds and souls and ask to travel our journeys with us.
Sister Edda Roda was raped and yet continued to smile (and we suspect, supported other women who suffered in guilt, shame and silence their own rapes) as she lived a life of service. Guido invited the friends whom he was teaching to surf to pray with him before running into the ocean and to accompany him into the slums of Rio when he went to serve the forgotten poor. Father Giuseppe was just a small-town boy and the son of a farm laborer. He never expected to confront Nazi murderers. Yet, the young priest encouraged all the people of his small village to confront the ugliest aspects of antisemitism – and stayed “faithful unto death.” (Revelation 2:10)
In a nation and world torn by conflicting self-interests and outright selfishness, it just may be time to remember the words that changed the life of the Surfer Angel:
“Never turn your face from the poor,
and God will never turn his face from you.”
The Book of Tobit (Tobias) 4:7