10/22/2012 – Monday of 29th week in ordinary time – Psalm 100

 St. Peter of Alcantara is a saint whom we celebrate this month.  His saint day is the same as Luke the Evangelist, so he sort of gets lost in the light of Luke’s celebration.  Peter was very much a product of his world, and he tried tried to respond as Church leader to reality & needs of his world. He was a Franciscan priest in the early 16^th century, serving as the confessor and spiritual advisor of the great Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila.  Since he felt called by God to live very simple life, Peter praised God in his poverty. He became the provincial of his Franciscan order, while still performing menial chores with his friars, such as chopping wood and washing dishes.  He realized true role of his poverty in his life of faith, as he remarked in a letter to Teresa: “I do not praise poverty for poverty's sake; I praise only that poverty which we patiently endure for the love of our crucified Redeemer… I consider this far more desirable than the poverty we undertake for the sake of poverty itself.”  During Peter’s lifetime, he witnessed the Protestant Reformation, in which many believers left the faith and there was a rigid backlash within Church.  He realized that Church needed to reform, so both he and Teresa of Avila were at the forefront of the reform movement in Spain, trying to return to foundations of early Church and the beginnings of their religious communities - the Franciscans and Carmelites. 

         I thought about Peter Alcantara, our saint for today, when I read today’s psalm, as it spoke about singing joyfully to the Lord and serving him with gladness.  Peter’s life was not an easy way.  He did not choose the easy path.  He had to respond to a very difficult, complex reality that was present in 16^th century Spain.  Yet, Peter Alcantara responded as best as he could, and he served the Lord with a joyful heart and with service out of his humility and poverty.  May we all do the same.