ST. CHARLES BORROMEO

Homily for Nov. 4^th, 2020: St. Charles Borromeo.

          Today’s saint, Charles Borromeo, was born in 1538 in a castle on the shore of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. His father was a count, his mother the sister of a future pope. From birth, therefore, Charles was surrounded by privilege and wealth. Remembering Jesus’ words about how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God (cf. Lk 18:24), we would hardly expect that a child so privileged would become a saint.

          Though handicapped by a speech impediment, he became a doctor of both civil and canon or church law at age 21. Shortly thereafter, his maternal uncle was elected Bishop of Rome, taking the title of Pius IV. The new pope soon made his nephew, then only 22 and not yet ordained priest, a cardinal and bishop of Milan in northwest Italy – a classic case of nepotism. Ordained a priest at age 24, Charles was detained by his papal uncle in Rome, to assist in the government of the Church. Only two years later was he able to enter his diocese, which had been without a resident bishop for eighty years  something inconceivable for us today, but not unusual in the 16th century. Is it any wonder that there was a Reformation?

          During the only 18 years which remained to him, Charles worked tirelessly for Church renewal and reform, despite embittered opposition from the civil authorities in Milan, and many of the clergy. At one point one of his priests actually discharged a gun at his bishop. The assassination attempt failed due only to the primitive nature weaponry in that day. When the plague broke out in Milan, causing most of the clergy and civil officials of the city to flee, Charles remained behind to nurse the sick personally.

Exhausted by his labors, Charles Borromeo died at age 46 in the night of November 3 to 4, 1584, having spoken the Latin words, Ecce venio – “Behold I come.” Just seventeen years later, the then reigning pope, Paul V, declared him a saint.

Charles Borromeo is a singular example of what the angel Gabriel told a Jewish teenager named Mary, when she asked how she could possibly be the mother of God’s son: “Nothing is impossible for God” (Lk. 1:37).