When on Tuesday, August 13th, the Capuchin Order was celebrating the feast of Blessed Mark of Aviano, it came into my mind and heart how the life of this holy Capuchin priest was filled with his love for God’s peace. In fact, he was determined to share it with others.
Before entering our Capuchin Order, his name was Charles. In fact, Charles was born in Aviano, in northern Italy, on November 17, 1631. When he was seventeen he felt the call of joining the Capuchins. It was November 21, 1648. Seven years later, at age of twenty four, Brother Mark was ordained a priest. The date was September 18, 1655. For seventeen years he dedicated his life to prayer and solitude. However, God had other plans for Brother Mark.
Through holy obedience Brother Mark was called to spread the Word of God as a preacher. Mark was a really humble Capuchin. He knew his limitations. At first he was afraid to do so. Nevertheless he plunged himself into holy obedience and toured around the major cities of Europe of those days preaching. His story tells us that the churches and squares of where he was preaching were practically filled with people listening to him. In his sermons, Brother Mark encouraged everyone to believe, to be holy in Christian life, to repent from sins and to change one’s life for Christ.
Due to his personal holiness together with the power of the Word which went out from his lips to serve the multitudes, Pope Blessed Innocent XI chose him as apostolic missionary as well as his legate. In this way Brother Mark could easily enter the palaces of the kings so as to bring unity between different factions that were pulverizing the European society of this turbulent time. Brother Mark was a great friend of Emperor Leopold I and of his family in Vienna. After spending a life of tough apostolic work he died in Vienna on August 13, 1699 while holding a Crucifix in his hand. On his deathbed he was given the apostolic blessing. Brother Mark of Aviano is one of the best-known Capuchin preachers of all time, particularly of Europe of the seventeenth century. His message centred on repentance and forgiveness together with a life transformation of Christian life.
Pope Saint John Paul II beatified Brother Mark on April 27, 2003. In his beatification homily Pope John Paul II said:
Bl. Mark of Aviano shone with holiness as his soul burned with a longing for prayer, silence and adoration of God’s mystery. This contemplative who journeyed along the highways of Europe was the centre of a wide-reaching spiritual renewal, thanks to his courageous preaching that was accompanied by numerous miracles. An unarmed prophet of divine mercy, he was impelled by circumstances to be actively committed to defending the freedom and unity of Christian Europe. Bl. Mark of Aviano reminds the European continent, opening up in these years to new prospects of cooperation, that its unity will be sounder if it is based on its common Christian roots (no.4).
In a world where we are losing completely the gravity of sin it is essential to return to a powerful pericope taken from Blessed Mark’s little book On the Gravity of Mortal Sin. By reading this passage we all the more become aware of the importance of recognizing the reality of sin and our need to repent and return to God.
It is necessary to be crystal clear here: Sin is by definition and in essence an unending injury against God’s Majesty; it is a way of contacting an infinite kind of debt with evil, creating such an abyss of ugliness that not even the respectful homage of creatures can cancel the debt sufficiently. Consider that not being able to pay this immense debt, our Lord chose to pay it on our behalf by becoming man — the Incarnation — out of an excess of goodwill and love, and to make satisfaction for all our sins. His sacrifice won for us an infinite treasure of merits, on which we can all draw.
For this purpose, if it was out of a superabundance of sighs that Christ ascended into Heaven, it also shows beyond a shadow of a doubt how He hated sin, to make us understand the gravity of evil and to show us the cost of the medicine He offered us, and He proved this to us by taking upon Himself so much pain, internal and external, that it is not possible for any of us to fully appreciate His torments.
On a rather lighter note, Blessed Mark of Aviano practically cemented our Capuchin connection to coffee forevermore. As we said already, Blessed Mark went to the Lord on August 13th in the year 1699 following an extraordinary life of service, prayer, preaching and miracles that saw him act as envoy of the Pope to the Emperor while still living as a humble friar. He was pivotal in uniting the European powers to act decisively against the Turkish Ottoman invasion and went as an army chaplain into the midst of the fighting with the troops to look after the wounded and dying. Blessed Mark became famous for insisting that all captured opposing forces must be treated kindly and with respect and be sent home, something which was diametrically opposite to the practice of massacring your captured enemies that was common then. It was in his honour that the coffee known as the Cappuccino became popular and the small china coffee cups of the time became known as Kapucins! Hence, next time you are drinking a Cappuccino think and say a prayer to our brother Blessed Mark without whom you would have neither Coffee or a free Europe today!
May the Lord bless all the restaurants that serve the Cappuccino coffee around the world and, by Blessed Mark of Aviano’s intercession, transform these restaurants and the people who gather together to drink this delicious coffee into his peace and reconciliation. May He make the Cappuccino coffee the coffee of reconciliation.
O God, Father of mercies, you made Blessed Mark, your priest, an outstanding herald of conversion and an apostle of communion. Through his intercession and example may we promote effectively the peace which Christ has given us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
