Angel,
Thank you for sharing this article with us.  This man was obviously a 
wonderful example of how we should treat each other and how we need to 
forgive others when they have wronged us.
Virgie and Hoshi
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2006 1:00 AM
Subject: It is about time I say


> Thank you so much for this article.  My son and daughter are  both black 
> and
> are Catholic.  It hurt me to see so few black Catholics in our city the
> perish in which my daughter was born had to be closed because there were 
> so
> few attendees.  It was in the inner city and I do think it was closed
> because the nun which was the only nun in the convent at the end died.  I
> think it would have a lot sooner if not for her being there and helping
> those in the area both catholic and non Catholics.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Katherine Schulz
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 9:42 PM
> Subject: [romancatholicchat] The Former Slave Proposed as an American 
> Saint
>
>
> The Former Slave Proposed as an American Saint
>
> 03/09/06
>
> Only a few decades ago, black Catholics in some parts of America had to
> stand at the end of the line for Holy Communion - a travesty of the
> sacrament meant
> to make us all one in Christ. Jesus Himself provides the rebuke: "The 
> first
> shall be last, and the last shall be first."
>
> In This Article...
> Early Keys to Success
> Provider and Protector
> Intellect, Character and Faith
>
> Early Keys to Success
>
> So it is fitting that on the short list of Americans who have been 
> proposed
> for sainthood is a black New Yorker, Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853), a freed
> slave
> who, because of his race, was forbidden to ride the city's omnibuses. Born
> in the French colony that is now Haiti, he was taken to New York at age 22
> by
> his prosperous masters, Jean Jacques and Marie Elisabeth Bérard, who 
> feared
> racial unrest on the island. (Indeed, the tension would soon erupt in a
> bloody
> slave revolt that wiped out most of the island's white population.) The
> Bérard family had raised the young man in their own home, appointing their
> daughter,
> Aurora, as his godmother. Since he served in their household, they taught
> him to read and write.
>
> In New York, they arranged for him to learn from the city's leading
> hairdresser the art of styling women's hair in the intricate, Marie
> Antoinette-style
> pompadours and ringlets that were the rage at the end of the 18th century.
> The hairdressing trade was a lucrative one; wealthy women often spent over
> $1,000
> per year on their hair - a princely sum in 1788. This meant that in time
> left over from serving the Bérards, Toussaint could earn money for 
> himself.
> Many
> slaves bought their freedom this way, but Toussaint chose instead to
> purchase liberty from the Bérards for his sister, Rosalie, whom he 
> furnished
> with
> a dowry. He had already used his earnings to free a young woman named
> Juliette Noel, who in 1811 became his wife.
>
> Provider and Protector
>
> Having fled their island and estates, the Bérards were no longer rich. In
> 1801, Jean Jacques returned to Haiti in a futile attempt to recover his
> estates.
> There he came down with pleurisy and died. Marie found herself almost
> destitute. Toussaint volunteered to ply his hairdressing skills on her
> behalf among
> her wealthy friends. And this he did, travelling to the fashionable homes 
> of
> New York City, usually working 16 hours a day. He quietly paid the 
> household
> bills - effectively serving as provider and protector to the woman who
> legally owned him.
>
> When Marie sent him off to sell her jewelry so she could pay a debt, he
> returned with both the money and the jewels, informing her he would pay 
> the
> debt
> himself. He even took delight in helping her maintain some of the luxuries
> she had formerly enjoyed, making sure that she was able to keep fresh 
> fruit
> in the house and providing her with a new delicacy called "ice cream." 
> When
> she got depressed, he persuaded her to host parties to raise her spirits.
> Even
> after she remarried, Toussaint remained the main breadwinner in the
> household. As her health failed, Marie made provisions to give him his
> freedom, which
> became official on July 2, 1807. She died soon after that, but Toussaint
> continued to help support her surviving second husband.
>
> Scrupulously careful with money, Toussaint saved every penny he could, 
> much
> of which he gave to charity, especially to slaves seeking freedom, former
> slaves
> in need, New York's first Catholic school for black children, and
> newly-founded religious orders for black Catholics such as the Oblate
> Sisters of Providence.
> Pierre and Juliette could have no children of their own, but when Pierre's
> sister Rosalie died, they adopted her daughter Euphemia as their own, 
> taking
> her into the Bérard home.
>
> While a slave and later as a free man, Toussaint helped slaves and former
> slaves obtain education and enter professions. He also became a key member
> of
> St. Peter's parish, a church near Wall Street that still stands today.
> Although he suffered from discrimination - a white usher once haughtily
> ordered
> him out of the church during Mass - Toussaint believed that the parish was
> his as much as any white man's. So when a fire devastated the building he
> helped
> lead the effort (and provided a good part of the funds) to rebuild it in
> 1836. When the time came to build what is now called Old St. Patrick's
> Cathedral
> on Mulberry Street, Toussaint gave generously. (He would someday be buried
> at that church, and later moved to the new St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue,
> where
> he rests today.) In an epidemic of yellow fever (probably in 1803),
> Toussaint risked his life to nurse the sick after most doctors had fled 
> the
> city.
>
> Intellect, Character and Faith
>
> For Pierre Toussaint, faith was the very air he breathed. According to the
> document compiled by Rev. William Elder of the New York Archdiocese for 
> his
> proposed
> canonization, Toussaint attended Mass almost every day of his adult life. 
> He
> got special permission as a layman to receive Holy Communion weekly, 
> though
> that was not customary at the time. Although he was doubly stigmatized as 
> a
> slave and a Catholic in white Protestant New York, Toussaint's intellect 
> and
> character broke down those barriers. He became renowned for his patient
> explanations of Catholic doctrine and practices to suspicious 
> non-Catholics.
> Once,
> when he was asked by a Protestant friend why he venerated pictures of the
> Virgin Mary, he pointed to a portrait of his friend's mother hanging on 
> the
> wall:
> "You like to look at this. It makes you think of her, love her more, try 
> to
> do what she likes you to do." He explained that it was the same with Mary,
> everyone's mother.
>
> Toussaint always referred to God as "my heavenly Father," and he spoke 
> often
> to his friends about how much he trusted in Him. That trust would be 
> tested
> in the greatest griefs of his life - in 1832, when Euphemia died of
> tuberculosis at age 15, and later in 1851, when Juliette died of cancer.
>
> His goodness was so obvious to those who came into contact with him that
> several upper-class white New Yorkers remembered him after his death as 
> the
> "most
> perfect gentleman" they had ever met. Protestant and Catholic, they 
> crowded
> his 1853 funeral at St. Peter's church - although in deference to his
> wishes,
> only his fellow black Catholics followed his coffin.
>
> The documents proposing Pierre Toussaint's canonization now lie in the
> Vatican awaiting the two miracles needed to make him officially a saint. 
> But
> the
> account of his life in those papers makes it clear why many regard his
> canonization as inevitable: "Even though he lived in a time of prejudice
> against
> both Catholics and blacks, he bore public witness to the faith. He did so
> quietly, in a way that sprang naturally from the deep resources of his
> hidden
> spiritual life."
>
> John Zmirak is author of
> www.badcatholics.com
> The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living.