February 27

Today is the memorial of St. Gabriel Possenti, also known as St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. This was one headstrong guy. Bright, tough, Jesuit-trained, college graduate, he lived life on his own terms. He became deathly ill and promised to give his life to God if he recovered. He did. You only THINK you know the rest of the story . . . He then returned to his old hard-working, hard-playing ways. He got sick again and . . . what do they say? "Prayer. The last refuge of a scoundrel." He promised to convert if he were made well; he recovered and THIS time he made good on his promise. He entered the Passionist order, did great penance, prayed, worked and preached. He was ordained not long before he died of tuberculosis. But he finally was a happy man.

I think St. Gabriel is kind of interesting. Although he died young, he had something in common with so-called "late vocations" because he'd lived quite a life before becoming a priest: he'd been devoted to pursuing the ladies, the theater and the hunt. He was quite the crack shot, as a matter of fact. And a good thing, too. When Garibaldi's victorious army ran rampant through Gran Sasso, doing what armies do, you know, St. Gabriel ran out of the seminary and defended a young would-be rape victim. When the two men wouldn't stop, Gabriel deftly pulled the pistols from their holsters and trained them on the two men. He told them to back off, and just so they'd get the message, he took a bead on a tiny lizard he spotted in the road and blasted him to kingdom come. You can bet those soldiers took off running!

In recent years, a lame-brained movement to make St. Gabriel "the patron saint of handgunners" has arisen. It's not that they have any particular devotion to today's saint; no, you could say that their devotion is all for the Second Amendment. They're Catholic, and so they went searching through hagiographical texts looking for someone, anyone whose story could be used to advocate private gun ownership. They must have had quite a time of it, because most of our saints had never even SEEN a handgun! Well, they twisted St. Gabriel's story into the poster child of their cause, but I think it's wrong-headed. Gabriel wasn't for gun OWNERSHIP -- re-read the story. He took a military man's handgun and turned it on HIM in order to stop a rape. A more natural patronage for this man would be for rape victims and their advocates. Perhaps even for civilian control of the military .