Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 On November 10th, 1821 in Hombre, Germany, a baby boy was born to a Jewish couple, David and Rosely Cohen. They named him Herman. The age of four and a half. Herman began taking piano lessons by the age of 11 his music talents were so remarkable that his mother decided to take him off to Paris to study music. Soon after arriving the Great Hungarian pianist, France list her German play and was so impressed by his abilities, they accepted him as a pupil. Now, that was no small honor. At that time, France list was easily the most highly regarded penis in the world. In fact, he still regard as perhaps the greatest pianist that's ever lived. He was wildly famous. Also, he was sort of a 19th century version of a modern rock and roll star list. Had fully intended to leave all this worldly fame and fortune behind and go and study for the priesthood, but he was blocked by his own Catholic father.
Speaker 0 01:02 After that, his life began falling apart until unfortunately by the age of 23 when he took Herman Cohen on his, a pupil list was leading a decadent Bohemian lifestyle lifestyle, very similar to our modern rock and roll stars. Herman soon became let's favorite pupil, though he's barely a teenager. He began traveling and playing concerts with him and spending countless hours in the companionship of immoral people falling deeper and deeper into the clutches of sin. Herman wrote of these times, quote, my companions were early at work to fill my head with all those dreadful doctrines which springing up from the bottom of hell were creeping out all over the surfaces. Presion den soon as head of only 14 years made room for atheism, Pantheism, communism, socialism, riot massacre of the wealthy abolition of marriage, terrorism, and a community of enjoyment and all pleasures evil makes great strides.
Speaker 0 02:06 I soon became one of the most zealous of the propagandists of sex that are sworn to change the face of the world. Close quote. During all this time, herm became impossibly vain and arrogant and such a slave to his passions and in spite of the fat, he made tons of money. He blew it all and gambling and high living. For years, his life was almost totally out of control. He describes those times I was unbelievably successful in everything I did and all the seductions of the world sees my spirit. My life was at that time, a complete abandonment to all my whims and indulgences. Was I happier for it? No. The thirst for happiness, which was devouring me, was not quenched and leased. I was gagged and chained by these fetters of slavery. I understood that I had to break these feathers and I couldn't.
Speaker 0 02:58 All the young people in acquaintance lived like me looking for pleasure everywhere. It was offered arduously desiring riches so as to be able to pursue all their inclinations to satisfy all their wins. As for thoughts of God. They never entered into their mind close quotes, and so Herman spent his teen years with fame, fortune and unhappiness is a miserable slave of sin to one Friday evening in May of 1847 when he's 26 years old, the music director at a church in Paris asked Herman to come play the organ during benediction. At the very moment of Benediction, Herman was overcome with a strange sensation, quote my mind font itself withdrawn from the agitation of the world penetrated by something totally unknown to it. Previously, I was constrained to Baal against my will. Coming back the following Friday, I had the same experience and suddenly the thought touched me to become a Catholic close quote.
Speaker 0 04:01 A few days later, he's passing the church and heard the bell ring for mass. He walked in and wound up staying through three masses that same afternoon, something drew him to church again. When he walked in, he found the bless at sac when exposed and all of a sudden some power pushed him down onto his knees. Quote, I felt as it were a great white descend upon me, which forced me to my knees. Yes, even to bow to the ground in adoration. Close quote. Later that day, you went to a friend's house and bought a prayer book so they could study up on this mysterious Catholic devotion. He wound up spending the whole night thinking about the most blessed at sac. He wasn't sure what to do next, but he started attending mass. Frequently. He find himself more and more excited and filled with interior joy, but he was still unsure of what it all meant.
Speaker 0 04:53 In August. Still in this condition, he went to Germany to give a concert and attended Sunday mass. At the very moment of the elevation, he burst into tears. Quote, I'd often wept in my childhood, but never such tears is these spontaneously as if by intuition. I began to make a general confession to God of all the enormous sins committed since my childhood. I saw them. They're piled up before me by the thousands. Hideous, repulsive worthy of the wrath of the sovereign judge, and yet I also felt an unfamiliar comm, which spreads bomb on my soul, that the god of mercy was, forgive me, these, that he would take pity on my sincere contrition on my bitter sorrow. Yes, I felt that he would give me grades and they do, except in expiation my firm resolution to love him above everything else and to convert to him.
Speaker 0 05:46 From then on, when I left this church, I was already Christian in my heart close quilt Herman attributed to this miraculous conversion to our lady. When he got back to Paris, he asked a friend to introduce him to a priest who listened to Herman story with kindness. Herman wrote quote, this meeting suddenly rid me of one of the prejudices most firmly and deeply rooted in my mind. I was afraid of priests. I knew them only by reading novels, which presented them to us is intolerant men constantly making threats of excommunication and I find myself in the presence of a learned man, modest, good, open, expecting everything from God and nothing from myself. Close quote. The priest began to instruct Herman who would then go straight home and lock himself in the room in order to study the teachings of the church. His miraculous conversion took place on August 8th it was still complete a conversion and he stayed so seriously that the priest decided that Herman was ready for baptism.
Speaker 0 06:44 Only three weeks later on the feast of Saint Augusta Augustan, August 28th at his baptism, Herman saw <inaudible> in a brilliant light, an apparition of our Lord, the blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. By November, he was convinced he had a vocation of the priesthood, but there were lots of obstacles, huge obstacles, not the least of which was paying off his gigantic debt, his gambling debts for something like 30,000 francs. It took him two years of teaching music to wipe out the debt, the hole, while he spent growing and virtue and gaining the experience of living in the world as a practical Catholic rather than a party animal. The end of the two years he consulted alerted priest, should I become a secular priest or religious? Have you the courage to let yourself be spit upon in the face and say no word yes, then go be a muck. So you tried to join the Carmelites but he's refused without a special dispensation from Rome.
Speaker 0 07:42 A Jew could not be admitted and Rome fully aware of his sorted past. This is a famous man refused to grant her him in the dispensation. Herman traveled to Rome and pled his case dispensation was been granted and he returned defense and was admitted into Carmel on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. July 16th, 1849 Herman wrote to his mother quote, the religious order I have answered originated among the Jews 930 years before Jesus Christ, the Prophet of LIJ of the Old Testament founded it on Mount Carmel in Palestine. It is an order of real chews of children of the prophets who waited for the Messiah, who believed in him when he came. They have survived hard time living in the same manner with the same bodily deprivations and the same spiritual joys that were there about 2,800 years ago. They still bear today. The name of the order of Mount Carmel among these religious, those stemming from the reform by Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the cross are a separate group called the disc calced Carmelites.
Speaker 0 08:42 This is the branch that I belong to. Why follow this life to imitate the life Jesus led when he came to save men through suffering, obedience, humiliations poverty, the cross. This is the life I have chosen close quilt. When this news reached his family, his father cursed him and disinherited him. In July of 1850 after Herman had been in Karma for a year, his mother arrived from Hombre, came to the monastery and asked to see her son. He arrived in the company of the novice master. She swooned found his arms, refused to be consoled, generally had a histrionic fit, carried on until he finally had to leave and go the divine office. She begged him to come back to the world with him, but he held firm. She spent a week there, caterwauling carrying on like this, but he held firm. Finally, she laughed, cursing those who had taken her son away from him.
Speaker 0 09:39 Incredibly enough in April of 1851 now this is less than four years after his baptism and less than two years after he went into Carmel, he was ordained a priest. His name and religion had been changed from Herman Cohen to Father Augusta. Maria, the most blessed sacrament initially was sent to the south of France to preach and his preaching there result in the conversion of a great number of centers and many Jews. In April of 1850 40 sent to Paris the scene of his previously wildlife as sermon began, quote my brothers, my first deck when appearing this Christian Paul, but must be the making of amends for the scandals that I previously made. The mistake of committing in this city. What right? You could tell me. Do you have to preach you who we have seen dragging yourself around in the mud of an immodest and morality and openly professing every kind of error?
Speaker 0 10:36 Yes, my brothers, I confessed that I have sinned against heaven and against you. The mother of Jesus revealed the Eucharist to me. I met Jesus, I met my God, and soon I became a Christian. I are crested holy baptism and the holy water flowed on me instantly. All my sins, those horrible sins of 25 years of crime were wiped away. My soul instantly became pure and innocent. God, my brothers has forgiven me. Do not forgive me as well. Close quote, he turned a group of young men present and begged them to follow him and sharing his happiness. Many of the people present, including some of his former companions and sin were touched by grace and converted Father Gustin. Marie prayed fervently for the conversion of his family and he's granted the grace to see 10 members of his family under the church, Clooney to his brothers and one sister, but as mother remained Jewish to the end, his superior sent father Gustin Murray throughout France, Switzerland, Ireland to preach butts at pies the night, send him to Ireland, to England to restore the Carmelite order.
Speaker 0 11:43 Within two years of Father Guston's arrival, there were seven houses including two in London. These were the first monasteries erected since Henry the eighth have destroyed everything in spite of his weak health. He was constantly being sent here and there as he said. In spite of my conversion, I am always the wandering, chew and chew, innovate teen 62 father Augusta Marie fond himself and Rome. During his time there, he caught up with an old friend whom he hadn't seen in many, many years. This old friend had also had a major conversion perhaps as a result of intense prayers. Father Gustin Murray and he was now a doest and cleric, a third order Franciscan secular France. Liszt had returned to the faith of this youth. They visited and play the piano together to Carmelite monastery and let's receive communion from his former pupil in a market contrast and a former lives and a striking testimony to the mercy of God.
Speaker 0 12:40 The two old friends walked side by side praying the stations during the SOM way. The crossed held at the coliseum in 1868 father Gustin marine was stricken by Glaucoma and the doctors recommended surgery. Instead, he went to lords where he made a Novena and washed his eyes everyday with the water on the ninth day, experienced a sudden and miraculous cure or lady grandfather Augusta Marie, a miracle. During the frank oppression war, he was assigned to a pow camp near Berlin to take care of some 5,300 French prisoners of war in January of 1871 while giving the last rights to prisoners dying of smallpox. He caught it himself when father Gustin Murray was told that the end was near. He'd been with joy the evening of January 19th he made his last confession peacefully and then he was after you seed Holy Vatican. He said into the hands of the Lord, I commend my spirit. His calm breathing continued until about 10 o'clock the next morning when he asked this history set up with him, can you sing the today on no father, I'm sorry, the Solvay. Regina. Yes, father. Then let us sing it together. They sang it and he died.
Speaker 0 14:04 There's a lot here to ponder. For the sake of time, we'll just consider a few of the lessons that he can teach us. Young people. You should specially ponder this first lesson, the absolute importance of avoiding sin and sinful companions. Here's father speaking of his own youth, quote, my companions filled my head with all those dreadful doctrines springing up from the bottom of hill. We're creeping all over. Evil makes great strides. I soon became one of the most cells propagandas of sex, sworn to change the face there. Close quote, second lesson. The absolute importance of virtue, of leading a virtuous life and avoiding the danger of high living. And he used to say quote, the most important thing is not to acquire a taste for the things of this world. The effect of daily prayer is precisely to disillusion us as to the attractiveness of all these things and to arouse in us the desire for Jesus alone.
Speaker 0 15:10 The God of love is jealous. He wishes to reign alone to be loved, tasted, desired close quote. Finally, no matter how bad we've been, no matter how bad we can become holy, the grace of God that worked miracles in the life of Herman Colon, that grace can work miracles in our own lives. Now, let her how bad we been. Although he hasn't been canonized yet so far he's been declared vulnerable. I consider him a saint for modern time since he's a venerable, that means he still needs miracles to be beatified and canonized. We can turn to him and pray, especially for the conversion of our Jewish friends, for conversion of our worldly friends and relatives for conversion of wayward youth or any party animals. We happen to know. Let's close with some thoughts from Father Gustin Murray quote, where are you happiness? I have searched for happiness in the fashionable life and the giddiness of balls and parties.
Speaker 0 16:12 I have searched for it in the possession of gold and the emotions of gambling in a close friendship of famous men and all the pleasures of the mind and the senses. The majority of men are deceived as to the very nature of happiness and they look for it. What is not to be found. They love happiness and Jesus Christ, the only happiness possible is not loved. Oh my God. Is it possible that love is not loved? Why? Because it is not known. People study everything except him. All of you who listened to me, must it then be a Chu who comes to pay Christians to a jeweler. Jesus Christ.
