Pierre Toussaint (1766 – 1854) Successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former slave
by Fritz Cherubin, Jr.
Venerable Pierre Toussaint was born into slavery on June 27, 1766 on the French colony Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). He was educated as a child by his owners, the Bérard family; trained as a house slave; and raised as a Catholic.

On the brink of the Haitian Revolution (a beautiful story for another time), the Bérards moved to New York City along with their slaves, including Pierre and his sister, Rosalie. It was here in New York City, where Pierre first apprenticed and then became one of New York’s leading hairdressers, especially for the upper class. His reputation as a skilled hairdresser allowed him to earn a good living. In fact, he discreetly supported Madame Bérard through his earnings after her husband’s death. He was granted freedom at the age of 45 upon Madame Bérard’s death. By that point, he had saved enough money to pay for his sister’s freedom and purchase a house in Manhattan (unheard of at the time). He took the surname of Toussaint, honoring Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution.

The Thursday night book club is just starting to read Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness. Please join us.

For this Thursday, we will begin the book and read from Confession, up to and including The East Side (pages 9-56). We will meet on Thursday at 7 PM via Zoom.

The next meeting of the Sunday book club will take place on Sunday, February 14 at 12:30 PM. We will discuss Sold on a Monday,  a compelling novel by Kristina McMorris. It  is set in the era of the Great Depression.

Job and His Friends, Ilya Repin, 1869, Russian Museum

Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the First Reading
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Job 7:1–4, 6–7
February 7, 2021

The great miracle of the Old Testament is the end of the Babylonian exile. We have examined this and its effects many times in these commentaries. For centuries, the Jewish leaders maneuvered between the major players in the Mid-East with varying success. By 598-96 BC, they had exhausted their options, Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, and the elite sent off to exile in Babylon. This should have been the end of Judaism both as a religion and a people. Yet Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied that both would be reborn. Most memorable was Ezekiel testifying that the dry bones of the people would come back to life. Indeed, this came to pass when the Assyrian leader Cyrus allowed Jews to volunteer to return and rebuild their capital. Enough did that Jerusalem and its Temple rose again. This was a miracle and prophets, poets and scholars attempted to interpret it properly. The book of Job is one attempt to understand and one that has much to offer us today.

The returning Jews collected and edited their sacred writings that now form the basis of the Old Testament. One of the themes they used to give coherence to this material was that the life of Jews—social, religious, and political to the extent that they were separate—was good when they obeyed the law of the Lord and bad when they did not. This became known as Deuteronomic history. It was remarkably useful and explained much. Yet what of the good person whose life has not gone well? Indeed, one who has seen the wicked prosper at his expense. This is the predicament of Job.