25 NOVEMBER – SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA (Virgin and Martyr)

Catherine was a noble maiden of Alexandria, who from her earliest years joined the study of the liberal arts with fervent faith, and in a short while came to such an height of holiness and learning that when she was 18 years of age she prevailed over the chiefest wits. When she saw many diversely tormented and haled to death by command of Maximin because they professed the Christian religion, she went boldly to him and rebuked him for his savage cruelty, bringing forward likewise most sage reasons why the faith of Christ should be needful for salvation. Maximim marvelled at her wisdom and bade keep her while he gathered together the most learned men from all quarters and offered them great rewards if they would confute Catherine and bring her from believing in Christ to worship idols. But the event fell contrariwise, for many of the philosophers who had come to dispute with her were overcome by the force and skill of her reasoning, so that the love of Christ Jesus was kindled in them and they were content even to die for His sake.

Then Maximin strove to beguile Catherine with fair words and promises, and when he found it was lost pains, he caused her to be hided and bruised with lead-laden whips and so cast into prison, and neither meat nor drink given to her for 11 days. At that time Maximin’s wife and Porphyry, the Captain of his host, went to the prison to see the damsel, and at her preaching believed in Jesus Christ and were afterwards crowned with martyrdom. Then was Catherine brought out of ward and a wheel was set, wherein were fastened many and sharp blades, so that her virgin body might thereby be most direfully cut and torn in pieces, but in a little while, as Catherine prayed, this machine was broken in pieces, at the which marvel many believed in Christ. But Maximin was hardened in his godlessness and cruelty, and commanded to behead Catherine. She bravely offered her neck to the stroke and passed away hence to receive the twain crowns of maidenhood and martyrdom, on the 25th day of November. Her body was marvellously laid by Angels upon Mount Sinai in Arabia.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

O blessed Catherine, accept us as your disciples. In thy person, philosophy, true to its beautiful name, leads us to Eternal Wisdom, truth leads to goodness and science to Christ who is the way, the truth and the life. “O curious inquirers, who delight in idle, fruitless speculation,” exclaims the most eloquent of your panegyrists, “know that the brilliant light of science which enchants you, is not intended merely to please your eyes, but to guide your steps and rule your conduct. Vain minds, that make such pompous display of your learning in order to win men’s praise, learn that this glorious talent has not been entrusted to you for your self-advancement, but for the triumph of the truth. And you, cowardly, sordid souls, who use science as a means of gaining earthly goods, consider seriously that so divine a treasure is not meant to be traded with in so unworthy a manner, and that the only commerce it is concerned with, is of a higher and sublimer kind: the redemption of souls.”

Thus, O Catherine, you employed your science solely for the truth. You made “the majesty of Jesus Christ so visible, that His presence dissipated all the errors of philosophy, and the truths it had usurped acknowledged Him for their Master, or rather were gathered up in Him as in their centre. Let us learn from this holy example to bear witness to the truth and to make it triumph over the world, employing all our light of knowledge in the fulfilment of this duty. O holy truth, I owe you the testimony of my words, of my life, of my blood: for the truth is God Himself.”

This, O magnanimous virgin, is the thought of holy Church when she thus formulates her prayer for today: O God, who gave the law to Moses on the summit of Mount Sinai and wonderfully deposited in the same place the body of the blessed Virgin and Martyr Catherine by means of your holy Angels; grant, we beseech you, that by her merits and intercession, we may be enabled to arrive at the mountain, which is Christ, who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Moses, priest and martyr, who, with others detained in prison, was often consoled by the letters of St. Cyprian. After he had withstood with unbending courage not only the Gentiles, but also the Novatian schismatics and heretics, he was finally, in the persecution of Decius, crowned with a martyrdom which fills the mind with admiration, according to the words of Pope St. Cornelius.

At Antioch, St. Erasmus, martyr.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, St. Mercury, soldier, who vanquished the barbarians and triumphed over the cruelty of Decius through the protection of his guardian angel. Finally, having acquired great glory from his sufferings, he was crowned with martyrdom and went to reign forever in heaven.

In Emilia in Italy, St. Jucunda, virgin.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

24 NOVEMBER – SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS (Confessor)

John of the Cross was born of godly parents at Fontibere, near Avila, in Spain in 1542. It began soon to appear that he was foreordained to be an acceptable servant to the Virgin Mother of God. At five years of age he fell into a well, but the hand of the Mother of God took him up and saved him from all hurt. So burning was his desire to suffer that when he was nine years old he gave up any softer bed, and used to lie on potsherds. In his youth he devoted himself as a servant in the hospital for the sick poor at Medina del Campo, and embraced with eager charity the meanest offices there, his readiness likewise exciting others to imitate him. In 1563 he obeyed the call to higher things and entered the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, wherein, by command of his Superiors, he received Priest’s Orders. By their leave and his own strong desire for the sternest discipline and the strictest life, he adopted the primitive Rule. Full of the memory of what our Lord suffered he declared war against himself as his own worst enemy, and carried it on by depriving himself of sleep and food, by iron chains, by whips, and by every kind of self-torture. And in a little while he had crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof. He was indeed worthy that holy Theresa should say of him that he was one of the purest and holiest souls by whom God was then enlightening His Church.

The strange hardness of his life and the might of his graces, joined to the unceasing concentration of his mind on God, had the effect of often subjecting him to daily and extraordinary trances. So burning was his love of God that the fire sometimes could not be kept bound within, and broke forth, so that his face shone. The salvation of his neighbours was one of his dearest longings, and he was unwearied in preaching the Word of God, and in administering the Sacraments. As strong in so many good works and glowing with zeal to make discipline harder, he was given by God to be an helpmate to holy Theresa, and he aided her to set up again the primitive observance among the brethren of the Order of Mount Carmel, as she had already done among the sisters. In doing God’s work, he and God’s handmaid together went through toils that cannot be numbered. No discomforts or dangers held him back from going throughout all Spain to visit all and each of the convents which the care of that holy Virgin had founded, and in them, and in very many others erected by her means for spreading the renewed observance, he strengthened it by his word and example. He is indeed worthy to be reckoned second only to the holy Theresa as a professor and founder of the Order of discalced Carmelites.

He remained throughout all his life a clean man and when some shameless women tried to beguile his modesty, he not only foiled them, but gained them for Christ. In the judgement of the Apostolic See he was as much taught of God as was holy Theresa, for explaining God’s hidden mysteries, and he wrote books of mystical theology filled with heavenly wisdom. Christ once asked him what reward he would have for so much work, to which he answered: “Lord, that I may suffer, and be disesteemed for your sake.” He was very famous for his power over devils, whom he often scared out of men’s bodies, for discerning of spirits, for the gift of prophecy and for eminent miracles. He was extraordinarily lowly and often entreated of the Lord that he might die in some place where he was unknown. In accordance with his prayer, he was sent to Ubeda where for three months the Prior imprisoned and cruelly ill-used him during his last sickness. To crown his love of suffering, he bore uncomplainingly five open sores in his leg, running with water.

At last, on the 14th of December 1591, being the day, and at the hour foretold by himself, after having in godly and holy wise received the Sacraments of the Church, hugging the image of that crucified Saviour of whom his heart and his mouth had been used to be full, he uttered the words: “Into your hands I commend y spirit,” and fell asleep in the Lord. As his soul passed away it was received into a glorious cloud of fire. His body yielded a right sweet savour, and is still incorrupt where it lies, held in great honour, at Segovia. He was famous for very many miracles both before and since his death, and Pope Benedict XIII numbered his name among those of the Saints.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Let us go with the Church to Mount Carmel and offer our grateful homage to John of the Cross who, following in the footsteps of Teresa of Jesus, opened a safe way to souls seeking God.

The growing disinclination of the people for social prayer was threatening the irreparable destruction of piety when, in the sixteenth century, the divine goodness raised up Saints whose teaching and holiness responded to the needs of the new times. Doctrine does not change: the asceticism and mysticism of that age transmitted to the succeeding centuries the echo of those that had gone before. But their explanations were given in a more didactic way and analysed more narrowly. Their methods aimed at obviating the risk of illusion to which souls were exposed by their isolated devotion. It is but just to recognise that under the ever fruitful action of the Holy Ghost the psychology of supernatural states became more extended and more precise.

The early Christians, praying with the Church, living daily and hourly the life of her Liturgy, kept her stamp upon them in their personal relations with God. Thus it came about that, under the persevering and transforming influence of the Church, and participating in the graces of light and union and in all the blessings of that one Beloved so pleasing to the Spouse, they assimilated her sanctity to themselves without any further trouble but to follow their Mother with docility, and suffer themselves to be carried securely in her arms. Thus they applied to themselves the words of our Lord: “Unless you become as little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of Heaven.” We need not be surprised that there was not then, as now, the frequent and assiduous assistance of a particular director for each soul. Special guides are not so necessary to the members of a caravan or of an army: it is isolated travellers that stand in need of them, and even with these special guides, they can never have the same security as those who follow the caravan or the army.

This was understood, in the course of the last few centuries, by the men of God who, taking their inspiration from the many different aptitudes of souls, became the leaders of schools, one it is true in aim, but differing in the methods they adopted for counteracting the dangers of individualism. In this campaign of restoration and salvation where the worst enemy of all was illusion under a thousand forms with its subtle roots and its endless wiles, John of the Cross was the living image of the Word of God, more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, for he read, with unfailing glance, the very thoughts and intentions of hearts.

Let us listen to his words. Though he belongs to modern times, he is evidently a son of the ancients. “The soul,” he says, “is to attain to a certain sense, to a certain divine knowledge, most generous and full of sweetness, of all human and divine things which do not fall within the common sense and natural perceptions of the soul. It views them with different eyes now, for the light and grace of the Holy Ghost differ from those of sense, the divine from the human. The dark night, through which the soul passes on its way to the divine light of the perfect union of the love of God — so far as it is in this life possible — requires for its explanation greater experience and light of knowledge than I possess. For so great are the trials, and so profound the darkness, spiritual as well as corporal, which souls must endure, if they will attain to perfection, that no human knowledge can comprehend them, nor experience describe them.

The journey of the soul to the divine union is called night, for three reasons.

The first is derived from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of this world, by an entire detachment therefrom. This is as night for every desire and sense of man. The second, from the road by which it travels. That is, faith, for faith is obscure like night to the intellect. The third, from the goal to which it tends, God, incomprehensible and infinite, who in this life is as night to the soul. We must pass through these three nights if we are to attain to the divine union with God. They are foreshadowed in holy Scripture by the three nights which were to elapse, according to the command of the angel, between the betrothal and the marriage of the younger Tobias (Tobias vi. 18). On the first night he was to burn the liver of the fish in the fire, which is the heart whose affections are set on the things of this world, and which, if it will enter on the road that leads to God, must be burned up and purified of all created things in the fire of this love. This purgation drives away the evil spirit who has dominion over our soul because of our attachment to those pleasures which flow from temporal and corporeal things.

The second night, said the angel, you will be admitted into the society of the holy Patriarchs, the fathers of the faith. The soul having passed the first night, which is the privation of all sensible things, enters immediately into the second night, alone in pure faith, and by it alone directed: for faith is not subject to sense.

The third night, said the Angel, you will obtain a blessing — that is, God, who in the second night of faith communicates Himself so secretly and so intimately to the soul. This is another night, inasmuch as this communication is more obscure than the others. When this night is over, which is the accomplishment of the communication of God in spirit, ordinarily effected when the soul is in great darkness, the union with the bride, which is the Wisdom of God immediately ensues. O spiritual soul, when you see your desire obscured, your will arid and constrained, and your faculties incapable of any interior act, be not grieved at this, but look upon it rather as a great good, for God is delivering you from yourself, taking the matter out of your hands. For however strenuously you may exert yourself, you will never do anything so faultlessly, so perfectly and securely as now — because of the impurity and torpor of your faculties — when God takes you by the hand, guides you safely in your blindness, along a road and to an end you know not, and whither you could never travel guided by your own eyes, and supported by your own feet.”

We love to hear the Saints describe the paths which they themselves have trodden, and of which, in reward for their fidelity, they are the recognised guides in the Church. Let us add that “in sufferings of this kind, we must take care not to excite our Lord’s compassion before His work is completed. There can be no mistake about it, certain graces which God gives to the soul are not necessary for salvation, but they must be obtained at a price. If we were to make too many difficulties, it might happen that, to spare our weakness, our Lord would let us fall back into a lower way. This, to the eye of faith, would be a terrible and irreparable misfortune.”

“For the interests of holy Church and the glory of God, it is more important than we are able to say, that truly contemplative souls should be multiplied upon the Earth. They are the hidden spring, the moving principle of everything that is for the glory of God, for the kingdom of His Son, and for the perfect fulfilment of His divine Will. Vain would it be to multiply active works and contrivances, yea, and even deeds of sacrifice. All will be fruitless if the Church Militant has not her saints to uphold her, saints still wayfarers (in via), which is the state in which the Master chose to redeem the world. Certain powers and a certain fruitfulness are inherent to the present life. It has in itself so few charms that it will not have been useless to show, as we have done, that it has also some advantages.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of St. Chrysogonus, martyr. Chrysogonus was imprisoned at Rome in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. There he lived for two years on the alms of the holy Anastasia. She was suffering much persecution from her husband Publius for Christ’s Name’s sake, and was used to write to Chrysogonus to ask for the help of his prayers, and he in return comforted her by his epistles. Presently the Emperor wrote to Rome commanding the rest of the Christians who were in prison there to be put to death, and Chrysogonus to be sent to himself at Aquileia. When he was brought there, he said to him: “I have sent for you, O Chrysogonus, that I may increase your honours, if only you will bring thy mind to worship the gods.” Thereto Chrysogonus answered: “With my mind and with my prayers I worship Him Who is God indeed, but such gods as are nothing but images of devils, them I hate and curse.” Then was the Emperor kindled to fury at this answer and commanded Chrysogonus to be beheaded at Aquae Gradatae on the 24th day of November. His body was cast into the sea but found a little while afterwards washed up upon the shore, and the Priest Zoilus took it and buried it in his own house.

At Rome, St. Crescentian, martyr, whose name is mentioned in the Acts of the blessed Pope Marcellus.

At Amelia in Umbria, during the persecution of Diocletian, St. Firmina, virgin and martyr, who, after being subjected to various torments, to hanging, and to burning with flaming torches, yielded up her spirit.

At Corinth, St. Alexander, martyr, who fought unto death for the faith of Christ under Julian the Apostate and the governor Sallust.

At Cordova, the saintly virgins and martyrs Flora and Mary, who were for a long time confined in prison and slain with the sword in the persecution of the Arabs.

At Perugia, St. Felicissimus, martyr.

At Milan, St. Protasius, bishop, who defended the cause of Athanasius before the emperor Constans, in the council of Sardica. Having sustained many labours for the church entrusted to him and for religion, he departed this life to go to the Lord.

In the castle of Blaye, St. Romanus, a priest, whose holiness is proclaimed by glorious miracles.

In Auvergne, St. Portian, an abbot, who was renowned for miracles in the time of king Theodoric.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

23 NOVEMBER – SAINT CLEMENT OF ROME (Pope and Martyr)

Clement was a Roman by birth, son of Faustinus who dwelt in the region of the Coelian Hill. He was a disciple of blessed Peter and is mentioned by Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians in these words: “I entreat you also, my sincere companion, help those women who have laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement and the rest of my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life.” Clement divided Rome into seven regions, appointing a notary for each who was to ascertain and record with the greatest care the acts and sufferings of the martyrs. He wrote many useful and learned works such as did honour to the Christian name. He converted many to the faith of Christ by his learning and holiness of life, and was on that account banished by the emperor Trajan to the desert of Cherson beyond the Black Sea.

Here he found two thousand Christians, likewise banished by Trajan, who were employed in quarrying marble. Seeing them suffering from want of water, Clement betook himself to prayer, and then ascended a neighbouring hill, on the summit of which he saw a Lamb, pointing out with his right foot a spring of sweet water. At this source they all quenched their thirst and many infidels were converted by the miracle, and began to revere Clement as a Saint. On hearing this Trajan was enraged and sent officers with orders to cast Clement into the sea with an anchor tied to his neck. After the execution of this sentence, as the Christians were praying on the shore, the sea began to recede for the distance of three miles. On approaching they found a small building of marble in the form of a temple in which lay the martyr’s body in a stone coffin, and beside it the anchor with which he had been drowned. The inhabitants of the country were so astounded at the miracle that they were led to embrace the Christian faith.

The holy body was afterwards translated to Rome, under Pope Nicholas I and deposited in the Basilica of San Clemente. A church was also built and dedicated in his honour, on that spot in the island where the miraculous fountain had sprung up. He held the pontificate 9 years, 6 months and 6 days. In two ordinations in the month of December, he consecrated 10 priests, 2 deacons and 15 bishops.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The memory of Saint Clement has been surrounded with a peculiar glory from the very beginning of the Roman Church. After the death of the Apostles he seems to eclipse Linus and Cletus, although these preceded him in the Pontificate. We pass as it were naturally from Peter to Clement, and the East celebrates his memory with no less honour than the West. He was in truth the universal Pontiff, and his acts as well as his writings are renowned throughout the entire Church. This widespread reputation caused numbers of apocryphal writings to be attributed to him which, however, it is easy to distinguish from his own. But it is remarkable that all the falsifiers who have thought fit to put his name to their own works, or to invent stories concerning him, agree in declaring that he was of imperial descent. With only one exception, all the documents which attest Clement’s intervention in the affairs of distant churches have perished with time, but the one that remains shows us in full action the monarchical power of the Bishop of Rome at that primitive epoch.

The church of Corinth was disturbed with intestine quarrels caused by jealousy against certain pastors. These divisions, the germ of which had appeared even in Saint Paul’s time, had destroyed all peace and were causing scandal to the very pagans. The Corinthians at last felt the necessity of putting an end to a disorder which might be prejudicial to the extension of the Christian faith, and for this purpose it was requisite to seek assistance from outside. The Apostles had all departed this life, except Saint John who was still the light of the Church. It was no great distance from Corinth to Ephesus where the Apostle resided: yet it was not to Ephesus but to Rome that the Church of Corinth turned. Clement examined the case referred to his judgement by that Church, and sent to Corinth five commissaries to represent the Apostolic See. They were bearers of a letter which Saint Irenaeus calls potentissimas litteras. It was considered at the time so beautiful and so apostolic, that it was long read in many churches as a sort of continuation of the canonical Scriptures. Its tone is dignified but paternal, according to Saint Peter’s advice to pastors. There is nothing in it of a domineering spirit, but the grave and solemn language bespeaks the universal pastor whom none can disobey without disobeying God Himself. These words so solemn and so firm wrought the desired effect: peace was re-established in the church of Corinth, and the messengers of the Roman Pontiff soon brought back the happy news. A century later, Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, expressed to Pope Saint Soter the gratitude still felt by his flock towards Saint Clement for the service he had rendered.

Brought up in the school of the Apostles, Clement had retained their style and manner. These are visible in his two Letters to virgins, which are mentioned by Saint Epiphanius and Saint Jerome, and were found in the eighteenth century translated into Syriac, in a manuscript brought from Aleppo. As Saint Caecilia reminded us yesterday, the principle of chastity being vowed to God was, from the very beginning, one of the bases of Christianity, and one of the most effectual means for the transformation of the world. Christ Himself had praised the superior merit of this sacrifice, and Saint Paul, comparing the two states of life, taught that the virgin is wholly taken up with our Lord, while the married woman, whatever her dignity, is divided (1 Corinthians vii.). Clement had to develop this doctrine, and he did so in these two letters. Anticipating those great doctors of Christian virginity, Saint Athanasius, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Augustine, he developed the teachings of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on this important subject.

“He or she,” he says, “who aspires to this higher life, must lead like the Angels an existence all divine and heavenly. The virgin cuts herself off from the allurements of the senses. Not only does she renounce the right to their even lawful use, but she aspires to that hope which God, who can never deceive, encourages by his promise, and which far surpasses the natural hope of posterity. In return for her generous sacrifice, her portion in Heaven is the very happiness of the Angels.” Thus spoke the disciple chosen by Saint Peter to set his hand to the task of renovating Rome. It needed no less than this strong doctrine in order to combat the depraved manners of the Empire. Had Christianity been satisfied with inviting men to honour, as the Philosophers had done, its efforts would have been to no purpose. Stoicism, by exciting great pride, could bring some men even to despise death. But it was utterly powerless against sensuality which we must own to have been the strongest auxiliary to the tyranny of the Caesars. The ideal of chastity, thrown into the midst of that dissolute society, could alone arrest the ignominious torrent that threatened to submerge all human dignity. Happily for the world, Christian morality succeeded in gaining ground, and its maxims being followed up by striking examples, it at length forced itself upon the public notice. Roman corruption was amazed to hear of virginity being held in honour and practised by a great many followers of the new religion, and that at a time when the greatest privileges and the most terrible chastisements could scarcely keep to their duty the six vestals, upon whose fidelity depended the honour and the safety of the city. Vespasian and Titus were aware of the infringements upon their primary duty committed by these guardians of the Palladium, but they considered that the low level at which morals then stood, forbade them to inflict the ancient penalties upon these traitresses.

The time, however, was at hand when the emperors, the senate and all Rome were to learn from the first Apology of Saint Justin the marvels of purity concealed within that Babylon of iniquity. “Among us, in this city,” said the Apologist, “there are many men and women who have reached the age of sixty or seventy years. Brought up from infancy under the law of Christ, they have persevered to this day in the state of virginity, and there is not a country where I could not point out many such.”

Athenagorus, in a memorial presented a few years later to Marcus Aurelius, was able to say in like manner: “You will find among us a multitude of persons, both men and women, who have passed their life up to old age in the state of virginity, having no ambition but to unite themselves more intimately to God.”

Clement was predestined to the glory of martyrdom. He was banished to the Chersonesus on the Black Sea. The Acts, which relate the details of his sufferings, are of very great antiquity. We will not here enter into discussions concerning them. They tell us how Clement found in the peninsula a considerable number of Christians already transported there, and employed in working the rich and abundant marble quarries. The joy of these Christians on seeing Clement is easily conceived. His zeal in propagating the faith in this far-off country, and the success of his apostolate, are no matter for surprise. The miracle of a fountain springing from the rock at Clement’s word to quench the thirst of the Confessors is a fact analogous to hundreds of others related in the most authentic Acts of the Saints. Lastly, the apparition of the mysterious Lamb upon the mountain, marking with his foot the spot whence the water was to flow, carries back the mind to the earliest Christian mosaics, on which may still be seen the symbol of the lamb standing on a green hillock.

In the ninth century Saint Cyril, apostle of the Slavs, discovered near Cherson the precious remains of the martyr-pontiff. Clement was brought back to Rome and the great church which had hitherto, according to Saint Jerome, preserved the memory of his name, henceforth possessed a still richer treasure. The very memory, however, was of great value for science no less than for piety: on the testimony of ancient traditions, this church was built on the site of Saint Clement’s old home in the region of the Coelian Hill which we know from other sources to have been the quarter preferred by the Roman aristocracy of the period. Modern archaeological investigations have discovered beneath the apse of the primitive basilica, and forming a sort of underground Confession or crypt, the rooms of a private dwelling, the style and ornaments of which are of the Flavian period.

* * * * *

“The Lord says: My words which I have put in your mouth, will not depart out of your mouth: and your gifts will be accepted upon my altar.” Thus does the Church open the chants of the great Sacrifice in your honour, O holy Pontiff! It was indeed a joy and a supreme consolation to her to experience that, after the departure of the Apostles, the word did not fail. For of all the gifts left her by her divine Spouse at His Ascension into Heaven, this was the most indispensable. In your writings, the word continued to traverse the world, authoritative and respected, directing, pacifying, sanctifying the people, as fully and as surely as in the days of the Apostles or of our Lord Himself. Clear and manifest, thanks to you, was the proof that Jesus, according to His promise, remains with His disciples till the end of the world. Be you blessed for having thus, in the earliest times, consoled our Mother the Church. You understood, O Clement, that the great apostolic work, the diffusion of the Gospel among all nations, was not to be interrupted by the departure of the first labourers. You caused death and darkness to retreat farther and farther. All nations owe you a deep debt of gratitude, but especially the French: for you sent your messengers to Paris and its sister cities, crying in your name: “Rise you that sleep, and arise from the dead; and Christ will enlighten you” (Ephesians v. 14). But the labours of an apostolate attacked in every land by the prince of this world, and the cares of universal government, did not exhaust the zeal that fired your apostolic soul. Be you blessed for having reserved your special teaching and solicitude for the best-loved portion of our Lord’s flock, for them that follow the Lamb on the mountain where you saw Him, and wherever He goes. Through your prayers, may the imitators of Flavia Domitilla increase in number and still more in merit. May every Christian learn from the lesson of your life, that the nobility of this world is nothing compared with that which is won by the love of Christ. May the world, and its capital, once given to God by the Apostles and the Roman patricians, become once more His undisputed kingdom.

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On the 10th July we honoured Saint Felicitas, mother of the Martyrs, giving a second and heavenly birth to her seven sons. But her own recompense was delayed for four long months. The Church has inscribed her name on the sacred diptychs. Let us then again offer her our prayers and praises on this day on which the sword at length fulfilled her desires, and in justification of her name, restored her to her sons in eternal felicity:

Grant we beseech you, O Almighty God, that celebrating the solemnity of blessed Felicitas your Martyr, we may be protected by her merits and prayers. Through our Lord.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Merida in Spain, St. Lucretia, virgin and martyr, who consummated her martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Dacian.

At Cyzicum in Hellespont, St. Sisinius, martyr, who, after many torments, was put to the sword in the same persecution.

At Iconium in Lycaonia, the holy bishop Amphilochius, who was the companion of St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen in the desert, and their colleague in the episcopate. After many combats for the Catholic faith, he rested in peace, with the reputation of a holy and learned prelate.

At Girgenti, the decease of St. Gregory, bishop.

In the village of Hasbein, St. Tron, priest and confessor.

At Mantua, blessed John the Good, of the Order of St. Augustine, whose celebrated life was written by St. Antoninus.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

23 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-FOURTH (LAST) SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The number of the Sundays after Pentecost may exceed twenty-four and go up as far as twenty-eight, according as Easter is each Year, more or less near to the vernal equinox. But the Mass here given is always reserved for the last, and the intervening ones, be their number what it may, are taken from the Sundays after the Epiphany which, in that case, were not used at the beginning of the year.

These Sundays are the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th, after the Epiphany. Those Years when there are Twenty-five Sundays after Pentecost, it is the 6th after the Epiphany which is put after the twenty-third. If the number of those Sundays be twenty-six, the 5th after the Epiphany becomes the twenty-fourth after Pentecost. If the number be twenty- seven, we go back to the 4th after the Epiphany, and the rest follow. If it be as high as twenty-eight, we begin with the 3rd.

This, however, does not apply to the Introit, Gradual, Offertory and Communion which, as we have already said, are repeated from the twenty-third Sunday. We have seen how that Mass of the twenty-third Sunday was regarded by our fore-fathers as really the last of the Cycle. Abbot Rupert has given us the profound meaning of its several parts. According to the teaching we have already pondered over, the reconciliation of Judah was shown us as being, in time, the term intended by God: the last notes of the sacred Liturgy blended with the last scene of the world’s history, as seen and known by God. The end proposed by eternal Wisdom in the world’s creation and mercifully continued, after the Fall, by the mystery of Redemption, has now (we speak of the Church’s Year and God’s workings) been fully carried out: this end was no other than that of divine Union with Human Nature, making it one in the unity of one only body (Ephesians ii. 16). Now that the two antagonist people, Gentile and Jew, are brought together in the one same New Man in Christ Jesus their Head (Ephesians ii. 15), the Two Testaments which so strongly marked the distinction between the ages of time, the one called the Old, the other the New —yes, these Two Testaments fade away and give place to the glory of the Eternal Alliance.

It was here, therefore, that Mother Church formerly finished her Liturgical Year. She was delighted at what she had done during all the past months. That is, at having led her children not only to have a thorough appreciation of the divine plan which she had developed before them, in her celebrations — but moreover, and more especially, to unite them themselves by a veritable Union to their Jesus, by a real communion of views, and interests, and loves. On this account, she used not to revert again to the second Coming of the God-Man and the Last Judgement, two great subjects which she had proposed for her children’s reflections at the commencement of the Purgative Life, that is, her season of Advent. It is only since a few centuries that, with a view of giving to her Year a conclusion more defined and intelligible to the Faithful of these comparatively recent times, she closes the Cycle with the prophetic description of the dread Coming of her Lord, which is to put an end to Time and open Eternity. From time immemorial, Saint Luke had had the office of announcing, in Advent, the approach of the Last Judgement. The Evangelist Saint Matthew was selected for this its second and more detailed description on the last Sunday after Pentecost.

Epistle – Colossians i. 9‒14

Brethren, we cease not to pray for you, and to beg that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom, and spiritual understanding: that you may walk worthy of God in all things pleasing: being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God: strengthened with all might according to the power of His glory, in all patience and long-suffering with joy. Giving thanks to God the Father, who has made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Thanksgiving and Prayer! There we have the epitome of our Epistle, and an eloquent conclusion of the Apostle’s course of instructions: it is also both summary and conclusion of the Year of the sacred Liturgy. The Doctor of the Gentiles has been zealous beyond measure in his fulfilment of the task assigned to him by Mother Church. Of a certainty, the fault is not his if the souls he undertook to guide, on the morrow of the descent of the Spirit of Love, have not all reached that summit of perfection which he longed we should all get up to! Those who have gone bravely forward in the path which, a year since, was opened out to them by holy Church, now, by a happy experience, know that that path most surely leads them to the life of Union where divine charity reigns supreme! Who is there that, with anything like earnestness, has allowed his mind and heart to take an interest in the several Liturgical Seasons which have been brought before us, and been celebrated, by the Church during the past twelve months —has not also felt an immense increase of light imparted to him? Now, Light is that indispensable element which delivers us from the power of darkness and translates us, by the help of God, into the kingdom of the Son of His love. The work of redemption which this His beloved Son came down on Earth to accomplish for His Father’s glory, could not do otherwise than make progress in those who have, with more or less fervour, entered into the spirit of His Church during the whole Year, that is, from the opening of Advent right up to these the closing days of the sacred Cycle. All of us, then, whoever we may be, should give thanks to this Father of Lights (James i. 17) who has thus made us worthy to be partakers, somewhat at least, of the lot of the Saints.

So, then, all of us, be the share of such participation what it may — yes, all of us must pray that the excellent gift which has been put into our hearts may fervently yield itself to the still richer development, which the coming new Cycle is intended to produce within us.

The just man cannot possibly remain stationary in this world. He must either descend or ascend. And whatever may be the degree of perfection to which grace has led him, he must be ever going still higher as long as he is left in this life (Psalm lxxxiii. 6). The Colossians to whom the Apostle was writing had fully received the Gospel: the word of truth which had been sown in them had produced abundant fruit, in faith, hope and love (Colossians i. 4‒6): and yet, instead of relenting on that account his solicitude in their regard, it is precisely for that reason (Colossians i. 9) that Saint Paul, who had prayed for them up to then, ceases not to go on praying for them. So let us do — let us go on praying. Let us beg of God that He will again, and always, fill us with His divine Wisdom, and with the Spirit of understanding. We need all that in order to correspond with His merciful designs. If the new Year of the Church, which is so soon to begin, finds us faithful and making fresh progress, we will be repaid with new aspects of Truth in the garden of the Spouse, and the fruits we will produce there will be more plentiful and far sweeter than in any by-gone Year. Therefore, let us make up our minds to walk worthy of God, “with dilated hearts,” and bravely, for the eye of His approving love will be ever upon us as we toil along. Oh yes! Let us run on in that up-hill path which will lead us to eternal repose in the Beatific Vision.

Gospel – Matthew xxiv. 15‒35

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: “When you will see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place: he that reads, let him understand. Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains. And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything out of his house. And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. And woe to them that are with child, and give suck in those days. But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the Sabbath. For there will be then great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither will be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh could be saved: but for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. Then if any man will say to you: Lo! Here is Christ, or there: do not believe him: For there will arise false christs and false prophets, and will show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Behold I have told it you, before hand. If therefore they will say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go you not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. For as lightning comes out of the east, and appears even into the west, so will also the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the body will be there will the eagles also be gathered together. And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be moved: and there will appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven: and then will all tribes of the Earth mourn: and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven with much power and majesty. And he will send his angels with a trumpet, and a great voice: and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them. And from the fig tree learn a parable: when the branch of it is now tender and the leaves come forth, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you will see all these things, know you that it is near at the doors. Amen, I say to you, that this generation will not pass till these things be done. Heaven and Earth will pass, but my words will not pass.”

Praise to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Several times during Advent we meditated on the circumstances which are to accompany the Last Coming of Christ our Lord. And in a few days the same great teachings will be again brought before us, filling our souls with a salutary fear. May we then be permitted, on this last Sunday of our Liturgical Year, to address ourselves in a prayer of desire and praise to our adorable Lord and King, the solemn hour of whose Judgement is to be the consummation of His work and the signal of His triumph.

O Jesus! who then are to come to deliver your Church and avenge that God who has so long borne every sort of insult from His creature man, that day of your coming will indeed be terrible to the sinner! He will then understand how the Lord has made all things for Himself, all, even the ungodly, who on the evil day is to show forth the divine justice (Proverbs xvi. 4). The whole world, fighting on his side against the wicked (Wisdom v. 21) will then at last be avenged for that slavery of sin which had been forced upon it (Romans viii. 21). Vainly will the wicked cry out to the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that will then be seated on His throne (Apocalypse vi. 16). The abyss will refuse to engulf them: in obedience to Him who holds the keys of death and Hell (Apocalypse i. 18), it will give forth to a man its wretched victims and set them at the foot of the dread tribunal. Jesus, how magnificent will not your power then appear! The heavenly hosts will also be standing around you, forming your brilliant (Apocalypse xix. 14) court, and assembling your elect from the four quarters of the Earth.

For we also, we your redeemed, who had become your members by becoming the members of your beloved Church — we are to be there on that day, and our place, O ineffable mystery, is to be the one you have reserved for your Bride — it is to be your own throne (Apocalypse iii. 21) where seated, we will judge the very angels (1 Corinthians vi. 3). Even now, all those blessed of the Father (Matthew xxv. 3), all those elect whose youth, like that of the eagle, has been so often renewed by their receiving your precious Blood (Psalm cii. 5) — have they not had their eyes fitted to gaze, and without being dazzled, on the Sun of Justice when He will appear in the heavens? The tediousness of their long exile has given such keenness to their hunger that nothing will have power to stay their flight once the sacred prey of your divine Body will be shown them! What hindrance could be strong enough to check the impetuosity of the love (Canticles viii. 6) which will bring them all together to the banquet of the eternal Pasch? The trumpet of the Archangel which will ring through the graves of the just is to be a summons calling them not to death, but to life — to the sight of the old enemy’s destruction (1 Corinthians xv. 28) — to a redemption which is to include their very bodies (Romans viii. 23) — to the unimpeded passover to the true Land of promise— in a word, to the Pasch and, this time, quite real, and for all, and forever. What will not be the joy of that true Day of the Lord! ( Psalm cxvii. 24) — what joy for them that have by faith lived in Christ, and loved Him without seeing Him! (1 Peter i. 28).

Identifying themselves with you, O Jesus, notwithstanding the weakness of the flesh, they have continued here below your life of suffering and humiliation: what a triumph when, delivered forever from sin and vested in their immortal bodies, they will be borne aloft before your face, that they may forever be with you! (1 Thessalonians iv. 6). But their chief joy on that great Day will be to assist at the glorification of their most dear Lord by the manifestation of the power which was given to Him over all flesh (John xvii. 2). It is to be then, Emmanuel, that crushing the heads of kings and making your enemies your footstool (Psalm cix.) you will be shown as the one Ruler of all nations (Psalm ii.). It is to be then that Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, will bow their knee (Philippians ii. 10) before that Son of Man who until then appeared on Earth as a slave, and was judged, and condemned, and put to death between two thieves. It is to be then, dear Jesus, that you will judge the unjust judges to whom, even in the midst of all the humiliations they put on you, you foretold this your Coming on the clouds of Heaven (Matthew xxvi. 64). And when, after the irrevocable sentence has been passed, the wicked will go to everlasting torments, and the just to life eternal (Maathew xxv. 46), your Apostle tells us, that having conquered your enemies and been proclaimed undisputed King, you will consign to your eternal Father this your Kingdom won over death. It will be the perfect homage of you, the Head, and of all your faithful members (1 Corinthians xv. 24‒28). God will thus be all in all. It will be the perfect accomplishment of that sublime prayer you taught mankind to make (Matthew vi. 9), which they daily offer up to the Father who is in Heaven, and say to Him: Hallowed be thy name! Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven! Blissfully peaceful Day when blasphemy is to cease, and when this poor Earth of ours, cleansed by fire from the filth of sin, will be turned into a new paradise! Where, then, is the Christian who would not thrill with emotion at the thought of that last of all the Days of time which is to usher in beautiful Eternity? Who would not despise the agonies of his own last hour when he reflects that those sufferings have really only one meaning in them — that is, as the Gospel words it, that the Son of Man is near even at the very doors!

O sweet Jesus, detach us, every Year, more and more from this world whose fashion passes away (1 Corinthians vii. 31) with its vain toils, its false glories, and its lying pleasures. It was your own foretelling that, as in the days of Noah, and Sodom, men will go on with their feasting, and business, and amusements, without giving any more thought to your approaching Coming than their forefathers heeded the threat of the Deluge, or of the fire, which came on them and destroyed them (Luke xvii. 26‒30). Let these men go on with their merrymaking and their sending gifts one to the other, as your Apocalypse expresses it, because, so they will have it, Christ and His Church are then to be worn out ideas! (Apocalypse xi. 10). While they are tyrannising over your holy City in a thousand varied ways, and persecuting her as no past period had ever done, they little think that all this is an announcement of the Eternal Nuptials which are near at hand. All these trials were the fresh jewels which the Bride was to have on her before all her beauty was complete, and the blood of her last Martyrs was to incarnadine her already splendid robes with all the richness of royal crimson. As for us, we lend an ear to the echoes of our home above, and from the throne of our God we hear going forth the voice heard by your beloved Prophet of Patmos: “Give praise to our God, all you his servants, and you that fear him, little and great! Alleluia! For the Lord our God the almighty has reigned! Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to Him, for the Marriage of the Lamb is come, and His Wife has prepared herself! (Apocalypse xix. 5‒7). Yet a little while till the number of our brethren be made up (Apocalypse vi. 11) and then, with the Spirit and the Bride, we will say to you in all the ardour of our souls that have long thirsted after you: Come, Lord Jesus! (Apocalypse xxii. 17) Come and perfect us in love, by Union eternal, to the glory of the Father, and of yourself the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, forever and ever!

22 NOVEMBER – SAINT CAECILIA (Virgin and Martyr)

Caecilia, a Roman virgin of noble origin, was brought up from her infancy in the Christian faith and vowed her virginity to God. Against her will she was given in marriage to Valerian, but on the first night of the nuptials she said to him: “Valerian, I am under the care of an Angel, who is the guardian of my virginity. So beware of doing what might kindle God’s wrath against you.” Valerian was moved by these words respected her wishes and told her that he would believe in Christ if he could see the Angel. On Caecilia telling him that this could not be unless he received Baptism, being very desirous of seeing the Angel, Valerian replied that he was willing to be baptised. Taking the virgin’s advice, Valerian went to Pope Urban, who on account of the persecution was hiding among the tombs of the Martyrs on the Via Appia, and by him he was baptised. Then returning to Caecilia, he found her at prayer and beside her an Angel shining with divine brightness. He was amazed at the sight but as soon as he had recovered from his fear he sought out his brother Tiburtius who also was instructed by Caecilia in the faith of Christ and, after being baptised by Pope Urban, was favoured like his brother with the sight of the Angel.

Both of them shortly afterwards courageously suffered martyrdom under the prefect Almachius, who next commanded Caecilia to be apprehended, and commenced by asking her what had become of the property of Tiburtius and Valerian. The Caecilia answered that it had all been distributed among the poor. The prefect was so enraged that he commanded her to be led back to her own house and put to death by the heat of the bath. But after spending a day and a night there, she remained unhurt by the fire, and an executioner was sent to dispatch her. Not being able with three strokes of the axe to cut off her head, he left her half dead. Three days later, on the tenth of the Calends of December, she took her flight to Heaven, adorned with the double glory of virginity and martyrdom. It was in the reign of the emperor Alexander. Pope Urban buried her body in the cemetery of Callixtus, and her house was converted into a church and dedicated in her name. Pope Paschal I translated her body into the city, together with those of Popes Urban and Lucius, and of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus, and placed them all in this church of Saint Caecilia.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Caecilia united in her veins the blood of kings with that of Rome’s greatest heroes. At the time of the first preaching of the Gospel, more than one ancient patrician family had seen its direct line become extinct. But the adoptions and alliances, which under the Republic had knit more closely the great families by linking them all to the most illustrious among them, formed as it were a common fund of glory, which, even in the days of decline, was passed on intact to the survivors of the aristocracy.

It has now been demonstrated by the undeniable witness of monuments that Christianity from the very beginning took possession of that glory by adopting its heirs, and that by a wonderful disposition of divine Providence, the founders of the Rome of the Pontiffs were these last representatives of the Republic, thus preserved in order to give to the two phases of Roman history that powerful unity which is the distinguishing note of divine works. Heretofore bound together by the same patriotism, the Cornelli and the Aemilii, alike heirs of the Fabii, the Caecilii, Valerii, Sergii, Furii, Claudii, Pomponii, Plautii and Acilii, eldest sons of the Gentile Church, strengthened the connections formed during the Republic and firmly established, even in the first and second centuries of Christianity, the new Roman society. In the same centuries, and under the influence of the religion preached by Saints Peter and Paul, there came to be grafted on the ever vigorous trunk of the old aristocracy the best members of the new imperial and consular families, worthy by their truly Roman virtues, practised amid the general depravity, to reinforce the thinned ranks of Rome’s founders and to fill up, without too sudden a transition, the voids made by time in the true patrician houses. Thus was Rome working out her destiny. Thus was the building up of the Eternal City being accomplished by the very men who had formerly, by their blood or by their genius, established her strong and mighty on the Seven Hills.

Caecilia, the lawful representative of this unparalleled aristocracy, the fairest flower of the old stem, was also the last. The second century was passing away. The third, which was to see the empire fall from the hands of Septimus Severus first to the Orientals and then to the barbarians from the banks of the Danube, offered small chance of preservation for the remnants of the ancient nobility. The true Roman society was henceforth at an end for, save a few individual exceptions, there remained nothing more of Roman but the name: the vain adornment of freedmen and upstarts who, under princes worthy of them, indulged their passions at the expense of those around them.

Caecilia therefore appeared at the right moment, personifying with the utmost dignity the society that was about to disappear because its work was accomplished. In her strength and her beauty, adorned with the royal purple of martyrdom, she represents ancient Rome rising proud and glorious to the skies before the upstart Caesars who, by immolating her in their jealousy, unconsciously executed the divine plan. The blood of kings and heroes flowing from her triple wound, is the libation of the old nobility to Christ the conqueror, to the Blessed Trinity the Ruler of nations. It is the final consecration which reveals in its full extent the sublime vocation of the valiant races called to found the Eternal Rome.

But we must not think that today’s feast is meant to excite in us a mere theoretical and fruitless admiration. The Church recognises and honours in Saint Caecilia three characteristics which, united together, distinguish her among all the Blessed in Heaven and are a source of grace and an example to men. These three characteristics are virginity, apostolic zeal and the superhuman courage which enabled her to bear torture and death. Such is the threefold teaching conveyed by this one Christian life.

In an age so blindly abandoned as ours to the worship of the senses, is it not time to protest, by the strong lessons of our faith, against a fascination which even the children of the promise can hardly resist? Never since the fall of the Roman empire have morals, and with them the family and society, been so seriously threatened. For long years, literature, the arts, the comforts of life, have had but one aim: to propose physical enjoyment as the only end of man’s destiny. Society already counts an immense number of members who live entirely a life of the senses. Alas for the day when it will expect to save itself by relying on their energy! The Roman empire thus attempted several times to shake off the yoke of invasion: it fell never to rise again.

Yes, the family itself, the family especially, is menaced. It is time to think of defending itself against the legal recognition, or rather encouragement, of divorce. It can do so by one means alone: by reforming and regenerating itself according to the law of God, and becoming once more serious and Christian. Let marriage, with its chaste consequences, be held in honour. Let it cease to be an amusement or a speculation. Let fatherhood and motherhood be no longer a calculation, but an austere duty: and soon, through the family, the city and the nation will resume their dignity and their vigour.

But marriage cannot be restored to this high level unless men appreciate the superior element without which human nature is an ignoble ruin: this heavenly element is continence. True, all are not called to embrace it in the absolute sense, but all must do honour to it, under pain of being “delivered up,” as the Apostle expresses it, “to a reprobate sense” (Romans i. 28). It is continence that reveals to man the secret of his dignity, that braces his soul to every kind of devotedness, that purifies his heart and elevates his whole being.

It is the culminating point of moral beauty in the individual, and at the same time the great lever of human society. It is because the love of it became extinct that the ancient world fell to decay, but when the Son of the Virgin came on Earth, he renewed and sanctioned this saving principle, and a new phase began in the destinies of the human race.

The children of the Church, if they deserve the name, relish this doctrine and are not astonished at it. The words of our Saviour and of His Apostles have revealed all to them, and at every page the annals of the faith they profess set forth in action this fruitful virtue, of which all degrees of the Christian life, each in its measure, must partake. Saint Caecilia is one example among others offered to their admiration. But the lesson she gives is a remarkable one, and has been celebrated in every age of Christianity. On how many occasions has Caecilia inspired virtue or sustained courage. How many weaknesses has the thought of her prevented or repaired! Such power for good has God placed in His Saints, that they influence not only by the direct imitation of their heroic virtues, but also by the inductions which each of the faithful is able to draw from them for his own particular situation.

The second characteristic offered for our consideration in the life of Saint Caecilia is that ardent zeal of which she is one of the most admirable models, and we doubt not that here too is a lesson calculated to produce useful impressions. Insensibility to evil for which we are not personally responsible, or from which we are not likely to suffer, is one of the features of the period. We acknowledge that all is going to ruin, and we look on at the universal destruction without ever thinking of holding out a helping hand to save a brother from the wreck. Where should we now be, if the first Christians had had hearts as cold as ours? If they had not been filled with that immense pity, that inexhaustible love, which forbade them to despair of a world, in the midst of which God had placed them to be the salt of the earth? Each one felt himself accountable beyond measure for the gift he had received, Freeman or slave, known or unknown, every man was the object of a boundless devotedness for these hearts filled with the charity of Christ. One has but to read the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles, to learn on what an immense scale the apostolate was carried on in those early days, and the ardour of that zeal remained long uncooled. Hence the pagans used to say: “See how they love one another!” And how could they help loving one another? For in the order of faith they were fathers and children.

What maternal tenderness Caecilia felt for the souls of her brethren, from the mere fact that she was a Christian! After her we might name a thousand others in proof of the fact that the conquest of the world by Christianity and its deliverance from the yoke of pagan depravity are due to such acts of devotedness performed in a thousand places at once, and at length producing universal renovation. Let us imitate in something at least, these examples to which we owe so much. Let us waste less of our time and eloquence in bewailing evils which are only too real. Let each one of us set to work, and gain one of his brethren: and soon the number of the faithful will surpass that of unbelievers. Without doubt, this zeal is not extinct. It still works in some and its fruits rejoice and console the Church, but why does it slumber so profoundly in so many hearts which God had prepared to be its active centres? The cause is unhappily to be traced to that general coldness produced by effeminacy, which might be taken by itself alone as the type of the age. But we must add thereto another sentiment, proceeding from the same source, which would suffice, if of long duration, to render the debasement of a nation incurable.

This sentiment is fear, and it may be said to extend at present to its utmost limit. Men fear the loss of goods or position, fear the loss of comforts and ease, fear the loss of life. Needless to say, nothing can be more enervating, and consequently more dangerous to the world than this humiliating pre-occupation. But above all, we must confess that it is anything but Christian. Have we forgotten that we are merely pilgrims on this earth? And has the hope of future good died out of our hearts? Caecilia will teach us how to rid ourselves of this sentiment of fear. In her days, life was less secure than now. There certainly was then some reason to fear, and yet Christians were so courageous that the powerful pagans often trembled at the words of their victims. God knows what he has in store for us, but if fear does not soon make way for a sentiment more worthy of men and of Christians, all particular existences will be swallowed up in the political crisis. Come what may, it is time to learn our history over again. The lesson will not be lost if we come to understand this much: had the first Christians feared, they would have betrayed us, for the word of life would never have come down to us. If we fear, we will betray future generations, for we are expected to transmit to them the deposit we have received from our fathers.

The Passio Sanctoe Caecilia is marked in the most ancient Calendars on the 16th September and took place, according to the primitive Acts, under the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. The great feast of November 22nd, preceded by a Vigil, was one of the most solemn on the Roman Cycle. It recalled the dedication of the church raised on the site of that palace which had been sanctified by the blood of the descendant of the Metelli, and had been bequeathed by her when dying to Bishop Urban, representative of Pope Eleutherius. This Urban having been later on confounded with the Pope of the same name, who governed the Church in the time of Alexander Severus, the martyrdom of our Saint was thought to have occurred half a century later, as we still read in the Legend of the Office. It was most probably in the year 178 that Caecilia joined Valerian in Heaven, whence, a few months before, the Angel of the Lord had descended, bringing wreaths of lilies and roses to the two spouses. She was buried by Urban just as she lay at the moment of death. In the beginning of the following century the family crypt was given by her relatives to the Roman church, and was set apart for the burial of the Popes. In the ninth century, Paschal I found her surrounded by these venerable tombs, and brought her back in triumph on May 8th 822, to her house in the Trastevere, where she remains to this day.

On the 20th October, 1599, in the course of the excavations required for the restoration of the basilica, Caecilia was once more brought forth to the admiring gaze of the city and of the world. She was clad in her robe of cloth of gold, on which traces of her virginal blood were still discernable. At her feet were some pieces of linen steeped in the purple of her martyrdom. Lying on her right side with her arms stretched before her, she seemed in a deep sleep. Her neck still bore the marks of the wounds inflicted by the executioner’s sword. Her head, in a mysterious and touching position, was turned towards the bottom of the coffin. The body was in a state of perfect preservation, and the whole attitude, retained by an unique prodigy during so many centuries in all its grace and modesty, brought before the eyes with a striking truthfulness Caecilia breathing her last sigh stretched on the floor of the bath chamber.

The spectators were carried back in thought to the day when the holy bishop Urban bad enclosed the sacred body in the cypress chest, without altering the position chosen by the bride of Christ to breathe forth her soul into the anus of her divine Spouse. They admired also the discretion of Pope Paschal, who had not disturbed the virgin’s repose, but had preserved for posterity so magnificent a spectacle. Cardinal Sfondrate, titular of Saint Caecilia, who directed the works, found also in the chapel called of the Bath the heating-stove and vents of the sudatorium where the saint passed a day and a night in the midst of scalding vapours. Recent excavations have brought to light other objects belonging to the patrician home which by their style belong to the early days of the Republic.

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It would need the language of Angels worthily to celebrate your greatness, O bride of Christ! and we have but the faltering, timid accents of mortals and sinners. O queen, who stands at the King’s right hand, clad in the vesture of gold of which the Psalmist sings, look down upon us with a favourable eye and deign to accept this offering of our praise which we lay on the lowest step of your lofty throne. We make bold to join thereto a prayer for the holy Church whose humble daughter you were heretofore, as now you are her hope and her support. In the dark night of this present life the Bridegroom is long a-coming. In the midst of this solemn and mysterious silence He suffers the virgin to slumber till the cry will announce His arrival. We honour the repose earned by your victories, O Caecilia, but we know that you do not forget us, for the Bride says in the Canticle: “I sleep, and my heart watches.” The hour draws near when the Spouse is to appear, calling all who are His to gather under the standard of His Cross. Soon will the cry be heard: “Behold the Bridegroom comes, go forth to meet Him.” Then, O Caecilia, you will say to all Christians what you said to the faithful band grouped around you at the hour of your combat: “Soldiers of Christ! Cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.”

The Church daily pronounces your name with love and confidence in the Canon of the Mass. And she looks for your assistance, O Caecilia, knowing it will not fail her. Prepare a victory for her by raising up the hearts of Christians to the realities which they too often forget while they run after the vain shadows from which you won Tiburtius. When the minds of men become once more fixed upon the thought of their eternal destiny, the salvation and peace of nations will be secured.

Be forever, O Caecilia, the delight of your divine Spouse. Breathe eternally the heavenly fragrance of His roses and lilies, and be unceasingly enraptured with the ineffable harmony of which He is the source. From the midst of your glory you will watch over us, and when our last hour draws near, we beseech you by the merits of your heroic martyrdom, assist us on our death-bed. Receive our soul into your arms, and bear it up to the everlasting abode where the sight of the bliss you enjoy will give us to understand the value of Virginity, of the Apostolate and of Martyrdom.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Colossae in Phrygia, during the reign of Nero, Saints Philemon and Apphias, disciples of the blessed Apostle St. Paul. When Gentiles rushed into the church on the feast of Diana, they were arrested while the other Christians fled, and by the command of the governor Artocles, were scourged, let down into a pit up to their waist, and overwhelmed with stones.

Also at Rome, St. Maurus, martyr, who, coming from Africa to visit the tombs of the Apostles, was condemned to die under the emperor Numerian, Celerinus being prefect of the city.

At Antioch in Pisidia, the martyrdom of the Saints Mark and Stephen, under the emperor Diocletian.

At Autun, St. Pragmatius, bishop and confessor.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

21 NOVEMBER – THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

The exceedingly pure temple of the Saviour, the inestimable sheep, the holy Virgin, the sacred ark containing the treasure of the divine majesty, is led today into the house of the Lord. To there she brings the grace of the divine Spirit, while the Angels of God sing her praises, saying: “Truly she is the heavenly tabernacle.” The Creator, Author and Lord of all things, out of His incomprehensible mercy and compassion, bent down towards us and seeing the creature He had made with His own hands fallen away, He in his pity, deigned to restore it by a sublimer work than the creation: for He, so good and merciful, emptied Himself, and in the mystery by which He freely took on Him our nature, He associated the immaculate Virgin Mary with Himself. The Word of God, our Redeemer, willing to show Himself for our sake in the flesh, brought the Virgin into this world and honoured the coming of that spotless one with new and stupendous gifts: for He gave her as the fruit and reward of prayer, and promised and announced her to Joachim and Anne. Her parents believed the word, and with joyful love they vowed to offer her to the Lord. The lovely Virgin being born according to the divine decree, her holy parents led her to the temple, to fulfil their promise and give her to her Creator. Anne in her joy thus cried out to the priest: “Receive this child, lead her into the most secluded parts of the temple surround her with all care, for she was given to me as the fruit of my prayers, and in the joy of my faith I promised to devote her to God her Creator.”

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Presentation is one of the minor solemnities of our Lady, and was inscribed at a comparatively late date on the sacred Cycle. It seems to court the homage of our silent contemplation. The world, unknown to itself, is ruled by the secret prayers of the just, and the Queen of saints, in her hidden mysteries, wrought far more powerfully than the so-called great men whose noisy achievements fill the annals of the human race.

The East had been celebrating for seven centuries at least the entrance of the Mother of God into the temple of Jerusalem, when in 1372 Gregory XI permitted it to be kept for the first time by the Roman court at Avignon. Mary in return broke the chains of captivity that had bound the Papacy for seventy years, and soon the successor of Saint Peter returned to Rome. The feast of the Visitation, as we saw on July 2nd, was in like manner inserted in the Western Calendar to commemorate the re-establishment of unity after the schism which followed the exile.

In 1373, following the example of the Sovereign Pontiff, Charles V of France introduced the feast of the Presentation into the chapel of his palace. By letters dated 10th November 1874 to the masters and students of the college of Navarre, he expressed his desire that it should be celebrated throughout the kingdom: “Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks, to our dearly beloved: health in him who ceases not to honour his Mother on Earth. Among other objects of our solicitude, of our daily care and diligent meditation, that which rightly occupies our first thoughts is, that the blessed Virgin and most holy Empress be honoured by us with very great love, and praised as becomes the veneration due to her. For it is our duty to glorify her; and we, who raise the eyes of our soul to her on high, know what an incomparable protectress she is to all, how powerful a mediatrix with her blessed Son, for those who honour her with a pure heart... Wherefore, wishing to excite our faithful people to solemnise the said feast, as we ourselves propose to do by God’s assistance every year of our life, we send this Office to your devotion, in order to increase your joy.”

Such was the language of princes in those days. Now just at that very time, the wise and pious king, following up the work begun at Bretigny by our Lady of Chartres, rescued France from its fallen and dismembered condition. In the State then, as well as in the Church, at this moment so critical for both, our Lady in her Presentation commanded the storm, and the smile of the infant Mary dispersed the clouds. The new feast, enriched with Indulgences by Paul II, had gradually become general when Saint Pius V, wishing to diminish the number of Offices on the universal Calendar, included this one among his suppressions. But Sixtus V restored it to the Roman Breviary in 1585, and shortly afterwards Clement VIII raised it to the rank of Double Major. Soon the Clergy and Regulars adopted the custom of renewing their holy vows on this day on which their Queen had opened before them the way that leads by sacrifice to the special love of our Lord.

“Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house: and the King will greatly desire your beauty.” Thus, wording the wishes of the daughters of Tyre, sang the Church of the expectation, on the summit of Mount Moriah, and penetrating the future with her inspired glance, she added: “After her will virgins be brought to the King, her neighbours will be brought to you. They will be brought with gladness and rejoicing: they will be brought into the temple of the King.” Hailed beforehand as “beautiful above the sons of men,” this King, the most mighty, makes on this day a prelude to His conquests; and even this beginning is wonderful. Through the graceful infant now mounting the temple steps, He takes possession of that temple whose priests will hereafter vainly disown Him: for this child, whom the temple welcomes today, is His throne. Already his fragrance precedes and announces Him, in the Mother in whose bosom He is to be anointed with the oil of gladness as the Christ among His brethren. Already the Angels hail her as the Queen whose fruitful virginity will give birth to all those consecrated souls who keep for the divine Spouse the myrrh and the incense of their holocausts, those daughters of kings, who are to form her court of honour (Psalm xliv.).

But our Lady’s Presentation also opens new horizons before the Church. On the Cycle of the Saints, which is not so precisely limited as that of the Time, the mystery of Mary’s sojourn in the sanctuary of the Old Covenant is our best preparation for the approaching season of Advent. Mary, led to the temple in order to prepare in retirement, humility and love for her incomparable destiny, had also the mission of perfecting at the foot of the figurative altar the prayer of the human race, of itself ineffectual to draw down the Saviour from heaven. She was, as Saint Bernardine of Siena says, the happy completion of all the waiting and supplication for the coming of the Son of God. In her, as in their culminating point, all the desires of the saints who had preceded her found their consummation and their term.

Through her wonderful understanding of the Scriptures, and her conformity, daily and hourly, to the minutest teachings and prescriptions of the Mosaic ritual, Mary everywhere found and adored the Messiah hidden under the letter. She united herself to Him, immolated herself with Him in each of the many victims sacrificed before her eyes, and thus she rendered to the God of Sinai the homage, hitherto vainly expected, of the Law understood, practised and made to fructify, in all the fullness that beseemed its divine Legislator. Then could Jehovah truly say: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return no more thither, but soak the earth and water it, and make it to spring:... so will my word be: it will not return to me void, but it will do whatever I please” (Isaias lv. 10, 11). Supplying thus for the deficiencies of the Gentiles as well as of the Synagogue, Mary beheld in the Bride of the Canticle the Church of the future. In our name she addressed her supplications to Him whom she recognised as the Bridegroom, without however knowing that He was to be her own Son. Such yearnings of love, coming from her, were sufficient to obtain from the divine Word pardon for the infidelities of the past, and the immorality into which the wandering world was plunging deeper and deeper. How well did this Ark of the New Covenant replace that of the Jews, which had perished with the first temple! It was for her, though he knew it not, that Herod the Gentile had continued the construction of the second temple, after it had remained desolate since the time of Zorobabel, for the temple, like the tabernacle before it, was but the home of the ark destined to be God’s throne. But greater was the glory of the second temple which sheltered the reality, than of the first which contained but the figure.

The Greeks have chosen for the Lessons of the feast the passages of Scripture which describe the carrying of the Ark into the tabernacle of the desert (Exodus xl.) and afterwards into the temple of Jerusalem (3 Kings viii.). The historical Lesson relates the traditions concerning the oblation of the Blessed Virgin by her holy parents to God in the temple at the age of three years, there to dwell until, after the lapse of 12 years, the mystery of our salvation was to be accomplished in her.

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“Congratulate me, all ye that love the Lord, because when I was a little one I pleased the Most High.” Such is the invitation you address to us, O Mary, in the Office chanted in your honour, and on what feast could you do so more appropriately? When, even more little in your humility than by your tender age, you mounted, in your sweet purity, the steps of the temple, all Heaven must have owned that it was henceforth just for the Most High to take His delight in our Earth. Having hitherto lived in retirement with your blessed parents, this was your first public act. It showed you for a moment to the eyes of men, only to withdraw thee immediately into deeper obscurity. But, as you were officially offered and presented to the Lord, He Himself doubtless, surrounded by the princes of his court, presented you not less solemnly to those noble spirits as their Queen. In the fullness of the new light that then burst upon them, they understood at once your incomparable greatness, the majesty of the temple where Jehovah was receiving a homage superior to that of their Nine Choirs, and the august prerogative of the Old Testament to have you for its daughter, and to perfect by its teachings and guidance during those 12 years, the formation of the Mother of God.

Holy Church, however, declares that we can imitate you, O Mary, in this mystery of your Presentation, as in all others. Deign to bless especially those privileged souls who, by the grace of their vocation, are even here below dwellers in the house of the Lord: may they be like that fruitful olive enriched by the Holy Spirit, to which Saint John Damascene compares you. But is not every Christian, by reason of his Baptism, an indweller and a member of the Church, God’s true sanctuary, prefigured by that of Moriah? May we, through your intercession, follow you so closely in your Presentation, even here in the land of shadows, that we may deserve to be presented after you to the Most High in the temple of His glory.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of blessed Rufus, mentioned by the blessed Apostle St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans.

At Rome, the martyrdom of the Saints Celsus and Clement.

At Ostia, the holy martyrs Demetrius and Honorius.

At Rheims, St. Albert, bishop of Liege and martyr, who was put to death for defending the liberties of the Church.

In Spain, the holy martyrs Honorius, Eutychius and Stephen.

In Pamphylia, St. Heliodorus, martyr, in the persecution of Aurelian under the governor Aetius. After his death his executioners were converted to the faith and thrown into the sea.

At Rome, St. Gelasius, pope, distinguished for learning and sanctity.

At Verona, St. Maurus, bishop and confessor.

In the monastery of Bobio, the departure from this life of St. Columban, abbot, who founded many convents and governed a large number of monks. He died at an advanced age, celebrated for many virtues.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.