6 JUNE – SAINT NORBERT (Bishop and Confessor)

Norbert was born in Xanten, on the left bank of the Rhine, near Wesel in 1080. Born into a noble family related to the emperor, he was ordained a sub-deacon but led a worldly life at the imperial court. After an accident in which he was thrown from his horse when lightning struck the ground before it, Norbert converted and was ordained deacon and priest. He laid aside all soft and showy raiment, clad himself in a coat of skins and made the preaching of the word of God the sole object of his life. Having renounced the ecclesiastical revenues which he possessed and were very considerable, he distributed his patrimony among the poor. He ate only once a day and that in the evening, and then his meal was of Lenten fare. His life was of singular austerity, and even in the depth of winter he went out with bare feet and ragged garments. Hence came that power of his words and deeds by which by which he was enabled to turn countless heretics to the faith, sinners to repentance, and enemies to peace and concord.

Being at Laon, the bishop besought him not to leave his diocese, so he chose a wilderness at a place called Premontre, to which he withdrew with thirteen disciples, founding the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (the Premonstratensians), whose Rule he received in a vision from Saint Augustine. The fame of his holy life spread abroad quickly. Many sought to become his disciples, and when the Order had been approved by Pope Honorius II, many more monasteries were built. Norbert was remarkable for the spirit of prophecy and the gift of miracles. He was appointed Archbishop of Magdeburg against his will, and as Archbishop he upheld the discipline of the Church, especially as regards the celibacy of priests and religious. At a Council held at Rheims he was a great help to Pope Innocent II, and went with other bishops to Rome where he repressed the schism of Peter de Leon. Norbert promoted the doctrine of the Real Presence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. He died in 1134 and was canonised in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The helpful influence of the Holy Ghost is more and more multiplied along the Church’s path. It seems as though He would show us today how the divine power of His action is not crippled by lapse of years, for here we have, twelve centuries after His first coming among us, miracles of grace and conversion quite as brilliant as those that marked His glorious descent on Earth. Norbert, in whose veins flowed the best blood of emperors and kings, was from the very breast of his mother Hedwige supernaturally invited to a nobility loftier still: yet did he devote, to the unreserved enjoyment of pleasure, three and thirty years of a life that was to number but fifty in all. The Holy Ghost at length hastened to the conquest. There bursts a sudden storm, a thunderbolt falls right in front of the prodigal, throwing him to the ground and making a frightful chasm between him and the point where, a moment ago, he was hastening in pursuit of new vanities that needs must fail, as all others had done, to fill the hopeless void in his heart. Then, in the very depths of his soul resounds a voice, such as Saul once heard on his way to Damascus: “Norbert, where are you going?” Like another Paul he replies: “Lord, what will you have me to do?” He is answered: “Depart from evil and do good. Seek after peace and pursue it.” Twenty years later, and Norbert is in Heaven, seated amid pontiffs on a glorious throne, and all radiant with that special brilliancy that distinguishes the founders of the great Religious Orders when they have reached the eternal Home.

Deep are the traces left by him on Earth of his few years of penitential life. Germany and France receive his preaching. Antwerp is delivered from a shameful heresy. Magdeburg is rescued by this her Archbishop from the irregularities that were sullying the House of God. Such are his works, and though these alone would have sufficed to a long life of holiness, yet they are not the only titles, nor the most brilliant, which Norbert has to the Church’s gratitude. Before being called against his will to the honours of the episcopate, this once happy courtier made choice of an uninhabitable solitude amid the forests of the diocese of Laon in which to devote himself to prayer and the maceration of his flesh. The renown of this holy penitent gained rapidly, and Prémontre soon beheld her swampy marshes invaded by a vast multitude formed of the fairest names of picked nobility, pressing there to learn the science of salvation from the lips of the saintly anchorite. There too, did Our Lady show to him in vision the white habit with which his disciples were to be clothed, and Saint Augustine, in like manner, delivered to him his own Rule. Thus was founded the most illustrious branch of the Order of Canons Regular. They added to the obligation of solemnising the Divine Office the austerities of an uninterrupted penance, and devoted themselves moreover to the service of souls by preaching and the administration of parishes.

In the foregoing century the episcopacy and Papacy had been raised by the monks from out the reach of feudal servitude, and Norbert was now raised up to give the needed completion to their work. Although on principle the monastic life excludes no sort of labour useful to the Church, the monks could not, however numerous they might be, quit their cloisters in order to undertake charge of souls. Yet, great were the wants of the lambs of the flock at that time, for many unworthy pastors of secondary order, slaves to simony and immorality, still continued to lead astray the simple laity. The religious life was alone capable of raising the priesthood from such degradation, whether on the pinnacles of the hierarchy or among the lowest degrees of sacred Orders. Norbert was the man chosen by God to effect, in part at least, this immense work: and the importance of his mission explains the sublime prodigality with which the Holy Ghost multiplied vocations to his standard. The number and rapidity of foundations permitted succour to be promptly and everywhere afforded: even into the far East did the light of Prémontre reach, almost at its first dawn. In the eighteenth century, notwithstanding the devastations of the Turks and the ravages of the pretended Reform, the Order, divided into 28 provinces, still contained in nearly each one of its houses as many as from 50 to 120 Canons, and the parishes that continued under their care might be counted by thousands.

Nuns, whose holy life and prayers are the ornament and aid of the Church Militant, occupied from the very beginning the place deservedly their due in this numerous family. In the time of the founder, or soon after his death, there were more than a thousand of them at Prémontre alone. Such an incredible sum gives us an idea of the prodigious propagation of the Order from its very origin. Norbert moreover extended his charity to persons who, like Thihault Count of Champagne, would gladly have followed him into the desert, but who were retained by God’s will in the world. He thus made a prelude to those pious associations which we will see Saint Francis and Saint Dominic organising in the thirteenth century under the name of “Third Orders.”

*****

YOU indeed knew how to redeem the time (Ephesians v. 16) as was fitting in those evil days in which you yourself, Norbert, led away by the example of the senseless crowd, had for so long frustrated the designs of God’s love. Those years, at first refused by you to the true Master of the world, you at length returned to Him multiplied a hundredfold through those countless sons and daughters you trained up in sanctity. Even your personal works, in but twenty years’ space, filled the whole Earth. Schism crushed, heresy confounded to the glory of the Most Holy Sacrament which it had already dared to attack, the rights of the Church intrepidly defended against worldly princes and unjust retentions, the priesthood restored to its primitive purity, the Christian Life strengthened on its true basis of prayer and penance: such and so many victories achieved in so few years are due to the generosity which prevented you from looking back, for one moment, from the day on which the Holy Ghost touched your heart. Make all understand that it is never too late to begin to serve God. Were it even, as in your case, the evening-fall of life, what yet remains of time would quite suffice to make us saints, if we would but generously give that little fully to Heaven (1 Peter iv. 2). Faith and Patience were your cherished virtues: make them flourish once more in this sad world of ours which vaunts itself on doubting of everything, and with gibe and jeer hurries onwards to the abyss of Hell. Forget not, dear Apostle, now that you are in Heaven, the countries you erstwhile evangelised. We implore this of you despite their forgetfulness, despite their criminal return to the deceits of the devil.

Holy Pontiff, Magdeburg has lost her ancient faith, and with it the precious relics of your body which she no longer deserved to possess: Prague is now the favoured spot of your repose. But, while blessing this hospitable city, pray still for the ungrateful one that has cast aside her double treasure. Founder of Prémontre, smile once more on France which derives from you one of her fairest glories. Obtain of God that for the salvation of these calamitous times your Order may recover something of its former splendour. Bless, few as they are, those sons and daughters of your who, despite the ridiculous hostility of the powers that be, seek to shed once more their beneficent influence on France. May England benefit also of their return to her midst, and may their fruits be multiplied in every direction. Maintain your own spirit among them. May they find in interior peace, the secret of triumph over Satan and his crew. May the full magnificence of the divine worship solemnly carried out be ever to their souls as the dearly loved mount where, Moses like, they may declare the will of the Lord to the new Israel, the Christian people.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Caesarea in Palestine, the birthday of blessed Philip, one of the first seven deacons. Being renowned for miracles and prodigies, he converted Samaria to the faith of Christ, baptised the eunuch of Candaces, queen of Ethiopia, and finally rested in peace at Caesarea. Near him are buried three of his daughters, virgins and prophetesses. His fourth daughter died at Ephesus, filled with the Holy Spirit.

At Rome, St. Artemius, with his wife Candida and his daughter Paulina. Artemius became a believer through the preaching and miracles of St. Peter the Exorcist who was baptised with all his house by the priest St. Marcellinus. By order of the judge Serenus he was scourged with whips strung with leaden balls, and struck with the sword. His wife and daughter were forced into a pit and overwhelmed with stones and earth.

At Tarsus in Cilicia, in the time of Diocletian and Maximian, and the governor Simplicius, twenty holy martyrs who, by various torments, glorified God in their bodies.

At Noyon in France, the holy martyrs Amatius, Alexander, and their companions.

At Fiesoli in Tuscany, St. Alexander, bishop and martyr.

At Milan, the demise of St. Eustorgius II, bishop and confessor.

At Verona, St. John, bishop.

At Besançon in France, St. Claude, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 JUNE – SATURDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Man has been cast forth from Eden, and is gone into the dreary land of his exile. He has nothing left him of the Tree of Life but the recollection that it was once his. It remains in the happy land where it was first planted. How could it go after the sinner man now that he is banished into the vale of tears?

No, it remains in Paradise, far from the abode of suffering. And out of mortals’ sight it continues in all its loveliness, bearing testimony to the primitive intentions of God, which were peace, innocence and love. The day will come when we will see it again, for it is to be one of the charms of the new Earth into which our Lord will lead His chosen people on the day of the great Pasch, and the restoration of all things (Apocalypse xxii. 2) Happy day, after which, as the Apostle tells us, every creature longs, bowed down as it now is, and made subject, by reason of a fault which was not its own, to the inconstancy of ceaseless change. Man, who, against the creature’s will, subjected it to the servitude of corruption, that same man keeps up within it the hope that the time of deliverance being come, it, too, will partake, in its own way, of the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans viii. 19-22). The glory of the new Paradise will be greater than that of the one of old, for it is not under the veil of symbols or in a passing way that the deifying union is to be fulfilled, but divine Wisdom will give Himself, and forever, and without veil, to man, and in an eternal embrace. And yet, this union whose permanent enjoyment is to make the eternal bliss of heaven is to be contracted even now, and on this very Earth of ours: for it is the economy of the divine plan that in all things, the future life should have its roots in the present one, and should be but the revelation, in the light of glory, of the ineffable realities formed here by grace. What, then, after the Fall, will be the conditions of the alliance from which eternal Wisdom has not been turned by the sin committed by His creature Man?

O the depth of the riches of this Wisdom of God! (Romans xi. 33). His love is strong as death (Canticles viii. 6), and even after man’s disloyalty will be infinitely admirable in its delicate ways of gaining its object. There is to be nothing unbecoming in the alliance He is bent on! He will admit no compromise with the depravity which has befallen our now sinful race! His mercy is infinite and, through that, He has pardoned the offence the moment the offender expressed his sorrow. But the pardon is not one which was to mean no compensation, no expiation, on man’s side. That would have ill-suited the dignity of such a Spouse as He. And since sinful man cannot offer an adequate expiation, He, Wisdom, undertakes to pay the culprit’s whole debt and give Him back the holiness he has forfeited. This done, Ge will take our human nature and espouse her to Himself as His much loved Bride. “I will espouse you to me, injustice and judgement,” says this God to man, by His prophet Osee (Osee ii. 19). And He adds: “I will espouse you to me in faith” (Osee ii. 20).

For, just as the entrance of divine Wisdom into this world, which He comes to save from pride by humility, is to be without exterior parade or glory, so, likewise, the divine union is to be accomplished in the mystery of the sacred species of the nuptial banquet, and these species will offer nothing to view but the appearance of bread and wine, such as one could find on any table. But Faith will see through that veil and the unspeakable dignity conferred on the children of men by this heavenly food will reflect its brightness on the whole creation. The whole world of creatures, each in its own way, was in expectation of this marvellous manifestation which was to be made on the sons of God (Romans viii. 19) by the union to be contracted between Wisdom and Man. The Prophet thus speaks of this universal expectation: “And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, says the Lord, I will hear the heavens; and they will hear the earth; and the earth will hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and these will hear Jezrahel” (Osee ii. 21-22). Jezrahel means “the seed, or race, of God.” God will give to man, through corn and wine, the substance to be offered in the mysteries, and through oil, the priesthood, which is to transform them into the marriage-dowry, in the very action of the Sacrifice. It is to be by the Sacrifice, and by Blood that this alliance of justice and love is to be contracted.

We read in Scripture that Moses was one day traversing the desert. He had on him a legal transgression. Tthe Angel of the Lord met him and was about to slay him, when Sephora, the wife of this future leader of Israel, averted the divine vengeance by the rough and speedy circumcision of her son Eliezer: then marking with his blood the feet of the guilty one, she said to him: “A Spouse of blood are you to me” (Exodus iv. 24-26).Thus, and with far greater truth, could divine Wisdom say to the human race, for He is not to save, He is not to be united with man, except by the Blood of this Son of Man, who is one in person with that same Wisdom.

Nay, far from lessening, this very sight of man’s misery has increased the ardour of his love. Later on this Man-God will say: “I have a baptism, with which I am to be baptised: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!” (Luke xii. 50). It was the same from the very first: no sooner has expiation been shown as the royal way by which humanity is to be restored to Him and again made worthy of Him by the shedding of divine Blood — Wisdom has ever had that thought before Him. He is impatient for the great immolation of Calvary, and until its time is come He will suggest to His people rites and sacrifices figurative of that one Sacrifice, and of the banquet of the adorable Victim, the Marriage-Feast.

His garden, the place of his delight, is no longer Paradise. It is this parched Earth of ours where man has now, more than ever, need of being loved of God. “You Cherubim, whom God has stationed to guard the Tree of Life, 'tis well that sinful man be kept from approaching it; But the flaming sword you hold in your hands will not prevent divine Wisdom from leaving Paradise and joining our human race here in its banishment. He was not only the Tree, but He is, likewise, the River of Life.” Speaking of Himself, He says in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: “like a brook out of a river of a mighty water, as though I were but a mere channel of a river, I came out of Paradise. I said: ‘I will water my garden of plants, and I will water abundantly the fruits of my meadow.’” “And behold, my brook became a great river, and my river became like a sea; for I make doctrine to shine forth to all, as the morning light, and I will declare it afar off, yes, even to the most distant ages. I will penetrate to all the lower parts of the Earth, and will visit all that sleep, and will enlighten all that hope in the Lord” (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 41-45).

This living Light, which from early morning enlightens the whole Earth with divine Wisdom, is the varied teaching of prophecies and figures which were given by God through the course of ages and, from the very moment of man’s creation, put the shadow of the Messiah on the whole universe. By means of this manifold teaching, Wisdom conveys Himself through nations into holy souls (Wisdom vii. 27), rouses man up, when discouragement makes him slumber (Psalms cxviii. 28), cherishes his hopes, and bids him hope, by looking at the future. Those bloody sacrifices which were prescribed immediately after man’s departure from Eden as the ritual expression of his early worship of God will be offered up by all after generations and, even when idolatry will have led mankind into the abyss of every crime, those sacrifices will raise up their voice and keep up the prophecy which they are intended to proclaim — the prophecy of a Victim who will be one of infinite worth. The stream of primitive traditions will, as it flows through time and space, get impregnated with foreign elements, and transmit many worthless or even dangerous material. Still, it is through the rite of Sacrifice, observed as it is by the whole world, that the desire and expectation of Christ will be maintained among all nations (Genesis xlix. 10) Satan, that old serpent thief, may succeed in inducing men to build altars to himself, and on those altars offer him sacrifice which is due to God alone: but he cannot stifle the voice of truth which accompanies every sacrifice, the voice which teaches that an innocent and pure victim may be substituted in place of guilty man and work his expiation. This will arouse the notion of the promised Mediator in many a soul that had got bewildered amid the orgies of this satanic worship. And here again the very sight of the serpent was made to be the cure of them he had stung, and became the sign and ensign of the son of Jesse (Numbers xxi. 6-9; Isaias xi. 10). O root of Jesse! Root of the Wisdom of the Most High! Who is there that can understand the depth of His counsels, or penetrate the devices of His immense love? (Ecclesiasticus i. 6) Verily you are more beautiful than any light of day, for that light yields when night comes on, whereas you, Wisdom, are overcome by no evil, be it as black as sin! (Wisdom vii. 29, 30).

All those ancient Sacrifices were powerless to produce grace. Their very multiplicity proved their inability to do so (Hebrews x. 1-4), but what they could and did effect was the keeping alive in mankind the remembrance of the Fall, and the expectation of a Redeemer. They were, likewise, the basis of those supernatural acts which are requisite for man’s justification and salvation. But, besides their representing the redemptive element, which the Fall of man has introduced into the plan of God, these bloody Sacrifices express also the union of that God with His creature, which was the primary and chief object of creation. That union was to be effected in the banquet prepared by Wisdom, the Eucharistic banquet, in which He, Wisdom, the Son of God, was to be received by man, and thus united with him. Yes, this sublime mystery was also expressed by those figurative Sacrifices in which the people partook of the victims offered: for in the Eucharist the Victim is Man-God, offered to God, and eaten of by man. The Deity is appeased by the Blood of the divine Lamb, and mankind is restored, because nourished by His Flesh, which thus feeds him to a new and a divine life.

Such was the general law observed by all nations when offering Sacrifice: the portion intended for God was consumed by fire, and this was a transmitting it to Heaven. But another portion of the same victim was taken and eaten by the people: and all this signified that there was communion between Heaven and Earth, and that the receivers were all made one because they all partook of the same sacred food. How admirably are thus grouped together all the mysteries of God’s goodness towards his creature man! And what a prophecy this was! It was unceasing, for it was proclaimed each time a sacrifice was offered up, and there were thousands every day. It was in these that the divine Lamb, whom they foretold, was slain from the very beginning of the world (Apocalypse xiii. 8). His Blood, in all those early ages, was applied, through hope and faith, on the souls of men, and cleansed them from their sins. And the mysterious ritual with its inspired code of prescriptions was keeping man on the alert, and preparing him for the banquet of the Nuptials of the Lamb (Apocalypse xix. 7-9). Then, let Wisdom extol His own triumph! It is He that made that in the heavens there should rise a light which never fails, and covers the whole earth as with a cloud. He alone has compassed the circuit of heaven, has penetrated into the bottom of the deep, has traversed the waves of the sea, and has stood in all the earth, and in every people, as the King of all, holding the chief rule, and vanquishing, strongly and sweetly, the hearts of all, both high and low (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 6-11).

Meanwhile, the time of banishment is running on. The long period of expectation is more than half over. The nearer the realisation of the promised Alliance comes, the more ardent are the longings of chosen souls. As to our Jesus Himself, that is, Wisdom, He seems to desire a preparation of a more telling kind than any of these others that have preceded. He will turn his attention to the very spot where He is to dwell on this Earth. And where is that? His Father, the Creator of all things —that Father, whose every word is fulfilled by His Son — has a chosen people,; and among these He would have His Son be nationalised, if we may reverently use such a word. He said to Him: “Let your dwelling be in Jacob, and your inheritance in Israel!” (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 12, 13). In obedience to this His Father’s will, He establishes Himself in Sion, He takes his rest in the holy City, and fixes His power in Jerusalem (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 15). Jerusalem, it is the City of Peace, and is to be the scene of such stupendous mysteries! It was here that Isaac, the child of promise, had come carrying on his shoulders the wood for his self-sacrifice. Here his father is about to slay him, when a ram is mysteriously substituted , and the Mount of the one true Sacrifice is thus selected. It was here, also, that there then lived a King-Priest who bore the likeness of the Son of God (Hebrews vii. 3): it was Melchisedech, and when Abraham, the father of believers, came to him, this Melchisedech offered what was to be the sacrifice of the Alliance to come. He offered a sacrifice of bread and wine, and thereby showed to Abraham, who saw into the future, the day of Christ, his Son (John viii. 56).

It is at the very period, when the world, at large has fallen into idolatry and offered to false gods the homage of its sacrifices, that divine Wisdom leads into this chosen dwelling-place the people of whom He is to be born as Man. It is the fulfilment of the command: “Let your dwelling be in Jacob! Let your inheritance be in Israel!” In this one people, Wisdom will maintain His Father’s claims, and keep alive and pure the light of the expectation of nations. He delivers it, at the cost of countless prodigies, from the Egyptian bondage (Wisdom x. 15). The feast of the Paschal Lamb, slain the same day on which, at a future time, is to be celebrated the true Supper of the Lord and the immolation of the Lamb — the feast of the Paschal Lamb is the signal of the deliverance, and the triumphant march through the waters of a sea, to the Mount where is to be contracted, through the blood of victims, the union between God and the house of Jacob: the chosen people becomes the Bride of God (Ezechiel xvi; Osee ii.), the priestly kingdom, and the holy nation (Exodus xix. 6). Figure, in all things, of God’s true people traversing the desert of this world, Israel drinks of the waters which come from the Rock, and the Rock is Christ (1 Corinthians x. 4, 11); a bread rained down daily from Heaven, strengthens him amid the fatigues of journey and battle, and this “bread of Angels,” as the Scripture terms it, took the taste of anything the eater wished it to have (Wisdom xvi. 20-22). God Himself dwells with Israel, under his tents. He has had a tabernacle made for Him, on the plan of one shown by God on the mount. And in front of this tabernacle there is an altar on which a chosen family, consecrated by oil of unction, may alone offer, under the direction of a high-priest, the manifold legal sacrifices, each of which points to some excellency or other, of the one great Sacrifice of the future. From this altar on which burns a fire that is never quenched, here goes up to Heaven without interruption the smoke of the flesh and blood of the victims slain. They are a supplication for the coming of that saving Host which is to put an end to these hecatombs. There are also offerings of flour and wine. They are the necessary accompaniment of holocausts and peace offerings. They prefigure the august Memorial which is to keep up and perfect the divine Sacrifice of the Cross by an unbloody application of it. There is, in these early days, a sacrifice which goes under the name of a memorial. It is an offering by itself, consisting of fine flour and unleavened loaves and wafers (Leviticus ii. 2, 9). Then there are the proposition loaves. They are kept within the veil as the most holy of the sacrifices, as being a perpetual memorial of sacrifice and covenant (Leviticus xxiv. 7-9) and what a mysterious, yet unmistakeable, figure is all this of the future Eucharistic Presence, kept up in the Church under the sacred species even when the celebration of the mysteries is over?

As there is but one altar in Jacob which, by its oneness, points towards Him who at a future time is to be both victim and altar, so there is but one place, the tabernacle and its surroundings and, later on, the temple and holy city, where it is lawful to celebrate those sacred banquets of communion which according to universal custom close the sacrifice in which they are offered. The last time that Moses had his people assembled around him in the plains of the Jordan he thus spoke to them: “Beware lest you offer your holocaust in every place that you will see. In the place which the Lord your God will choose, that His name may be therein, there will you bring your holocausts, and victims, and tithes, and the first-fruits of your hands. There will you feast before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your men-servants and maid-servants, and the Levite that dwells in your cities, and you will rejoice, and be refreshed, before the Lord your God, in all things, whereunto you will put your hand” (Deuteronomy xii. 7, 11-13).

The material prosperity promised to the Jewish people as a reward of his faithfully observing the numerous figurative prescriptions of the law of Sinai was itself but a figure of the spiritual blessings which were to transform the soul, and prepare it for the coming of Divine Wisdom in the flesh. But Israel is slow to raise himself above material things. He easily falls a prey to all the scandals he witnesses among the Gentiles. Severe punishments teach him that he is not safe, except in his keeping the law given to him. He keeps it, that is, he keeps the letter of the ritual precepts with scrupulous exactitude, but sees nothing of their chief meaning, which is the Redeemer to come, and the spiritual dispositions which those outward observances were intended to prompt. God is continually warning him by the Prophets, and seeking to reclaim him to the spirit of his divine institutions. Thus, in the Psalms, he remonstrates with him, but, with such paternal affection, that one can scarcely suspect a complaint, though there is a most bitter one: “Hear, my people! and I will speak: Israel! And I will testify to you. I am God, your God. I will not reprove you for your sacrifices; and your burnt-offerings are always in my sight. I will not take calves out of your house, nor he-goats out of your flocks, for all the beasts of the wood are mine, the cattle on the hills, and the oxen. I know all the fowls of the air, and with me is the beauty of the field. If I should be hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bullocks? or will I drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High!... The sacrifice of praise will glorify me; and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God” — show him, that is, my Christ, who is the Saviour signified by all these sacrifices (Psalms xlix. 7-14, 23).

Later on, however, to this people, stiff necked as it is, and uncircumcised in heart and ears (Acts vii. 51), which has gone deeper and deeper into outward formalism, and knows no other virtue or perfection, God speaks in strong language, expressing His disgust for sacrifices which they have robbed of the only worth they possessed in His sight, that is, their prophetic sense. “To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims,” says He by the Prophet Isaias, “I am full; I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck-goats. When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk, (defiling), my courts? Offer sacrifice no more in vain: your incense is an abomination to me! (Isaias i. 11-13). But these warnings are not heeded. Pride increases in the carnal Jew in proportion to his narrow heart and views. He dreams of a Messiah who is to be an earthly conqueror. As to the true Messiah, whose divine characteristics are foretold by the victims offered in sacrifice, this Jew will deny Him, for he finds Jesus too closely resembling those poor victims by his sufferings and meekness.

Then comes the last of the Prophets, Malachias. He turns to the Gentiles: they have been less favoured than Israel, but they have kept up the expectation of a Saviour, and when He comes, will lovingly receive Him. Malachias announces the final abrogation of a worship which had been so perverted, and the substitution of a divine memorial, which will be the same in all places, and will make all people one by their all partaking of the great Sacrifice to come: “I have no pleasure in you,” says the Lord of hosts, to the priests of Israel: “I will not receive a gift of your hand; for, from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation” (Malachi i. 10, 11).

The fullness of time is come. Then, bless God, you Gentiles! Make the voice of His praise to be heard! Too long life has been to you but the empty dream of night. You hungered after the fruit of life. You thirsted for living water. But like the hungry man who dreams of a sumptuous repast, yet never satisfies the hunger which gnaws him, like the thirsty man who dreams that he drinks, yet, on waking, is tormented with the same burning thirst, and finds his soul still empty — so was the multitude of your erring people (Isaias xxix. 7, 8). Yet, now, behold! The standard of Jesse appears on the mountain and rallies them around it. You Gentiles that once were strangers feed now to your heart’s content in the deserts turned into fruitfulness! (Isaias xxix. 17). The Water from the rock flows plentifully through your once parched lands. The glory of Libanus, the beauty of Carmel and Saron, adorn your hills, and refresh your lonely plain. Your wilderness will rejoice, and flourish like the lily (Isaias xxxv. 1, 7). Rain will be given to your seed, and the bread of the corn of your land will be delicious (Isaias xxx. 23). Tis just it should be so, for, will the labourer plough all day long? Will he be ever opening and harrowing his ground? No, the time comes when, having made smooth the surface of his field, he sows and scatters his seeds and puts wheat in the rows he has marked. Such is the providence shown to the Gentiles by the Lord God of hosts and, thereby, he evinces both the sureness of His divine counsels, and the magnificence of His justice (Isaias xxviii. 24, 29).

No: eternal Wisdom had not given up the mysterious designs of His love. He kept close to the fallen human race even when He severely chastised it. He owed it to Himself to put guilty man to the test, so to make him feel, before raising him up, how deep had been his fall. It was on this account that He permitted him to be overtaken by night, and fear, and anguish. He Himself sends him sufferings in order that, having thus brought him to sound the frightful depth of his misery, he might trust Himself to the safe welcome and keeping of His creature’s humility. This done, He would raise him up by repentance, and strengthen him with hope, and, joyously meeting him, disclose to him again His divine charms, and enrich him with the treasures which are in the keeping of His love (Ecclesiasticus iv. 18, 21).

This is Saturday. Let us turn to Mary who was made for us Gentiles, the Seat of Wisdom. It was in her chaste womb that was wrought the mystery of mercy which had been the expectation of all the long ages past. It was her most pure blood which provided the substance of that spotless Body with which the most beautiful of the sons of men contracted the indissoluble alliance of our nature with eternal Wisdom. Mary’s soul is enraptured at seeing the ineffable mystery of these divine nuptials effected in her chaste womb. She is that enclosed Garden where, more delightedly than in the early days of the universe, Wisdom enjoys light and love; the flowery couch of the Canticle (Canticles i. 15) perfumed, by the Holy Spirit with the sweetest fragrance; the glorious tabernacle, incomparably more holy than that of Moses. It is within her, under the immaculate veil of her flesh, that, by the unspeakable embrace of the two natures in the unity of God’s Only Begotten Son, the Holy Ghost pours forth the unction, which makes Him Spouse and, at the same time, Priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech.

Let man, then, be of good courage. The Bread of Heaven, the Bread of the Covenant, is at last come down upon our Earth. And although nine months must pass before the great night comes when He is to be made visible to us all in Bethlehem, yet even now the High Priest is at His work in this His holy temple. “Sacrifice and oblation you would not,” says He to His eternal Father, “but a body you have fitted to me. Holocausts for sin did not please you. Then said I: ‘Behold I come; in the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do your will, God!’” Hebrews x. 5, 7).

5 JUNE – SAINT BONIFACE (Bishop, Confessor and Martyr)

Boniface, given the name of Winfrid at his baptism, was born of noble parents in Devonshire, England, in about 680. From his childhood he turned away from the world and set his heart on becoming a monk. His father tried in vain to divert him from his wishes by the beguilements of the world, but Boniface entered a Benedictine monastery, and under blessed Wolphard he was instructed in all virtuous discipline and every kind of knowledge. At the age of 29 he was ordained and became an unwearied preacher of the word of God, in which he had a special gift which he used with great gain of souls. His great desire, however, was to spread the kingdom of Christ, and he continually bewailed the vast number of barbarians who were plunged in the darkness of ignorance and were slaves of the devil. This zealous love of souls increased in intensity day-by-day, till having implored the divine aid by prayers and tears, Boniface at last obtained the permission of the Prior of the monastery to set out for Germany.

He sailed from England with two companions and reached Dorestadt in Friesland. A great war then raging between King Eadbod of the Frieslanders and King Charles Martel of the Franks, Boniface preached the Gospel unfruitfully. Going back to England, he returned to his former monastery whose government he was forced to accept against his will. After two years he obtained the consent of the Bishop of Winchester to resign his office, and he went to Rome, that by the Apostolic authority he might be delegated to the mission for the conversion of the heathens. In Rome he was courteously welcomed by Pope Gregory II who changed his name from Winfrid to Boniface. He departed then to Germany and preached Christ to the tribes in Thuringia and Saxony. After the death of King Eadbod of Friesland who bitterly hated the Christian name, Boniface went a second time among the Frieslanders, and with his companion Wilibrord, he preached the Gospel for three years so successfully that the idols were hewn down, and countless churches arose to the true God.

Willibrord urged on him to take the office of bishop, but he refused so that he might the more instantly work for the salvation of the unbelievers. Advancing into Germany, Boniface reclaimed thousands of Hessians from superstition. Pope Gregory sent for him to Rome, and after receiving from him a noble profession of his faith, consecrated him a Bishop. Boniface then returned to Germany and purged Hesse aud Thuringia from all remains of idolatry. For this work Pope Gregory III raised Boniface to the dignity of an Archbishop, and on a third visit to Rome he was invested by the Sovereign Pontiff with the powers of Legate of the Apostolic See. As such he founded four Bishoprics and held various Synods, among which was that of Lessines in Belgium, in the diocese of Oambrai, at which time he made his strongest efforts to spread the Faith among the Belgians. Pope Zachary named Boniface Archbishop of Mainz, and by command of the same Pope, Boniface anointed Pepin to be king of the Franks.

After the death of Willibrord, Boniface undertook the government of the Church of Utrecht, at first by the ministry of Eobanus, but afterwards by himself. When released from the care of the Church of Mainz, he established his see at Utrecht. The Frieslanders having again fallen back into idolatry, he once more preached the Gospel among them, and while he was busy doing he was slain by some impious barbarians who attacked him together with his fellow-bishop Eobanus and 51 others on the river Born in 755. In accordance with the wish expressed by himself during life, his body was carried to Mainz and buried in the Monastery of Fulda, which he had founded and which he has since his death rendered illustrious by numerous miracles. England was the first place where his martyrdom was celebrated on a fixed day, and other countries followed. In 1874 Blessed Pius IX ordered his feast to be extended to the universal Church.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The Son of Man, proclaimed King in the highest heavens on His triumphant Ascension Day leaves to His Bride on Earth the task of making His sovereign dominion recognised here below: this is her glory. Pentecost gives the signal for the Church’s work of conquest. Now does she awake, aroused by the Breath of the Holy Ghost, replenished with this Spirit of Love, she is all eagerness, as He is, to be possessed at once of the whole Earth. We have already seen the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons pledging in her hands their oath of fealty to Christ, “to whom is given all power on Earth and in Heaven” (Matthew xxviii. 18). Today we see how Winfrid realises the fair name of Boniface, or well-doer, given him by Pope Gregory II. Lo! He presents himself before us surrounded by the multitudes he has snatched, at one blow, from paganism and barbarism alike. Thanks to the Apostle of Germany, the hour is near when the Church may constitute in this world — apart the spiritual dominion of souls, an empire more powerful than any that has ever been or is to be.

The Eternal Father draws to His Son (John vi. 44; Psalms ii. 6, 8) not men only, but nations. These are on Earth no less His inheritance, than Heaven is for all eternity. Now the good pleasure that God takes in the Word made Flesh could never be content with merely seeing nations to come, one here, another there, offering an isolated homage of recognition to His Christ as their Lord and Master. No: it was the whole world that was promised as His possession, without distinction of nations, without limits, save the confines of the round orb itself (Psalms ii. 6, 8). Recognised or not, His power is universal. In the case of many, no doubt, the contempt or the ignorance of this regal claim of the Man-God is to last on throughout ages, for revolt, alas, is always possible and to all. Yet, did it behove the Church to profit, as soon as might be, of her influence over baptised nations, so as to gather them together in one public acknowledgement of the royalty of Christ, the source of every kingly power. At the Pontiff’s side there seemed to be a fitting place for a mailed Chieftain of Christendom — such one, that is, as should be but Lieutenant of Christ, who alone is Lord of lords and King of kings. Thus would be realised in all its plenitude the magnificent Principality announced by the Prophets (Psalms ii. 6, 8) for the Son of David.

Such an institution was indeed worthy of the name it was to receive of the Holy Empire: in it we have the final result of our glorious Pentecost as being the consummation of the testimony rendered by the Holy Ghost to Jesus, both as Pontiff and as King (John xv. 26). In a few days, Leo III, the illustrious Pope called by the Holy Spirit to crown this, His divine work, will proclaim to the joy of the whole world the establishment of this new empire beneath the sceptre-sway of the Man-God, in the person of Charlemagne, the representative of the King of kings. This marvellous work was not prepared on a sudden. Vast regions, destined to form the very nucleus of this future empire, for long centuries knew not so much as the very name of the Lord Jesus: or, at best, preserved but confused notions of truth, derived from some earlier evangelisation that had been stifled in its birth by the turmoil of invasions — a mere mixture of Christian practices and idolatrous superstitions.

At length we behold Boniface arise, endued with power from on high (Acts i. 8) — the worthy precursor of Saint Leo III. Born of those “Angel-faced” Angles by whom ancient Britain was transformed into the “Island of Saints,” he burns to carry into the heart of Germany, from which his ancestors had sprung, the light which first shone on them in the land of their conquest. Thirty years of monastic life, begun in childhood despite the tears and caresses of a tender father, had braced his soul. Matured by this long period of retreat and silence, filled with divine science and accompanied by the prayers of his cloistered brethren, he could now in all security set forth to follow the attraction of a divine call. But first and foremost, Rome beholds him at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, submitting his plans and prospects to him who is the only source of all mission in the Church. Gregory II, in every way worthy of the great Popes that have borne that name, was at that time watching with apostolic vigilance over the Christian world. Amid the rocks and shoals of Lombard astuteness and of the heretical infatuation of Leo the Isaurian, his firm and prudent hand was safely guiding the barque of Peter towards the glorious sovereignty that awaited the Church in the coming eighth century.

In the humble monk prostrate at his feet, the immortal Pontiff could not but recognise a potent auxiliary sent to him by Heaven. And so, armed with the Apostolic benediction, Winfrid, now become Boniface, feels the powerful attraction of the Holy Spirit drawing him irresistibly to conquests of which ancient Rome had never dreamed. Beyond the Rhine, farther than Roman legions ever penetrated, the Bride of the Man-God now advances into this barbarous land along pathways tracked for her by Boniface, overturning in her victorious march the last idols of the false gods, civilising and sanctifying those savage hordes, the scourge of the old world. This Anglo-Saxon, a true son of Saint Benedict, gives to his work a stability that will defy the lapse of ages. Everywhere, monasteries arise, rooting themselves to the very soil for God’s sake, and by force of example and beneficence, fixing around them its various nomad tribes. From the river banks, from the forest depths, instead of cries of war and of vengeance, is wafted the accent of prayer and of praise, to the Most High.

Sturm, the beloved disciple of Saint Boniface, presides over these pacific colonisations far superior to those of pagan Rome, planted though they were by her noblest veterans and manned by the best forces of her Empire. Lo! Another sight: here, where violence has until now reigned supreme in these savage wilds, a novel kind of army is organised, formed of the gentle Brides of Christ. The Spirit of Pentecost, like a mighty wind, has blown over the land of the Angles and, even as in the Cenacle, holy women had a share of its influence. Consecrated Virgins, obedient to the heavenly impulse, have quitted the land of their birth, yes, even the monastery that has sheltered them from childhood. Having for a while administered only at a distance to Winfrid’s needs, and copied out for him the Sacred Books in letters of gold, they at length come to join the Apostle: fearlessly have they crossed the sea, and guided by their divine Spouse, have come to share the labours undertaken here for His glory. Lioba is at their head: Lioba whose gentle majesty, whose heavenly aspect uplifts the thought from things terrene: Lioba, who by her knowledge of the Scriptures, of the Fathers, and of the sacred Canons, is equal to any of the most celebrated Doctors. But the Holy Ghost has still more richly gifted the soul of Lioba with humility and Christian heroism. Behold the chosen Mother of the German nation! Germany’s scornful daughters, athirst for blood, who on their wedding-day disdained all other gift save a steed, a buckler and a lance, are to learn from her the true qualities of the valiant woman. No more will they be seen intoxicated with slaughter leading back to the field of battle their vanquished husbands, but the virtues of the wife and of the mother will replace in them the fury of the camp: family life is to be founded on the Germanic soil, and with it, the “Fatherland.”

This was the thought of Boniface when he called to his aid Lioba, Walburga and their companions. Worn out with toil, but still more with the incessant wear and fret of petty jealousies, never spared to men of God, on the part of such as fain would cover their paltry complaints under the cloak of false zeal, our athlete of Christ was not ashamed to come anon to Lioba, his well-beloved daughter, humbly seeking from her that enlightened counsel and comfort never denied. Estimating at its true worth, the share she had borne in his work, he was desirous that she should be laid to rest in the same tomb prepared for him in his Abbey of Fulda. But not yet was his labour ended, nor the evening of life at hand. The spiritual weal of his numberless converts must be secured, and at their head must be placed such as the Holy Ghost designated for the government of God’s Church (Acts xx. 28). By this means the hierarchy was constituted and developed, the land was covered with churches and, beneath the crosiers way of holy bishops chosen by God, these once wandering tribes now began to live a life of glory to the Most Blessed Trinity in a country but yesterday pagan, and in which Satan had hoped to perpetuate his own domination.

Nor was this our Saint’s only work in Germany: in certain isolated parts on the confines, the seeds of Arianism and Manicheeism had been silently taking root by means of an intruded clergy, half pagan and half Christian in their rites. And these would inevitably prove a serious scandal to his recent converts that came within reach of their influence. Even as Christ, armed with a whip of cords, drove the buyers and sellers from the temple, so did Boniface, by vigorous measures, rid the land of these sectarian priests who, with hands polluted by heathenish sacrifices to the vanquished deities of Valhalla, dared to offer also the spotless Victim to the Most High. The powerful action of Boniface, as the precursor of the Holy Empire, was not confined to preparing the German race alone for its share in so high a destiny. His beneficent influence was now to be exercised, and at a most critical moment, upon France, the eldest daughter of the Church: for she was chosen, in the person of her Princes, to be the first to bear the emblem of Christ’s universal kingship. The descendants of Clovis had preserved nothing of his royal inheritance, save the vain title of a power that had now just passed into the hands of a new family — a more vigorous branch of his stock. Charles Martel, the head of this race, measuring his strength with the Moors had crushed their entire army near Poitiers: but, in the flush of victory, the hero of the day had well near brought the Church of France to the brink of ruin by distributing to his comrades in arms the episcopal sees and abbeys of the land! Unless a situation, no less disastrous than would have been the triumph of Abderahman, was to be accepted, these usurped crosiers must at once be wrested from the hands of such strange titularies. To effect this, as much gentleness as firmness were needed, together with an ascendency belonging only to virtue, if the hero of Poitiers and his noble race were to be gained over to respect the rights of holy Church. This victory, more glorious than had been the defeat of the Moors, was won by Boniface — a veritable triumph of disarmed holiness, as profitable to the vanquished as to the Church herself!

Of this fierce warrior, he was to make the worthy father of a second dynasty, the glory of which should far surpass the brilliant hopes of the first race of Frankish kings. Boniface, now Legate of Pope Saint Zachary as he had formerly been of Gregory III, fixed his episcopal see at Mainz, the better, at one and the same time, to hold fast to Christ, both Germany, the conquest of his earlier apostolate, and France, more recently rescued by his labours. Like another Samuel, he himself, with his own hands, consecrated this new regal dynasty by conferring the sacred unction on Pepin le Bref, son of Charles Martel. This was in 752. Another Charles, as yet a child — the heir of the throne that moment firmly fixed and strengthened by the sacred oil — attracted the notice of the aged Saint and received his benediction: it was the future Charlemagne. But, to the hand of a Sovereign Pontiff was reserved the anointing of that royal brow, and a diadem more glorious still than that of a king of the Franks was one day to rest on him, exhibiting in his person the Head of the new Roman Empire, the Lieutenant of Christ, the King of kings!

The personal work of Boniface was now accomplished. Like the old man Simeon, his eyes had seen the object of all his ambition, of all his life-long toil, the salvation prepared by God, to this new Israel. He too had now no desire left save that of departing in peace to his Lord, but could the entering into peace for such an Apostle be by other gate than that of martyrdom? He understands this well: his hour has sounded: the old warrior has chosen his last battle field. Friesland is still pagan: half a century ago, at the opening of his apostolic career, he had avoided this country in order to escape the bishopric which Saint Willibrord, at that early date, was anxious to force on him. But now that she has nothing save death to offer him, he will enter this land. In a letter of sublime humility, prostrate at the feet of Pope Stephen III, he remits to the correction of the Apostolic See “the awkward mistakes,” as he terms them, and the many faults of his long life. To Lullus his dearest son, he leaves the Church of Mainz. He recommends to the care of the Frankish king the several priests scattered all through Germany, the monks and virgins who from distant homes have followed him there. Then ordering to be placed, among the few books which he is taking with him, the winding sheet that is to wrap his body, he designates the companions chosen by him for the journey, and sets out to win the martyr’s palm.

* * * * *

YOU were, great Apostle, the faithful servant of Him who chose you as the minister of His word and propagator of His kingdom. When the Son of Man quitted Earth to receive the delighted homage of the heavenly hosts in recognition of His kingship over them, He nonetheless remained King of this lower world which He has left but for a little while (Luke xix). He counted on His Church to guard His principality here below. Small indeed was the number of those who recognised Him on the day of His glorious Ascension as their Master and their Lord. But that Faith deposited in these first chosen souls was a treasure with which they, like skilful bankers, knew how to work, and how to multiply by apostolic commerce. Transmitted from generation to generation up to the day of the Lord’s return, this precious capital was to go on yielding to the absent Lord more and more accumulated interest. Thus was it with you, Winfrid, in that age in which you brought in to the Church that tribute of labours which she requires, though in very different proportion, at the hands of each one of her sons. Beyond those of others, your works appeared well done and profitable to the common Mother. In her gratitude, forestalling the Spouse Himself, she would fain, even in this world, call you by that new name (Apocalypse ii. 17) by which you are known in Heaven.

Indeed, when did riches such as you brought come pouring, at once, into the hands of the Bride? When did the Spouse appear to be so fully and truly Head of the whole world, as in that eighth century in which the Frankish princes, formed by you to their noble destinies, constituted the temporal sovereignty of the Church and gloried in being, at the side of the Vicar of the Man-God, the Lieutenants of Christ the King? To you, Boniface, is the Holy Empire indebted for the very possibility of its existence. But for you, France would have perished, debased by a simoniacal clergy even before a Charlemagne had appeared. But for your, Germany would have remained the prey of pagan barbarians, enemies of all civilisation and progress. O you who rescued both Germans and Franks, receive our grateful homage.

At the sight of your works, and remembering the great Popes and Princes of colossal build whose glory is indeed derived from you, our admiration equals our gratitude. But pardon us, dear Saint, if the thought of those grand centuries of yore, so far removed from anything of these our days, should make us mingle sadness over ourselves with joy over you. Viewed in the light of your holy policy and its results, glorious precursor of the confederation of Christian nations, how do we not bewail the fatal errors of those princes and statesmen, so renowned in the seventeenth century, and so foolishly admixed by a world whose ruin they were hastening. For, by isolating Catholic nations from one another, the ties that bound them to the Vicar of Christ, became loosened: princes, forgetful of their true position as representatives of the divine King, made friends with heresy in order to assert their independence of Rome, or mutually to lower one another’s power. Therefore Christendom is no more. Upon its ruins, like a woeful mimicry of the Holy Empire, Protestantism has raised its false Evangelical Empire, formed of nothing but encroachments, and tracing its recognised origin to the apostasy of that felon knight, Albert of Brandenburg. The complicities that rendered such a thing possible have received their chastisement. Be then God’s Justice at last satisfied! Boniface, cry out with us, to the God of armies, for mercy. Raise up in the Church, servants of Christ powerful in word and work as you were. Save France from anarchy and restore to Germany a right appreciation of true greatness, together with the Faith of her ancient days.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

In Egypt, the birthday of the holy martyrs Marcian, Nicanor, Apollonius and others who suffered a glorious martyrdom in the persecution of Galerius Maximian.

At Perugia, the holy martyrs Florentius, Julian, Cyriacus, Marcellinus and Faustinus who were beheaded in the persecution of Decius.

At Caesarea in Palestine, the martyrdom of the Saints Zenaides, Cyria, Valeria and Marcia who through many torments attained to martyrdom rejoicing.

At Tyre, St. Dorotheus, a priest, who suffered much under Diocletian, but survived until the reign of Julian the Apostate under whom his venerable age was crowned with martyrdom, he being then one hundred and seven years old.

At Cordova in Spain, blessed Sancius, a youth who, though brought up in the royal court, did not hesitate to undergo martyrdom for the faith of Christ during the persecution of the Arabs.

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

Thanks be to God.

5 JUNE – FRIDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

God has satisfied the intense desires of man’s heart. The house of the marriage-feast, built by divine Wisdom on the top of mountains, has had flowing to it all the nations of Earth (Isaias ii. 2). Yesterday the whole Catholic world was animated with sentiments of love towards the adorable Sacrament, and the people said to each other in a holy transport of gratitude: “Come! Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob.” Yesterday, the bud of the Lord was seen by us all in magnificence and glory. This divine Bud, this rich ear of corn that has sprung up from our Earth was carried in triumph and excited the enthusiasm of the Faithful, making them rejoice before It, as they that rejoice in the harvest (Isaias iv. 2). It was a heavenly harvest that had been the expectation of nations. It was the precious ear of corn, despised indeed by Israel, but gleaned by Ruth, the stranger, in the field of the true Booz, in Bethlehem. It was for this day of the great meeting of nations foretold by Isaias, that the Lord had kept reserved on the mountain the feast on a victim such as had lever been seen before, a feast of wine, the richest and purest (Isaias xxv. 6).

The poor have eaten at this banquet, and they have given fervent praise to their God. The rich have eaten and have fallen down in adoration, and all the ends of the earth, prostrate in His sacred Presence, have recognised, that he who thus gave them to feast was Christ their King (Psalms xxi. 27-30). This, they said, is our God, we have waited for Him: we have patiently waited for Him (Isaias xxv. 9). He was the desire of our soul. We desired Him in the night, and, in the morning early, our first thoughts were on Him. He is the Lord, and His remembrance could not be effaced, not even through the long ages of expectation (Isaias xxvi. 8, 9). You, Lord, are my God, I will exalt you, and give glory to your name, for you have done wonderful things, your designs of old, faithful! Faithfully have you fulfilled your eternal decrees (Isaias xv. 1).

These expressions of love on the part of the human race were but a feeble echo to the infinite love which God vouchsafed to have for His creature, man. The divine Spirit who has achieved the wonderful union between the children of Adam and eternal Wisdom shows us, everywhere in the Scriptures, that this Wisdom was impatient of delay, that He was taking each obstacle as it came, and removing it, and was preparing in countless ways for the Marriage Feast so much longed for.

We will devote these first two days of the Octave to the considering the leading features in the history of this Eucharistic preparation. We will be well repaid by the additional light which these truths will reflect upon the dogma itself. We are going to review the loving ways by which eternal Wisdom sought, for so many long ages, to bring about His own union with ourselves. As a matter of course, we clothe these truths in Scripture language, for the Scriptures are our guide in this research. It is they that tell us the workings of the divine intentions in our regard. How, then, do the Scriptures speak of these before the mystery of the Incarnation was actually accomplished?

The second Person of the adorable Trinity is there brought before us under the name of Wisdom, until such time as Her union with man being accomplished in the most perfect degree possible, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the name under which He passes in the Scriptures, a name which gives Him the appearance of a Bride. But once the mystery of perfect union achieved, another name is given Him, the name of Spouse or Bridegroom. His other name of Wisdom seems almost forgotten, and yet in the ages of lively faith it was not so. The people of those days were too full of the Scriptures to forget it. Thus we find the first Christian Emperor dedicating to this ruler and centre of his every thought the trophy of his victory over paganism, and that of the triumph of the Martyrs: all burning with love for the Wisdom of God, says Eusebius. Constantine consecrated the ancient Byzantium, which he called by his own name, to the God of the Martyrs, and dedicated to Eternal Wisdom the grandest structure of this new Rome, Saint Sophia, which for many ages was the finest Christian Church in the world.

Like our forefathers in the faith, let us, too, honour divine Wisdom, and gratefully think upon the love which urged Him, from all eternity, to unite Himself to man! It is this love that explains that mysterious joy which, as the Scripture tells us, He had at the beginning of Time when this world of ours was being gradually developed in all the beauty of its fresh creation, for sin had not then come in to break the harmony of this work of the Most High. At each additional manifestation of creative power, Wisdom takes delight, and by his delight adds a new charm to this the future scene of the divine marvels, planned as those had been by His love. This Wisdom is delighted at the omnipotence which produces Creation. He plays every day, as the Creation goes on, yes, He plays in this world, for, each progress in its formation brings Man nearer —Man, whose palace it is; and His delights are to be with the children of men (Proverbs viii. 30, 31).

Incomprehensible love! It precedes, though it foresees, sin. And, though foreseeing it, loves not the less! It has its divine delights to be with us, and we have attractions for it in spite of all the bitterness caused by the sight of our future black ingratitude! The Fall of man will, as one of its terrific consequences, modify, much and cruelly, the earthly existence which Wisdom is to have upon our Earth But, in order that we may the more easily understand and more fully appreciate how immense must that love be, which could be proof against such obstacles, let us turn our thoughts today to the course that these loving intentions would have taken, had man persevered in the state of innocence. Although the Sacred Scriptures, written as they have been for the benefit of fallen man, suppose that state, and are ever telling us of the mystery of the restoration of the sinful world — yet do they make frequent allusions to God's original intention, and with these to guide us it is not difficult to mark out the leading features of the primitive plan.

Wisdom, speaking of Herself, says: “The Lord possessed me, in the beginning of His ways” (Proverbs viii. 22) Is She not the first of all creatures? (Ecclesiasticus i. 4) Not, of course, as to that divine form of which the Apostle speaks, and by which Wisdom is equal to God (Philippians ii. 6), but in that human existence which She has selected in preference to all other possible natures, for the one by which to unite Herself with finite being. That selection was one of an unlimited and most gratuitous love. It made the type and law of entire creation to be One who would be so closely resembling us human beings, and what an honour! We are told in holy Writ that the most high and almighty Creator created Wisdom before all things, and created Her in the Holy Ghost and that taking Her as His type, and number, and measure, He poured Her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh (Ecclesiasticus i. 4, 8-10). When the fullness of the appointed time came, this Wisdom Herself was to come, giving to all creation, of which She was the head and centre, its purpose and meaning: She was to blend and unite with the infinite homage, which resulted from Her own divine personality, the homage of every existing creature. And thus give perfection to the external glory of the Father by Her own adoration, which was to be eternal and infinite. Once this happy time is come, and there will appear that human nature, chosen by divine Wisdom from the beginning to be His created form, to be the instrument of that homage to the Father, which, as we were just saying, will be perfect and divine, because of the personal union of this created nature with the Nature of God the Son. Eternal Wisdom will thus be one with the Son of the purest of Virgins. The nuptial-song will be taken up by all creatures, both on Earth and in Heaven, and through this Son of Man, who will then be called the Spouse, Wisdom will continue to the end of time in the soul of every individual of the human race (that is, of every soul that does not refuse the honour), the ineffable mystery of his divine marriage with our nature.

He wishes, then, to unite Himself with each one of us, but what means will He adopt for this deifying union? Of all the Sacraments which our Lord might have instituted after His Incarnation in the supposition of man's not forfeiting his state of innocence, there is not one, says Suarez, which has so many probabilities on its side as the Eucharist. There is not one which, in itself, is so desirable and is more independent on sin, for the notion of expiation which, in our present state, lingers about It as the memorial of our Jesus’ Passion, may be prescinded from without affecting the essence of the Sacrament — that essence being, the Real Presence of our Lord, and the close union by which He unites us to Himself. It is the same with the Eucharist as a Sacrifice: the primary notion of Sacrifice, as we will see further on, does not absolutely include the idea of sin. So that when Christ, as the head of the human family, comes into this world to offer up a Sacrifice in the name of us all, that Sacrifice will be one which is worthy of His Father and Himself. Spouse as He is, and by virtue of the divine unction, Priest, too: it is by the Eucharist as a Sacrifice that He will act in this twofold character, for by that Sacrifice He brings the human race into union with Himself by the embrace of the sacred Mysteries and, when He has divinised it by union with Himself, making it one body with Himself, of which He is the Head, He offers it to His Eternal Father.

But, for the coming of the Spouse, the Bridegroom, there must be a numerous retinue to do Him honour and tell His praises when the day arrives for His entrance into the banquet-hall. And from now till the time when Earth, being peopled enough, will have ready for her King-Priest a court that is worthy of Him, so many ages are to intervene! What will He, that is, what will Wisdom be doing in the interval?

We have already seen how in the early days of creation He played before His Father, and was all transported with delight. But when the work was done, the Creator withdrew into the repose and rest of the seventh day. Seated on His Father’s right hand, in the splendours of the Saints, will Wisdom wait inactive for that day to come when He, who has begotten Him before the day- star and has betrothed Him to human nature, will send Him down to this Earth, there to consummate the alliance for which He has been eternally longing? The sacred Scriptures give a very different description of Him during the time preceding his actual coming. They tell us that Wisdom is so active, though so gentle, that He is more active than all active things, and was everywhere, and put Himself in every place, and in the Prophets, so that He was easily found by them that wanted to find Him. He even anticipated their research and was more ready to show Himself than they could possibly be to find Him. If any soul was intent, like some early riser, to find Him, He soon met such a seeker. Nay, Himself went about seeking for such as were worthy of Him, and when He met them, in the ways here or there in this wide world, this beautiful Wisdom would show Himself to them with all the cheerfulness of earnestness. Thus do the Scriptures describe Wisdom as engaged during the ages preceding His Incarnation. He does not as yet quit the throne of glory on which He sits, lighting up all Heaven with His beauty, but He is preparing the day of His Marriage, and that by impressing it on man’s mind and notice in every possible way. He meets him at every turn to speak of it, to tell him of how He, Wisdom, loves him. He selects certain symbols by which to show the generations then living a picture of the wondrous mysteries He intended to achieve when the time came. Let us take one of these symbols for our lesson today, that we too may lose not a particle of what our Jesus has ever done to make Himself known.

But before we go further, let us listen to the Scripture character drawn of this beautiful Wisdom: He is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness: holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hinders, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtile (Wisdom vii. 22-26; vi. 13-17; ix. 4, 10). And now to a choice symbol, chosen by our Jesus by which He spoke of Himself before He came to the Nuptials. The Lord God, says Scripture, had planted a Paradise of pleasure from the beginning, in which He intended to place Man, whom He was not to create till the sixth day. In the midst of this Paradise there grew a tree of singular beauty. It was a tree to which God had attached a great mystery, and its name was the Tree of Life. A river, with four streams, watered this garden of delights (Genesis ii. 8-10), and this river was shown later on to Saint John as a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb (Apocalypse xxii. 1). This twofold symbol of the Tree and the River bear no allusion to future sin. They had been put in Paradise, the abode of innocence, before man himself, and therefore are portions of the primitive plan of God; and, therefore, in themselves signify nothing, and symbolise nothing, but what has reference, first and foremost, to the state of innocence.

Now, an ancient writer, published under the name of Saint Ambrose, says, “the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise, is Christ in the midst of his Church.” “So then,” says Saint Augustine, “Christ was the Tree of Life; neither would God have man to live in Paradise, without his having mysteries of things spiritual presented to him under corporal forms. In the other trees, therefore, he had food. But in that one (of Life), he had a sacred symbol (sacramentum). And what was it that is symbolised, but Wisdom, of which it is said, ‘She is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold on her’ (Proverbs iii. 18) ... For it is right to give to Christ the name of a thing which had been previously made, that it should signify Him.” Saint Hilary, too, bears testimony to this same traditional interpretation. After quoting the same text from Proverbs, he says: “Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the Tree of Life, because, as we are taught by the authority of the Prophets, on account of its being a symbol (sacramentum) of His future Incarnation and Passion.. Our Lord compared Himself to a Tree, when He said: ‘A Tree is known by its fruit...’ This Tree, then, is living. Yes, not living only, but rational also, for it gives its fruit when it wills (and, as the Psalm says), in its own time... And what is that time? That of which the Apostle speaks, when he says, that God might make known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He had purposed in Him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times... the dispensation of the fruit, then, is reserved for the fullness of times.” But what is to be the Fruit of this Tree, the leaves of which fall not off (Psalms i. 3), and are for the healing of the nations (Apocalypse xxii. 2) —what is to be the Fruit, but divine Wisdom, in His own very self and substance? In His divine form, He is the food of the Angels too. But He is to be that of man in His two Natures, that thus, by His Flesh reaching man’s soul, He may fill that soul with His divinity, as it was beautifully expressed in the Office composed by Blessed Juliana.

Thus, therefore, divine Wisdom, our Jesus, had preceded man in Paradise: Adam was not yet there, but Wisdom was. For His love made Him hasten there and take up His abode there, ready to receive man on his arrival — receive him in that Tree of Life which, together with the Most High, He, as the Wisdom in which the Creator formed all His works, had planted in the garden of delights (Wisdom viii. 4). Speaking of this Tree, the Bride of the Canticle said: “As the apple tree among the barren trees of the woods, so is my Beloved among the sons” of the rest of men; “I sat down under his shadow whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate” (Canticles ii. 3). This sweet Fruit of the Tree of Life was a figure of the Eucharist.

But how is this? We were yesterday invited by Wisdom to eat Bread in His house, and not Fruit in His garden. What means this change of language? It is because man has brought about an immense change of purpose: in his pride, he has eaten of a fruit which was not good, a fruit which was forbidden, and has ruined him for his taking it. He has been driven from the garden of delights. Cherubim and a flaming sword have been placed to keep the way of the Tree of Life. Instead of fruits of Paradise, the food of man is henceforth to be bread, bread which costs toil and sweat, bread which means grinding under a millstone, and burning in fire. Such is the sentence passed on man by a justly angered God. But, alas, this most just condemnation is to go far beyond the guilty one. It will strike man, but it will strike divine Wisdom, too — Wisdom who has given Himself to man to be his food and companion. In the immensity of His love, Wisdom will not abandon this fallen nature of man. He will, that He may save it, take upon Himself all the consequences of the Fall and, like fallen man, become passible and mortal.

The marriage-feast is not to be in Eden, as was first intended. Poor Eden! She had been so exquisitely prepared for that feast. She had her fragrant fields of loveliest emerald, and her fruit which was so fair to behold, and so pleasant to eat of (Genesis ii. 9), and so immortalising with a youth that was to last forever! To reach man, now that he is fallen, eternal Wisdom must make His way through the briars and thickets of His new abode. The Marriage-Feast will be kept in a house which it has cost Him infinite pains to build to Himself as a cover against the miseries of the land of exile. And as to the food served for the banquet, it is not to be the fruit spontaneously yielded by the Tree of Life: it is to be the divine Wheat, ground by suffering and baked on the altar of the Cross.

4 JUNE – SAINT FRANCIS CARACCIOLO (Confessor)

Ascanio Caracciolo was born in the town of Santa Maria della Villa in the Abruzzi in 1563. From his earliest years he showed great marks of piety. When he was a young man, he had a severe illness and on his recovery determined to serve God and give himself up to the service of his neighbour. He went to himself to Naples where he was ordained priest, enrolled himself in a devout confraternity, and gave himself up to contemplation and the gaining of souls to God, in which work he showed himself an unwearied comforter to such persons as were condemned to death.

It came to pass that those two great servants of God, John Augustine Adomo and Fabricius Caracciolo wrote a letter to a certain person in which they exhorted him to found a new religious Institute. But by mistake it was delivered to Francis Caracciolo. The newness of the idea, and the strange ways of God’s Providence took possession of his mind, and he joyfully added himself to their company. They withdrew themselves to the wilderness of the Camaldolese, and there concerted the rules of the new Order. Then they went to Rome and obtained the confirmation of their work from Pope Sixtus V, who wished that they should be called Minor Clerks Regular, since they added to the three accustomed vows a fourth binding themselves not to seek preferment in the Church.

Having made his solemn profession, Ascanio, moved by the special love and devotion he had to the holy Francis of Assisi, took the name of Francis. After two years John Adorno died and Francis was made the head of the Order against his will. In this office he gave a brilliant example of all virtues. Devoted to the prosperity of the Institute, he earnestly sought the blessing of God on it by assiduous prayer, tears and constant maceration of his body. In this work he travelled to Spain in the guise of a pilgrim and begging his bread from door to door. In these journeys he suffered very great hardships and was helped by God. He had to work hard to attain his wishes, but through the generosity of the Catholic Kings Philip II and Philip III, he overcame with his fortitude of soul the opposition of all that withstood him and founded several houses of his Order, which he eventually did in Italy also.

He so excelled in humility that when he came to Rome he went to an almshouse and there chose to be associated to a leper: moreover he firmly refused all ecclesiastical dignities offered to him by Pope Paul V. He preserved his virginity unspotted, and when certain women attacked his chastity, he gained over their souls to Christ. Towards the most divine Mystery of the Eucharist he was drawn with burning tenderness of love, and would pass almost entire nights without sleep in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This holy custom he established in his Order, to be kept up as its peculiar mark. He was a zealous propagator of the cult of the Mother of God. He was all aflame with the love of his neighbours. He was gifted with prophecy and the discerning of spirits.

At the age of 44, while he was continuing long at prayer in the Holy House of Loreto, it was made known to him that the end of his earthly life was at hand. He immediately took the road to the Abruzzi and was seized with a mortal fever at the house of the disciples of Saint Philip Neri in the town of Agnone. He received with great devotion the Sacraments of the Church, and on the day preceding the Nones of June, in 1608, it being the eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi, he fell asleep in the Lord. His sacred body was carried to Naples, and there interred in the Church of Saint Mary the Greater. He was beatified by Pope Clement XIV in 1769 and was canonised by Pope Pius VII in 1807.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The good things brought to this world by the Divine Spirit continue to be revealed in the holy Liturgy. Francis Caracciolo is given to us this day as another type of the sublime fecundity produced on Earth by Christianity. Now, Faith is the principle of this supernatural fecundity in the saints, just as it was in Abraham, the Father of all believers. It brings forth to the Church isolated members or entire nations alike: from it too proceed the multitudinous families of Religious Orders who, in their fidelity in following the divers tracks traced out for them by their founders, are the chief portion of that royal and varied adornment with which the Bride is resplendently bedecked at the right hand of her Divine Spouse. This is the very thought expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff Pius VII on the day of the canonisation of our saint, wishing, as he said, “to right the judgement of such as may, perhaps, have appreciated the religious life at a low rate, according to the vain deceits of a worldly point of view, and not according to the just measure of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

That century of universal ruin in which the voice of Christ’s Vicar was raised addressing the whole world on this solemn occasion, resembled, but in still darker hue, the calamitous age of the pretended Reform in which Francis, like so many others, had proved by his works and by his life, the indefectibility of the Church’s holiness. Let us listen once more to the words of the same Pontiff:

“The Bride of Christ, the Church, is now become accustomed to pursue her pilgrim career amid persecutions from men and consolations from God. Through the saints raised up in all ages by His almighty Hand, God fulfils His promise to the end, making her ever to be a City seated on a mountain, a beacon, the clear light of which must needs reach the eyes of all who do not, through prejudice, voluntarily shut their eyes not to see. The while her enemies band together, vainly plotting her destruction, saying: When will she die? When will her name perish? Crowned with ever increasing splendour by the new warriors she sends as victors to Heaven, the Church remains ever glorious, ever declaring to all coming generations the might of the Lord’s strong arm.”

The sixteenth century heard at its birth the most terrific blasphemy ever uttered against the Bride of the Son of God: that by which she was named the harlot of Babylon. Yet did she, all spotless Queen — in the very teeth of heresy impotent to produce one real virtue on Earth — prove herself to be the legitimate Bride by reason of her admirable efflorescence in new Orders sprung from her bosom in but a few years’ space, and ready to meet the exigencies of the novel situation created by Luther’s revolt. The return of ancient Orders to their primitive fervour, the establishment of the Society of Jesus, of the Theatines, of the Brothers of Saint John of God, of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, of the Clerks Regular of Saint Jerome Emilian, and those of Saint Camillus de Lellis — sufficed not to the Divine Spirit. As though on purpose to mark the superabundant fruitfulness of the Bride, He raised up at the close of the same century another religious family, the special characteristic of which was to be the organisation of mortification and continual prayer among its members by the incessant use of Christian penance and by the perpetual adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament.

Sixtus V received with joy these new recruits for the great campaign. To distinguish them from all other Orders of Clerks Regular, and as a proof of his specially paternal affection, the illustrious Pontiff, himself a Friar Minor, embodied a title so dear to his own heart in that which he assigned to these newcomers, calling them: The Minor Clerks Regular. With a like view of approximation to the Seraphic Order, our Saint of today, the first General of this Institute, changed his name Ascanius for that of Francis. It seemed as though Heaven too would weld together the Patriarch of Assisi and Francis Caraeciolo by giving to each the same span of life, namely, forty-four years. The founder of the Minor Clerks Regular (like his glorious predecessor and patron), was one of those men of whom Holy Scripture says that, having lived a short space, they fulfilled a long time (Wisdom iv. 13). Numerous prodigies revealed during his lifetime the virtues which his humility would fain have concealed. Scarce had his soul left this Earth and his body been interred, than crowds flocked to the tomb where the constant voice of miracles bore witness to the high favour with God enjoyed by him whose mortal remains there reposed.

To the sovereign authority constituted by Jesus Christ in the Church, solely is it reserved, however, to pronounce authentically on the sanctity of any, even the most illustrious, of her dead. As long as the judgement of the Supreme Pontiff has formulated nothing, private devotion is quite free to testify gratitude or confidence in regard of the departed worthy of it. But all such demonstrations as, more or less, resemble public cultus, are prohibited by a rigorous and wise law of the Church. Unfortunately, certain imprudences contrary to this law formulated in the celebrated Decrees of Urban VIII drew down twenty years after the death of our saint all the severity of the Inquisition on some of his spiritual children, and retarded by a whole century the introduction of his cause to the tribunal of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. It was necessary that the witnesses of the abuses which had incurred the law should first disappear from the scene. But consequently the witnesses of the holy life of Francis had likewise disappeared. Being, therefore, obliged to recur to mere auricular testimony in her pronouncing of judgement on the heroic virtues practised by him, Rome now exacted from ocular witnesses the proof of four, instead of the usual two, miracles required in a process of Beatification.

WELL was your love for the Divine Sacrament of the Altar rewarded, Francis. You had the glory of being called to the Banquet of our Eternal Home at the very hour when the Church on Earth was chanting the praises of the Sacred Victim at the first Vespers of the great Festival that year-by-year hails this Mystery of mysteries. Your own feast day occurring, as it ever does, close to this Solemnity of Corpus Christi, continues still to invite us men, as you were wont to do in life, to come and peer in adoration into the depths of this Mystery of Love. The mysterious harmony of the Cycle is all disposed by Divine Wisdom, seeing that His sweet Providence fixes the season at which each Saint is summoned to receive the crown of bliss. Thus the post of honour earned by you is in the Sanctuary itself close to the Divine Host on our altars.

“The zeal of your house has eaten me up” (Psalms lxviii. 10): this was your heart’s cry on Earth. These words, less those of David, than of the Man-God Himself (John ii. 17), did indeed fill your heart to overflowing so that after your death they were found engraved on the lifeless flesh of your heart, proving, as it were, what had been the one impetus of its every pulsation and of your desires. Hence resulted the need you had of continual prayer, as well as that ever correlative ardour of yours for penance, the two-fold characteristic of your religious family, and which you would fain have seen in the hearts of all. Prayer and penance: yes, these two alone fix man in his right position before God. Vouchsafe to preserve this precious deposit amid your spiritual Sons, Francis, so that by their zeal in propagating the spirit of their Father they may make it become the treasure also of the entire world.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, the holy martyrs Aretius and Dacian.

At Sisseck in Illyria, in the time of the governor Galerius, St. Quirinus, bishop. Prudentius relates that for the faith of Christ he was precipitated into a river, with a millstone tied to his neck, but as the stone floated on the water, he exhorted for a long time the Christians who were present not to be terrified by his punishment, nor to waver in the faith, and then God heard his prayers to be drowned, that he might attain to the glory of martyrdom.

At Brescia, St. Clateus, bishop and martyr, under the emperor Nero.

In Pannonia, the holy martyrs Rutilus and his companions.

At Arras, St. Saturnina, virgin and martyr.

At Tivoli, St. Quirinus, martyr.

At Constantinople, St. Metrophanes, bishop and renowned confessor.

At Milevis in Numidia, St. Optatus, bishop, celebrated for learning and holiness.

At Verona, St. Alexander, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.