28 JUNE – SAINT LEO II (Pope and Confessor)

Leo Maneius was born in Sicily in 611. Known for his piety, he was proficient in Greek and Latin and learned in the science and literature of his times. He was also an excellent musician who reformed the music of the sacred hymns and psalms and wrote several liturgical hymns. Leo succeeded Saint Agatho to the See of Rome in 682. He approved the acts of the sixth General Council which was held at Constantinople under the Presidency of the Legates of the Apostolic See in the presence of the Emperor Constantine, the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, and one 170 bishops. This Council condemned Cyrus, Sergius, and Pyrrhus for teaching that there is in Christ only one Will and one Operation. Leo broke the pride of the Archbishops of Ravenna who had puffed themselves up under the power of the Exarchs, declaring that the elections of the clergy of Ravenna should be considered null until they had been confirmed by the authority of the Bishop of Rome. Leo II was a father to the poor, not only by providing money, but also by his acts, works and advice, by which he relieved the poverty and loneliness of widows and orphans. He led all to live holy and godly lives, not by mere preaching, but by the example of his own life. Leo governed the Church for only 9 months and 27 days. He died in 683 and was buried in the Basilica of Saint Peter. During his short pontificate he ordained 9 priests, 3 deacons and 23 bishops.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

It were fitting that our attention should not be diverted on this Vigil [of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul] from the august object which is occupying the Church in the preparation of her chants. But the triumph of Peter will shine out with all the more splendour in proportion as the testimony he rendered to the Son of God is shown to have been maintained with all fidelity during the long series of succeeding ages by the Pontiffs, inheritors of his primacy. For a considerable time, the twenty-eighth of June was consecrated to the memory of Saint Leo the Great. It was the day chosen by Sergius I for the Translation of the illustrious Doctor, and indeed a more magnificent usher into tomorrow’s Solemnity could hardly be desired.

From no other lips but his has Rome ever set forth in such elevated language the glories of these two Princes of the Apostles and her own fame. Never since the incomparable scene enacted at Caesarea Philippi has the Mystery of the Man-God been affirmed in manner so sublime, as on that day on which the Church, striking the impious Eutyches at Chalcedon, received from Leo the immortal formula of Christian Dogma. Peter once more spoke by the mouth of Leo. Yet far was the cause from being then ended: two centuries more were needed, and another Leo it was, he whom we this day celebrate, who had the honour of ending it at the Sixth Council.

The Spirit of God ever watchful over the development of the Sacred Liturgy, by no means wished any change to be effected on this day in the train of thought of the faithful people. Thus when towards the beginning of the fourteenth century the 11th of April was again assigned to Saint Leo I (for that was really the primitive place occupied by him on the Cycle), Saint Leo II, the anniversary of whose death was this 28th of June, and who until then had been merely commemorated on it, being now raised to the rank of a semi-double, came forward, as it were, to remind the Faithful of the glorious struggles maintained both by his predecessor and by himself in the order of Apostolic confession.

How was it that Saint Leo’s clear and complete exposition of the dogma and the anathemas of Chalcedon did not succeed in silencing the arguments of that heresy which refused to our nature its noblest title by denying that it had been assumed in its integrity by the Divine Word? Because for Truth to win the day it suffices not merely to expose the lie uttered by error. More than once, alas, history gives instances of the most solemn anathemas ending in nothing but lulling the vigilance of the guardians of the Holy City. The struggle seemed ended, the need of repose was making itself felt amid the combatants, a thousand other matters called for the attention of the Church’s rulers. And so while feigning utmost deference, ardour even, if needful for the new enactments, error went on noiselessly making profit of the silence which ensued after its defeat.

Then did its progress become all the more redoubtable at the very time it was pretending to have disappeared without leaving a track behind. Thanks, however, to the Divine Head who never ceases to watch over His work, such trials as we have been alluding to seldom reach to such a painful depth as that into which Leo II had to probe with steel and fire in order to save the Church. Once only has the terrified world beheld anathema strike the summit of the holy mount. Honorius, placed on the pinnacle of the Church, “had not made her shine with the splendour of apostolic doctrine, but by profane treason, had suffered the faith, which should be spotless, to be exposed to subversion” (Leon, II. Epist. Confirm. Concil. Constantinop. III.)

Leo II, therefore, sending forth his thunders in unison with the assembled Church against the new Eutychians and their accomplices, spared not even his predecessor. And yet, as all acknowledge, Honorius had otherwise been an irreproachable Pope. And even in the question at stake he had been far from either professing heresy or teaching error. In what, then, did his fault lie? The Emperor Heraclius, who by victory had reached the height of power, beheld with much concern how division persistently lived on between the Catholics of his Empire and the late disciples of Eutyches. The Bishop of the Imperial City, the Patriarch Sergius, fostered these misgivings in his master’s mind. Vain of a certain amount of political skill which he fancied himself to possess, he now aimed at re-establishing, by his sole effort, that unity which the Council of Chalcedon and Saint Leo the Great had failed to obtain: thus would he make himself a name. The disputants agreed in acknowledging two Natures in Jesus Christ. Hence to reply to these advances of theirs, one thing were needed, thought he: to impose silence on the question as to whether there are in Him two Wills or only one.

The enthusiasm with which this evident compromise was hailed by the various sects rebellious to the Fourth General Council showed well enough that they still preserved and hallowed all the venom of error. And the very fact of their denying or, (which came practically to the same thing), hesitating to acknowledge that in the Man-God there is any other Will than that proper to the Divine Nature, was equivalent to declaring that He had but assumed a semblance of Human Nature, since this Nature could by no means exist devoid of that Will which is proper to It. Therefore, the Monophysites or partisans of the one Nature in Christ, made no difficulty in henceforth being called by the name of Monothelites, or partisans of the one Will. Sergius, the apostle of this novel unity, might well congratulate himself: Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, hailed with one accord the benefit of this peace. Was not the whole East here represented in her patriarchates? If Rome in her turn would but acquiesce, the triumph would be complete!

Jerusalem, however, proved a jarring note in this strange concert. Jerusalem, the witness of the anguish suffered by the Man-God in His Human Nature, had heard Him cry out in the Garden of His Agony: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Yet, not My Will, but Yours be done! (Luke xxii. 42). The City of Dolours knew better than any other what to hold concerning these two Wills brought there face-to-face, yet which had by the heroism of Incomparable Love been maintained in such full harmony. The time for her to bear testimony was come. The Monk Sophronius, now her Bishop, was by his sanctity, courage and learning up to the mark for the task that lay before him. But while in the charity of his soul he was seeking to reclaim Sergius before appealing against him to the Roman Pontiff, the Bishop of Constantinople already took the initiative. He succeeded thus, by a hypocritical letter, in circumventing Honorius and in getting him to impose silence on the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Hence, when at last Saint Sophronius, at the head of the Bishops of his province assembled in council, thought it had become a positive duty on his own part to turn towards Rome, it was but to receive for answer a confirmation of the prohibition to disturb the peace. Woeful mistake! Yet withal, it by no means directly implicated the Infallible Magistracy. It was a measure exclusively political, but one which was, all the same, to cost bitter tears and much blood to the Church, and was to result fifty years later in the condemnation of the unfortunate Honorius.

The Holy Ghost, indeed, who has guaranteed the infallible purity of the doctrine flowing officially from the Apostolic Chair, has not pledged Himself to protect in a like degree from all failure, either the virtue, or the private judgement, or even the administrative acts of the Sovereign Pontiff. Entering into the views of this marvellous solidarity which the Creator made to reign both on Earth and in Heaven, the Man-God, when He founded the society of saints on the authentic and immutable basis of the Faith of Peter, willed that to the prayers of all should be confided the charge of completing his work by obtaining for the Successors of Peter such preservative graces as do not of themselves necessarily spring from the divine Constitution of the Church.

Meanwhile Mahomet was just letting loose his hordes upon the world. Heraclius was now to learn the worth of his Patriarch’s lying peace, and was to come down lower in shame than he had been exalted in glory by his victories over the Persians in the days when he had acted as the hero of the Cross. Palestine, Syria and Egypt fell simultaneously beneath the blows of the lieutenants of the Prophet. Sophronius, placed as he was in the very midst of the scene of invasion, grew still greater under trial. Abandoned by the Emperor where the defence of the empire was at stake, disavowed by Rome, as regarded Faith he alone intrepidly treated with Omar, as power opposed to power. And when about to die, still hoping against all hope in Rome, though thence had come a blow harder far to bear than that of the Caliph, he confided to Stephen of Dora, the supreme mission, which the latter thus relates:

“In his justice strong as a lion, contemning calumnies and intrigues, blessed Sophronius took me, unworthy as I am, and conducted me to the sacred spot of Calvary. There he bound me by an indissoluble engagement in these words: ‘You will have to render account to Him who being God was voluntarily crucified for us according to the Flesh on this spot, when on the day of His terrible Coming He will appear in glory to judge the living and the dead, if you defer or neglect the interests of His Faith now in peril. Well know you, that I cannot in the body do this thing, being hindered by the incursion of the Saracens which our sins have deserved. But set out as soon as possible, and go from these confines of the earth to to its furthest extremity until you reach the See Apostolic, there where are set the foundations of orthodox dogma. Go again and again, not once, not twice, but endlessly, and make known to the holy personages who reside in that place the shock that these lands of ours have sustained. Importunately, ceaselessly, implore and supplicate until Apostolic prudence at length determine by its canonical judgement the victory over these perfidious teachings.’”

The Bishop of Dora was faithful to the behest of Sophronius. When, twelve years later, he gave this touching narrative at the Council of Lateran in 649, it was then the third time that despite the snares and other difficulties of the times, he could say: “We have taken the wings of a dove, as David speaks, and we have come to declare our situation to this See, elevated in the sight of all, this sovereign, this principal See, where is to be found remedy for the wound that has been made on us.” Saint Martin I who received this appeal was one worthy to hear it, and soon afterwards he repaired by his own martyrdom the fault committed by Honorius, in suffering himself to be tricked by an impostor. His glorious death, followed by the tortures endured for the Truth by the saintly Abbot Maximus and his companions, prepared the victory which the heroic faith of Sophronius had announced to the Roman Pontiff. Admirable was this amends received by Holy Church for an odious silence: now were Her Doctors to be seen with tongue plucked out, still continuing by divine power to proclaim that Christian dogma which cannot be enchained, still with lopped-off hands finding means in their indomitable zeal to affix to the mutilated arm the pen whose function, now made doubly glorious, continued thus to carry throughout the world the refutation of Falsehood.

But it is time to come to the issue of this memorable contest. It is to be found in him whose feast we are this day celebrating. Saint Agatho had assembled the Sixth General Council at Constantinople at the request of another Constantine, an enemy of heresy and a victor over Islam. Faith and Justice now did the work, hand in hand. And Saint Leo II could at last sing aloud: “O holy Mother Church, put off your garb of mourning and deck in robes of gladness. Exult now with joyous confidence: your liberty is not cramped.”

* * * * *

O GLORIOUS Pontiff, to you was granted the privilege of completing the Apostolic confession by giving the furthest development to the testimony rendered by Peter to the Son of the Living God who is at the same time, Son of Man. Worthy were you to finish the work of a Sylvester, of a Celestine, and of that other Leo, a Pontiff beloved of Earth and Heaven. Convoking, inspiring, confirming the illustrious Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus and Chalcedon, they had triumphantly proved in our Emmanuel both His Divinity Consubstantial with the Father, and His Unity of Person, which causes Mary to be truly His Mother and, furthermore, His two-fold Nature without which He could not have been our Brother.

Now Satan, who had allowed himself to be more easily overcome on the first two points, defended the third with utmost rage. As on that great battle day when he was hurled from Heaven, the form of his revolt had been a refusal to adore God under human features. So now, together with all Hell enforced by Holy Church to bend the knee, his jealousy would fain pretend that at least God had taken of man but a mutilated nature. Let it be granted that the Word was made Flesh, but in this Flesh allow not that He had other impulses, other energies, save those of the Divinity Itself. Such an inert nature as this, uncrowned of its proper Will, would in reality be no Human Nature, even though It were to retain all the rest. Then would Lucifer, in his pride, have less cause to blush, for then man, the object of his infernal envy, would have nothing in common with the Divine Word save a vain appearance!

Thanks be to you, Leo, thanks be to you, in the name of all mankind! By you, in face of Heaven, Earth and Hell is promulgated authentically the incomparable title by which without any restriction our nature is established at the Right Hand of the Father in the highest heavens. By you, Our Lady consummates her crushing of the vile serpent’s head. But what craft was displayed by Satan in this campaign, prolonged as it was during two centuries, and so noiselessly too, the better to secure success! What exultation rang through the abyss when one sad day saw the representative of Him who is essential Light appear to side for a moment with the powers of darkness in bringing on a cloud, which would interpose itself betwixt Heaven and those mountains of God where He dwells with His Vicar. It is but too probable that the social aid of intercession was weaker just then than it should have been.

Be ever at hand, Leo, to ward off all similarly dangerous situations. Uphold in every age the Pastor who rules Christ’s Church that he may keep himself aloof from the darkening mists that Earth exhales. Keep ever alive in the breast of the faithful flock that strong prayer which should continually he made without ceasing for him by the Church (Acts xii. 5), and then Peter, were he even chained in the depths of the darkest dungeon, will be reached by the Sun of Justice and clearly see his way in that pure ray. Then will the whole body of the Church be light. For, Jesus has said, “the light of the body is the eye: if the eye be single the whole body will be light” (Matthew vi. 22).

Taught thus by you how great is the price of the benefit conferred by Our Lord on the world when He gave her to rest on the infallible teaching of Peter’s successors, we are all the better prepared to celebrate tomorrow’s Feast. We realise more fully the strength of the Rock on which the Church stands. We know that the gates of Hell will never prevail against her (Matthew xvi. 18). For surely the efforts of the spirits of darkness never went to such lengths as they did in that sad crisis to which you put an end: nor was their success, however great in appearance, contrary to the divine promise: for it is to the teaching of Peter, not to his silence that the unfailing assistance of the Holy Ghost is guaranteed. Loving Pontiff, obtain for us, together with uprightness of faith, that heavenly enthusiasm with which it behoves us to hail Peter and the Man-God, blended together in such unity as the same Jesus Himself has made to exist between the two. Deeply is the Liturgy indebted to you. Grant us, then, to relish ever more and more, the hidden manna it contains, and may our hearts and voices fittingly render these sacred melodies!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Alexandria, in the persecution of Severus, the holy martyrs Plutarch, Serenus, Heraclides, catechumen, Heron, neophyte, another Serenus, Rhais, catechumen, Potamicena and Marcella, her mother. Among them, the virgin Potamioena is particularly distinguished. She first endured many most painful trials for the preservation of her virginity, and then cruel and unheard-of torments for the faith, after which she and her mother were consumed with fire.

The same day, during the persecution of Diocletian, St. Papius, martyr, who was scourged with knotted cords, cast into a cauldron of seething oil and grease, and after other horrible torments, was decapitated and thus won an eternal crown.

At Maestricht, St. Benignus, bishop and martyr.

At Cordova, St. Argymirus, monk and martyr, who was slain for the faith of Christ during the persecution of the Arabs.

At Rome, St. Paul, pope and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

28 JUNE ‒ FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This Sunday, which with the Greeks is called the fifth of Saint Matthew, was known by the Latins as the Sunday of the Fishing. such was its name up to the time when the Church had transferred to the previous Sunday the Gospel which suggested that title. The week which it commences is in some ancient lectionaries called the first after the Feast of the Apostles or of Saint Peter. In others it is the second or third after the same feast. These and other similar varieties of names, which it is no rare thing to find in the liturgical books of the Middle Ages, originated in Easters being kept sooner or later in the years when those books were written.

The Church began last night the reading of the second book of Kings. It opens with the description of Saul’s sad end and David’s accession to the throne of Israel. The exaltation of Jesse’s son is the climax to the prophetic life of the ancient people. In David, God had found His faithful servant (Psalms lxxxviii. 21), and He resolved to exhibit him to the world as the most perfect figure of the future Messiah. A solemn promise of Jehovah assured the new monarch as to the future of his race. His throne was to be everlasting (Psalms lxxxviii. 36‒38) for, at some future day, it was to be the throne of Him who should be called the Son of the Most High, though, at the same time, He was to be Son of David (Luke i. 32).

But, while the Tribe of Juda was hailing in Hebron the King elected by the Lord, there were dark clouds on the horizon. In her Vespers of yesterday the Church sang, as one of her finest Antiphons, the funeral ode which inspiration dictated to David when he saw the regal crown that had been picked up from the dust and gore of the battlefield, on which had fallen the princes of Israel: “Ye mountains of Gelboe, let neither dew nor rain come upon you, for there was cast away the shield of the valiant, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil! How are the valiant fallen in battle! Jonathan slain on the high places! Saul and Jonathan exceeding lovely and comely in their life; even in death they were not divided” (2 Kings i. 21, 23, 25).

The proximity of the great solemnity of the Apostles, June the 29th, to the Saturday when this Antiphon is sung, has suggested to the Church to apply its last words to Saints Peter and Paul during the octave of their Feast: “Glorious Princes of the Earth! As they loved each other in their life, so even in their death they were not divided!” Like the Hebrew people at this period of their history, our Christian armies have often had to hail their kings almost in the same breath that said the requiem over their predecessors.

As on last Sunday, so again today the Church seems to unite together the readings of the previous night and the solemn entrance of the Sacrifice. The Introit for this fifth Sunday is taken from Psalm 26 which was composed by David on occasion of his coronation in Hebron. It expresses the humble confidence of him who has nothing here below to trust in, and yet he has the Lord, as his light and salvation. In the events just referred to, nothing less than a blind faith in God’s promises could have kept up the courage of the young shepherd of Bethlehem, and nothing less could have inspired the people who had made him their king. But we must see beyond this. We must understand that the kingship of Jesse’s son and his descendants in the ancient Jerusalem represents, for our Mother the Church, a grander royalty and a more lasting dynasty — the kingship of Christ and the dynasty of the Sovereign Pontiffs.

Epistle – 1 Peter iii. 8‒15

Dearly beloved, be all of one mind; having, compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble; not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing: for o this are you called, that you may inherit a blessing. For, he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him decline from evil and do good; let him seek after peace and pursue it; because the eyes of the Lord are on the just, and his ears to their prayers, but the countenance of the Lord on on them that do evil things. And who is he that can hurt you, if you be zealous of good? But if also your suffer anything for justice sake, blessed are you. And be not afraid of their fear, and be not troubled: but sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Gospel of last Sunday showed us the Apostles hard at work drawing from the waters the living stones with which Jesus is to build His Church. Today it is the head, the one who presides over the mysterious fishing, it is Simon the Son of John who, in our Epistle, addresses himself to those various elements which are to make up the holy city. They are sacred materials all brought together from the deep abyss, that henceforward they may glitter as so many bright pearls with the marvellous light of the Lord Jesus on them (1 Peter ii. 9) The Son of God came down from Heaven for no other purpose than to found on Earth a glorious city in which God Himself might delight to dwell (Apocalypse xxi. 2, 3). He came that He might build for His Father a temple of matchless beauty where praise and love, ceaselessly sounding from the very stones which form its walls, might worthily proclaim that it possessed the sanctuary of the great Sacrifice (1 Peter ii. 4, 5). He Himself made Himself to be the Foundation of the thrice holy structure in which was to burn the eternal holocaust (1 Peter ii. 6, 7). He communicated this character of Foundation of the new temple to Simon His Vicar (Matthew xvi. 18), and by giving him the name of Peter or Rock, on which He built His Church, He as good as told all future generations, what was the one aim of all His divine labours — to build, that is, here on Earth, a Temple worthy of His eternal Father.

Let us, with respectful gratitude, receive from this Vicar of the Man-God the practical lessons which are involved in this master-truth. And, as we are just now in the period of the Year when the Calendar brings the Prince of the Apostles into such welcome prominence, let us be led by the Church nearer and nearer to this Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (1 Peter ii. 25). Union of true charity, concord and peace which must, at every cost, be kept up as the condition for their being happy both now and for ever —such is the substance of the instructions addressed by Simon, now Peter, to those other chosen stones, which rest upon him, and constitute that august Temple to be presented by the Son of Man to the glory of the Most High. Do not the solidity and duration of even Earth’s palaces depend on the degree of union between the materials used in their structure? Again, it is union which gives strength and beauty to all the parts of this immense universe. Let there be a cessation in that mutual attraction which combines them together in one harmonious whole. Let there be a suspension of that cohesion which holds their atoms together, and we will have but an agglomeration of a vile impalpable something scarcely worth the name of dust.

The Creator has made peace in His high places (Job xxv. 2), so that He asks: “Who can make the harmony of heaven to sleep?” (Job xxxviii. 37). And yet, as the Earth in its present condition is to have an end, so too the heavens are to pass away as some worn-out garment (Psalms ci. 26‒28). What, then, will be the cause of the stability, what the cement which is to hold together the House prepared for God to dwell in which, when all else has crumbled into change, is to be ever the same? And that dwelling is the Church: the dwelling of the adorable Trinity, up to whose throne there is to be ascending, for all eternity, the fragrance which exhales from her Jesus, her Spouse. Here again, it is the Holy Spirit who must explain to us the mystery of this union which makes up the holy city (Psalms cxxi. 3), and whose duration is to last as long as eternity itself. The charity which is poured forth into our hearts the moment of our Baptism is an emanation of the very love that reigns in the bosom of the blessed Trinity, for the workings of the Holy Spirit in the Saints have this for their aim: to make them enter into a participation in the divine energies.

Having become the life of the regenerate soul, the divine Fire penetrates her whole being with God and communicates to her created and finite love the direction and the power of the Flame that is everlasting and divine. So that, henceforward, the Christian must love as God loves. His charity is then only what it should be, when it takes in everything that God loves. Now, such is the ineffable friendship established by the supernatural order between God and his intellectual creatures, that he vouchsafes to love them with the love with which He loves Himself and, therefore, our charity should include and embrace, not only God Himself, but, moreover, all those beings whom He has called to share, if they will, in His own infinite happiness. This will give us to understand the grandeur and incomparable power of the union in which the Holy Ghost has established the Church. We are not surprised that its bonds should be stronger than death, and its cohesion be proof against all the power of Hell (Canticles viii. ), for the cement which joins the living stones of its walls together partakes of the strength of God Himself, and imitates the stability of His eternal love. The Church is truly that Tower which was built on the waters, which was shown to Hermas. It was formed of brightly polished stones, so closely joined one to the other, that the eye could not perceive the joints.

But let us also understand the importance and the necessity of mutual union for all Christians: there must be among them that love of the brotherhood which is so frequently and so strongly recommended by the Apostles, the co-operators of the Spirit in the building up of the Church. The keeping aloof from schism and heresy, of whose terrible consequences we were told in last Sunday’s Gospel — the repression of hatred and jealousy — no, these are not enough for the making us become useful members of the Church of Christ: we must, moreover, have a charity which is effective, and devoted, and persevering, and brings all souls and hearts into true union and harmony: a charity which, to be worthy of the name, must be warm-hearted and generous, for it must make us see God in our fellow-men, and that will bring us to look upon their happiness or misfortunes as though they were our own. We must have none of that phlegmatic egotism which finds satisfaction in never putting itself out of the way for any body: hateful as such a temperament is, it is far from being a rare one. It holds this peculiar view about charity — that the best way of observing it is to have a complete indifference for those who live with us! With souls of this stamp it is evident they are not bedded in the divine cement: you could never get them to be part of the holy structure: the heavenly Builder is compelled to reject them as unfit, or leave them to lie, around the walls, a heap of unemployed material, which refused all adaptation, and all being shaped, to the general plan.

Still, if the building get finished before they have made up their minds not to be rubbish, woe to them! When it is too late they will open their eyes and understand that Charity is one so that, he does not love God, who does not love his neighbour (John iv. 21). and he who does not love, abides in death (John iii. 14). 2 Let us, therefore, as Saint John counsels us, measure the perfection of our love for God by the love we have for our neighbours (John John iv. 12). Then only will we have God abiding within us (John iv. 12). Then only wiall we be enabled to enjoy the unspeakable mysteries of divine union with Him who only unites Himself with His elect in order to make both them and Himself one glorious temple to the glory of His Father.

Gospel – Matthew v. 20‒24

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples, “Unless your justice exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. You have heard that it was said to them of old, You must not kill: and whoever kills will be in danger of the judgement. But I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother will be in danger of judgement; and whoever will say to his brother, Raca, will be in danger of the council and whoever will say, You fool, will be in danger of hell fire. If therefore you offer your gift at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your offering before the altar and go first to be reconciled to your brother; and then coming, offer your gift.

Praise to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The last days of the ancient Jerusalem are fast drawing to their close. In less than a month the frightful ruin of the city that knew not the time of her Lord’s visitation (Luke xix. 44) will have been witnessed by us. It is on the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, during these months of July and August when the armies of Vespasian beheld the destruction of Jerusalem, that the sacred Liturgy commemorates the fulfilment of our Redeemer’s prophecies. During the years which intervened the ancient Temple is still there, with its inner doors closed against all Gentiles. It gives out that, as of old, so now, it holds the Divinity beneath the veils of the old Testament, screening off, even from the children of Israel, its impenetrable Holy of Holies. And yet, the five weeks we have had since Pentecost have shown us how gloriously the Church has been begun on mount Sion. There, fronting the Temple of the restricted and imperfect covenant of Sinai, the Holy Spirit has founded the Church, making her the place where all the nations of Earth are to meet in gladness (Psalms xlvii. 3). She is the city of the great King where all men will henceforth live in the knowledge of God (Jeremias xxxi. 34) and, from the very first moment of her existence, she has been showing herself to us as the abode where Eternal Wisdom has made it His delight to dwell (Proverbs viii. 31; ix. 1). She has proved herself to be the true Holy of Holies in which God and we are to be brought into union.

The law of fear and bondage (Romans viii. 15) is, therefore, forever abrogated by the law of love. A lingering remnant of regard for the once approved institution, which was the depositary of divine revelations (Romans iii. 2) permits the first generation of Jewish converts to observe, if it so pleases them, the practices of their forefathers. But the permission is to cease with the Temple, whose approaching destruction is to bury the Synagogue forever. And even now, before that period of destruction, the prescriptions of the Mosaic law are insufficient to justify the sons of Jacob before God. The ritual ordinances, whose aim was the keeping up the expectation of the future Sacrifice by a ceremonial code of figurative representations, have become useless now that the mysteries they foreshadowed have been accomplished. The very commandments of the Decalogue, those necessary commandments which belong to all times and can never undergo change because they pertain to the essence of the ties existing between creatures and their Creator, yes, even these holy commandments have acquired such additional splendour from the teachings of Jesus, the Sun of all justice, that man’s conscience now finds in them an almost immeasurable increase of moral responsibility and loveliness.

Independently of the positive precept concerning the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge,” man had received from God, while yet in Eden, the knowledge of those eternal laws. They were written in the life there bestowed on him. From that moment forward he would have to cease being a man before he could entirely divest himself, or lose, that infused knowledge, for it had been given to him as part of his being, as the natural law of his practical judgements, and was thus, to a certain extent, identified with his reason. But man’s reason having, by the Fall, become greatly obscured, his soul had no longer the full and clear notion it previously had of the moral obligations resulting from his own nature as man. His Will, too, was a sufferer by the same Fall. It got depraved. It used the original weakness of reason as an excuse for its own malice, and that malice did but make thicker the darkness which covered its own excesses. Voluntary or heedless victims of error, the Gentiles were seen adapting their conduct to false maxims which were, at times, so contrary to the first principles of morality, that we who have enjoyed the blessings of faith can scarcely believe that men could ever be so wicked as history tells us they were.

Even the descendants of the Patriarchs, though singularly preserved through the benediction given by God to their fathers, were far from being as free as we should have expected them to be from the general corruption. When Moses, sent as he was by God, formed them into a nation whose constitution was fidelity to that written law which was to restore the law of nature, several points had to be left unmentioned, which, according to our Lord’s expression, the hardness of Jewish hearts would never have taken in. After Moses’ death, self-constituted teachers and peculiar sects rose up in the nation and, by dint of absurd traditions and false interpretations, corrupted the spirit, yes, at times the very letter, of the law of Sinai. The Jews looked upon the Law of God as the Magna Carta of their nation. As such, it was put under the protection of the civil power. Various tribunals with more or less of executive authority according to the importance of the cases that had respectively to be brought before them, were to pass sentence on the infractions committed, or the crimes perpetrated, against it. But, with the single exception of the sacred tribunal established under the law of grace in which God Himself acts and speaks in the person of the priest, every judgement passed by men, be their authority ever so imposing, can only deal with exterior facts: so that Moses, in the legislative code he had drawn up, assigned no penalty for interior sins. These, however grievous they may be, are essentially beyond both the appreciation and cognizance of society and the human powers which govern it.

Even now under the New Law, the Church does not inflict her censures on interior faults unless they be made manifest by some act which comes under the senses, just as Moses had done, who, while acknowledging the culpability of criminal thoughts or desires, yet left to God’s judgement what He alone can know. But while nowadays there is not a Christian child who does not know that a wicked thought or desire is unlawful, it was not so with the mass of the Hebrew people. The Prophets were ever striving to get this privileged but grovelling race to raise their thoughts above this present life. And even supposing that much to be gained, there still remained the narrow-minded Jewish notion that beyond the divinely inspired principles of its political constitution and the outward form of its legislation, there was nothing worthy of their attention. They would have scouted the idea that there was a spiritual reality, of far greater and deeper importance, underlying the external code. We see all this strongly marked by what took place shortly after the return from captivity. The last prophets had disappeared, and free scope was given to doctrinal systems which fostered short-sighted theories.

The Jewish casuists were not slow in drawing up their famous formula that all moral goodness was guaranteed to him that had received circumcision! Saint Paul, later on, told them how such a principle was a stumbling-block to the Gentiles, leading them to blaspheme the name of God (Romans ii. 24). According to the moral theology of those Hebrew doctors, conscience meant only what the tribunal of public justice issued as its decisions: the obligations of the interior tribunal of a man’s conscience were to be restricted to the rules followed by the assize-courts. The result of such teaching soon showed itself: the only thing people need care for was what was seen by men. If the fault were not one that human eyes could judge of, you were not to trouble about it. The Gospel is filled with the woes uttered by our Lord against these blind guides who taught the souls they professed to direct, how best to smother law and justice and love under the outward cover of the letter. This Jesus of ours never loses an opportunity of denouncing, and castigating, and holding up to execration, those hypocrites of Scribes and Pharisees who took such pains to be ever cleaning the outside of the dish but, within were full of impurity, and murder, and rapine (Matthew xxii.)

The divine Word who had come down from Heaven to sanctify men in truth (that is, to sanctify them in Himself) (John xvii. 17, 19) had to make this His first care: to restore what time had tarnished, to restore all the original brightness to the changeless principles of justice and right, which rest in Him as in their centre. No sooner had He called disciples around Him and chosen twelve out of their number as Apostles than He began, with all possible solemnity, His divine work of moral restoration. The passage from the Sermon on the Mount which the Church has selected for the Gospel of this fifth Sunday, follows immediately after His declaring that He had come, not to find fault with, or destroy the Law (Matthew v. 17). but to restore it to its true meaning, of which the Scribes had deprived it. Yes, He had come that He might give it all the fullness which the very contemporaries of Moses were too hard to take in. One should read the whole chapter of Saint Matthew from which our Gospel is taken. The explanations we have been giving will make it easily understood.

In the few lines put before us today by the Church, our Lord tells us not to make human tribunals the standard of the justice needed for our entering into the kingdom of Heaven. The Jewish law brought a man who was guilty of murder before the criminal court of judgement and He, the Master and author of the Law, declares to us that anger, which is the first step leading to murder, even though it lurk in the deepest recesses of the conscience, may bring death to the soul, and thus really incur, in the spiritual order, the capital punishment which human tribunals reserve to actual murder. If, without going so far as to strike the offender, our anger should vent itself in insulting language such as worthless wretch (which in Syriac is Raca) the sin becomes so serious that, weighed in the balance of its real guilt as known by God, it would be a case, not of the ordinary criminal jurisdiction, but of the highest council of the nation. If the angry man pass from insulting to injurious language, there is no human tribunal which, be it as severe as it can be in its verdict, can give us an idea of the enormity of the sin committed. But the authority of the sovereign Judge is not, like that of a human magistrate, confined within certain limits. When fraternal charity is outraged, there is an avenger who will demand justice beyond the grave. Such is the importance of holy charity, which God demands should unite all men together! And so directly opposed to God’s design is the sin,which, in whatever degree, endangers or troubles the union of the living stones of the temple, which has to be built up in concord and love here below to the glory of the undivided and tranquil Trinity!

27 JUNE – OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP

The title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was given to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Pope Pius IX in association with the thirteenth century Byzantine icon which was brought to Rome from Crete at the end of the fifteenth century. The Blessed Virgin Mary herself chose the location for her sanctuary, having revealed to a little child that “I desire to have my home between my beloved Church of Saint Mary Major and that of my dear adopted son, John” (St. John Lateran). It was in the Via Merulana that Pope Cletus lived, and it was there in his house that he built an oratory dedicated to Saint Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, and accommodated pilgrims visiting the tombs of the Apostles. In the fourth century the oratory was replaced by a church which was restored and re-consecrated by Pope Paschal II in 1110.

In the fifteenth century Pope Sixtus IV gave the church to Irish friars of the Augustinian Order, and in 1499 the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was installed above the high altar. During the Napoleonic invasion of Rome, the Church of Saint Matthew and its monastery were destroyed, but the miraculous icon was saved and placed for safe-keeping at the monastery of Saint Eusebius where the friars of Saint Matthew’s remained until Rome was liberated in 1814 and Pope Pius VII returned from his imprisonment in France. The Pope then gave the friars the nearby palace and Church of Santa Maria in Posterula, and the icon was placed in their private oratory. In 1854 Blessed Pope Pius IX decided that the Father-General of the Redemptorists should reside in Rome. In the following year construction of a church and monastery of Saint Alphonsus began on the Via Merulana.

In December 1865 later Blessed Pope Pius IX ordered the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help to be returned to its place between the Basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano, “a stone's throw” from its original location in the old Church of Saint Matthew. On the 26th of April 1866 the icon was welcomed back after a grand public procession, and the festivities ended on the 29th of April with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the singing of the Te Deum. The Church soon became one of the most venerated of all the Roman sanctuaries of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The shrine became so remarkable for its miracles and wonders and the number of pilgrims visiting, that the Vatican Chapter of Saint Peter decided to bestow on the holy icon its honour of Coronation.

On 23 June 1867, after a Pontifical Mass and the solemn singing of the 'Te Deum,' the Patriarch of Constantinople ascended the high altar holding two gold crowns, placing one diadem on the head of the infant Jesus and the other on the head of his Blessed Mother. Each year the Coronation is commemorated by the Redemptorists with a special Office and Mass. There are more than 3,000 authentic copies of the icon, each of which has been blessed by the Pope and sealed and signed by the Father-General of the Redemptorists.

Almighty and everlasting God who has given us to venerate an image of your most blessed Mother under the special invocation of Our Perpetual Help, grant graciously, that amid all the changes of this our way and life, we may be so defended by the constant protection of that same Immaculate and ever-Virgin Mary, as to be able to obtain the reward of your eternal redemption. Through Our Lord ...

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Galatia, St. Crescens, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Paul. In passing through Gaul he converted many to the Christian faith by his preaching. Returning to the people for whom especially he had been made bishop, he maintained, to the end of his life, the Galatians in the service of the Lord, and finally consummated his martyrdom under Trajan.

At Cordova, St. Zoilus, and nineteen other martyrs.

At Caesarea in Palestine, in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Urbanus, St. Anectus, martyr. For having exhorted others to suffer martyrdom and overthrown idols by his prayers, he was scourged by ten soldiers, had his hands and feet cut off, and by decapitation merited the crown of martyrdom.

At Constantinople, St. Sampson, a priest who harboured the poor.

At Warasdin in Hungary, the holy king Ladislas, greatly renowned to this day for miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

26 JUNE – SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL OF ROME (Martyrs)

The brothers John and Paul were Roman officers in the service of Constantia, the daughter of Constantine the Great. They were were martyred by Julian the Apostate in 362 AD after he failed to persuade them to worship pagan gods. They were beheaded in their own house during the night and were secretly buried there. Later, another group of martyrs, Terentianus, Crispus, Crispinianus and Benedicta were buried beside them. In 392 a great Basilica was built on the Caelian Hill over the site of their house and burial place. Saints John and Paul are specifically commemorated in the Canon of the Mass.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Amid the numerous sanctuaries which adorn the capital of the Christian universe, the Church of Saints John and Paul has remained from the early date of its origin one of the chief centres of Roman piety. From the summit of the Coelian Hill it towers over the Colosseum, the dependances of which stretch subterraneously even as far as the cellarage of the house once inhabited by our Saints. They, the last of the Martyrs, completed the glorious crown offered to Christ by Rome, the chosen seat of His power. The conflict in which their blood was spilt consummated the triumph whose hour was sounded under Constantine, but which an offensive retaliation on the part of Hell, seemed about to compromise. No attack could be conceived more odious for the Church than that devised by the apostate Caesar. Nero and Diocletian had violently and with hatred declared against the Incarnate God a war of sword and torture, and without recrimination. Christians by thousands had died, knowing that the testimony thus demanded was merely the order of things, just as it had been in the case of their august Head (1 Timothy vi. 13) before a Pontius Pilate, and upon the Cross. But with the clever astuteness of a traitor, and the affected disdain of a false philosopher, Julian purposed to stifle Christianity amid the bulrushes of an oppression progressive to a nicety, and respectfully abhorrent of human blood: merely to preclude Christians from public offices, and to prohibit them from holding chairs for the teaching of youth, that was all the apostate aimed at! However, the blood which he wanted to avoid shedding, must flow, even though a hypocrite’s hands be dyed with it, for according to the divine plan, bloodshed alone can bring extreme situations to an issue, and never was Holy Church menaced with greater peril: fain would they now make a slave of her whom they had beheld still holding her royal liberty in face of executioners — fain would they now await the moment when, once enslaved, she would at last disappear of herself, in powerlessness and degradation.

For this reason the bishops of that time found vent for their indignant soul in accents such as their predecessors had spared to princes whose brute violence was then inundating the empire with Christian blood. They now retorted upon the tyrant, scorn for scorn. And the manifestations of contempt that consequently came showering in from every quarter upon the crowned fool completely unmasked at last his feigned moderation: Julian was now shown up as nothing but a common persecutor of the usual kind — blood flowed, the Church was rescued. Thus is explained the gratitude which this noble Bride of the Son of God has never ceased to manifest to these glorious Martyrs we are celebrating today: for amid the many generous Christians whose out-spoken indignation brought about the solution of this terrible crisis, none are more illustrious than they. Julian was most anxious to count them among his confidants: with this view, he made use of every entreaty, as we learn from the Breviary Lessons. Nor does it appear that he even made the renouncing of Jesus Christ a condition. Well then, it may be retorted, why not yield to the Imperial whim? Could they not do so without wounding their conscience? Surely too much stiffness would be the rather calculated to ill-dispose the prince, perhaps even fatally. Whereas to listen to him would very likely have a soothing effect on him, possibly even bring him round to relax somewhat of those administrative trammels unfortunately imposed on the Church by his prejudiced government. Yes, for anything one knew, the possible conversion of his soul, the return of so many of the misled who had followed him in his fall, might be the result! Should not such things as these deserve some consideration, should they not impose, as a duty, some gentle handling? Yes, such reasoning as this would doubtless appear to some as wise policy: such preoccupation for the apostate’s salvation could easily have had nothing in it but what was inspired by zeal for the Church and for souls. And indeed the most exacting casuist could not find it a crime for John and Paul to dwell in a court where nothing was demanded of them contrary to the divine precepts.

Nevertheless the two brothers resolved otherwise. To the course of soothing and reserve making, they preferred that of the frank expression of their sentiments, and this bold out- speaking of theirs put the tyrant in a fury and brought about their death. The Church has judged their case, and she has found them not in the wrong. Hence it is unlikely that the former path would have led them to a like degree of sanctity in God’s sight. The names of John and Paul inscribed on the sacred diptychs show well enough their credit in the eyes of the Divine Victim, who never offers Himself to the God Thrice-Holy without blending their memory with that of His own immolation. The enthusiasm excited by the noble attitude of these two valiant witnesses to the Lord still re-echoes in the Antiphons and Responsories proper to the feast. It was formerly preceded by a Vigil and fast. Together with the sanctuary which encloses their tomb, it may be said to date as far back as the very morrow of their martyrdom. Granted by a singular privilege a place in the Leonian Sacramentary, while so many other martyrs slept their sleep of peace outside the walls of the Holy City, John and Paul reposed in Rome itself, the definitive conquest of which had been won for the God of armies by their gallant combat.

That very same day of the year immediately succeeding their victorious death, Julian fell dead, uttering against Heaven his cry of rage: “Galilean, you have conquered!” From the Queen City of the universe, their renown, passing beyond the mountains, shone forth almost as soon and with nearly equal splendour in the Gauls. Returned from the scene of his own struggle in the cause of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, Hilary of Poitiers at once propagated their cultus. This great Bishop was called to our Lord, scarcely five years after their martyrdom, but he had already found time to consecrate to their name the church in which his loving hands had laid his sweet daughter Abra and her mother, awaiting the hour when he too should be joined to them in the same spot, expecting the day of the Resurrection. It was from this very church of Saints John and Paul, called later on Saint Hilary the Great’s, that Clovis on the eve of the battle of Vouille beheld streaming towards him that mysterious light, presage of the victory which would result in the expulsion of Arianism from the Gauls, and in the foundation of monarchical unity. These holy Martyrs continued in after years to show the interest they took in the advancement of the kingdom of God by the Franks. When the disastrous issue of the second Crusade was filling the soul of Saint Bernard with bitterness, for he had preached it, they appeared to him, upraised his courage, and manifested by what secrets the King of Heaven had known how to draw His own glory out of events in which man saw only failure and disaster.

* * * * *

TWO-FOLD is the triumph that thrills through Heaven and two-fold the gladness re-echoed on Earth this day, while your out-poured blood proclaims the victory of the Son of God! Verily, by the martyrdom of the Faithful does Christ triumph. The effusion of His own Blood marked the defeat of the prince of this world. The Blood of His mystical members possesses, alone and always, the power of establishing His reign. Contest has never been an evil for the Church Militant: the noble Bride of the God of armies delights in combat, for she knows right well that her Spouse came on Earth to bring not peace, but the sword. Therefore, to the end of time, will she hold up as an example to her sons, your chivalrous courage and your bold frankness, which scorned to dissimulate your utter contempt for an apostate tyrant, or to suffer you to dwell for a moment on such considerations, as might perhaps, had you listened to him at the first, have just saved your conscience, together with life. Woe to the day on which the deceptive mirage of guileful peace misleads minds, in which merely because sin, properly so called, does not stare them in the face, Christian souls stoop from the lofty stand-point of their Baptism to compromises which even a pagan world would scout. Glorious Brethren, make the children of holy Church to turn aside from that fatal error which would lead them to misconceptions of sacred traditions received by them in heritage. Maintain the “Sons of God” at the full height of those noble sentiments demanded by their heavenly origin, by the throne that awaits them, by the divine Blood they daily drink of. Far from them be all such base-born notions, such vulgarity, as would be calculated to excite against their heavenly Father the blasphemies of the “accursed city.”

Nowadays there has arisen a persecution not dissimilar to that in which you gained the crown. Julian’s plan of action is once more in vogue. If these mimics of the apostate equal him not in intelligence, they at least surpass him in hatred and hypocrisy. But God is not wanting to His Church now, any more than He was then. Obtain for us the grace to do our part in resistance, as was done by you, and the victory will be the same. Your very names, John and Paul, remind us of the Friend of the Bridegroom whose Octave is speeding its course, and of that Paul of the Cross who revived heroism of sanctity in your very house on Monte Coelio. Vouchsafe to unite your protection, powerful as indeed it is, to that which the Precursor exercises over the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, become by the very fact of her primacy the chief butt of the enemies’ attack. Uphold the new militia raised by the necessity of the times, and which is entrusted with the guardianship both of your sacred remains and of those of its glorious Founder. Remembering the power which the Church specially attributes to you, namely, that of opening or shutting the flood-gates of Heaven, be pleased to bless our harvest well near ripe for the sickle: be propitious to our reapers and assuage their painful labour. Preserve from lightning, man and his possessions, the home that shelters him, the beasts that serve him. Too often, alas, ungrateful and forgetful man would indeed deserve to incur your wrath, but prove yourselves children of Him who makes His sun to rise upon the wicked as well as upon the good, and gives His rain to fall alike upon the just and upon sinners (Matthew v. 45).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Trent, St. Vigilius, bishop, who, while he endeavoured to root out the remains of idolatry, was overwhelmed with a shower of stones by cruel and barbarous men, and thus endured martyrdom for the name of Christ.

At Cordova in Spain, under the Saracen king Abderahman, the birthday of St. Pelagius, a young man who gloriously consummated his martyrdom for the faith by having his flesh torn to pieces with iron pincers.

At Valenciennes, the holy martyrs Salvius, bishop of Angouleme, and Superius.

Also the comemmoration of St. Anthelmus, bishop of Belley.

In Poitou, St. Maxentius, priest and confessor, renowned for miracles.

At Thessalonica, St. David, hermit.

The same day, St. Perseveranda, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

25 JUNE – SAINT WILLIAM OF VERCELLI (Abbot)

William was born of noble parents at Vercelli in the Piedmont in 1085. His parents died while he was still a child and he was brought up by his relatives. But scarce had be attained his fourteenth year, when already inflamed with wondrous ardour for piety, he performed the pilgrimage to the far-famed Sanctuary of Saint James at Compostella in Spain. He made the journey clad in single tunic with a double chain of iron about his loins, and with bare feet, a prey to extreme cold and heat, to hunger and thirst, and even with danger of life. After returning to Italy he was moved to perform a fresh pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord in Jerusalem, but each time he was on the point of carrying it out, various and grave impediments intervened. Divine Providence thus drew the holy inclinations of William to even higher and holier things.

Then passing two years on Monte Solicolo in assiduous prayer and in watchings, in sleeping on the bare ground, and in fastings in which he was divinely assisted, he restored sight to a blind man, the fame of which miracle becoming gradually divulged, at last William could no longer be hidden: for which reason he thought again of undertaking a journey to Jerusalem, and joyfully set out on his way. But God appeared to him, admonishing him to desist from his purpose because he was to be more useful and profitable both in Italy and elsewhere. Ascending Mount Virgilian, since called Monte Vergine, he built a monastery on its summit, on a rugged and inaccessible spot. He there associated to himself religious men who wished to be his companions, and taught them both by word and example a manner of life conformable to the Evangelical precepts and counsels, as well as to certain rules taken for the most part from the institutions of Saint Benedict.

Other monasteries being afterwards built, the sanctity of William became more and more known, and attracted to him many other persons who were drawn by the sweet odour of his holiness and the fame of his miracles. For by his intercession, the dumb received speech, the deaf hearing, the withered new strength, and those labouring under various incurable diseases were restored to health. He changed water into wine, and performed many other wondrous deeds among which, the following must not be passed over in silence, namely, that a courtesan having been sent to make an attempt on his chastity, he rolled himself without hurt amid burning coals spread upon the ground. Roger, king of Naples being certified of this fact, was led to hold the man of God in highest veneration. After having predicted to the king and others the time of his death, resplendent in miracles and innumerable virtues, he passed away in 1042.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Martyrs are numerous on the Cycle during the Octave of Saint John. John and Paul, Irenaeus, the very Princes of the Apostles even, come thronging in to confirm with their blood the testimony of him who made known to Earth the arrival of her long expected God. Where can names more illustrious be found, whether as regards human greatness, sacred science, or the holy hierarchy? But not alone in martyrdom’s peerless glory does our Emmanuel reveal the potency of His grace, or the victorious force of example, left to the world by His Precursor. At the very outset we have here presented to our homage one of those countless athletes of penance who succeeded to John in the desert. One of those who fleeing, like him, in early youth, a society in which their soul’s foreboding told only of peril and annoy, consecrated a lifetime to Christ’s complete triumph within them over the triple concupiscence, thus bearing witness to the Lord by deeds which the world ignores, but which make Angels to rejoice and Hell to tremble.

William was one of the chiefs of this holy militia. The Order of Monte Vergine, that owes its origin to him has deserved well of the Monastic institute and of the whole Church, in those southern parts of Italy in which God has been pleased, at different times, to raise up a dyke, as it were, against the encroaching waves of sensual pleasures, by the stern spectacle of austerest virtue. Both personally and by his disciples, William’s mission was to infuse into the kingdom of Sicily, then in process of formation, that element of sanctity on which every Christian nation must necessarily be based. In southern, just as in northern Europe, the Norman race had been providentially called in to promote the reign of Jesus Christ. Just at this moment, Byzantium, powerless to protect against Saracen invasion the last vestiges of her possessions in the West, was anxious nevertheless to hold the Churches of these lands fast bound in that schism into which she had recently been drawn by the intriguing ambition of Michael Cerularius. The Crescent had been forced to recoil before the sons of a Tancred and a Hauteville. And now, in its turn, Greek perfidy had just been outwitted and unmasked by the rude simplicity of these men who learnt fast enough how to oppose no argument to Byzantine knavery, save the sword. The Papacy, though for a moment doubtful, soon came to understand of what great avail these new-comers would be in feudal quarrels, the jar and turmoil of which were to extend far and wide for yet two centuries more, leading at last to the long struggle betwixt Sacerdotalism and Caesarism.

All through this period, as has ever been the case since the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost was directing every event for the ultimate good of the Church. He it was that inspired the Normans to give solidity to their conquests by declaring themselves vassals of the Holy See and thus fixing themselves on the Apostolic rock. But at the same time, both to recompense their fidelity at the very opening of their career, and to render them more worthy of the mission which would have ever been their honour and their strength, had they but continued so to understand it, this same Holy Spirit gave them Saints. Roger I beheld Saint Bruno interceding for his people in the solitudes of Calabria, and there also that blessed man miraculously saved the Duke from an ambush laid by treason. Roger II was now given another such heavenly aid to bring him back again into the paths of righteousness from which he had too often strayed, the example and exhortations of the founder of Monte Vergine.

* * * * *

FOLLOWING the footsteps of John, you understood, William, the charms of the wilderness, and God was pleased to make known by you how useful are such lives as yours, spent afar from the world and apparently wholly unconcerned with human affairs. Complete detachment of the senses disengages the soul, and makes her draw near to the Sovereign Good. Solitude, by stifling Earth’s tumult, permits the voice of the Creator to be heard. Then man, enlightened by the very Author of the world concerning the great interests that are being at that very time put into play in this work of His, becomes in the Creator’s hands an instrument at once powerful and docile for the carrying out of these very interests, in reality identical with those of the creature himself and of nations. Thus did you become, O illustrious Saint, the bulwark of a great people who found in your word the rule of right, in your example the stimulus of loftiest virtue, in your superabundant penance a compensation, in God’s sight, for the excesses of its Princes. The countless miracles which accompanied your exhortations were not without a telling eloquence of their own, in the eyes of new nations among whom success of arms had created violence and had lashed up passion to fury: that wolf, for instance, which after having devoured the ass of the monastery, was enforced by you to take its victim’s place in humble service. Or again, that hapless woman, who beholding you inaccessible to the scorching flames of that bed of burning coals, renounced her criminal life and was led by you to paths even of sanctity!

Many a revolution, upheaving the land in which you once prayed and suffered, has but too well proved the instability of kingdoms and dynasties that seek not first, and before all things else, the Kingdom of God and His Justice. Despite the oblivion, alas too frequent, into which your teaching and example have been thrown, protect the land in which God granted you graces so stupendous — that land which He vouchsafed to confide to your powerful intercession. Faith still lives in its people. Then keep it up, notwithstanding the efforts of the enemy in these sad days. But make it also to produce fruits in virtue’s field. Amid many trials, your Monastic family has been able, up to this present age of persecution, to propagate itself and to serve the Church: obtain that it, together with all other Religious families, may show itself, to the end, stronger than the tempest. Our Lady, whom you served right valiantly, is at hand to second your efforts. From that sanctuary whose name has outlived the memory of the poet (Virgil), who unconsciously sang her glories, may Mary ever smile on the thronging crowds that year by year toil up the holy mount, hailing the triumph of her virginity. May she accept at your hands our hearts’ homage and desire, although we cannot in very deed accomplish this sacred pilgrimage.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Beraea, the birthday of St. Sosipater, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Paul.

At Rome, St. Lucy, virgin and martyr, with twenty-two others.

At Alexandria, St. Gallicanus, ex-consul and martyr, who had been honoured with a triumph and was held in affection by the emperor Constantine. Converted by Saints John and Paul, he withdrew to Ostia with St. Hilarinus and devoted himself entirely to the duties of hospitality and to the service of the sick. The report of such an event spread through the whole world, and from all sides many persons came to see a man who had been a senator and consul, washing the feet of the poor, preparing their table, serving them, carefully waiting on the infirm, and performing other works of mercy. Driven from this place by Julian the Apostate, he repaired to Alexandria where, for refusing to sacrifice to idols, at the command of the judge Raucian, he was put to the sword and thus became a martyr of Christ.

At Sibapolis in Syria, under the governor Lysimachus in the persecution of Diocletian, St. Febronia, virgin and martyr, who was scourged and racked for defending her faith and her chastity, then torn with iron combs and exposed to fire. Finally, having her teeth plucked out and her breasts cut off, she was condemned to capital punishment and went to her spouse adorned with her sufferings as with so many jewels.

At Besançon in France, St. Antidius, bishop and martyr, who was killed by the Vandals for the faith of Christ.

At Riez, St. Prosper of Aquitaine, bishop of that city, distinguished by his erudition and piety. He valiantly combated the Pelagians in defence of the Catholic faith.

At Turin, the birthday of St. Maximus, bishop and confessor, most celebrated for his learning and sanctity.

In Holland, St. Adelbert, confessor, a disciple of the sainted bishop Willibrord.

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

Thanks be to God.

24 JUNE – THE NATIVITY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

John the Baptist was born to Zachariah, a priest, and his wife Elizabeth, who was the daughter of Aaron and a relative of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah and told him not to fear, that his prayer was to be answered, and his wife would bear him a son, who he must call John. Zachariah would have joy and gladness and rejoice in his son's nativity because he would be great before the Lord and be filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother's womb. He would not drink wine or strong drink and he would convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Because Zachariah was incredulous that his wife who was advanced in age and barren would bear a child, he was struck dumb until the things the angel had spoken of would come to pass. And so, when Elizabeth delivered her son, her relatives and neighbours said he should be named after his father, but she answered he will be called John, despite the fact that none of her relatives were called by this name. They made signs to Zachariah and he wrote “John is his name” on a tablet. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue loosened and he spoke, blessing God. Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He has visited and wrought the redemption of His people. And has raised up a horn of salvation to us, in the house of David, His servant.

As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who are from the beginning. Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us.

To perform mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy testament. The oath, which He swore to Abraham our father, that He would grant to us.

That being delivered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice before Him, all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people to the remission of their sins.

Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high has visited us, to enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace.”

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“The Voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord: behold your God.’” (Isaias xl. 3-9). O in this world of ours grown now so cold, who can understand Earth’s transports at hearing these glad tidings so long expected? The promised God is not yet manifested, but already have the heavens bowed down to make way for His passage. No longer is He “'the One who is to come,” He for whom our fathers, the illustrious saints of the prophetic age, ceaselessly called in their indomitable hope. Still hidden, indeed, but already in our midst, He is resting beneath that virginal cloud, compared with which the heavenly purity of Thrones and Cherubim wax dim. Yes, the united fires of burning Seraphim grow faint in presence of the single love with which He alone encompasses Him in her human heart, she that lowly daughter of Adam whom He has chosen for His mother. Our accursed Earth, made suddenly more blessed far than yonder Heaven inexorably closed erstwhile to suppliant prayer, awaits no longer anything, save that the august mystery be revealed. The hour is come for Earth to join her canticles to that Eternal Praise Divine, which henceforth is rising from the depths, and which being itself no other than the Word Himself, celebrates God condignly. But beneath the veil of humility where His Divinity, even after as well as before His birth, must still continue to hide itself from men, who may discover the Emmanuel? Who, having recognised Him in His merciful abasements, may succeed in making Him to be accepted by a world lost in pride? Who may cry, pointing out the Carpenter’s Son (Matthew xiii. 55), in the midst of the crowd: Behold Him whom your fathers have so wistfully awaited!

For such is the order decreed from on High in the manifestation of the Messiah: conformably to the ways of men, the God-Man will not intrude Himself into public life. He will await, for the inauguration of His divine ministry, some man who has preceded Him in a similar career, and who is hereby sufficiently accredited, to introduce Him to the people. Sublime part for a creature to play, to stand guarantee for his God, witness for the Word! The exalted dignity of him who was to fill such a position had been notified, as had that of the Messiah, long before his birth. In the solemn Liturgy of the Age of types, the Levite choir, reminding the Most High of the meekness of David and of the promise made to him of a glorious heir, hailed from afar the mysterious lamp prepared by God for His Christ (Psalms cxxxi. 17). Not that to give light to His steps, Christ should stand in need of external help: He, the Splendour of the Father, had only to appear in these dark regions of ours to fill them with the effulgence of the very heavens, but so many false glimmerings had deceived mankind during the night of these ages of expectation, that had the true Light arisen on a sudden, it would not have been understood, or would but have blinded eyes now become well near powerless by reason of protracted darkness to endure its brilliancy. Eternal Wisdom therefore decreed that just as the rising sun is announced by the morning-star, and prepares his coming by the gently tempered brilliancy of aurora, so Christ who is Light should be preceded here below by a star. His precursor, and His approach be signalised by the luminous rays which He Himself, (though still invisible) would shed around this faithful herald of His coming. When, in by-gone days, the Most High vouchsafed to light up before the eyes of His prophets the distant future, that radiant flash which for an instant shot across the heavens of the Old Covenant melted away in the deep night and ushered not in, as yet, the longed-for dawn. The “morning-star” of which the Psalmist sings, will know nothing of defeat: declaring to night that all is now over with her, He will dim his own fires only in the triumphant splendour of the Sun of Justice. Even as aurora melts into day, so will He confound with Light Increated his own radiance. Being of himself, like every creature, nothingness and darkness, he will so reflect the brilliancy of the Messiah shining immediately on him, that many will mistake him even for the very Christ (Luke iii. 15).

The mysterious conformity of Christ and His Precursor, the incomparable proximity which unites one to the other, are to be found many times marked down in the Sacred Scriptures. If Christ is the Word, eternally uttered by the Father, He is to be the Voice bearing this divine Utterance wherever it is to reach. Isaias already hears the desert echoing with these accents, till now unknown. And the prince of prophets expresses his joy with all the enthusiasm of a soul already beholding itself in the very presence of its Lord and God (Isaias xl.). The Christ is the Angel of the Covenant, but in the very same text in which the Holy Ghost gives Him this title, for us so full of hope there appears likewise bearing the same name of angel, the inseparable messenger, the faithful ambassador, to whom the Earth is indebted for her coming to know the Spouse: “Behold, I send my angel and he will prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord whom you seek, and the Angel of the testament whom you desire, will come to his Temple. Behold he comes, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachias iii. 1). And putting an end to the prophetic ministry of which he is the last representative, Malachias terminates his own oracles by the words which we have heard Gabriel addressing to Zachary, when he makes known to him the approaching birth of the Precursor (Malachias iv. 5-6). The presence of Gabriel on this occasion of itself shows with what intimacy with the Son of God this child then promised will be favoured, for the very same Prince of the heavenly hosts, came again, soon afterwards, to announce the Emmanuel. Countless are the faithful messengers that press around the Throne of the Holy Trinity, and the choice of these august ambassadors usually varies according to the dignity of the instructions to be transmitted to earth by the Most High. Nevertheless, it was fitting that the same Archangel charged with concluding the sacred Nuptials of the Word with the Human Nature should likewise prelude this great mission by preparing the coming of him whom the eternal decrees had designated as the Friend of the Bridegroom (John iii. 29).

Six months later, when on his deputation to Mary he strengthens his divine message by revealing to that purest of Virgins, the prodigy which had by then already given a son to the sterile Elizabeth: this being the first step of the Almighty towards a still greater marvel. John is not yet born, but without longer delay his career is begun: he is employed to attest the truth of the angel’s promises. How ineffable this guarantee of a child hidden as yet in his mother’s womb, but already brought forward as God’s witness in that sublime negotiation which at that moment is holding Heaven and Earth in suspense! Illumined from on high, Mary receives the testimony and hesitates no longer. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” says she to the Archangel, “be it done to me according to your word” (Luke I.). Gabriel has retired, bearing away with him the divine secret which he has not been commissioned to reveal to the rest of the world. Neither will the most prudent Virgin herself tell it. Even Joseph, her virginal Spouse, is to receive no communication of the mystery from her lips. Yet fear not, the woeful sterility beneath which Earth has been so long groaning, is not to be followed by an ignorance more sorrow-stricken still, now that it has yielded its fruit (Psalms lxxxiv. 13). There is one from whom Emmanuel will have no secret, nor reserve. It were fitting to reveal the marvel to him. Scarce has the Spouse taken possession of the Sanctuary all spotless in which the nine months of His first abiding among men must run their course, yes scarce has the Word been made Flesh, than Our Lady inwardly taught what is her Son’s desire, arising, makes all haste to speed into the hill-country of Judea (Luke i. 39). “The voice of my Beloved! Behold he comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills” (Canticles ii. 8).

His first visit is to the “Friend of the Bridegroom,” the first out-pour of His graces is to John. A distinct feast will allow us to honour in a special manner the precious day on which the divine child, sanctifying His Precursor, reveals Himself to John by the voice of Mary: the day on which Our Lady, manifested by John, leaping within the womb of his mother, proclaims at last the wondrous things operated within her by the Almighty according to the merciful promise which He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever (Luke i. 55). But the time is come when the good tidings are to spread from children and mothers through all the adjacent country, until at length they reach unto the whole world. John is about to be born, and, while still himself unable to speak, he is to loosen his father’s tongue. He is to put an end to that dumbness, with which the aged priest, a type of the old law, had been struck by the Angel. And Zachary, himself filled with the Holy Ghost, is about to publish in a new canticle, the blessed Visit of the Lord God of Israel (Luke i. 68)

Epistle – Isaias xlix. 1-7

Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, you people from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother He has been mindful of my name. And He has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand He has protected me, and has made me as a chosen arrow. In His quiver He has hidden me. And He said to me, “You are my servant Israel, for in you will I glory.” And now says the Lord that formed me from the womb to be His servant: “Behold I have given you to be the light of the gentiles, that you may be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth. Kings will see, and princes will rise up, and adore for the Lord’s sake, and for the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Isaias, in these few lines, has directly in view the announcing of Christ. The application here made by the Church to Saint John Baptist once more shows us how closely the Messiah is united with His Precursor in the work of the Redemption. Rome, once capital of the gentile world, now Mother of Christendom, delights in proclaiming on this day to the sons whom the Spouse has given her, the consoling prophecy which was addressed to them of yore, before she herself was founded upon the seven hills. Eight hundred years before the birth of John and of the Messiah, a voice had been heard on Sion and, reaching beyond the frontiers of Jacob, had re-echoed along those distant coasts where sin’s darkness held mankind in the thraldom of Hell:” Give ear, you islands, and hearken, you people from afar!” It was the Voice of Him who was to come, and of the Angel deputed to walk before Him, the voice of John and of the Messiah, proclaiming the one predestination common to them both, which as servant and as Master, made them to be objects of the self-same eternal decree. And this voice, after having hailed the privilege which would designate each (though so diversely) from the maternal womb,as objects of complacency to the Almighty, went on to utter the divinely formulated oracle which was to be promulgated in other terms over the cradle of each by the respective ministry of Zachary and of Angels. “And He said to me: ‘You are my servant Israel, for in you will I glory, in you who are indeed Israel to Me...’ And he said: ‘it is a small thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel, who will not hearken to you, and of whom you will bring back but a small remnant (Isaias xlix. 4-6). Behold I have given you to be the Light of the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation, even to the farthest part of the earth; to make up for the scant welcome my people will have given you, kings will see, and princes will rise up, at your word, and adore for the Lord‘s sake, because He is faithful and for the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you as the negotiator of His alliance’” (Isaias xlix. 8).

Children of the Bridegroom, let us enter into this thought of His. Let us understand what ought to be the gratitude of us Gentiles to him to whom all flesh is indebted for its knowledge of the Redeemer. From the wilderness, where his voice stung the pride of the descendants of the patriarchs, he beheld us succeeding to the haughty Synagogue. Without at all minimising the divine exactions, his stern language when addressed to the Bridegroom’s chosen ones, assumed a tone of considerateness which it never had for the Jews. “You offspring of vipers,” said he to these latter, “who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of penance, and do not begin to say, we have Abraham for our father. For I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For in your case, already is the axe laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore that brings not forth good fruit, will be cut down and cast into the fire” (Luke iii. 7-9). But to the despised publican, to the hated soldier, to all those parched hearts of the gentile world, hard and arid as the desert rock, John the Baptist announced a flow of grace that would refresh their dried up souls making them fruitful in justice: “You publicans, do nothing more than what is appointed you by the exigences of the tax-laws. You soldiers, be content with your pay (Luke iii. 12-14). The Law was given by Moses, but better is grace — grace and truth come by Jesus Christ whom I declare to you (John i. 15-17): He it is who takes away the sins of the world (John i. 29), and of His fullness we have all received” (John i. 16).

What a new horizon was here opened out before these objects of reproach, held aloof so long by Israel’s scorn! But in the eyes of the Synagogue, such a blow aimed at Judah’s pretended privilege was a crime. She had borne the biting invectives of this son of Zachary. She had even, at one moment, shown herself ready to hail him as the Christ (John i. 19), but she who vaunted herself as pure, to be invited to go hand in hand with the unclean Gentile— that she could never brook — it were too much. From that moment John was judged of by her, as His Master would afterwards be. Later on, Jesus will insist on the difference of welcome given to the Precursor by those who listened, to him. Yes, He will even make thereof the basis for His sentence of reprobation pronounced against the Jews: “Amen I say to you that the publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of God before you, for John came to you in the way of justice and you did not believe him. But the publicans and harlots believed him: but you seeing it, did not even afterwards repent, that you might believe him” (Matthew xxi. 31-32).

Gospel – Luke i. 57-68

Elizabeth’s full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son. And her neighbours and kinsfolk heard that the Lord had showed His great mercy towards her, and they congratulated with her. And it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father’s name, Zachary. And his mother answering said: “Not so, but he will be called John.” And they said to her: “There is none of your kindred that is called by that name.” And they made signs to his father how he would have him called. And demanding a writing-table, he wrote, saying: “John is his name,” and they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened, and his tongue loosed. And he spoke, blessing God. And fear came upon all their neighbours. And all these things were noised abroad over all the hill country of Judea. And all they that heard them, laid them up in their heart, saying: “What a one, think you, will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. And Zachary his father was filled with the Holy Ghost; and he prophesied, saying: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He has visited, and wrought the redemption of His people.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

After the places hallowed by the sojourn, here below, of the Word made Flesh, there is no spot of greater interest for the Christian soul than that in which were accomplished the events just mentioned in our Gospel. The town illustrated by the birth of the Precursor is situated about two leagues from Jerusalem, to the West. Just as Bethlehem, our Saviour’s birthplace is at the same distance southwards from the Holy City. Going out by the gate of Jaffa, the pilgrim bound for Saint John of the Mountain passes, on his way, the Greek monastery of Holy Cross, raised on the spot where the trees which formed our Lord’s cross, were hewn down: then pursuing his course through the close-set woods of the mountains of Judah, he attains a summit from which he can descry the waters of the Mediterranean. The house of Obed-Edom that for three months harboured the sacred Ark of the Covenant stood here, where a by-path leads by a short cut directly to the place where Mary, the true Ark, dwelt for three happy months in the house of her cousin Elizabeth. Two sanctuaries, distant about a thousand paces one from the other, are sacred to the memory of the two great facts just related to us, by Saint Luke: in the one, John the Baptist was conceived and born. In the other, the circumcision of the Precursor took place eight days after his birth. The first of these sanctuaries stands on the site of Zachary’s town house. Its present form dates from a period anterior to the Crusades. It is a beautiful church with three naves and a cupola, measuring thirty seven feet in length. The high altar is dedicated to Saint Zachary, and another altar, on the right, to Saint Elizabeth. On the left, seven marble steps lead to a subterraneous chapel hollowed out of the rock, which is identical with the furthermost apartment of the original house: this is the sanctuary of Saint John's Nativity. Four lamps glimmer in the darkness of this venerable crypt, while six others, suspended beneath the altar-slab itself, throw light on the following inscription engraved on the marble pavement: HIC PRECURSOR DOMINI NATUS EST.

Let us unite, on this day, with the devout sons of Saint Francis, guardians of those ineffable memories. More fortunate here, than at Bethlehem with its sacred grotto, they have not to dispute with schism, the homage which they pay in the name of the legitimate Bride to the Friend of the Bridegroom on the very spot of his Nativity. Local tradition sets at some distance from this first sanctuary, as we have said, the memorable place where the circumcision of the Precursor was performed. Besides a town house, Zachary was owner of another more isolated. Elizabeth had retired there during the first months of her pregnancy to taste in silence the gift of God (Luke i. 24-25). There did the meeting between herself and Our Lady on her arrival from Nazareth take place. There the sublime exultation of the Infants and their Mothers. There, the Magnificat proclaimed to Heaven that Earth henceforth could rival, and even surpass, supernal songs of praise and canticles of love. It was fitting that Zachary’s song, the morning canticle, should be first intoned there, where that of evening had ascended like incense of sweetest fragrance. In the accounts given by ancient pilgrims it is noticed that there were here two sanctuaries placed one above the other. In the lower one Mary and Elizabeth met. In the upper story of this same country house of Zachary, the greater portion of the facts just set before us by the Church were enacted.

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PRECURSOR of the Messiah, we share in the joy which your birth brought to the world. This birth of yours announced that of the Son of God. Now, each year, our Emmanuel assumes anew His life in the Church and in souls. And in our day, just as it was [two thousand] years ago, He wills that this birth of His will not take place without you preparing the way, now as then, for that Nativity by which our Saviour is given to each one of us. Scarce has the sacred Cycle completed the series of mysteries by which the glorification of the Man-God is consummated and the Church is founded, than Christmas begins to appear on the horizon. Already, so to speak, does John reveal by exulting demonstrations the approach of our Infant God. Sweet Prophet of the Most High, not yet can you speak, when already you outstrip all the Princes of Prophecy. But full soon the desert will seem to snatch you forever from the commerce of men. Then Advent comes, and the Church will show us that she has found you once more. She will constantly lead us to listen to your sublime teachings, to hear you bearing witness to Him whom she is expecting. From this present moment, therefore, begin to prepare our souls. Having descended anew on this our Earth, coming as you now do on this day of gladness as the messenger of the near approach of our Saviour, can you possibly remain idle one instant in face of the immense work which lies before you to accomplish in us?

To chase sin away, subdue vice, correct the instincts falsified in this poor fallen nature of ours. All this would have been done within us, as indeed it should long ago, had we but responded faithfully to your past labours. Yet, alas, it is only too true that in the greater number of us scarce has the first turning of the soil been begun: stubborn clay in which n stones and briers have defied your careful toil these many years! We acknowledge it to be so, filled as we are with the confusion of guilty souls. Yes, we confess our faults to you and to Almighty God, as the Church teaches us to do at the beginning of the great Sacrifice. But at the same time, we beseech you with her, to pray to the Lord our God for us. You proclaimed in the desert: from these very stones even, God is still able to raise up children of Abraham. Daily, do the solemn formulae of the Oblation in which is prepared the ceaselessly renewed Immolation of our Saviour, tell of the honourable and important part which is yours in this august Sacrifice. Your name, again pronounced while the Divine Victim is present on the Altar, pleads for us sinners to the God of all mercy. Would that, in consideration of your merits and of our misery, He would deign to be propitious to the persevering prayer of our mother the Church, change our hearts, and in place of evil attachments, attract them to virtue, so as to deserve for us the visit of Emmanuel!

At this sacred moment of the Mysteries, when thrice is invoked, in the words of that formula taught us by yourself, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” He, this very Lamb, will Himself have pity on us and give us peace: peace so precious, with Heaven, with Earth, with self, which is to prepare us for the Bridegroom by making us become sons of God (John i. 12; Matthew v. 9) according to the testimony which, daily, by the mouth of the priest about to quit the altar, you continue to renew. Then, Precursor, will your joy and ours be complete. That sacred union, of which this day of your Nativity already contains for us the gladsome hope, will become, even here below and beneath the shadow of faith, a sublime reality, while still awaiting the clear vision of Eternity.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, in the time of Nero, the commemoration of many holy martyrs who were accused of having set fire to the city, and cruelly put to death in various manners by the emperor’s order. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and lacerated by dogs. Others were fastened to crosses, others again were delivered to the flames to serve as torches in the night. All these were disciples of the Apostles, and the first fruits of the martyrs, which the Roman Church, a field so fertile in martyrs, offered to God before the death of the Apostles.

In the same city, the holy martyrs Faustus and twenty three others.

At Satalis in Armenia, seven saintly brothers, martyrs: Orentius, Heros, Pharnacius, Firminus, Firmus, Cyriacus and Longinus who owe their martyrdom to the emperor Maximian. Because they were Christians, they were deprived of the military cincture by his command, separated from one another, hurried away to various places, and in the midst of painful trials, found their repose in the Lord.

In the diocese of Paris, at Creteil, the martyrdom of the Saints Agoardus and Aglibertus, with a multitude of others of both sexes.

At Autun, the demise of St. Simplicius, bishop and confessor.

At Lobbes, St. Theodulphus, bishop.

At Stilo in Calabria, St. John, surnamed Therestus, distinguished for his fidelity to the monastic rule, and for his sanctity.

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

Thanks be to God.