23 AUGUST – SAINT PHILIP BENIZI (Confessor)

Philip Benizi de Damiani was born in Florence to a noble family. He was born on the feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1233, on the very day that the Blessed Virgin Mary first appeared to the Seven Founders of the Order of the Servants of Mary (the Servites). From his very cradle he gave signs of his future sanctity. When he was just five months old he received the power of speech by a miracle, and exhorted his mother to bestow an alms on the Servants of the Mother of God. As a youth, he pursued his studies at Paris where he was remarkable for his ardent piety, and kindled in many hearts a longing for our heavenly fatherland. After his return home and hearing the words of the Epistle at Mass on the Thursday after Easter, “Draw near and join yourself to this chariot,” he decided to embrace the religious life. In 1253 he made his religious profession as a member of the newly-founded Order of the Servites, He therefore retired into a cave on Mount Senario, and there led an austere and penitential life, sweetened by meditation on the sufferings of our Lord. Afterwards he travelled over nearly all Europe and great part of Asia, preaching the Gospel and instituting everywhere the Sodality of the Seven Dolours of the Mother of God, while he propagated his Order by the wonderful example of his virtues.

Philip was consumed with love of God and zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith. In spite of his refusal and resistance he was chosen to became fifth Father-General of the Order in 1267. He sent some of his brethren, to preach the Gospel in Scythia, while he himself journeyed from city to city of Italy repressing civil dissensions, and recalling many people to the obedience of the Roman Pontiff. His unremitting zeal for the salvation of souls won the most abandoned sinners from the depths of vice to a life of penance and to the true love of Jesus Christ. He was very much given to prayer and was often seen rapt in ecstasy. He loved and honoured holy virginity, and preserved it unspotted to the end of his life by means of the greatest voluntary austerities. He was remarkable for his love and pity for the poor. On one occasion when a poor leper begged an alms of him at Camegliano a village near Sienna, he gave him his own garment, which the beggar had no sooner put on than his leprosy was cleansed. The fame of this miracle having spread far and wide, some of the Cardinals who were assembled at Viterbo for the election of a successor to Pope Clement IV, then lately dead, thought of choosing Philip as they were aware of his heavenly prudence. On learning this, the man of God, fearing lest he should be forced to take upon himself the pastoral office, hid himself at Montamiata until after the election of Pope Gregory X. By his prayers he obtained for the baths of that place, which still bear his name, the virtue of healing the sick.

Philip died in 1285 at the age of 51, a most holy death at Todi while in the act of kissing the image of his crucified Lord, which he used to call his book. The blind and lame were healed at his tomb, and the dead were brought back to life. He was beatified by Pope Innocent X in 1645 and was canonised by Pope Clement X in 1671.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Our Lady is now reigning in Heaven. Her triumph over death cost her no labour, and yet it was through suffering that she like Jesus entered into her glory. We too cannot attain eternal happiness otherwise than did the Son and the Mother. Let us keep in mind the sweet joys we have been tasting during the past week. But let us not forget that our own journey to Heaven is not yet completed. “Why stand ye looking up into heaven?” said the Angels to the disciples on Ascension day, in the name of the Lord, who had gone up in a cloud. For the disciples, who had for an instant beheld the threshold of Heaven, could not resign themselves to turn their eyes once more down to this valley of exile. Mary, in her turn sends us a message today from the bright land to which we are to follow her, and where we will surround her after having in the sorrows of exile merited to form her court: without distracting us from her, the Apostle of her dolours, Philip Benizi, reminds us of our true condition as strangers and pilgrims on Earth.

“Combats without, fears within” (2 Corinthians vii. 5): such is for the most part was Philip’s life, as it was also the history of his native city Florence, of Italy too, and indeed of the whole Christian world in the 18th century. At the time of his birth, the city of flowers seemed a new Eden for the blossoms of sanctity that flourished there. Nevertheless it was a prey to bloody factions, to the assaults of heresy, and to the extremity of every misery. Never is Hell so near us as when Heaven manifests itself with greatest intensity. This was clearly seen in that age when the serpent’s head came in closest contact with the heel of the Woman. The old enemy, by creating new sects, had shaken the faith in the very centre of the provinces surrounding the Eternal City. While in the east Islam was driving back the last crusaders, in the West the Papacy was struggling with the empire which Frederick II had made as a fief of Satan. Throughout Christendom social union was undone, faith had grown weak, and love cold. But the old enemy was soon to discover the power of the reaction Heaven was preparing for the relief of the aged world. Then it was that our Lady presented to her angered Son Dominic and Francis, that, by uniting science with self-abnegation, they might counterbalance the ignorance and luxury of the world. Then too, Philip Benizi, the Servite of the Mother of God, received from her the mission of preaching through Italy, France and Germany the unspeakable sufferings by which she became the co-redemptress of the human race.

“Philip, draw near, and join yourself to this chariot” (Acts viii. 29). When the world was smiling on your youth and offering you renown and pleasure, you received this invitation from Mary. She was seated in a golden chariot which signified the religious life, a mourning mantle wrapped her round, a dove was fluttering about her head, a lion and a lamb were drawing her chariot over precipices from whose depths were heard the groans of Hell. It was a prophetic vision: you were to traverse the Earth accompanied by the Mother of Sorrows, and this world which Hell had already everywhere undermined, was to have no dangers for you: for gentleness and strength were to be your guides, and simplicity your inspirer: “Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the land” (Matthew v. 4).

But this gentle virtue was to avail you chiefly against Heaven itself: Heaven, which wrestles with the mighty, and which had in store for you the terrible trial of an utter abandonment, such as had made even the God-Man tremble. After years of prayer and labour, and heroic devotedness, for your reward you were apparently rejected by God and disowned by the Church, while imminent ruin threatened all those whom Mary had confided to you. In spite of her promises, the existence of your sons the Servites was assailed by no less an authority than that of two General Councils, whose resolutions the Vicar of Christ had determined to confirm. Our Lady gave you to drink of the chalice of her sufferings. You didst not live to see the triumph of a cause which was hers as well as yours. But the ancient patriarchs saluted from afar the accomplishment of the promises, so death could not shake your calm and resigned confidence.

You left your daughter Juliana Falconieri to obtain by her prayers before the face of the Lord what you could not gain from the powers of this world. The highest power on Earth was once all but laid at your feet. The Church, remembering the humility with which you fled from the tiara, begs you to obtain for us that we may despise the prosperity of the world and seek heavenly goods alone: deign to hear her prayer. But the Faithful have not forgotten that you were a physician of the body before becoming a healer of souls. They have great confidence in the water and bread blessed by your sons on this feast in memory of the miraculous favours granted to their father: graciously regard the faith of the people, and reward the special honour paid to you by Christian physicians. Now that the mysterious chariot shown you at the beginning has become the triumphal car on which you accompanied our Lady in her entrance into Heaven, teach us so to condole, like you, with her sorrows, that we may deserve to be partakers with you in her eternal glory.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The vigil of St. Bartholomew, Apostle.

At Antioch, the birthday of the holy martyrs Restitutus, Donatus, Valerian and Fructuosa, with twelve others, who were crowned after having distinguished themselves by a glorious confession.

At Ostia, the holy martyrs Quiriacus, bishop, Maximus, priest, Archelaus, deacon, and their companions, who suffered under the prefect Ulpian in the time of Alexander.

At Ægaea in Cilicia, the holy martyrs Claudius, Asterius, and Neon, brothers, who were accused of being Christians by their step-mother, under the emperor Diocletian and the governor Lysias, and after enduring bitter torments, were fastened to a cross, and thus conquered and triumphed with Christ. After them suffered Donvina and Theonilla.

At Rheims in France, the birthday of the Saints Timothy and Apollinaris, who merited to enter the heavenly kingdom by consummating their martyrdom in that city.

At Lyons, the holy martyrs Minervus, and Eleazar with his eight sons.

Also St. Luppus, martyr, who, though a slave, enjoyed the liberty of Christ, and was likewise deemed worthy of the crown of martyrdom.

At Jerusalem, St. Zaccheus, bishop, who governed the church of that city the fourth after the blessed Apostle St. James.

At Alexandria, St. Theonas, bishop and confessor.

At Utic, in Africa, blessed Victor, bishop.

At Autun, St. Flavian, bishop.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Sidonius, a bishop distinguished for learning and sanctity.

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

Thanks be to God.

23 AUGUST – THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Dominical series, formerly counted from the feast of Saint Peter or the Apostles, never went beyond this Sunday. The feast of Saint Laurence gave its name to those which follow, though that name began with even the ninth Sunday for the years when Easter was nearest the Spring equinox. When, on the contrary, that Solemnity was kept at its almost latest date, the weeks began from today to be counted as the Weeks of the seventh month (September). The Ember Days of the Autumn quarter sometimes occur even this week, while in other years they may be as late as the eighteenth. We will speak of them when we come to the Seventeenth Sunday, for it is in the week following that that the Roman Missal inserts them. In the Western Church the Thirteenth Sunday takes its name from the Gospel of the Ten Lepers which is read in the Mass: the Greeks, who count it as the Thirteenth of Saint Matthew, read on it the parable of the vineyard, whose labourers, though called at different hours of the day, all receive the same pay (Matthew xx.).

Now that she is in possession of the promises so long waited for by the world — the Church loves to repeat the words with which the just men of the Old Law used to express their sentiments. Those just men were living during the gloomy period when the human race was seated in the shadow of death. We are under incomparably happier circumstances. We are blessed with graces in abundance. Eternal Wisdom has spared us the trials our forefathers had to contend with by giving us to live in the period which has been enriched by all the mysteries of salvation being fulfilled. There is a danger, however, and our Mother the Church does her utmost to avert us from falling into it. It is the danger of forgetting all these blessings of ours. Ingratitude is the necessary outcome of forgetfulness, and today’s Gospel justly condemns it. On this account, the Epistle remind us of the time when man had nothing to cheer him but hope: a promise had, indeed, been made to him of a sublime covenant which was, at some distant future, to be realised. But, meanwhile, he was very poor, was a prey to the wiles of Satan, his cause was to be tried by divine justice, and yet he prayed for loving mercy.

Epistle – Galatian iii. 16‒22

Brethren, to Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He said not, And to his seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ. Now this I say, that the testament which was confirmed by God, the law which was made after four hundred and thirty years does not dis-annul to make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Why, then, was the law? It was set because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom He made the promise: being ordained by Angels in the hands of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one: but God is one. Was the law, then, against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could give life, verily justice should have been by the law. But the scriptures has concluded all under sin that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Look up to heaven, and number the stars, if you can! So will your seed be! (Genesis xv. 5) Abraham was almost 100 years old (Romans iv. 19) and Sarah’s barrenness deprived him of all natural hope of posterity when these words were spoken to him by God. Abraham, nevertheless, believed God, says the Scripture, “and it was reputed to him unto justice” (Genesis xv. 6). And when later on that same faith (Hebrews xi. 17‒19) would have led him to sacrifice on the mount that son of the promise, his one only hope, God renewed his promise and added: “In your seed will all the nations of the Earth be blessed” (Genesis xii. 18).

It is now that the promise is fulfilled. The event justifies Abraham’s faith. He believed against all hope, trusting to that God who “quickens the dead and calls those things that are not, as those that are and” (Romans iv. 17, 18) according to the expression of John the Baptist, from the very stones of the Gentile world there rise up in all places children to Abraham (Matthew iii. 9). His faith, firm and at the same time so simple, gave to God the glory (Romans iv. 20) which He looks for from His creatures. Man can add nothing to the divine perfections, but — agreeably to God’s own words — though he sees them not directly here below, he acknowledges those perfections by adoring and loving them. He makes his faith tell upon his whole life and this use which he freely makes of his faculties, this voluntary devotedness of an intelligent being, magnifies God by adding to His extrinsic glory.

Following in Abraham’s steps (Romans iv. 12) there have come those multitudes born for that Heaven of faith which he showed to the whole Earth. They live by faith (Romans i. 17) and thereby in all their acts they give to God the homage of confession and praise through His Son Christ Jesus. And like Abraham they receive in return a blessing, a benediction, of an ever increasing justice (Romans iv. 23, 24; Galatians iii. 9). The magnificent development of the Church which gives this new posterity to Abraham is greater and more visible since the fall of Israel. In countries the remotest, in the midst of cities that once were all pagan, we see crowds of men, women and children imitating Abraham (Genesis xii. 1): that is, at Heaven’s call, leaving, if not their country, at least everything that once made Earth dear to them: and like him, trusting in the fidelity and power of God to fulfil His promises (Romans iv. 20, 21), they live as strangers amidst their neighbours, yea, and in their very homes, using this world as though they did not use it (1 Corinthians vii. 31). In the tumult of cities as in the desert, in the midst of the vain pleasures of the world, whose fashion and figure passes away (1 Corinthians viii. 31) — they have no other thought than that of the unseen realities (Hebrews xi. 1): no other care than that of pleasing God (1 Corinthians vii. 32). They take to themselves the word that was spoken to their father: “Walk before me and be perfect!” (Genesis xvii. 1) and in truth it was to all of them that it was spoken. It was the condition in the alliance concluded by God with those His faithful servants of all ages in the person of the grand Patriarch who was not only their progenitor, but their model too. And God responds also to their faith, either by private manifestations or by the still surer voice of His Scriptures (2 Peter i. 19), saying: “Fear not! I am your protector and your reward exceeding great! (Genesis xv. 1).

Truly then the benediction of Abraham has been poured forth on the Gentiles (Galatians iii. 18). Christ Jesus, the true Son of the promise, the only seed of salvation, has by faith in His Resurrection (Romans iv. 24) assembled from every nation (Galatians iii. 28) them that are of goodwill (Luke ii. 14), making them all one in Him, making them, like Himself, children of Abraham (Galatians iii. 29), and what is better still, children of God (Galatians iv. 5‒7). For the benediction that was promised at the beginning of the alliance was the Holy Ghost Himself (Galatians iii. 14), the spirit of adoption of children that came down into our hearts to make us all heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ (Romans viii. 15‒17). O mighty power of Faith, which breaks down the former walls of division, unites nations together (Ephesians ii. 14‒18) and substitutes the love and freedom of children of the Most High for the law of bondage and fear (Romans viii. 2)!

And yet, grand as was this spectacle of the Gentiles becoming incorporated into the chosen race and being made sharers in Christ of the holy promises (Ephesians iii. 6) — it did not please all people. The carnal Jew who boasts of having Abraham for his father though he cares little about imitating his works (John viii. 39) — the Circumcised who vaunts the bearing in his flesh the sign of a Faith which dwells not in his heart (Romans iv. 11) — these men who have rejected Christ now reject His members and would fain destroy His Church or at least trammel it. They are enraged at seeing crowding in, from every portion of the globe (Luke xiii. 29), that immense concourse which their vile jealousy has vainly sought to keep back. While their wounded pride kept them from going in (Luke xv. 28), the Gentiles were sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the Prophets at the banquet of God’s kingdom (Luke xiii. 28): the last became the first (Luke xiii. 30). Even to the end of time Israel — who, by his own obstinacy, has forfeited his ancient glory — will continue to be the enemy of this spiritual posterity of Abraham which has supplanted him (Genesis xxvii. 36), but his persecutions against the children of the promise and of the lawful Bride will but result in showing that he is, as Saint Paul says, the son of Agar, the son of the bond-woman who, together with her child, is excluded from the inheritance and kingdom (Galatians iv. 22‒31).

He prefers to refuse the liberty offered him by the Lord rather than acknowledge the definitive abrogation his now dead Law. Be it so. His hatred will not induce the children of the Church (who are prefigured by Sarah the free-woman) to reject the grace of their God for the sake of pleasing their enemy. It will not induce them to abandon the justice of Faith and the riches of the Spirit, and the life in Christ, in order to go back again to the yoke of slavery (Galatians v. 1) which, let the Jew do what he will, was broken into pieces by the Cross he himself set up on Calvary (Galatians ii. 19‒21). Up to the last the true Jerusalem, the free city, our mother — she that was once the barren woman but now is so glad a Bride with her children around her — yes, she will meet the superannuated, yet ever busy, pretensions of the Synagogue by reading to her assembled sons and daughters the Epistle we are having today. Up to the last, Saint Paul, in her name —speaking of the law of Sinai, which was made known to its subjects through the mediation of Moses and the Angels — will prove its inferiority as compared to the covenant made by Abraham directly with God. Each year, as emphatically as on the day he wrote his Epistle, Paul will declare the transient character of that legislation which came 430 years after a promise which could not be changed. Neither was such legislation to continue when the time should come for that Son of Abraham to appear, from whom the world was waiting to receive the promised benediction.

But what is to be said of the incapability of the Mosaic ministration to give man strength and enable him to rise up from his fall? The Gospel, on which we were meditating eight days back, and which formerly was assigned to this present Sunday, gave a symbolical and striking commentary on the uselessness of the Old Law in regard to this. At the same time it showed us the remedial power which resided in Christ, and was by Him transmitted to the ministers of the New Law. “Every portion of the Office of the thirteenth Sunday,” says Abbot Rupert, “bears on the history of that Samaritan whose name signifies keeper. It is our Lord Jesus Christ who, by His Incarnation, comes to the rescue of the man whom the Old Law was not able to keep from harm. And when this Jesus leaves the world, He consigns the poor sufferer to the care of the Apostles and apostolic men in the house of the Church. The intentional selection of this Gospel for today throws a great light on our Epistle, as also on the whole Letter to the Galatians, from which it is taken. Thus, the Priest and the Levite of the Parable are a figure of the Law and their passing by the half-dead man, seeing him indeed, but without making an attempt to heal him, is expressive of what that Law did. True, it did not go counter to God’s promises, but of itself it could justify no man. A physician who does not himself intend to visit a patient will sometimes send a servant who is expert in the knowledge of the causes of the malady, yet who has not the skill needed for mixing the remedy required, but can merely tell the sick man what diet and what drinks he must avoid if he would prevent his ailment from causing death. Such was the Law, set, as the Epistle tells us, because of transgressions, as a simple safeguard until such time as there should come the good Samaritan, the heavenly Physician. Having from his very first coming into this world fallen among robbers, Man is stripped of his supernatural goods and is covered with the wounds inflicted on him by original sin. If he do not abstain from actual sins, from those transgressions against which the Law was set as a monitor, he runs the risk of dying altogether.”

Gospel – Luke xvii. 11‒19

At that time, as Jesus was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain town, there met Him ten then that were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voice saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Whom, when He saw, He said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And it came to pass that as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back with a loud voice glorifying God: and he fell on his face before his feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, “Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return, and give glory to God, but this stranger.” And he said to Him, “Arise, go your way, for your faith has made you whole.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Samaritan Leper, cured of that hideous malady which is an apt figure of sin, in company with nine lepers of Jewish nationality, represents the despised race of Gentiles who were at first admitted by stealth, so to say, and by extraordinary privilege, into a share of the graces belonging to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew xv. 24). The conduct of these ten men on occasion of their miraculous cure is in keeping with the attitude assumed by the two people they typify, regarding the salvation offered to the world by the Son of God. It is a fresh demonstration of what the Apostle says: “All are not Israelites, that are of Israel. Neither are all they who are the seed of Abraham, children.” “But,” says the Scripture (Genesis xxi. 12), “in Isaac will your seed be called,” that is to say, not they who are the children of the flesh, are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise are counted for the seed (Romans ix. 6‒8).

They are born of the faith of Abraham and are, in the eyes of the Lord, His true progeny. Our holy Mother the Church is never tired of this subject, the comparison of the Two Testaments and the contrast there is between the two people. We deem it our duty, before proceeding further, to explain how this is, for there are many persons who cannot understand what benefit can come to us Christians from hearing this subject preached to us.

The kind of spirituality which, with many of us, has nowadays been substituted for the liturgical life so thoroughly lived in, and so precious, to our Catholic ancestors, gives a certain dis-relish for the ideas which the Church so perseveringly brings before them during so many of her Sundays. They have become habituated to live in an atmosphere of very limited truth. It is all subjective as well as little, and they consider it a very excellent thing to forget all other teaching except what they happen to possess, and beyond which it is a trouble to go. With Christians of this class it is not surprising that they feel puzzled at finding the Church continually urging them to take an interest in a long past which they call of no practical utility to them! But the interior life, truly worthy of the name, is not what these good people imagine. No school of spirituality, either now or ever, made the ideal of virtue consist in indifference for those great historical facts which are evidently so precious in the eyes of the Church, and of God Himself. And what is the usual result of this isolating themselves from their Mother’s most cherished appreciations? It is that by this determined shutting themselves up in their own private prayers they, by a just punishment, lose sight of the true end of prayer, which is union with and love of God. Their meditation is deprived of that element of intimate and fruitful converse with God which is assigned it by all the masters of the spiritual life. It soon becomes an unproductive exercise of analysis and reasoning in which there is nothing but abstract conclusions.

Now when God mercifully invited men to the divine nuptials by manifesting to them His Word, it was not by abstraction that He gave to our Earth this the Son of His own eternal Substance. As to His divinity, men could not in their present state see it in a direct way. Had then God shown us in this pretended abstract way, that eternal Son of His, in whom are found all beauty, and warmth and life — it would have been imperfect and cold. This He did not do, but as Saint Paul tells us, He manifested, He showed, the great mystery of godliness in the Flesh (1 Timothy iii. 16). The Word became a living soul (Genesis ii. 7). Eternal Truth assumed to Himself a Body that so He might converse with men (Baruch iii. 38) and grow up like one of themselves (Luke ii. 52). And when that Body which eternal Truth was to hold as His own forever was taken up in glory (1 Timothy iii. 16) — the Church, the Bride of this Man-God, the bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh (Ephesians v. 30‒32) continued in the world this manifestation of God by the members of Christ. She continued that historical development of the Word which is only to cease when time is no more. This manifestation, this development, surpasses all human calculations and reveals fresh aspects of the Wisdom of God even to the Angels themselves (Ephesians iii. 10). Undoubtedly, a real regard is to be had for those axioms to which great minds have reduced the principles of science in an abstract logical order quite independently of history and facts: but neither with God nor with man has this sort of petrified theorising anything in it of the life, the influence, the activity of substantial truth. In the Church, as in God, truth is life and light (John i. 4). Her grand Credo would never ring so triumphantly as it does through our churches, it would never make its way so irresistibly up to Heaven, if it were but a bare series of true definitions and phrases. Its superhuman power comes from each of its articles, almost each of its words, teeming with the blood of martyrs upon it and radiant for the Church and for God with the splendour of toils, and sufferings, and combats of thousands of sainted Confessors and Doctors, the very aristocracy, that is, of human nature ennobled by Baptism, whose living is to be the completion of the Body of Christ here below (Colossians i. 24; ii. 19).

The subject is too full to be treated of here but this much is irresistible — that after the master-fact of the Incarnation of the Word who came upon our Earth to manifest God through the ages of time by Christ and His members (2 Corinthians iv. 10, 11), there is not one which is more important, not one which has been and still is so dear to God, as the vocation of the two peoples that were successively called by Him to the blessing of an alliance with Him. The gifts and vocations of God are, as the Apostle expresses it, without repentance or regret on His part. Those Jews who are now His enemies because they reject the Gospel are still called carissimi, they are still the beloved and dearly beloved, because of their Fathers (Romans xi. 28, 29). For the same reason a time will come, and the whole world is waiting for it, when the denial of Judah being revoked and his iniquities blotted out, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be literally fulfilled (Romans xi. 25‒27). Then the divine unity of the two Testaments will be made evident, and the two peoples themselves will be made one under their one head, Christ Jesus (Ephesians ii. 14). The covenant of God with man being then fully realised such as He had designed it in His eternal wisdom — the Earth having yielded its fruit (Psalm lxvi. 7) — the world having done its work — the sepulchres will give back their dead (Romans xi. 15) and History will cease here on Earth, leaving glorified human nature to bloom in unreserved fullness of life under God’s complacent eye.

The truths, then, which are again brought before our notice by today’s Gospel are anything but dry or old-fashioned. Nothing is so grand and we must add there is nothing more practical in this season of the year, for it is the season that is consecrated to the mysteries of the Unitive Life. After all, in what primarily does union between God and man consist but in unanimity of the divine and human minds? Now we know that the divine mind has manifested all its designs in the respective history of the two Testaments and the two Peoples, and that the final result which is to bring these two histories to their close is the one only end which infinite Love was in the beginning, and is now, and will for ever be, proposing to fulfil. The Church, therefore, far from showing herself to be not up to the present age by recurring continually to truths such as these, is but clearly proving herself to be the most intelligent Bride of Jesus — is but evincing the changeless lovely youthfulness of a heart which ever beats in unison with that of her Spouse.

Let us now resume the literal explanation of our Gospel. As we were observing on a previous Sunday, our Jesus here again wishes rather to give us a useful teaching than to manifest His divine power. It is for this purpose that He does not cure these ten lepers who besought Him to have mercy on them as on another occasion He cured one who was suffering from the same misery. To this latter who besought Him, He restored cleanliness by a few words. This was at the beginning of His public life. He said: “Be made clean, and forthwith the leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew viii. 3). But the lepers of our Gospel is an event that took place in the latter portion of our Lord’s sojourn among men: and they are made clean only while on their way to show themselves to the priests. Jesus sends them to the priests, just as He had done in the previous case, and thus, from the beginning to the close of His mortal life, He gives an example of the respect which was to be paid to the Old Law so long as it was not abrogated. That Law gave to the sons of Aaron the power, not of curing, but of discerning leprosy, and passing judgement on its being cured or not (Leviticus viii.).

The time, however, is now come for a Law that is to be far above that of Sinai, and it has a priesthood whose judgements are not to be concerning the state of the body but, by pronouncing the sentence of absolution, is to effectually remove the leprosy of souls. The cure which the ten lepers felt coming on them before they had reached the priests ought to have sufficed to show them, in Jesus, the power of the new priesthood which had been foretold by the Prophets (Isaias lxvi. 21‒23). The power which, by thus forestalling it in their favour, surpasses the authority of the ancient ministration is, or should be, evidence enough of the superior dignity of Him who exercises it. If only they were in suitable dispositions for the sacred rites which are going to be used in the ceremony of their purification (Leviticus xiv. 1‒32) — the Holy Ghost who, heretofore, had inspired the prophetic details of the mysterious function about to be celebrated, would enable them to understand the signification of the expiatory sparrow whose blood, being sprinkled upon the living water, sets free by the wood its fellow sparrow. That first bird typifies our Lord Jesus Christ who likens Himself, in the Psalm, to the lonely sparrow (Psalm ci. 8). His immolation on the Cross which gives to water the power of cleansing souls, communicates to the other sparrows, His Brethren (Psalm lxxxiii. 4), the purity of the Blood divine.

But the Jew is far from being ready for understanding these great mysteries. And yet the Law had been given to him that it might serve him as a hand leading him to Christ, and without exposing him to err (Galatians iii. 24). It was a signal favour granted him, not from any merits of his own, but because of his Fathers (Deuteronomy iv. 37; ix. 4‒6). The favour was all the more precious, inasmuch as it was bestowed at a time when the tradition regarding a future Redeemer was almost entirely lost by the bulk of mankind. Gratitude should have been uppermost in the heart of Judah but pride took its place. He was so taken up with the honour that had been put on him that it made him lose all desire for the Messiah. He cannot endure the thought that a time will come when the Sun of Justice, having risen for the whole Earth, the limited advantage which was given to a few during the hours of night will be eclipsed by the bright noon of a light which all vie to enjoy. He, therefore, proclaims, that the Old Law is definitive, though the Law protests itself to be but transitory. He, therefore, insists on the perpetuity of the reign of types and shadows. He lays it down as a dogma that no divine intervention can ever equal that made on Sinai: that every future prophet, every Sent of God, must be inferior to Moses: that all possible salvation is in the Law, and that from it alone flows every grace.

This explains to us how it was that of the ten men cured of leprosy by Jesus nine of them are found who have not even the remotest thought of coming to their Deliverer to thank Him: these nine are Jews. Jesus, to their minds, is a mere disciple of Moses, a bare instrument of favours holding his commission from Sinai, and as soon as they have gone through the legal formality of their purification, they take it that all their obligations to God are paid. The Samaritan, the despised Gentile whose sufferings have given him that humility which makes the sinner clear-sighted — he is the only one who recognises God by His divine works, and gives Him thanks for His favours. How many ages of apparent abandonment, of humiliation and suffering must pass over Judah too before he will recognise and adore his God, and confess to him his sins, and give him his devoted love, and, like this stranger, hear Jesus pronounce his pardon, and say: “Arise! Go your way! Your faith has made you whole and saved you!

22 AUGUST – OCTAVE OF THE ASSUMPTION: THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional title that refers to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary―her joys and sorrows, her virtues and perfections, her virginal love for God, her maternal love for Jesus and her compassionate love for all mankind. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a natural result of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1944 the Venerable Pope Pius XII ordered the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be celebrated throughout the universal Church on 22 August with the privilege of double of the Second Class. The Pope told the Catholic world that “with this devotion the Church renders the honour due to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, since under the symbol of this Heart she venerates with reverence the eminent and singular holiness of the Mother of God, and especially her most ardent love for God and Jesus her Son, and moreover her maternal compassion for all those redeemed by the divine Blood.” 

Mary Immaculate, Star of the Morning
Chosen before the creation began,
Destined to bring, through the light of your dawning
Conquest of Satan and rescue to men.

Bend from your throne at the voice of our crying.
Look to this earth where your footsteps have trod.
Stretch out your arms to us, living and dying,
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God.

We, sinners, honor your sinless perfection;
Fallen and weak, for God’s mercy we plead.
Grant us the shield of your mighty protection.
Measure your aid by depth of our need.

Bend from your throne at the voice of our crying.
Look to this earth where your footsteps have trod.
Stretch out your arms to us, living and dying,
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

He alone who could understand Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory. But Wisdom, who presided over the formation of the abyss, has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavished on them are but streamlets. Nevertheless, the immensity of grace and merit by which the Blessed Virgin’s supernatural perfection stands quite apart from all others gives us a right to conclude that she has an equal super-eminence in glory which is always proportioned to the sanctity of the elect. Whereas all the other predestined of our race are placed among the various ranks of the celestial hierarchy, the holy Mother of God is exalted above all the choirs, forming by herself a distinct order, a new Heaven, where the harmonies of Angels and Saints are far surpassed. In Mary God is more glorified, better known, more loved than in all the rest of the universe. On this ground alone, according to the order of creative Providence which subordinates the less to the more perfect, Mary is entitled to be Queen of Earth and Heaven. In this sense, it is for her, next to the Man-God, that the world exists.

The great theologian, Cardinal de Lugo, explaining the words of the Saints on this subject, dares to say: “Just as, creating all things in his complacency for His Christ, God made Him the end of creatures, so with due proportion, we may say He drew the rest of the world out of nothing through the love of the Virgin Mother so that she too might thus be justly called the end of all things.” As Mother of God, and at the same time His first born, she had a right and title over His goods. As Bride she ought to share His crown. “The glorious Virgin,” says Saint Bernardine of Sienna, “has as many subjects as the Blessed Trinity has. Every creature, whatever be its rank in creation, spiritual as the Angels, rational as man, material as the heavenly bodies or the elements, Heaven and Earth, the reprobate and the blessed, all that springs from the power of God, is subject to the Virgin. For He who is the Son of God and of the Blessed Virgin, wishing, so to say, to make His Mother’s became, God as He is, the servant of Mary. If then it be true to say that every one, even the Virgin, obeys God, we may also convert the proposition, and affirm that every one, even God, obeys the Virgin.”

The empire of Eternal Wisdom comprises, so the Holy Spirit tells us, the heavens, the earth, and the abyss: the same then is the appanage of Mary on this her crowning day. Like the divine Wisdom to whom she gave Flesh, she may glory in God. He whose magnificence she once chanted, today exalts her humility. The Blessed one by excellence has become the honour of her people, the admiration of the Saints, the glory of the armies of the Most High. Together with the Spouse, let her, in her beauty, march to victory. Let her triumph over the hearts of the mighty and the lowly. The giving of the world’s sceptre into her hands is no mere honour void of reality: from this day forward she commands and fights, protects the Church, defends its head, upholds the ranks of the sacred militia, raises up Saints, directs Apostles, enlightens doctors, exterminates heresy, crushes Hell.

Let us hail our Queen, let us sing her mighty deeds. Let us be docile to her. Above all, let us love her and trust in her love. Let us not fear that, amid the great interests of the spreading of God’s Kingdom, she will forget our littleness or our miseries. She knows all that takes place in the obscurest corners, in the furthest limits of her immense domain. From her title of universal cause under the Lord, is rightly deduced the universality of her providence, and the masters of doctrine show us Mary in glory sharing in the science called of vision by which all that is, has been, or is to be, is present before God. On the other hand, we must believe that her charity could not possibly be defective: as her love of God surpasses the love of all the elect, so the tenderness of all mothers united, centred upon an only child, is nothing to the love with which with Mary surrounds the least, the most forgotten, the most neglected of all the children of God, who are her children too. She forestalls them in her solicitude, listens at all times to their humble prayers, pursues them in their guilty flights, sustains their weakness, compassionates their ills, whether of body or of soul, sheds on all men the heavenly favours of which she is the treasury.

Let us then say to her in the words of one of her great servants: “O most holy Mother of God, who has beautified Heaven and Earth, in leaving this world you have not abandoned man. Here below you lived in Heaven. From heaven you converse with us. Thrice happy those who contemplated you and lived with the Mother of life! But in the same way as you dwelt in the flesh with them of the first age, you now dwell with us spiritually. We hear your voice, and all our voices reach your ear, and your continual protection over us makes your presence evident. You visit us. Your eye is upon us all, and although our eyes cannot see you, O most holy One, yet you are in the midst of us, showing yourself in various ways to whoever is worthy. Your immaculate body come forth from the tomb hinders not the immaterial power, the most pure activity of that spirit of yours which, being inseparable from the Holy Ghost, breathes also where it wills. O Mother of God, receive the grateful homage of our joy, and speak for your children to Him who has glorified you: whatever you ask of Him, He will accomplish it by His divine power. May He be blessed forever!”

Let us honour the group of Martyrs which forms the rear-guard of our triumphant Queen. Timothy, who came from Antioch to Rome, Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, and Symphorian, the glory of Autun, suffered for God at different periods and at different places, but they gathered their palms on the same day of the year, and the same Heaven is now their abode. “My son, my son,” said his valiant mother to Symphorian, “remember life eternal. Look up and see Him who reigns in Heaven. They are not taking your life away, but changing it into a better.”

Let us admire these heroes of our faith, and let us learn to walk like them, though by less painful paths, in the footsteps of our Lord, and so to rejoice Mary.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Ostiensis, the birthday of the holy martyr Timothy. After he had been arrested by Tarquinius, prefect of the city, and kept for a long time in prison, as he refused to sacrifice to the idols, he was scourged three times, subjected to the most severe torments and finally beheaded.

At Porto, St. Hippolytus, bishop, most renowned for learning. Having gloriously confessed the faith in the time of the emperor Alexander, he was bound hand and foot, precipitated into a deep ditch filled with water, and thus received the palm of martyrdom. His body was buried by Christians at that place.

At Autun, St. Symphorian, a martyr, in the time of the emperor Aurelian. Refusing to offer sacrifice to the idols, he was first scourged, then confined in prison, and finally ended his martyrdom by being beheaded.

At Rome, St. Antoninus, martyr, who, openly declaring himself a Christian, was condemned to capital punishment by the judge Vitellius, and buried on the Via Aurelia.

Also at Porto, the holy martyrs Martial, Saturninus, Epictetus, Maprilis and Felix, with their companions.

At Nicomedia, the Saints Agathonicus, Zoticus and their fellow-martyrs, under the emperor Maximian and the governor Eutholomius.

At Tarsus, the Saints Athanasius, bishop and martyr, Anthusa, a noble woman whom he had baptised, and two of her slaves, who suffered under Valerian.

At Rheims, the holy martyr Maurus and his companions.

In Spain, the saintly martyrs Fabrician and Philibert.

At Pavia, St. Gunifort, martyr.

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

Thanks be to God.

21 AUGUST – SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL (Widow)

Jane Frances Frémiot was born at Dijon in Burgundy in 1572. From her childhood she gave clear signs of her future great sanctity. It was said that when only five years of age, she put to silence a Calvinist nobleman by substantial arguments, far beyond her age, and when he offered her a little present she immediately threw it into the fire, saying: “This is how heretics will burn in Hell, because they do not believe Christ when He speaks.” When she lost her mother, she put herself under the care of the Virgin Mother of God, and dismissed a maid servant who was enticing her to love of the world. There was nothing childish in her manners. She shrank from worldly pleasures, and thirsting for martyrdom, she devoted herself entirely to religion and piety. She was given in marriage by her father to the Baron de Chantal, and in this new state of life she strove to cultivate every virtue, and busied herself in instructing in faith and morals her four children, her servants and all under her authority. Her liberality in relieving the necessities of the poor was very great, and more than once God miraculously multiplied her stores of provisions. On this account she promised never to refuse anyone who begged an alms in Christ’s name.

Jane was widowed at the age of 28 when the Baron died in an accident while hunting. She determined to embrace a more perfect life and bound herself by a vow of chastity. She not only bore her husband’s death with resignation, but overcame herself so far as to stand godmother to the child of the man who had killed him in order to give a public proof that she pardoned him. She contented herself with a few servants and with plain food and dress, devoting her costly garments to pious usages. Whatever time remained from her domestic cares she employed in prayer, pious reading and work. She could never be induced to accept offers of second marriage, even though honourable and advantageous. In order not to be shaken in her resolution of observing chastity, she renewed her vow and imprinted the most holy name of Jesus Christ on her breast with a red-hot iron. Her love grew more ardent day by day. She had the poor, the abandoned, the sick, and those who were afflicted with the most terrible diseases brought to her, and not only sheltered, comforted and nursed them, but washed and mended their filthy garments, and did not shrink from putting her lips to their running sores.

Having learnt the will of God from her spiritual director and friend Saint Francis de Sales, she founded the Institute of the Visitation of our Lady for the spiritual advancement of young girls and widows who did not have the desire or strength to subject themselves to the severe ascetical practices then in force in all religious orders. For this purpose she quitted, with unfaltering courage, her father, her father-in-law, and even her son, over whose body she had to step in order to leave her home, so violently did he oppose her vocation. She observed her Rule with the utmost fidelity, and so great was her love of poverty that she rejoiced to be in want of even the necessaries of life. She was a perfect model of Christian humility, obedience and all other virtues. Wishing for still higher ascensions in her heart, she bound herself by a most difficult vow always to do what she thought most perfect. The Order of the Visitation spread far and wide, chiefly through her endeavours, and she encouraged her sisters to piety, and charity by words and example, and also by writings full of divine wisdom.

Jane died at Moulins, having duly received the Sacraments of the Church. She died on the 13th of December 1641. Saint Vincent de Paul, who was at a great distance, saw her soul being carried to Heaven and Saint Francis de Sales coming to meet her. Her body was afterwards translated to the crypt in the Church of the Visitation at Annecy. Miracles having made her illustrious both before and after her death, she was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in 1751 and was canonised by Pope Clement XIII in 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although Mary’s glory is within her, beauty appears also in the garment with which she is clad: a mysterious robe woven of the virtues of the Saints who owe to her both their justice and their reward. As every grace comes to us through our Mother, so all the glory of Heaven converges towards that of the Queen.

Now among the blessed souls there are some more immediately connected with the holy Virgin. Prevented by the peculiarly tender love of the Mother of grace, they left all things when on Earth to run after the odour of the perfumes of the Spouse she gave to the world. In Heaven they keep the greater intimacy with Mary which was theirs even in the time of exile. Hence it is, that at this time of her exaltation beside the Son of God, the Psalmist sings also of the Virgins entering joyously with her into the temple of the King. The crowning of our Lady is truly the special feast of these daughters of Tyre, who have themselves become princesses and queens in order to form her noble escort and her royal court.

If the Saint proposed to our veneration today is not adorned with the diadem of virginity, she is nevertheless one of those who have deserved in their humility to hear the heavenly message: “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear. And forget your people and your father’s house” (Psalms xliv. 11). In reply, such was her eagerness in the ways of love, that numberless virgins followed in her footsteps in order to be more sure of reaching the Spouse. She also, then, has a glorious place in the vesture of gold, with its play of colours, with which the Queen of Saints is clad in her triumph. For what is the variety noticed by the Psalm, in the embroideries and fringes of that robe of glory, if not the diversity of tints in the gold of divine charity among the elect? In order to bring forward the happy effect produced by this diversity in the light of the Saints, Eternal Wisdom has multiplied the forms under which the life of the counsels may be presented to the world. Such is the teaching given in the holy Liturgy by bringing together the feasts of yesterday and today on its sacred cycle. Between Cistercian austerity and the more interior renouncement of the Visitation of holy Mary, there seems to be a great distance: nevertheless the Church unites the memory of Saint Jane de Chantal and of the Abbot of Clairvaux in homage to the Blessed Virgin during the happy Octave which consummates her glory. It is because all rules of perfection are alike in being merely variations of the one Rule, that of love, of which Mary’s life was a perfect pattern. “Let us not divide the robe of the Bride,” says Saint Bernard.

“Unity, as well in heaven as on earth, consists in charity. Let him who glories in the Rule, not break the rule by acting contrary to the Gospel. If the kingdom of God is within us, it is because it is not meat and drink. But justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans xiv. 17). To criticise others on their exterior observance, and to neglect the Rule in what regards the soul, is to take out a gnat from the cup and to swallow a camel. You break your body with endless labour, you mortify with austerities your members which are on the earth, and you do well. But while you allow yourself to judge him who does not so much penance, he perhaps is following the advice of the Apostle: ‘More eager for the better gifts, keeping less of that bodily exercise which is profitable to little he gives himself up more to that godliness which is profitable to all things’ (1 Timothy iv. 8). Which then of you two keeps the Rule better? Doubtless he that becomes better thereby. Now which is the better? The humbler? or the more fatigued? ‘Learn of me,’ said Jesus, ‘because I am meek and humble of heart’” (Matthew xi. 29).

Saint Francis de Sales, in his turn, speaking of the diversity of religious Orders, says very well: “All Religious Orders have one spirit common to them all, and each has a spirit peculiar to itself. The common spirit is the design they all have of aspiring after the perfection of charity. But the peculiar spirit of each is the means of arriving at that perfection of charity, that is to say, at the union of our souls with God, and with our neighbour through the love of God.” Coming next to the special spirit of the institute he had founded together with our Saint, the Bishop of Geneva declares that it is “a spirit of profound humility towards God and of great sweetness towards our neighbour, inasmuch as there is less rigour towards the body, so much the more sweetness must there be in the heart.” And because “this Congregation has been so established that no great severity may prevent the weak and infirm from entering it and giving themselves up to the perfection of divine love,” he adds playfully: “If there be any sister so generous and courageous as to wish to attain perfection in a quarter of an hour by doing more than the Community does, I would advise her to humble herself and be content to become perfect in three days, following the same course as the rest. For a great simplicity must always be kept in all things: to walk simply, that is the true way for the daughters of the Visitation, a way exceedingly pleasing to God and very safe.”

With sweetness and humility for motto, the pious Bishop did well to give his daughters for escutcheon the divine Heart from which these gentle virtues derive their source. We know how magnificently Heaven justified the choice. Before a century had elapsed, a nun of the Visitation, the Blessed Margaret Mary, could say: “Our adorable Saviour showed me the devotion to His divine Heart as a beautiful tree which He had destined from all eternity to take root in the midst of our Institute. He wills that the daughters of the Visitation should distribute the fruits of this sacred tree abundantly to all those that wish to eat of it, and without fear of its failing them.”

“Love! Love! Love! my daughters, I know nothing else.” Thus did Jane de Chantal, the glorious co-operatrix of Saint Francis in establishing the Visitation of holy Mary, often cry out in her latter years. “Mother,” said one of the sisters, “I will write to our houses that your charity is growing old, and that, like your godfather Saint John, you can speak of nothing but love.” To which the Saint replied: “My daughter, do not make such a comparison, for we must not profane the Saints by comparing them to poor sinners. But you will do me a pleasure if you tell those sisters that if I went by my own feelings, if I followed my inclination, and if I were not afraid of wearying the sisters, I should never speak of anything but charity. And I assure you, I scarcely ever open my mouth to speak of holy things without having a mind to say: ‘You must love the Lord with your whole heart, and your neighbour as yourself.’”

Such words are worthy of her who obtained for the Church the admirable Treatise on the Love of God, composed, says the Bishop of Genoa, for her sake, at her request and solicitation, for herself and her companions. At first, however, the impetuosity of her soul, overflowing with devotedness and energy, seemed to unfit her to be mistress in a school where heroism can only express itself by the simple sweetness of a life altogether hidden in God. It was to discipline this energy of the valiant woman without extinguishing its ardour, that Saint Francis perseveringly applied himself during the eighteen years he directed her. “Do all things,” he repeats in a thousand ways, “without haste, gently, as do the Angels. Follow the guidance of divine movements and be supple to grace. God wills us to be like little children.” And this reminds us of an exquisite page from the amiable Saint, which we cannot resist quoting: “If one had asked the sweet Jesus when He was carried in His Mother’s arms, to where He was going, might He not with good reason have answered: ‘I go not, 'tis my Mother that goes for me:’ and if one had said to Him: ‘But at least do you not go with your Mother?’ Might He not reasonably have replied: ‘No, I do not go, or if I go to where my Mother carries me, I do not myself walk with her nor by my own steps, but by my Mother’s, by her, and in her.’ But if one had persisted with Him, saying: ‘But at least, O most dear divine child, you really will to let yourself be carried by your sweet Mother?’ No, verily, might He have said, ‘I will nothing of all this, but as my entirely good Mother walks for me, so she wills for me. I leave her the care as well to go as to will to go for me where she likes best. And as I go not but by her steps, so I will not but by her will. Aand from the instant I find myself in her arms, I give no attention either to willing or not willing, turning all other cares over to my Mother, save only the care to be on her bosom, to suck her sacred breast, and to keep myself close clasped to her most beloved neck, that I may most lovingly kiss her with the kisses of my mouth. And be it known to you that while I am amidst the delights of these holy caresses which surpass all sweetness, I consider that my Mother is a tree of life, and myself on her as its fruit, that I am her own heart in her breast, or her soul in the midst of her heart, so that as her going serves both her and me without my troubling myself to take a single step, so her will serves us both without my producing any act of my will about going or coming. Nor do I ever take notice whether she goes fast or slow, hither or thither, nor do I inquire whither she means to go, contenting myself with this, that go to where she please I go still locked in her arms, close laid to her beloved breasts, where I feed as among lilies...’ Thus should we be, Theotimus, pliable and tractable to God’s good pleasure.”

The office of Martha seemed at first to be destined for you, O great Saint! Your father, Francis de Sales, forestalling Saint Vincent de Paul, thought of making your companions the first daughters of Charity. Thus was given to your work the blessed name of Visitation, which was to place under Mary’s protection your visits to the sick and neglected poor. But the progressive deterioration of strength in modern times had laid open a more pressing want in the institutions of holy Church. Many souls called to share Mary’s part were prevented from doing so by their inability to endure the austere life of the great contemplative Orders. The Spouse, who deigns to adapt His goodness to all times, made choice of you, O Jane, to second the love of His Sacred Heart and come to the rescue of the physical and moral miseries of an old, worn-out and decrepit world.

Renew us, then, in the love of Him whose charity consumed you first. In its ardour, you traversed the most various paths of life and never did you fail of that admirable strength of soul which the Church presents before God today in order to obtain through you the assistance necessary to our weakness. May the insidious and poisonous spirit of Jansenism never return to freeze our hearts. But at the same time, as we learn from you, love is only then real, when, with or without austerities, it lives by faith, generosity, and self-renunciation, in humility, simplicity and gentleness. It is the spirit of your holy institute, the spirit which became, through your angelic Father, so amiable and so strong: may it ever reign amid your daughters, keeping up among their houses the sweet union which has never ceased to rejoice Heaven. May the world be refreshed by the perfumes which ever exhale from the silent retreats of the Visitation of holy Mary!

* * * * *

O glorious saint, Blessed Jane Frances, who, by your fervent prayer, attention to the Divine Presence and purity of intention in your actions, attained on Earth an intimate union with God, be now our advocate, our mother, our guide in the path of virtue and perfection. Plead our cause near Jesus, Mary and Joseph to whom you were so tenderly devoted and whose holy virtues you so closely imitated. Obtain for us, O amiable and compassionate saint, the virtues you see most necessary for us: an ardent love of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament, a tender and filial confidence in His blessed Mother and, like you, a constant remembrance of His sacred Passion and death.

V. Saint Jane Frances, pray for us.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

* * * * *

 

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In the Campo Verano at Rome, St. Cyriaca, widow and martyr. In the persecution of Valerian, after devoting herself and all her goods in the service of the saints, she gave up her life by suffering martyrdom for Christ.

At Salona, St. Anastasius, a law officer, who was converted to the faith by seeing the fortitude with which blessed Agapitus bore his torments, and being put to death by order of the emperor Aurelian, for confessing the name of Christ, went to Our Lord.

In Sardinia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Luxorius, Cisellus and Camerinus who were put to the sword in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Delphius.

In Gevaudan, St. Privatus, bishop and martyr, who suffered in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus.

The same day, the holy martyrs Bonosus and Maximian.

At Fundi in Campania, St. Paternus, a martyr, who came from Alexandria to Rome to visit the tomb of the Apostles. Then he retired to the neighbourhood of Fundi, where, being seized by the tribune while he was burying the bodies of the martyrs, he died in captivity.

At Edessa in Syria, during the persecution of Maximian, the holy martyrs Bassa, and her sons Theogonius, Agapius and Fidelis, who their pious mother exhorted to martyrdom and sent before her bearing their crowns. Being herself beheaded, she joyfully followed them and shared their victory.

At Verona, St. Euprepius, bishop and confessor.

Also St. Quadratus, bishop.

At Siena in Tuscany, blessed Bernard Ptolemy, abbot and founder of the Congregation of Olivetans.

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

Thanks be to God.

20 AUGUST – SAINT BERNARD (Abbot, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Bernard, the “mellifluous Doctor,” was born at Fontaines, near Dijon in France in 1091. As a youth, on account of his great beauty he was much sought after by women, but could never be shaken in his resolution of observing chastity. To escape these temptations of the devil, he, at twenty-two years of age, determined to enter the monastery of Citeaux, the first house of the Cistercian Order, then famous for sanctity. He consecrated himself to God under the leadership of the English Abbot, Saint Stephen Harding, in the newly instituted Abbey. When his brothers learnt Bernard’s design, they did their best to deter him from it but he, more eloquent and more successful,won them and many others to his opinion, so that together with him thirty young men embraced the Cistercian Rule.

 

As a monk Bernard was so given to fasting, that when ever he had to take food he seemed to be undergoing torture. He applied himself in a wonderful manner to prayer and watching, and was a great lover of Christian poverty. Thus he led a heavenly life on Earth, free from all anxiety or desire of perishable goods. The virtues of humility, mercy and kindness shone conspicuously in his character. He devoted himself so earnestly to contemplation that he seemed hardly to use his senses except to do acts of charity, and in these he was remarkable for his prudence. While thus occupied he refused the bishoprics of Genoa, Milan and others which were offered to him, declaring that he was unworthy of so great an office. He afterwards built monasteries in many places in which the excellent rules and discipline of Bernard long flourished. When the monastery of Saints Vincent and Anastasius at Rome was restored by Pope Innocent II, Bernard appointed as Abbot the future sovereign Pontiff Eugenius III, to whom he also sent his book De Consideratione.

Bernard wrote many other works which clearly show that his doctrine was more the gift of God than the result of his own labours. On account of his great reputation for virtue, the greatest princes begged him to act as arbiter in their disputes, and he went several times into Italy for this purpose, and for arranging ecclesiastical affairs. He was of great assistance to the Supreme Pontiff Innocent II in putting down the schism of Peter de Leone, both at the courts of the emperor and of king Henry of England, and at a Council held at Pisa. In obedience to Saint Stephen, Bernard founded the Abbey of Clairvaux in 1115 and remained Abbot of it for the rest of his life. In 1146 he preached the Second Crusade in France and exerted a strong and healthy influence on the European politics of his age. Bernard died in 1153 and was buried in the Marian chapel of his Abbey of Clairvaux. Pope Alexander III canonised Bernard 12 years later and and Pope Pius VIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The valley of wormwood has lost its bitterness. Having become Clairvaux, or the bright valley, its light shines over the world. From every point of the horizon vigilant bees are attracted to it by the honey from the rock which abounds in its solitude. Mary turns her glance upon its wild hills, and with her smile sheds light and grace upon them. Listen to the harmonious voice arising from the desert. It is the voice of Bernard, her chosen one. “Learn, O man, the counsel of God. Admire the intentions of Wisdom, the design of love. Before bedewing the whole earth, be saturated the fleece. Being to redeem the human race, he heaped up in Mary the entire ransom. O Adam, say no more: ‘The woman whom you gave me offered me the forbidden fruit.’ Say rather: ’The woman whom you gave me has fed me with a fruit of blessing.’ With what ardour ought we to honour Mary, in whom was set all the fullness of good! If we have any hope, any saving grace, know that it overflows from her who today rises replete with love: she is a garden of delights, over which the divine South Wind does not merely pass with a light breath, but sweeping down from the heights, he stirs it unceasingly with a heavenly breeze, so that it may shed abroad its perfumes, which are the gifts of various graces. Take away the material sun from the world: what would become of our day? Take away Mary, the star of the vast sea: what would remain but obscurity over all, a night of death and icy darkness? Therefore, with every fibre of our heart, with all the love of our soul, with all the eagerness of our aspirations, let us venerate Mary. It is the will of Him who wished us to have all things through her.”

Thus spoke the monk who had acquired his eloquence, as he tells us himself, among the beeches and oaks of the forest, and he poured into the wounds of mankind the wine and oil of the Scriptures. In 1113, at the age of twenty- two, Bernard arrived at Citeaux, in the beauty of his youth, already ripe for great combats. Fifteen years before, on the 21st March 1098, Robert of Molesmes had created this new desert between Dijon and Beaune. Issuing from the past, on the very feast of the patriarch of monks, the new foundation claimed to be nothing more than the literal observance of the precious Rule given by him to the world. The weakness of the age, however, refused to recognise the fearful austerity of these new comers into the great family: as inspired by that holy code, wherein discretion reigns supreme, for this discretion is the characteristic of the school accessible to all, where Benedict “hoped to ordain nothing rigorous or burthensome in the service of God.” Under the government of Stephen Harding, the next after Alberic, successor of Robert, the little community from Molesmes was becoming extinct, without human hope of recovery, when the descendant of the lords of Fontaines arrived with thirty companions, who were his first conquest, and brought new life where death was imminent.

“Rejoice, you barren one that bears not, for many will be the children of the barren.” La Forte was founded that same year in Chalonnais, next Pontigny, near Auxerre, and in 1115 Clairvaux and Morimond were established in the diocese of Langres; while these four glorious branches of Citeaux were soon, together with their parent stock, to put forth numerous shoots. In 1119 the Charter of charity confirmed the existence of the Cistercian Order in the Church. Thus the tree, planted six centuries earlier on the summit of Monte Cassino, proved once more to the world that in all ages it is capable of producing new branches, which, though distinct from the trunk, live by its sap, and are a glory to the entire tree.

During the months of his novitiate Bernard so subdued nature that the interior man alone lived in him. The senses of his own body were to him as strangers. By an excess, for which he had afterwards to reproach himself, he carried his rigour, though meant for a desirable end, so far as to ruin the body, that indispensable help to every man in the service of his brethren and of God. Blessed fault, which Heaven took upon itself to excuse so magnificently. A miracle (a thing which no one has a right to expect) was needed to uphold him henceforth in the accomplishment of his destined mission. Bernard was as ardent in the service of God as others are for the gratification of their passions. “You would learn of me,” he says in one of his earliest works, “why and how we must love God. And I answer you: The reason for loving God is God Himself. And the measure of loving Him is to love Him without measure.” What delights he enjoyed at Citeaux in the secret of the face of the Lord! When, after two years, he left this blessed abode to found Clairvaux, it was like coming out of Paradise. More fit to converse with Angels than with men, he began, says his historian, by being a trial to those whom he had to guide: so heavenly was his language, such perfection did he require surpassing the strength of even the strong ones of Israel, such sorrowful astonishment did he show on the discovery of infirmities common to all flesh.

But the Holy Spirit was watching over the vessel of election called to bear the name of the Lord before kings and people; the divine charity, which consumed his soul, taught him that love has two inseparable, though sadly different, objects: God, whose goodness makes us love Him, and man, whose misery exercises our charity. According to the ingenious remark of William de Saint-Thierry, his disciple and friend, Bernard re-learnt the art of living among men. He imbued himself with the admirable recommendations given by the legislator of monks to him who is chosen Abbot over his brethren: “When he gives correction, let him act prudently, and push nothing to extremes, lest whilst eager of extreme scouring off the rust, the vase get broke... When he enjoins work to be done, let him use discernment and moderation, and think of holy Jacob’s discretion, who said: ‘If I cause my flocks to be overdriven, they will all die in one day.’ Taking, therefore, these and other documents regarding that mother of virtue, discretion, let him so temper all things as that the strong may have what to desire and the weak nothing to deter them.”

Having received what the Psalmist calls “understanding concerning the needy and the poor,” Bernard felt his heart overflowing with the tenderness of God for those purchased by the divine Blood. He no longer terrified the humble. Beside the little ones who came to him attracted by the grace of his speech might be seen the wise, the powerful, and the rich ones of the world, abandoning their vanities, and becoming themselves little and poor in the school of one who knew how to guide them all, from the first elements of love to its very summits. In the midst of seven hundred monks receiving daily from him the doctrine of salvation, the Abbot of Clairvaux could cry out with the noble pride of the Saints: “He that is mighty has done great things in us, and with good reason our soul magnifies the Lord. Behold we have left all things to follow you: it is a great resolution, the glory of the great Apostles. Yet we, too, by his great grace have taken it magnificently. Perhaps, even if I wish to glory therein, I will not be foolish, for I will say the truth: there are some here who have left more than a boat and fishing-nets.”

“What more wonderful,” he said on another occasion, “than to see one who formerly could scarce abstain two days from sin, preserve himself from it for years, and even for his whole life? What greater miracle than that so many young men, boys, noble personages, all those, in a word, whom I see here, should be held captive without bonds in an open prison by the sole fear of God, and should persevere in penitential macerations beyond human strength, above nature, contrary to habit? What marvels we should discover, as you well knew, were we allowed to seek out the details of each one’s exodus from Egypt, of his passage through the desert, his entrance into the monastery, and his life within its walls.”

But there were other marvels not to be hidden within the secret of the cloister. The voice that had peopled the desert was bidden to echo through the world. And the noises of discord and error, of schism and the passions, were hushed before it. At its word the whole West was precipitated as one man upon the infidel East. Bernard had now become the avenger of the sanctuary, the umpire of kings, the confidant of sovereign Pontiffs, the thaumaturgus applauded by enthusiastic crowds. Yet, at the very height of what the world calls glory, his one thought was the loved solitude he had been forced to quit. “It is high time,” he said, “that I should think of myself. Have pity on my agonised conscience: what an abnormal life is mine! I am the chimera of my time, neither clerk nor layman, I have the habit of a monk and none of the observances. In the perils which surround me, at the brink of precipices yawning before me, help me with your advice, pray for me.”

While absent from Clairvaux he wrote to his monks: “My soul is sorrowful and cannot be comforted till I see you again. Alas! Must my exile here below, so long protracted, be rendered still more grievous? Truly those who have separated us have added sorrow upon sorrow to my evils. They have taken away from me the only remedy which enabled me to live away from Christ. While I could not yet contemplate his glorious Face, it was given me at least to see you, you his holy temple. From that temple the way seemed easy to the eternal home. How often have I been deprived of this consolation? This is the third time, if I mistake not, that they have torn out my heart. My children are weaned before the time. I had begotten them by the Gospel, and I cannot nourish them. Constrained to neglect those dear to me and to attend to the interests of strangers, I scarcely know which is harder to bear, to be separated from the former or to be mixed up with the latter. O Jesus, is my whole life to be spent in sighing? It were better for me to die than to live, but I would fain die in the midst of my family. There I should find more sweetness, more security. May it please my Lord that the eyes of a father, however unworthy of the name, may be closed by the hands of his sons; that they may assist him in his last passage; that their desires, if you judge him worthy, may bear his soul to the abode of the blessed; that they may bury the body of a poor man with the bodies of those who were poor with him. By the prayers and merits of my brethren, if I have found favour before you, grant me this desire of my heart. Nevertheless, your will, not mine, be done; for I wish neither to live nor to die for myself.”

Greater in his Abbey than in the noblest courts, Bernard was destined to die at home at the hour appointed by God, but not without having had his soul prepared for the last purification by trials both public and private. For the last time he took up again, but could not finish, the discourses he had been delivering for the last eighteen years on the Canticle. These familiar conferences, lovingly gathered by his children, reveal in a touching manner the zeal of the sons for divine science, the heart of the father and his sanctity, and the incidents of daily life at Clairvaux. Having reached the first verse of the third chapter, he was describing the soul seeking after the Word in the weakness of this life, in the dark night of this world, when he broke off his discourses, and passed to the eternal face to face vision, where there is no more enigma, nor figure, nor shadow.

It was fitting to see the herald of the Mother of God following so closely her triumphal car. Entering Heaven during this bright Octave, you delight to lose yourself in the glory of her whose greatness you proclaimed on Earth. Be our protector in her court. Attract her maternal eyes towards Citeaux. In her name save the Church once more, and protect the Vicar of Christ. But today, rather than to pray to you, you invite us to sing to Mary and pray to her with you. The homage most pleasing to you, O Bernard, is that we should profit by your sublime writings and admire the Virgin who, “today ascending glorious to heaven, put the finishing touch to the happiness of the heavenly citizens. Brilliant as it was already, heaven became resplendent with new brightness from the light of the virginal torch. Thanksgiving and praise resound on high. And will we not in our exile partake of these joys of our home? Having here no lasting dwelling, we seek the city where the Blessed Virgin has arrived this very hour. Citizens of Jerusalem, it is but just that, from the banks of the rivers of Babylon, we should think with dilated hearts of the overflowing river of bliss, of which some drops are sprinkled on earth today. Our Queen has gone before us. The reception given to her encourages us who are her followers and servants. Our caravan will be well treated with regard to salvation, for it is preceded by the Mother of mercy as advocate before the Judge her Son.”

“Whoever remembers having ever invoked you in vain in his needs, O Blessed Virgin, let him be silent as to your mercy. As for us, your little servants, we praise your other virtues, but on this one we congratulate ourselves. We praise your virginity, we admire your humility. But mercy is sweeter to the wretched. We embrace it more lovingly. We think of it more frequently, we invoke it unceasingly. Who can tell the length and breadth and height and depth of yours, O Blessed one? Its length, for it extends to the last day. Its breadth, for it covers the earth. Its height and depth, for it has filled heaven and emptied hell. You are as powerful as merciful. Having now rejoined your Son, manifest to the world the grace you have found before God: obtain pardon for sinners, health for the sick, strength for the weak, consolation for the afflicted, help and deliverance for those who are in any danger, O clement, O merciful, O sweet Virgin Mary!”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The same day, St. Lucius, senator, who was converted to the faith on seeing the constancy of Theodore, bishop of Gyrene, during his martyrdom. He also converted the governor Dignian, with whom he set out for Cyprus, where, seeing other Christians crowned for the confession of the Lord, he offered himself voluntarily and merited the same crown of martyrdom by having his head struck off.

In Thrace, in the time of the governor Apellian, thirty-seven holy martyrs, who had their hands and feet cut off for the faith of Christ and were cast into a burning furnace.

Also the holy martyrs Severus, and the centurion Memnon, who, suffering the same kind of death, went victoriously to heaven.

At Cordova, during the persecution of the Arabs, the holy martyrs Leovigildus and Christopher, monks, who were thrust into prison for the defence of the Christian faith, and soon after, by being beheaded and cast into the fire, obtained the palm of martyrdom.

At Rome, blessed Porphyry, a man of God, who instructed the holy martyr Agapitus in the faith and doctrine of Christ.

In the island of Noirmoutiers, St. Philibert, abbot.

At Chinon, St. Maxinms, confessor, a disciple of the blessed bishop Martin.

On Mount Senario in the diocese of Florence, blessed Manetius, confessor, one of the seven founders of the Order of the Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who breathed his last while reciting hymns in her honour.

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

Thanks be to God.