16 AUGUST – SAINT JOACHIM (Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

From time immemorial the Greeks have celebrated the feast of Saint Joachim on the day following our Lady’s birthday. The Maronites kept it on the day after the Presentation in November, and the Armenians on the Tuesday after the Octave of the Assumption of the Mother of God. The Latins at first did not keep his feast. Later on it was admitted and celebrated sometimes on the day after the Octave of the Nativity, September 16th, sometimes on the day following the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, December 9th. Thus both East and West agreed in associating Saint Joachim with his illustrious daughter when they wished to do him honour.

About the year 1510 Julius II placed the feast of the grandfather of the Messiah on the Roman Calendar with the rank of double major, and remembering that family in which the ties of nature and of grace were in such perfect harmony, he fixed the solemnity on the 20th March, the day after that of his son-in-law, Saint Joseph. The life of the glorious patriarch resembled those of the first fathers of the Hebrew people, and it seemed as though he were destined to imitate their wanderings also by continually changing his place on the sacred cycle. Hardly fifty years alter the Pontificate of Julius II the critical spirit of the day cast doubts on the history of Saint Joachim, and his name was erased from the Roman breviary. Gregory XV, however, re-established his feast in 1622 as a double, and the Church has since continued to celebrate it. Devotion to our Lady’s father continuing to increase very much, the Holy See was petitioned to make his feast a holiday of obligation, as it had already made that of his spouse, St. Anne. In order to satisfy the devotion of the people without increasing the number of days of obligation, Clement XII in 1738 transferred the feast of Saint Joachim to the Sunday after the Assumption of his daughter, the Blessed Virgin, and restored it to the rank of double major.

On the First of August 1879 the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII, who received the name of Joachim in baptism, raised both the feast of his glorious patron and that of Saint Anne to the rank of doubles of the second class. The following is an extract from the decree Urbi et Orbi, announcing this final decision with regard to the said feasts: “Ecclesiasticus teaches us that we ought to praise our fathers in their generation. What great honour and veneration ought we then to render to Saint Joachim and Saint Anne who begot the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and are on that account more glorious than all others.” “By your fruits are you known,” says Saint John Damascene, “you have given birth to a daughter who is greater than the Angels and has become their Queen.” Now since, through the divine mercy, in our unhappy times the honour and worship paid to the Blessed Virgin is increasing in proportion to the increasing needs of the Christian people, it is only right that the new glory which surrounds their blessed daughter should redound on her happy parents. May this increase of devotion towards them cause the Church to experience still more their powerful protection.

Epistle – Ecclesiasticus xxxi. 8–11

Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish, and that has not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money, nor in treasures. Who is he, and we will praise him? For he has done wonderful things in his life. Who has been tried thereby, and made perfect, he will have glory everlasting: he that could have transgressed, and has not transgressed, and could do evil things, and has not done them: therefore are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints will declare his alms.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Joachim’s wealth, like that of the first patriarchs, consisted chiefly in flocks and herds. The holy use he made of it drew down God’s blessing on it. But the greatest of all his desires Heaven seemed to refuse him. His holy spouse Anne was barren. Among all the daughters of Israel expecting the Messiah, there was no hope for her. One day the victims Joachim presented in the Temple were conemptuously rejected. Those were not the gifts the Lord of the Temple desired of him. Later on, instead of lambs from his pastures, he was to present the Mother of the Lamb of God, and his offering would not be rejected.

This day, however, he was filled with sorrow and fled away without returning to his wife. He hastened to the mountains where his flocks were at pasture and living in a tent, he fasted continually, for he said: “I will take no food till the Lord my God look mercifully upon me. Prayer will be my nourishment.” Meanwhile Anne was mourning her widowhood and her barrenness. She prayed in her garden as Joachim was praying on the mountain. Their prayers ascended at the same time to the Most High, and He granted them their request. An Angel of the Lord appeared to each of them and bade them meet at the Golden Gate, and soon Anne could say: “Now I know that the Lord has greatly blessed me. For I was a widow and I am one no longer, and I was barren, and lo! I have conceived!”

Gospel – Matthew i. 1–16

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the Son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac; and Isaac begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Judas and his brethren; and Judas begot Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begot Esron; and Esron begot Aram; and Aram begot Aminadab; and Aminadab begot Naasson; and Naasson begot Salmon; and Salmon begot Booz of Rahab; and Booz begot Obed of Ruth; and Obed begot Jesse; and Jesse begot David the king. And David the king begot Solomon, of her who had been the wife of Unas; and Solomon begot Roboam; and Roboam begot Abia; and Abia begot Asa; and Asa begot Josaphat; and Josaphat begot Joram; and Joram begot Ozias; and Ozias begot Joatham; and Joatham begot Achaz; and Achaz begot Ezechias; and Ezschias begot Manasses; and Manasses begot Amon; and Amon begot Josias; and Josias begot Jechonias and his brethren in the transmigration of Babylon. And, after the transmigration of Babylon, Jechonias begot Salathiel; and Salathiel begot Zorobabel; and Zorobabel begot Abiud; and Abiud begot Eliacim; and Eliacim begot Azor; and Azor begot Sadoc; and Sadoc begot Achim: and Achim begot Eliud; and Eliud begot Eleazar; and Eleazar begot Mathan; and Mathan begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus; who is called Christ.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Rejoice, O Joachim, for of your daughter a Son is born to us,” exclaims Saint John Damascene. It is in this spirit the Church reads to us today the list of the royal ancestors of our Saviour. Joseph, the descendant of these illustrious princes, inherited their rights and passed them on to Jesus, who was his Son according to the Jewish law, though according to nature he was of the line of his Virgin Mother alone. Saint Luke, Mary’s Evangelist, has preserved the names of the direct ancestors of the Mother of the Man-God, springing from David in the person of Nathan, Solomon’s brother. Joseph, the son of Jacob according to Saint Matthew, appears in Saint Luke as son of Heli. The reason is, that by espousing Mary, the only daughter of Heli or Heliachim, that is Joachim, he became legally his son and heir. This is the now generally received explanation of the two genealogies of Christ the Son of David. It is not surprising that Rome, the queen city who has become the Bride of the Son of man in the place of the repudiated Sion, prefers to use in her Liturgy the genealogy which by its long line of royal ancestors emphasises the kingship of the Spouse over Jerusalem. The name of Joachim, which signifies “the preparation of the Lord,” is thus rendered more majestic, without losing aught of its mystical meaning. He is himself crowned with wonderful glory. Jesus, his Grandson, gives him to share in His own authority over every creature.

Father of Mary, we thank you. All creation owes you a debt of gratitude, since the Creator was pleased that you should give Him the Mother He had chosen for Himself. Husband of holy Anne, you show us what would have been in Paradise. You seem to have been reinstated in primeval innocence, in order to give birth to the Immaculate Virgin: sanctify Christian life, and elevate the standard of morals. You are the Grandfather of Jesus: let your paternal love embrace all Christians who are His brethren. Holy Church honours you more than ever in these days of trial. She knows how powerful you are with the Eternal and Almighty Father, who made you instrumental, through your blessed daughter, in the temporal Generation of His Eternal Son.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Titus, deacon, who, when the city was taken by the Goths, was put to death by a barbarous tribune while distributing money to the poor.

At Nicaea in Bithynia, St. Diomedes, physician, who underwent martyrdom for the faith of Christ by being beheaded during the persecution of Diocletian.

Also thirty-three holy martyrs.

At Ferentino in Campania, St. Ambrose, centurion. In the persecution of Diocletian, he was subjected to different kinds of tortures, and finally passing through fire without injury, was cast into the water, and thus reached the place of eternal rest.

At Milan, the demise of St. Simplician, bishop, renowned by the testimony given of him by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine.

At Auxerre, St. Eleutherius, bishop.

At Nicomedia, St. Arsacius, confessor. Under the persecutor Licinius he left the military service, and leading a solitary life, became so famous for working miracles that we read of his expelling the demons and killing a huge dragon by his prayers. Finally he foretold the destruction of the city and gave up his soul to God in prayer.

Near Montpelier in France, the demise of blessed Roch, confessor, who by the sign of the cross, delivered many cities of Italy from an epidemic. His body was afterwards transferred to Venice, and deposited with the greatest honours in the church dedicated under his invocation.

At Rome, St. Serena, who had been the wife of the emperor Diocletian.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 AUGUST – TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (GOOD SAMARITAN SUNDAY)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

On this Sunday, which is their Twelfth of Saint Matthew, the Greeks read in the Mass the episode of the young rich man who questions Jesus, given in the Nineteenth Chapter of the Saint’s Gospel. In the West, it is the Gospel of the good Samaritan, which gives its name to this twelfth Sunday after Pentecost.

Epistle – 2 Corinthians iii. 4‒9

Brethren, such confidence we have, through Christ, towards God. Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God. Who also has made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit quickens. Now if the ministration of death, engraved with letters upon stones, was glorious so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance which is made void: How will not the ministration of the spirit be rather in glory? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice abounds in glory.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The glorious promises mentioned in the concluding words of our Collect [grant us, we beseech you, that we may run on, without stumbling, to the things you have promised us] are described to us in the Epistle which seems at first sight to be entirely in praise of the Apostolic ministry. But the glory of the Apostles is the glory of Him whom they announce, and this one glory which is His, Christ, the Head, communicates it to all his members, making it also their one glory. This divine glory flows, together with the divine life, from that sacred Head. And they both flow, and copiously too, through all the channels of holy Church (Ephesians iv. 15, 16).

If they do not come to all Christians in the same proportions, such difference in no wise denotes that the glory or the life themselves are of a different kind to some from what they are to others. Each member of Christ’s mystical Body is called to form his own degree of capacity for glory. Not of course, as the Apostle says, that “we are of ourselves sufficient even to think anything as of ourselves,” but what diversity is there not in the way in which men turn to profit the divine capital allotted to each by grace! Oh if we did but know the gift of God! (John iv. 10) If we did but understand the super-eminent dignity reserved under the law of love, to every man of good will! (Luke ii. 14), then, perhaps, our cowardice and sluggishness would at last go. Perhaps then our souls would get fired with the noble ambition which turns men into saints.

At all events, we should then come to realise that Christian humility, of which we were speaking on the last two Sundays, is not the vulgar grovelling of a low-minded man, but the glorious entrance on the way which leads by divine Union to the one true greatness. Are not those men inconsistent and senseless who, longing by the very law of their nature for glory, go seeking it in the phantoms of pride, and allow themselves to be diverted by the baubles of vanity from the pursuit of those real honours, which Eternal Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus vi. 29‒32) had destined for them! And those grand honours were to have been heaped on them, not only in their future Heaven, but even here in their earthly habitation, and God and His Saints were to have been admiring and applauding spectators!

In the name, then, of our dearest and truest interests, let us give ear to our Apostle and get into us his heavenly enthusiasm. We will understand his exquisite teaching all the better if we read the sequel to the few lines assigned for today’s Epistle. It is but fully carrying out the wishes of the Church when her children, after or before assisting at her liturgical services, take the Sacred Scriptures and read for themselves the continuation of passages which are necessarily abridged during the public celebrations. It were well if they did this all through the Year. What a fund of instruction they would thus acquire! Today, however, there is an additional motive for the suggestion, inasmuch as this second Epistle to the Corinthians is brought before us for the first and only time during this season of the Liturgy.

But, let us examine what is this glory of the New Testament, which so fills the Apostle with ecstasy and, in his mind, almost entirely eclipses the splendour of the Old. Splendour there undoubtedly was in the Sinai covenant. Never had there been such a manifestation of God’s majesty, and omnipotence, and holiness, as on that day when, gathering together at the foot of the Mount, the descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob, He mercifully renewed, with this immense family, the covenant formerly made with their Fathers (Genesis xv. 18) and gave them His Law in the extraordinarily solemn manner described in the book of Exodus. And yet, that Law, engravened as it was on stone by God’s own hand, was not, for all that, in the hearts of the receivers. Neither did its holiness prevent, though it condemned, sin — sin which reigns in man’s heart (Romans vii. 12, 13). Moses, who carried the divine writing, came down from the Mount having the rays of God’s glory blazing on his face (Exodus xxxiv. 29‒35). But i was a glory which was not to be shared in by the people of whom he was the head. It was for himself alone, as was likewise the privilege he had enjoyed of speaking with God face-to-face (Exodus xxiii. 11). It ceased with him, thus signifying by its short duration the character of that ministration which was to cease on the coming of the Messiah, just as the night’s borrowed light vanishes when the day appears. And, as it were the better to show that the time was not as yet come when God would manifest His glory, the children of Israel were not able to gaze steadfastly on the face of Moses so that, when he had to speak to the people, he had need to put on a veil. Though a mere borrowed light, the brightness of Moses’ face represented the glory of the future Covenant, whose splendour was to shine, not, of course, externally, but in the hearts of us all, by giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians iv. 6). Light, living and life-giving, which is none other than the divine Word (John i. 4‒9), the Wisdom of the Father (Wisdom vii. 25, 26), a Light and a Wisdom which the energy of the Sacraments, seconded by contemplation and love, makes to pass from the Humanity of our divine Head to the very recesses of our souls.

We will find our Sunday giving us a second reminder of Moses, but the true and enduring greatness of the Hebrew leader is in what we have been stating. In the same way that Abraham was grander by the spiritual progeny which was the issue of his Faith than he was by the posterity that was his in the flesh, so the glory of Moses consisted, not so much in his having been at the head of the ancient Israelites for forty long years, as in his having represented, in his own person, both the office of the Messiah King and the prerogatives of the new people. The Gentile is set free from the law of fear and sin (Romans viii. 2) by the law of grace, which not only declares justice, but gives it. Tthe Gentile, having been made a son of God (Romans viii. 15), communes with Him in that liberty which comes of the Spirit of love (2 Corinthians iii. 17). But this privileged Gentile has no type which so perfectly represents him in the first Covenant as this the very lawgiver of Israel, this Moses who finds such favour with the Most High as to be admitted to behold His glory (Exodus xxxiii. 17‒19) and converse with Him with all the intimacy of friend to friend (Exodus xxxiii. 11). Whereas God showed Himself to this His servant — as far, that is, as mortal man is capable of such sight (Exodus xxxiii. 20) — and as He was seen by him without the intermediation of figures or images (Numbers xii. 8) — so, when he approached thus to God, Moses took from his face the veil he wore at other times. The Jew persists, even to this very day, in keeping between himself and Christ, this veil which is removed to all the world else (2 Corinthians iii. 14). The Christian, on the contrary, with the holy daring of which the Apostle speaks (2 Corinthians iii. 12), removes all intermediates between God and himself and draws aside the veil of all figures. Beholding the glory of the Lord with face uncovered, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians iii. 8), for we become other christs, and are made like God the Father, as is His Son Christ Jesus.

Thus is fulfilled the will of this Almighty Father for the sanctification of the elect. God sees Himself reflected in these predestined who are become, in the beautiful light divine, conformable to the image of His Son (Romans viii. 29). He could say of each one of them what he spoke at the Jordan and on Thabor: “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew iii. 17; xvii. 5). He makes them His true temple (2 Corinthians vi. 16), verifying the word He spoke of old: “I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you: I will walk among you, and will be your God (Leviticus xxvi. 12). I will bring your seed from the East and gather you from the West. I will say to the North: Give up and to the South: Keep not back! Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the Earth!” (Isaias xliii. 5‒7).

Such are the promises for whose realisation we should, as the Apostle says, be all earnestness in working out our sanctification, by cleansing ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, in the fear of God (2 Corinthians vii. 1) and in His love. Such is that glory of the New Testament, that glory of the Church and of every Christian soul, which so immensely surpasses the glory of the Old and the brightness which lit up the face of Moses. As to our carrying this treasure in frail vessels, we must not on that account lose heart but the rather rejoice in this weakness, which makes God’s power all the more evident. We must take our miseries, and even Death itself, and turn them into profit by giving the stronger manifestation of our Lord Jesus’ life in this mortal flesh of ours. What matters it to our faith and our hope if our outward man is gradually falling to decay, when the inner is being renewed day-by-day? The light and transitory suffering of the present is producing within us an eternal weight of glory. Let us then fix our gaze not on what is seen, but on what is unseen: the visible passes, the invisible is eternal (2 Corinthians iv. 7‒18).

Gospel – Luke x. 23‒27

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them.” And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting Him, and saying, “Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?” But He said to him: “What is written in the law? how do you read it?” He answering, said: “You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind: and your neighbour as yourself.” And He said to him: “You have answered right: this do, and you will live.” But he willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?” And Jesus answering, said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: ‘Take care of him; and whatever you spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay you.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers?” But he said: “He that showed mercy to him.” And Jesus said to him: “Go, and do the same.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Doctor and Apostle of the Gentiles was speaking to us in the Epistle of the glory of the New Testament: He, of whom Paul was but the servant, Jesus, the Man-God, reveals to us in the Gospel the perfection of that Law which He came to give to the world. And as though He would, in a certain way, unite His own divine teachings with those of His Apostle and justify that Apostle’s enthusiasm, it is from the very depth of His own most holy soul and in the Holy Ghost (Luke x. 21‒23) that, having thanked His Eternal Father for these great things, He cries out, turning to His Disciples: “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see!”

The same idea was expressed by the Prince of the Apostolic College when he spoke of the unspeakable and glorious joy (1 Peter i. 8) which resulted from the new Alliance in which figures were to be replaced by realities. In his first Epistle to the elect of the Holy Spirit (1 Peter i.) Peter speaks, in the same strain as his divine Master had done, of the unfulfilled aspirations of the Saints of the Old Testament — these admirable men whom Saint Paul describes (Hebrews xi.) as being so grand in faith, as to be both heroic in combat and sublime in virtue. Saint Peter, then, expresses in inspired language how the elect of the Church of expectation were continually looking forward to the grace of the time that was to come; how they were ever counting the years which were to intervene; how they were carefully searching (scrutinising, as our Vulgate words it) the long ages, to find out when that happy time would be realised, although they were well aware, that the longed-for sight of the mysteries of salvation was never to be theirs, and that their mission was limited to prophesying those future grandeurs to future generations (1 Peter i. 10‒12).

But, who are those Kings spoken of in our Gospel as uniting with the Prophets in the desire to see the things we see? To say nothing of those holy ones who thought less of the throne they sat on, than of the divine Object of the world's expectation, may we not say with the holy Fathers that they well deserved to be called kings, whom Saint Paul describes as, by their faith, conquering kingdoms, vanquishing armies, stopping the mouths of lions, masters of the very elements: what is more, masters of their own selves? Heedless of the mockeries, as well as of the persecutions of the world that was not worthy to possess such men, these champions of the faith were seen wandering in the deserts, sheltering in dens and caves, and yet as happy as kings, because of a certain Object whom they intensely loved and longed to see, and yet whom they knew they were not to see until after their deaths and until tedious ages had run their long course (Hebrews xi. 33‒39). We, then, who are their descendants — we for whom they were obliged to wait in order to enjoy a share of those blessings which their sighs and vehement desires did so much to hasten — do we appreciate the immense favour bestowed on us by our Lord? We, whose virtue scarcely bears comparison with that of the fathers of our faith and who, notwithstanding, by the descent of the Holy Spirit of love, have been more enlightened than ever were the prophets for, by that Holy Spirit we have been put in possession of the mysteries which they only foretold — how is it, that we are so sadly slow to feel the obligation we are under of responding, by holiness of life (1 Peter i. 13‒16) and by an ardent and generous love, to the liberality of that God who has gratuitously called us from darkness to His admirable light? (1 Peter ii. 9)

Having so great a cloud of witnesses over our heads, let us lay aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, and run, by patience, in the fight proposed to us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith who, having joy set before Him, preferred to endure the cross despising the shame, and now sits on the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews xii. 1, 2). We know Him with greater certainty than we do the events which are happening under our eyes for, He Himself, by His Holy Spirit, is ever within us, incorporating His mysteries into us.

The illumination of holy Baptism has produced within our souls that revelation of Christ Jesus which constitutes the basis of the Christian life, and for which the Man-God congratulated His disciples. It was of that revelation or knowledge that He spoke, rather than of the exterior sight of His human nature: a sight, which was common not only to His devoted followers, but to every enemy that chose to stare at Him. The Apostle of the Gentiles makes this very clear when, after the change produced in the Disciples by the Holy Ghost coming upon them, he thus spoke: “If we once knew Christ according to the flesh, now, we know Him so no longer” (2 Corinthians v. 16). It is literally in us, and no longer in the cities of Judea, that the kingdom of God is to be found (Luke xvii. 21). It is faith that shows us the Chris, who is dwelling in our hearts, that He may establish us in charity and grow in us by transforming us into Himself, and fill us with all the fullness of God (Ephesians iii. 16‒19). It is by fixing his eye on the divine image, which silently lights up the soul that has been purified by Baptism, that, as we were just now saying, the inner man is renewed from day-to-day by incessant contemplation and growing love, and persevering and, at last, perfect imitation, of his Creator and Saviour (Colossians iii. 10).

How important, then, that we let the supernatural light have such free scope and expansion within us, that not one of our acts, or thoughts, not even the deepest recess of our hearts, will escape its sovereign influence and guidance! It is on this point that the Holy Ghost works prodigies in faithful souls: the unrestrained development of those His highest Gifts — Understanding and Wisdom — gives such a predominance to the divine light that the brightness of the sun’s rays pales to the eyes of these Saints. Sometimes, even in His omnipotent freedom of breathing when and as He wills, this Holy Spirit waits not for the regular development of those Gifts of His which He bestows on all: the soul, drawn up to heights unreached by the ordinary paths of the Christian life, finds herself plunged in the deepest abyss of Wisdom. There she delightedly imbibes the rays which come to her from the eternal summits and, in their tranquil and radiant simplicity which holds all in itself, she feels that she has the secret of all things. There are moments when, raised up still higher — above the region of the senses or the domain of human reasoning as Saint Denis the Areopagite words it, above all the intelligible — she is permitted to rest her wings on the summit, where dwells the uncreated light in its essence — that thrice holy sanctuary from where it streams down even to the furthest limits of creation, lending something of its divine splendour to every creature. Then is it that mercifully acting on the soul, which cannot yet bear the direct infinite glory, the Blessed Trinity shrouds her in that mysterious darkness of which the Saints speak as belonging to these highest degrees of mystical ascension. The darkness, beyond which is the very God of Majesty (Psalms xvii. 12), is an obscurity which penetrates the soul with higher bliss than does light itself. It is a sacred night whose silence is more eloquent than any sound that this Earth could hear. It is a holy of holies where adoration absorbs the soul: vision is not there, still less is science, and yet it is in this sanctuary that understanding and love, acting together in ineffable unison, take hold of the sublimest mysteries of theology.

It is quite true that such favours as these are imparted to but few, and no man can lay the slightest claim to them, be his virtue ever so great, or his fidelity ever so tried. Neither does perfection depend on them. Faith, which guides the just man, is enough to make him estimate the life of the senses for what it really is: miserable and grovelling. With the aid of ordinary grace he easily lives in that intimate retirement of the soul in which he knows that the holy Trinity resides: he knows it because he has it from the teaching of the Scripture (John xiv. 23). His heart is a kind of Heaven where his life is hidden in God, together with that Jesus upon whom are fixed all his thoughts (Colossians iii. 3): there he gives to his beloved Lord the only proof of love which is to be trusted, the only one that this Lord asks at our hands — the keeping of the commandments (John xiv. 21). In spite of the ardent longings of his hope, he waits patiently and calmly for that final revelation of Christ which on the last day will give him to appear together with Him in glory (Colossians iii. 4), for, as without seeing Him he believes in Him, so, without seeing Him, he knows that he loves Him (1 Peter i. 8). The ever advancing growth in virtue which men observe in such a man is a more unmistakable proof of the power of faith than can be those extraordinary manifestations of which we were just speaking, and in which the soul is so irresistibly subdued that she has scarcely the power to refuse her love.

Hence it is not without a reason and a connection that the Gospel chosen for today passes at once, after the opening verses which we have been commenting, to the new promulgation of the great commandment which includes the whole Law and the Prophets (Matthew xxii. 36‒40). Faith assures man that he may and “must love the Lord his God with his whole heart, and with his whole soul, and his whole strength, and his whole mind, and his neighbour as himself.” In the Homily on the sacred text offered to us by the Church, the interpretation goes not beyond the question proposed by the Jewish lawyer: by this she as good as tells us that the latter portion of the Gospel, though by far the longer, is but the practical conclusion to the former, according to that saying of the Apostle, that “Faith works by charity” (Galatians v. 6). The parable of the good Samaritan, though containing materials for the sublimest symbolic teaching, is spoken here in its literal sense by our Lord for the one purpose of removing the restrictions put by the Jews on the great precept of love. If all perfection be included in love — if, without love, no virtue produces fruit for Heaven — it is important for us to remember that love is not of the right kind unless it include our neighbour. And it is only after stating this particular that Saint Paul affirms that “love fulfils the whole law” (Romans xiii. 8), and that “love is the plenitude of the law” (Romans viii. 10). Thus we find that the greater number of the precepts of the Decalogue are upon our duties to our neighbour (Romans xiii. 9), and we are told that the love we have for God is only then what it ought to be when we not only love Him, but when we also love what He loves, that is, when we love man whom He made to his own likeness (1 John iv. 20).

Hence the apostle Saint Paul does not explicitly distinguish, as the Gospel does, between the two precepts of love, and says: “All the law is fulfilled in one sentence: You must love your neighbour as yourself” (Galatians v. 14). Such being the importance of this love, it is necessary to have a clear understanding as to the meaning and extent of the word neighbour. In the mind of the Jews, it comprised only their own race, and in this they were following the custom of the pagan nations, for whom every stranger was an enemy. But here in our Gospel we have a representative of this Jewish diminished law (Psalms xi. 2) eliciting, from Him who is the author of the law, an answer which declares the precept in all its fullness. This time He does not make His voice be heard amid thunder and fire, as on Mount Sinai. He, as Man living and conversing with men (Baruch iii. 38) reveals to them, and in the most intelligible possible way, the whole import of the eternal commandment which leads to life (Baruch iv. 1). In a parable (in which, as many think, He is relating a fact which has really happened, and is known to those to whom He is addressing it) our Jesus describes how there was a man who went forth from the Holy City, and how he fell in with a Samaritan, that is, with a stranger the most despised and the most disliked of all that an inhabitant of Jerusalem looked on as his enemies (John iv 9). And yet, the shrewd lawyer who questions Jesus and, no doubt, all those who had been listening to the answer, are obliged to own that the neighbour, for the poor fellow who had fallen into the hands of robbers was not so truly the priest, or the levite (though both of them were of his own race) as this stranger, this Samaritan, who forgets all national grudges as soon as he sees a suffering creature, and cannot look on him in any other light than as a fellow-man. Our Jesus made Himself thoroughly understood, and every one present must have well learnt the lesson — that the greatest of all laws, the law of love, admits no exception, either here or in Heaven.

15 AUGUST – THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Today the Virgin Mary ascended to Heaven! Rejoice, for she reigns with Christ forever.” The Church will close her chants on this glorious day with this sweet antiphon which resumes the object of the feast and the spirit in which it should be celebrated.

No other solemnity breathes like this one at once triumph and peace. None better answers to the enthusiasm of the many and the serenity of souls consummated in love. Assuredly that was as great a triumph when our Lord, rising by His own power from the tomb, cast Hell into dismay. But to our souls, so abruptly drawn from the abyss of sorrows on Golgotha, the suddenness of the victory caused a sort of stupor to mingle with the joy of that greatest of days. In presence of the prostrate Angels, the hesitating Apostles, the women seized with fear and trembling, one felt that the divine isolation of the Conqueror of death was perceptible even to his most intimate friends and kept them, like Magdalene, at a distance.

Mary’s death, however, leaves no impression but peace. That death had no other cause than love. Being a mere creature, she could not deliver herself from that claim of the old enemy, but leaving her tomb filled with flowers, she mounts up to Heaven, flowing with delights, leaning upon her Beloved (Canticles viii. 5). Amid the acclamations of the daughters of Sion who will henceforth never cease to call her blessed, she ascends surrounded by choirs of heavenly spirits joyfully praising the Son of God. Nevermore will shadows veil, as they did on Earth, the glory of the most beautiful daughter of Eve. Beyond the immovable Thrones, beyond the dazzling Cherubim, beyond the flaming Seraphim, onward she passes, delighting the heavenly city with her sweet perfumes. She stays not till she reaches the very confines of the Divinity. Close to the throne of honour where her Son, the King of ages, reigns in justice and in power. There she is proclaimed Queen, there she will reign for evermore in mercy and in goodness. Here on earth Libanus and Amana, Sanir and Hermon dispute the honour of having seen her rise to Heaven from their summits. And truly the whole world is but the pedestal of her glory, as the moon is her footstool, the sun her vesture, the stars of heaven her glittering crown. “Daughter of Sion, you are all fair and sweet,” cries the Church as in her rapture she mingles her own tender accents with the songs of triumph: “I saw the beautiful one as a dove rising up from the brooks of waters. In her garments was the most exquisite odour, and as in the days of spring, flowers of roses surrounded her and lilies of the valley” (Canticles v. 12; Ecclesiastes l. 8).

The same freshness breathes from the facts of Bible history in which the interpreters of the sacred Books see the figure of Mary’s triumph. As long as this world lasts, a severe law protects the entrance to the eternal palace. No-one, without having first laid aside the garb of flesh, is admitted to contemplate the King of Heaven. There is one, however, of our lowly race, whom the terrible decree does not touch: the true Esther, in her incredible beauty, advances without hindrance through all the doors. Full of grace, she is worthy of the love of the true Assuerus. But on the way which leads to the awful throne of the King of kings, she walks not alone: two handmaids, one supporting her steps, the other holding up the long folds of her royal robe, accompany her. They are the angelic nature and the human, both equally proud to hail her as their mistress and lady, and both sharing in her glory.

If we go back from the time of captivity when Esther saved her people, to the days of Israel’s greatness, we find our Lady’s entrance into the city of endless peace represented by the Queen of Saba coming to the earthly Jerusalem. While she contemplates with rapture the magnificence of the mighty prince of Sion, the pomp of her own retinue, the incalculable riches of the treasure she brings, her precious stones and her spices, plunge the whole city into admiration. “There was brought no more,” says the Scripture, “such abundance of spices as these which the Queen of Saba gave to King Solomon” (3 Kings x. 10).

The reception given by David’s son to Bethsabee, his mother, in the third Book of Kings, no less happily expresses the mystery of today, so replete with the filial love of the true Solomon. “Then Bethsabee came to King Solomon... and the king arose to meet her, and bowed to her, and sat down on his throne: and a throne was set for the king’s mother: and she sat on his right hand” (3 Kings ii. 19) O Lady, how exceedingly do you surpass all the servants and ministers and friends of God! “On the day when Gabriel came to my lowliness,” are the words Saint Ephrem puts into your mouth, “from handmaid I became Queen. And I, the slave of your divinity, found myself suddenly the mother of your humanity, my Lord and my Son! O Son of the King who has made me his daughter, O you heavenly One, who thus brings into Heaven this daughter of Earth, by what name shall I call you?” The Lord Christ Himself answered. The God made Man revealed to us the only name which fully expresses Him in His two-fold nature: He is called The Son. Son of Man as He is Son of God, on Earth He has only a Mother, as in Heaven He has only a Father. In the august Trinity He proceeds from the Father, remaining consubstantial with Him, only distinguished from Him in that He is Son, producing together with Him, as one Principle, the Holy Ghost. In the external mission He fulfils by the Incarnation to the glory of the Blessed Trinity, communicating to His humanity the manners, so to say, of His Divinity, as far as the diversity of the two natures permits, He is in no way separated from His Mother, and would have her participate even in the giving of the Holy Ghost to every soul. This ineffable union is the foundation of all Mary’s greatnesses, which are crowned by today’s triumph.

The days within the Octave will give us an opportunity of showing some of the consequences of this principle. Today let it suffice to have laid it down. “As Christ is the Lord,” says Arnold of Bonneval, the friend of Saint Bernard, “Mary is Lady and sovereign. He who bends the knee before the Son, kneels before the Mother. At the sound of her name the devils tremble, men rejoice, the Angels glorify God. Mary and Christ are one flesh, one mind, and one love. From the day when it was said, ‘The Lord is with thee,’ the grace was irrevocable, the unity inseparable. And in speaking of the glory of Son and Mother, we must call it not so much a common glory as the self-same glory.” “O you, the beauty and the honour of your Mother,” adds the great deacon of Edessa, “thus have you adorned her in every way. Together with others she is your sister and your bride, but she alone conceived you.” Rupert in his turn cries out: “Come then, O "most beautiful one, you will be crowned in Heaven Queen of saints, on Earth Queen of every kingdom. Wherever it will be said of the Beloved that He is crowned with glory and honour and set over the works of His Father’s hands, everywhere also will they proclaim of you, O well beloved, that you are His Mother, and as such Queen over every domain where His power extends. And therefore emperors and kings will crown you with their crowns and consecrate their palaces to you.”

Among the feasts of the Saints this is the solemnity of solemnities. “Let the mind of man,” says Saint Peter Damian, “be occupied in declaring her magnificence. Let his speech reflect her majesty. May the sovereign of the world deign to accept the good will of our lips, to aid our insufficiency, to illumine with her own light the sublimity of this day.”

It is no new thing, then, that Mary’s triumph fills the hearts of Christians with enthusiasm. Before our times the Church showed by the prescriptions kept in the Corpus juris the pre-eminence she assigned to this glorious anniversary. Thus, under Boniface VIII she granted to it, as to no other feast, except Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, the privilege of being celebrated with ringing of bells and the customary splendour in countries laid under interdict. In his instructions to the newly-converted Bulgarians, Saint Nicholas I who occupied the Apostolic See from 858 to 867, had already united these four solemnities when recommending the fasts of Lent, of the Ember days, and of the Vigils of these feasts: “Fasts,” he says, “which the holy Roman Church has long since received and observed.”

We must refer to the preceding century the composition of the celebrated discourse which, until the time of Saint Pius V, furnished the Lessons for the Matins of the feast, while its thoughts, and even its text are still found in several parts of the Office. The author, worthy of the greatest ages for style and science, but screening himself under a false name, began thus: “You wish me, O Paula and Eustochium, to lay aside my usual form of treatises, and strive (a new thing to me), to celebrate in oratorical style the Assumption of the Blessed Mary ever Virgin.” And the supposed Saint Jerome eloquently declared the grandeur of this feast: “Incomparable as is she who thereon ascended glorious and happy to the sanctuary of Heaven: a solemnity, the admiration of the heavenly hosts, the happiness of the citizens of our true country, who, not content with giving it one day as we do, celebrate it unceasingly in the eternal continuity of their veneration, of their love, and of their triumphant joy.”

Unfortunately a just aversion for the excesses of certain apocryphal writers led the author of this beautiful exposition of the greatness of Mary to hesitate in his belief as to the glorious privilege of her corporal Assumption. This over-discreet prudence was soon exaggerated in the martyrologies of Usuard and of Odo of Vienne. That such a misconception of the ever-growing tradition should be found in Gaul, is truly astonishing, since it was the ancient Gallican liturgy which gave to the West the explicit formula of that complete Assumption, the consequence of a divine and virginal maternity: “No pain in childbirth, no suffering in death, no dissolution in the grave, for no tomb could retain her whom Earth had never sullied.” When the first Carlovingians abandoned the Gallican liturgy, they bowed to the authority of the false Saint Jerome. But the faith of the people could not be suppressed. In the 13th century the two princes of theology, Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure, subscribed to the general belief in our Lady’s anticipated resurrection. Soon this belief, by reason of its universality, claimed to be the doctrine of the Church herself. In 1497 the Sorbonne severely censured all contrary propositions.In 1870 an earnest desire was expressed to have the doctrine defined, but the Vatican Council was unfortunately suspended too soon to complete our Lady’s glorious crown. Yet the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, of which our times can boast, gives us hope for the future. The corporal Assumption of our Lady follows naturally from that dogma as its necessary result. Mary, having known nothing of original sin, contracted no debt with death, the punishment of that sin. She freely chose to die in order to be conformable to her Divine Son and, as the Holy One of God, so the holy one of his Christ, could not suffer the corruption of the tomb.

If certain ancient calendars give to this feast the title of Sleep or Repose, dormitio or pausatio of the Blessed Virgin, we cannot thence conclude that at the time they were composed the feast had no other object than Mary's holy death. The Greeks, from whom we have the expression, have always included in the solemnity the glorious triumph that followed her death. The same is to be said of the Syrians, Chaldeans, Copts and Armenians. Among the last-named, according to the custom of arranging their feasts by the day of the week rather than the date of the month, the Assumption is fixed for the Sunday which occurs between the 12th and 18th August. It is preceded by a week of fasting, and gives its name to the series of Sundays following it, up to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in September.

At Rome the Assumption or Dormitio of the holy Mother of God appears in the seventh century to have already been celebrated for an indefinite length of time. Nor does it seem to have had any other day than the 15th August. According to Nicephorus Callistus, the same date was assigned to it for Constantinople by the Emperor Mauritius at the end of the sixth century. The historian notes, at the same time, the origin of several other solemnities, while of the dormitio alone, he does not say that it was established by Mauritius on such a day. Hence learned authors have concluded that the feast itself already existed before the imperial decree was issued, which was thus only intended to put an end to its being celebrated on various days. At that very time, far away from Byzantium, the Merovingian Franks celebrated the glorification of our Lady on the 18th January, with all the plenitude of doctrine we have mentioned above. However the choice of this day may be accounted for, it is remarkable that to this very time the Copts on the borders of the Nile announce in their synaxaria on the 21st of the month of Tobi, our 28th January, the repose of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and the Assumption of her body into Heaven. They, however, repeat the announcement on the 16th of Mesori, or 21st August, and on the 1st of this same month of Mesori they begin their Lent of the Mother of God, lasting a fortnight like that of the Greeks.

Some authors think that the Assumption has been kept from Apostolic times. But the silence of the primitive liturgical documents is not in favour of the opinion. The hesitation as to the date of its celebration, and the liberty so long allowed with regard to it, point rather to the spontaneous initiative of divers churches, owing to some fact attracting attention to the mystery, or throwing some light upon it. Of this nature we may reckon the account everywhere spread abroad about the year 451, in which Juvenal of Jerusalem related to the empress Saint Pulcheria and her husband Marcian the history of the tomb which was empty of its precious deposit, and which the Apostles had prepared for our Lady at the foot of Mount Olivet. The following words of Saint Andrew of Crete in the seventh century show how the new solemnity gained ground in consequence of such circumstances. The Saint was born at Damascus, became a monk at Jerusalem, was afterwards deacon at Constantinople, and lastly Bishop of the celebrated Island from which he takes his name. No-one then could speak for the East with better authority: “The present solemnity,” he says, “is full of mystery, having for its object to celebrate the day on which the Mother of God fell asleep. This solemnity is too elevated for any discourse to reach. By some this mystery has not always been celebrated, but now, all love and honour it. Silence long preceded speech, but now love divulges the secret. The gift of God must be manifested, not buried. We must show it forth, not as recently discovered, but as having recovered its splendour. Some of those who lived before us knew it but imperfectly: that is no reason for always keeping silence about it. It has not become altogether obscured. Let us proclaim it and keep a feast. Today let the inhabitants of Heaven and of Earth be united, let the joy of Angels and men be one, let every tongue exult and sing Hail to the Mother of God.”

Let us, too, do honour to the gift of God. Let us be grateful to the Church for having given us this feast on which to sing with the Angels the glory of Mary.

“When the time came for the Blessed Mary to leave this earth, the Apostles were gathered together from all lands, and having learnt that the hour was at hand they watched with her. Now the Lord Jesus came with His Angels and received her soul. In the morning the Apostles took up her body and placed it in the tomb. And again the Lord came, and the holy body was taken up in a cloud.” To this testimony of Gregory of Tours the whole West and East respond, extolling “the solemnity of the blessed night on which the venerated Virgin made her entry into Heaven.” “What a brilliant light pierces the darkness” of this night, says Saint John Damascene. And he goes on to describe the assembly of the faithful eagerly pressing during the sacred night to hear the praises of the Mother of God.

How could Rome, so devout to Mary, allow herself to be outdone? On the testimony of Saint Peter Damian, the whole people spent the glorious night in prayer, singing and visiting the different churches. And, according to several privileged persons enlightened from above, still greater, at that blessed hour, was the number of souls delivered from Purgatory by the Queen of the universe, and all visiting likewise the sanctuaries consecrated to her name. But the most imposing of all demonstrations in the city was the memorable litany or procession, which dates back to the Pontificate of Saint Sergius (687‒701). Up to the second half of the sixteenth century it continued to express, as Rome alone knows how to, the august visit our Lady received from her Son at the solemn moment of her departure from this world.

Two principal sanctuaries in the Eternal City represent, as it were, the residences or palaces of Mother and Son: the basilica of our Saviour on the Lateran and that of Saint Mary on the Esquiline. As the latter rejoices in possessing the picture of the Blessed Virgin painted by Saint Luke, the Lateran preserves in a special oratory, holy of holies, the picture not made by hand of man representing the form of our Saviour upon cedar-wood. On the morning of the Vigil the Sovereign Pontiff, accompanied by the Cardinals, went barefoot and, after seven genuflections, uncovered the picture of the Virgin’s Son. In the evening, while the bell of Ara Coeli gave from the Capitol the signal for the preparations prescribed by the city magistrates, the Lord Pope went to Saint Mary Major, where, surrounded by his court, he celebrated First Vespers. At the beginning of the night the Matins with nine Lessons were chanted in the same church. Meanwhile an ever-growing crowd gathers on the piazza of the Lateran, awaiting the Pontiff’s return. From all sides appear the various guilds of the arts and crafts, each led by its own head and taking up its appointed position. Around the picture of the Saviour, within the sanctuary, stand the twelve bearers who form its perpetual guard, all members of the most illustrious families, and near them are the representatives of the senate and of the Roman people. But the signal is given that the papal retinue is re-descending the Esquiline. Instantly lighted torches glitter on all sides, either held in the hand, or carried on the brancards of the corporations. Assisted by the deacons, the Cardinals raise on their shoulders the holy image, which advances under a canopy, escorted in perfect order by the immense multitude. Along the illuminated and decorated streets, amid the singing of Psalms and the sound of instruments, the procession reaches the ancient Triumphal Way, winds round the Colliseum and, passing through the arches of Constantine and Titus, halts for a first Station on the Via Sacra before the church called Saint Mary Minor or Nuova. In this church, while the second Matins with three Lessons are being chanted in honour of the Mother, some priests wash, with scented water in a silver basin, the feet of her Son, our Lord, and then sprinkle the people with the water thus sanctified. Then the venerable picture sets out once more, crosses the Forum amid acclamations, and reaches the church of Saint Adrian, thence returning to mount the slopes of the Esquiline by the streets where lie the churches of that part: Saint Peter-ad-Vincula, Saint Lucy, Saint Martin-on-the-hill, Saint Praxedes, it at last enters the piazza of Saint Mary Major. Then the delight and the applause of the crowd are redoubled. All, men and women, great and little, as we read in a document of 1462, forgetting the fatigue of a whole night spent without sleep, cease not till morning to visit and venerate our Lord and Mary. In this glorious basilica, adorned as a bride, the glorious Office of Lauds celebrates the meeting of the Son and the Mother and their union for all eternity. Striking miracles often showed the divine pleasure in this manifestation of the people’s faith and love. Peter the Venerable and other reliable witnesses mention the prodigy annually renewed of the torches burning throughout the whole night, and being found on the morrow to be of the same weight as on the eve.

In 847, as the procession headed by Saint Leo IV passed by the church of Saint Lucy, a monstrous serpent, which had lived in a cavern hard by to the continual terror of the inhabitants, took to flight and was never seen again. In gratitude for this deliverance an Octave was added to the feast. Four centuries later, in the Pontificate of the heroic Gregory IX, when the sacred cortege stopped according to custom before the church of Saint Mary Nuova, the partisans of the excommunicated Frederick II, occupying the tower of the Frangipani not far off, began to cry out: “Here is the Saviour, let the Emperor come!” when suddenly the tower fell to the ground crushing them under its ruins. But let us return to the great basilica where other recollections invite us. On another night we joy fully celebrated within its walls the birth of our Emmanuel. How ineffable are the divine harmonies! At the same hour, when for the first time Mary had pressed to her heart the infant God in the stable, she herself now awakes in the arms of her well-beloved at the very height of Heaven. The Church, who reads during this month the Books of Divine Wisdom, did well to select for tonight the Canticle of Canticles. The Bishop of Meaux thus describes this death: “The Most Holy Virgin gave up her soul without pain and without violence into the hands of her Son. It was not necessary for her love to exert itself by any extraordinary emotions. As the slightest shock causes the fully ripe fruit to drop down from the tree, so was this blessed soul culled, to be suddenly transported to heaven. Thus the holy Virgin died by a movement of divine love: her soul was carried to heaven on a cloud of sacred desires. Therefore the holy Angels said: ‘Who is she that goes up... as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense?’ (Canticles iii. 6). — a beautiful and excellent comparison admirably explaining the manner of her happy, tranquil death. The fragrant smoke that we see rising up from a composition of perfumes, is not extracted by force, nor propelled by violence: a gentle, tempered heat delicately detaches it and turns it into a subtle vapour which rises of its own accord. Thus was the soul of the holy Virgin separated from her body: the foundations were not shaken by a violent concussion. A divine heat detached it gently from the body and raised it up to its Beloved.”

“For a few hours that sacred body remained in our world, ‘the treasure of the Earth, soon to become the wonder of the heavens.’ Who could tell the sentiments of the august persons gathered by our Lord around His Mother, to render her in His name the last duties? An illustrious witness, Denis of Athens, reminded Timothy, who had been there present with him, of the discourses which, coming from hearts filled with the Holy Ghost, rose up as so many hymns to the Almighty goodness, by which our littleness had been divinised. There was James, the brother of the Lord, and Peter, the leader of the choir, and the Pontiffs of the Sacred College, and all the brethren who had come to contemplate the body which had given us life, and had borne God. Above them all, after the Apostles, did Hierotheus distinguish himself, for being ravished far from earth and from himself, he seemed to all like a divine cantor.

But this assembly of men, in whom reigned the light of God, understood that they must carry out to the end the desires of her, who even in death was still the humblest of creatures. Carried by the Apostles, escorted by the Angels of heaven and the Saints of earth, the virginal body was borne from Sion to the valley of Gethsemani, where so often since that bleeding Agony our Lady had returned either in body or in heart. For a last time Peter 'joining his venerable hands gazed attentively at the almost divine features of the Mother of our Saviour; his glance, full of faith, sought to discover through the shades of death some rays of the glory with which the Queen of Heaven was already shining.” John, her adopted son, cast one long, last, sorrowful look upon the Virgin’s countenance, so calm and so sweet. The tomb was closed. Earth was deprived for ever of the sight of which it was unworthy.

More fortunate than men, the Angels, whose gaze could penetrate the marble monument, watched beside the tomb. They continued their songs until, after three days, the most holy soul of the Mother of God came down to take up her sacred body. Then leaving the grave, they accompanied her to Heaven. Let us too, then, have our hearts on high! Let us today forget our exile to rejoice in Mary’s triumph. And let us learn to follow her by the odour of her sweet perfumes.

Epistle – Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 11‒13, 15‒20

In all things I sought rest, and I will abide in the inheritance of the Lord. Then the creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and he that made me, rested in my tabernacle. And he said to me: Let your dwelling be in Jacob, and your inheritance in Israel, and take root in my elect. And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God his inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints. I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree on mount Sion. I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades, and as a rose plant in Jericho. As a fair olive tree in the plains, and as a plane tree by the water in the streets, was I exalted. I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm: I yielded a sweet odour like the best myrrh.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Epistle we have just read is closely connected with the Gospel that is to follow. The rest that Mary sought is the better part, the repose of the soul in the presence of the Peaceful King. And when a soul is thus full of peace, she forms the choicest part of her Lord’s inheritance. No creature has attained so nearly as our Lady to the eternal, unchangeable peace of the ever-tranquil Trinity. Hence no other has merited to become, in the same degree, the resting-place of God.

A soul occupied by active works cannot attain the perfection or the fruitfulness of one in whom our Lord takes His rest, because she is at rest in Him, for this is the nuptial rest. As the Psalm says: “When the Lord will give sleep to his beloved, then shall their fruit be seen.”

Let us then, who became Mary’s children on the day the Lord first rested in her tabernacle, understand these magnificent expressions of Eternal Wisdom, for they reveal to us the glory of her triumph. The branch that sprang from the stock of Jesse bears the divine Flower on which rests the fullness of the Holy Ghost. But it has taken root also in the elect, into whose branches it passes the heavenly sap, which transforms them and divinises their fruit. These fruits of Jacob and of Israel, i.e., the works of the ordinary Christian life or of the life of perfection, belong therefore to our Blessed Mother. Rightly then does Mary enter today upon her unending rest in the eternal Sion — the true holy city and glorified people — the Lord’s inheritance.

Her power will be established in Jerusalem and the Saints will forever acknowledge that they owe to her the fullness of their perfection. But the plenitude of Mary’s personal merits far surpasses that of all the Saints together. As the cedar of Libanus towers above the flowers of the field, far more does our Lady’s sanctity, next to that of her divine Son, surpass the sanctity of every other creature. The Angelic Doctor says: “The trees to which the Blessed Virgin is compared in this Epistle may be taken to represent the different orders of the blessed. This passage therefore means that Mary has been exalted above the Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and all the Saints, because she possesses all their merits united in her single person.”

Gospel – Luke x. 38‒42

At that time Jesus entered into a certain town: and a certain woman named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord’s feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Who stood and said: “Lord, have you no care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, that she help me.” And the Lord answering, said to her: “Martha, Martha, you are careful, and are troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the best part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

To this Gospel the Roman Liturgy formerly added, as the Greek and the Mozarabic still add, the following verses from another chapter of Saint Luke: “As he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifting up her voice said to Him: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the paps that gave you suck.’ But He said: ‘Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.’” (Luke xi. 27, 28). The words thus added turned the people’s thoughts towards our Lady: still the episode of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of the day remained unexplained. We will use the words of Saint Bruno of Asti to express the reason tradition gives for the choice of this Gospel. “These two women,” he says, “are the leaders of the army of the Church, and all the faithful follow them. Some walk in Martha’s footsteps, others in Mary’s. But no one can reach our heavenly fatherland unless he follows one or the other. Rightly then have our fathers ordained that this Gospel should be read on the principal feast of our Lady, for she is signified by these two sisters. For no other creature combined the privileges of both lives, active and contemplative, as did the Blessed Virgin. Like Martha she received Christ — yes, she did more than Martha, for she received Him not only into her house, but into her womb. She conceived Him, gave Him birth, carried Him in her arms, and ministered to Him more frequently than did Martha. On the other hand, she listened, like Mary, to His words, and kept them for our sake, pondering them in her heart. She contemplated His Humanity and penetrated more deeply than all others into His Divinity. She chose the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

“He,” continues St. Bernard, “whom she received at His entrance into this poor world, receives her today at the gate of the holy City. No spot on Earth so worthy of the Son of God as the Virgin’s womb: no throne in Heaven so lofty as that on which the Son of Mary places her in return. What a reception each gave to the other! It is beyond the power of expression, because beyond the reach of our thought. Who will declare the generation of the Son, and the Assumption of the Mother?”

In honour of both Mother and Son, let us put this Lesson of the Gospel into practice in our lives. When our soul is troubled, like Martha, or distracted with many anxieties, let us always remember, as Mary did, that there is but one thing necessary. Our Lord alone, either in Himself or in His members, should be the one object of our thoughts. Every human thing is of more or less importance in proportion to its relation to God’s glory. We should value everything in this proportion, and then the grace of God which surpasses all understanding will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Today the Church on Earth, represented by Martha, complains that she has been left alone to struggle and labour. But our Lord defends Mary, and confirms her in her choice of the better part. We must not allow anything like regret or envy to cast a shadow over our hearts. Mary has finished her pilgrimage and left our Earth. But now that she has entered into her glory, she still prays for us.

YOU tasted death, O Mary, but that death, like the sleep of Adam at the world’s beginning, was but an ecstasy leading the Bride into the Bridegroom’s presence. As the sleep of the new Adam on the great day of salvation, it called for the awakening of resurrection. In Jesus Christ our entire nature, soul and body, was already reigning in Heaven. But as in the first paradise, so in the presence of the Holy Trinity, it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis ii. 18). Today at the right hand of Jesus appears the new Eve, in all things like her Divine Head in His vesture of glorified Flesh: henceforth nothing is wanting in the eternal Paradise. O Mary, who, according to the expression of your devout servant John Damascene, has made death blessed and happy, detach us from this world where nothing ought now to have a hold on us. We have accompanied you in desire. We have followed you with the eyes of our soul, as far as the limits of our mortality allowed. And now, can we ever again turn our eyes on this world of darkness? O Blessed Virgin, in order to sanctify our exile and help us to rejoin you, bring to our aid the virtues by which, as on wings, you soared to so sublime a height. In us, too, they must reign. In us they must crush the head of the wicked serpent, that one day they may triumph in us. O day of days, when we will behold not only our Redeemer, but also the Queen who stands so close to the Sun of Justice as even to be clothed with it, eclipsing with her brightness all the splendours of the Saints! The Church, it is true, remains to us, O Mary, the Church who is also our Mother, and who continues your struggle against the dragon with its seven hateful heads. But she too sighs for the time when the wings of an eagle will be given her, and she will be permitted to rise like you from the desert and to reach her Spouse. Look upon her passing, like the moon, at your feet, through her laborious phases. Hear the supplications she addresses to you as Mediatrix with the divine Sun: through you may she receive light; through you may she find favour with Him who loved you, and clothed you with glory and crowned you with beauty.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Appia, St. Tharsicius, acolyte. The pagans accosted him as he was carrying the sacrament of Christ’s body, and began to inquire what it was. But he judged it an unworthy thing to cast pearls before swine. They therefore beat him with sticks and stones until he expired. The sacrilegious searchers examined his body but found no vestige of the sacrament of Christ, either in his hands or in his clothes. Christians took up the body of the martyr and buried it reverently in the cemetery of Callistus.

At Tagaste in Africa, St. Alipius, bishop, who was the disciple of blessed Augustine, and the companion of his conversion, his colleague in the pastoral charge, his valiant fellow-soldier in combating heretics, and finally his partner in the glory of heaven.

At Soissons in France, St. Arnulf, bishop and confessor.

At Alba in Hungary, St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians, whose feast is celebrated on the second of September.

At Rome, St. Stanislaus Kostka, a native of Poland, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, who being made perfect in a short space, fulfilled a long time by the angelical innocence of his life. He was inscribed on the list of the saints by Pope Benedict XIII.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 AUGUST – VIGIL OF THE ASSUMPTION

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

What is this aurora before which the brightest constellations pale? Laurence, who has been shining in the August heavens as an incomparable star, is well near eclipsed and becomes but the humble satellite of the Queen of Saints whose triumph is preparing beyond the clouds.

Mary stayed on Earth after her Son’s Ascension in order to give birth to His Church. But she could not remain forever in exile. Yet she was not to take her flight to Heaven until this new fruit of her maternity had acquired the growth and strength which it belongs to a mother to give. How sweet to the Church was this dependence! A privilege given to her members by our Lord in imitation of Himself. As we saw, at Christmas time, the God-Man carried first in the arms of His Mother, gathering His strength and nourishing His life at her virginal breast: so the mystical body of the Man-God, the holy Church, received, in its first years, the same care from Mary, as the divine Child our Emmanuel.

As Joseph heretofore at Nazareth, Peter was now ruling the house of God, but our Lady was nonetheless to the assembly of the faithful the source of life in the spiritual order, as she had been to Jesus in His Humanity. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost and every one of His gifts rested first on her in all fullness. Every grace bestowed on the privileged dwellers in the cenacle was given more eminently and more abundantly to her. “The sobered stream of the river makes the city of God joyful, because first of all the Most High has sanctified His own tabernacle, made her the well of living waters, which run with a strong stream from Libanus.”

Eternal Wisdom herself is compared in the Scripture to overflowing waters. To this day, the voice of her messengers traverses the world, magnificent, as the voice of the Lord over the great waters, as the thunder which reveals His power and majesty: like a new deluge overturning the ramparts of false science, levelling every height raised against God and fertilising the desert. O fountain of the gardens hiding yourself so calm and pure in Sion, the silence which keeps you from the knowledge of the profane, hides from their sullied eyes the source of your wavelets which carry salvation to the farthest limits of the Gentile world. To you, as to the Wisdom sprung from you, is applied the prophetic word: “I have poured out rivers” (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 40). You give to drink to the new-born Church thirsting for the Word. You are, as the Holy Spirit said of Esther, your type: “The little fountain which grew into a river, and was turned into a light, and into the sun, and abounded into many waters” (Esther x. 6). The Apostles, inundated with divine science, recognised in you the richest source, which having once given to the world the Lord God, continued to be the channel of His grace and truth to them.

As a mountain spreads out at its base in proportion to the greatness of its height, the incomparable dignity of Mary rested on her ever growing humility. Nevertheless we must not think that the Mother of the Church was to be nothing more than a silent winner of Heaven’s favours. The time had come for her to communicate to the friends of the Spouse the ineffable secrets known to her virginal soul alone, and as to the public facts of our Saviour’s history, what memory surer or more complete than hers, what deeper understanding of the mysteries of salvation, could furnish the Evangelists with the inspiration and the matter of their sublime narrations? How could the chiefs of the Christian people not consult in every undertaking the heavenly prudence of her whose judgement could never be obscured by the least error, any more than her soul could be tarnished by the least fault? Thus, although her gentle voice was never heard abroad, although she loved to put herself in the shade and take the last place in their assemblies, Mary was truly from that time forward, as the Doctors observe, the scourge of heresy, the mistress of the Apostles and their beloved inspirer. “If,” says Rupert, “the Holy Ghost instructed the Apostles, we must not therefore conclude that they had not recourse to the most sweet teaching of Mary. Yes, rather, her word was to them the word of the Spirit Himself. She completed and confirmed the inspirations received by each one from Him who divides as He wills.” And Saint Ambrose, the illustrious Bishop of Milan, speaking of the privilege of the beloved disciple at the Last Supper, does not hesitate to attribute the greater sublimity of his teachings to his longer and more intimate intercourse with our Lady: “This beloved of the Lord who, resting on His bosom, drank from the depths of Wisdom, I am not astonished that he has explained divine mysteries better than all the others, for the treasure of heavenly secrets hidden in Mary, was ever open to him.”

Happy were the faithful of those days, permitted to contemplate the ark of the covenant in which, better than on tables of stone, dwelt the plenitude of the law of love! At her side the rod of the new Aaron, the sceptre of Simon Peter, kept its vigour and freshness, and under her shadow the true manna of Hheaven was accessible to the elect of this world’s desert. Denis of Athens, Hierotheus, both of whom we will soon see again beside this holy ark, and many others, came to the feet of Mary to rest on their journey, to strengthen their love, to consult the august propitiatory where the divinity had resided. From the lips of the Mother of God they gathered words sweeter than honey, calming their souls, ordering their life, filling their noble minds with the brightness of Heaven. To these privileged ones of the first age might be addressed those words of the Spouse, who in these years was completing His gathering from His chosen garden: “I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatical spices: I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey: I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved” (Canticles v. 1).

No wonder that in Jerusalem, favoured with so august a presence, the first group of faithful rose unanimously above the observance of the precepts to the perfection of the counsels. They persevered in prayer, praising God in gladness and simplicity of heart, having favour with all the people. And they were of one heart and one soul. This happy community could not but be an image of Heaven on Earth, since the Queen of Heaven was a member of it. The example of her life, her all-powerful intercession, her merits more vast than all the united treasures of all created sanctities, was Mary’s contribution to this blessed family where all things were common to all. From the hill of Sion, however, the Church had spread its branches over every mountain and every sea. The vineyard of the Pacific King was extended among all nations. It was time to let it out to the keepers appointed to guard it for the Spouse. It was a solemn moment. A new phase in the history of our salvation was about to begin: “You that dwells in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear your voice” (Canticles viii. 13). The Spouse, the Church on Earth, the Church in Heaven, all were waiting for her, who had tended the vine and strengthened its roots, to utter a word such as that which had heretofore brought down the Spouse to Earth. But today Heaven, not Earth, was to be the gainer. “Flee away, O my beloved” (Canticles viii. 14). It was the voice of Mary about to follow the fragrant footsteps of the Lord her Son, up to the eternal mountains where her own perfumes had preceded her.

Let us enter into the sentiments of the Church, who prepares by the fasting and abstinence of this Vigil to celebrate the triumph of Mary. Man may not venture to join on Earth in the joys of Heaven without first acknowledging that he is a sinner and a debtor to the justice of God.

14 AUGUST – SAINT EUSEBIUS (Priest and Martyr)

 

The priest Eusebius, for the defence of the Catholic faith, was shut up in a room of his own house by the Arian emperor Constantius, where constantly persevering in prayer for seven months, he rested in peace in 357 AD. His body was removed by the priests Gregory and Orosius, and buried in the cemetery of Saint Callistus on the Via Appia.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Dalmatia, St. Ursicius, a martyr, who was beheaded for Christ after suffering various torments, under the emperor Maximian and the governor Aristides.

In Africa, St. Demetrius, martyr.

At Apamea in Syria, St. Marcellus, bishop and martyr, who was killed by exasperated Gentiles for having pulled down a temple of Jupiter.

At Todi, St. Callistus, bishop and martyr.

In the island of Ægina, St. Athanasia, widow, celebrated for monastical observance and the gift of miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

13 AUGUST – SAINTS HIPPOLYTUS AND CASSIAN (Martyrs)

Hippolytus was baptised by the deacon Saint Lawrence. He was tried before Valerian and sentenced to be torn to pieces by wild horses, as in the myth of his namesake, the son Theseus. After Hippolytus, his nurse Concordia and nineteen other Christians were beheaded outside the Porta Tiburtina and were buried in the cemetery of Saint Lawrence. Cassian, a schoolmaster, was denounced as a Christian and condemned by Julian the Apostate to die at the hands of his pupils. They stabbed him to death with their styli. He died at Imola in central Italy in 363 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Not far from the sepulchre of Saint Laurence, on the opposite side of the Via Tiburtina, lies the tomb of Saint Hippolytus, one of the sanctuaries most dear to the Christians in the days of triumph. Prudentius has described the magnificence of the crypt, and the immense concourse attracted to it each year on the Ides of August. Who was this Saint? Of what rank and manner of life? What facts of his history are there to be told, beyond that of his having given his blood for Christ? All these questions have in modern times become the subject of numerous and learned works. He was a martyr, and that is nobility enough to make him glorious in our eyes. Let us honour him then, and together with him another soldier of Christ, Cassian of Imola, whom the Church offers to our homage at the same time. Hippolytus was dragged by wild horses over rocks and briars till his body was all torn: Cassian, who was a schoolmaster, was delivered by the judge to the children he had taught, and died of the thousands of wounds inflicted by their styles. The prince of Christian poets has sung of him as of Hippolytus, describing his combat and his tomb.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Burgos in Spain, the Saints Centolla and Helena, martyrs.

At Constantinople, St. Maximus, a monk, distinguished for learning and for zeal for Catholic truth. Combating valiantly the Monothelites, he had his hands and tongue torn from him by the heretical emperor Constans, and was banished to Chersonesus, where he breathed his last. At this time, two of his disciples, both called Anastasius, and many others endured diverse torments and the hardships of exile.

In Germany, St. Wigbert, priest and confessor.

At Rome, St. John Berchmans, a scholastic of the Society of Jesus, illustrious for his innocence and for his fidelity to the rules of the religious life. He was canonised by Pope Leo XIII.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 AUGUST – SAINT CLARE (Virgin)

Chiara Offreduccio was born in Assisi in 1194 to Favorino Scifi, the Count of Sasso-Rosso who belonged to an ancient Roman family, and Blessed Ortolana who belonged to the noble family of Fiumi. In 1212, at the age of 18, Clare embraced a life of poverty and austerity, joining an order of Benedictine female religious. She was soon joined at the convent of Saint Damian by her sister Agnes, her mother, an aunt and a niece. With Saint Francis who had consecrated her to God, Clare created the Second Order of Saint Francis, the Poor Ladies or Sisters of Saint Clare, who she governed for 42 years with care and prudence, insisting until the end on the full observance of the Rule.

Her own life was a lesson and an example to others, showing all how to live. She subdued her body in order to grow strong in spirit. Her bed was the bare ground or, at times, a few twigs, and for a pillow she used a piece of hardwood. Her dress was a single tunic and a mantle of poor coarse stuff, and she often wore a rough hair-shirt next to her skin. So great was her abstinence that for a long time she took absolutely no bodily nourishment for three days of the week, and on the remaining days restricted herself to so small a quantity of food that the other religious wondered how she was able to live. Before her health gave way, it was her custom to keep two Lents in the year, fasting on bread and water. Moreover, she devoted herself to watching and prayer, and in these exercises especially she would spend whole days and nights. She suffered from frequent and long illnesses, but when she was unable to leave her bed in order to work she would make her sisters raise and prop her up in a sitting position, so that she could work with her hands and thus not be idle even in sickness. She had a very great love of poverty, never deviating from it on account of any necessity, and she firmly refused the possessions offered by Pope Gregory IX for the support of the sisters.

The greatness of Clare’s sanctity was manifested by many different miracles. She restored the power of speech to one of the sisters of her monastery, to another the power of hearing. She healed one of a fever, one of dropsy, one of an ulcer, and many others of various maladies. She cured of insanity a brother of the Order of Friars Minor. Once when all the oil in the monastery was spent, Clare took a vessel and washed it, and it was found filled with oil by the loving kindness of God. She multiplied half a loaf so that it sufficed for 50 sisters. When the Saracens attacked Assisi and attempted to break into Clare’s monastery, though sick at the time, she had herself carried to the gate, and also the vessel which contained the most Holy Eucharist, and there she prayed, saying: “O Lord, deliver not to beasts the souls of them that praise you, but preserve your handmaids whom you have redeemed with your Precious Blood.” Whereupon a voice was heard saying: “I will always preserve you.” Some of the Saracens fled and others who had already scaled the walls were struck blind and fell down headlong.

Clare survived Saint Francis. When she was dying she was visited by a white-robed multitude of blessed virgins, among whom was one nobler and more resplendent than the rest. Having received the Holy Eucharist and a Plenary Indulgence from Pope Innocent IV, she died on the day before the Ides of August in 1253. After her death she became celebrated by numbers of miracles, and Pope Alexander IV enrolled her among the holy virgins in 1255.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The same year in which Saint Dominic, before making any project with regard to his sons, founded the first establishment of the Sisters of his Order, the companion destined for him by Heaven received his mission from the Crucifix in the church of Saint Damian in these words: “Go, Francis, repair my house which is falling into ruin.” The new patriarch inaugurated his work, as Dominic had done, by preparing a dwelling for his future daughters whose sacrifice might obtain every grace for the great Order he was about to found. The house of the Poor Ladies occupied the thoughts of the Seraph of Assisi even before Santa Maria della Portiuncula, the cradle of the Friars Minor. Thus, for a second time this month, Eternal Wisdom shows us that the fruit of salvation, though it may seem to proceed from the word and from action, springs first from silent contemplation.

Clare was to Francis the help like himself, who begot to the Lord that multitude of heroic virgins and illustrious penitents soon reckoned by the Order in all lands, coming from the humblest condition and from the steps of the throne. In the new chivalry of Christ, Poverty, the chosen Lady of Saint Francis, was to be the queen also of her whom God had given him as a rival and a daughter. Following to the utmost limits the Man-God humbled and stripped of all things for us, she nevertheless felt that she and her sisters were already queens in the kingdom of Heaven: “In the little nest of poverty,” she used lovingly to say, “what jewel could the bride esteem so much as conformity with a God possessing nothing, become a little one whom the poorest of mothers wrapped in humble swathing bands and laid in a narrow crib?” And she bravely defended against the highest authorities the privilege of absolute poverty which the great Pope Innocent III feared to grant. Its definitive confirmation obtained two days before the Saint’s death came as the long-desired reward of forty years of prayer and suffering for the Church of God.

This noble daughter of Assisi had justified the prophecy by which 60 years previously her mother Hortulana had learnt that the child would enlighten the world. The choice of the name given her at her birth had been well inspired. “Oh how powerful was the virgin’s light,” said the sovereign Pontiff in the Bull of her Canonisation, “how penetrating were her rays! She hid herself in the depth of the cloister, and her brightness transpiring filled the house of God.” From her poor solitude which she never quitted, the very name of Clare seemed to carry grace and light everywhere, and made far-off cities yield fruit to God and to her father, Saint Francis.

Embracing the whole world where her virginal family was being multiplied, her motherly heart overflowed with affection for the daughters she had never seen. Let those who think that austerity embraced for God’s sake dries up the soul read these lines from her correspondence with Blessed Agnes of Bohemia. Agnes, daughter of Ottacar I, had rejected the offer of an imperial marriage to take the religious Habit, and was renewing at Prague the wonders of Saint Damian’s. “O my mother and my daughter,” said our Saint, “if I have not written to you as often as my soul and yours would wish, be not surprised: as your mother’s heart loved you, so do I cherish you. But messengers are scarce, and the roads full of danger. As an opportunity offers today, I am full of gladness, and I rejoice with you in the joy of the Holy Ghost. As the first Agnes united herself to the immaculate Lamb, so it is given to you, O fortunate one, to enjoy this union (the wonder of Heaven) with Him, the desire of whom ravishes every soul, whose goodness is all sweetness, whose vision is beatitude, who is the light of the eternal light, the mirror without spot! Look at yourself in this mirror, O queen! O bride! Unceasingly by its reflection enhance your charms. Without and within adorn yourself with virtues. Clothe yourself as beseems the daughter and the spouse of the supreme King. O beloved, with your eyes on this mirror, what delight it will be given you to enjoy in the divine grace!.. Remember, however, your poor Mother, and know that for my part your blessed memory is forever engraved on my heart.”

Not only did the Franciscan family benefit by a charity which extended to all the worthy interests of this world: Assisi, delivered from the lieutenants of the excommunicated Frederick II and from the Saracen horde in his pay, understood how a holy woman is a safeguard to her earthly city. But our Lord loved especially to make the princes of holy Church and the Vicar of Christ experience the humble power, the mysterious ascendency, with which He had endowed His chosen one. Saint Francis himself, the first of all, had in one of those critical moments known to the Saints, sought from her direction and light for his seraphic soul. From the ancients of Israel there came to this virgin not yet 30 years old such messages as this: “To his very dear Sister in Jesus Christ, to His mother, the Lady Clare handmaid of Christ, Hugolin of Ostia, unworthy bishop and sinner. Ever since the hour when I had to deprive myself of your holy conversation, to snatch myself from that heavenly joy, such bitterness of heart causes my tears to flow that if I did not find at the feet of Jesus the consolation which His love never refuses, my mind would fail and my soul would melt away. Where is the glorious joy of that Easter spent in your company and that of the other handmaids of Christ?.. I knew that I was a sinner, but at the remembrance of your super-eminent virtue, my misery overpowers me and I believe myself unworthy ever to enjoy again that conversation of the Saints, unless your tears and prayers obtain pardon for my sins. I put my soul, then, into your hands. To you I entrust my mind that you may answer for me on the day of judgement. The Lord Pope will soon be going to Assisi. O that I may accompany him and see you once more! Salute my sister Agnes (i.e. Saint Clare’s own sister and first daughter in God). Salute all your sisters in Christ.”

The great Cardinal Hugolin, though more than 80 years of age, became soon after Gregory IX. During his 14 years pontificate, which was one of the most brilliant as well as most laborious of the thirteenth century, he was always soliciting Clare’s interest in the perils of the Church, and the immense cares which threatened to crush his weakness. For, says the contemporaneous historian of our Saint: “He knew very well what love can do, and that virgins have free access to the sacred court: for what could the King of Heaven refuse to those to whom He has given Himself?” At length her exile, which had been prolonged 27 years after the death of Francis, was about to close. Her daughters beheld wings of fire over her head and covering her shoulders, indicating that she too had reached seraphic perfection. On hearing that a loss which so concerned the whole Church was imminent, Pope Innocent IV came from Perugia with the Cardinals of his suite. He imposed a last trial on the Saint’s humility by commanding her to bless, in his presence, the bread which had been presented for the blessing of the sovereign Pontiff. Heaven approved the invitation of the Pontiff and the obedience of the Saint, for no sooner had the virgin blessed the loaves than each was found to be marked with a cross. A prediction that Clare was not to die without receiving a visit from the Lord surrounded by His disciples was now fulfilled. The Vicar of Jesus Christ presided at the solemn funeral rites paid by Assisi to her who was its second glory before God and men. When they were beginning the usual chants for the dead, Innocent would have had them substitute the Office for holy Virgins, but on being advised that such a canonisation, before the body was interred, would be considered premature, the Pontiff allowed them to continue the accustomed chants. The insertion, however, of the Virgin’s name in the catalogue of the Saints was only deferred for two years.

O CLARE, the reflection of the Spouse which adorns the Church in this world no longer suffices you. You now behold the light with open face. The brightness of the Lord plays with delight in the pure crystal of your soul, increasing the happiness of Heaven and giving joy this day to our valley of exile. Heavenly beacon, with your gentle shining enlighten our darkness. May we, like you, by purity of heart, by uprightness of thought, by simplicity of gaze, fix on ourselves the divine ray which flickers in a wavering soul, is dimmed by our waywardness, is interrupted or put out by a double life divided between God and the world. Your life, O Virgin, was never thus divided. The most high poverty which was your mistress and guide preserved your mind from that bewitching of vanity which takes off the bloom of all true goods for us mortals. Detachment from all passing things kept your eye fixed on eternal realities. It opened your soul to that seraphic ardour in which you emulated your father Francis. Like the Seraphim, whose gaze is ever fixed on God, you had immense influence over the Earth, and Saint Damian’s, during your lifetime, was a source of strength to the world. Deign to continue giving us your aid. Multiply your daughters. Keep them faithful in following their Mother’s example, so as to be a strong support to the Church. May the various branches of the Franciscan family be ever fostered by your rays, and may all Religious Orders be enlightened by your gentle brightness. Shine on us all, O Clare, and show us the worth of this transitory life and of that which never ends.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Catania in Sicily, the birthday of St. Euplius, deacon, under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. He was a long time tortured for the confession of the Lord, and finally obtained the palm of martyrdom by being put to the sword.

At Augsburg, St. Hilaria, mother of the blessed martyr Afra. Because she watched at the sepulchre of her daughter, she was cast into the fire for the faith of Christ, together with her maid-servants Digna, Euprepia and Eunomia.

On the same day there suffered also in that city Quiriacus, Largius, Crescentian, Nimmia and Juliana, with twenty others.

In Syria, the holy martyrs Macarius and Julian.

At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs, the count Anicetus and his brother Photinus, with many others, under the emperor Diocletian.

At Faleria in Tuscany, the Saints Gracilian, and Felicissima, virgin, who, for the confession of the faith, had their mouths bruised with stones, and being afterwards struck with the sword, received the palm of martyrdom.

The same day, the holy martyrs Porcarius, abbot of the monastery of Lerins, and five hundred monks, who were slain for the Catholic faith by barbarians, and were thus crowned with martyrdom.

At Milan, the demise of St. Eusebius, bishop and confessor.

At Brescia, St. Herculanus, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.