19 JULY – SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL (Confessor)

Vincent was born at Pouy (near Dax in Aquitaine) in France, to a peasant family in 1580. From his youth he was remarkable for his exceeding charity towards the poor. As a child he fed his father’s flock, but afterwards he studied the humanities at Dax, and divinity first at Toulouse, then at Saragossa. Having been ordained a priest in 1600, he took his degree as Bachelor of Theology, but falling into the hands of Turkish pirates in 1605, he was led captive by them to Tunis. While in captivity he won his master back to Christ by the help of the Mother of God, and escaped together with him, and undertook a journey to the shrines of the Apostles. On his return to France he governed in a most saintly manner the parishes first of Clichy and then of Chatillon. The king next appointed him Chaplain of the French galleys, and marvellous was his zeal in striving for the salvation of both officers and convicts. Saint Francis of Sales gave him as superior to his nuns of the Visitation, whom he ruled for forty years with such prudence as to amply justify the opinion the holy Bishop had expressed of him, that Vincent was the most worthy priest he knew.

He devoted himself with unwearying zeal, even in extreme old age, to preaching to the poor, especially to country people, and to this Apostolic work he bound both himself and the members of the Congregation which he founded, the Secular Priests of the Mission, by a special vow which the Holy See confirmed. He laboured greatly in promoting regular discipline among the clergy, as is proved by the seminaries for clerics which he built, and by the establishment, through his care, of frequent Conferences for priests, and of exercises preparatory to Holy Orders. It was his wish that the houses of his institution should always lend themselves to these good works, as also to the giving of pious retreats for laymen. Moreover, with the object of extending the reign of faith and love, he sent evangelical labourers not only into the French provinces, but also into Italy, Poland, Scotland, Ireland, and even to Barbary and to the Indies. On the demise of King Louis XIII, whom he had assisted on his death bed, he was made a member of the Council of conscience by Queen Anne of Austria, the mother of King Louis XIV. In this capacity he was most careful that only worthy men should be appointed to ecclesiastical and monastic benefices, and strove to put an end to civil discord and duels, and to the errors then creeping in, which had alarmed him as soon as he knew of their existence. Moreover, he endeavoured to enforce upon all a due obedience to the judgements of the Apostolic See.

Vincent’s paternal love brought relief to every kind of misfortune. The faithful groaning under the Turkish yoke, destitute children, incorrigible young men, virgins exposed to danger, nuns driven from their monasteries, fallen women, convicts, sick strangers, invalided workmen, even madmen, and innumerable beggars. All these he aided and received with tender charity into his hospitable institutions which still exist. When Lorraine, Campania, Picardy and other districts were devastated by pestilence, famine and war, he supplied their necessities with open hand. He founded other associations for seeking out and aiding the unfortunate, among others the celebrated Society of Ladies, and the now widespread institution of the Sisters of Charity. To him also is due the foundation of the Daughters of the Cross, of Providence, and of Saint Genevieve, who are devoted to the education of girls. Amid all these and other important undertakings his heart was always fixed on God. He was affable to everyone, and always true to himself, simple, upright, humble. He ever shunned riches and honours, and was heard to say that nothing gave him any pleasure except in Christ Jesus, whom he strove to imitate in all things.

Vincent died in Paris, at Saint Lazare, the mother-house of the Congregation of the Mismoniales, in 1660 and was canonised by Pope Clement in 1737. Saint Vincent is the patron of charitable organisations.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Vincent was a man of faith that “works by charity” (Galatians v. 6). At the time he came into the world, viz., at the close of the same century in which Calvin was born, the Church was mourning over many nations separated from the faith, and the Turks were harassing all the coasts of the Mediterranean. France, worn out by forty years of religious strife, was shaking off the yoke of heresy from within, while by a foolish stroke of policy she gave it external liberty. The Eastern and Northern frontiers were suffering the most terrible devastations, and the West and centre were the scene of civil strife and anarchy. In this state of confusion the condition of souls was still more lamentable. In the towns alone was there any sort of quiet, any possibility of prayer. The country people, forgotten, sacrificed, subject to the utmost miseries, had none to support and direct them but a clergy too often abandoned by their bishops, unworthy of the ministry, and well-near as ignorant as their flocks. Vincent was raised up by the Holy Spirit to obviate all these evils. The world admires the works of the humble shepherd of Buglose, but it knows not the secret of their vitality. Philanthropy would imitate them, but its establishments of today are destroyed tomorrow like castles built by children in the sand, while the institution it would fain supersede remains strong and unchanged, the only one capable of meeting the necessities of suffering humanity. The reason of this is not far to seek: faith alone can understand the mystery of suffering, having penetrated its secret in the Passion of our Lord. And charity that would be stable must be founded on faith.

Vincent loved the poor because he loved the God whom his faith beheld in them. “O God!” he used to say, “it does us good to see the poor, if we look at them in the light of God, and think of the high esteem in which Jesus Christ holds them. Often enough they have scarcely the appearance or the intelligence of reasonable beings, so rude and so earthly are they. But look at them by the light of faith, and you will see that they represent the Son of God, who chose to be poor. He in His Passion bad scarcely the appearance of a man. He seemed to the Gentiles to be a fool, and to the Jews a stumbling-block, moreover he calls Himself the evangelist of the poor: evangelizare pauperibus misit me” (Luke iv. 18). This title of evangelist of the poor, is the one that Vincent ambitioned for himself, the starting point and the explanation of all that he did in the Church. His one aim was to labour for the poor and the outcast. All the rest, he said, was but secondary. And he added, speaking to his sons of Saint Lazare: “We should never have laboured for the candidates for priesthood, nor in the ecclesiastical seminaries, had we not deemed it necessary in order to keep the people in good condition, to preserve in them the fruits of the missions, and to procure them good priests.”

That he might be able to consolidate his work in all its aspects, our Lord inspired Ann of Austria to make him a member of the Council of Conscience, and to place in his hands the office of extirpating the abuses among the higher clergy and of appointing pastors to the churches of France. We cannot here relate the history of a man in whom universal charity was, as it were, personified. But from the bagnio of Tunis where he was a slave, to the ruined provinces for which he found millions of money, all the labours he underwent for the relief of every physical suffering, were inspired by his zeal for the apostolate: by caring for the body, he strove to reach and succour the soul. At a time when men rejected the Gospel while striving to retain its benefits, certain wise men attributed Vincent’s charity to philosophy. Nowadays they go further still, and in order logically to deny the author of the works, they deny the works themselves. But if any there be who still hold the former opinion, let them listen to his own words, and then judge of his principles: “What is done for charity’s sake, is done for God. It is not enough for us that we love God ourselves. Our neighbour also must love Him. Neither can we love our neighbour as ourselves unless we procure for him the good we are bound to desire for ourselves, viz.: divine love, which unites us to our Sovereign Good. We must love our neighbour as the image of God and the object of His love, and must try to make men love their Creator in return, and love one another also with mutual charity for the love of God, who so loved them as to deliver His own Son to death for them. But let us, I beg of you, look on this Divine Saviour as a perfect pattern of the charity we must bear to our neighbour.”

The theophilanthropy of a century ago had no more right than had an atheist or a deist philosophy to rank Vincent, as it did, among the great men of its Calendar. Not nature, nor the pretended divinities of false science, but the God of Christians, the God who became Man to save us by taking our miseries on Himself, was the sole inspirer of the greatest modern benefactor of the human race, whose favourite saying was: “Nothing pleases me except in Jesus Christ.” He observed the right order of charity, striving for the reign of is Divine Master, first in his own soul, then in others. And far from acting of his own accord by the dictates of reason alone, he would rather have remained hidden forever in the face of the Lord, and have left but an unknown name behind him. “Let us honour,” he wrote, “the hidden state of the Son of God. There is our centre: there is what He requires of us for the present, for the future, forever, unless His Divine Majesty makes known in His own unmistakable way that He demands something else of us. Let us especially honour this Divine Master’s moderation in action. He would not always do all that He could do, in order to teach us to be satisfied when it is not expedient to do all that we are able, but only as much as is seasonable to charity and conformable to the Will of God. How royally do those honour our Lord who follow His holy Providence and do not try to be beforehand with it! Do you not, and rightly, wish your servant to do nothing without your orders? And if this is reasonable between man and man, how much more so between the Creator and the creature!”

Vincent then was anxious, according to his own expression, to “keep alongside of Providence,” and not to outstep it. Thus he waited seven years before accepting the offers of the General de Gondi’s wife, and founding his establishment of the Missions. Thus, too, when his faithful coadjutrix, Mademoiselle Le Gras, felt called to devote herself to the spiritual service of the Daughters of Charity, then living without any bond or common life, as simple assistants to the ladies of quality whom the man of God assembled in his Confraternities, he first tried her for a very long time. “As to this occupation,” he wrote in answer to her repeated petitions, “I beg of you, once for all, not to think of it until our Lord makes known His Will. You wish to become the servant of these poor girls, and God wants you to be His servant. For God’s sake, Mademoiselle, let your heart imitate the tranquillity of our Lord’s heart, and then it will be fit to serve Him. The Kingdom of God is peace in the Holy Ghost. He will reign in you if you are in peace. Be so then, if you please, and do honour to the God of peace and love.”

What a lesson given to the feverish zeal of an age like ours, by a man whose life was so full! How often in what we can call good works do human pretensions sterilise grace by contradicting the Holy Ghost! Whereas, Vincent de Paul, who considered himself “a poor worm creeping on the earth, not knowing where he goes, but only seeking to be hidden in you, my God, who are all his desire,” the humble Vincent saw his work prosper far more than a thousand others, and almost without his being aware of it. Towards the end of his long life he said to his daughters: “It is Divine Providence that set your Congregation on its present footing. Who else was it, I ask you? I can find no other. We never had such an intention. I was thinking of it only yesterday, and I said to myself: Is it you who had the thought of founding a Congregation of Daughters of Charity? Oh! certainly not. It is Mademoiselle De Gras? Not at all. O my daughters, I never thought of it, your ‘soeur servante’never thought of it, neither did M. Portail (Vincent’s first and most faithful companion in the Mission). Then it is God who thought of it for you. Him therefore we must call the Founder of your Congregation, for truly we cannot recognise any other.”

Although with delicate docility, Vincent could no more forestall the action of God than an instrument the hand that uses it: nevertheless, once the Divine impulse was given, he could not endure the least delay in following it, nor suffer any other sentiment in his soul but the most absolute confidence. He wrote again, with his charming simplicity, to the helpmate given him by God: “You are always giving way a little to human feelings, thinking that everything is going to ruin as soon as you see me ill. O woman of little faith, why have you not more confidence, and more submission to the guidance and example of Jesus Christ? This Saviour of the world entrusted the well-being of the whole Church to God His Father, and you, for a handful of young women, evidently raised up and gathered together by His Providence, you fear that He will fail you! Come, come, Mademoiselle, you must humble yourself before God.”

No wonder that faith, the only possible guide of such a life, the imperishable foundation of all that he was for his neighbour and in himself, was, in the eyes of Vincent de Paul the greatest of treasures. He who compassionated every suffering, even though well deserved, who, by an heroic fraud, took the place of a galley-slave in chains, was a pitiless foe to heresy, and could not rest till he had obtained either the banishment or the chastisement of its votaries. Clement XII in the Bull of Canonisation bears witness to this in speaking of the pernicious error of Jansenism, which our Saint was one of the first to denounce and prosecute. Never, perhaps, were these words of Holy Writ better verified: “The simplicity of the just will guide them: and the deceitfulness of the wicked will destroy them” (Proverbs xi. 3). Though this sect expressed later on a supreme disdain for Monsieur Vincent, it had not always been of that mind. “I am,” he said to a friend, “most particularly obliged to bless and thank God, for not having suffered the first and principal professors of that doctrine, men of my acquaintance and friendship, to be able to draw me to their opinions. I cannot tell you what pains they took, and what reasons they propounded to me. I objected to them, amongst other things, the authority of the Council of Trent, which is clearly opposed to them. And seeing that they still continued, I, instead of answering them, quietly recited my Credo, and that is how I have remained firm in the Catholic faith.”

HOW full a sheaf you bear, O Vincent, as you ascend laden with blessings from Earth to your true country! O you, the most simple of men, though living in an age of splendours, your renown far surpasses the brilliant reputation which fascinated your contemporaries. The true glory of that century, and the only one that will remain to it when time will be no more, is to have seen, in its earlier part, Saints powerful alike in faith and love, stemming the tide of Satan’s conquests, and restoring to the soil of France, made barren by heresy, the fruitfulness of its brightest days. And now, [three] centuries and more after your labours, the work of the harvest is still being carried on by your sons and daughters, aided by new assistants who also acknowledge you for their inspirer and father. You are now in the kingdom of Heaven where grief and tears are no more, yet day-by-day you still receive the grateful thanks of the suffering and the sorrowful.

Reward our confidence in you by fresh benefits. No name so much as your inspires respect for the Church in our days of blasphemy. And yet those who deny Christ now go so far as to endeavour to stifle the testimony which the poor have always rendered to Him on your account. Wield, against these ministers of Hell, the two-edged sword, where with it is given to the Saints to avenge God in the midst of the nations: treat them as you did the heretics of your day. Make them either deserve pardon or suffer punishment, be converted or be reduced by Heaven to the impossibility of doing harm. Above all, take care of the unhappy beings whom these Satanic men deprive of spiritual help in their last moments. Elevate your daughters to the high level required by the present sad circumstances, when men would have their devotedness to deny its Divine origin and cast off the guise of religion. If the enemies of the poor man can snatch from his deathbed the sacred sign of salvation, no rule, no law, no power of this world or the next, can cast out Jesus from the soul of the Sister of Charity, or prevent His name from passing from her heart to her lips: neither death nor Hell, neither fire nor flood can stay him, says the Canticle of Canticles.

Your sons, too, are carrying on your work of evangelisation. And even in our days their apostolate is crowned with the diadem of sanctity and martyrdom. Uphold their zeal. Develop in them your own spirit of unchanging devotedness to the Church and submission to the supreme Pastor. Forward all the new works of charity springing out of your own, and placed by Rome to your credit and under your patronage. May they gather their heat from the Divine fire which you rekindled on the Earth. May they ever seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, never deviating, in the choice of means, from the principle you laid down for them of “judging, speaking, and acting, exactly as the Eternal Wisdom of God, clothed in our weak flesh, judged, spoke and acted.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of St. Epaphras, whom the blessed Apostle St. Paul calls his fellow-prisoner. By the same Apostle he was consecrated bishop of Colossse, where becoming renowned for his virtues, he received the palm of martyrdom for defending courageously the flock committed to his charge. His body lies at Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

At Seville in Spain, the martyrdom of the holy virgins Justa and Rufina. Arrested by the governor Diogenian, they were stretched on the rack and lacerated with iron claws, then imprisoned, and subjected to starvation and various tortures. Lastly Justa breathed her last in prison, and Rufina had her neck broken while confessing Christ.

At Cordova, St. Aurea, virgin, who repented of a fault she had committed, and in a second combat overcame the enemy by the shedding of her blood.

At Treves, St. Martin, bishop and martyr.

At Rome, Pope St. Symmachus, who for a long time had much to bear from a faction of schismatics. At last, distinguished by holiness, he went to God.

At Verona, St. Felix, bishop.

At Scete, a mountain in Egypt, St. Arsenius, a deacon of the Roman church. In the time of Theodosius he retired into a wilderness, where, endowed with every virtue and shedding continual tears, he yielded his soul to God.

In Cappadocia, the holy virgin Marcina, sister of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

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

Thanks be to God.

18 JULY – SAINT CAMILLUS OF LELLIS (Confessor)

Camillus was born at Bacchianico in the Abruzzi in 1550. He was descended from the noble family of the Lellis, and his mother was 60 years old at the time of his birth. While she was pregnant with him, she dreamt that she gave birth to a little boy who was signed on the breast with the cross and was the leader of a band of children wearing the same sign. In his youth Camillus became a soldier, first of the Republic of Venice, and later of the Kingdom of Naples. During his time in the military he became addicted to gambling and was reduced to destitution. At the age of 26 he was enlightened by heavenly grace and seized with so great a sorrow for having offended God that, on the spot he shed a flood of tears, and firmly resolved unceasingly to wash away the stains of his past life and put on the new man. Therefore on the very day of his conversion, which was the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he hastened to the Friars Minors Capuchins, and begged to be admitted into their Order. His request was granted on this and on a subsequent occasion, but each time a horrible ulcer, from which he had suffered before, broke out again on his leg. He twice laid aside the Franciscan habit, which he had twice asked for and obtained. He set out for Rome and was received into the Hospital of the Incurables, finding his vocation in serving the sick.

His virtues became so well known that the management of the institution was entrusted to him and he discharged it with the greatest integrity and a truly paternal solicitude. He esteemed himself the servant of all the sick, and was accustomed to make their beds, wash them, heal their sores and aid them in their last agony with his prayers and pious exhortations. In discharging these offices he gave striking proofs of his wonderful patience, unconquered fortitude and heroic charity. But when he perceived how great an advantage the knowledge of letters would be to him in assisting those in danger of death, to whose service he had devoted his life, he was not ashamed at the age of 32 to return to school and to learn the first elements of grammar among children. Camillus decided to become a priest and was ordained by the last of the English bishops, Thomas Goldwell of Saint Asaph. Camillus founded the Congregation of Regular Clerks, Servants of the sick. In this work he was wonderfully strengthened by a heavenly voice coming from an image of Christ crucified, which, by an admirable miracle loosing the hands from the wood, stretched them out towards him. He obtained the approbation of his Order from the Apostolic See. Its members bind them selves by a fourth and very arduous vow to minister to the sick, even those infected with the plague.

Saint Philip Neri, who was his Confessor, attested how pleasing this institution was to God, and how greatly it attributed towards the salvation of souls, for he declared that he often saw Angels suggesting words to disciples of Camillus, when they were assisting those in their agony. When he had thus bound himself more strictly than before to the service of the sick, Camillus devoted himself with marvellous ardour to watching over their interests, by night and by day, till his last breath. No labour could tire him, no peril of his life could frighten him. He became all to all, and claimed for himself the lowest offices, which he discharged promptly and joyfully, in the humblest manner, often on bended knees, as though he saw Christ Himself present in the sick. In order to be more at the command of all in need, he laid aside the general government of the Order and deprived himself of the heavenly delights with which he was inundated during contemplation. His fatherly love for the unfortunate shone out with greatest brilliancy when Rome was suffering first from a contagious distemper, and then from a great scarcity of provisions, and also when a dreadful plague was ravaging Nola in Campania.

Camillus was consumed with so great a love of God and his neighbour that he was called an Angel, and merited to be helped by the Angels in different dangers which threatened him on his journeys. He was endowed with the gift of prophecy and the grace of healing, and he could read the secrets of hearts. By his prayers he at one time multiplied food, and at another changed water into wine. At length, worn out by watching, fasting and ceaseless labour, he seemed to be nothing but skin and bones. He endured courageously five long and troublesome sicknesses, which he used to call the “Mercies of the Lord,” and strengthened by the Sacraments with the sweet names of Jesus and Mary on his lips, he fell asleep in our Lord, while these words were being said: “May Christ Jesus appear to you with a sweet and gracious countenance.” He died at Rome, at the hour he had foretold, on the day before the Ides of July, 1614, the sixty-fifth of his age. He was made illustrious by many miracles, and Pope Benedict XIV canonised him in 1746. Pope Leo XIII, at the desire of the Bishops of the Catholic world, and with the advice of the Congregation of Rites, declared him the heavenly Patron of all nurses and of the sick in all places, and ordered his name to be invoked in the Litanies for the Agonising.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Holy Spirit, who desires to raise our souls above this Earth, does not therefore despise our bodies. The whole man is His creature and His temple, and it is the whole man He must lead to eternal happiness. The Body of the Man-God was His masterpiece in material creation. The Divine delight He takes in that perfect Body He extends in a measure to ours, for that same Body, framed by Him in the womb of the most pure Virgin, was from the very beginning the model on which ours are formed. In the re-creation which followed the Fall, the Body of the Man-God was the means of the world’s redemption, and the economy of our salvation requires that the virtue of His saving Blood should not reach the soul except through the body, the Divine Sacraments being all applied to the soul through the medium of the senses. Admirable is the harmony of nature and grace. The latter so honours the material part of our being, that she will not draw the soul without it to the light and to Heaven. For in the unfathomable mystery of sanctification the senses do not merely serve as a passage. They themselves experience the power of the Sacraments, like the higher faculties of which they are the channels, and the sanctified soul finds the humble companion of her pilgrimage already associated with her in the dignity of Divine adoption which will cause the glorification of our bodies after the resurrection. Hence the care given to the very body of our neighbour is raised to the nobleness of holy charity, for being inspired by this charity, such acts partake of the love with which our heavenly Father surrounds even the members of His beloved children. “I was sick, and you visited me” (Matthew xxv. 36), our Lord will say on the last day, showing that even the infirmities of our fallen state in this land of exile, the bodies of those whom He deigns to call His brethren, share in the dignity belonging by right to the eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father. The Holy Spirit, too, whose office it is to recall to the Church all the words of our Saviour, has certainly not forgotten this one. The seed, falling into the good earth of chosen souls, has produced a hundredfold the fruits of grace and heroic self-devotion.

Camillus of Lellis received it lovingly, and the mustard-seed became a great tree offering its shade to the birds of the air. The Order of Regular Clerks, Ministering to the sick, or of happy death, deserves the gratitude of mankind. As a sign of Heaven’s approbation, Angels have more than once been seen assisting its members at the bedside of the dying.

ANGEL of charity, by what wonderful paths did the Divine Spirit lead you! The vision of your pious mother remained long unrealised. Before taking on you the holy Cross and enlisting comrades under that sacred sign, you served the odious tyrant who will have none but slaves under his standard, and the passion of gambling was well near your ruin. O Camillus, remembering the danger you incurred, have pity on the unhappy slaves of passion. Free them from the madness with which they risk, to the caprice of chance, their goods, their honour and their peace in this world and in the next. Your history proves the power of grace to break the strongest ties and alter the most inveterate habits. May these men, like you, turn their bent towards God and change their rashness into love of the dangers to which holy charity may expose them! For charity, too, has its risks, even the peril of life, as the Lord of charity laid down His life for us: a heavenly game of chance, which you played so well that the very Angels applauded you. But what is the hazarding of earthly life compared with the prize reserved for the winner?

According to the commandment of the Gospel read by the Church in your honour, may we all, like you, love our brethren as Christ has loved us! Few, says Saint Augustine, love one another to this end, that God may be all in all. You, O Camillus, having this love, exercised it by preference towards those suffering members of Christ’s mystic Body in whom our Lord revealed Himself more clearly to you, and in whom His kingdom was nearer at hand. Therefore has the Church in gratitude chosen you together with John of God to be guardian of those homes for the suffering which she has founded with a mother’s thoughtful care. Do honour to that Mother’s confidence. Protect the hospitals against the attempts of an odious and incapable secularisation which, in its eagerness to lose the souls, sacrifices even the corporal well-being of the unhappy mortals committed to the care of its evil philanthropy. In order to meet our increasing miseries, multiply your sons and make them worthy to be assisted by Angels. Wherever we may be in this valley of exile when the hour of our last struggle sounds, make use of your precious prerogative which the holy Liturgy honours today. Help us, by the spirit of holy love, to vanquish the enemy and attain to the heavenly crown!

18 JULY – SAINT SYMPHOROSA AND HER SEVEN SONS (Martyrs)

 

After the dedication of the palace of Hadrian at Tibur (Tivoli), Hadrian was told that the gods were tormented by the prayers of Symphorosa (the widow of Getulius the martyr) and her seven sons Crescens, Julian, Nemesius, Primitivus, Justinus, Stacteus and Eugenius. Hadrian had them arrested and when they refused to sacrifice to the gods, he ordered them to be taken to the temple of Hercules and be executed there. Symphorosa, because of her invincible constancy, was first buffeted a long time, then suspended by her hair, and lastly thrown into the river with a stone tied to her body, which was afterwards recovered by her brother Eugenius. The seven sons were attached to stakes, Crescens had his throat cut, Julian was pierced in the breast, Nemesius was stabbed to the heart, Primitivus was run through the belly, Justin was transfixed with a sword through his back, Stracteus was struck in the side, and Eugenius was cleft downwards. Their bodies were subsequently taken to Rome and were found in the sacristy of the Church of Sant’Angelo in Piscina under Pope Pius IV.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

For the second time in July a constellation of seven stars shines in the heavens. More fortunate than Felicitas, Symphorosa preceded in the arena the Seven Sons she was offering to God. From the throne where he was already reigning crowned with the martyr’s diadem, Getulius the tribune, father of this illustrious family, applauded the combat by which his race earned a far greater nobility than that of patrician blood, and gave to Rome a grander glory than was ever dreamed of by her heroes and poets. The Emperor Adrian, corrupt yet brilliant, sceptical yet superstitious like the society around him, presided in person at the defeat of his gods. Threatening to burn the valiant woman in sacrifice to the idols, he received this courageous answer: “Your gods cannot receive me in sacrifice, but if you burn me and my sons for the name of Christ my God, I will cause your demons to burn with more cruel flames!” The execution of the mother and her sons was indeed the signal for a period of peace during which the Kingdom of our Lord was considerably extended. Jerusalem, having under the leadership of a last false Messiah revolted against Rome, was punished by being deprived of her very name, but the Church received the glory which the Synagogue once possessed, when she produced the mother of the Machabees.

Another glory was reserved for this 18th day of July in 1870: the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, presided over by the immortal Pius IX, defined in its Constitution, Pastor Aeternus, the full, supreme and immediate power of the Roman Pontiff over all the Churches, and pronounced anathema against all who should refuse to recognise the personal infallibility of the same Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra, i.e., defining, as universal Pastor, any doctrine concerning faith or morals. We may also remark that during these same days, viz., on Sunday in the middle of July, the Greeks make a commemoration of the first six general councils, Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon and second and third of Constantinople. Thus, during these midsummer days, we are in the midst of feasts of heavenly light. And let us not forget that it is martyrdom, the supreme act of faith, that merits and produces light. Doubtless, Divine Wisdom, who plays in the world with number, weight and measure, planned the beautiful coincidence which unites together these two days, the 18th July, 136, and that of the year of 1870. If in these latter days the word of God has been set free, it is owing to the blood shed by our fathers in its defence.

O Symphorosa, wife, sister and mother of martyrs, your desires are amply fulfilled. Followed by your seven children, you rejoin in the court of the Eternal King your husband Getulius and his brother Amantius, brave combatants in the imperial army, but far more valiant soldiers of Christ. The words of our Lord, “A man’s enemies will be they of his own household” (Matthew x. 36) are abrogated in Heaven. Nor can this other sentence be there applied: “He that loves father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew x. 37). There, the love of Christ our King predominates over all other loves. Yet far from extinguishing them, it makes them ten times stronger by putting its own energy into them. And, far from having to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother (Matthew x. 35), it sets a divine seal upon the family and rivets its bonds for all eternity.

What nobility, O heroes, have you conferred on the world! Men may look up with more confidence towards Heaven, for the Angels will not despise a race that can produce such valiant combatants. The perfume of your holocaust accompanied your souls to the throne of God, and an effusion of grace was poured down in return. From the luminous track left by your martyrdom have sprung forth new splendours in our own days. With joyful gratitude we hail the providential reappearance, immediately after the Vatican Council, of the tomb which first received your sacred relics on the morrow of your triumph. Soldiers of Christ, preserve in us the gifts you have bestowed on us. Convince the many Christians who have forgotten it that faith is the most precious possession of the just.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Carthage, St. Gundenes, virgin. By order of the proconsul Rufinus, she was four different times stretched on the rack for the faith of Christ, horribly lacerated with iron hooks, confined for a long time in a filthy dungeon, and finally put to the sword.

At Dorostorum, in Mysia, in the time of Julian the Apostate and the governor Capitolinus, St. Æmilian, martyr, who was cast into a furnace and thus received the palm of martyrdom.

At Utrecht, St. Frederick, bishop and martyr.

In Spanish Galicia, St. Marina, virgin and martyr.

At Milan, in the reign of Maximian, the holy bishop Maternus. For the faith of Christ and the church entrusted to him, he was thrown into prison and often scourged. Finally he went to his rest in the Lord with a great renown for his repeated confession of the faith.

At Brescia, the birthday of St. Philastrius, bishop of that city, who in speech and writing combated heretics, especially the Arians, from whom he suffered much. Finally, he died in peace, renowned for miracles.

At Metz in France, St. Arnulf, a bishop illustrious for holiness and the gift of miracles. He chose a heremitical life and ended his blessed career in peace.

At Segni, St. Bruno, bishop and confessor.

At Forlimpopoli in Æmilia, St. Ruffillus, bishop of that city.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 JULY – SAINT ALEXIUS (Confessor)

Alexius was born in Rome in about 350 AD, to the senator Euphemius. Leaving his spouse a virgin on the night of his marriage, he withdrew from his house and went on pilgrimage to the most illustrious churches all over the world. For 17 years he remained unknown, while performing these pilgrimages, and then his name was revealed at Edessa in Syria by an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He therefore left Syria by sea and sailed to Rome where he was received as a guest by his own father who took him in as a beggar known only to God (soli Deo notus), thus deluding the world by a new device. But after his death, becoming known through a voice heard in the churches of the city, and by his own writing, he was, under Pope Innocent I, translated to the church of Saint Boniface on the Aventine Hill, where he wrought many miracles. Saint Alexius is the patron of pilgrims and beggars.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although we are not commanded to follow the Saints to the extremities where their heroic virtue leads them, nevertheless, from their inaccessible heights they still guide us along the easier paths of the plain. As the eagle upon the orb of day, they fixed their unflinching gaze on the Sun of Justice and, irresistibly attracted by His divine splendour, they poised their flight far above the cloudy region where we are glad to screen our feeble eyes. But however varied be the degrees of brightness for them and for us, the light itself is unchangeable, provided that, like them, we draw it from the authentic source. When the weakness of our sight would lead us to mistake false glimmerings for the truth, let us think of these friends of God. If we have not courage enough to imitate them, where the commandments leave us free to do so or not, let us at least conform our judgements and appreciations to theirs: their view is more trustworthy, because farther reaching. Their sanctity is nothing but the rectitude with which they follow up unflinchingly, even to its central focus, the heavenly ray, of which we can scarcely bear a tempered reflection. Above all, let us not be led so far astray by the will-o’-the wisps of this world of darkness as to wish to direct, by their false light, the actions of the saints: can the owl judge better of the light than the eagle?

Descending from the pure firmament of the holy Liturgy even to the humblest conditions of Christian life, the light which led Alexius to the highest point of detachment is thus subdued by the Apostle to the capacity of all: “If any man take a wife, he has not sinned, nor the virgin whom he marries. Nevertheless, such will have tribulation of the flesh which I would fain spare you. This, therefore, I say, brethren: the time is short. It remains, therefore, that they also who have wives, be as if they had none. And they that weep, as though they wept not. And they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not. And they that buy, as though they possessed not. And they that use this world, as if they used it not: for the fashion of this world passes away” (1 Corinthians vii. 28-31).

Yet it passes not too quickly for our Lord to show that His words never pass away. Five centuries after the glorious death of Alexius, the eternal God, to whom distance and time are as nothing, gave him a hundredfold the posterity he had renounced for the love of Him. The monastery on the Aventine which still bears his name together with that of the martyr Boniface, had become the common patrimony of East and West in the eternal City. The two great monastic families of Basil and Benedict united under the roof of Alexius, and the seed taken from his tomb by the monk-bishop Saint Adalbert brought forth the fruit of faith among the northern nations.

MAN of God! Such is the name given you, O Alexius, by Heaven, the name by which you are known in the East and which Rome sanctions by her choice of the Epistle to be read in this day’s Mass (1 Timothy vi. 11). The Apostle there applies this beautiful title to his disciple Timothy, while recommending to him the very virtues you practised in so eminent a degree. This sublime designation, which shows us the dignity of Heaven within the reach of men, you preferred to the proudest titles Earth could bestow. These latter were indeed offered you, together with all the honours permitted by God to those who are satisfied with merely not offending him, but your great soul despised the transitory gifts of the world. In the midst of the splendours of your marriage feast, you heard a music which charms the soul from Earth: that music which, two centuries before, the noble Caecilia too had heard in another palace of the queen city. The hidden God, who left the joys of the heavenly Jerusalem and on Earth had not where to lay His head, discovered Himself to your pure heart, and being filled with His love, you had also the mind which was in Christ Jesus (Philippians ii. 15). With the freedom which yet remained to you of choosing between the perfect life and the consummation of an earthly union, you resolved to be a pilgrim and a stranger on the Earth (Hebrews xi. 13) that you might merit to possess eternal Wisdom in your heavenly fatherland.

O wonderful paths! O unsearchable ways by which that Wisdom of the Father guides all those who are won by love. The Queen of Heaven, as if applauding this spectacle worthy of Angels, revealed to the East the illustrious name you would fain conceal under the garb of holy poverty. A second flight brought you back, after seventeen years’ absence, to the land of your birth, and even there you were able by your valiant faith to dwell as in a strange land. Under that staircase of your home, now held in loving veneration, you were exposed to the insults of your own slaves, being but an unknown beggar in the eyes of your father and mother, and of the bride who still mourned for you. There did you spend, without ever betraying yourself, another seventeen years, awaiting your happy passage to your true home in Heaven. God Himself made it an honour to be called your God, when at the moment of your precious death a mighty voice resounded through Rome, bidding all seek the “man of God.”

Remember, O Alexius, what the voice added concerning that man of God: “He will pray for Rome, and will be heard.” Pray, then, for the illustrious city of your birth which owed to you its safety under the assault of the barbarians, and which now surrounds you with far greater honours than it would have done, had you but upheld within its walls the traditions of your noble ancestors. Hell boasts of having snatched that city from the successors of Peter and of Innocent: pray, and may Heaven hear you once more against the modern successors of Alaric. Guided by the light of your sublime actions, may the Christian people rise more and more above the Earth. Lead us all safely by the narrow way to the home of our heavenly Father!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Carthage, the birthday of the holy Scillican martyrs Speratus, Narzales, Cythinus, Veturius, Felix, Acyllinus, Lsetantius, Januaria, Generosa, Vestina, Donata and Secunda. By order of the prefect Saturninus, after their first confession of the faith, they were sent to prison, nailed to pieces of wood, and finally beheaded. The relics of Speratus, with the bones of blessed Cyprian and the head of the martyr St. Pantaleon, were carried from Africa into France, and religiously placed in the basilica of St. John the Baptist at Lyons.

At Amastris in Paphlagonia, St. Hyacinth, martyr, who died in prison after much suffering under the prefect Castritius.

At Tivoli, St. Generosus, martyr.

At Constantinople, St. Theodota, martyr, under the Iconoclast Leo.

At Rome, the demise of Pope St. Leo IV.

At Pavia, St. Ennodius, bishop and confessor.

At Auxerre, St. Theodosius, bishop.

At Milan, the virgin St. Marcellina, sister of the blessed bishop Ambrose, who received the religious veil from Pope Liberius in the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome. Her sanctity is attested by St. Ambrose in his writings.

At Venice, the translation of St. Marina, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 JULY – OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

When on the holy day of Pentecost the Apostles, through heavenly inspiration, spoke various languages and worked many miracles by the invocation of the most holy name of Jesus, it is said that many men who were walking in the footsteps of the holy prophets Elias and Eliseus, and had been prepared for the coming of Christ by the preaching of John the Baptist, saw and acknowledged the truth, and at once embraced the faith of the Gospel. These new Christians were so happy as to be able to enjoy familiar intercourse with the Blessed Virgin, and venerated her with so special an affection that they, before all others, built a chapel to the purest of Virgins on that very spot of Mount Carmel where Elias of old had seen the cloud, a remarkable type of the Virgin ascending.

Many times each day they came together to the new oratory, and with pious ceremonies, prayers and praises honoured the most Blessed Virgin as the special protectress of their Order. For this reason, people from all parts began to call them the Brethren of the Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel (Ordo Fratrum Beatissiae Virginis Mariae de Monte Carmelo), and the Popes not only confirmed this title, but also granted special indulgences to whoever called either the whole Order or individual Brothers by that name. But the most noble Virgin not only gave them her name and protection, she also bestowed on Blessed Simon the Englishman the holy Scapular as a token, wishing the holy Order to be distinguished by that heavenly garment and to be protected by it from the evils that were assailing it.

Moreover, as formerly the Order was unknown in Europe, and on this account many were importuning Honorius III for its abolition, the loving Virgin Mary appeared by night to Honorius and clearly bade him receive both the Order and its members with kindness. The Blessed Virgin has enriched the Order so dear to her with many privileges, not only in this world, but also in the next (for everywhere she most powerful and merciful). For it is piously believed that those of her children who, having been enrolled in the Confraternity of the Scapular, have fulfilled the small abstinence and said the few prayers prescribed, and have observed chastity as far as their state of life demands, will be consoled by our Lady while they are being purified in the fire of Purgatory, and will through her intercession be taken thence as soon as possible to the heavenly country. The Order, thus laden with so many graces, has ordained that this solemn commemoration of the Blessed Virgin should be yearly observed forever to her greater glory.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Towering over the waves on the shore of the Holy Land, Mount Carmel, together with the short range of the same name, forms a connecting link to two other chains, abounding with glorious memories, namely: the mountains of Galilee on the north, and those of Judea on the south. “In the day of my love, I brought you out of Egypt into the land of Carmel,” (Jeremias ii. 2, 7) said the Lord to the daughter of Sion, taking the name of Carmel to represent all the blessings of the Promised Land. And when the crimes of the chosen people were about to bring Judaea to ruin, the prophet cried out: “I looked, and behold Carmel was a wilderness: and all its cities were destroyed at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of the wrath of His indignation” (Jeremias iv. 26). But from the midst of the Gentile world a new Sion arose, more loved than the first. Eight centuries beforehand Isaias recognised her by the glory of Libanus, and the beauty of Carmel and Saron which were given her. In the sacred Canticle, also, the attendants of the Bride sing to the Spouse concerning his well-beloved, that her head is like Carmel, and her hair like the precious threads of royal purple carefully woven and dyed (Canticles vii. 5).

There was, in fact, around Cape Carmel an abundant fishery of the little shellfish which furnished the regal colour. Not far from there, smoothing away the slopes of the noble mountain, flowed the torrent of Cison, that “dragged the carcasses” (Judges v. 21) of the Caanaanites when Deborah won her famous victory. Here lies the plain where the Madianites were overthrown, and Sisara felt the power of her that was called the “Mother in Israel” (Judges v. 7). Here Gedeon, too, marched against Madian in the name of the Woman terrible as an army set in array (Canticles vi. 3, 9), whose sign he had received in the dew-covered fleece. Indeed, this glorious plain of Esdrelon, which stretches away from the foot of Carmel, seems to be surrounded with prophetic indications of her who was destined from the beginning to crush the serpent’s head: not far from Esdrelon, a few defiles lead to Bethulia, the city of Judith, type of Mary, who was the true joy of Israel and the honour of her people (Judith. Wile nestling among the northern hills lies Nazareth, the white city, the flower of Galilee xv. 10).

When Eternal Wisdom was playing in the world, forming the hills and establishing the mountains, she destined Carmel to be the special inheritance of Eve’s victorious Daughter. And when the last thousand years of expectation were opening, and the desire of all nations was developing into the spirit of prophecy, the father of prophets ascended the privileged mount, thence to scan the horizon. The triumphs of David and the glories of Solomon were at an end. The sceptre of Judah, broken by the schism of the ten tribes, threatened to fall from his hand. The worship of Baal prevailed in Israel. A long-continued drought, figure of the aridity of men’s souls, had parched up every spring, and men and beasts were dying beside the empty cisterns, when Elias the Thesbite gathered the people, representing the whole human race, on Mount Carmel, and slew the lying prophets of Baal. Then, as the Scripture relates, prostrating with his face to the Earth, “he said to his servant: Go up, look towards the sea. And he went up, and looked and said: There is nothing. And again he said to him: Return seven times. And at the seventh time: Behold, a little cloud arose out of the sea like a man’s foot” (3 Reg xviii.)

Blessed cloud! Unlike the bitter waves from which it sprang, it was all sweetness. Docile to the least breath of Heaven, it rose light and humble, above the immense heavy ocean, and screening the sun it tempered the heat that was scorching the earth, and restored to the stricken world life and grace and fruitfulness. The promised Messiah, the Son of Man, set His impress upon it, showing to the wicked serpent the form of the heel that was to crush him. The prophet, personifying the human race, felt his youth renewed. And while the welcome rain was already refreshing the valleys, he ran before the chariot of the king of Israel. Thus did he traverse the great plain of Esdrelon, even to the mysteriously named town of Jezrahel, where, according to Osee, the children of Judah and Israel were again to have but one head, in the great day of Jezrahel (i.e., of the seed of God), when the Lord would seal His eternal nuptials with a new people (Osee i. 11; ii. 14-24). Later on, from Sunam near Jezrahel, the mother whose son was dead crossed the same plain of Esdrelon, in the opposite direction and ascended Mount Carmel, to obtain from Eliseus the resurrection of her child, who was a type of us all (4 Kings iv. 8-37). Elias had already departed in the chariot of fire to await the end of the world, when he is to give testimony, together with Henoch, to the son of her that was signified by the cloud (Apocalypse xi. 3, 7) and the disciple, clothed with the mantle and the spirit of his father, had taken possession, in the name of the sons of the prophets, of the august mountain honoured by the manifestation of the Queen of prophets. Henceforward Carmel was sacred in the eyes of all who looked beyond this world.

Gentiles as well as Jews, philosophers and princes, came here on pilgrimage to adore the true God, while the chosen souls of the Church of the expectation, many of whom were already wandering in deserts and in mountains (Hebrews xi. 38) loved to take up their abode in its thousand grottoes, for the ancient traditions seemed to linger more lovingly in its silent forests, and the perfume of its flowers foretokened the Virgin Mother. The cultus of the Queen of Heaven was already established, and to the family of her devout clients, the ascetics of Carmel, might be applied the words spoken later by God to the pious descendants of Rechab: “There will not be wanting a man of this race, standing before me forever” (Jeremias xxxv. 19). At length figures gave place to the reality: the heavens dropped down their dew, and the Just One came forth from the cloud. When His work was done and He returned to his Father, leaving His blessed Mother in the world and sending His Holy Spirit to the Church, not the least triumph of that Spirit of love was the making known of Mary to the new-born Christians of Pentecost. “What a happiness,” we then remarked, “for those neophytes who were privileged above the rest in being brought to the Queen of Heaven, the Virgin-Mother of Him who was the hope of Israel! They saw this second Eve, they conversed with her, they felt for her that filial affection with which she inspired all the disciples of Jesus. The Liturgy will speak to us at another season of these favoured ones” The promise is fulfilled today. In the lessons of the feast the Church tells us how the disciples of Elias and Eliseus became Christians at the first preaching of the Apostles, and being permitted to hear the sweet words of the Blessed Virgin and enjoy an unspeakable intimacy with her, they felt their veneration for her immensely increased. Returning to the loved mountain where their less fortunate fathers had lived but in hope, they built, on the very spot where Elias had seen the little cloud rise up out of the sea, an oratory to the purest of virgins. Hence they obtained the name of Brothers of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel.

In the twelfth century, in consequence of the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, many pilgrims from Europe came to swell the ranks of the solitaries on the holy mountain. It therefore became expedient to give to their hitherto eremitical life a form more in accordance with the habits of western nations. The legate Aimeric Malafaida, patriarch of Antioch, gathered them into a community under the authority of Saint Berthold, who was thus the first to receive the title of Prior General. At the commencement of the next century Blessed Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem and also Apostolic legate, completed the work of Aimeric by giving a fixed Rule to the Order which was now, through the influence of princes and knights returned from the Holy Land, beginning to spread into Cyprus, Sicily and the countries beyond the sea. Soon indeed, the Christians of the East, being abandoned by God to the just punishment of their sins, the vindictiveness of the conquering Saracens reached such a height in this age of trial for Palestine, that a full assembly held on Mount Carmel under Alanus the Breton resolved upon a complete migration, leaving only a few friars eager for martyrdom to guard the cradle of the Order. The very year in which this took place (1245), Simon Stock was elected General in the first Chapter of the West held at Aylesford in England.

Simon owed his election to the successful struggle he had maintained for the recognition of the Order, which certain prelates, alleging the recent decrees of the Council of Lateran, rejected as newly introduced into Europe. Our Lady had then taken the cause of the Friars into her own hands, and had obtained from Honorius III the decree of confirmation which originated today’s feast. This was neither the first nor the last favour bestowed by the sweet Virgin on the family that had lived so long under the shadow, as it were, of her mysterious cloud, and shrouded like her in humility with no other bond, no other pretension than the imitation of her hidden works and the contemplation of her glory. She herself had wished them to go forth from the midst of a faithless people just as, before the close of that same thirteenth century, she would command her angels to carry into a Catholic land her blessed house of Nazareth. Whether or not the men of those days, or the short-sighted historians of our own time, ever thought of it: the one translation called for the other, just as each completes and explains the other, and each was to be, tor our own Europe, the signal for wonderful favours from heaven.

In the night between the l0th and 16th of July of the year 1251, the gracious Queen of Carmel confirmed to her sons by a mysterious sign the right of citizenship she had obtained for them in their newly adopted countries: as mistress and mother of the entire Religious state she conferred upon them with her queenly hands, the scapular, hitherto the distinctive garb of the greatest and most ancient religious family of the West. On giving Saint Simon Stock this badge, ennobled by contact with her sacred fingers, the Mother of God said to him: “Whoever will die in this habit, will not suffer eternal flames.” But not against hell fire alone was the all-powerful intercession of the Blessed Mother to be felt by those who should wear her scapular. In 1316, when every holy soul was imploring heaven to put a period to that long and disastrous widowhood of the Church which followed on the death of Clement V, the Queen of Saints appeared to James d’Euse, whom the world was soon to hail as John XXII. She foretold to him his approaching elevation to the Sovereign Pontificate, and at the same time recommended him to publish the privilege she had obtained from her Divine Son for her children of Carmel, viz., a speedy deliverance from Purgatory. “I, their Mother, will graciously go down to them on the Saturday after their death, and all whom I find in Purgatory I will deliver and will bring to the mountain of life eternal.” These are the words of our Lady herself, quoted by John XXII in the Bull which he published for the purpose of making known the privilege, and which was called the Sabbatine Bull on account of the day chosen by the glorious benefactress for the exercise of her mercy.

We are aware of the attempts made to nullify the authenticity of these heavenly concessions, but our extremely limited time will not allow us to follow up these worthless struggles in all their endless details. The attack of the chief assailant, the too famous Launoy, was condemned by the Apostolic See. And after, as well as before, these contradictions the Roman Pontiffs confirmed, as much as need be, by their supreme authority, the substance and even the letter of the precious promises. The reader may find in special works the enumeration of the many indulgences with which the Popes have time after time enriched the Carmelite family, as if Earth would vie with Heaven in favouring it. The munificence of Mary, the pious gratitude of her sons for the hospitality given them by the West and lastly, the authority of Saint Peter’s successors, soon made these spiritual riches accessible to all Christians by the institution of the Confraternity of the holy Scapular, the members of which participate in the merits and privileges of the whole Carmelite Order. Who will tell the graces, often miraculous, obtained through this humble garb? Who could count the faithful now enrolled in the holy militia? When Benedict XIII in the eighteenth century extended the feast of the 16th July to the whole Church, he did but give an official sanction to the universality already gained by the cultus of the Queen of Carmel.

QUEEN of Carmel, hear the voice of the Church as she sings to you on this day. When the world was languishing in ceaseless expectation, you were already its hope. Unable as yet to understand your greatness, it nevertheless, during the reign of types, loved to clothe you with the noblest symbols. In admiration, and in gratitude for benefits foreseen, it surrounded you with all the notions of beauty, strength and grace suggested by the loveliest land scapes, the flowery plains, the wooded heights, the fertile valleys, especially of Carmel, whose very name signifies “the plantation of the Lord.” On its summit our fathers, knowing that Wisdom had set her throne in the cloud, hastened by their burning desires the coming of the saving sign: there at length was given to their prayers what the Scripture calls perfect knowledge, and the knowledge of the great paths of the clouds (Job xxxvii. 16). And when he who makes his chariot and his dwelling in the obscurity of a cloud had therein shown himself, in a nearer approach, to the practised eye of the father of prophets, then did a chosen band of holy persons gather in the solitudes of the blessed mountain, as heretofore Israel in the desert, to watch the least movements of the mysterious cloud, to receive from it their guidance in the paths of life, and their light in the long night of expectation.

O Mary, who from that hour presided over the watches of God’s army without ever failing for a single day: now that the Lord has truly come down through you, it is no longer the land of Judaea alone, but the whole Earth that you cover as a cloud, shedding down blessings and abundance. Your ancient clients, the sons of the prophets, experienced this truth when, the land of promise becoming unfaithful, they were forced to transplant into other climes their customs and traditions. They found that even into our far West, the cloud of Carmel had poured its fertilising dew, and that nowhere would its protection be wanting to them. This feast, O Mother of our God, is the authentic attestation of their gratitude, increased by the fresh benefits with which your bounty accompanied the new exodus of the remnant of Israel. And we, the sons of ancient Europe, we too have a right to echo the expression of their loving joy, for since their tents have been pitched around the hills where the new Sion is built on Peter, the cloud has shed all around showers of blessing more precious than ever, driving back into the abyss the flames of Hell, and extinguishing the fire of Purgatory.

While, then, we join with them in thanksgiving to you, deign yourself, O Mother of divine grace, to pay our debt of gratitude to them. Protect them ever. Guard them in these unhappy times when the hypocrisy of modern persecutors has more fatal results than the rage of the Saracens. Preserve the life in the deep roots of the old stock, and rejoice it by the accession of new branches bearing, like the old ones, flowers and fruits that will be pleasing to you, O Mary. Keep up in the hearts of the sons that spirit of retirement and contemplation which animated their fathers under the shadow of the cloud. May their sisters too, wherever the Holy Spirit has established them, be ever faithful to the traditions of the glorious past so that their holy lives may avert the tempest and draw down blessings from the mysterious cloud. May the perfume of penance that breathes from the holy mountain purify the now corrupted atmosphere around, and may Carmel ever present to the Spouse the type of the beauties He loves to behold in His Bride!

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of St. Faustus, a martyr, under Decius. He lived five days fastened on a cross, and being then pierced with arrows, he went to heaven.

At Sebaste in Armenia, the holy martyrs Athenogenes, bishop, and ten of his disciples in the time of the emperor Diocletian.

At Antioch in Syria, the birthday of blessed Eustathius, bishop and confessor, celebrated for learning and sanctity. Under the Arian emperor Constantius, for the defence of the Catholic faith, he was banished to Trajanopolis in Thracia, where he rested in the Lord.

The same day, St. Hilarinus, monk, who was arrested with St. Donatus in the persecution of Julian the Apostate. As he would not sacrifice to idols, he was beaten with rods and died a martyr at Arezzo in Tuscany. His body was translated to Ostia.

At Treves, St. Valentine, bishop and martyr.

At Cordova in Spain, St. Sisenandus, deacon and martyr, who was strangled by the Saracens for the faith of Christ.

At Saintes in France, the holy martyrs Raineldes, virgin, and her companions, who were massacred by barbarians for the Christian faith.

At Bergamo, St. Domnio, martyr.

At Capua, St. Vitalian, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

15 JULY – SAINT HENRY (King and Confessor)

Henry II, the son of the Duke of Bavaria, was born in 973. He was descended on both parents' side from the emperor Charlemagne. After his cousin King Otto III died in 1002, Henry was elected king of Germany and in 1005 he also became king of Italy. He became the Holy Roman Emperor on his coronation by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014. However, not satisfied with a mere temporal principality, he strove to gain an immortal crown by paying zealous service to the eternal King. As emperor he devoted himself earnestly to spreading religion, and rebuilt with great magnificence the churches which had been destroyed by the infidels, endowing them generously both with money and lands. He built monasteries and other pious establishments, and increased the income of others. The bishopric of Bamberg, which he had founded out of his family possessions, he made tributary to Saint Peter and the Roman Pontiff. When Pope Benedict VIII was obliged to seek safety in flight, Henry received him and restored him to his See.

Once when he was suffering from a severe illness in the Monastery of Monte Cassino, Saint Benedict cured Henry by a wonderful miracle. He endowed the Roman Church with a most copious grant, undertook in her defence a war against the Greeks, and gained possession of Apulia, which they had held for some time. It was his custom to undertake nothing without prayer, and at times he saw the angel of the Lord, or the holy Martyrs, his patrons, fighting for him at the head of his army. Aided thus by the Divine protection, he overcame barbarous nations more by prayer than by arms. Hungary was still pagan, but Henry having given his sister in marriage to its King Stephen, the latter was baptised and thus the whole nation was brought to the faith of Christ. He set the rare example of preserving virginity in the married state, and at his death restored his wife, Saint Cunigund, a virgin to her family. He arranged everything relating to the glory or advantage of his empire with the greatest prudence, and left scattered throughout Gaul, Italy and Germany, traces of his munificence towards religion. The sweet odour of his heroic virtue spread far and wide, till he was more celebrated for his holiness than for his imperial dignity.

His life’s work being accomplished, he was called by our Lord to the rewards of the heavenly kingdom in 1024. His body was buried in the Church of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul at Bamberg. God wished to glorify his servant, and many miracles were worked at his tomb. These being afterwards proved and certified, Pope Eugenius III inscribed his name in the catalogue of the Saints in 1174, and Cunigunde was canonised by Pope Innocent III in 1200.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Henry of Germany, the second King, but the first Emperor of that name, was the last crowned representative of that branch of the house of Saxony descended from Henry the Fowler, to which God in the tenth century entrusted the mission of restoring the work of Charlemagne and Leo III. This noble stock was rendered more glorious by the flowers of sanctity adorning its branches, than for the deep and powerful roots it struck in the German soil by great and long-enduring institutions.

The Holy Spirit, who divides His gifts according as He will, was then calling to the loftiest destinies that land which, more than any other, had witnessed the energy of His divine action in the transformation of nations. Won to Christ by Saint Boniface and the continuators of his work, the vast country which extends beyond the Rhine and the Danube had become the bulwark of the West, and for many years had been the scene of devastation and ruin. Far from attempting to subjugate to her own rule the formidable tribes that inhabited it, pagan Rome at the very zenith of her power had had no higher ambition than to raise a wall of separation between them and the Empire: Christian Rome, more truly Mistress of the world, set up in their very midst the seat of the Holy Roman Empire re-established by her Pontiffs. The new Empire was to defend the rights of the common Mother, to protect Christendom from new inroads of barbarians, to win over to the Gospel or else to crush the successive hordes that would come down on her frontiers — Hungarians, Slavs, Mongols, Tartars and Ottomans. Happy had it been for Germany if she had always understood her true glory, if the fidelity of her princes to the Vicar of the Man-God had been equal to their people’s faith.

God, on His part, had not closed His hand. Today’s feast shows us the crowning point of the period of fruitful labour when the Holy Ghost, having created Germany anew in the waters of the sacred font, would lead her up to the full development of a people’s perfect age. The historian who would know what Providence requires of nations, must study them at such a period of truly creative formation. Indeed, when God creates, whether in the order of nature or of the supernatural vocation of men and societies, He first deposits in His work the principle of that grade of life for which it is destined: it is a precious germ, the development of which, unless thwarted, must lead that being to attain its end. And the knowledge of which, could we observe it before any alteration has taken place, would clearly indicate the divine intention with regard to that being. Now many times already, since the coming of the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier, we have shown that the principle of life for Christian nations is the holiness of their beginnings: a holiness as manifold as is the Wisdom of God, whose instrument these nations are to be, and as peculiar to each as are their several destinies. Thisholiness, beginning as it does for the most part from the throne, possesses a social character. The crimes also of princes will but too often bear this same mark, from the very fact of the princes being the representatives of their people before God.

Then, too, we have seen how in the name of Mary who, through her divine Maternity, is the channel of life to the whole world, a mission has been entrusted to women: the mission of bringing forth to God the families of nations (families gentium) (Psalm xxi. 28) which are to be the objects of His tenderest love. Whereas the princes, the apparent founders of Empires, stand with their mighty deeds in the foreground of history, it is she that, by her secret tears and prayers, gives fruitfulness a loftier aim and stability to their undertakings. The Holy Ghost multiplies these imitators of the Mother of God: like Clotilde, Radegond and Bathildis giving the Franks to the Church in the midst of troublous times, there arose in another land another three, in honour of the Blessed Trinity: Matilda, Adelaide and Cunigund super-added to the diadem of Germany the aureola of sanctity. Over the chaos of the tenth century from which Germany was to spring, they shone out like three bright stars, shedding their peaceful light over the Church and the world in that dark night, and thus doing more to suppress anarchy than could even the sword of an Otho. The eleventh century opened: Hildebrand had not yet arisen, and the angels of the sanctuary were weeping over many a desecrated altar, when the royal succession was brought to a beautiful close by a virginal union, as though, weary of producing heroes for the world, it would now bear fruit for heaven alone. Was such a step against the interests of Germany? No, for it drew down the mercy of God upon the country which, in the midst of universal corruption, could offer Him the perfume of such a holocaust.

Let Earth and Heaven this day unite in celebrating the man who carried out to the full the designs of eternal Wisdom at this period of history. In his single person he discovered all the heroism and sanctity of the illustrious race, whose chief glory it is to have been for a century a worthy preparation for so great a man. Great before men, who knew not whether to admire more his bravery or the energetic activity which made him seem to be everywhere at once throughout his vast empire, he was ever successful, putting down internal revolts, conquering the Slavs on his Northern frontier, chastising the insolence of the Greeks in southern Italy, assisting Hungary to rise from barbarism to Christianity, concluding with Robert the Pious a lasting peace between the Empire and the eldest daughter of the Church. But the virgin spouse of the virgin Cunigund was greater still before God, who never had a more faithful lieutenant on Earth. God in His Christ was in Henry’s eyes the only King; the interest of Christ and the Church, the one principle of his administration; the most perfect service of the Man-God, his highest ambition. He understood how the truest nobility was hidden in the cloister, where chosen souls, fleeing from the universal degradation, were averting the ruin and obtaining the salvation of the world. It was this thought that led him, on the morrow of his imperial coronation, to confide to the famous Abbey of Cluny the golden globe representing the world which he, as soldier of the Vicar of Christ, was commissioned to defend. It was with the desire of imitating those noble souls that he threw himself at the feet of the Abbot of Saint Vannes at Verdun, begging admission into his community and then, constrained by obedience, returned with a heavy heart to resume the burden of government.

* * * * *

“By me kings reign, by me princes rule” (Proverbs viii. 15, 16). You, O Henry, well understood this language of Heaven. In an age of wickedness you knew where to find counsel and strength. Like Solomon you desired wisdom alone, and like him you experienced that with her are riches and glory, glorious riches and justice (Proverbs viii. 18), but more blessed than David’s son, you did not suffer yourself to be drawn away from Wisdom herself by those lower gifts, which were rather a test of your love of God, than an expression of His love for you. The test, O Henry, was decisive: you walked to the very end in the right path, following up loyally every consequence of our Lord’s teaching. Not content to mount, with many even of the best, by the gentler slopes, you ran with the perfect, following closely the footsteps of adorable Wisdom in the midst of the paths of judgement (Proverbs viii. 20). Who can gainsay what God approves, what Christ counsels, what the Church has canonised in you and your noble spouse? Surely kings are not placed in so pitiable a condition that the call of the Man-God cannot reach them on their thrones? Christian equality requires that princes should not be less free than their subjects to have higher ambitions than those of Earth. You proved to mankind that even for the world, the knowledge of the holy is true prudence (Proverbs ix. 10). By claiming the right to aspire to the highest mansions in our Heavenly Father’s house (the baptismal birthright of every child of God), you shone like a beacon-light under the darkest sky that ever overspread the Church, and you rescued souls whom the salt of the Earth, having lost its savour and being trodden under foot, could no longer preserve from corruption.

It was not for you in person to reform the sanctuary, but as chief servant of Mother Church you did not fear to respect both her ancient laws and recent decrees which are ever worthy of the Spouse, and holy as the Spirit who in every age dictates them. Your reign was a period of sunshine before the satanic fury which was all too soon to break as a storm over the Church. While seeking first the Kingdom of God and His justice, you did not abandon your fatherland, nor the nation that had placed you at its head. To you, above all others, Germany owes the establishment in her midst of that Empire which was her glory until in our times it fell, never to rise again. Long after your departure from this Earth, your holy works were of sufficient weight in the scales of Divine justice to over-balance the crimes of a Henry IV or a Frederick II, which would have compromised forever the future of Germany. From your throne in Heaven, cast down a look of pity on the extensive domain of the Holy Empire, which owed so much to thee, and which heresy has forever dismembered. Put to confusion those principles, unknown to Germany in happier days, which would reconstruct, for the benefit of earthly prosperity, the grandeurs of the past without the cement of the ancient faith. Return, O emperor of glorious days! Return and fight for the Church. Gather together the remains of Christendom upon the traditional ground of the interests common to all Catholic nations: then will the alliance, which your able policy concluded, give to the world a security, a peace, a prosperity, which it can never enjoy so long as it remains on such a slippery footing, and exposed to the violence of every hostile agency.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Porto, the birthday of the holy martyrs Eutropius, and the sisters Zosima and Bonosa.

At Carthage, blessed Catulinus, deacon, whose glories were proclaimed by St. Augustine in a sermon to his people, and the Saints Januarius, Florentius, Julia and Justa, martyrs, who were entombed in the church of St. Faustus.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Philip, Zeno, Narseus and ten children.

On the island of Tenedos, St. Abudemius, a martyr, who suffered under Diocletian.

At Sebaste, St. Antiochus, a physician, who was decapitated under the governor Hadrian. On seeing milk flowing from his wounds instead of blood, Cyriacus, his executioner, was converted to Christ and endured martyrdom.

At Pavia, St. Felix, bishop and martyr.

At Nisibis, the birthday of St. James, bishop of that city, a man celebrated for great holiness, miracles and erudition. He was one of those who confessed the faith during the persecution of Galerius Maximian, and afterwards, in the Council of Nicaea, condemned the perverse heresy of Arius by opposing to it the doctrine of consubstantiality. It was also owing to his prayers, and those of bishop Alexander, that Arius received at Constantinople the condign punishment of his iniquity, the extravasation of his intestines.

At Naples in Campania, St. Athanasius, bishop of that city, who suffered much from his wicked nephew Sergius, by whom he was driven from his See. Consumed with afflictions, he departed for Heaven at Veroli in the time of Charles the Bald.

At Palermo, the finding of the body of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo. Being miraculously discovered in the time of the Pope Urban VIII, it delivered Sicily from the plague in the year of the Jubilee.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 JULY – SAINT BONAVENTURE (Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Bonaventure was born to Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria Ritella in 1231 at Bagnorea near Viterbo in Italy. At the age of 20 he entered the Order of Friars Minor. He studied at the University of Paris under Alexander of Hales (“the Unanswerable Doctor”) and taught theology and the Holy Scriptures there from 1248 until 1257, when he and Saint Thomas Aquinas both received the degree of Doctor of Theology. In the same year he was chosen to be the Minister-General of the Franciscan Order and in 1263 Bonaventure fixed the limits of the different provinces of the Order and prescribed that a bell should be rung in honour of the Annunciation at nightfall. In 1265 Clement IV nominated Bonaventure to the vacant Archbishopric of York, but the humble friar refused this honour. In the same year Pope Gregory X appointed Bonaventure Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. He died during the General Council of Lyons in 1274 and was canonised in 1482. In 1588 he was declared to be a Doctor of the Church. Saint Bonaventure wrote many ascetical and mystical treatises and a biography of Saint Francis of Assisi, as well as Commentaries on Holy Scripture and on the work of the Master of Sentences (the theological and philosophical text-book in use in his times). He became known as the “Seraphic Doctor” for the angelic virtues with which he adorned his learning.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Four months after the Angel of the Schools, the Seraphic Doctor appears in the heavens. Bound by the ties of love when on Earth, the two are now united forever before the Throne of God. Bonaventure’s own words will show us how great a right they both had to the heavenly titles bestowed upon them by the admiring gratitude of men.

As there are three hierarchies of Angels in Heaven, so on Earth there are three classes of the elect. The Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones who form the first hierarchy represent those who approach nearest to God by contemplation, and who differ among themselves according to the intensity of their love, the plenitude of their science and the steadfastness of their justice. To the Dominations, Virtues and Powers correspond the prelates and princes. And lastly, the lowest choirs signify the various ranks of the faithful engaged in the active life. This is the triple division of men which according to Saint Luke will be made at the last day: two will be in the bed, two in the field, two at the mill, that is to say, in the repose of divine delights, in the field of government, at the mill of this life’s toil. As regards the two mentioned in each place, we may remark that in Isaias the Seraphim, who are more closely united to God than the rest, perform two together their ministry of sacrifice and praise: for it is with the Angel as with man ― the fullness of love, which belongs especially to the Seraphim, cannot be without the fulfilment of the double precept of charity towards God and one’s neighbour. Again our Lord sent His disciples two and two before His face. And in Genesis we find God sending two Angels where one would have sufficed (Genesis xix. 1) It is better therefore, says Ecclesiastes, that two should be together than one, for they have the advantage of their society (Ecclesiastes iv. 9)

Such is the teaching of Bonaventure in his book of the Hierarchy in which he shows us the secret workings of Eternal Wisdom for the salvation of the world and the sanctification of the elect. It would be impossible to understand aright the history of the thirteenth century were we to forget the prophetic vision in which our Lady was seen presenting to her offended Son His two servants Dominic and Francis, that they might by their powerful union bring back to Him the wandering human race. What a spectacle for Angels when, on the morrow of the apparition, the two saints met and embraced: “You are my companion, we will run side by side,” said the descendant of the Gusmans to the poor man of Assisi: “let us keep together, and no man will be able to prevail against us.” These words might well have been the motto of their noble sons, Thomas and Bonaventure. The star which shone over the head of Saint Dominic, shed its bright rays on Thomas. The Seraph who imprinted the stigmata in the flesh of Saint Francis, touched with his fiery wing the soul of Bonaventure. Yet both, like their incomparable fathers, had but one end in view: to draw men by science and love to that eternal life which consists in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Both were burning and shining lamps, blending their flames in the heavens in proportions which no mortal eye could distinguish here below. Nevertheless, Eternal Wisdom has willed that the Church on Earth should borrow more especially light from Thomas and fire from Bonaventure. Would that we might here show in each of them the workings of Wisdom, the one bond even on earth of their union of thoughts — that Wisdom who, ever unchangeable in her adorable unity, never repeats herself in the souls she chooses from among the nations to become the prophets and the friends of God. But today we must speak only of Bonaventure.

When quite a child, he was saved by Saint Francis from imminent death, upon which his pious mother offered him by vow to the Saint, promising that he should enter the Order of Friars Minor. Thus, in the likeness of holy poverty, that beloved companion of the Seraphic Patriarch, did Eternal Wisdom prevent our Saint from his very cradle showing herself first to him. At the earliest awakening of his faculties he found her seated at the entrance of his soul, awaiting the opening of its gates, which are, he tells us, intelligence and love. Having received a good soul in an undefiled body, he preferred Wisdom before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison with the august friend who offered herself to him in the glory of her nobility and beauty. From that first moment, without ever waning, she was his light. Peacefully as a sunbeam glancing through a hitherto closed window, Wisdom filled this dwelling, now become her own, as the bride on the nuptial day takes possession of the bridegroom’s house, filling it with joy in community of goods, and above all of love. For her contribution to the nuptial banquet, she brought the substantial brightness of Heaven. Bonaventure on his part offered her the lilies of purity, so desired by her as her choicest food. Henceforth the feast in his soul was to be continual, and the light and the perfumes, breaking forth, were shed around, attracting, enlightening and nourishing all.

While still very young, he was, according to custom, sent, after the first years of his religious life to the celebrated University of Paris, where he soon won all hearts by his angelic manners. And the great Alexander of Hales, struck with admiration at the union of so many qualities, said of him that it seemed as if in him Adam had not sinned. As a lofty mountain whose head is lost in the clouds, and from whose foot run fertilising waters far and wide, Brother Alexander himself, according to the expression of the Sovereign Pontiff, seemed at that time to contain within himself the living fountain of Paradise, from which the river of science and salvation flowed over the Earth. Nevertheless not only would he, the irrefragable Doctor, and the Doctor of doctors, give up his chair in a short time to the newcomer, but he would hereafter derive his greatest glory from being called father and master by that illustrious disciple. Placed in such a position at so early an age, Bonaventure could say of Divine Wisdom, even more truly than of the great master who had had little to do but admire the prodigious development of his soul: “It is she that has taught me all things. She taught me the knowledge of God and of His works, justice and virtues, the subtleties of speeches and the solutions of arguments” (Wisdom vii. And viii.).

Such indeed is the object of those Commentaries on the four Books of Sentences first delivered as lectures from the chair of Paris where he held the noblest intellects spellbound by his graceful and inspired language. This masterpiece, while it is an inexhaustible mine of treasures to the Franciscan family, bears so great testimony to the science of this doctor of twenty-seven years of age that, though so soon called from his chair to the government of a great Order, he was worthy on account of this single work to share with his friend Thomas of Aquinas who was fortunately freer to pursue his studies, the honourable title of prince of Sacred Theology. The young master already merited his name of Seraphic Doctor by regarding science as merely a means to love, and declaring that the light which illuminates the mind is barren and useless unless it penetrates to the heart, where alone wisdom rests and feasts. Saint Antoninus tells us also that in him every truth grasped by the intellect passed through the affections, and thus became prayer and divine praise. “His aim,” says another historian, “was to burn with love, to kindle himself first at the divine fire, and afterwards to inflame others. Careless of praise or renown, anxious only to regulate his life and actions, he would fain burn and not only shine. He would be fire, in order to approach nearer to God by becoming more like to Him who is fire. Albeit, as fire is not without light, so was he also at the same time a shining torch in the House of God. But his special claim to our praise is, that all the light at his command he gathered to feed the flame of divine love.”

The bent of his mind was clearly indicated when at the beginning of his public teaching he was called on to give his decision on the question then dividing the Schools: to some theology was a speculative, to others a practical science, according as they were more struck by the theoretical or the moral side of its teaching. Bonaventure, uniting the two opinions in the principle which he considered the one universal law, concluded that “Theology is an affective science, the knowledge of which proceeds by speculative contemplation, but aims principally at making us good.” For the wisdom of doctrine, he said, must be according to her name be something that can be relished by the soul. And he added, not without that gentle touch of irony which the saints know how to use, “There is a difference, I suppose, in the impressions produced by the proposition, Christ died for us, or the like, and by such as this: the diagonal and the side of a square cannot be equal to one another.” The graceful speech and profound science of our saint were enhanced by a beautiful modesty. He would conclude a difficult question thus: “This is said without prejudice to the opinions of others. If anyone think otherwise, or better, as he may well do on this point as on all others, I bear him no ill-will. But if, in this little work, he find any thing deserving approval, let him give thanks to God, the Author of all good. Whatever in any part be found false, doubtful or obscure, let the kind reader forgive the incompetence of the writer, whose conscience bears him unimpeachable testimony that he has wished to say nothing but what is true, clear, and commonly received.”

On one occasion, however, Bonaventure’s unswerving devotion to the Queen of Virgins modified with a gentle force his expression of humility: “If anyone,” he says, “prefers otherwise, I will not contend with him, provided he say nothing to the detriment of the Venerable Virgin, for we must take the very greatest care, even should it cost us our life, that no one lessen in any way the honour of our Lady.” Lastly, at the end of the third book of this admirable Exposition of the Sentences, he declares that “charity is worth more than all science. It is enough, in doubtful questions, to know what the wise have taught. Disputation is to little purpose. We talk much, and our words fail us. Infinite thanks be to the perfecter of all discourse, our Lord Jesus Christ, who taking pity on my poverty of knowledge and of genius, has enabled me to complete this moderate work. I beg of Him that it may procure me the merit of obedience, and may be of profit to my brethren: the twofold purpose for which the task was undertaken.”

But the time had come when obedience was to give place to another kind of merit, less pleasing to himself, but not less profitable to the brethren. At thirty-five years of age, he was elected Minister General. Obliged thus to quit the field of scholastic teaching, he entrusted it to his friend, Thomas of Aquinas who, younger by several years, was to cultivate it longer and more completely than he himself had been suffered. The Church would lose nothing by the change, for Eternal Wisdom, who orders all things with strength and sweetness, thus disposed that these two incomparable geniuses, completing one another, should give us the fullness of that true science which not only reveals God, but leads to Him.

“Give an occasion to the wise man, and wisdom will be added to him” (Proverbs ix. 9). This sentence was placed by Bonaventure at the head of his treatise on “the Six Wings of the Seraphim,” in which he sets forth the qualifications necessary for one called to the cure of souls; and well did he fulfil it himself in the government of his immense Order, scattered by its missions throughout the whole Church. The treatise itself, which Father Claude Aquaviva held in such high estimation as to oblige the Superiors of the Society of Jesus to use it as a guide, furnishes us with a portrait of our Saint at this period. He had reached the summit of the spiritual life where the inward peace of the soul is undisturbed by the most violent agitations from without, where the closeness of their union with God produces in the saints a mysterious fecundity displayed to the world, when God wills, by a multiplicity of perfect works incomprehensible to the profane. Let us listen to Bonaventure’s own words: “The Seraphim exercise an influence over the lower orders, to draw them upwards. So the love of the spiritual man tends both to his neighbour and to God: to God that he may rest in Him, to his neighbour to draw him there with himself. Not only then do they burn. They also give the form of perfect love, driving away darkness and showing how to rise by degrees, and to go to God by the highest paths.”

Such is the secret of that admirable series of opuscula composed, as he owned to Saint Thomas, without the aid of any book but his crucifix, without any preconceived plan, but simply as occasion required, at the request, or to satisfy the needs of the brethren and sisters of his large family, or again when he felt a desire of pouring out his soul. In these works Bonaventure has treated alike of the first elements of asceticism and of the sublimest subjects of the mystic life, with such fullness, certainty, clearness and persuasive force that Sixtus IV declared the Holy Spirit seemed to speak in him. On reading the Itinerary of the soul to God, which was written on the height of Alvernia, as it were under the immediate influence of the Seraphim, the Chancellor Gerson exclaimed: “his opusculum, or rather this immense work, is beyond the praise of a mortal mouth.” And he wished it, together with that wonderful compendium of sacred science, the Breviloquium, to be imposed on theologians as a necessary manual. “By his words,” says the great Abbot Trithemius in the name of the Benedictine Order, “the author of all these learned and devout works inflames the will of the reader no less than he enlightens his mind. Note the spirit of divine love and Christian devotion in his writings, and you will easily see that he surpasses all the doctors of his time in the usefulness of his works. Many expound doctrine, many preach devotion, few teach the two together. Bonaventure surpasses both the many and the few, because he trains to devotion by science, and to science by devotion. If then you would be both learned and devout, you must put his teaching in practice.”

But Bonaventure himself will tell us best the proper dispositions for reading him with profit. At the beginning of his Incendium amoris in which teaches the three ways, purgative, illuminative and unitive which lead to true wisdom, he says: “I "offer this book not to philosophers, not to the worldly-wise, not to great theologians perplexed with endless questions, but to the simple and ignorant who strive rather to love God than to know much. It is not by disputing, but by activity, that we learn to love. As to these men full of questions, superior in every science, but inferior in the love of Christ, I consider them incapable of understanding the contents of this book. Unless putting away all vain show of learning, they strive, by humble self-renunciation, prayer and meditation to kindle within them the divine spark which, inflaming their hearts and dispelling all darkness, will lead them beyond the concerns of time even to the throne of peace. Indeed by the very fact of their knowing more, they are better disposed to love, or at least they would be, if they truly despised themselves and could rejoice to be despised by others.”

Although these pages are already too long, we cannot resist quoting the last words left us by Saint Bonaventure. As the Angel of the School was soon, at Fossa Nova, to close his labours and his life with the explanation of the Canticle of Canticles, so his seraphic rival and brother tuned his last notes to these words of the sacred Nuptial Song: “King Solomon has made him a litter of the wood of Libanus: The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going-up of purple.” “The seat of gold,” added our Saint, “is contemplative wisdom. It belongs to those alone who possess the column of silver, i.e. the virtues which strengthen the soul. The going-up of purple is the charity by which we ascend to the heights and descend to the valleys.” It is a conclusion worthy of Bonaventure, the close of a sublime but incomplete work, which he had not even time to put together himself. “Alas! Alas! Alas!” cries out with tears the loving disciple to whom we owe this last treasure, “a higher dignity, and then the death of our lord and master prevented the continuation of this work.” And then showing us in a touching manner the precautions taken by the sons lest they should lose anything of their father’s conferences: “What I here give,” he says, “is what I could snatch by writing rapidly while he was speaking. Two others took notes at the same time, but their papers are scarcely legible; whereas several of the audience were able to read my copy, and the master himself and many others made use of it, a fact for which I deserve some gratitude. And now at length, permission and time having been given to me, I have revised these notes, with the voice and gestures of the master ever in my ear and before my eyes. I have arranged them in order, without adding anything to what he said, except the indication of certain authorities.”

The dignity mentioned by the faithful secretary is that of Cardinal Bishop of Albano. After the death of Clement IV and the succeeding three years of widowhood for the Church, our Saint, by his influence with the Sacred College, had obtained the election of Gregory X who now imposed on him in virtue of obedience the honour of the Cardinalate. Having been entrusted with the work of preparation for the Council of Lyons convened for the Spring of 1274, Bonaventure had the joy of assisting at the re-union of the Latin and Greek Churches which he, more than anyone else, had been instrumental in obtaining. But God spared him the bitterness of seeing how short-lived the re-union was to be: a union which would have been the salvation of that East which he loved, and where his name, translated into Eutychius, was still in veneration two centuries later at the time of the Council of Florence. On the 10th of July of that year, 1274, in the midst of the Council, and presided at by the Sovereign Pontiff himself, took place the most solemn funeral the world has ever witnessed. “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan,” cried out before that mourning assembly gathered from East and West, the Dominican Cardinal Peter of Tarentaise. After fifty-three years spent in this world, the Seraph had cast off his robe of flesh, and spreading his wings had gone to join Thomas of Aquinas, who had by a very short time preceded him to Heaven.

YOU have entered, O Bonaventure, into the joy of your Lord, and what must your happiness be now since, as you yourself did say: “By how much a man loves God on Earth, by so much does he rejoice in him in Heaven.” If the great Saint Anselm from whom you borrowed that word added, that love is proportioned to knowledge, you who were at the same time a prince of sacred science and the doctor of love, show us how all light, in the order of grace and of nature, is intended to lead us to love. God is hidden in everything. Christ is the centre of every science, and the fruit of each of them is to build up faith, to honour God, to regulate our life, and to lead to divine union by charity, without which all knowledge is vain. For, as you said, all the sciences have their fixed and infallible rules which come down to our soul as so many reflections of the eternal law. And our soul, surrounded and penetrated with such brightness, is led of her own accord, unless she is blind, to contemplate that eternal light. Wonderful light, reflected from the mountains of our fatherland into the further most valleys of our exile! In the eyes of the Seraphic Father Francis the world was truly noble, so that he called, as you tell us, even the lowest creatures by the name of brothers and sisters. In every beauty he discerned the Sovereign Beauty. By the traces left in creation by its Author he found his Beloved everywhere, and he made of them a ladder by which to ascend to Him.

Do you, too, O my soul, open your eyes, bend your ear, unlock your lips, and prepare your heart, that in every creature you may see your God, hear Him, praise Him, love Him and honour Him, lest the whole universe rise up against you for not rejoicing in the works of His hands. Then from the world beneath you, which has but the shadow of God and His presence, inasmuch as He is everywhere, pass on to yourself His image by nature, reformed in Christ the Bridegroom. From the image rise to the truth of the first Beginning, in unity of Essence and trinity of Persons, that you may attain the repose of that sacred night where both the shadow and the image are forgotten in an all-absorbing love. But first of all you must know that the mirror of the external world will avail you little unless the interior mirror of your soul be purified and bright, unless your desire be aided by prayer and contemplation in order to kindle love. Know that here, reading without unction, speculation without devotion, labour without piety, knowledge without charity, intelligence without humility, study without grace, are nothing. And when at length rising gradually by prayer, holiness of life and the contemplation of truth, you will have reached the mountain where the God of gods reveals Himself, taught by the powerlessness of your sight here on Earth to endure splendours of which nature was too feeble to give you an indication, let your blind intelligence remain asleep, pass beyond it in Christ, who is the gate and the way, question no longer the master but the Bridegroom, not man but God, not the light but the all-consuming fire. Pass from this world with Christ to the Father, who will be shown to you, and then say with Philip: “It is enough for us.”

O Seraphic Doctor, lead us by this sublime ascent of which every line of your works discloses the secrets, the toils, the beauties and the dangers. In the pursuit of that Divine Wisdom which even in its feeblest reflections no one can behold without ecstasy, guard us against mistaking for an end the satisfaction felt from the scanty rays sent down to us to draw us from the confusion of nothingness even to Itself. If these rays which proceed from the eternal Beauty be withdrawn from their focus and perverted from their object, there will be nothing but delusion, deception, vain knowledge, or false pleasures. Indeed, the more lofty the knowledge and the nearer it approaches to God as the object of speculative theory, the more in a certain sense is error to be feared. If a man in his progress towards true wisdom, which is possessed and relished for its own sake, is drawn aside by the charms of knowledge, and rests in it, you, O Bonaventure, hesitate not to compare such knowledge to a vile deceiver who would withdraw the affections of the king’s son from his noble betrothed to fix them on herself. Such an insult to an august queen would be equally grievous whether offered by a servant or by a lady of honour. Hence you declared that “the passage from science to wisdom is dangerous, unless holiness intervenes.” Help us to cross the perilous pass. Let science ever be to us a means of attaining sanctity and acquiring greater love.

You have still, O Bonaventure, the same thoughts in the light of God. Witness the predilection you have more than once shown in our time for those centres, where, in spite of the fever of activity which must needs keep in motion every force of nature, divine contemplation is still appreciated as the better part, as the only end and aim of all knowledge. Deign to continue your protection of your devout and grateful clients. Defend, as heretofore, the life and prerogatives of all religious Orders which are now so persecuted. To your own Franciscan family be still a cause of increase both in numbers and in sanctity. Bless the labours undertaken by it, to the joy of all the world, to bring to light as they deserve your history and your works. Bring back the East a third time to unity and life, and that forever. May the whole Church be warmed by your rays. May the divine fire you so effectually nurtured, kindle the earth anew!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Justus, soldier under the tribune Claudius. A miraculous cross appearing to him, he believed in Christ, was baptised, and bestowed his goods on the poor. Arrested afterwards by the prefect Magnetius, he was scourged, had a heated helmet put on his head, and was thrown into the fire, but without injury even to a hair of his head. Finally, he yielded up his soul in the confession of the Lord.

At Sinope in Pontus, the martyrs St. Phocas, bishop of that city. Under the emperor Trajan, after having been imprisoned, bound, struck with the sword and exposed to the fire for Christ, he took his flight to heaven. His remains were brought to Vienne in France and deposited in the church of the holy Apostles.

At Alexandria, St. Heraclas, bishop, whose fame was so great that the historian Africanus repaired to Alexandria to see him, as he himself testifies.

At Carthage, St. Cyrus, bishop, on whose festival St. Augustine spoke of him to his people.

At Como, St. Felix, first bishop of that city.

At Brescia, St. Optatian, bishop.

At Daventry in Belgium, St. Marcellin, priest and confessor.

At Rome, St. Camillus de Lellis, confessor, founder of the Clerks Regular who minister to the sick. Renowned for virtues and miracles, he was numbered among the saints by Pope Benedict XIV.

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

Thanks be to God.