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.