4 DECEMBER – SAINT BARBARA (Virgin and Martyr)

 

Barbara, a virgin of Nicomedia, the daughter of Dioscorus, a nobleman but a superstitious pagan, came readily, by the assistance of divine grace, from the contemplation of the visible things of creation to the knowledge of the invisible. Wherefore, she devoted herself to God alone and to the things of God. Her father, desirous to preserve her from all danger of insult to which he feared her great beauty might expose her, shut her up in a tower. There the pious virgin passed her days in meditation and prayer, studying to please God alone, whom she had chosen as her Spouse. She courageously rejected several offers of marriage which were made to her through her father by rich nobles.

But her father hoped that by separating himself by a long absence from his child, her intentions would easily change. He first ordered that a bath should be built for her in the tower so that she might want for nothing, and then he set out on a journey into distant countries. During her father’s absence, Barbara ordered that to the two windows already in the tower a third should be added, in honour of the Blessed Trinity, and that on the edge of the bath the sign of the most holy Cross should be drawn. When Dioscorus returned home and saw these changes, and was told their meaning, he became so incensed against Barbara that he went in search of her with a naked sword in his hand and, but for the protection of God, he would cruelly have murdered her.

Barbara had taken to flight: an immense rock opened before her, and she found a path by which she reached the top of a mountain, and there she hid herself in a cave. Not long after, however, she was discovered by her unnatural father, who savagely kicked and struck her, and dragging her by the hair over the sharp rocks, and rugged ways, he handed her over to the governor Marcian, that he might punish her. He, therefore, having used every means to shake her constancy, and finding that all was in vain, gave orders that she should he stripped and scourged with thongs, the wounds to be then scraped with potsherd, and so dragged to prison. There Christ, surrounded by an immense light, appearing to her, strengthened her in a divine manner for the sufferings she was yet to endure.

A matron named Juliana who witnessed this was converted to the faith and became her companion in the palm of martyrdom. At length Barbara had her body torn with iron hooks, her sides burnt with torches, and her head bruised with mallets. During these tortures she consoled her companion and exhorted her to fight manfully to the last. Both of them had their breasts cut off, were dragged naked through the streets and beheaded. The head of Barbara was cut off by her own father, who in his excessive wickedness had hardened his heart thus far. But his ferocious cruelty was not long left unpunished, for instantly and on the very spot, he was struck dead by lightning.

The Emperor Justinus had the body of this most holy virgin translated from Nicomedia to Constantinople. It was afterwards obtained by the Venetians from the Emperors Constantine and Basil, and having been translated from Constantinople to Venice, was deposited with great solemnity in the Basilica of Saint Mark. Lastly, at the earnest request of the Bishop of Torcello and his sister who was abbess, it was translated in 1009 to the Conventual Church of Saint John the Evangelist in the diocese of Torcello, where it was placed in a worthy sepulchre, and from that time has never ceased to be the object of most fervent veneration.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although in the Roman Liturgy Saint Barbara is merely commemorated in the Office of Saint Peter Chrysologus, yet the Church has approved an entire Office for the use of those Churches which honour the memory of this illustrious Virgin in a special manner. The Legend although of considerable weight, has not consequently the authority of those which are promulgated for the use of the whole Church in the Roman Breviary. Let us not, on this account, be the less fervent in honouring this glorious Martyr, so celebrated in the East and whose feast has been for so many ages admitted, with more or less solemnity, into the Roman Church. The Acts of her martyrdom, though not of the highest antiquity, contain nothing in them but what redounds to the glory of God and the honour of the Saint. We have already shown the liturgical importance which attaches to Saint Barbara in the season of Advent. Let us admire the constancy with which this Virgin waited for her Lord, who came at the appointed hour, and was for her, as the Scripture speaks, a Spouse of blood, because He put the strength of her love of Him to the severest of all tests.

*****

The courageous Virgin of Nicomedia is invoked in the Church against lightning on account of the punishment inflicted by divine justice on her execrable father. This same incident of the Saint’s history has suggested several Catholic customs: thus, her name is sometimes given to the hold of men-of-war where the ammunition is stowed. She is the Patroness of artillery-men, miners, etc and she is invoked by the faithful against the danger of a sudden death.

*****

To the voice of so many Churches we join ours, O faithful Virgin! And though we are unworthy, yet do we offer you our praise and our prayers. Behold our Lord comes, and the darkness of the night is upon us. Give to our lamp both the light which will guide us, and the oil which will keep in the light. You know that He who came for love of you and with whom you are now united for all eternity, is coming to visit us too. Pray for us that nothing may keep us from receiving Him. May we go towards Him courageously and swiftly as you did, and being once with Him, may we never be separated from Him again, for He is the centre where we creatures find our only rest. Pray also, glorious Martyr, that the faith in the Blessed Trinity may be ever increasing in this world. May our enemy, Satan, be confounded by every tongue’s confessing the Threefold light and the triumphant Cross which sanctifies the waters of Baptism. Remember, O blessed Barbara, Spouse of Jesus, that He has put in your gentle hands the power not of burling but of staying and averting the thunderbolt. Protect our ships against the fires of heaven and of war. Shield by your protection the arsenals where are placed the defence of our country. Hear the prayers of them that invoke you, whether in the fierceness of the storm, or in the dark depths of the earth, and save us all from the awful chastisement of a sudden death.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Constantinople, the saints Theophanes and his companions.

In Pontus, blessed Meletius, bishop and confessor, who joined to an eminent gift of knowledge the more distinguished glory of fortitude and integrity of life.

At Bologna, St. Felix, bishop, who previously had been deacon of the church of Milan under St. Ambrose.

In England, St. Osmund, bishop and confessor.

At Cologne, St. Annan, bishop.

In Mesopotamia, St. Maruthas, bishop, who restored the churches of God that had been ruined in Persia by the persecution of king Isdegerdes. Being renowned for many miracles, he merited to be honoured even by his enemies.

At Parma, St. Bernard, cardinal and bishop of that city. He belonged to the Congregation of Vallumbrosa, of the Order of St. Benedict.

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

Thanks be to God.

3 DECEMBER – TUESDAY IN THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias ii. 1‒3

The word that Isaias the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be prepared on the top of mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills: and all nations will flow to it. And many people will go, and say: “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us his ways: and we will walk in his paths, for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

How the Church loves to hear and say these grand words of the Prophet: “Come let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord!” She repeats them in the Lauds of every Feria in Advent, and her children bless the Lord who, that we might have no difficulty in finding Him, has made Himself like a high mountain. High, indeed, yet can we all ascend it. It is true that at first this mountain is, as we learn from another Prophet, a small stone which is scarce perceptible, and this to show the humility of the Messiah at His birth. But it soon becomes great, and all people see it and are invited to dwell on its fertile slopes, yes, to go up to its very summit, bright with the rays of the Sun of Justice. It is thus, Jesus, that you call us all, and that you approach towards all, and the greatness and sublimity of thy mysteries are put within the reach of our littleness. We desire to join, without delay, that happy multitude of people which is journeying on towards you. We are already with them. We are resolved to fix our tent under your shadow, O Mountain ever blessed! There shelter us, and let us be out of reach of the noise of the world beneath us. Suffer us to go so far up that we may lose all sight of that same world’s vanities. May we never forget those paths which lead even to the blissful summit where the mountain, the figure, disappears, and the soul finds herself face to face with Him whose vision eternally keeps the Angels in rapture, and whose delight is to be with the children of men! (Proverbs viii. 31).

30 NOVEMBER – SAINT ANDREW (Apostle and Martyr)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Let us read the life of this glorious fisherman of the lake of Genesareth, who was afterwards to be the successor of Christ Himself, and the companion of Peter on the tree of the Cross. The Church has compiled it from the ancient Acts of the Martyrdom of the holy Apostle, drawn up by the priests of the Church of Patrae, which was founded by the Saint. The authenticity of this venerable piece has been contested by Protestants inasmuch as it makes mention of several things which would militate against them. Their sentiment has been adopted by several critics of the 17th and 18th centuries. On the other hand, these Acts have been received by a far greater number of Catholic writers of eminence, among whom may be mentioned the great Baronius, Labbe, Natalia Alexander, Gallandus, Lumper, Morcelli, etc. The Churches, too, of both East and West, which have inserted these Acts in their respective Offices of Saint Andrew, are of some authority, as is also Saint Bernard, who has made them the groundwork of his three admirable sermons on Saint Andrew:

Andrew, the Apostle, born at Bethsaida, a town of Galilee, was brother of Peter and disciple of John the Baptist. Having heard his master say, speaking of Christ: “Behold the Lamb of God!” he followed Jesus and brought to Him his brother also. When, afterwards, he was fishing with his brother in the sea of Galilee, they were both called, before any of the other Apostles, by our Lord who, passing by, said to them: “Come after me. I will make you to be fishers of men.” Without delay, they left their nets and followed Him.

After the Passion and Resurrection, Andrew went to spread the faith of Christ in Scythia in Europe, which was the province assigned to him. Then he travelled through Epirus and Thrace, and by his teaching and miracles converted innumerable souls to Christ. Afterwards, having reached Patrae in Achaia, he persuaded many in that city to embrace the truth of the Gospel. Finding that the Proconsul Aegeas resisted the preaching of the Gospel, he most freely upbraided him for that he, who desired to be considered as a judge of men, should be so far deceived by devils as not to acknowledge Christ to be God, the Judge of all. Then Aegeas being angry, said: “Cease to boast of this Christ, whom such like words as these kept not from being crucified by the Jews.” But finding that Andrew continued boldly preaching that Christ had offered Himself to be crucified for the salvation of mankind, he interrupted him by an impious speech, and at length exhorted him to look to his own interest and sacrifice to the gods. Andrew answered him: “I offer up every day to almighty God, who is one and true, not the flesh of oxen, nor the blood of goats, but the spotless Lamb upon the altar. I of whose flesh the whole multitude of the faithful eat, and the Lamb that is sacrificed, remains whole and living.” Whereupon Aegeas being exceeding angry, ordered him to be thrust into prison, where the people would easily have freed Andrew, had he not himself appeased the multitude, begging of them, with most earnest entreaty, that they would not keep him from the long-sought-for crown of martyrdom, to which he was hastening. Not long after this, Andrew was brought before the tribunal,where he began to extol the mystery of the Cross and rebuke the judge for his impiety. Aegeas, no longer able to contain himself on hearing these words, ordered him to be hoisted on a cross, and to to die like Christ.

Having been brought to the place of execution and seeing the cross at some distance, Andrew began to cry out: “O good Cross, made beautiful by the body of my Lord! so long desired, so anxiously loved, so unceasingly sought after, and now at last ready for my soul to enjoy! Take me from amidst men, and restore me to my Master, that by you He may receive me, who by you redeemed me.” He was therefore fastened to the cross, on which he hung alive two days, preaching without cessation the faith of Christ, after which he passed to Him, whose death he had so coveted. Andrew’s relics were first translated to Constantinople, under the emperor Constantine, and afterwards to Amalfi. During the Pontificate of Pius II the head was taken to Rome and placed in the Basilica of Saint Peter.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This feast is destined each year to terminate with solemnity the Cycle which is at its close, or to add lustre to the new one which has just begun. It seems indeed fitting that the Christian year should begin and end with the cross which has merited for us each of those years which it has pleased the divine goodness to grant us, and which is to appear, on the last day, in the clouds of Heaven, as the seal put on time. We should remember that Saint Andrew is the Apostle of the Cross. To Peter, Jesus has given firmness of faith, to John warmth of love. The mission of Andrew is to represent the Cross of His divine Master. Now it is by these three, faith, love and the Cross, that the Church renders herself worthy of her Spouse. Everything she has or is, bears this threefold character. Hence it is that after the two Apostles just named, there is none who holds such a prominent place in the universal Liturgy as Saint Andrew.

The Greek Church is as fervent as any of the Churches of the West in celebrating the prerogatives and merits of Saint Andrew. He is the more dear to it because Constantinople considers him as her patron Apostle. It would, perhaps, be difficult for the Greeks to give any solid proofs of Saint Andrew’s having founded, as they pretend, the Church of Byzantium: but this is certain, that Constantinople enjoyed for many centuries the possession of the precious treasure of the Saint’s relics. They were translated to that city in the year 357, through the interest of the Emperor Constantius, who placed them in the Basilica of the Apostles built by Constantine. Later on, that is, about the middle of the 6th century, Justinian caused them to be translated a second time, but only from one part of that same Basilica to another.

The Church of Constantinople, so devoted, as we have seen, to the glory of Saint Andrew, was at length deprived of the precious treasure of his eelics. This happened in the year 1210 when the City was taken by the Crusaders. Cardinal Peter of Capua, the Legate of the Holy See, translated the body of Saint Andrew into the Cathedral of Amalfi, a town in the Kingdom of Naples, where it remains to this day, the glorious instrument of numberless miracles, and the object of the devout veneration of the people. It is well known how, at the same period, the most precious relics of the Greek Church came, by a visible judgement of God, into the possession of the Latins. Byzantium refused to accept those terrible warnings and continued obstinate in her schism. She was still in possession of the Head of the holy Apostle, owing, no doubt, to this circumstance, that in the several Translations which had been made, it had been kept in a separate reliquary by itself. When the Byzantine Empire was destroyed by the Turks, Divine Providence so arranged events as that the Church of Rome should be enriched with this magnificent relic. In 1462, the Head of Saint Andrew was, therefore, brought there by the celebrated Cardinal Bessarion. And on the twelfth of April of that same year, Palm Sunday, the heroic Pope Pius II went in great pomp to meet it as far as the Bridge Milvius (Ponte Molle), and then placed it in the Basilica of Saint Peter, on the Vatican, where it is at present, near the Confession of the Prince of the Apostles. At the sight of this venerable Head, Pius II was transported with a religious enthusiasm, and before taking up the glorious relic in order to carry it into Rome, he pronounced the magnificent address which we now give:

“At length, you have arrived, O most holy and venerable head of the saintly Apostle! The fury of the Turks has driven you from thy resting-place, and you are come as an exile to your brother, the Prince of the Apostles. No, your brother will not fail you. And by the will of God, the day will come when men will say in your praise: happy banishment which caused you to receive such a welcome! Meanwhile, here will you dwell with your brother and share in his honours. This is Rome, the venerable City, which was dedicated by your brother’s precious blood. The people you see, are they whom the blessed Apostle, your most loving brother, and Saint Paul, the Vessel of Election, regenerated to Christ our Lord. Thus the Romans are your kinsmen. They venerate, and honour, and love you as their Father’s brother, nay, as their second Father, and are confident of your patronage in the presence of the great God. Most blessed Apostle Andrew! Preacher of the truth and defender of the dogma of the most Holy Trinity! With what joy do you not fill us on this day on which it is given us to behold your sacred and venerable head which deserved that, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Paraclete should rest on it in the form of fire! O you Christians that visit Jerusalem out of reference for your Saviour, that there you may see the places where His feet have stood: Lo! here is the throne of the Holy Ghost. Here sat the Spirit of the Lord. Here was seen the Third Person of the Trinity. Here were the eyes that so often saw Jesus in the flesh. This was the mouth that so often spoke to Jesus, and on these cheeks did that same Lord doubtless impress His sacred kisses.

O wondrous Sanctuary in which dwelt charity, and kindness, and gentleness, and spiritual consolation. Who could look upon such venerable and precious relics of the Apostle of Christ and not be moved? and not be filled with tender devotion? and not shed tears for very joy? Yes, O most admirable Apostle Andrew, we rejoice, and are glad, and exult, at this your coming, for we doubt not but what you yourself are present here and bear us company as we enter with your head into the Holy City.

The Turks are indeed our enemies, as being the enemies of the Christian Religion, but in that they have been the occasion of your coming among us, we are grateful to them. For, what greater blessing could have befallen us than that we should be permitted to see your most sacred head, and that our Rome should be filled with its fragrance? Oh that we could welcome you with the honours which are due to you, and receive you in a way becoming your exceeding holiness! But, accept our good will and our sincere desire to honour you, and suffer us now to touch your relics with our unworthy hands and, though sinners, to accompany you into the walls of the City. Enter, then, the Holy City, and show your love to her people. May your coming be a boon to Christendom. May your entrance be peaceful, and your abode among us bring happiness and prosperity. Be our advocate in Heaven and, together with blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, defend this City, and protect, with your love, all Christian people that, by your intercession, the mercy of God may be upon us, and if His indignation be kindled against us by reason of our manifold sins, let it fall upon the impious Turks and the pagan nations that blaspheme our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Thus has the glory of Saint Andrew been blended in Rome with that of Saint Peter. But the Apostle of the Cross whose feast was heretofore kept in many Churches with an Octave, has also been chosen as Patron of one of the Kingdoms of the West. Scotland, when she was a Catholic country, had put herself under his protection. May he still exercise his protection over her, and, by his prayers, hasten her return to the true faith!

Let us now, in union with the Church, pray to this holy Apostle, for this is the glorious day of his feast: let us pay him that honour which is due to him, and ask him for the help of which we stand in need.

* * * * *

God grants us to meet you, O blessed Andrew, at the threshold of the mystic Season of Advent on which we are so soon to enter. When Jesus, our Messiah, began His public life, you had already become the obedient disciple of the Precursor who preached His coming: you were among the first of them who received the Son of Mary as the Messiah foretold in the law and the prophets. But you could not keep the heavenly secret from him who was so dear to you. To Peter, then, you bore the good tidings, and led him to Jesus. O blessed Apostle, we also are longing for the Messiah, the Saviour of our souls. Since you have found Him, lead us also to Him. We place under your protection the holy period of expectation and preparation which is to bring us to the day of our Saviour’s Nativity, that divine mystery in which He will manifest Himself to the world. Assist us to render ourselves worthy of seeing Him on that great night. The baptism of penance prepared you for receiving the grace of knowing the Word of life. pray for us that we may become truly penitent and may purify our hearts during that holy time, and thus be able to behold Him who has said: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.”

You have a special power of leading souls to Jesus, O glorious Saint! for even he, who was to be made the pastor of the whole flock, was presented to the Messiah by you. By calling you to Himself on this day, our Lord has given you as the patron of Christians who each year, seeking again that God in whom you are now living, pray to you to show them the way which leads to Jesus.

You teach us this way: it is that of fidelity, of fidelity even to the Cross. In that way you courageously walked, and because the Cross leads to Jesus Christ, you passionately loved the Cross. Pray for us, O holy Apostle, that we may begin to understand this love of the Cross, and that having understood it, we may put it in practice. Your brother says to us in his Epistle: “Christ having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought” (1 Peter iv. 1) Your feast, O blessed Andrew, shows us you as the living commentary of this doctrine. Because your Master was crucified, you would also be crucified. From the high throne to which you have been raised by the Cross, pray for us that the Cross may be to us the expiation of the sins which are upon us, the quenching of the passions which burn within us, and the means of uniting us by love to Him, who, through love alone for us, was nailed to the Cross.

Important, indeed, and precious are these lessons of the Cross. But the Cross, O blessed Apostle, is the perfection and the consummation, and not the first commencement. It is the Infant God, it is the God of the Crib that we must first know and love. It was the Lamb of God that Saint John pointed out to you, and it is that Lamb whom we so ardently desire to contemplate. The austere and awful time of Jesus’ Passion is not come. We are now in Advent. Fortify us for the day of combat, but the grace we now most need is compunction and tender love. We put under your patronage this great work of our preparation for the Coming of Jesus into our hearts.

Remember also, O blessed Andrew, the holy Church of which you were a pillar and which you have beautified by the shedding of your blood: lift up your hands for her to Him whose battle she is forever fighting. Pray that the Cross she has to bear in this her pilgrimage may be lightened, that she may love this Cross, and that it may be the source of her power and her glory. Remember with special love the holy Roman Church, the Mother and Mistress of all Churches. And by reason of that fervent love she has for you, obtain for her victory and peace by the Cross. Visit anew, in your Apostolic zeal, the Church of Constantinople which has forfeited true light and unity because she would not render homage to Peter, your brother, whom you honoured as your chief, out of love to Him who is the common Master of both him and you.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the martyrdom of the Saints Castulus and Euprepis.

At Constantinople, St. Maura, virgin and martyr.

Also St. Justina, virgin and martyr.

At Saintes, the holy bishop Trojanus, a man of great sanctity, who shows by many miracles that he lives in heaven, though buried on earth.

At Rome, St. Constantius, confessor, who strongly opposed the Pelagians, and by enduring many injuries from them, gained a place among holy confessors.

In Palestine, blessed Zosimus, confessor, who was distinguished by sanctity and miracles in the time of the emperor Justin.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 NOVEMBER – 26TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (RESUMED - SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY)

 Epistle – 1 Thessalonians i. 2–10

We give thanks to God always for you all, making a remembrance of you in our prayers without ceasing, being mindful of the work of your faith, and labour, and charity, and of the enduring of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father: Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election: for our Gospel has not been to you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fulness, as you know what manner of men we have been among you for your sakes. And you became followers of us, and of the Lord, receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost: So that you were made a pattern to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you was spread abroad the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia, and in Achaia, but also in every place, your faith which is towards God, is gone forth, so that we need not to speak any thing. For they themselves relate of us, what manner of entering in we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God. And to wait for his Son from heaven (whom he raised up from the dead) Jesus, who has delivered us from the wrath to come.

Thanks be to God.

Gospel – Matthew xiii. 31‒35

At that time Jesus spoke to the multitudes this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which is the least indeed of all seeds, but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof. Another parable he spoke to them: The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. All these things Jesus spoke in parables to the multitudes: and without parables he did not speak to them that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

10 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (RESUMED - FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY)

Epistle – Colossians iii. 12‒17

Brethren, put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another, even as the Lord has forgiven you, so do you also. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.

Thanks be to God.

Gospel – Matthew xiii. 24‒30

At that time, Jesus spoke another parable to the multitudes: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and over-sowed cockle among the wheat and went his way. And when the blade had sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming said to him: “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? From where then has it cockle?” And he said to them: “An enemy has done this.” And the servants said to him: “Do you want us to go and gather it up?” And he said: “No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather into my barn.”

Praise to you, O Christ.

3 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY RESUMED)

Epistle – Romans xiii. 8‒10

Brethren, owe no man anything, but to love one another, for he that loves his neighbour has fulfilled the Law. For, “You must not commit adultery: You must not kill. You must not steal. You must not bear false witness. You must not covet.” And if there be any other commandment it is comprised in this word: “You must love your neighbour as yourself.” The love of our neighbour works no evil. Love, therefore, is the fulfilling of the Law.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

During this holy season when the very Son of God is giving so great a proof of His love for man, whose nature He has assumed — the Church is continually exhorting the faithful, in the words of the Apostle, to practise charity towards each other. The Emmanuel comes to us as our Lawgiver: now, He has resumed His whole Law in the precept of love. He is come in order to unite what sin had divided. Let us comply with His divine intentions and accomplish, with earnestness, the Law He has imposed on us.

Gospel – Matthew viii. 23‒27

At that time, when Jesus entered into the boat His disciples followed Him. And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but He was asleep. And His disciples came to Him, and awakened Him, saying: “Lord, save us, we perish.” And Jesus said to them: “Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?” Then rising up He commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: “What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey him?”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Let us adore the power of our Emmanuel who is come to calm the tempest which threatened the human race with death. In the midst of their danger the successive generations of men had cried out: “Lord! Save us. We perish.” When the fullness of time had come, He awoke from his rest. He had but to command, and the power of our enemies was destroyed. The malice of the devils, the darkness of idolatry, the corruption of paganism — all yielded. Nation after nation was converted to Jesus. They had said when in their misery and blindness: “Who is this Jesus whom no power can resist?” and then, they embraced His Law. This power of Jesus to break down every obstacle —and that, too, at the very time when men were disquieted at His apparent slumbering — has often shown itself in the past ages of the Church. How many times has He not chosen that period for saving the world which seemed the least likely for rescue! The same happens in the life of each one among us. Often we are tossed to and fro by violent temptations. It would seem as though the billows must sink us, and yet our will is firmly anchored to our God! And what is all this, if not Jesus sleeping in the heaving barque —nay, protecting us by this His sleeping? And if our cry for help at length awakens Him, it is only to proclaim His own and our victory, for He has already conquered and we have conquered in Him.

12 OCTOBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the holy martyrs Evagrius, Priscian and their companions.

At Ravenna, on the Via Laurentina, the birthday of St. Edistius, martyr.

In Lycia, St. Domnina, martyr, under the emperor Diocletian.

In Africa, four thousand nine hundred and sixty-six holy confessors and martyrs in the persecution of the Vandals under the Arian king Hunneric. Some of them were bishops, some priests and deacons, with a multitude of the faithful accompanying them, who were driven into a frightful wilderness for the defence of the Catholic truth. Many of them were cruelly annoyed by the Moorish leaders, and with sharp-pointed spears and stones forced to hasten their march, while others, with their feet tied, were dragged like corpses through rough places and mangled in all their limbs. They were finally tortured in different manners, and won the honours of martyrdom. The principal among them were the bishops Felix and Cyprian.

At Cilly in Styria, St. Maximilian, bishop of Lorch.

At York in England, St. Wilfrid, bishop and confessor.

At Milan, St. Monas, bishop. He was chosen as head of that church because a miraculous light from heaven surrounded him while they were deliberating on the choice of a bishop.

At Verona, St. Salvinus, bishop.

In Syria, St. Eustachius, priest and confessor.

At Ascoli, St. Seraphinus, confessor, of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins, distinguished by holiness of life and humility. He was enrolled among the saints by Pope Clement XIII.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 OCTOBER – TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – Ephesians v. 15‒21

Brethren, see how you walk circumspectly, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore, become not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury: but be filled with the Holy Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord: giving thanks always for all things, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father; being subject one to another in the fear of Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

As the nuptials of the Son of God approach their final completion, there will be, also, on the side of Hell, a redoubling of rage against the Bride, with a determination to destroy her. The dragon of the Apocalypse (Apocalypse xii. 9) the old serpent who seduced Eve, will vomit his vile foam, as a river, from his mouth (Apocalypse xii. 15): that is, he will urge on all the passions of man that they may league together for her ruin. But, do what he will, he can never weaken the bond of the eternal alliance. And having no power against the Church herself, he will turn his fury against the last children of the new Eve who will have the perilous honour of those final battles, which are described by the Prophet of Patmos (Apocalypse xii. 17).

It is then, more than at all previous times, that the Faithful will have to remember the injunction given to us by the Apostle in today’s Epistle: that is, they will have to comport themselves with that circumspection which he enjoins, taking every possible care to keep their understanding, no less than their heart, pure, in those evil days. Supernatural light will, in those days, not only have to stand the attacks of the children of darkness who will put forward their false doctrines. It will, moreover, be minimised and falsified by the very children of the light yielding on the question of principles. It will be endangered by the hesitations, and trimmings, and human prudence, of those who are called far-seeing men. Many will practically ignore the master-truth that the Church never can be overwhelmed by any created power. If they do remember that our Lord has promised Himself to uphold his Church even to the end of the world (Matthew xxviii. 20), they will still have the impertinence to believe that they do a great service to the good cause by making certain politically clever concessions which, if they were tried in the balance of the sanctuary, would be found under weight!

Those future worldly-wise people will quite forget that our Lord will have no need, for helping Him to keep His promise, of crooked schemes, however shrewd those may be. They will entirely overlook this most elementary consideration — that the co-operation which Jesus deigns to accept, at the hands of His servants, in the defence of the rights of His Church, never could consist in the garbling, or in the disguisement, of those grand truths which constitute the power and beauty of the Bride. Is it possible that they will forget the Apostle’s maxim which he lays down in his Epistle to the Romans — that the conforming oneself to this world — the attempting an impossible adaptation of the Gospel to a world that is un-Christianised — is not the means for proving what is the good, and acceptable, and the perfect will of God? (Romans xii. 12) So that it will be a thing of great and rare merit, in many an occurrence of those unhappy times, to merely understand what is the will of God, as our Epistle expresses it.

“Look to yourselves,” would Saint John say to those men, “that you lose not the things which you have wrought. Make yourselves sure of the full reward,” which is only given to the persevering thoroughness of doctrine and faith! (2 John 8, 9). Besides, it will be then, as in all other times, that according to the saying of the Holy Ghost, “the simplicity of the just will guide them” (Proverbs xi. 3) and far more safely than any human ingenuity could do. Humility will give them Wisdom (Proverbs xi. 2) and, keeping themselves closely united to this noble companion, they will be made truly wise by her, and will know what is acceptable to God (Wisdom ix. 10). They will understand that aspiring, like the Church herself, to union with the eternal Word — fidelity to the Spouse, for them, as it is for the Church, is nothing else than fidelity to the truth, for the Word, who is the one same object of love to both of them, is in God no other than the splendour of infinite truth (Wisdom vii. 25, 26).

Their one care, therefore, will ever be to approach nearer and nearer to their Beloved by a continually increasing resemblance to Him: that is to say, by the completest reproduction, both in their words and works, of the beautiful Truth. By so doing they will be serving their fellow creatures in the best possible way, for they will be putting in practice the counsel of Jesus, who bids them seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and confide in Him for all the rest (Matthew vi. 33). Others may have recourse to human and accommodating combinations fitted to please all parties. They may put forward dubious compromises which (so their suggestors think) will keep back for some weeks, or some months perhaps, the fierce tide of revolution. But those who have God’s spirit in them will put a very different construction on the admonition given us by the Apostle in today’s Epistle, where he tells us to redeem the time.

It was our Lord who bought time, and at a great price. And He bought it for us that it might be employed by His faithful servants in procuring glory for God. By most men it is squandered away in sin or folly, but those who are united to Christ as living members to the Spouse of their souls will redeem it. That is, they will put such an intensity into their faith and their love that, as far as it is possible for human nature, not a moment of their time will be anything but an earnest undiminished (Psalm xi. 2) tribute of their service of their Lord. To the insolent and blasphemous things which are then to be spoken by the Beast (Apocalypse xiii. 5, 6), these determined servants of God will give for their brave answer the cry of Saint Michael which he uttered against Satan who was the helper of the Beast (Apocalypse xiii. 2): “Who is like God!”

These closing weeks of the year used in old times to be called: Weeks of the holy Angel. We have seen, in one of these Sundays how there was announced the great Archangel’s coming to the aid of God’s people as Daniel the Prophet had foretold would be at the end of the world (Daniel xii. 1). When, therefore, the final tribulations will commence, when exile will scatter the Faithful and the sword will slay them (Apocalypse xiii. 7, 10) and the world will approve all that, prostrate, as it then will be, before the Beast and his image (Apocalypse xiii. 3, 4, 8, 15), let us not forget that we have a leader chosen by God and proclaimed by the Church: a leader who will marshal us during those final combats in which the defeat of the Saints (Apocalypse xiii. 7) will be more glorious than were the triumphs of the Church in the days when she ruled the world. For, what God will then ask of his servants will not be success of diplomatic arrangements, nor a victory won by arms, but fidelity to His truth, that is, to His Word: a fidelity all the more generous and perfect, as there will be an almost universal falling off around the little army fighting under the Archangel’s banner. Uttered by a single faithful heart, and under such circumstances, and uttered with the bravery of faith and the ardour of love — the cry of Saint Michael, which heretofore routed the infernal legions, will be a greater honour to God than will be the insult offered to Him by the millions of the degraded followers of the Beast.

Let us get thoroughly imbued with these thoughts which are suggested by the opening lines of our Epistle. Let us, also, master the other instructions it contains and which, after all, differ but little from the ones we have been developing. On this Sunday when, formerly, was read the Gospel of the nuptials of the Son of God and the invitation to his divine banquet, our holy Mother the Church appropriately in the Epistle bids us observe the immense difference there is between these sacred delights, and the joys of the world’s marriage feasts. The calm, the purity, the peace of the just man who is admitted into intimacy with God, are a continual feast to his soul (Proverbs xv. 16). The food served up at that feast is Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 29). Wisdom, too, is the beloved Guest, who is unfailingly there (Wisdom viii. 16; Apocalypse iii. 20). The world is quite welcome to its silly and often shameful pleasures. The Word and the soul which, in a mysterious way, He has filled with the Holy Spirit (Canticles i. 1) join together to sing to the eternal Father in admirable unison. They will go on, forever, with their hymns of thanksgiving and praise, for the materials of both are infinite. The hideous sight of the earth’s inhabitants who will then, by thousands, be paying homage to the harlot, who sits on the Beast and offers them the golden cup of her abominations (Apocalypse xvii. 1‒5) — no, not even that will interfere in the least with the bliss caused in Heaven by the sight of those happy souls on Earth. The convulsions of a world in its last agony, the triumphs of the woman drunk with the blood of the martyrs (Apocalypse xvii. 6) — far from breaking in on the harmony which comes from a soul which is united with the Word, they will but give greater fullness to her notes which sound forth the divine, and greater sweetness to the human music of the human song.

The Apostle tells all this in his own magnificent way where he says: “Who, then, will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? True, it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Psalm xliii. 22) — but in all these things we overcome because of Him that has loved us. For I am sure, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord” (Romans viii. 35‒39).

Gospel – John iv. 46‒53

At that time, there was a certain ruler whose son was sick at Capharnaum. Having heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and prayed Him to come down and heal his son for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not.” The ruler said to Him, “Lord, come down before my son dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go your way, your son lives.” The man believed the word which Jesus said to him and went his way. And as he was going down, his servants met him and they brought word, saying that his son lived. He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father therefore knew that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed and his whole house.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Gospel for today is taken from Saint John. It it is the first and only time during the whole course of these Sundays after Pentecost. It gives the twentieth Sunday the name of Ruler of Capharnaum. The Church has selected this Gospel on account of its bearing a certain mysterious relation to the state the world will be in when those last days will come which the Liturgy of this close of the Church’s Year is so continually and prophetically bringing before us.

The world is drawing towards its end. Like the Ruler’s son, it begins to die. Tormented by the fever of the passions which have been excited in Capharnaum, the city of business and pleasure, it is too weak to go itself to the Physician who could cure it. It is for its father, for the pastors who by baptism gave it the life of grace and govern the Christian people as rulers of holy Church. It is for them to go to Jesus and beseech Him to restore the sick man to health. Saint John begins this account (John iv. 46) by mentioning the place where they were to find Jesus: it was at Cana, the city of the marriage-feast and where He first manifested His power (John ii. 11) in the banquet hall. It is in Heaven that the Man-God abides now that he has quitted our Earth where He has left His disciples deprived of the Bridegroom (Matthew ix. 15) and having to pass a certain period of time in the field of penance.

Capharnaum signifies the field of penance and of consolation, which penance brings with it. Such was this Earth intended to be when Man was driven from Eden. Such was the consolation to which during this life the sinner was to aspire. And because of his having sought after other consolations, because of his having pretended at turning this field of penance into a new paradise, the world is now to be destroyed. Man has exchanged the life-giving delights of Eden for the pleasures which kill the soul, and ruin the body, and draw down the divine vengeance. There is a remedy for all this, and only one. It is the zeal of the pastors, and the prayers of that portion of Christ’s flock which has withstood the torrent of universal corruption. But it is of the utmost importance that, on this point, the Faithful and their Pastors should lay aside all personal considerations and thoroughly enter into the spirit which animates the Church herself. Though treated with the most revolting ingratitude, and injustice, and calumny, and treachery of every sort, this Mother of mankind forgets all these her own wrongs and thinks only of the true prosperity and salvation of the very countries which despise her. She is well aware that the time is at hand when God will make justice triumphant. and yet she goes on struggling, as Jacob did, with God (Genesis xxxii. 24‒28) until there come the dawn of that terrible day foretold by David and the Sibyl. At the thought of the pool of fire (Apocalypse xxi. 8) whose hellish vapours are already seeming to infest our atmosphere, and into which are to be plunged her rebellious children, she looks almost as though she forgot the approach of the eternal nuptials and had lost her vehement longings as a Bride. One would say that she thinks of nothing but of her being a Mother and as such she keeps on praying as she has always been doing, only more fervently than ever, that the end may be deferred, pro mora finis.

That we may fulfil her wishes, let us, as Tertullian says, “assemble together in one body that we may, so to speak, offer armed force to God by our prayers. God loves such violence as that.” But that our prayer may have power of that kind, it must be inspired by a faith which is thorough and proof against every difficulty. As it is our faith which overcomes the world (1 John iv. 5), so it is likewise our faith which triumphs over God, even in cases which seem beyond all human hope. Let us do as our Mother does, and think of the danger incurred by those countless men who madly play on the brink of the precipice into which, when they fall, they fall forever. It is quite true they are inexcusable. It was only last Sunday that they were reminded of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, in the exterior darkness, which they will undergo who despise the call to the King's marriage-feast (Matthew xxii. 13), but they are our brethren, and we should not be so quietly resigned at seeing them lose their souls. Let us hope against all hope. Our Lord who knew with certainty that obstinate sinners would be lost — did He, on that account, hesitate to shed all His Blood for them?

It is our ambition to unite ourselves to Him by the closest possible resemblance. Let us, then, be resolved to imitate in that also, were occasion to serve us. At all events, let us pray, and without ceasing, for the Church’s and our enemies, so long as we are not assured of their being lost. It is here that nothing is useless, nothing is thrown away, for come what may, God is greatly honoured by our faith and by the earnestness of our charity. Only let us be careful not to merit the reproach uttered by our Redeemer against the limping (Hebrews xii. 13) faith of the fellow townsmen of the Ruler of Capharnaum. We know that our Jesus has no need to come down from Heaven to Earth in order to give efficiency to the commands of His gracious will. If He deign to multiply signs and wonders around us, we will rejoice at them because of our brethren who are weak of faith, we will make them an occasion for exalting His Holy Name — but we will lovingly assure Him that our soul had no need of new proofs of His power in order to believe in Him.

24 SEPTEMBER – OUR LADY OF RANSOM

At the time when the Saracen yoke oppressed the larger and more fertile part of Spain, and great numbers of the faithful were detained in cruel servitude, at the great risk of denying the Christian faith and losing their eternal salvation, the most blessed Queen of Heaven graciously came to remedy all these great evils and showed her exceeding charity in redeeming her children. She appeared with beaming countenance to Peter Nolasco, a man conspicuous for wealth and piety, who in his holy meditations was ever striving to devise some means of helping the innumerable Christians living in misery as captives of the Moors. She told him it would be very pleasing to her and her only begotten Son, if a religious Order were instituted in her honour, whose members should devote themselves to delivering captives from Turkish tyranny.

Animated by this heavenly vision, the man of God was inflamed with burning love, having but one desire at heart: that both he and the Order he was to found, might be devoted to the exercise of that highest charity, the laying down of life for one’s friends and neighbours. That same night, the most holy Virgin appeared also to blessed Raymund of Pennafort and James king of Aragon, telling them of her wish to have the Order instituted, and exhorting them to lend their aid to so great an undertaking. Meanwhile Peter hastened to relate the whole matter to Raymund who was his confessor, and finding it had been already revealed to him from Heaven, submitted humbly to his direction.

King James next arrived, fully resolved to carry out the instructions he also had received from the Blessed Virgin. Having therefore taken counsel together and being all of one mind, they set about instituting an Order in honour of the Virgin Mother under the invocation of our Lady of Mercy for the Ransom of Captives. On the tenth of August in 1218 king James put into execution what the two holy men had planned. The members of the Order bound themselves by a fourth vow to remain, when necessary, as securities in the power of the pagans, in order to deliver Christians. The king granted them licence to hear his royal arms on their breast, and obtained from Pope Gregory IX the confirmation of this religious institute distinguished by such eminent brotherly charity.

God Himself gave increase to the work through His Virgin Mother, so that the Order spread rapidly and prosperously over the whole world. It soon reckoned many holy men remarkable for their charity and piety who collected alms from Christ’s faithful, to be spent in redeeming their brethren, and sometimes gave themselves up as ransom for many others. In order that due thanks might be rendered to God and His Virgin Mother for the benefit of such an institution, the apostolic See allowed this special feast and Office to be celebrated, and also granted innumerable other privileges to the Order.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Office of the time gives us at the close of September the Books of Judith and Esther. These heroic women were figures of Mary, whose birthday is the honour of this month, and who comes at once to bring assistance to the world. “Adonai, Lord God, great and admirable, who has wrought salvation by the hand of a woman:” the Church thus introduces the history of the heroine who delivered Bethulia by the sword, whereas Mardochai’s niece rescued her people from death by her winsomeness and her intercession. The Queen of Heaven, in her peerless perfection, outshines them both, in gentleness, in valour and in beauty. Today’s feast is a memorial of the strength she puts forth for the deliverance of her people. Finding their power crushed in Spain, and in the East checked by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the Saracens in the twelfth century became wholesale pirates and scoured the seas to obtain slaves for the African markets. We shudder to think of the numberless victims of every age, sex and condition suddenly carried off from the coasts of Christian lands, or captured on the high seas, and condemned to the disgrace of the harem or the miseries of the bagnio. Here, nevertheless, in many an obscure prison, were enacted scenes of heroism worthy to compare with those witnessed in the early persecutions. Here was a new field for Christian charity. New horizons opened out for heroic self-devotion. Is not the spiritual good thence arising a sufficient reason for the permission of temporal ills? Without this permission, Heaven would have forever lacked a portion of its beauty.

When in 1696 Innocent XII extended this feast to the whole Church, he afforded the world an opportunity of expressing its gratitude by a testimony as universal as the benefit received. Differing from the Order of Holy Trinity which had been already 20 years in existence, the Order of Mercy was founded as it were in the very face of the Moors, and hence it originally numbered more knights than clerks among its members. It was called the Royal, Military and Religious Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the Ransom of Captives. The clerics were charged with the celebration of the Divine Office in the commandaries. The knights guarded the coasts and undertook the perilous enterprise of ransoming Christian captives. Saint Peter Nolasco was the first Commander or Grand Master of the Order. When his relics were discovered, he was found armed with sword and cuirass.

* * * * *

Blessed be thou, O Mary, the honour and the joy of your people! On the day of your glorious Assumption you took possession of your queenly dignity for our sake, and the annals of the human race are a record of your merciful interventions. The captives whose chains you have broken, and whom you have set free from the degrading yoke of the Saracens, may be reckoned by millions. We are still rejoicing in the recollection of your dear birthday, and your smile is sufficient to dry our tears and chase away the clouds of grief. And yet, what sorrows there are still upon the Earth where you yourself drank such long draughts from the cup of suffering! Sorrows are sanctifying and beneficial to some, but there are other and unprofitable griefs springing from social injustice: the drudgery of the factory, or the tyranny of the strong over the weak, may be worse than slavery in Algiers or Tunis. You alone, O Mary, can break the inextricable chains in which the cunning prince of darkness entangles the dupes he has deceived by the high-sounding names of equality and liberty. Show yourself a Queen by coming to the rescue. The whole Earth, the entire human race, cries out to you, in the words of Mardochai: “Speak to the king for us, and deliver us from death!” (Esther xv. 3).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Autun, the birthday of the holy martyrs, Andochius, priest, Thyrsus, deacon, and Felix, who were sent from the East by blessed Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to preach in Gaul where they were most severely scourged, hanged up a whole day by the hands, and cast into the fire. Remaining uninjured, they had their necks broken with heavy bars, and thus won a most glorious crown.

In Egypt, the holy martyrs Paphnutius and his companions. While leading a solitary life, St. Paphnutius heard that many Christians were kept in bonds, and, moved by the spirit of God, he voluntarily offered himself to the prefect, and freely confessed the Christian faith. By him he was bound with iron chains, and a long time tortured on the rack. Then, being sent with many others to Diocletian, he was fastened by his order to a palm tree, and the rest were struck with the sword.

At Chalcedon, forty-nine holy martyrs, who, after the martyrdom of St. Euphemia, under the emperor Diocletian, were condemned to be devoured by the beasts, but being miraculously delivered, were finally struck with the sword and went to heaven.

In Hungary, St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, called the Apostle of the Hungarians. He belonged to the nobility of Venice and was the first to shed on his country the glory of martyrdom.

At Clermont in Auvergne, the departure out of this life of St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor.

In the diocese of Beauvais, St. Geremarus, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

8 JUNE – SAINT WILLIAM OF YORK (Bishop and Confessor)

William was born to Count Hubert and Emma, a sister of King Stephen. From his earliest years he was remarkable for great virtue. Growing in merit as he advanced in age, he was made Treasurer of York, in which office he so behaved as to be held by all the father of the needy in general. Nor indeed did he esteem anything a more precious treasure than to despoil himself of his wealth, that he might more easily minister to the wants of those labouring under poverty. After the death of Archbishop Turstan, William was was elected to succeed him, though some few of the Chapter dissented. But Saint Bernard, on the ground of this election being faulty according to the sacred Canons, appealed against him to the Apostolic See and William was deposed by Pope Eugenius III. William took this as an occasion to exercise humility and serve God with greater freedom. Fleeing worldly pomps, he withdrew into solitude where he could attend solely to his own salvation, undistracted by any care of exterior things. But, at last, his adversaries being dead, he was again with the full consent of all elected Archbishop, and was confirmed by Pope Anastasius. Having entered on his See he shortly afterwards became ill and died on the sixth of the Ides of June in 1154.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

At the head of the holy Confessors admitted by the Church on the monumental page of her Martyrology for today is inscribed the illustrious name of William “At York, in England.” Thus runs the text of the Golden Book of Heaven’s nobility, “the memory of Saint William, Archbishop and Confessor, who, among other miracles wrought at his tomb, raised three dead persons to life, and was inscribed among the Saints by Honorius III.” The divine Spirit who adorns the Church with variety in the virtues of her sons (Psalms xliv. 10) reproduces in them the life of the Divine Spouse under multiplied aspects. Thus there is no situation in life that bears not with it some teaching drawn from the example given by our Lord and His saints under similar circumstances. However vast be the field of trial for the elect, here below, however multiplied and unexpected, sometimes, be the limits of endurance, or the circumstances; herein, as ever, does that word of Eternal Wisdom chime in: “Nothing is new under the sun, neither is any man able to say: ‘Behold this is new: for it has already gone before, in the ages that were before us’” (Apocalypse xix. 8).

The election of William to the metropolitan See of York was signalled by the apparition of a miraculous cross, a presage of what his life was to be. Verily the heaviest cross one can have to bear is that which originates on the part of the servants of God, from our own brethren, or from our own superiors, in the spiritual order of things. Now, this was the very cross that was not to be spared to William. For our instruction — especially for us who so easily believe that we have gone to the furthest limits of endurance in point of suffering — God permitted that, after the example of His divine Master, William should drink the chalice to the dregs and should become even to Saints a sign of contradiction and a rock of scandal (Luke ii. 34; Romans ix. 33).

Both to the more numerous portion of the flock, as well as to the better minded among them, the promotion of the Archbishop elect of York was indeed a cause of great joy, but thereby also diversely interested views among several had been crossed. In their simplicity some of the sheep gave ear to certain perfidious insinuations and whisperings. They were led to suppose that it would be a good deed if they strove to break the staff that guided them to wholesome pastures, and they allowed themselves to be so far worked on as to make formal and grave accusations against their Shepherd. Then, at last, most virtuous persons beguiled by the craftiness of the intriguers were to be seen espousing their cause, and putting at their service the very zeal with which the hearts of the former were really inflamed for the House of God. After hearing as above, from the lips of Holy Church in the Martyrology, her own judgement, glorious as it stands and without appeal, it is not without feelings of wonder and even of bewilderment that we read passages such as the following in letters written at the time: “To our well beloved Father and Lord, Innocent, by the grace of God, Sovereign Pontiff, Bernard of Clairvaux. The Archbishop of York has approached you, that man regarding whom we have so often already, written to your Holiness. A sorry cause indeed is his, as we have learned from such as are worthy of credit, from the sole of his foot to the top of his head, there is not a sound place in him. What can this man stripped of all justice have to seek at the hand of the Guardian of justice?”

Then recommending the accusers to the Pontiff, the Abbot of Clairvaux fears not to add: “If any one be of God, let him join himself to them! If the barren tree still occupy the ground, to whom must I attribute the fault, save to him to whom the hatchet belongs?” The Vicar of Christ, who can look at things from a higher level and can see more exactly than even saints can, having taken no step to prevent William’s consecration, Saint Bernard pens these words confidentially to the Abbot of Rievaulx in Yorkshire: “I have learnt what has become of this Archbishop, and my sorrow is extreme. We have laboured all we could against this common pest, and we have not obtained the desired measure. But, for all that, the fruit of our labour is none the less assured from Him who never suffers any good deed to pass unrewarded. What men have refused to us, I am confident we will obtain from the mercy of our Father who is in Heaven, and that we will yet see this cursed fig-tree rooted up.” Such grave mistakes as these can sometimes be made by saints. Cruel mistakes indeed they are, but very sanctifying for those saints on whom the blow falls. And though veritable persecutions, yet are they not without one sweet consolation for such saints as these, inasmuch as there has been no offence to God on either side.

Innocent II being dead, Bernard, convinced that the honour of the Church was at stake, repeated his supplications more urgently than ever to Pope Celestine II and the Roman Court: “The whole world is aware of the devil’s triumph,” he exclaimed, and with such fiery zeal, that we somewhat modify the strength of his expression: “The applause of the uncircumcised and the tears of the good, resound far and wide if such were to be the finale of this ignominious cause, why not have left it in its darksome nook? Could not this infamous man, the horror of England and the abomination of France, have been made bishop without Rome also witnessing the general infection to pervade as far as the very tombs of the Apostles...Well, be it so: this man has received sacrilegious consecration. But still more glorious will it be to precipitate Simon from mid-air, than to have prevented his mounting thus far. Otherwise, what will you do with the Faithful whose sense of religion makes them suppose that they cannot, with a safe conscience, receive the Sacraments from this leprous hand? Are they, then, to be forced by Rome to bend the knee to Baal?”

Rome, however, was slow in letting herself be convinced, and neither Celestine nor Lucius II who succeeded him was willing to find in the great services and justifiable ascendancy of the Abbot of Clairvaux a sufficient reason to pronounce a condemnation, the justice of which was far from being proved to their eyes. It was only under the pontificate of Eugenius III, his former disciple, that Saint Bernard by new and reiterated instances at last obtained the deposition of William and the substitution to the See of York of Henry Murdach, a Cistercian and Abbot of Fountains near Ripon. “All the time that his humiliation lasted,” writes John, Prior of Hexham, “William never let a murmur of complaint escape him. But with a silent heart and with his soul at peace, knew how to keep patience. He reclaimed not against his adversaries. Nay, further still, he would turn aside his ear and his very thought from those who judged them unfavourably. None of those who shared his disgrace showed themselves so continually given up as he to prayer and labour.” Five years afterwards, Eugenius III died, as also the Abbot of Clairvaux and Henry Murdach. The Canons of York once more elected William and he was re-instated in the plenitude of his metropolitan rights by Anastasius IV. But God had willed to affirm here below the justice alone of his cause: thirty days after his triumphal return to York he died, having only just solemnised the Festival of the Holy Trinity for whom he had suffered all.

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O WILLIAM, you knew how to possess your soul! Under the assaults of contradiction you joined the aureola of sanctity to the glorious character of a Bishop. For well did you understand the two-fold duty incumbent on you from the day you were called by the suffrages of an illustrious Church to defend her here below under most difficult circumstances: on the one hand, not to refuse the perilous honour of upholding to the last the rights of that noble bride who proffered you her alliance: on the other, to show to your flock, by the example of your own submission, that even the best of causes can never be dispensed from that absolute obedience owed by sheep, just as much as by lambs, to the supreme Shepherd. He who searches the heart and the reins (Jeremias xvii. 10) knew how far the trial could go without either altering the admirable simplicity of your faith, or troubling, in consequence, the divine calm in which lay your strength. Yearning to raise you to the highest degree of glory, near to that Altar yonder in heaven, fain was He to assimilate you fully even here below to the eternal Pontiff, erstwhile misunderstood, denied and condemned by the very princes of His own people. Your refuge was in that maxim from the lips of this divine Head: “Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest to your souls” (Matthew xi. 29), and thus the yoke that would bear down such weak shoulders as ours, the burden beneath which the strongest of us might well indeed quail, far from daunting you, seemed fraught with such sweetness that your step became all the lighter for it, and from that hour you appeared not only to walk, but to run like a giant (Psalms xviii. 6) in the way of heroism in which Saints are formed.

Help us, William, to follow your steps at least afar off, in the paths of gentleness and energy. Teach us to count for little all personal injuries. Our Lord indeed probed the delicacy of your great soul when He permitted that to befall you which to us would have proved a very core of bitterness, namely, that your hottest adversaries really should be true saints, who in every measure they undertook against you, were wishful only for the honour and glory of the divine Master, yours and theirs alike. The mysterious oil that for so long flowed from your tomb was at once a sign of the ineffable meekness which earned for you that constant simplicity of your soul’s glance, and a touching testimony rendered by Heaven in favour of your pontifical unction, the legitimacy of which was so long contested. God grant that this sweet oil may ooze out once again! Spread it lovingly on so many wounded souls whom the injustice of men embitters and drives to desperation. Let it freely flow in your own Church of York, alien though she now be, to your exquisite submission to Rome and to her ancient traditions. O would that Albion might cast aside her winding-sheet at that blessed tomb of yours where the dead have often returned to life. In one word, may the whole Church receive from you this day increase of light and grace, to the honour and praise of the undivided and ever tranquil Trinity, to Whom was paid your last solemn homage here below.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Aix in France, St. Maximin, first bishop of that city, who is said to have been a disciple of Our Lord.

The same day, St. Calliopa, martyr, who, for the faith of Christ, had her breasts cut off, her flesh burned, was rolled on broken pottery, and being lastly decapitated, received the palm of martyrdom.

At Soissons in France, the birthday of St. Medard, bishop of Noyon, whose life and precious death are illustrated by glorious miracles.

At Rouen, St. Gildard, bishop, brother of St. Medard. They were born on the same day, consecrated bishops at the same time, and being taken away from this life also on the same day, they entered heaven together.

At Sens, St. Heraclius, bishop.

At Metz, St. Clodulphus, bishop.

In the Marches of Ancona, St. Severin, bishop of Stepternpeda.

In Sardinia, St. Sallustian, confessor.

At Camerino, St. Victorinus, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

11 MAY – THE HOLY APOSTLES PHILIP AND JAMES (Martyrs)

Today the Church honours the Apostles Philip and James. Before the establishment of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955, this feast was celebrated on the First of May. Their bodies repose in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles in Rome and their relics are regarded as one of the greatest treasures of the Eternal City. There is reason to believe that the First of May was the anniversary of their translation. For a long time the Church of Rome kept special feasts in honour of only Saints Peter and Paul, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Andrew (the brother of Peter).

Philip was born at Bethsaida, and was one of the twelve Apostles that were first called by Christ our Lord. It was from Philip that Nathanael learned that the Messiah had come who was promised in the Law. And by him also he was led to our Lord. We have a clear proof of the familiarity with which Philip was treated by Christ in the fact of the Gentiles addressing themselves to this Apostle when they wished to see the Saviour. Again, when our Lord was about to feed the multitude in the desert, he spoke to Philip and said: “Where can we buy bread that these may eat?” Having received the Holy Ghost, he went into Scythia, which was the country allotted to him in which to preach the Gospel. He converted almost its entire people to the Christian Faith. Having finally reached Hierapolis in Phrygia, he was crucified there for the name of Christ and then stoned to death on the Calends of May (May 1st). The Christians buried his body in the same place, but it was afterwards taken to Rome and, together with the body of the Apostle Saint James, was placed in the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles.

James, “the brother of our Lord,” was called “the Just.” From his childhood he never drank wine or strong drink. He abstained from flesh-meat. He never cut his hair or used oil to anoint his limbs, or took a bath. He was the only one permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. His garments were of linen. So assiduous was he in prayer that the skin of his knees was as hard as that of a camel. After Christ’s Ascension, the Apostles made him Bishop of Jerusalem, and it was to him that the Prince of the Apostles sent the news of his being delivered out of prison by an Angel. A dispute having arisen in the Council of Jerusalem concerning the Mosaic Law and circumcision, James sided with Peter and, in a speech which he made to the brethren, proved the vocation of the Gentiles, and said that the absent brethren were to be written to, and told not to impose the yoke of the Mosaic Law on the Gentiles.

It is of James that Saint Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Galatians when he says: “But other of the Apostles I saw none, saving James, the brother of the Lord.” Such was James’ holy life that people used to strive with each other to touch the hem of his garment. At the age of 96 years — of which he had spent 30 governing the Church of Jerusalem in the most saintly manner — as he was one day preaching with great courage Christ the Son of God, he was attacked by stones being thrown at him, after which he was taken to the highest part of the Temple and cast headlong down. His legs were broken by the fall, and as he was lying half dead upon the ground, he raised up his hands towards Heaven and thus prayed for his executioners: “Forgive them, O Lord! For they know not what they do.” While so praying, he received a blow on the head with a fuller’s club and gave up his soul to his God in the seventh year of Nero’s reign. He was buried near the Temple from which he had been thrown down. He wrote a Letter which is one of the seven Catholic Epistles.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Two of the favoured witnesses of our beloved Jesus’ Resurrection come before us on this day. Philip and James are here, bearing testimony to us that their Master is truly risen from the dead, that they have seen Him, that they have touched Him, that they have conversed with Him (1 John i. 1) during these forty days. And, that we may have no doubt as to the truth of their testimony, they hold in their hands the instruments of the martyrdom they underwent for asserting that Jesus, after having suffered death, came to life again and rose from the grave. Philip is leaning upon the cross to which he was fastened, as Jesus had been. James is holding the club with which he was struck dead.

Philip preached the Gospel in the two Phrygias, and his martyrdom took place at Hierapolis. He was married when he was called by our Saviour, and we learn from writers of the second century that he had three daughters, remarkable for their great piety, one of whom lived at Ephesus, where she was justly revered as one of the glories of that early Church. James is better known than Philip. He is called, in the sacred Scripture, Brother of the Lord (Galatians i. 19) on account of the close relationship that existed between his own mother and the Blessed Mother of Jesus. He claims our veneration during Paschal Time inasmuch as he was favoured with a special visit from our Risen Lord, as we learn from Saint Paul (1 Corinthians xv. 7). There can be no doubt, but what he had done something to deserve this mark of Jesus’ predilection. Saint Jerome and Saint Epiphanius tell us that our Saviour, when ascending into Heaven, recommended to Saint James’ care the Church of Jerusalem, and that he was accordingly appointed the first Bishop of that city.

The Christians of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, had possession of the Chair on which Saint James used to sit when he assisted at the assemblies of the faithful. Saint Epiphanius also tells us that the holy Apostle used to wear a lamina of gold on his forehead as the badge of his dignity. His garment was a tunic made of linen. He was held in such high repute for virtue that the people of Jerusalem called him “The Just,” and when the time of the siege came, instead of attributing the frightful punishment, they then endured to the deicide they or their fathers had committed, they would have it to be a consequence of the murder of James, who, when dying, prayed for his people. The admirable Epistle he has left us bears testimony to the gentleness and uprightness of his character. He there teaches us with an eloquence of an inspired writer, that works must go along with our Faith, if we would be Just with that Justice, which makes us like our Risen Lord.

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Holy Apostles, you saw our Risen Jesus in all His glory. He said to you on the evening of that great Sunday: “Peace be to you!” He appeared to you during the forty days following, that He might make you certain of His Resurrection. Great indeed must have been your joy at seeing, once more, that dear Master who had admitted you into the number of His chosen Twelve, and His return made your love of Him more than ever fervent. We address ourselves to you as our special patrons during this holy Season, and most earnestly do we beseech you to teach us how to know and love the great mystery of our Lord’s Resurrection. May our hearts glow with Paschal joy, and may we never lose the New Life that our Jesus has now given us.

You, Philip, were all devoted to Him, even from the first day of his calling you. Scarcely had you come to know Him as the Messiah, than you announced the great tidings to your friend Nathanael. Jesus treated you with affectionate familiarity. When about to work the great miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, it was to you that He addressed Himself and said to you: “Where will we buy bread, that these may eat?” (John vi. 5) A few days before the Passion of your Divine Master, some of the Gentiles wished to see this great Prophet of whom they had heard such wonderful things, and it was to you they applied. How fervently did you not ask Him at the Last Supper to show you the Father! Your soul longed for the divine Light, and when the rays of the Holy Ghost had inflamed your spirit, nothing could daunt your courage. As a reward of your labours, Jesus gave you to share with Him the honours of the Cross. O holy Apostle, intercede for us that we may imitate your devotedness to Jesus and that, when He deigns to send us the Cross, we may reverence and love it.

We also honour your love of Jesus, O you that are called the Brother of the Lord, and on whose venerable features was stamped the likeness of this our Redeemer. If, like the rest of the Apostles, you abandoned Him in His Passion, your repentance was speedy and earnest, for you were the first after Peter to whom He appeared after His Resurrection. We affectionately congratulate you, James, for the honour thus conferred on you. In return, obtain for us that we may taste and see how sweet is our Risen Lord (Psalms xxxiii. 9). Your ambition was to give Him every possible proof of your gratitude, and the last testimony you bore in the faithless City to the Divinity of your dear Master (when the Jews took you to the top of the Temple), opened to you, by martyrdom, the way that was to unite you to Him for eternity. Pray for us, O you generous Apostle, that we also may confess His holy Name with the firmness becoming His disciples, and that we may ever be brave and loyal in proclaiming His rights as King over all creatures.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Salaria, the birthday of blessed Anthimus, priest, who, after having distinguished himself by his virtues and preaching, was precipitated into the river Tiber in the persecution of Diocletian. He was rescued by an angel and restored to his oratory. Being afterwards decapitated, he went victoriously to heaven.

The same day, St. Evelius, martyr, who belonged to the household of Nero. On seeing the martyrdom of St. Torpes, he believed in Christ and for Him was beheaded.

Also at Rome, the holy martyrs Maximus, Bassus and Fabius who were put to death on the Via Salaria in the time of Diocletian.

At Camerino, the holy martyrs Anastasius and his companions who were killed in the persecution of Decius under the governor Antiochus.

At Osimo, in the Marches of Ancona, the holy martyrs Sisinus, a deacon, Diocletius and Florentius, disciples of the priest St. Anthimus, who consummated their martyrdom under Diocletian by being overwhelmed with stones.

At Varennes, St. Gangulpus, martyr.

At Vienne, St. Mamertus, bishop, who, to avert an impending calamity, instituted in that city the three days’ Litanies immediately before the Ascension of Our Lord. This rite was afterwards received and approved by the Universal Church.

At Souvigny, the decease of St. Maieul, abbot of Cluny, whose life was distinguished for merits and holiness.

At San Severino, in the Marches of Ancona, St. Illuminatus, confessor.

At Grottaglia in the diocese of Taranto, St. Francis Girolamo, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, renowned for his zeal for the salvation of souls, and for his patience. He was canonised by Pope Gregory XVI. The day of his death is celebrated with great solemnity in the church of the professed house at Naples where his body rests.

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

Thanks be to God.