Dom Prosper Gueranger:
“How beautiful are your first steps, O prince’s daughter! Our eyes are never weary of contemplating in you the marvel of harmonious sweetness united to the strength of an army” (Canticles vii. 1, 2). Blessed child, continue to grow in grace. May your course be prosperous. May your thy royalty be strengthened and established. But the Church will not wait till you be grown up to sing to you her beautiful antiphon: ‘Rejoice O Virgin Mary. You alone have destroyed all heresies throughout the world.’
Heresy, Satan’s denial of what God affirms by His Christ, this is the great struggle, or rather the only one which sums up history. God having created the world for the sole purpose of uniting it to Himself by His Word made Flesh, the enemy of God and of the world, in order to break the bond of this mysterious love, attacks by turns the Divinity and the Humanity of Christ the Mediator. But all his lies are in vain: Jesus is Man, for He is born of a Mother, like every one of us. He is God, for He alone is born of a Virgin. The Man-God, who, according to Simeon’s prophecy, is a sign of contradiction to the sons of perdition, has Himself a sign, for unprejudiced eyes, viz: a Virgin-Mother: “The Lord Himself,” said the Prophet, “will give you a sign. Behold Virgin will conceive and bear a Son and His name will be called Emmanuel (Isaias vii. 14) God with us.”
In the second of the celebrated conferences held with Manes in 277 by the holy bishop Archelaus, the heresiarch having denied that Christ was born of Mary, Archelaus replied: “If such be the case, if He was not born, then obviously He did not suffer, for to suffer is impossible to one not born. If He did not suffer, no mention can be made of the cross. Do away with the cross, and Jesus cannot have risen from the dead. But if Jesus be not risen, no one else can rise again; and if there is no resurrection, there can be no judgement. In that case there is no use in keeping the commandments of God: ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die’ (1 Corinthians xv. 32). Such is the corollary to your argument. Confess, on the other hand, that our Lord was born of Mary, and thence will follow the passion, the resurrection, and the judgment. Then the whole of Scripture is saved. No, this is no vain question for, as the whole Law and the Prophets are contained in the two precepts of charity, so all our hope depends on the motherhood of the blessed Virgin.”
On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Alexandria, the birthday of blessed Philip, father of the virgin St. Eugenia. Resigning the dignity of prefect of Egypt, he obtained the grace of baptism. His successor, the prefect Terentius, caused him to be pierced through the throat with a sword while he was praying.
Also the holy martyrs Macrobius and Julian, who suffered under Licinius.
The same day, St. Ligorius, martyr, who living in the desert, was murdered by Gentiles for the faith of Christ.
At Alexandria, St. Eulogius, a bishop, celebrated for learning and sanctity.
At Angers in France, St. Mauritius, a bishop, renowned for numberless miracles.
At Sens, St. Amatus, bishop and confessor.
The same day, St. Venerius, confessor, a man of admirable sanctity, who led an heremitical life in the island of Palmaria.
In the monastery of Remiremont in France, St. Amatus, priest and abbot, illustrious for the virtue of abstinence and the gift of miracles.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
