31 AUGUST – SAINT RAYMUND NONNATUS (Bishop and Confessor)

Raymund, surnamed Nonnatus on account of his having been brought into the world in an unusual manner after the death of his mother, was of a pious and noble family of Portelli in Catalonia. Raymund was born in about 1200 AD. From his very infancy he showed signs of his future holiness for, despising childish amusements and the attractions of the world, he applied himself to the practice of piety so that all wondered at his virtue, which far surpassed his age. As he grew older he began his studies, but after a short time he returned at his father’s command to live in the country. He frequently visited the chapel of Saint Nicholas near Portelli to venerate in it a holy image of the Mother of God, which is still much honoured by the faithful. There he would pour out his prayers, begging God’s holy Mother to adopt him for her son and to deign to teach him the way of salvation and the science of the saints.

The most benign Virgin heard his prayer and gave him to understand that it would greatly please her if he entered the religious Order lately founded by her inspiration, under the name of the Order of ‘Ransom, or of Mercy for the redemption of captives.’ Upon this Raymund at once set out for Barcelona, there to embrace that institute so full of brotherly charity. Thus enrolled in the army of holy religion, he persevered in perpetual virginity, which he had already consecrated to the blessed Virgin. He excelled also in every other virtue, most especially in charity towards those Christians who were living in misery as slaves of the pagans. He was sent to Africa to redeem them, and freed many from slavery. But when he had exhausted his money, rather than abandon others who were in danger of losing their faith, he gave himself up to the barbarians as a pledge for their ransom. Burning with a most ardent desire for the salvation of souls, be converted several Muslims to Christ by his preaching. On this account he was thrown into a close prison, and after many tortures his lips were pierced through and fastened together with an iron padlock, which cruel martyrdom he endured for a long time.

This and his other noble deeds spread the fame of his sanctity far and near, so that Gregory IX determined to enrol him in the august college of the cardinals of the holy Roman Church. When raised to that dignity the man of God shrank from all pomp and clung always to religious humility. On his way to Rome, as soon as he reached Cardona, he was attacked by his last illness, and earnestly begged to be strengthened by the Sacraments of the Church. As his illness grew worse and the priest delayed to come, angels appeared, clothed in the religious habit of his Order, and refreshed him with the saving Viaticum. Having received It he gave thanks to God, and passed to our Lord on the last Sunday of August in 1240. Contentions arose concerning the place where he should be buried. His coffin was therefore placed upon a blind mule and by the will of God it was taken to the chapel of Saint Nicholas, that it might be buried in that place where he had first begun a more perfect life. A convent of his Order was built on the spot, and there famous for many signs and miracles he is honoured by the concourse of all the faithful of Catalonia, who come there to fulfil their vows.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

August closes as it began, with a feast of deliverance, as though that were the divine seal set by eternal Wisdom upon this month — the mouth when holy Church makes the works and ways of divine Wisdom the special object of her contemplation.

Upon the fall of our first parents and their expulsion from Paradise, the Word and Wisdom of God, that is, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, began the great work of our deliverance —that magnificent work of human redemption which, by an all-gracious, eternal decree of the three divine Persons, was to be wrought out by the Son of God in our flesh. And as that blessed Saviour, in His infinite wisdom, made spontaneous choice of sorrows, of sufferings, and of death on a cross, as the best means of our redemption, so has He always allotted to His best loved friends, the kind of life which He had deliberately chosen for Himself, that is, the way of the cross. And the nearest and dearest to Him were those who were predestined, like His blessed Mother, the Mater Dolorosa, to have the honour of being most like Himself, the Man of sorrows. Hence the toils and trials of the greatest saints. Hence the great deliverances wrought by them, and their heroic victories over the world and over the spirits of wickedness in the high places.

On the feasts of Saints Raymund of Pegnafort and Peter Nolasco we saw something of the origin of the illustrious Order to which Raymund Nonnatus added such glory. Soon the august foundress herself, our Lady of Mercy, will come in person to receive the expression of the world’s gratitude for so many benefits.

TO what a length, O illustrious saint, did you follow the counsel of the wise man! ‘The bands of wisdom,’ says he, ‘are a healthful binding’ (Ecclesiasticus vi. 31). And, not satisfied with putting ‘your feet into her fetters and your neck into her chains,’ (Ecclesiasticus vi. 25), in the joy of you love you offered your lips to the dreadful padlock, not mentioned by the son of Sirach. But what a reward is yours now that this Wisdom of the Father, whose twofold precept of charity you so fully carried out, inebriates you with the torrent of eternal delights, adorning your brow with the glory and grace which radiate from her own beauty! We would fain be forever with you near that throne of light. Teach us, then, how to walk, in this world, by the beautiful ways and peaceable paths of Wisdom. Deliver our souls, if they be still captive in sin. Break the chains of our self-love, and give us instead those blessed bands of Wisdom which are humility, abnegation, self-forgetfulness, love of our brethren for God’s sake, and love of God for His own sake.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Treves, the birthday of St. Paulimis, a bishop, who was exiled for the Catholic faith by the Arian emperor Constantius in the time of the Arian persecution. By having to change the place of his exile which was beyond the limits of Christendom, he became wearied unto death, and finally, dying in Phrygia, received a crown from the Lord for his blessed martyrdom.

Also the holy martyrs Robustian and Mark.

At Transaquae, among the Marsi near lake Celano, the birthday of the holy martyrs Cresidius, priest, and his companions, who were crowned with martyrdom in the persecution of Maximinus.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the Saints Theodotus, Rufina and Ammia. The first two were the parents of the martyr St. Mamas, who was born in prison, and who Ammia brought up.

At Athens, St. Aristides, most celebrated for his faith and wisdom, who presented to the emperor Hadrian a treatise on the Christian religion containing the exposition of our doctrine. In the presence of the emperor he also delivered a discourse in which he clearly demonstrated that Jesus Christ is the only God.

At Auxerre, St. Optatus, bishop and confessor.

In England, St. Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne. When St. Cuthbert, then a shepherd, saw his soul going up to heaven, he left his sheep and became a monk.

At Nusco, St. Amatus, bishop.

On Mount Senario near Florence, blessed Bonajuncta, confessor, one of the seven founders of the Order of the Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave up his soul into the hands of the Lord while discoursing to his brethren on the Passion of Our Saviour.

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

Thanks be to God.

31 AUGUST – TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (SUNDAY OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

Epistle – 2 Corinthians iii. 4‒9

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

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gospel – Luke x. 23‒27

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

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30 AUGUST – SAINT ROSE OF LIMA (Virgin)

The patron saint of the Americas was born at Lima in Peru in 1586. From her very cradle she gave clear signs of her future holiness. Her baby face appeared one day changed in a wonderful way into the image of a rose, and from this circumstance she was called Rose. Later on the Virgin Mother of God gave her also her own name, bidding her to be called thenceforward Rose of Saint Mary. At five years of age she made a vow of perpetual virginity, and when she grew older, fearing her parents would compel her to marry she secretly cut off her hair which was very beautiful. Her fasts exceeded the strength of human nature. She would pass whole Lents without eating bread, living on five grains of a citron a day. She took the habit of the third Order of Saint Dominic and after that redoubled her austerities. Her long and rough hair-shirt was armed with steel points, and day and night she wore under her veil a crown studded inside with sharp nails. Following the arduous example of Saint Catherine of Siena, she wound an iron chain three times round her waist and made herself a bed of the knotty trunks of trees, filling up the vacant space between them with potsherds.

Rose built herself a narrow little cell in a distant corner of the garden, and there devoted herself to the contemplation of heavenly things, subduing her feeble body by iron disciplines, fasting and watching. Thus she was strong in spirit, and continually overcame the devils, spurning and dispelling their deceits. Though she suffered greatly from severe illnesses, from the insults offered her by her family and from unkind tongues, yet she would say that she was not treated as badly as she deserved. For fifteenth years she suffered for several hours a day a terrible desolation and dryness of spirit, but she bore this suffering, worse than death itself, with undaunted courage. After that period she was given an abundance of heavenly delights, she was honoured with visions, and felt her heart melting with seraphic love. Her Angel-Guardian, Saint Catherine of Siena and our Lady used often to appear to her with wonderful familiarity. She was privileged to bear these words from our Lord: “Rose of my heart, be my bride.” Rose died at the age of 31 years in 1617. She was beatified by Pope Clement IX, in 1667 and canonised by Pope Clement X in 1671.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The fragrance of holiness is wafted today across the dark ocean, renewing the youth of the Old World and winning for the New the good will of Heaven and Earth.

A century before the birth of Saint Rose, Spain, having cast out the Crescent from her own territory, received as a reward the mission of planting the Cross on the distant shores of America. Neither heroes nor apostles were wanting in the Catholic kingdom for the great work. But there was also, unhappily, no lack of adventurers who in their thirst for gold became the scourge of the poor Indians instead of leading them to the true God. The speedy decadence of the illustrious nation that had triumphed over the Moors was soon to prove how far a people, prevented with the greatest blessings, may yet be answerable for crimes committed by Its individual representatives. It is well known how the empire of the Incas in Peru came to an end. In spite of the indignant protestations of the missionaries: in spite of orders received from the mother country: in a few years, Pizarro and his companions had exterminated one third of the inhabitants of these flourishing regions. Another third perished miserably under a slavery worse than death. The rest fled to the mountains, carrying with them a hatred of the invaders, and too often of the Gospel as well, which in their eyes was responsible for atrocities committed by Christians. Avarice opened the door to all vices in the souls of the conquerors without, however, destroying their lively faith. Lima, founded at the foot of the Cordilleras as metropolis of the subjugated provinces, seemed as if built upon the triple concupiscence. Before the close of the century, a new Jonas, Saint Francis Solano, .came to threaten this new Niniveh with the anger of God.

But mercy had already been beforehand with wrath. “Justice and peace had met” (Psalm lxxxiv. 11) in the soul of a child who was ready, in her insatiable love, to suffer every expiation. Here we should like to pause and contemplate the virgin of Peru, in her self-forgetful heroism, in her pure and candid gracefulness: Rose, who was all sweetness to those who approached her, and who kept to herself the secret of the thorns without which no rose can grow on Earth. This child of predilection was prevented from her infancy with miraculous gifts and favours. The flowers recognised her as their queen, and at her desire they would blossom out of season. At her invitation the plants joyfully waved their leaves, the trees bent down their branches, all nature exulted. Even the insects formed themselves into choirs. The birds vied with her in celebrating the praises of their common Maker. She herself, playing upon the names of her parents, Gaspard Flores and Maria Oliva, would sing: “O my Jesus, how beautiful you are among the olives and the flowers, and you do not disdain your Rose!”

Eternal Wisdom has from the beginning delighted to play in the world (Proverbs viii. 30, 31). Clement X relates, in the Bull of Canonization, how one day when Rose was very ill, the infant Jesus appeared and deigned to play with her, teaching her, in a manner suited to her tender age, the value and the advantages of suffering. He then left her full of joy, and endowed with a life-long love of the cross. Holy Church will tell us, in the Legend, how far the Saint carried out, in her rigorous penance, the lesson thus divinely taught. In the superhuman agonies of her last illness, when some one exhorted her to courage, she replied: “All I ask of my Spouse is that He will not cease to bum me with the most scorching heat till I become a ripe fruit that He will deign to cull from this Earth for His heavenly table.” To those who were astonished at her confidence and her assurance of going straight to Heaven, she gave this answer which well expresses her character: “I have a Spouse who can do all that is greatest, and who possesses all that is rarest, and am I to expect only little things from Him?” And her confidence was rewarded. She was but thirty-one years of age when, at midnight on the feast of St. Bartholomew in 1617, she heard the cry: “Behold the Bridegroom comes!”

In Lima, in all Peru, and indeed throughout America, prodigies of conversion and miracles signalised the death of the humble virgin, hitherto so little known. “It has been juridically proved,” said the Sovereign Pontiff, “that since the discovery of Peru no missionary has been known to obtain so universal a movement of repentance.” Five years later, for the further sanctification of Lima, there was established in its midst the monastery of Saint Catherine of Siena, also called Rose’s monastery because she was in the eyes of God its true foundress and mother. Her prayers had obtained its erection, which she had also predicted. She had designed the plan, pointed out the future religious, and named the first superior, whom she one day prophetically endowed with her own spirit in a mysterious embrace.

O Saint Rose, teach us to let ourselves be prevented, like you, by the dew of Heaven. Show us how to respond to the advances of the divine sculptor who one day allowed you to see Him making over to His loved ones the different virtues in the form of blocks of choice marble, which He expects them to polish with their tears, and to fashion with the chisel of penance. Above all, fill us with love and confidence. All that the material sun accomplishes in the vast universe, causing the flowers to bloom, ripening the fruits, forming pearls in the depth of the ocean, and precious stones in the heart of the mountains: all this, you said, your divine Spouse effected in the boundless capacity of your soul, causing it to bring forth every variety of riches, beauty and joy, warmth and life. May we profit, as you did, of the coming of the Sun of Justice into our hearts in the Sacrament of union. May we lay open our whole being to the influence of his blessed light and may we become, in every place, the good odour of Christ.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Ostiensis, the martyrdom of the blessed priest Felix under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 304 AD. After being racked he was sentenced to death, and as he was being led to his execution he was met by a stranger, who was so moved by the sight that he cried out, “I also confess the same law as this man. I confess the same Jesus Christ and I am ready to lay down my life in witness of these truths.” The stranger was seized, tried and sentenced to death. His name was never known, so he was called Adauctus because he had joined himself to Felix to share his crown of martyrdom.

Also at Rome, St. Gaudentia, virgin and martyr, with three others.

In the same city, St. Pammachius, a priest distinguished for learning and holiness.

At Colonia Suffetulana in Africa, sixty blessed martyrs who were murdered by furious Gentiles.

At Adrumetum in Africa, the Saints Boniface and Thecla, who were the parents of twelve blessed sons, martyrs.

At Thessalonica, St. Fantinus, confessor, who suffered much from the Saracens, and was driven from his monastery in which he had lived in great abstinence. After having brought many to the way of salvation he rested at last at an advanced age.

In the diocese of Meaux, St. Fiacre, confessor.

At Trevi, St. Peter, confessor, who was distinguished for many virtues and miracles. He is honoured in that place, from which he departed for heaven.

At Bologna, St. Bononius, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

29 AUGUST – THE DECOLLATION OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

Gospel – Mark vi. 17‒29

At that time, Herod sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod, “it is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Now Herodias laid snares for him, and was desirous to put him to death, and could not. For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man, and kept him, and when he heard him did many things, and he heard him willingly. And when a convenient day was come, Herod made a supper for his birthday, for the princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel, “Ask of me what you will, and I will give it you.” And he swore to her,” Whatever you will ask, I will give you, though it be the half of my kingdom.” Who, when she was gone out, said to her mother, “What shall I ask?” But she said, “the head of John the Baptist.” And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying, “I will that forthwith you give me in a dish the head of John the Baptist.” And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them who were with him at table he would not displease her. But sending an executioner he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish, and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother. Which this his disciples hearing, came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Thus died the greatest of them that are born of women: without witnesses, the prisoner of a petty tyrant, the victim of the vilest of passions, the wages of a dancing girl! Rather than keep silence in the presence of crime, although there was no hope of converting the sinner or give up his liberty, even when in chains: the herald of the Word made flesh was ready to die. How beautiful, as Saint John Chrysostom remarks, is this liberty of speech when it is truly the liberty of God’s Word, when it is an echo of Heaven’s language! Then, indeed, it is a stumbling-block to tyranny, the safeguard of the world and of God’s rights, the bulwark of a nation’s honour as well as of its temporal and eternal interests. Death has no power over it. To the weak murderer of John the Baptist, and to all who would imitate him to the end of time, a thousand tongues instead of one, repeat in all languages and in all places: “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”

“O great and admirable mystery!” cries out Saint Augustine. “He must increase, but I must decrease, said John, said the Voice which personified all the voices that had gone before announcing the Father’s Word Incarnate in his Christ. Every word, in that it signifies something, in that it is an idea, an internal word, is independent of the number of syllables, of the various letters and sounds. It remains unchangeable in the heart that conceives it, however numerous may be the words that give it outward existence, the voices that utter it, the languages, Greek, Latin and the rest, into which it may be translated. To him who knows the word, expressions and voices are useless. The Prophets were voices, the Apostles were voices. Voices are in the Psalms, voices in the Gospel. But let the Word come, the Word who was in the beginning, the Word who was with God, the Word who was God. When we will see Him as He is, will we hear the Gospel repeated? Will we listen to the Prophets? Will we read the Epistles of the Apostles? The Voice fails where the Word increases... Not that in Himself the Word can either diminish or increase. But He is said to grow in us, when we grow in Him. To him, then, who draws near to Christ, to him who makes progress in the contemplation of Wisdom, words are of little use. Of necessity they tend to fail altogether. Thus the ministry of the voice falls short in proportion as the soul progresses towards the Word. It is thus that Christ must increase and John decrease. The same is indicated by the decollation of John, and the exaltation of Christ upon the Cross, as it had already been shown by their birthdays for, from the birth of John the days begin to shorten, and from the birth of our Lord they begin to grow longer.”

The holy Doctor here gives a useful lesson to those who guide souls along the path of perfection. If, from the very beginning, they must respectfully observe the movements of grace in each of them in order to second the Holy Ghost and not to supplant him, so also in proportion as these souls advance, the directors must be careful not to impede the Word by the abundance of their own speech. Moreover, they must discreetly respect the ever-growing powerlessness of those souls to express what our Lord is working in them. Happy to have led the bride to the Bridegroom, let them learn to say with John: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

The sacred cycle itself seems to convey to us too a similar lesson for, during the following days, we will see its teaching as it were tempered down, by the fewness of the feasts and the disappearance of great solemnities until November. The school of the holy Liturgy aims at adapting the soul more surely and more fully than could any other school to the interior teaching of the Spouse. Like John, the Church would be glad to let God alone speak always, if that were possible here below. At least, towards the end of the way, she loves to moderate her voice, and sometimes even to keep silence, in order to give her children an opportunity of showing that they know how to listen inwardly to Him who is both her and their sole love. Let those who interpret her thought first understand it well. The friend of the Bridegroom, who, until the Nuptial day walked before him, now stands and listens. And the voice of the Bridegroom, which silences his own, fills him with immense joy: “This my joy therefore is fulfilled,” said the Precursor (John iii. 29).

Thus the feast of the Decollation of Saint John may be considered as one of the landmarks of the Liturgical Year. With the Greeks it is a holiday of obligation. Its great antiquity in the Latin Church is evidenced by the mention made of it in the Martyrology called Saint Jerome’s, and by the place it occupies in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries. The Precursor’s blessed death took place about the feast of the Pasch, but that it might be more freely celebrated, this day was chosen on which his sacred head was discovered at Emesa.

The vengeance of God fell heavily upon Herod Antipas. Josephus relates bow he was overcome by the Arabian Aretea, whose daughter he had repudiated in order to follow his wicked passions, and the Jews attributed the defeat to the murder of Saint John. He was deposed by Rome from his tetrarchate, and banished to Lyons in Gaul, where the ambitious Herodias shared his disgrace. As to her dancing daughter Salome, there is a tradition gathered from ancient authors that, having gone out one winter day to dance on a frozen river, she fell through into the water. The ice, immediately closing round her neck, cut off her head, which bounded upon the surface, thus continuing for some moments the dance of death.

From Macherontis, beyond the Jordan, where their master had suffered martyrdom, John’s disciples carried his body to Sebaste (Samaria), out of the territory of Antipas. It was necessary to save it from the profanations of Herodias who had not spared his august head. The wretched woman did not think her vengeance complete till she had pierced with a hairpin the tongue that had not feared to utter her shame. And that face, which for seven centuries the church of Amiens has offered to the veneration of the world, still bears traces of the violence inflicted by her in her malicious triumph. In the reign of Julian the Apostate, the pagans wished to complete the work of this unworthy descendant of the Machabees by opening the Saint’s tomb at Sebaste in order to burn and scatter his remains. But the empty sepulchre continued to be a terror to the demons, as Saint Paula attested with deep emotion a. few years later. Moreover, some of precious relics were saved, and dispersed throughout the East. Later on, especially at the time of the Crusades, they were brought into the West where many churches glory in possessing them.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Aventine Hill, the birthday of St. Sabina, martyr. Sabina, the daughter of Herod Metallarius and wife of the Roman senator Valentinus, was converted to Christianity by her young female Greek slave Serapia. For this Serapia was condemned to death and was executed in 119 AD. Sabina took her body and buried it. Sabina, in turn, was brought before Hadrian and was martyred in 126 AD. At first the bodies of Saints Sabina and Serapia were buried in the Vindician field, but in 430 AD their relics were translated to the Basilica built on the Aventine.

Also at Rome, St. Candida, virgin and martyr, whose body was transferred to the church of St. Praxedes by Pope Paschal I.

At Antioch in Syria, the birthday of the holy martyrs Nicaeas and Paul.

At Constantinople, the holy martyrs Hypatius, an Asiatic bishop, and Andrew, a priest, who for the worship of holy images, under Leo the Isaurian, after having their beards besmirched with pitch and set on fire, and the skin of their heads torn off, were beheaded.

At Perugia, St. Euthymius, a Roman, who fled from the persecution of Diocletian with his wife and his son Crescentius, and there rested in the Lord.

At Metz, St. Adelphus, bishop and confessor.

At Paris, the demise of St. Merry, priest.

In England, St. Sebbi, king.

At Smyrna, the birthday of St. Basilla.

In the vicinity of Troyes, St. Sabina, a virgin, celebrated for virtues and miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

28 AUGUST – SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (Bishop, Confessor and Doctor)

Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus) was born in the northern African city of Tagaste (now in Algeria) in 354. He was signed with the cross by his pious and virtuous Christian mother and enrolled as a catachumen. Aa a child he was so apt in learning that in a short time he far surpassed in knowledge all those of his own age. After recovering from a serious illness he deferred being baptised into the faith. He moved to Carthage to study there, took a mistress who bore him a son and embraced Manichaeism, a Persian gnostic religion which Pope Saint Leo I (Leo the Great) described as “a general compound of all errors and ungodlinesses.” Manichaeism spread quickly and widely in the fourth century.

His studies completed, he returned to Tagaste to teach grammar but soon afterwards went back to Carthage to teach rhetoric. After writing a work on aesthetics he began to doubt and repudiate Manichaeism which claimed that the Christian scriptures had been falsified. Augustine failed to find in it the science of the laws of nature which he he had sought. In 383 he secretly travelled to Rome and set up a school of rhetoric but gave up the venture when his students defrauded him of his tuition fees. Attracted by a vacant teaching position in Milan, he moved there and came under the influence of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Monica, having followed Augustine to Rome, joined him in Milan and continued to pray earnestly for his conversion. On the eve of Easter in 387, Augustine was baptised by Ambrose in the Cathedral of Milan. It was on this occasion, so it is said, that the solemn hymn Te Deum was composed and chanted for the first time.

Later that year Augustine returned to Rome with his mother Saint Monica and was preparing to leave for Africa when she took ill and died in Ostia. On his return to Africa he lived in solitude for three years, and was then consecrated Bishop of Hippo. He was always most humble and most temperate. His clothing and his bed were of the simplest kind. He kept a frugal table, which was always seasoned by reading or holy conversation. Such was his loving kindness to the poor that when he had no other resource he broke up the sacred vessels for their relief. He avoided all intercourse and conversation with women, even with his sister and his niece, for he used to say that though such near relations could not give rise to any suspicion, yet might the women who came to visit them.

Never did he omit to preach the word of God except when seriously ill. He pursued heretics unremittingly both in public disputations and in his writings, never allowing them to take a foothold anywhere. By these means he freed Africa entirely from the Manichees, Donatists and other heretics. His numerous works were full of piety, deep wisdom and eloquence, and throw the greatest light on Christian doctrine so that he is the great master and guide of all those who later on reduced theological teaching to method. While the Vandals were devastating Africa, and Hippo had been besieged by them for three months, Augustine was seized with a fever. When he realised that his death was near, he had the Penitential Psalms of David placed before him and used to read them with abundant tears. He was accustomed to say that no one, even though not conscious to himself of any sin, ought to be presumptuous enough to die without repentance. He was in full possession of his faculties and intent on prayer until the end. Augustine died in 430 AD at the age of 76. For writing his Confessions, City of God and other great theological works he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298. Saint Augustine is the patron of theologians.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Today Augustine, the greatest and the humblest of the Doctors is hailed by Heaven where his conversion caused greater joy than that of any other sinner, and is celebrated by the Church who is enlightened by his writings as to the power, the value, and the gratuitousness of divine grace.

Since that wonderful, heavenly conversation at Ostia, God had completed His triumph in the son of Monica’s tears and of Ambrose’s holiness. Far away from the great cities where pleasure had seduced him, the former rhetorician now cared only to nourish his soul with the simplicity of the Scriptures, in silence and solitude. But grace, after breaking the double chain that bound his mind and his heart, was to have a still greater dominion over him. The pontifical consecration was to consummate Augustine’s union with that divine Wisdom whom alone he declared he loved “for her own sole sake, caring neither for rest nor life save on her account.” From this height to which the divine mercy had raised him, let us hear him pouring out his heart: “Too late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and yet so new! Too late have I loved you! And behold you were within me, and I, having wandered out of myself, sought you everywhere without... I questioned the Earth and she answered me: ‘I am not the one you seek,’ and all the creatures of earth made the same reply. I questioned the sea and its abysses and all the living things in it, and they answered: ‘We are not your God. Seek above us.’ I questioned the restless winds, and all the air with its inhabitants replied: ‘Anaximenes is mistaken, I am not God.’ I questioned the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and they said: ‘We are not the God whom you seek.’ And I said to all these things that stand without at the gates of my senses: ‘You have all confessed concerning my God that you are not He, tell me now something about Him.’ And they all cried with one great voice: ‘It is He that made us.’ I questioned them with my desires, and they answered by their beauty. Let the air and the waters and the earth be silent! Let man keep silence in his own soul! Let him pass beyond his own thought, for beyond all language of men or of Angels, He, of whom creatures speak, makes Himself heard; where signs and images and figurative visions cease, there Eternal Wisdom reveals herself. You called and cried so loud that my deaf ears could hear you. You shone didst shine so brightly that my blind eyes could see you. Your fragrance exhilarated me and it is after you that I aspire. Having tasted you I hunger and thirst. You touched me and thrilled me and I burn to be in your peaceful rest. When I will be united to you with my whole being, then will my sorrows and labours cease.”

To the end of his life Augustine never ceased to fight for the truth against all the heresies then invented by the father of lies. In his ever repeated victories, we know not which to admire most: his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, his powerful logic, or his eloquence. We see too that divine charity which, while inflexibly upholding every iota of God’s rights, is full of ineffable compassion for the unhappy beings who do not understand those rights. “Let those be hard on you who do not know "what labour it is to reach the truth and turn away from error. Let those be hard on you who know not how rare a thing it is, and how much it costs, to overcome the false images of the senses and to dwell in peace of soul. Let those be hard on you who know not with what difficulty man’s mental eye is healed so as to be able to gaze on the Sun of justice, who know not through what sighs and groans one attains to some little knowledge of God. Let those finally, be hard on you who have never known seduction like that by which you are deceived... As for me, who have been tossed about by the vain imaginations of which my mind was in search, and who have shared your misery and so long deplored it, I could not by any means be harsh to you.”

These touching words were addressed to the disciples of Manes who were hemmed in on all sides even by the laws of the pagan emperors. How fearful is the misery of our fallen race when the darkness of Hell can overpower the loftiest intellects! Augustine, the formidable opponent of heresy, was for nine years previously the convinced disciple and ardent apostle of Manicheism. This heresy was a strange variety of Gnostic dualism which to explain the existence of evil made a god of evil itself, and which owed its prolonged influence to the pleasure taken in it by Satan’s pride.

Augustine sustained also a prolonged though more local struggle against the Donatists whose teaching was based on a principle as false as the fact from which it professed to originate. This fact, which on the petitions presented by the Donatists themselves was juridically proved to be false, was that Caecilianus, primate of Africa in 311, had received episcopal consecration from a traditor, i. e. one who had delivered up the sacred Books in time of persecution. No one, argued the Donatiete, could communicate with a sinner without himself ceasing to form part of the Book of Christ. Therefore, the bishops of the rest of the world had continued to communicate with Caecilianus and his successors, the Donatists alone were now the Church. This groundless schism was established among most of the inhabitants of Roman Africa, with its four hundred and ten bishops, and its troops of Circumcellions ever ready to commit murder and violence on the Catholics on the roads or in isolated houses. The greater part of our Saint’s time was occupied in trying to bring back these lost sheep. We must not imagine him studying at his ease in the peace of a quiet episcopal city chosen as if for the purpose by Providence, and there writing those precious works whose fruits the whole world has enjoyed even to our days. There is no fecundity on Earth without sufferings and trials, known sometimes to men, sometimes to God alone. When the writings of the Saints awaken in us pious thoughts and generous resolutions, we must not be satisfied, as we might in the case of profane books, with admiring the genius of the authors, but think with gratitude of the price they paid for the supernatural good produced in our souls. Before Augustine’s arrival in Hippo, the Donatists were so great a majority of the population that, as he himself informs us, they could even forbid anyone to bake bread for Catholics.

When the saint died, things were very different. But the pastor who had made it his first duty to save, even in spite of themselves, the souls confided to him, had been obliged to spend his days and nights in this great work, and had more than once run the risk of martyrdom. The leaders of the schismatics, fearing the force of his reasoning even more than his eloquence, refused all intercourse with him. They declared that to put Augustine to death would be a praiseworthy action which would merit for the perpetrator the remission of his sins.

“Pray for us,” he said at the beginning of his episcopate, “pray for us who live in so precarious a state, as it were between the teeth of furious wolves. These wandering sheep, obstinate sheep, are offended because we run after them, as if their wandering made them cease to be ours. ‘Why do you call us?’ they say. ‘Why do you pursue us?’ But the very reason of our cries and our anguish is that they are running to their ruin. ‘If I am lost, if I die, what is it to you? And what do you want with me?’ ‘What I want is to call you back from your wandering. What I desire is to snatch you from death.’ ‘But what if I will to wander? What if I will to be lost?’ ‘You will to wander? You will to be lost? How much more earnestly do I wish it not!’ Yes, I dare to say it, I am importunate, for I hear the Apostle saying: ‘Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season (2 Timothy iv. 2). In season, when they are willing, out of season, when they are unwilling.’ Yes then, I am importunate: ‘you will to perish, I will it not. And He wills it not, who threatened the shepherds saying: That which was driven away you not brought again, neither have got sought that which was lost (Ezechiel xxxiv. 4). Am I to fear you more than Him? I fear you not. The tribunal of Donatus cannot take the place of Christ‘s judgement seat, before which we must all appear. Whether you will it or not, I will call back the wandering sheep, I will seek the lost sheep. The thorns may tear me, but however narrow the opening may be, it will not check my pursuit. I will beat every bush, as long as the Lord gives me strength: so only I can get to you wherever you strive to perish.”

Driven into their last trenches by such unconquerable charity, the Donatists replied by massacring clerics and faithful, since they could not touch Augustine himself. The bishop implored the imperial judges not to inflict mutilation or death on the murderers lest the triumph of the martyrs should be sullied by such a vengeance. Such mildness was certainly worthy of the Church, but it was destined to be one day brought forward against her in contrast to certain other facts of her history, by a school of liberalism that can grant rights and even pre-eminence to error. Augustine acknowledges his first idea to have been that constraint should not be used to bring any one into the unity of Christ. He believed that preaching and free discussion should be the only arms employed for the conversion of heretics. But on the consideration of what was taking place before his eyes, the very logic of his charity brought him over to the opinion of his more ancient colleagues in the episcopate.

“Who,” he says, “could love us more than God does? Nevertheless God makes use of fear in order to save us, although he teaches us with sweetness. When the Father of the family wanted guests for his banquet, did he not send his servants to the highways and hedges, to compel all they met to come in? This banquet is the unity of Christ‘s Body. If, then, the divine goodness has willed that, at the fitting time, the faith of Christian kings should recognise this power of the Church, let the heretics brought back from the by-ways, and schismatics forced into their enclosures, consider not the constraint they suffer, but the banquet of the Lord to which they would not otherwise have attained. Does not the shepherd sometimes use threats and sometimes blows to win back to the master’s fold the sheep that have been enticed out of it? Severity that springs from love is preferable to deceitful gentleness. He who binds the delirious man, and wakes up the sleeper from his lethargy, molests them both, but for their good. If a house were on the point of falling, and our cries could not induce those within to come out, would it not be cruelty not to save them by force in spite of themselves? and that, even if we could snatch only one, from death, because the rest, seeing it, obstinately hastened their own destruction: as the Donatists do, who in their madness commit suicide to obtain the crown of martyrdom. No one can become good in spite of himself. Nevertheless, the rigorous laws of which they complain bring deliverance not only to individuals, but to whole cities, by freeing them from the bonds of untruth and causing them to see the truth, which the violence or the deceits of the schismatics had hidden from their eyes. Far from complaining, their gratitude is now boundless and their joy complete. Their feasts and their chants are unceasing.”

Meanwhile the justice of Heaven was falling on the queen of nations. Rome, after the triumph of the Cross, had not profited of God’s merciful delay. Now she was expiating under the hand of Alaric the blood of the Saints which she had shed before her idols. “Go out from her my people” (Apocalypse xviii. 4). At this signal the city was evacuated. The roads were all lined with barbarians, and happy was the fugitive who could succeed in reaching the sea, there to entrust to the frailest skiff the honour of his family and the remains of his fortune. Like a bright beacon shining through the storms, Augustine, by his reputation, attracted to the African coast the best of the unfortunates. His varied correspondenoe shows us the new links then formed by God, between the Bishop of Hippo and so many noble exiles. At one time he would send, as far as Nola in Campania, charming messages, mingled with learned questions and luminous answers, to greet his “dear lords and venerable brethren, Paulinus and Therasia, his fellow disciples in the school of our Lord Jesus.” Again it was to Carthage or even nearer home, that his letters were directed, to console, instruct and fortify Albina, Melania and Pinianus, but especially Proba and Juliana, the illustrious grandmother and mother of a still more illustrious daughter, the virgin Demetrias, the greatest in the Roman world for nobility and wealth, and Augustine’s dear conquest to the heavenly Spouse. “Oh! who,” he wrote on hearing of her consecration to our Lord, “who could worthily express the glory added this day to the family of the Anicii. For years it has ennobled the world by the consuls its sons, but now it gives virgins to Christ! Let others imitate Demetrias. Whoever ambitions the glory of this illustrious family, let him take holiness for his portion!” Augustine’s desire was magnificently realised, when, less than a century later, the gens Anicii gave to the world Scholastica and Benedict who were to lead into intimate familiarity and union with God so many souls eager for true nobility.

When Rome fell, the shook was felt throughout the provinces and even beyond. Augustine tells us how he, a descendant of the ancient Numidians, groaned and wept in his almost inconsolable grief. So great, even in her decadence, was the universal esteem and love for the queen city through the secret action of him who was holding out to her new and higher destinies. Meanwhile the terrible crisis furnished the occasion for Augustine’s most important writings.

The City of God was an answer to the still numerous partisans of idolatry who attributed the misfortunes of the empire to the suppression of the false gods. In this great work he refutes, in the most complete and masterly way, the theology and also the philosophy of Roman and Grecian paganism. He then proceeds to set forth the origin, the history and the end of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, which divide the world between them, and which are founded upon “two opposite loves: the love of self even to the despising of God, and the love of God even to the despising of self.” But Augustine’s greatest triumph was that which earned for him the title of the Doctor of grace. His favourite prayer: Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis, (Lord give me grace to do what you command, and command what you will) toffended the pride of a certain British monk whom the events of the year 410 had led into Africa. This was Pelagius who taught that nature, all-powerful for good, was quite capable of working out salvation, and that Adam’s sin injured himself alone, and was not passed down to his posterity. We can well understand Augustine who owed so much to the Divine mercy, feeling so strong an aversion for a system whose authors seemed to say to God: “You made us men, but it is we that justify ourselves.”

In this new campaign no injuries were spared to the former convert, but they were his joy and his hope. He had already said, with regard to similar arguments adduced by other adversaries: “Catholics, my beloved brethren, one flock of the one Shepherd, I care not how the enemy may insult the watch-dog of the fold. It is not for my own defence, but for yours, that I must bark. Yet I must needs tell this enemy that, as to my former wanderings and errors, I condemn them, as everyone else does. I can but see therein the glory of Him who has delivered me from myself. When I hear my former life brought forward, no matter with what intention it is done, I am not so ungrateful as to be afflicted thereat, for the more they show up my misery, the more I praise my physician.” While he made so little account of himself, his reputation was spreading throughout the world by reason of the victory he had won for grace. “Honour to you,” wrote the aged Saint Jerome from Bethlehem. “Honour to the man whom the raging winds have not been able to overthrow... Continue to be of good courage. The whole world celebrates your praises. The Catholics venerate and admire you as the restorer of the ancient faith. But, what is a mark of still greater glory, all the heretics hate you. They honour me too, with their hatred. Not being able to strike us with the sword, they kill us in desire.”

These lines reveal the intrepid combatant with whom we will make acquaintance in September, and who, soon after writing them, was laid to rest in the sacred cave near which he had taken refuge. Augustine had yet some years to continue the good fight, to complete the exposition of Catholic in contradiction to some even holy persons who were inclined to think that at least the beginning of salvation, the desire of faith, did not require the special assistance of God. This was semi-pelagianism. A century later (629) the second Council of Orange, approved by Rome and hailed by the whole Church, closed the struggle, taking its definitions from the writings of the bishop of Hippo. Augustine himself, however, thus concluded his last work: “Let those who read these things give thanks to God, if they understand them. If not, let them pray to the teacher of our souls, to Him whose shining produces knowledge and understanding. Do they think that I err? Let them reflect again and again, lest perhaps they themselves be mistaken. As for me, when the readers of my works instruct and correct me, I see therein the goodness of God. Yes, I ask it as a favour, especially of the learned ones in the Church, if by chance this book should fall into their hands, and they deign to take notice of what I write.”

But let us return to the privileged people of Hippo, won over by Augustine’s devotedness, even more than by his admirable discourses. His door was open to every comer, and he was ever ready to listen to the requests, the sorrows and the disputes of his children. Sometimes, at the instance of other churches, and even of councils, requiring of Augustine a more active pursuit of works of general interest, an agreement was made between the flock and the pastor that on certain days of the week no one should interrupt him. But the convention could not last long. Whoever wished could claim the attention of this loving and humble shepherd, beside whom the little ones especially knew well that they would never meet with a refusal. As an instance of this we may mention the fortunate child who, wishing to correspond with the bishop but not daring to take the initiative, received from him the touching letter which may be seen in his works.

Besides all his other glories, our saint was the institutor of monastic life in Roman Africa, by the monasteries he founded, and in which he lived before he became bishop. He was a legislator by his letter to the virgins of Hippo, which became the Rule on which so many servants and handmaids of our Lord have formed their religious life. Lastly, together with the clerics of his church who lived with him a common life of absolute poverty, he was the example and the head of the great family of Regular Canons.

WHAT a death was yours, O Augustine, receiving on your humble couch nothing but news of disaster and ruin! Your Africa was perishing at the hands of the barbarians, in punishment of those nameless crimes of the ancient world in which she had so large a share. Together with Genseric, Arius triumphed over that land, which nevertheless, thanks to you, was to produce, for yet a hundred years, admirable martyrs for the Consubstantiality of the Word. When Belisarius restored her to the Roman world, God seemed to be offering her, for the martyrs’ sake, an opportunity of returning to her former prosperity. But the inexperienced Byzantines, pre-occupied with their theological quarrels and political intrigues, knew not how to raise her up, nor to protect her against an invasion more terrible than the first, and the torrent of Mussulman infidelity soon swept all before it. At length, after twelve centuries, the Cross appeared in those places where the very names of so many flourishing churches had perished.

During all that long night which overhung your native land, your influence did not cease Throughout the entire world your immortal works were enlightening the minds of men and arousing their love. In the basilicas served by your sons and imitators, the splendour of divine worship, the pomp of the ceremonies, the perfection of sacred melodies, kept up in the hearts of the people the same supernatural enthusiasm which took possession of your own, when, for the first time in our West, Saint Ambrose instituted the alternate chanting of the Psalms and sacred Hymns. Throughout all ages the perfect life, in its many different ways of exercising the double precept of charity, draws from the waters of your fountains. Continue to illumine the Church with your incomparable light. Bless the numerous religious families which claim your illustrious patronage. Assist us all, by obtaining for us the spirit of love and of penance, of confidence and of humility, which befits the redeemed soul. Give us to know the weakness of our nature and its unworthiness since the Fall, and at the same time the boundless goodness of our God, the superabundance of His Redemption, the all-powerfulness of his grace. May we all, like you, not only recognise the truth, but be able loyally and practically to say to God: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is ill at ease till it rests in you.”

According to the most ancient monuments of the Roman Church, another Saint has always been honoured on this same day, viz: Hermes, a Roman magistrate, who bore witness to Christ under Trajan. The crypt constructed, less than half a century after the death of the Apostles, to receive this martyr’s relice, is remarkable for its majestic and ample proportions not usually found in the subterranean cemeteries. It was his sister Theodora, who received from Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, the venerable chains of Saint Peter.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the birthday of St. Hermes, an illustrious man, who, as we read in the Acts of the blessed Pope Alexander, was first confined in prison, and afterwards ended his martyrdom by the sword under the judge Aurelian.

At Brioude in Auvergne, St. Julian, martyr, during the persecution of Diocletian. Being the companion of the blessed tribune Ferreol, and secretly serving Christ under a military garb, he was arrested by the soldiers and killed in a barbarous manner by having his throat cut.

At Coutances in France, St. Pelagius, martyr, who received the crown of martyrdom under the emperor Numerian and the judge Evilasius.

At Salerno, the holy martyrs Fortunatus, Caius, and Anthes, beheaded under the emperor Diocletian and the proconsul Leontius.

At Constantinople, the holy bishop Alexander, an aged and celebrated man, through whose efficacious prayers Arius, by the judgement of God, burst asunder and exposed his intestines.

At Saintes, St. Vivian, bishop and confessor.

Also St. Moses, an Ethiopian, who gave up a life of robbery and became a renowned anchoret. He converted many robbers and led them to a monastery.

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

Thanks be to God.

27 AUGUST – SAINT JOSEPH CALASANCTIUS (Confessor)

Joseph Calasanctius (José de Calasanz) was born at the castle of Calasanz near Peralta de la Sal, Aragón, Spain, in 1557 to Don Pedro Calasanz and Doña María Gaston. From an early age he gave signs of his future love for children and their education. When still a little child he would gather other children round him and would teach them the mysteries of faith and holy prayer. After having received a good education in the liberal arts and divinity, he went through hie theological studies at Valencia. Here he courageously overcame the seductions of a noble and powerful lady, and by a remarkable victory preserved unspotted his virginity which he had already vowed to God. He became a priest in fulfilment of a vow in 1587, and several bishops of New Castile, Aragon and Catalonia availed themselves of his assistance. He surpassed all their expectations, corrected evil living throughout the kingdom, restored ecclesiastical discipline, and was marvellously successful in putting an end to enmities and bloody factions.

But urged by heavenly vision, and after having been several times called by God, he went to Rome. Here he led a life of great austerity in fasting and watching, spending whole day and nights in heavenly contemplation, and visiting the seven churches of pilgrimages almost every night. This last custom he observed for many years. He enrolled himself in pious associations and with wonderful charity devoted himself to aiding and consoling the poor with alms and other works of mercy, especially those who were sick or imprisoned. When the plague was raging in Rome, he joined Saint Camillus de Lellis, and not content in his ardent zeal with bestowing lavish care on the sick poor, he even carried the dead to the grave on his own shoulders. But having been divinely admonished that he was called to educate children he founded the Order of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools (the Piarists), who are specially destined to devote themselves to the instruction of youth. This Order was highly approved by Popes Clement VIII, Paul V and other Roman Pontiffs, and in a wonderfully short space of time it spread through many of the kingdoms of Europe. But in this undertaking Joseph had to undergo many sufferings and labours, and he endured them all with so much constancy, that every one proclaimed him a miracle of patience and another Job.

Though burdened with the government of the whole Order, he nevertheless devoted himself to saving souls, and moreover never gave over teaching children, especially those of the poorer class. He would sweep their schools and take them to their homes himself. For fifty-two years he persevered in this work, though it called on him to practise the greatest patience and humility, and although he suffered from weak health. God rewarded him by honouring him with many miracles in the presence of his disciples, and the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him with the infant Jesus, who blessed his children while they were praying. He refused the highest dignities, but he was made illustrious by the gifts of prophecy, of reading the secrets of hearts, and of knowing what was going on in his absence. He was favoured with frequent apparitions of the citizens of Heaven, particularly of the Virgin Mother of God, whom he had loved and honoured most especially from his infancy, and whose cultus he had most strongly recommended to his disciples.

Joseph foretold the day of his death and the restoration and propagation of his Order, which was then almost destroyed. In in his ninety-second year he fell asleep in our Lord, at Rome, on the 8th of the Calends of September in 1648. A century later, his heart and tongue were found whole and incorrupt. God honoured him by many miracles after his death. Pope Benedict XIV granted him the honours of the Blessed, and Pope Clement XIII canonised him in 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“To you is the poor man left: you will be a helper to the orphan” (Psalms ix. 14). Proud Venice has already seen these words realised in her noble son Jerome Aemilian: today they indicate the sanctity of another illustrious person descended from the first princes of Navarre, but of still higher rank in the kingdom of charity. God, who waters the trees of the field as well as the cedars of Libanus, because it is He that planted them all, takes care also of the little birds that do not gather into barn: will He then forget the child who is of much more value than the birds of the air? Or will He give him corporal nourishment and neglect the soul hungering for the bread of the knowledge of salvation which strengthens the heart of man? In the sixteenth century one might have been tempted to think our heavenly Father’s granaries were empty. True, the Holy Spirit soon raised up new saints, but the reviving charity was insufficient for the number of destitute: how many poor children, especially, were without schools, deprived of the most elementary education which is indispensable to the fulfilment of their obligations, and to their nobility as children of God: and there was no one to break to them the bread of knowledge!

More fortunate than so many other countries overrun with heresy, Spain was at her apogee, enjoying the hundredfold promised to those who seek first the kingdom of God. She seemed to have become our Lord’s inexhaustible resource. A little while ago she had given Ignatius Loyola to the world. She had just enriched Heaven by the precious death of Teresa of Avila when the Holy Ghost drew once more from her abundance to add to the riches of the capital of the Christian world, and to supply the wants of the little ones in God’s Church. The descendant of the Calasanz of Petralta de la Sal was already the admired Apostle of Aragon, Catalonia and Castile, when he heard a mysterious voice speaking to his soul: “Go to Rome. Go forth from the land of your birth. Soon will appear to you, in her heavenly beauty, the companion destined for you, holy poverty, who now calls you to taste of her austere delights. Go, without knowing where I am leading you. I will make you the father of an immense family. I will show you all that you must suffer for my name’s sake.”

Forty years of blind fidelity in unconscious sanctity had prepared the elect of Heaven for his sublime vocation. “What can be greater,” asks Saint John Chrysostom, “than to direct the souls and form the characters of children? Indeed I consider him greater than any painter or sculptor who knows how to fashion the souls of the young.” Joseph understood the dignity of his mission: during the remaining fifty-two years of his life he, according to the recommendations of the holy Doctor, considered nothing mean or despicable in the service of the little ones. Nothing cost him dear if only it enabled him, by the teaching of letters, to infuse into the innumerable children who came to him, the fear of the Lord. From Saint Pantaleon, his residence, the Pious Schools soon covered the whole of Italy, spread into Sicily and Spain, and were eagerly sought by kings and people in Moravia, Bohemia, Poland and the northern countries. Eternal Wisdom associated Calasanctius to her own work of salvation on Earth. She rewarded him for his labours, as she generally does her privileged ones, by giving him “a strong conflict, that he might overcome and know that wisdom is mightier than all” (Wisdom x. 12). It is a conflict like that of Jacob at the ford of Jaboc which represents the last obstacle to the entrance into the promised land, when all the pleasures and goods of the world have been sent on before by absolute renouncement. It is a conflict by night in which nature fails and becomes lame, but it is followed by the rising of the sun, and sets the combatant at the entrance of eternal day. It is a conflict with God hand to hand, under the appearance, it is true, of a man or of an angel. But it matters little under what form God chooses to hide Himself, provided it takes nothing from His sovereign dominion. “Why do you ask my name?” said the wrestler to Jacob. Yours will be henceforth “Israel, strong against God” (Genesis xxxii.).

Our readers may consult the historians of Saint Joseph Calasanctius for the details of the trials which made him a prodigy of fortitude, as the Church calls him. Through the calumnies of false brethren the saint was deposed, and the Order reduced to the condition of a secular congregation. It was not until after his death that it was re-established, first by Alexander VII, and then by Clement IX, as a Regular Order with solemn vows. In his great work on the canonisation of Saints, Benedict XIV speaks at length on this subject, delighting in the part he bad taken in the process of the servant of God, first as consistorial advocate, then as promoter of the faith, and lastly as Cardinal giving his vote in favour of the cause.

The Lord has heard the desire of the poor, by making you the depository of His love, and putting on your lips the words He Himself was the first to utter: “Suffer the little children to come to me” (Mark x. 14). How many owe and will yet owe, their eternal happiness to you, O Joseph, because you and your sons have preserved in them the divine likeness received in baptism, man’s only title to Heaven! Be blessed for having justified the confidence Jesus placed in you by entrusting to your care those frail little beings who are the objects of His divine predilection. Be blessed for having still further corresponded to that confidence of our Lord when He suffered you, like Job, to be persecuted by Satan, and with yet more cruel surprises than those of the just Idumaean. Must not God be able to count unfailingly on those who are His? Is it not fitting that, amid the defections of this miserable world, He should be able to show His Angels what grace can do in our poor nature, and how far His adorable will can be carried out in His Saints? The reward of your sufferings, which your unwavering confidence from Mother of God came at the divinely appointed hour. O Joseph, now that the Pious Schools have been long ago re-established, bless the disciples whom even our age continues to give you. Obtain for them, and for the countless scholars they train to Christian science, the blessing of the infant Jesus. Give your spirit and your courage to all who devote their labour and their life to the education of the young. Raise us all to the level of the teaching conveyed by your heroic life.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Capua in Campania, the birthday of St. Rufus, bishop and martyr, a patrician, who was baptised with all his family by blessed Apollinaris, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter.

In the same place, the holy martyrs Rufus and Carpophorus, who suffered under Diocletian and Maximian.

At Tomis in Pontus, the holy martyrs Marcellinus, tribune, and Mannea, his wife, and his sons John, Serapion and Peter.

At Lentini in Sicily, St. Euthalia, virgin. Because she was a Christian she was put to the sword by her brother Sermilian and went to her spouse.

The same day, the martyrdom of St. Anthusa the Younger, who was made a martyr by being cast into a well for the faith of Christ.

At Bergamo, St. Narnus, who was baptised by blessed St. Barnabas, and consecrated by him first bishop of that city.

At Arles, the holy bishop Caesarius, a man of great sanctity and piety.

At Autun, St. Syagrius, bishop and confessor.

At Pavia, St. John, bishop.

At Lerida in Spain, St. Licerius, bishop.

In Thebais, St. Poemon, anchoret.

At San Severino, in the Marches of Ancona, St. Margaret, widow.

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

Thanks be to God.