14 SEPTEMBER – THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

Hail the sign, the sign of Jesus,

Bright and royal Tree!

Standard of the Monarch, planted

First on Calvary!

Hail the sign all signs excelling,

Hail the sign all ills dispelling,

Hail the sign hell's power quelling,

Cross of Christ, all hail!

Hail the sign, the King preceding,

Key to hell's domain!

Lo, the brazen gates it shatters.

Bars it snaps in twain!

Hail the sign, on Easter morning

Breaking from the tomb;

In the hand of Christ dispelling

Sorrow, death, and gloom.

Sign to martyrs strength and refuge.

Sign to saints so dear!

Sign of evil men abhorred.

Sign which devils fear.

Sign which, on the day of vengeance,

Meteor-like shall flare;

Shuddering flesh shall then behold it

Steeped in blood-red glare.

Men shall shriek for very anguish,

Evil hearts will quail;

But the saints in fullest rapture

Will that vision hail.

Lo, the Cross of Christ my Master

On my brow I trace;

May it keep my mind unsullied,

Doubt and fear displace.

Lo, upon my lips I mark it.

Sign of Jesus slain;

Christian lips should never utter

Words impure or vain.

Lo, I sign the Cross of Jesus

Meekly on my breast;

May it guard my heart when living

Dying, be its rest.

At about the end of the reign of the emperor Phocas, King Chosroes of the Persians invaded Egypt and Africa. He then took possession of Jerusalem and after massacring there many thousands of Christians, he carried away into Persia the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, which Helena had placed upon Mount Calvary. Phocas was succeeded in the empire by Heraclius who, after enduring many losses and misfortunes in the course of the war, sued for peace but was unable to obtain it even upon disadvantageous terms, so elated was Chosroes by his victories. In this perilous situation he applied himself to prayer and fasting, and earnestly implored God’s assistance. Then, admonished from Heaven, he raised an army, marched against the enemy, and defeated three of Chosroes’ generals with their armies. Subdued by these disasters Chosroes took to flight, and when about to cross the river Tigris, named his son Medarses his associate in the kingdom. But his eldest son Siroes, bitterly resenting this insult, plotted the murder of his father and brother. He soon afterwards overtook them in flight, and put them both to death. Siroes then had him self recognised as king by Heraclius on certain conditions, the first of which was to restore the cross of our Lord. Thus, fourteen years after it had fallen into the hands of the Persians, the cross was recovered. And on his return to Jerusalem, Heraclius, with great pomp, bore it back on his own shoulders to the mountain to which our Saviour had carried it. This event was signalised by a remarkable miracle. Heraclius, attired as he was in robes adorned with gold and precious stones was forced to stand still at the gate which led to Mount Calvary. The more he endeavoured to advance, the more he seemed fixed to the spot. Heraclius himself and all the people were astounded, but Zacharias, the bishop of Jerusalem, said: “Consider, O emperor, how little you imitate the poverty and humility of Jesus Christ, by carrying the cross clad in triumphal robes. Heraclius thereupon laid aside his magnificent apparel and barefoot, clothed in mean attire, he easily completed the rest of the way and replaced the cross in the same place on Mount Calvary, from which it had been carried off by the Persians. From this event, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which was celebrated yearly on this day, gained fresh lustre in memory of the cross being replaced by Heraclius on the spot where it had first been set up for our Saviour.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

“Through you the precious cross is honoured and worshipped throughout the world.” Thus did Saint Cyril of Alexandria apostrophise our Lady on the morrow of that great day which saw her divine maternity vindicated at Ephesus. Eternal Wisdom has willed that the octave of Mary’s birth should be honoured by the celebration of this feast of the triumph of the holy cross. The cross indeed is the standard of God’s armies, of which Mary is the Queen. It is by the cross that she crushes the serpent’s head and wins so many victories over error, and over the enemies of the Christian name.

“By this sign you will conquer.” Satan had been suffered to try his strength against the Church by persecution and tortures, but his time was drawing to an end. By the edict of Sardica which emancipated the Christians, Galerius, when about to die, acknowledged the powerlessness of Hell. Now was the time for Christ to take the offensive, and for His cross to prevail. Towards the close of the year 311 a Roman army lay at the foot of the Alps preparing to pass from Gaul into Italy. Constantine, its commander, thought only of revenging himself for an injury received from Maxentius, his political rival. But his soldiers, as unsuspecting as their chief, already belonged henceforward to the Lord of hosts. The Son of the Most High, having become, as Son of Mary, king of this world, was about to reveal Himself to His first lieutenant and at the same time to discover to His first army the standard that was to go before it. Above the legions, in a cloudless sky, the cross, proscribed for three long centuries, suddenly shone forth. All eyes beheld it, making the western sun, as it were, its footstool, and surrounded with these words in characters of fire: IN HOC VINCE: by this be you conqueror! A few months later, October 27, 312, all the idols of Rome stood aghast to behold, approaching along the Via Flaminia, beyond the Pons Milvius, the Labarum with its sacred monogram, now become the standard of the imperial armies. On the morrow was fought the decisive battle which opened the gates of the Eternal City to Christ, the only God, the everlasting King.

“Hail, O cross, formidable to all enemies, bulwark of the Church, strength of princes. Hail in your triumph! The sacred Wood still lay hidden in the Earth, yet it appeared in the heavens announcing victory. And an emperor, become Christian, raised it up from the bowels of the Earth.” Thus sang the Greek Church yesterday in preparation for the joys of today, for the East, which has not our peculiar feast of May 3, celebrates on this one solemnity both the overthrow of idolatry by the sign of salvation revealed to Constantine and his army, and the discovery of the holy cross a few years later in the cistern of Golgotha.

But another celebration, the memory of which is fixed by the Menology on September 13, was added in the year 335 to the happy recollections of this day: namely, the dedication of the basilicas raised by Constantine on Mount Calvary and over the holy sepulchre, after the precious discoveries made by his mother Saint Helena. In the very same century that witnessed all these events, a pious pilgrim, thought to be Saint Silvia, sister of Rufinus the minister of Theodosius and Arcadius, attested that the anniversary of this dedication was celebrated with the same solemnity as Easter and the Epiphany. There was an immense concourse of bishops, clerics, monks and seculars of both sexes, from every province. And the reason, she says, is that the “cross was found on this day,” which motive had led to the choice of the same day for the primitive consecration, so that the two joys might be united into one.

Through not being aware of the nearness of the dedication of the Anastasia, or church of the Resurrection, to the feast of the holy cross, many have misunderstood the discourse pronounced on this feast by Sophronius the holy patriarch of Jerusalem. “It is the feast of the cross. Who would not exult? It is the triumph of the Resurrection. Who would not be full of joy? Formerly, the cross led to the Resurrection. Now it is the Resurrection that introduces us to the cross. Resurrection and Cross: trophies of our salvation!” And the pontiff then developed the instructions resulting from this connection.

It appears to have been about the same time that the West also began to unite in a certain manner these two great mysteries. Leaving to September 14th the other memories of the holy cross, the Latin Churches introduced into Paschal Time a special feast of the Finding of the Wood of Redemption. In compensation, the present solemnity acquired a new lustre to its character of triumph by the contemporaneous events which, as we will see, form the principal subject of the historical legend in the Roman liturgy.

A century earlier, Saint Benedict had appointed this day for the commencement of the period of penance known as the monastic Lent, which continues till the opening of Lent proper, when the whole Christian army joins the ranks of the cloister in the campaign of fasting and abstinence. “The cross” says Saint Sophronius, “is brought before our minds. Who will not crucify himself? The true worshipper of the sacred Wood is he who carries out his worship in his deeds.”

The victory thus chronicled in the sacred books of the Church, was not, O Cross, your last triumph. Nor were the Persians thy latest enemies. At the very time of the defeat of these fire-worshippers, the prince of darkness was raising up a new standard, the crescent. By the permission of God, whose ensign you are, and who, having come on Earth to struggle like us, flees not before any fee, Islam also was about to try its strength against you: a twofold power, the sword and the seduction of the passions. But here again, alike in the secret combats between the soul and Satan, as in the great battles recorded in history, the final success was due to the weakness and folly of Calvary.

Then, O cross, were the rallying-standard of all Europe in those sacred expeditions which borrowed from you their beautiful title of crusades, and which exalted the Christian name in the East. While on the one hand you were thus warding off degradation and ruin, on the other then were preparing the conquest of new continents: so that it is by you that our West remains at the head of nations. Through you, the warriors in those glorious campaigns are inscribed on the first pages of the golden book of nobility. And now the new orders of chivalry, which claim to hold among their ranks the élite of the human race, look upon you as the highest mark of merit and honour. It is the continuation of today’s mystery, the exaltation, even in our times of decadence, of the holy cross, which in past ages was the standard of the legions, and glittered on the diadems of emperors and kings.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Appia, during the persecution of Decius, blessed Cornelius, pope and martyr, who, after being banished, was scourged with leaded whips and then beheaded with twenty-one others of both sexes.

On the same day, were condemned to capital punishment Caerealis, a soldier, and his wife Sallustia, who had been instructed in the faith by the same Cornelius.

In Africa, in the time of the emperors Valerian and Gallienus, St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, most renowned for holiness and learning. It was near the seashore, six miles from the city, that he consummated his martyrdom by decapitation after enduring a most painful exile. The festival of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian is kept on the sixteenth of this month.

There suffered also in the same place the holy martyrs Crescentian, Victor, Rosula and Generalis.

At Rome, on the Via Salaria, during the persecution of Diocletian, St. Crescentius, the young son of St. Euthymius, who ended his life by the sword under the judge Turpilius.

At Treves, the holy bishop Maternus, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter, who brought the faith of Christ to the inhabitants of Tongres, Cologne, Treves and the neighbouring country.

The same day, the birthday of St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, who was sent into exile through the conspiracy of his enemies, but was recalled by a decree of Pope Innocent I. He died on the way from the ill-treatment he received at the hands of the soldiers who guarded him. His feast is celebrated on the twenty-seventh of January, the day on which his sacred body was taken to Constantinople by Theodosius the Younger.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 SEPTEMBER – FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

In the Western Church this Sunday is called that of the Two Masters because of the Gospel which is read upon it. The Greeks give it the name of the Sunday of the Invited to the Marriage-feast or the Fourteenth of Saint Matthew, unless the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September) happen to fall during the ensuing week. In this latter case, this and the following Sundays are called of the Exaltation, and take for their Gospels, the first from Saint John, the second from Saint Mark. After this follow the Sundays called of Saint Luke, which go on till Lent, in the manner already described for Saint Matthew.

Epistle – Galatians v. 16‒24

Brethren, walk in the spirit, and you will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh: for the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another; so that you do not the things that you would. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest; which are, fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things will not obtain the Kingdom of God! But the fruit of the spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Bride who came from the top of Sanir and Hermon that she might be crowned (Canticles iv. 8) knows not the servitude of Sinai (Galatians iv. 24‒26). Still less is she under the slavery of the senses. On the mountain, where her tent is fixed forever (Isaias ii. 2), her Spouse has broken the fetters of the Jewish law, and that more galling chain which tied all people down — the web of sin that covered all nations of the Earth (Isaias xxv. 7). She, the Bride, is queen — her sons are kings (1 Peter ii. 9), the milk on which she feeds them (Isaias lxvi. 8‒12) infuses liberty within them (Galatians iv. 31). Filled with the Holy Spirit, who is their glory and their strength (Romans viii. 14, 26), they they have the Lord of Hosts looking on them as they bravely fight battles such as Princes should engage in (Ephesians iv. 8; vi. 12). Satan, too, has beheld their glorious struggles, and his kingdom has been shaken to its foundations (John xii. 31). Two cities now divide the world between them (St. Augstine, City of God) and the Holy City, made up of vanquishers over the devil, the world, and the flesh, is full of admiration and joy at seeing that the noblest of the nations flock to her (Isaias lx. 5). The law which reigns supreme within her walls is love, for the Holy Spirit who rules her happy citizens takes them far beyond the injunctions or prohibitions of any law. Together with Charity, there spring up Joy, Peace, and those other Fruits, here enumerated by the Apostle. They grow spontaneously from a soil which is saturated with the glad waters (Psalm lxiv. 11) of a Stream which is no other than the Sanctifying Spirit who inundates the City of God (Psalm xlv. 5). We are not astonished at this new Sion being loved by the Lord above all the tabernacles of Jacob (Psalm lxxxvi. 2), beautiful as those once were (Numbers xxiv. 5). Now that the Blessing has taken on Earth the place once held by the Law, the Servants of God have been turned into Children, Sons and Daughters. Even while living in the flesh, they bear evidence of their heavenly origin by going on from virtue to virtue. Though sojourning in this vale of tears, they are ever on the ascent, approaching gradually nearer to the high summits of holiness: they reflect in their lives the perfection of their heavenly Father (Matthew v. 48) who, surrounded as He thus is in Sion by this noble family, is seen to be in all truth the God of gods (Psalm lxxxiii. 6‒8).

Flesh and blood have had no share in their divine birth (John i. 12), flesh and blood have no hand in their regenerated life (1 Corinthians xv. 50). Their first birth being in the flesh, they were flesh and did the works of death and ignominy mentioned in the Epistle, showing at every turn that they were from slime of earth (Genesis ii. 7), but born of the Spirit they are spirit (John iii. 6) and do the works of the Spirit in spite of the flesh which is always part of their being (2 Corinthians x. 3). For, by giving them of His own life, the Spirit has emancipated them by the power of love from the tyranny of sin (Romans viii. 2) which held dominion over their members (Romans vii. 23), and having been grafted on Christ, they bring forth fruit to God (Romans vii. 4).

Man, therefore, who was once a slave to concupiscence, has regained on the cross of Christ that equilibrium of his existence (Romans viii. 3) which is true liberty. The supremacy which the soul had forfeited in punishment for her revolt against God (Romans i. 28) has been restored to her by the laver of the water of baptism, and now that she is once more queen, it is but just that she chastise the slave who so long lorded it over her, his rightful sovereign. Man owes nothing to the flesh (Romans viii. 12), especially after the miseries it has brought on him: but further than this, God too has been insulted by the sensual abominations committed in His his sacred presence, and He too demands atonement. For this purpose He mercifully takes man, now that he is enfranchised, and confides to him the task of sharing with His divine Majesty, in taking revenge on their common enemy and usurper. Then, again, this mortifying the flesh and keeping it in subjection is a necessary means for retaining the good position already obtained. It is true, that the rebel has been made incapable of damaging those who are in Christ Jesus, and who walk not according to the flesh and its vile suggestions (Romans viii. 1), but it is equally true that the rebel is rebel still, and is ever watching opportunities for assailing the spirit. If there be exceptions, they are exceedingly rare. The rule of the flesh is to attack the spirit all through life, and try to make it yield. If one were an Antony in the desert, the flesh would be fierce in its assaults, even there. If the Saint were a Paul, just fresh from the third heaven of his sublime revelations, the flesh would have impudence enough to buffet even him (2 Corinthians xii. 7). So that, had we no past sins to atone for, the commonest prudence would urge us to take severe measures of precaution against an enemy who is so fearfully untiring in his hatred of us and, what is worse, lives always in our own home. That Saint Paul, of whom we were just speaking, says of himself: “I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest, perhaps I should become reprobate!” (1 Corinthians ix. 27).

Penance and Mortification differ in this: that Penance is a debt of justice incumbent on the sinner. Mortification is a duty commanded by prudence, which duty becomes that of every Christian who is not foolish enough to pretend to be out of the reach of concupiscence. Is there any one living who could honestly say that he has fully acquitted himself of these two duties: that he has satisfied the claims of God’s justice? and that he has stifled every germ of his evil passions? All spiritual masters, without exception, teach that no man who is desirous either for perfection or salvation should limit himself to the rules of simple Temperance, that cardinal virtue which forbids excess in pleasures, be they of one kind or another. This, they tell us, is not enough, and that the Christian, taking up another virtue, namely Fortitude, must from time to time refuse himself even lawful gratifications; must impose privations on himself which are not otherwise of obligation; must even inflict punishment on himself in the manner and measure permitted him by a discreet director. Amid the thousands of holy writers who treat on this point of asceticism, let us listen to the amiable and gentle Saint Francis of Sales: “If,” says he in his Introduction to a Devout Life, “If you can bear fasting, you would do well to fast on certain days, beyond those fasts which the Church commands us to observe... even when one does not fast much, yet does the enemy fear us all the more when he knows that we know how to impose a fast on ourselves. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were the days on which the Christians of former times most practised abstinence. Therefore, choose out of these for your fasts as far as your devotion and the discretion of your director will counsel you to do... The discipline, when taken with moderation, possesses a marvellous power for awakening the desire for devotion. The hair-shirt is efficacious in reducing the body to subjection... on days which are especially devoted to penance, one may wear it, the advice of a discreet Confessor having been previously taken.” Thus speaks the learned Doctor of the Church, the saintly Bishop of Geneva, whose sweet prudence is almost proverbial. And they to whom he addresses these instructions are persons living in the world. In the world, quite as much as in the cloister, the Christian Life, if seriously taken up, imperatively requires this incessant war of the spirit against the flesh. Let that war cease, and the flesh speedily usurps the sway and reduces the soul to a state of torpor by either seizing her very first attempts at virtue and chilling them into apathy, or by plunging her at a single throw deep into the filth of sin.

Neither is it to be feared that affability in the Christian’s social intercourse will be in any way impaired by this energy of self-mortification. That virtue which is based on such forgetfulness of oneself as to make him love discomfort and suffering for God’s sake does not render such a man one whitless pleasing in company, nor rob the friendly circle he frequents of one single charm. But will it not interfere, somewhat, with an article which the world is very jealous about? No: when Dress is what Christian reserve would have it be — in other and plainer words, when it is the love of Jesus that regulates the arrangements — there is no toilet where the jewels of penance may not find their place, without in the least intruding with those of the world. The day of judgement will give a strange lesson to those many good-for-nothing and cowardly Christians who feel sure that every one of their acquaintance is as fond of easy-going softness as they themselves are! Then will be revealed to them the pious schemes of penance which Christian love of the Cross suggested as means for crucifying their flesh even amid pleasures, and to those very persons who were the most admired in the worldling’s earthly paradise of gay saloons.

And ought it not to be thus? Ought not the Cross to be most dear to men? Yes, unless we hold that Christianity and divine love have entirely disappeared from this world. How is it possible to love Jesus, the Man of sorrows (Isaias liii. 3) and not love His sufferings? Can we say that we are walking in His footsteps if we are not on the road to Calvary? “If any man will come after me,” says this Jesus, “let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me!” (Matthew xvi. 24). And the Church, who is one with her divine Spouse — the Church who completes Him in all things (Ephesians i. 23) and therefore continues through all ages His life of expiation and atonement, puts on her children the sublime task which the Apostle thus expresses: “I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ by suffering in my flesh for His body, which is the Church” (Colossians i. 24).

Sublime task indeed! Filial, as far as the Church is concerned, but divine also, and deifying if we consider the union it produces between the Word and the Soul: He, the Word, gives to the soul what He has not given to the Angels, that is, He invites her to a share of that Chalice which the Eternal Father reserved to Jesus’ sacred Humanity (John xviii. 11), Here we have the intimacy of the Bride: the one same Cup for the Two, and it unites their two lives into one. It is a Cup of sorrow’s holy inebriation. They both drink it with avidity, and that avidity gives such vehemence to their union that the creature, at times, leaves her ecstasy all stigmatised in soul, yea, it may be in her body too, with the Wounds of her Crucified Lord. But whether our Lord communicates or not, either invisibly or visibly, the stigmata of His love to the soul that is devoted to Him, there is always, under one form or other, the royal seal which gives the surest sign of authenticity to the contract of divine union here below. That seal is suffering. Many who, on hearing or reading the favours gratuitously granted to certain saintly souls, are excited to a feeling of holy envy, would shrink back with dismay if they were told of the trials they had to go through before gaining such mystic ascensions. Even when the trials of purification, (of which we were speaking on a former occasion) are all over, the place of meeting is invariably that which the inspired Canticle calls the Mount of myrrh (Canticles iv. 6), which is but another name for suffering. Myrrh is the first fragrant herb culled by the divine Word in the mystic garden — nay, it is the only one He expressly mentions (Canticles v. 1). Myrrh distils from the Bride’s hands, and her fingers are full of it (Canticles v. 5). Her Spouse is the bouquet she clasps to her heart, but that bouquet is one of Myrrh (Canticles i. 12) and His lips are as lilies dropping choice Myrrh (Canticles v. 13).

Of course, we are too miserable ever to aspire to be raised up by the Holy Spirit to those heights of the mystic life where divine union produces such marvellous results as those we have already mentioned, but let us remember that neither the intensity nor the merit of love, no, not even the reality of effective Union, depend on those exterior manifestations. It should suffice to make us love, and even go in quest of, suffering, to remember how faith teaches us, that it was life-long with Him who wishes and infinitely deserves to be the one object of our thoughts and affections. We are members of a Head who was crowned with thorns. Can we pretend to have nothing but pleasures and flowers? Let us not forget that all the Saints must, when in Heaven, be likenesses of the new Adam (1 Corinthians xv. 45‒49), and that the Eternal Father admits no one into His House who is not conformable to the image of His Son (Romans viii. 29, 30).

Gospel – Matthew vi. 24‒33

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or he will sustain the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I, say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you will eat, nor for your body, what you will put on. Is not the life more than the meat, and the body more, than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air; for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more, value than they? And which of you, by taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? And for raiment, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they labour not, neither do they spin; but I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. Now, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow, is cast into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith! Be not solicitous, therefore, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these things. Seek therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things will be added to you.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The supernatural life can never be healthy in men’s souls unless it triumphs over the three enemies which Saint John calls concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John ii. 16). As to the first of these, our Epistle has been instructing us on the obstacle it raises against the action of the Holy Spirit, and on the means we are to adopt for surmounting it. Pride of life is overcome by Humility on which the Church has several times spoken to us during the previous Sundays. The Gospel, which has just been read to us, is the condemnation of the concupiscence of the eyes, that is, attachment to the goods of this world which of themselves are but goods in name and appearance.

No man, says our Lord, can serve two masters. And these two Masters are God and Mammon. Mammon means riches. Riches are not of their own nature bad. When lawfully acquired and used agreeably to the designs of God, riches help the possessor to gain true goods for his soul. He stores up for himself, in the kingdom of his eternal home, treasures which neither thieves nor rust can reach (Matthew vi. 19, 20). Ever since the Incarnation in which the divine Word espoused Poverty to Himself, it is the Poor that are Heaven’s nobility, and yet the mission of the rich man is a grand one. He is permitted to be rich in order that he may be God’s minister to make all the several portions of material creation turn to their Creator’s glory. He graciously vouchsafes to entrust into his hands the feeding and supporting the dearest of His children, that is, the Poor, that is, the indigent and suffering members of His Christ. He calls him to uphold the interests of his Church and be the promoter of works connected with the salvation of men. He confides to him the keeping up the beauty of his temples. Happy that man, and worthy of all praise, who thus directly brings back to the glory of their maker the fruits of the Earth and the precious metals she yields from her bosom! Let not such a man fear: it is not of him that Jesus speaks those anathemas uttered so frequently by Him against the rich ones of this world. He has but one Master, the Father who is in Heaven, whose steward he humbly and gladly acknowledges himself to be. Mammon does not domineer over him. On the contrary, he makes her his servant and obliges her to minister to his zeal in all good works. The solicitude he takes in spending his wealth in acts of justice and charity is not that which our Gospel here blames, for in all such solicitude he is but following our Lord’s precept of seeking first the kingdom of God, and the riches which pass through his hands in the furtherance of good works do not distract his thoughts from that Heaven where his heart is, because his true treasure is there (Matthew vi. 21).

It is quite otherwise when riches, instead of being regarded as a simple means, become the very end of a man’s existence, and that to such an extent as to make him neglect and sometimes forget his last end. “The ways of every covetous man,” says the Scripture, “destroy the souls of the possessors” (Proverbs i. 19). The Apostle explains this by saying that the love of money drives a man into temptation and the snares of the devil by the countless unprofitable and hurtful desires it excites within him. It drowns men in destruction and perdition, making them even barter away their faith (1 Timothy vi. 9, 10). And yet, the more an avaricious man gets, the less he spends. To nurse his treasure, to gaze on it (Ecclesiasticus v. 9, 10), to be thinking of it all day and night long, when obliged to go from home, that is what he lives for. And his money becomes, at last, his idol (Ephesians v. 5; Colossians iii. 5). Yes, Mammon is not merely his master whose commands are obeyed before all others, but it is his god before which he sacrifices friends, relatives, country and himself, for he devotes, and, as it is said in Ecclesiasticus, throws his whole soul and body away to his idol (Ecclesiasticus x. 10). Let us not be astonished at our Gospel declaring that God and Mammon are irreconcilable enemies, for who was it but Mammon that had our Lord Jesus sacrificed on its hateful altar for thirty pieces of silver? Of all the devils in Hell, is there one whose hideous guilt is deeper than the fallen angel who prompted Judas to sell the Son of God to his executioners? It is the avaricious who alone can boast of deicide! The vile love of money which the Apostle defines as the root of all evils (1 Timothy vi. 10) can lay claim to having produced the greatest crime that was ever perpetrated!

But, without going into such crimes as made the authors of the inspired books of even the Old Testament say that nothing is more wicked than the covetous man... there is not a more wicked thing than to love money (Ecclesiasticus x. 9, 10), it is easy to allow oneself to be led, as regards this world’s goods, into an excessive solicitude, that is, into one which prudence condemns. What ineffable truth and clearness are there not in the reasoning of our Jesus as put before us in today’s Gospel! To attempt to add any human words to these of His would be an insult offered to both their charm and their energy. The exquisitely beautiful comparisons of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, by which our divine Master shows how such solicitude is the very opposite of the confidence we should have in our heavenly Father, are beyond all comment. We may just add that solicitude of this sort would prove the existence of an attachment to earthly things which is incompatible with anything approaching to Christian perfection, or to the desire of making progress in the paths of divine Union. The Unitive Way is possible in every state of life, only there must be one condition observed, and that is, the soul must be detached from every tie that could keep her from going to God. The Religious breaks these ties by his three vows which are in direct opposition to the triple concupiscence of fallen nature. The layman, who, though he is living in the world, desires to be what His Creator would have him be, must, without the aid of the real separation which the Religious makes, be quite as completely detached from his own will, and sensuality, and riches, in order that all his intentions and aspirations may be fixed on the eternal home where his one infinite loved Treasure is. If he does not bring himself, even in the midst of his riches, to be as poor in spirit as the Religious is in deed, his progress will be checked at the very first step he takes in the contemplative life. And, if he allow the obstacle to block up the way, he must give up all idea of rising, in light and love, above the lowly paths of the majority of Christians.

13 SEPTEMBER – FERIA

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

“How beautiful are your first steps, O prince’s daughter! Our eyes are never weary of contemplating in you the marvel of harmonious sweetness united to the strength of an army” (Canticles vii. 1, 2). Blessed child, continue to grow in grace. May your course be prosperous. May your thy royalty be strengthened and established. But the Church will not wait till you be grown up to sing to you her beautiful antiphon: ‘Rejoice O Virgin Mary. You alone have destroyed all heresies throughout the world.’

Heresy, Satan’s denial of what God affirms by His Christ, this is the great struggle, or rather the only one which sums up history. God having created the world for the sole purpose of uniting it to Himself by His Word made Flesh, the enemy of God and of the world, in order to break the bond of this mysterious love, attacks by turns the Divinity and the Humanity of Christ the Mediator. But all his lies are in vain: Jesus is Man, for He is born of a Mother, like every one of us. He is God, for He alone is born of a Virgin. The Man-God, who, according to Simeon’s prophecy, is a sign of contradiction to the sons of perdition, has Himself a sign, for unprejudiced eyes, viz: a Virgin-Mother: “The Lord Himself,” said the Prophet, “will give you a sign. Behold Virgin will conceive and bear a Son and His name will be called Emmanuel (Isaias vii. 14) God with us.”

In the second of the celebrated conferences held with Manes in 277 by the holy bishop Archelaus, the heresiarch having denied that Christ was born of Mary, Archelaus replied: “If such be the case, if He was not born, then obviously He did not suffer, for to suffer is impossible to one not born. If He did not suffer, no mention can be made of the cross. Do away with the cross, and Jesus cannot have risen from the dead. But if Jesus be not risen, no one else can rise again; and if there is no resurrection, there can be no judgement. In that case there is no use in keeping the commandments of God: ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die’ (1 Corinthians xv. 32). Such is the corollary to your argument. Confess, on the other hand, that our Lord was born of Mary, and thence will follow the passion, the resurrection, and the judgment. Then the whole of Scripture is saved. No, this is no vain question for, as the whole Law and the Prophets are contained in the two precepts of charity, so all our hope depends on the motherhood of the blessed Virgin.”

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Alexandria, the birthday of blessed Philip, father of the virgin St. Eugenia. Resigning the dignity of prefect of Egypt, he obtained the grace of baptism. His successor, the prefect Terentius, caused him to be pierced through the throat with a sword while he was praying.

Also the holy martyrs Macrobius and Julian, who suffered under Licinius.

The same day, St. Ligorius, martyr, who living in the desert, was murdered by Gentiles for the faith of Christ.

At Alexandria, St. Eulogius, a bishop, celebrated for learning and sanctity.

At Angers in France, St. Mauritius, a bishop, renowned for numberless miracles.

At Sens, St. Amatus, bishop and confessor.

The same day, St. Venerius, confessor, a man of admirable sanctity, who led an heremitical life in the island of Palmaria.

In the monastery of Remiremont in France, St. Amatus, priest and abbot, illustrious for the virtue of abstinence and the gift of miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 SEPTEMBER – THE MOST HOLY NAME OF MARY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“And the Virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke i. 27). Let us speak a little about this name which signifies star of the sea, and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Rightly is she likened to a star: for as a star emits its ray without being dimmed so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury. The ray takes nought from the brightness of the star, nor the Son from His Mother’s integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose ray illumines the whole world, whose splendour shines in the heavens, penetrates the abyss, and, traversing the whole earth, gives warmth rather to souls than to bodies, cherishing virtues, withering vices. Mary, I say, is that bright and incomparable star, whom We need to see raised above this vast sea, shining by her merits, and giving us light by her example.

Oh! whoever you are that sees yourself, amid the tides of this world, tossed about by storms and tempests rather than walking on the land, turn not your eyes away from the shining of this star if you would not be overwhelmed by the hurricane. If squalls of temptations arise, or you fall upon the rocks of tribulation, look to the star, call upon Mary. If you are tossed by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy, look to the star, call upon Mary. If anger or avarice or the desires of the flesh dash against the ship of your soul, turn your eyes towards Mary. If, troubled by the enormity of your crimes, ashamed of your guilty conscience, terrified by dread of the judgement, you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the abyss of despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in anguish, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let her be ever on your lips, ever in your heart. And the better to obtain the help of her prayers, imitate the example of her life. Following her, you stray not. Invoking her, you despair not. Thinking of her, you wander not. Upheld by her, you fall not. Shielded by her, you fear not. Guided by her, you grow not weary. Favoured by her, you reach the goal. And thus do you experience in yourself how good is that saying: “And the Virgin’s name was Mary.”

Thus speaks the devout Saint Bernard in the name of the Church. But his pious explanation does not exhaust the meanings of this blessed name of Mary. Saint Peter Chrysologus adds in this same night Office: “Mary in Hebrew signifies lady or sovereign: and truly the authority of her Son, who is the Lord of the world, constituted her Queen, both in fact and in name, from her very birth.”

OUR LADY: such is the title which befits her in every way, as that of OUR LORD beseems her Son. It is the doctrinal basis of that worship of hyperdulia which belongs to her alone. She is below her Son, whom she adores as we do, but above all God’s servants, both angels and men, inasmuch as she is His Mother. At the name of Jesus every knee is bent. At the name of Mary every head is bowed. And although the former is the only name by which we may be saved, yet, as the Son can never be separated from His Mother, Heaven unites their two names in its hymns of praise, Earth in its confidence, Hell in its fear and hatred.

It was therefore in the order of divine Providence that devotion to the most holy name of Mary should spread simultaneously with the cultus of the adorable name of Jesus, of which Saint Bernadino of Siena was the apostle in the fifteenth century. In 1513 the Church of Cuenca in Spain was the first to celebrate, with the approbation of the holy See, a special feast in honour of the name of Mary, while the Franciscan Order had not yet succeeded in obtaining a like privilege for the adorable name of Jesus. The reason of this is that the memory of that sacred name included in the feast of the Circumcision seemed to the prudence of the Pontiff to suffice. From the same motive we find the feast of the most holy name of Mary extended to the universal Church in the year 1683, and that of the most holy name of Jesus not until 1721.

Two glorious triumphs, two victories won under the protection of Our Lady, have rendered this present day illustrious in the annals of the Church and of history.

Manicheism, revived under a variety of names, had established itself in the south of France, from where it hoped to spread its reign of shameless excess. But Dominic appeared with Mary’s Rosary for the defence of the people. On September 12, 1213, Simon de Montfort and the crusaders of the faith, one against forty, crushed the Albigensian army at Muret. This was in the pontificate of Innocent III.

Nearly five centuries later, the Turks, who had more than once caused the West to tremble, again poured down upon Christendom. Vienna, worn out and dismantled, abandoned by its emperor, was surrounded by 300,000 infidels. But another great Pope, Innocent XI, again confided to Mary the defence of the baptised nations. Sobieski, mounting his charger on the feast of our Lady’s Assumption, hastened from Poland by forced marches. On the Sunday within the octave of the Nativity, September 12, 1683, Vienna was delivered. And then began for the Osmanlis that series of defeats which ended in the treaties of Carlowitz and Passarowitz, and the dismemberment of the Ottoman empire. The feast of the most holy name of Mary inscribed on the calendar of the universal Church, was the homage of the world’s gratitude to Mary, our Lady and Queen.

Epistle – Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 23‒31

As the vine I have brought forth a pleasant odour, and my flowers are the fruit of honour and riches. I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way, and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits; for my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, will yet hunger; and they that drink me, will yet thirst. He that hearkens to me, will not be confounded, and they that work by me will not sin. They that explain me will have life everlasting.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

All the delight of Heaven, all the hopes of Earth, are centred on the cradle where Mary sleeps, while her heart is watching before God. Wisdom praises her own self. By the blessed daughter of Anne and Joachim, the loving preference shown by that divine Wisdom from the beginning of the world, is already justified. Forever more it will be her delight to be with the children of men. The chosen vine, the vine of the Peaceful One is before us, announcing, by its fragrant blossom, the divine grape, whose juice, pressed out in the wine-press of the cross, will give fruitfulness to every soul, and will inebriate Earth and Heaven.

Gospel – Luke i. 26‒38

At that time the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and the Virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.” Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought within herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold you will conceive in your womb, and will bring forth a son and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father: and he will reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel: “How will this be done, because I know not man?” And the angel answering, said to her, “The Holy Ghost will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And therefore also the Holy which will be born of you, will be called the Son of God. And behold your cousin Elizabeth, she also has conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: because no word will be impossible with God.” And Mary said: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This is the most solemn embassy ever recorded in the history of angels or of men. It shows us how Mary is what her name signifies, Mistress of the world. The highest interests of the human race, past, present and to come, of the heavenly hierarchy, and of God Himself, are here at stake. And the transaction is carried on between the Most High and the Virgin of Nazareth alone, as having exclusive right, the One to propose, the other to accept, both to conclude. The angel is but a messenger. Man, too, stands in waiting. Mary enters into a contract with the Creator, in the name of angels and of men, as in her own name; in the name of the entire world, which she represents, and over which she reigns supreme. Hail, then, to our Queen on her birthday! All hail to Mary! May she herself, in the holy Sacrifice, present our offerings to God for her people.

O Mary, we say to you with your faithful client, Saint Anselm of Canterbury: ‘By the name of your beloved Son, grant us ever to keep the memory of your own sweetest name. May it be the delicious food of our souls. May it be with us in danger. May it be with us in anguish. May it be to us the beginning of all joy!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Alexandria, in the time of the emperor Maximinus, the birthday of the holy martyrs Hieronides, Leontius, Serapion, Selesius, Valerian and Straton, who were drowned in the sea for the confession of the name of Christ.

In Bithynia, St. Autonomus, bishop and martyr, who went to that country from Italy to avoid the persecution of Diocletian. After he had converted many to the faith, he was killed at the altar by furious Gentiles while celebrating the sacred mysteries and so became the victim of Christ.

At Merum in Phrygia, the holy martyrs Macedonius, Theodulus and Tatian, under Julian the Apostate. After other torments, they joyfully consummated their martyrdom by being laid on burning gridirons by order of the governor Almachius.

At Iconium in Lycaonia, the holy bishop Curonotus, who received the crown of martyrdom by being beheaded under the governor Perennius.

At Pavia, St. Juventius, bishop, mentioned on the eighth of February. He was sent to that city with St. Cyrus by blessed Hermagoras, a disciple of the Evangelist St. Mark. They both preached the Gospel of Christ there, and being renowned for great virtues and miracles, illustrated the neighbouring cities by divine works. They closed their glorious career in peace invested with the episcopal dignity.

At Lyons, the decease of St. Sacerdos, bishop.

At Verona, St. Silvinus, bishop.

At Anderlecht, St. Guido, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

11 SEPTEMBER – SAINTS PROTASE AND GERVASE (Martyrs)

Protase and Gervase were brothers and the sons of the martyrs Saint Vitalis and Saint Valeria. They are Christian heroes who have ever been held in high honour in the Western Church. Saint Ambrose styled them the Proto-Martyrs of Milan, where they were scourged and beheaded in the first century A.D., either under Nero or Domitian. Many miracles illustrated the discovery and translation of their relics by Saint Ambrose, towards the close of the fourth century. They now repose at Milan in the Ambrosian Basilica and are patron saints of the city.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, in the Cemetery of Basilla, on the old Via Salaria, the birthday of the holy martyrs Protus and Hyacinth, brothers and eunuchs in the service of blessed Eugenia, who were arrested in the time of the emperor Gallienus on the charge of being Christians, and urged to offer sacrifice to the gods. But as they refused, both were most severely scourged and finally beheaded.

At Laodicea, in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Diodorus, Diomedes and Didimus.

At Leon in Spain, St. Vincent, abbot and martyr.

In Egypt, the holy bishop Paphnutius, one of those confessors, who, under the emperor Galerius Maximinus, having their right eye plucked out and the joint of the left knee cut, were condemned to work in the metal mines. Afterwards, under Constantine the Great, he courageously combated for the Catholic faith against the Arians, and at length, being adorned with many crowns, rested in peace.

At Lyons, the demise of St. Patiens, bishop.

At Vercelli, St. Æmilian, bishop.

At Alexandria, St. Theodora, who having committed a fault through imprudence and repenting of it, remained unknown in a religious habit, and persevered until her death in practices of extraordinary abstinence and patience.

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

Thanks be to God.

10 SEPTEMBER – SAINT NICHOLAS OF TOLENTINO (Confessor)

Nicholas, called of Tolentino as he lived a long time in that city, was born at the town of Sant’Angelo in the Marches of Ancona in 1246. His pious parents, desirous of having children, went to Bari in fulfilment of a vow. There they were assured by Saint Nicholas that they should have a son, whom they therefore called by that saint’s name. From his infancy he was admirable for his virtues, especially for his abstinence. For, when only seven years old he began, in imitation of Saint Nicholas, to fast several days a week, which custom he afterwards kept up, contenting himself with bread and water. While still young he was enrolled in the ranks of the clergy and made a canon but one day, hearing a sermon on contempt of the world preached by one the hermits of Saint Augustine, he was so struck by it that he immediately joined that Order. As a religious he led a perfect life, subduing his body by rough garments, disciplines and iron chains; abstaining from meat and almost every kind of nourishment; and showing a bright example to others by his charity, humility, patience and other virtues. Very great was his love of prayer, in which he never relaxed, although Satan troubled him in various ways and at times scourged him severely. For six months before his death he heard every night the songs of the angels: a foretaste of heavenly delights which caused him frequently to repeat that saying of the apostle: “I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.” He foretold to his brethren the day of his death, which was the fourth of the Ides of September 1310. Both before and after death he was famous for miracles, which having been duly proved, he was enrolled among the saints by Pope Eugenius IV.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Today the infant Mary smiles on the lily offered her in her cradle by the representative of a great Order. The hermits of Saint Augustine were being grouped and organised by the Vicar of Christ when Nicholas was admitted into their family, of which he was soon to become the thaumaturgus. When he died in 1305 the Roman Pontiffs were beginning their exile at Avignon, and his canonisation, deferred for nearly a century and a half through the troubles of the period, marked the close of the lamentable dissensions which followed that exile. Peace so long lost — peace, of which even the wisest despaired — such was the ardent prayer, the solemn adjuration of Eugenius IV when, towards the close of his laborious pontificate, he committed the cause of the Church to the humble servant of God placed by him on her altars. According to the testimony of Sixtus V, the obtaining of this peace was the greatest of Nicholas’s miracles — a miracle which moved the latter Pontiff to order the celebration of the saint’s feast as a double at a time when days of that rank were much rarer on the calendar than now.

Good and faithful servant, you have entered into the joy of your Lord. He has broken your bonds, and from Heaven where you are now reigning, you repeat to us those words which determined the sanctity of your life on Earth: “Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. For the world passes away, and the concupiscence thereof” (1 John ii. 15, 17). How much a man thus forgetful of Earth can do for his fellow-men, is evinced by the gift you received of solacing all the miseries around you, and succouring the souls in Purgatory. The successor of Saint Peter was not deceived when in ranking you among the saints he counted on your power in Heaven to bring back society from its long continued state of disturbance to the paths of peace. May that word of the beloved disciple which you have just echoed to us sink into our souls as a seed of salvation, and there yield the fruits that it produced in you: detachment from all temporal things and a longing for eternal realities, that humble simplicity of the soul’s eye which makes life a peaceful journey towards God, and lastly that purity which made you the friend of angels and the favourite of Mary.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Africa, the birthday of the holy bishops Nemesian, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polyan, Victor, Jader, Dativus and others. As a violent persecution was breaking out under Valerian and Gallienus, they were at their first courageous confession of Christ beaten with rods, then put in irons, and being sent to dig in the metal mines, they terminated their combat and glorious confession.

At Chalcedon, in the persecution of Diocletian, the holy martyrs Sosthenes and Victor. Under Priscus, proconsul of Asia, after they had been loaded with fetters and exposed to the beasts, they were condemned to be burned. But while they were saluting each other with a holy kiss and praying, they expired.

In Bithynia, the holy virgins Menodora, Metrodora and Nymphodora, sisters. Under the emperor Maximian and the governor Fronto they were crowned with martyrdom and went to eternal glory.

Also the holy martyrs Apellius, Luke and Clement.

At Liege in Belgium, St. Theodard, bishop and martyr, who laid down his life for his flock, and after his death was renowned for the gift of miracles.

At Rome, blessed Hilary, pope and confessor.

At Compostella, St. Peter, bishop, who was celebrated for his many virtues and miracles.

In the city of Albi, St. Salvius, bishop and confessor.

At Novara, St. Agapius, bishop.

At Constantinople, St. Pulcheria, empress and virgin, distinguished by her piety and zeal for religion.

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

Thanks be to God.

9 SEPTEMBER – SAINT GORGONIUS (Martyr)

Dorotheus and Gorgonius, two freedmen were executed at Nicomedia on this day. The greatest honours had been conferred on them by the emperor Diocletian, but as they detested the cruelty which he exercised against the Christians, they were by his order suspended in his presence, and lacerated with whips. Then, their skin being torn from their bodies, and vinegar with salt poured over them, they were burned on a gridiron and finally strangled. After some time, the body of blessed Gorgonius was brought to Rome and deposited on the Via Latina. Then it was transferred to the Basilica of St. Peter.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Cartagena in South America, St. Peter Claver, confessor of the Society of Jesus, who laboured with wonderful self-abnegation and great charity among the negro slaves for more than forty years and baptised personally almost thirty thousand of them. He was canonised by order of Pope Leo XIII.

Among the Sabines, thirty miles from Rome, the holy martyrs Hyacinthus, Alexander and Tiburtius.

At Sebaste, St. Severian, a soldier of the emperor Licinius. For frequently visiting the Forty Martyrs while they were in prison, he was suspended in the air with a stone tied to his feet by order of the governor Lysias, and being scourged and torn with whips, yielded up his soul in the midst of torments.

The same day, St. Straton, who ended his martyrdom for Christ by being tied to two trees and torn to pieces.

Also the holy martyrs Rufinus and Rufinian, brothers.

At Rome, St. Sergius, pope and confessor.

In the territory of Tréouanne, St. Omer, bishop.

In Ireland, St. Kieran, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

8 SEPTEMBER – THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

“Let us celebrate the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Let us adore her Son, Christ our Lord.” Such is the invitation addressed to us today by the Church. Let us hearken to her call. Let us enter into her overflowing joy. The Bridegroom is at hand, for His throne is now set up on Earth. Yet a little while, and He will appear in the diadem of our human nature with which His Mother is to crown Him on the day of the joy of His heart, and of ours. Today, as on the glorious Assumption, the sacred Canticle is heard, but this time it belongs more to Earth than to Heaven.

Truly a better paradise than the first is given us at this hour. Eden, fear no more that man will endeavour to enter you: your Cherubim may leave the gates and return to Heaven. What are your beautiful fruits to us since we cannot touch them without dying? Death is now for those who will not eat of the fruit so soon to appear amid the flowers of the virgin earth to which our God has led us. Hail, new world, far surpassing in magnificence the first creation! Hail blessed haven where we find a calm after so many storms! Aurora dawns. The rainbow glitters in the heavens. The dove comes forth. The ark rests upon the Earth, offering new destinies to the world. The haven, the aurora, the rainbow, the dove, the ark of salvation, the paradise of the heavenly Adam, the creation of which the former was but a shadow: all this are you, sweet infant, in whom already dwell all grace, all truth, all life.

You are the little cloud which the father of prophets in the suppliant anguish of his soul awaited, and you bring refreshment to the parched earth. Under the weakness of your fragile form appears the Mother of fair love and of holy hope. You are that other light cloud of exquisite fragrance, which our desert sends up to Heaven. In the incomparable humility of your soul, which knows not itself, the angels, standing like armed warriors around your cradle, recognise their Queen. O Tower of the true David, citadel withstanding the first shock of Satan’s attack and breaking all his power! True Sion founded on the holy mountains, the highest summits of virtue. Temple and palace feebly foreshadowed by those of Solomon. House built by eternal Wisdom for herself: the faultless lines of your fair architecture were planned from all eternity. Together with Emmanuel who predestined you for His home of delights, you are yourself, O blessed child, the crowning point of creation, the divine ideal fully realised on Earth!

Let us, then, understand the Church when, even on this day, she proclaims your divine maternity and unites in her chants of praise the birth of Emmanuel and your own. He who, being Son of God by essence, willed to be also Son of man, had, before all other designs, decreed that He would have a Mother. Such, consequently, was the primordial, absolute character of that title of mother that, in the eternal decree, it was one with the very being of the chosen creature, the motive and cause of her existence, as well as the source of all her perfections natural and supernatural. We too, then, must recognise you as Mother, even from your very cradle, and must celebrate your birthday by adoring your Son our Lord. Inasmuch as it embraces all the brethren of the Man-God, your blessed maternity sheds its rays upon all time, both before and after this happy day. “God is our king before ages: He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth” (Psalm lxxiii. 12). “The midst of the earth,” says the Abbot of Clairvaux, “admirably represents Mary. Mary is the centre of the universe, the ark of God, the cause of creation, the business of ages. Towards her turn the inhabitants of Heaven and the dwellers in the place of expiation, the men that have gone before us, and we that are now living, those who are to follow us, our children’s children and their descendants. Those in Heaven look to her to have their ranks filled up. Those in Purgatory look for their deliverance. The men of the first ages, that they may be found faithful prophets. Those who come after, that they may obtain eternal happiness. Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Sovereign of the world, all generations will call you blessed, for you have brought forth life and glory for all. In you the angels ever find their joy, the just find grace, sinners pardon. In you, and by you, and from you, the merciful hand of the Almighty has reformed the first creation.”

Andrew of Crete calls this day a solemnity of entrance, a feast of beginning whose end is the union of the Word with our flesh, a virginal feast, full of joy and confidence for all. “All ye nations, come here,” cries Saint John Damascene, “come every race and every tongue, every age and every dignity, let us joyfully celebrate the birthday of the world’s gladness.” “It is the beginning of salvation, the origin of every feast,” says Saint Peter Damian, “for behold! the Mother of the Bridegroom is born. With good reason does the whole world rejoice today, and the Church, beside herself, bids her choirs sing wedding songs.”

Not only do the Doctors of East and West use similar language in praise of Mary’s birth, but moreover the Latin and Greek Churches sing, each in its own tongue, the same beautiful formula to close the office of the feast: “Your birth, O Virgin Mother of God, brought joy to the whole world: for out of you arose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God: who, taking on the curse has bestowed blessing, and defeating death has given us life everlasting.”

This union of Rome and Byzantium in the celebration of today’s festival dates back as far as the seventh century at least. Beyond that we cannot speak with anything like certitude, nor is it known when the feast was first instituted. It is supposed to have originated at Angers, towards the year 430, by an apparition of our Lady to the holy bishop Maurillus in the fields of Marillais. And hence the name of Notre Dame Angemne often given to the feast. In the eleventh century Chartres, the city of Mary, claims for its own Fulbert, together with Robert the Pious, a principal share in the spreading of the glorious solemnity throughout France. It is well known how intimate the bishop was with the king, and how the latter himself set to music the three admirable responsories composed by Fulbert in which he celebrates the rising of the mysterious star that was to give birth to the Sun: the branch springing from the rod of Jesse, and producing the divine Flower on which the holy Spirit was to rest, and the merciful power which caused Mary to blossom in Judah like the rose on the thorn.

In the year 1245, in the third session of the first Council of Lyons (the same session which deposed Frederick II from the empire), Innocent IV established for the whole Church, not the feast which was already kept everywhere, but the Octave of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary. It was the accomplishment of a vow made by him and the other Cardinals during the Church’s widowhood, which through the intrigues of the crafty emperor, lasted 19 months after the death of Celestine IV, and which was brought to a close by the election of Sinibaldo Fieschi under the name of Innocent. In 1377, the great Pope Gregory XI, who broke the chains of captivity in Avignon, wished to add a vigil to the solemnity of our Lady’s birthday. But whether he merely expressed a desire to this effect, as did his successor Urban VI with regard to a fast on the eve of the Visitation, or whether for some other reason, the intentions of the holy Pope were carried out for only a very short time during the years of trouble that followed his death.

Together with the Church, let us ask, as the fruit of this sweet feast, for that peace which seems to flee ever further and further from our unhappy times. Our Lady was born during the second of the three periods of universal peace with which the reign of Augustus was blessed, the last of which ushered in the Prince of peace Himself. The temple of Janus is closed. In the Eternal City a mysterious fountain of oil has sprung up from the spot where the first sanctuary of the Mother of God is one day to be built. Signs and portents are multiplied. The whole world is in expectation. The poet has sung: “Behold the last age, foretold by the Sybil, is at hand. Behold the great series of new worlds is beginning. Behold the Virgin!”

In Judaea, the sceptre has been taken away from Judah, but the usurper of his power, Herod the Idumaean, is hastening to complete the splendid restoration which will enable the second temple worthily to receive within its walls the Ark of the new Covenant. It is the sabbatical month, the first of the civil year, the seventh of the sacred cycle; the month of Tisri which begins the repose of each seventh year, and in which is announced the holy year of Jubilee: the most joyous of months, with its solemn Neomenia celebrated with trumpets and singing, its feast of tabernacles, and the commemoration of the completion of Solomon’s temple. In the heavens, the sun, in his passage through the zodiac, has left the sign of Leo and entered that of Virgo. On Earth, two obscure descendants of David, Joachim and Anne, are thanking God for having blessed their long-barren union.

Epistle – Proverbs viii. 22‒35

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived: neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth. He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the deep: when He established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: when He compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters, that they should not pass their limits: when he balanced the foundations of the earth: I was with Him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. New, therefore, ye children, hear me. Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that hears me, and that watches daily at my gates, and waits at the posts of my doors. He that will find me, will find life, and will have salvation from the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

When princes are born, we pre-nosticate their future greatness by recalling the glory of their ancestors. The Church does in like manner today. The Gospel will recount the temporal genealogy of the Messiah which is also the genealogy of her who was born for the very purpose of giving birth to Him. But first, this passage from the Book of Proverbs sets before us the divine origin of the Son and of the Mother. It is of both that eternal Wisdom says: “Before the hills I was brought forth: when He prepared the heavens, I was present.” Our weak human nature, subject to time, can conceive of things only according to the series of their progressive evolutions, but God sees them independently of time, which He rules with His eternity. He sees them in the order of mutual dependence in which He has placed them with a view to the manifestation of His glory. With God, the beginning and the principle of every work is the purpose for which it is done. Now the Most High acts outside Himself solely to reveal Himself, by His Word made Flesh and become the Son of a created Mother as He is the Son of the Creator. The God-Man as end, Mary as the means: such is the object of the eternal decrees, the purpose of the world’s existence, the fundamental conception with regard to which all else is but accessory and dependent.

O Lady, who deigns to call us also your children, it is well for us that your goodness is equal to your greatness! Happy is the human race for having waited and watched for you during so many long ages, and for having found you at length: for with you is salvation and life.

Gospel – Matthew i. 1‒16

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac; and Isaac begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Judas and his brethren; and Judas begot Phares and Zaraof Thamar; and Phares begot Esron; and Esron begot Aram; and Aram begot Aminadab; and Aminadab begot Naasson; and Naasson begot Salmon; and Salmon begot Booz of Rahab; and Booz begot Obed of Ruth; and Obed begot Jesse; and Jesse begot David the king. And David the king begot Solomon, of her who had been the wife of Urias; and Solomon begot Roboam; and Roboam begot Abia; and Abia begot Asa; and Asa begot Josaphat; and Josaphat begot Joram; and Joram begot Ozias; and Ozias begot Joatham; and Joatham begot Achaz; and Achaz begot Ezechias; and Ezechias begot Manasses; and Manasses begot Amon; and Amon begot Josias; and Josias begot Jechonias and his brethren in the transmigration of Babylon. And after the transmigration of Babylon Jechonias begot Salathiel; and Salathiel begot Zorobabel; and Zorobabel begot Abiud; and Abiud begot Eliacim; and Eliacim begot Azor; and Azor begot Sadoc; and Sadoc begot Achim; and Achim begot Eliud; and Eliud begot Eleazar; and Eleazar begot Mathan; and Mathan bogot Jacob; and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Mary “of whom was born Jesus”: these words contain the whole mystery of our Lady, the title which expresses her whole being according to both nature and grace. For, Jesus, who was to be born of Mary, to be made of a woman (Galatians iv. 4), was from the beginning the hidden reason of all creation, to be manifested in the fullness of time. This was God’s great work of which the prophet said in ecstasy: “O Lord, your work... in the midst of the years you will make it known... the holy One will come from the shady mountain... The hills of the world were bowed down by the journeys of His eternity” (Habacuc iii. 2‒6). This mountain from where the holy One, the Eternal, the Ruler of the world, is to come, is the blessed Virgin Mary whom the power of the Most High will overshadow and who, at her very birth, is set far above all the heights of Earth and of Heaven.

The days, then, are accomplished. Ever since the hour when the eternal Trinity came forth from their repose to create Heaven and Earth, all the generations of Heaven and Earth have been in labour to bring forth the day which is to give a Mother to the Son of God. Parallel with the direct line from Abraham and David to the Messiah, all human genealogies have been preparing for Mary the generation of adoptive sons whom Jesus is to make His brethren. With the Church, let us congratulate our Lady on this her sublime maternity which embraces all creatures together with the Creator.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Nicomedia, St. Adrian, with twenty-three other martyrs, who ended their martyrdom on the fourth of March by having their limbs crushed after enduring many torments under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Their remains were carried to Byzantium by Christians and buried with due honours. Afterwards the body of St. Adrian was taken to Rome on this day on which his festival is celebrated.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Ammon, Theophilus, Neoterius, and twenty-two others.

At Antioch, the Saints Timothy and Faustus, martyrs.

At Gaza in Palestine, the holy martyrs Eusebius, Nestabus and Zeno, brothers, who were cut to pieces by a multitude of pagans that rushed upon them in the time of Julian the Apostate.

In the same place, and under the same Julian, St. Nestor, martyr, who, being most cruelly tortured by the same furious Gentiles, breathed his last.

At Valencia in Spain, St. Thomas of Villanova, archbishop, distinguished by his ardent charity for the poor. He was inscribed among the saints by Pope Alexander VII, and his feast is celebrated on the twenty-second of this month.

At Freisingen, St. Corbinian, first bishop of that city. Being consecrated by Pope Gregory II, and sent to preach the Gospel, he reaped an abundant harvest in France and Germany, and finally renowned for virtues and miracles, rested in peace.

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

Thanks be to God.