6 FEBRUARY – FRIDAY OF SEPTUAGESIMA WEEK

Henoch (Enoch)

Lesson – Genesis iv. 17‒26; v. 1‒5

And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. And Henoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Maviael, and Maviael begot Mathusael, and Mathusael begot Lamech: Who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. And Ada brought forth Jabel: who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen. And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of them that play on the harp and the organs. Sella also brought forth Tubalcain, who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was Noema. And Lamech said to his wives Ada and Sella: “Hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, listen to my speech: for I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising. Sevenfold vengeance will be taken for Cain: but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold. Adam also knew his wife again: and she brought forth a son, and called his name Seth, saying: “God has given me another seed, for Abel whom Cain slew.” But to Seth also was born a son, whom he called Enos; this man began to call on the name of the Lord.

This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him to the likeness of God. He created them male and female; and blessed them: and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The curse which is henceforth to lie so heavily on every human being has been expressed in the sentence pronounced against Eve. The curse to which the Earth itself is to be subjected is Adam’s sentence. “Because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat, cursed is the Earth in your work” (that is, on account of what you have done) (Genesis iii. 17). Adam had excused his sin. God does not admit his excuse, yet He mercifully makes allowance for him, seeing that he sinned not so much to gratify himself, as to please the frail creature that had been formed out of his own substance. He is not the originator of the disobedient act. God, therefore, sentences him to the personal humiliation of labour and toil, and of eating his bread in the sweat of his brow (Genesis iii. 17, 19). Outside the Garden of Eden there lies the immense desert of the Earth. It is to be the valley of tears, and there must Adam dwell in exile for upwards of nine hundred years, with the sad recollection in his heart of the few happy days spent in Paradise! This desert is barren: Adam must give it fruitfulness by his toil, and draw from it, by the sweat of his brow, his own and his children’s nourishment.

If, in after ages, some men will live without toil, they are the exception confirming the general law and chastisement. They rest, because others have laboured long and hard for them. Neither will God ratify their exceptional dispensation from labour, except on the condition that they give encouragement, by their charity and other virtues, to their fellow-men in whom Adam’s sentence is literally carried out. Such is the necessity of toil that if it be refused, the Earth will yield but thorns and thistles. Such, too, the importance of this law imposed on fallen Man, that idleness will not only corrupt his heart, it will also enervate his bodily strength.

Before his sin the trees of Paradise bent down their branches and man fed on their delicious fruits, but now he must till the earth and draw from it, with anxiety and fatigue, the seed which is to give him bread. Nothing could better express the penal relation between him and the earth, from which he was originally formed, and which is henceforth to be his tomb, than this law to which God sentences him — of being indebted to the earth for the nourishment which is to keep him in life. And yet, here also Divine Mercy will show itself for, when God will have been appeased, it will be granted to man to unite himself to his Creator by eating the Bread of Life, which is to come down from Heaven, and whose efficacy for the nourishing of our souls, will be greater than ever the fruit of the Tree of Life could have been for the immortalising our bodily existence.

6 FEBRUARY – SAINT DOROTHY (Virgin and Martyr)

 

The holy virgin Dorothy of Caesarea in Cappadocia was apprehended by Apficius, the governor of that province, on account of her professing the faith of Christ. She was put under the care of her two sisters, Chrysta and Callista, who had apostatised from the faith and would be able to shake the resolute constancy of Dorothy. But she brought them back to the faith, for which they were burnt to death in a cauldron. The governor ordered Dorothy to be hoisted on the rack, and she said to him, as she lay upon it: “Never in my whole life have I felt such joy, as I do today.” Then the governor ordered the executioners to burn her sides with lighted lamps, and beat her for a very long time on the face, and finally behead her with the sword. While she was being led to the place of execution she said: “I give thee thanks, O thou the lover of our souls, that thou call me to thy Paradise!” Theophilus, one of the governor’s officers, hearing her words, laughed and said to her: “Hear me, Bride of Christ! I'll ask you to send me some apples and roses from this Paradise of your Spouse.” Dorothy replied: “Well, and so I will.” Before she was beheaded she was allowed a moment for prayer when lo! a beautiful child came to her, bringing with him in a napkin three apples and three roses. She said to him: “Take them, I pray you, to Theophilus.” Then, the executioner struck her head off with his sword and her soul fled to Christ. While Theophilus was jocosely telling his fellows the promise made him by Dorothy, he saw a boy bringing him in a napkin three fine apples and three most lovely roses who, as he gave them, said: “Lo! The most holy virgin Dorothy sends you, as she promised, these gifts from the Paradise of her spouse.” Theophilus was beside himself with surprise, for it was February and the frost most sharp. But taking the gifts, he exclaimed: “Christ is truly God!” He openly professed the Christian faith, and courageously suffered for the same a most painful martyrdom.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Today again it is one of the most amiable of Christ’s spouses that comes to console us by her presence. It is Dorothy, the simple and intrepid virgin who strews the path of her martyrdom with prodigies of sweetest charity. The religion of Christ alone can produce in timid women, like the Saint of today, an energy which, at times, surpasses that of the most valiant Martyrs among men. Thus does our Lord glorify His infinite power by crushing Satan’s head with what is by nature so weak. The enmity put by God between the Woman and the Serpent (Genesis iii. 15) is forever showing itself in those sublime Acts of the Martyrs where the rebel Angel is defeated by an enemy whom he knew to be weak, and therefore scorned to fear. But that very weakness which made her victory the grander, made his humiliation the bitterer. Surely such history must have taught him how powerful an enemy he has in a Christian woman. And we, who can boast of having so many heroines among the ancestors of our Holy Faith, should cherish their memory and confide in their protection, for their intercession is powerful with Him they died for. One of the noblest of these comes to us today. Let us celebrate her victory and merit her patronage.

*****

Your promises, O Dorothy, are faithful as yourself. In the garden of your heavenly Spouse you forget not the exiles on Earth. How fortunate was Theophilus to have had one of your promises! He asked for fruits and flowers. He got them, and with them, the richer gifts of faith and perseverance which we also would now ask you to send us. You know our wants. We want courage to conquer the world and our passions. We want the grace of conversion. We want the spirit of penance without which we can never reach that Heaven of our vocation where we are to be your companions in bliss. Promise us your prayers, and we will not fail. And on the grand Day of the Easter we are preparing for, our souls, having been purified in the Blood of the Lamb, will be as fragrant as the fruits, and as fair as the flowers, which you sent to a pagan whose prayer was less confident than ours.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The holy martyrs Saturninus, Theophilus and Revocata.

At Emesa in Phrenicia, in the time of the emperor Maximian, St. Silvanus, bishop, who, after having governed that church forty years, was delivered to the beasts with two other Christians, and having his limbs all mangled, received the palm of martyrdom.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Antholian, martyr.

The same day, the holy bishops Vedastus and Amandus, who were illustrious by many miracles, both in life and death. The former governed the church of Arras, the latter that of Maestricht.

At Bologna, St. Guarinus, bishop of Palestrina and Cardinal, renowned for holiness of life.

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

Thanks be to God.

5 FEBRUARY – THURSDAY OF SEPTUAGESIMA WEEK

  Lesson – Genesis iv. 1‒16

And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said: “I have gotten a man from God.” And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the first of his flock, and of the fat of it. And the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering. But to Cain and to his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell. And the Lord said to him: “Why are you wroth? And why is your countenance fallen? If you do well will you not be accepted? And if you do not well, does not sin lie at the door? But the desire thereof is under you and you have control over it.” And Cain said to Abel his brother: “Let us go forth abroad.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said: “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said to him: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to Me from the ground. Now, therefore, cursed will you be upon the earth which has opened her mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground it will not henceforth yield to you her fruits: a fugitive and a vagabond will you be on the earth.” And Cain said to the Lord: “My sin is too great for me to gain pardon thereof. Behold, you have driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from your face will I be hid, and I will be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. Everyone therefore that finds me will slay me.” And the Lord said to him: “It will not be so, but whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt a vagabond in the land on the East of Eden.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Forgiveness is promised but atonement must be made. Divine Justice must be satisfied, and future generations be taught that sin can never pass unpunished. Eve is the guiltier of the two, and her sentence follows that of the serpent. Destined by God to aid man in peopling the Earth with happy and faithful children — formed by this God out of man—his own substance, flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones — woman was to be on an equality with man, but sin has subverted this order and God’s sentence is this: conjugal union, notwithstanding the humiliation of concupiscence now brought upon it, is to be, as before, holy and sacred. But it is to be inferior in dignity, both before God and man, to the state of virginity which disdains the ambitions of flesh.

Secondly, woman will be mother still, as she would have been in the state of innocence, but her honour will be a burden. Moreover, she will give birth to her children amid cruel pains, and sometimes even death must be the consequence of her infant’s coming into the world. The sin of Eve will thus be memorialised at every birth, and nature will violently resist the first claims of him whom sin has made her unwelcome lord.

Lastly, she who was at first created to enjoy equality of honour with man is now to forfeit her independence. Man is to be her superior, and she must obey him. For long ages, this obedience will be no better than slavery, and this degradation will continue till that Virgin comes, whom the world will have expected for four thousand years, and whose humility will crush the serpent’s head. She will restore her sex to its rightful position, and give to Christian woman that influence of gentle persuasiveness which is compatible with the duty imposed on her by Divine justice, and which can never be remitted: the duty of submission.

5 FEBRUARY – SAINT AGATHA (Virgin and Martyr)

 

The holy virgin Agatha was born in Sicily of noble parents. The cities of Palermo and Catania both claim the honour of having been the place of her birth. She received the crown of a glorious martyrdom at Catania under the persecution of the Emperor Decius. Her beauty, which was as great as her chaste and innocent life was praiseworthy, attracted the notice of Quintianus, the governor of Sicily. He spared no means by which to compass his lustful designs on the innocent virgin, but seeing that she scorned his offers, he had her apprehended as being guilty of the Christian superstition, and gave her in charge of a woman named Aphrodisia, who was noted for her power of alluring to evil. But finding that her words and company had no effect on the holy maiden, and that she was immoveable in her resolution to maintain both her faith and her virginity, Aphrodisia told Quintianus that she was but losing her time with Agatha. He then ordered the virgin to be brought before him, and he said to her: “Are you not, that are so noble by birth, ashamed to lead the life of a base and slavish Christian? She replied: “Better by far is the baseness and slavery of a Christian than the wealth and pride of kings.”

Angered by her words, the governor bids her choose one of these two: adoration to the gods or sharp tortures. On her refusal to deny her faith, he ordered her to be buffeted with blows and cast into prison. On the following day she was again led to trial. Finding that she was still firm in her purpose, they hoisted her on the rack and laid hot iron plates on her flesh, and cut off her breasts. While suffering this last torture, she thus spoke to Quintianus: “Cruel tyrant, are you not ashamed to cut a woman’s breast, that was yourself fed at the breast of your mother?” She was then sent back to prison where, during the night, a venerable old man, who told her that he was the Apostle of Christ, healed her. A third time she was summoned by the governor and being still firm in confessing Christ, she was rolled upon sharp potsherds and burning coals. Suddenly, the whole city was shaken by a violent earthquake and two of the governor’s intimate friends were killed by the falling of two walls. The people were in such a state of excitement that the governor began to fear a sedition, and therefore ordered the almost lifeless Agatha to be secretly conveyed back to her prison. She thus prayed to our Lord: “O God! that has watched over me from my infancy, that has separated me from the love of this world, that has given me strength to bear the tortures of my executioners, receive my soul!” Her prayer being ended, her soul took its flight to Heaven on the Nones of February (February 5th), and the Christians buried her body.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Since the commencement of the Ecclesiastical Year we have kept the feasts of two out of the four illustrious Virgins whose names are daily honoured in the Holy Sacrifice of the Lamb: the third comes today, lighting up the Heaven of the Church with her bright soft rays. Lucy, first. Then, Agnes and now the gracious visit of Agatha. The fourth, Caecilia, the immortal Caecilia, is to be one of that magnificent constellation which gives such splendour to the closing of the year. Today, then, let us keep a feast in honour of Agatha, the Virgin Daughter of that same fair Sicily which can boast of her Lucy. We must not allow the holy sadness of our present Season to take anything from the devotion we owe to our Saint. The joy with which we celebrate her merits will lead us to study her virtues. She will repay us by her prayers. She will encourage us to persevere in the path which is to bring us to the God she so nobly loved and served, and with whom she is now forever united.

*****

How lovely are your palms, Agatha! But how long and cruel was your combat for them! The day yours. Your faith and your virginity triumphed but the battlefield was streamed with your blood, and your glorious wounds bear testimony to the Angels how stern was the courage of your fidelity to Jesus, your Spouse. When your enemies left you, it was to Him you looked up, and then your soul flew to its rest in the bosom of your King and God. The whole Church keeps feast today, praising her Lord in you, great Martyr and Virgin! She knows the love you bear her and how, amid the joys of Heaven, her interests and her wants are the object of your prayers. You are our Sister. Be too our Mother by interceding for us. Centuries have passed away since that day on which your soul quitted the body you had sanctified by purity and suffering, but the great battle between the spirit and the flesh is still waging here on Earth, and will so to the end of time. Assist us in the struggle. Keep up within our hearts the holy fire which the world and our passions are ever seeking to quench.

It is now the season when every Christian should renew his whole being by repentance and compunction. We know the power of your prayer. Let it procure us these gifts: the fear of God, which keeps down the workings of corrupt nature; the spirit of penance, which repairs the injuries caused by our sins, and a solid love for our dear Lord, which sweetens the yoke and ensures perseverance. More than once a whole people has witnessed how a relic of yours, your veil, has checked the stream of lava which rolled down the sides of Etna. We are threatened with a torrent of vice which will drive the world back to pagan corruption unless Divine Mercy stay its wild fury, and prayers such as yours can obtain it for us. Delay not, O Agatha! Each day gives strength to the danger. Not a nation but what is now infected with the poison of a literature that is infidel and immoral. By your prayers keep the poisonous cup from them that have not tasted, neutralise its power in them that have drunk its venom of death. Oh! spare us the shame of seeing our Europe the slave of sensuality and the dupe of Hell.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Pontus, during the persecution of Maximian, the commemoration of many holy martyrs, some of whom had molten lead poured over them, others had sharp-pointed reeds thrust under their nails, and were often times horribly tormented in many other ways. Thus, by their glorious passion, they deserved at the hands of God palms of victory and unfading crowns.

At Alexandria, during the persecution of Decius, St. Isidore, martyr, who was beheaded for the faith of Christ by Numerian, the general of the army.

In the kingdom of Japan, the passion of twenty-six martyrs, who, by being crucified for the Catholic faith and pierced with lances, gloriously died in praising God and preaching that same faith. Blessed Pius IX canonised them in 1862.

At Vienne, blessed Avitus, bishop and confessor, whose faith, labours and admirable learning protected France against the ravages of the Arian heresy.

At Brixen, the holy bishops Genuinus and Albinus, whose lives were illustrious for miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

4 FEBRUARY – WEDNESDAY OF SEPTUAGESIMA WEEK

Lesson – Genesis iii. 1‒20

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: “Why has God said you must not eat of every tree of the garden?” And the woman said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said: You must not eat of it, neither may you touch it, lest you die.” And the serpent said to the woman: “you will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired: and she took of its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. And the eyes of them both were opened. And when they knew that they were naked, they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amidst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to Adam, and said to him: “Where are you?” And he said: “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” And He said: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?” And Adam said: “The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the Woman: “Why have you done this?” And she said: “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. Upon your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. She will bruise your head, and you will bruise her heel.” And to the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your conception: in sorrow you will bring forth children, and you will be in the power of your husband, and he will rule over you.” And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying: You must halt not eat of it — cursed is the ground on which you will labour. In sorrow you will eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also and thistles will it bring forth to you, and you will the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken; for dust you are, and to dust you will return.” And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The guilty pair appear before the great God whom they have offended, and instead of acknowledging their guilt they would palliate and excuse it. But Divine Justice pronounces their condemnation, and the sentence will be felt by their posterity, even to the last generation. The two beings that had committed the heinous crime had been enriched with every gift of nature and grace. It was not with them, as it is with us. Concupiscence which gives us an inclination for what is wrong. Ignorance and forgetfulness which cloud the intellect of fallen man — these miseries had nothing whatever to do with the fall of our First Parents. They sinned through sheer ingratitude. They began by weighing the proposal of revolt when they ought to have spurned it with indignation and conquered by flight. Then, by degrees, the proposed crime seemed no great harm because, though God would lose their obedience, they would gain by the disobedience! And at length, the love of God was made to give place to the love of self and they declared their independence!

Yet, God had mercy on them because of their posterity. The Angels were all created at one and the same instant, and each of them was subjected to the trial which was to decide his eternal future. Each Angel depended on his own act — on his own choice between fidelity to his Creator or rebellion against Him, so that they who rebelled drew on themselves the eternity of God’s chastisement. The human race, on the contrary, existed not save as represented in its two First Parents, and was plunged by and with them into the abyss of God’s reprobation. Therefore God who spared not the Angels, mercifully spared the human race.

But, let us listen to the three sentences pronounced by God after the fall of Man. The first is against the serpent, and is the severest. The curse which is already upon him is deepened, and the pardon which is about to be promised to the human race, is to be given in the form of an anathema against that wicked spirit that has dared to war with God in the work of his hands. “I will put enmities between you and the woman: she will crush your head” (Genesis iii. 15). Thus does God avenge Himself of His enemy. The victory won over the woman is made to turn against the proud conqueror and become his humiliation and his defeat. In his fiendish craft, he had directed his first attack not against the man, but against the woman. She, by nature, was weaker and more credulous. And if he conquered her, he hoped — too well, alas! — that Adam would be led to turn against his Creator in order not to displease the creature. All happened as he willed it: but now, see how God uses the woman to foil and punish him. He kindles in her heart an implacable hatred against his and our enemy. This cruel serpent may raise his proud head and, here and there, find men that will adore him: the day will come when a woman’s foot will crush this head which refused to bend before God. This daughter of Eve whom all generations are to call Blessed (Luke i. 48) will be prefigured by other women: by Deborah, Judith, Esther and others, all celebrated for their victories over the Serpent. She will be followed, until the end of time, by an uninterrupted succession of Christian Virgins and Matrons who, with all their weakness, will be powerful in co-operating with God’s designs and, as the Apostle says, “the unbelieving husband will be sanctified by the believing wife” (1 Corinthians vii. 14).

Thus will God punish the serpent’s pride. Before pronouncing upon our First Parents the sentence they have deserved, He promises to bless their posterity and pours into their own hearts a ray of hope.

4 FEBRUARY – SAINT ANDREW CORSINI (Bishop and Confessor)

 

Andrew was born at Florence of the noble Corsini family in 1303. He was the fruit of his parents’ prayers and was consecrated by them to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His future was thus shown by God to the mother. She dreamt that she had given birth to a wolf which went to the church of the Carmelites and, as it entered the threshold, was suddenly changed into a lamb. Though his early education was one which was calculated to form him to piety and to everything that suited his high birth, by degrees Andrew fell into a vicious manner of life notwithstanding the frequent reproaches made him by his mother. But as soon as he was told that he had been consecrated by his parents to the Virgin-Mother of God and heard of his mother’s vision, he entered the Order of Carmelites. The devil ceased not to molest him, even then, with manifold temptations, but nothing could make him change his resolution of entering the religious life.

Shortly after his profession Andrew was sent to Paris for a course of study. Having completed it and taken his degrees, he returned to Italy and was made superior of his Order in the province of Tuscany. It happened about that time that the Church of Fiesole lost its bishop, and Andrew was chosen as his successor. But looking on himself as unworthy of such a dignity, he hid himself so that no one knew where he was. But a child who had not yet received the use of speech, miraculously revealed the place outside the town where he was, upon which the Saint, fearing that further refusal would be a resistance to the divine will, was consecrated bishop. Thus exalted to so great a dignity Andre applied himself more than ever to the practice of humility, which had always been his favourite virtue. To the zeal of a good pastor he united tender compassion for the poor, abundant alms-giving, a life of prayer, long watchings and other virtues, all which, together with the gift of prophecy he had received, gained for him a great reputation for sanctity.

Pope Urban V hearing of his great merits sent him as his Legate to Bologna to quell a sedition that had arisen in that city. The fulfilment of this charge cost him much suffering, but such was his prudence that he succeeded in restoring peace among the citizens and so prevented further bloodshed. He then returned to Fiesole. Not long after, being worn out by ceaseless labours and bodily mortifications, and having been told by the Blessed Virgin Mary of the precise day of his death, he passed from this life to the kingdom of Heaven in 1373, in the seventieth year of his age. Great was the reputation of his name on account of the many and wonderful miracles wrought through his intercession, and at length he was canonised by Urban VIII. His body reposes in the church of his Order at Florence. The citizens of that city, having often experienced that his relics have drawn down the divine protection on them in times of public calamity, their devotion to the Saint is very great.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The saintly Bishop whose feast we keep today pressingly invites us, by his austere life and his burning zeal for the salvation of souls, to procure, at all costs, our own reconciliation with the Divine Justice. We are indebted for this feast to a member of the illustrious family of the Corsini, Pope Clement XII who, however, was but the instrument used by Divine Providence. The holy Bishop of the little town of Fiesole ever sought to be unknown during his life and God, who willed that he should be glorified by the whole Church, inspired the Sovereign Pontiff to inscribe his name among the Saints of the universal Calendar. Andrew the Saint, was once a sinner. His example will encourage us in the work of our conversion.

*****

Hear, O holy Pontiff, our prayer: we are sinners and would learn from you how we are to return to the God we have offended. His mercy was poured out upon you. Obtain the same for us. Have pity on Christians throughout the world, for the grace of repentance is now being offered to all. Pray for us that we may be filled with the spirit of compunction. We have sinned. We sue for pardon. Intercession like yours can win it for us. From wolves, change us into lambs. Strengthen us against our enemies. Get us an increase of the virtue of humility which you had in such perfection, and intercede for us with our Lord that He may crown our efforts with perseverance, as He did yours, that thus we may be enabled to unite with you in singing forever the praises of our Redeemer.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Eutychius, who endured a glorious martyrdom, and was buried in the cemetery of Callistus. Pope St. Damasus wrote an epitaph in verse for his tomb.

At Fossombrone, the holy martyrs Aquilinus, Geminus, Gelasius, Magnus and Donatus.

At Thumuis in Egypt, in the persecution of Diocletian, the passion of blessed Philaeas, bishop of that city, and of Philoromus, military tribune, who rejected the exhortations of their relations and friends to save themselves, offered themselves to death, and so merited immortal palms from God. With them was crowned with martyrdom a numberless multitude of the faithful of the same place who followed the example of their pastor.

The same day, St. Rembert, bishop of Bremen.

At Troyes, St. Aventin, confessor.

At Pelusium in Egypt, St. Isidore, a monk renowned for merit and learning.

The same day, St. Gilbert, confessor, In the town of Amatrice, in the diocese of Rieti, the decease of St. Joseph of Leonissa, of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins, who suffered many afflictions from the Muslims. As he was celebrated for his apostolic labours and miracles, he was placed on the list of holy confessors by Pope Benedict XIV.

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

Thanks be to God.

3 FEBRUARY – TUESDAY OF SEPTUAGESIMA WEEK

 

Lesson – Genesis ii. 15‒24

So the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it. And He commanded him, saying: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat of it: for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” And the Lord God said: It is not good that the man should be alone. Let us make him a help meet for him. So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name of it. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to every fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. And while he slept, He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead of it. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from Adam made He a woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man must leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife. And they joined will be one flesh.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The serpent’s promises had stifled, in Eve’s heart, every sentiment of Love for the God that had created her and loaded her with blessings: she ambitions to be god like Him! Her Faith, too, is wavering. She s not sure but what God may have deceived her by threatening her with death should she disobey His command. Flushed by pride, she looks up to the Forbidden Fruit. It seems good to eat, and it is fair to her eyes (Genesis iii. 6), so that her senses too conspire against God, and against her own happiness. The sin is already committed in her heart. It needs but a formal act to make it complete. She cares for nothing but self. God is no more heeded than if He did not exist. She stretches forth her daring hand. She plucks the Fruit. She puts it to her mouth and eats! God had said that if she broke His commandment, she should die. She has eaten, she has sinned, and yet she lives as before! Her pride exults at this triumph, and convinced that she is too strong for God’s anger to reach her, she resolves on making Adam a partner in her victory. Boldly she hands him the Fruit which she herself has eaten without any evil coming to her. Whether it were, that he was emboldened by the impunity of his wife’s sin, or that from a feeling of blind affection he wished to share the lot of her who was the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his bones — our First Father, also, forgets all he owes to his Creator and, as though there had never been anything of love between him and his God, he basely does as Eve suggests — he eats of the Fruit, and by that act ruins himself and all his posterity.

No sooner have they broken the tie which united them with God than they sink into themselves. As long as God dwells in the creature whom He has raised to the supernatural state, his being is complete. But let that creature drive his God away from himself by sin and he finds himself in a state worse than nothing — the state of evil. That soul which a moment before was so beautiful and pure, is a hideous wreck. Thus was it with our First Parents: they stand alone. Creatures without God, and an intolerable shame seizes them. They thought to become gods, they aspired at Infinite Being. See them now: sinners, the prey of concupiscence. Hitherto their innocence was their all-sufficient garb. The world was obedient to them. They knew not how to blush, and there was nothing to make them fear. But now they tremble at their nakedness, and must needs seek a place in which to hide! The same self-love that had worked their ruin had made them forget the greatness and goodness of God and despise His commandment. Now that they have committed the great sin, the same blindness prevents them from even thinking of confessing it, or asking the forgiveness of the Master they have offended. A sullen fear possesses them. They can think of nothing but how and where to hide!

3 FEBRUARY – SAINT BLAISE (Bishop and Martyr)

 

Blaise, whose signal virtues made him dear to the people of Sebaste in Armenia, was chosen Bishop of that city. When the Emperor Diocletian waged his cruel persecution against the Christians, the Saint hid himself in a cave on mount Argeus, and there he remained sometime concealed but was at length discovered by some soldiers of the governor Agricolaus while they were hunting. They led him to the governor, who gave orders that he should be put into prison. During his imprisonment, many sick people, attracted by the reputation of his sanctity, came to him and he healed them. Among these was a boy whose life was despaired of by the physicians, on account of his having swallowed a bone which could not be extracted from his throat. The Saint was twice brought before the governor, but neither fair promises nor threats could induce him to offer sacrifice to the gods. Whereupon he was first beaten with rods, and then his flesh was torn with iron hooks while he lay stretched on the rack. At length, he was beheaded, and nobly gave testimony to the faith of Christ our Lord on the third of the Nones of February (February 3rd).

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Now that the Church, has closed the joyous period of her Forty Days of Christmas and is putting us through a course of meditations on subjects which are to excite a spirit of penance within us, each of the Saints’ Feasts must produce an impression which will be in accordance with that spirit. From this day till Easter, we will study the Saints, as they come to us, in this special light: how much they laboured and suffered during their pilgrimage of life, and what was the plan they took for conquering the world and the flesh. “They went,” says the Psalmist, “and wept, casting their seeds: but coming they will come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves” (Psalm cxxv. 6, 7). It will be the same with us and, at the end of our Lenten labours, our Risen Jesus will hail us as His living, regenerated children.

The Calendar of this portion of the year abounds with martyrs and, at the very onset, we meet with one of the most celebrated of these glorious champions of Christ. The scene of his pastoral virtues and his martyrdom, was Sebaste, a city of Armenia, the same that will give us forty martyred soldiers on a single day. The devotion to Saint Blase is, even to this day, most fervently kept up in the East, especially in Armenia. The Western Churches soon began to love and honour his memory, and so universally that we might call him one of the most popular of our Saints.

*****

Accept, glorious Martyr, the praise which we, too, offer you in union with that given you by the whole Church. In return for this homage of our veneration, look down upon the Christian people who are now preparing to enter on the Season of penance and be converted to the Lord their God by holy compunction and tears. We ask it of you by your own combat: assist us in the one for which we are preparing. When duty required you to undergo tortures and death, it found you ready and brave. Our duty is expiation by penance, and your prayers must get us courage. Our enemies are not more cruel than yours, but they are more treacherous and if we spare them we are lost. Obtain for us that heavenly assistance which enabled you to conquer. We are children of the Martyrs. God forbid we should be degenerate!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

In Africa, St. Celerinus, deacon, who was kept nineteen days in prison loaded with fetters and confessed Christ gloriously in the midst of afflictions. By overcoming the enemy with invincible constancy he showed to others the road to victory.

Also the holy martyrs, Laurentinus and Ignatius, his uncles, and Celerina, his grandmother, who had been previously crowned with martyrdom. They are highly praised in an Epistle of St. Cyprian.

In the same country, the holy martyrs Felix, Symphronius, Hippolytus and their companions.

In the town of Gap, the holy bishops Tigides and Remedius.

At Lyons, the Saints Lupicinus and Felix, also bishops.

The same day, St. Anscharius, bishop of Bremen, who converted the Swedes and Danes to the faith of Christ.

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

Thanks be to God.

2 FEBRUARY – MONDAY OF SEPTUAGESIMA WEEK

 

Lesson – Genesis i. 27‒31; ii. 1‒10

So God created man in His Own image. In the image of God He created him: male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the Earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the Earth.” And God said: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the Earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it will be for meat. And to every beast of the Earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creeps upon the Earth in which there is life [I have given it] for meat.” And it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the Sixth Day. Then the heavens and the Earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work, which He created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the Earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the Earth, and every plant of the field before it sprung up in the Earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the Earth, and there was not a man to till the ground; but there rose up a spring from the Earth and watered the whole face of the ground. So the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God had planted a garden earlier in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food: the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The serpent said to the woman: “Why has God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?” (Genesis iii. 1). Thus opened the conversation which our mother Eve so rashly consents to hold with God’s enemy. She ought to have refused all intercourse with Satan. She did not and thereby she imperils the salvation of the whole human race. Let us recall to mind the events that have happened up to this fatal hour. God, in His omnipotence and love, has created two beings upon whom He has lavished all the riches of His goodness. He has destined them for immortality, and this undying life is to have everything that can make it perfectly happy. The whole of nature is made subject to them. A countless posterity is to come from them and love them with all the tenderness of grateful children. Nay, this God of goodness who has created them deigns to be on terms of intimacy with them, and such is their simple innocence that this adorable condescension does not seem strange to them. But there is something far beyond all this. He, whom they have hitherto known by favours of an inferior order, prepares for them a happiness which surpasses all they could picture with every effort of thought. They must first go through a trial, and if faithful, God will bestow the great gift as a recompense they have merited. And this is the gift: He will give them to know Him in Himself, make them partakers of His own glory, and make their happiness infinite and eternal. Yes, this is what God has done, and is preparing to do for these two beings who, but a while ago, were nothing!

In return for all these gratuitous and magnificent gifts, God asks of them but one thing: and it is that they acknowledge His dominion over them. Nothing, surely, can be sweeter to them than to make such a return. Nothing could be more just. All they are, and all they have, and all the lovely creation around them, has been produced out of nothing by the lavish munificence of this God. They must, then, live for Him, faithful, loving and grateful. He asks them to give Him one only proof of this fidelity, love and gratitude: He bids them not to eat of the fruit of one single tree. The only return He asks for all the favours He has bestowed on them is the observance of this easy commandment. His sovereign justice will be satisfied by this act of obedience. They ought to accept such terms with hearty readiness and comply with them with a holy pride, as being not only the tie which will unite them with their God, but as the only means in their power of paying Him what He asks of them. But there comes another voice, the voice of a creature, and it speaks to the woman: “Why has God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree?” And Eve dares, and has the heart, to listen to him that asks why her divine Benefactor has put a command upon her! She can bear to hear the justice of God’s will called in question! Instead of protesting against the sacrilegious words, she tamely answers them! Her God is blasphemed and she is not indignant! How dearly we will have to pay for this ungrateful indifference, this indiscretion!

“And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in Paradise we do eat, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of Paradise, God has commanded us that we should not eat, and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die” (Genesis iii. 2, 3). Thus Eve not only listens to the serpent’s question: she answers him. She converses with the wicked spirit that tempts her. She exposes herself to danger. Her fidelity to her Maker is compromised. True, the words she uses show that she has not forgotten His command, but they imply a certain hesitation which savours of pride and ingratitude. The Spirit of Evil finds that he has excited, in this heart, a love of independence, and that if he can but persuade her that she will not suffer from her disobedience, she is his victim. He, therefore, further addresses her with these blasphemous and lying words: “No, you will not die the death, for God knows that in whatever day you will eat thereof, your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis iii. 4, 5). What he proposes to Eve is open rebellion. He has kindled within her that perfidious love of self which is man’s worst evil, and which, if it be indulged, breaks the tie between him and his Creator. Thus the blessings God has bestowed, the obligation of gratitude, personal interest — all are to be disregarded and forgotten. Ungrateful man would become god. He would imitate the rebel Angels. He will fall as they did.

2 FEBRUARY – CANDLEMAS

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

After Tierce follows the Blessing of the Candles, which is one of the three principal ones observed by thee Church during the year. The other two are the Blessing of the Ashes and the Blessing of the Palms.

The signification of this ceremony bears so essential a connection with the mystery of our Lady’s Purification, that if Septuagesima, Sexagesima or Quiuquagesima Sunday fall on the 2nd of February, the Feast is deferred to tomorrow, but the Blessing of the Candles and the Procession which follows it always take place on this precise day.

In order to give uniformity to the three great Blessings of the year, the Church prescribes for that of the candles the same colour for the vestments of the sacred Ministers as is used in the two other Blessings of the Ashes and Palms — namely, purple. Thus this solemn function, which is inseparable from the day on which our Lady’s Purification took place, may be gone through every year on the 2nd of February, without changing the colour prescribed for the three Sundays just mentioned.

It is exceedingly difficult to say what was the origin of this ceremony. Baronius, Thomassin and others are of opinion that it was instituted towards the close of the 5th century by Pope Saint Gelasius, in order to give a Christian meaning to certain vestiges, still retained by the Romans, of the old Lupercalia. Saint Gelasius certainly did abolish the last vestiges of the feast of the Lupercalia which, in earlier times, the pagans used to celebrate in the month of February. Pope Innocent III in one of his Sermons for the Feast of the Purification attributes the institution of this ceremony of Candlemas to the wisdom of the Roman Pontiffs who turned into the present religious rite the remnants of an ancient pagan custom which had not quite died out among the Christians. The old pagans, he says, used to carry lighted torches in memory of those which the fable gives to Ceres when she went to the top of Mount Etna in search of her daughter Proserpine. But against this, we have to object that on the pagan calendar of the Romans there is no mention of any feast in honour of Ceres for the month of February. We, therefore, prefer adopting the opinion of Dom Hugh Menard, Pocca, Henschenius and Pope Benedict XIV that an ancient feast, which was kept in February and was called the Amburbalia, during which the pagans used to go through the city with lighted torches in their hands, gave occasion to the Sovereign Pontiffs to substitute in its place a Christian ceremony which they attached to the Feast of that sacred mystery in which Jesus, the Light of the world, was presented in the Temple by His Virgin-Mother.

The mystery of today’s ceremony has frequently been explained by liturgists dating from the seventh century. According to Saint Ivo of Chartres, the wax — which is formed from the juice of flowers by the bee (which has always been considered as the emblem of virginity) — signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant who diminished not, either by His conception or His birth, the spotless purity of His Blessed Mother. The same holy Bishop would have us see in the flame of our candle a symbol of Jesus who came to enlighten our darkness. Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking on the same mystery, bids us consider three things in the blessed candle: the wax, the wick and the flame. The wax, he says, which is the production of the virginal bee, is the flesh of our Lord. The wick, which is within, is His soul. The flame which burns on the top, is His Divinity. Formerly, the faithful looked upon it as an honour to be permitted to bring their wax tapers to the Church on this Feast of the Purification that they might be blessed together with those which were to be borne in the procession by the Priests and sacred Ministers. And the same custom is still observed in some congregations. It would be well if Pastors were to encourage this practice, retaining it where it exists, or establishing it where it is not known. There has been such a systematic effort made to destroy or, at least, to impoverish the exterior rites and practices of religion that we find, throughout the world, thousands of Christians who have been insensibly made strangers to those admirable sentiments of faith which the Church alone, in her Liturgy, can give to the body of the faithful.

Thus, we shall be telling many what they have never heard before, when we inform them that the Church blesses the candles today, not only to be carried in the procession which forms part of the ceremony, but also for the use of the faithful, inasmuch as they draw upon such as use them with respect, whether on sea or on land, (as the Church says in the Prayer) special blessings from Heaven. These blessed candles ought, also, to be lit near the bed of the dying Christian as a symbol of the immortality merited for us by Christ, and of the protection of our Blessed Lady.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Salaria, the passion of St. Apronian, a notary. While he was yet a Gentile and was leading St. Sisinius out of prison to present him before the governor Laodicius, he heard a voice from heaven saying, “Come you, the blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” At once he believed, was baptised and, after confessing our Lord, received the sentence of death.

Also at Rome, the holy martyrs Fortunatus, Felician, Firmus and Candidus.

At Caesarea in Palestine, St. Cornelius, a centurion, whom the blessed Apostle St. Peter baptised and raised to the episcopal dignity in that city.

At Orleans, the holy bishop Flosculus.

At Canterbury in England, the birthday of St. Lawrence, bishop, who succeeded St. Augustine in the government of that church and converted the king himself to the faith.

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

Thanks be to God.

2 FEBRUARY – THE PURIFICATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The Forty Days of Mary’s Purification are now completed and she must go up to the Temple, there to offer to God her child Jesus. Before following the Son and His Mother in this their mysterious journey, let us spend our last few moments at Bethlehem in lovingly pondering over the mysteries at which we are going to assist.

The Law commanded that a woman who had given birth to a son should not approach the Tabernacle for the term of forty days, after which time she was to offer a sacrifice for her Purification. She was to offer up a lamb as a holocaust, and a turtle or dove as a sin-offering. But if she were poor and could not provide a lamb, she was to offer, in its stead, a second turtle or dove. By another ordinance of the Law, every first-born son was to be considered as belonging to God and was to be redeemed by five sides, each side weighing, according to the standard of the Temple, twenty obols (Leviticus xii; Numbers iii. 47). Mary was a Daughter of Israel — she had given birth to Jesus —He was her first-born son. Could such a Mother and such a Son be included in the Laws we have just quoted? Was it becoming that Mary should observe them? If she considered the spirit of these legal enactments and why God required the ceremony of Purification, it was evident that she was not bound to them. They, for whom these Laws had been made, were espoused to men. Mary was the chaste Spouse of the Holy Ghost, a Virgin in conceiving, and a Virgin in giving birth to, her Son. Her purity had ever been spotless as that of the Angels, but it received an incalculable increase by her carrying the God of all sanctity in her womb, and bringing Him into this world. Moreover, when she reflected on her child being the Creator and sovereign Lord of all things, how could she suppose that He was to be submitted to the humiliation of being ransomed as a slave whose life and person are not His own? And yet, the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary that she must comply with both these Laws. She, the holy Mother of God, must go to the Temple like other Hebrew mothers, as though she had lost a something which needed restoring by a legal sacrifice. He that is the Son of God and Son of Man must be treated in all things as though He were a servant, and be ransomed in common with the poorest Jewish boy. Mary adores the will of God and embraces it with her whole heart.

The Son of God was not to be made known to the world but by gradual revelations. For thirty years He leads a hidden life in the insignificant village of Nazareth, and during all that time men took Him to be the son of Joseph (Luke iii. 23). It was only in His thirtieth year that John the Baptist announced Him, and then only in mysterious words to the Jews who flocked to the Jordan, there to receive from the Prophet the baptism of penance. Our Lord Himself gave the next revelation — the testimony of His wonderful works and miracles. Then came the humiliations of His Passion and Death, followed by His glorious Resurrection which testified to the truth of His prophecies, proved the infinite merits of His Sacrifice and, in a word, proclaimed His Divinity. The Earth had possessed its God and its Saviour for three-and-thirty years and men, with a few exceptions, knew it not. The shepherds of Bethlehem knew it, but they were not told, as were afterwards the fishermen of Genesareth, to go and preach the Word to the furthermost parts of the world. The Magi, too, knew it. They came to Jerusalem and spoke of it, and the city was in a commotion. But all was soon forgotten, and the Three Kings went back quietly to the East. These two events (which would, at a future day, be celebrated by the Church as events of most important interest to mankind) were lost upon the world, and the only ones that appreciated them were a few true Israelites who had been living in expectation of a Messiah who was to be poor and humble, and was to save the world. The majority of the Jews would not even listen to the Messiah having been born, for Jesus was born at Bethlehem, and the Prophets had distinctly foretold that the Messiah was to be called a Nazarite (Matthew ii. 23).

The same Divine plan — which had required that Mary should be espoused to Joseph in order that her fruitful virginity might not seem strange in the eyes of the people — now obliged her to come, like other Israelite mothers, to offer the sacrifice of Purification for the birth of the son whom she had conceived by the operation of the power of the Holy Ghost, but who was to be presented in the Temple as the son of Mary, the spouse of Joseph. Thus it is, that Infinite Wisdom delights in showing that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and in disconcerting our notions. He claims the submissiveness of our confidence until the time come that He has fixed for withdrawing the veil and showing Himself to our astonished view. The Divine Will was dear to Mary in this as in every circumstance of her life. The Holy Virgin knew that by seeking this external rite of Purification she was in no way risking the honour of her child, or failing in the respect due to her own virginity. She was in the Temple of Jerusalem what she was in the house of Nazareth, when she received the Archangel’s visit — she was the Handmaid of the Lord. She obeyed the Law because she seemed to come under the Law. Her God and her Son submitted to the ransom as humbly as the poorest Hebrew would have to do. He had already obeyed the edict of the emperor Augustus in the general census. He was to be obedient even unto death, even to the death of the Cross. The Mother and the Child, both humbled themselves in the Purification and man’s pride received on that day one of the greatest lessons ever given it.

What a journey was this of Mary and Joseph. from Bethlehem to Jerusalem! The Divine Babe is in His Mother’s arms — she had Him on her heart the whole way. Heaven, and Earth, and all nature, are sanctified by the gracious presence of their merciful Creator. Men look at this Mother as she passes along the road with her sweet Jesus. Some are struck with her appearance, others pass her by as not worth a look. But of the whole crowd there was not one that knew he had been so close to the God who had come to save him. Joseph is carrying the humble offering which the Mother is to give to the priest. They are too poor to buy a lamb — besides, their Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Law required that a turtle, or dove, should be offered in the place of a lamb when the mother was poor. Innocent birds! Emblems of purity, fidelity and simplicity. Joseph has also provided the five sides, the ransom to be given for the first-born son —Mary’s only Son, who has vouchsafed to make us His brethren and by adopting our nature to render us partakers of His. At length, the Holy Family enter Jerusalem. The name of this Holy City signifies Vision of Peace, and Jesus comes to bring her Peace. Let us consider the names of the three places in which our Redeemer began, continued and ended his life on Earth. He is conceived at Nazareth, which signifies a Flower. And Jesus is, as He tells us in the Canticle, the Flower of the field and the Lily of the valley (Canticles ii. 1) by whose fragrance we are refreshed. He is born at Bethlehem, the House of Bread, for He is the nourishment of our souls. He dies on the Cross in Jerusalem, and by His Blood He restores peace between Heaven and Earth, peace between men, peace within our own souls and, on this day of His Mother’s Purification, we will find Him giving us the pledge of this peace.

While Mary, the Living Ark of the Covenant, is ascending the steps which lead up to the Temple carrying Jesus in her arms, let us be attentive to the Mystery — one of the most celebrated of the prophecies is about to be accomplished, one of the principal characters of the Messiah is about to be shown as belonging to this infant. We have already had the other predictions fulfilled, of His being conceived of a Virgin and born in Bethlehem. Today He shows us a further title to our adoration — He enters the Temple. This edifice is not the magnificent Temple of Solomon which was destroyed by fire during the Jewish captivity. It is the Second Temple which was built after the return from Babylon, and is not comparable to the First in beauty. Before the century is out, it also is to be destroyed, and our Saviour will soon tell the Jews that not a stone will remain on stone that will not be thrown down (Luke xxi. 6). Now, the Prophet Aggeus, in order to console the Jews who had returned from banishment and were grieving because they were unable to raise a House to the Lord equal in splendour to that built by Solomon, addressed these words to them, which mark the time of the coming of the Messiah: “Take courage, O Zorobabel, says the Lord; and take courage, O Jesus, the son of Josedec, the High Priest; and take courage, all ye people of the land — for thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet one little while, and I will move the Heaven, and the Earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will move all nations; and the Desired of all nations will come; and I will fill this House with glory. Great will be the glory of this House, more than of the first; and in this place I will give Peace, says the Lord of hosts” (Aggeus ii. 5, 7, 8, 10).

The hour is come for the fulfilment of this prophecy. The Emmanuel has left Bethlehem. He has come among the people. He is about to take possession of His Temple, and the mere fact of His entering it will immediately give it a glory which is far above that of its predecessor. He will often visit it during His mortal life, but His coming to it today, carried as He is in Mary’s arms, is enough for the accomplishment of the promise, and all the shadows and figures of this Temple at once pale before the rays of the Sun of Truth and Justice. The blood of oxen and goats will, for a few years more, flow on its altar, but the infant who holds in His veins the Blood that is to redeem the world is, at this moment, standing near that very altar. Amid the Priests who are there, and amid the crowd of Israelites who are moving to and fro in the sacred building, there are a few faithful ones who are in expectation of the Deliverer, and they know that the time of His manifestation is at hand. But there is not one among them all who knows that at that very moment this expected Messiah is under the same roof with Himself.

But, this great event could not be accomplished without a prodigy being wrought by the Eternal God as a welcome to His Son. The shepherds had been summoned by the Angel, and the Magi had been called by the Star, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This time it is the Holy Ghost Himself who sends a witness to the Infant, now in the great Temple. There was then living in Jerusalem an old man whose life was well near spent. He was a Man of desires (Daniel x. 11) and his name was Simeon. His heart had longed unceasingly for the Messiah and, at last, his hope was recompensed. The Holy Ghost revealed to him that he should not see death without first seeing the rising of the Divine Light. As Mary and Joseph were ascending the steps of the Temple to take Jesus to the altar, Simeon felt within himself the strong impulse of the Spirit of God. He leaves his house and walks towards the Temple. The ardour of his desire makes him forget the feebleness of age. He reaches the porch of God’s House and there, amid the many mothers who had come to present their children, his inspired gaze recognises the Virgin of whom he had so often read in Isaias, and he presses through the crowd to the child she is holding in her arms.

Mary, guided by the same Divine Spirit, welcomes the saintly old man and puts into his trembling arms the dear object of her love, the Salvation of the world. Happy Simeon! Figure of the ancient world, grown old in its expectation, and near its end. No sooner has he received the sweet Fruit of Life than his youth is renewed as that of the eagle, and in his person is wrought the transformation which was to be granted to the whole human race. He cannot keep silence. He must sing a Canticle. He must do as the shepherds and Magi had done, he must give testimony: “Now,” says he, “now, O Lord, dismiss your servant in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared: a light that is to enlighten the Gentiles, and give glory to your people Israel” (Luke ii. 29). Immediately, there comes, attracted to the spot by the same Holy Spirit, the holy Anne, Phanuel’s daughter, noted for her piety and venerated by the people on account of her great age. Simeon and Anna, the representatives of the Old Testament, unite their voices and celebrate the happy coming of the child who is to renew the face of the Earth. They give praise to the mercy of Jehovah who, in this place, in this Second Temple, gives peace to the world as the Prophet Aggeus had foretold. This was the peace so long looked forward to by Simeon, and now in this peace will he sleep. “Now, Lord,” as he says in his Canticle, “dismiss your servant, according to your word, in peace!” His soul, quitting its bond of the flesh, will now hasten to the bosom of Abraham and bear to the elect who rest there, the tidings that peace has appeared on the Earth, and will soon open Heaven. Anne has some years still to pass on Earth. As the Evangelist tells us, she has to go and announce the fulfilment of the promises to such of the Jews as were spiritually minded, and looked for the Redemption of Israel (Luke ii. 38).

The divine seed is sown. The shepherds, the Magi, Simeon and Anne have all been its sowers. It will spring up in due time, and when our Jesus has spent His thirty years of hidden life in Nazareth and will come for the harvest time, He will say to His Disciples: “Lift up your eyes, and see the countries, for they are white already for the harvest (John iv. 35). Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that He send labourers into His harvest” (Luke x. 2). Simeon gives back to Mary the child she is going to offer to the Lord. The two doves are presented to the priest who sacrifices them on the altar. The price for the ransom is paid. The whole law is satisfied and, after having paid her homage to her Creator in this sacred place where she spent her early years, Mary, with Jesus fast pressed to her bosom, and her faithful Joseph by her side, leaves the Temple.

Such is the mystery of this fortieth day which closes, by this admirable Feast of the Purification, the holy season of Christmas. Several learned writers, among whom we may mention Henschenius and Pope Benedict XIV, are of opinion that this Solemnity was instituted by the Apostles themselves. This much is certain, that it was a long-established Feast even in the fifth century. The Greek Church and the Church of Milan count this Feast among those of our Lord, but the Church of Rome has always considered it as a Feast of the Blessed Virgin. It is true, it is our Saviour who is this day offered in the Temple, but this offering is the consequence of our Lady’s Purification. The most ancient of the Western Martyrologies and Calendars call it The Purification. The honour thus paid by the Church to the Mother tends, in reality, to the greater glory of her Divine Son, for He is the Author and the End of all those prerogatives which we revere and honour in Mary.

Lesson – Malachias iii. 1–5

Thus says the Lord God: “Behold I send my angel, and he will prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord whom you seek, and the Angel of the Testament whom you desire, will come to His Temple. Behold He comes, says the Lord of hosts: and who will be able to think of the day of His coming? and who will stand to see Him? For He is like a refining fire, and like the fuller’s herb: and He will sit refining and cleansing the silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and will refine them as gold, and as silver, and they will offer sacrifices to the Lord in justice. And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord, as in the days of old, and in the ancient years,” says the Lord Almighty.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

All the Mysteries of the Man-God have this for their object — the purifying of our hearts. He sends His Angel (that is, His Precursor) before His face that he may prepare His way and we have heard this holy Prophet crying out to us, in his wilderness: “Be humbled, ye hills! and ye valleys, be ye filled up!” At length, he that is the Angel, the Sent, by excellence, comes in person to make a Testament or Covenant with us. He comes to His Temple, and this Temple is our heart. But He is like a refining fire that takes away the dross of metals. He wishes to renew us by purifying us, that thus we may be worthy to be offered to Him, and with Him, by a perfect sacrifice. We must, therefore, take care and not be satisfied with admiring these sublime Mysteries. We must hold this as a principle of our spiritual life — that the Mysteries brought before us, feast after feast, are intended to work in us the destruction of the old, and the creation of the new, man. We have been spending Christmas. We ought to have been born together with Jesus. This new birth is now at its fortieth day. Today we must be offered by Mary (who is also our Mother) to the Divine Majesty, as Jesus was. The moment is come for our offering, for it is the hour of the Great Sacrifice. Let us redouble the fervour of our preparation.

Gospel – Luke ii. 22–32

At that time, after the days of the purification of Mary, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they carried Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male opening the womb will he called holy to the Lord. And to offer a sacrifice according as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. And behold there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when His parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he also took him into his arms, and blessed God, and said: “Now dismiss your servant, O Lord, according to your word in peace. Because my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Holy Spirit has led us to the Temple, as He did Simeon. There we see the Virgin-Mother offering at the altar her Son who is the Son of God. We are filled with admiration at this fidelity, of the child and His Mother, to the Law, and we feel in our hearts a desire to be also presented to our Creator who will accept our homage as He accepted that offered Him by His Divine Son. Let us, at once, put ourselves in those same holy dispositions which filled the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The salvation of the world has this day gained ground. Let the work of our individual sanctification also advance. From this Feast forward, the Mystery of the Infant-God will no longer be put before us by the Church as the special object of our devotion. The sweet Season of Christmas will, in a few hours, have left us and we will have to follow our Jesus in His combats against our enemies. Let us keep close to our dear King. Let us ever keep Simeon’s spirit and follow our Redeemer, walking in His footsteps, who is our Light. Let us love this Light, and merit, by our fidelity in using it, that it unceasingly shine on us.

*****

We adore and thank you, O Emmanuel, on this happy day which saw you enter into the Temple of your Majesty, carried in the arms of your incomparable Mother. You come into the Temple that you may offer yourself for our sakes. You deign to be redeemed by the payment of a ransom for, one day, you have to pay an infinite ransom for us. You come now to offer a ceremonial sacrifice because you are soon to abolish every sacrifice by the one that alone is perfect. You enter today into that Jerusalem which is to be the place of your Passion and Death. Our salvation urges you on. You were born for us, but you are not satisfied. And every gift of this your fortieth day must needs bespeak the future proofs you have yet to give us of the love you bear us.

You, the Consolation of Israel, on whom the Angels love to look! You enter into the Temple and they who were living in expectation of their Redeemer redouble their hope. Oh that we had something of that love which burned in Simeon’s heart as he held you in his arms! All he lived for was to see you, O Divine Infant, and having seen you, he longs to die. One brief moment’s sight of you makes him sleep in peace! What must it be to possess you eternally, when a glance could satisfy the longings of a whole life! But, O Saviour of our souls, if Simeon was so satiated with this seeing you presenting yourself for mankind in the Temple, how ought we to love you, we who have seen the final consummation of your Sacrifice? The day will come when, as your devout servant Bernard expresses it, you will be offered, not in the Temple and on Simeon’s arms, but outside the city gates and on the arms of the Cross. On that day man will not offer up the blood of a victim for you, but yourself will offer up your own Blood for man. Now, it is the morning. Then, it will be the evening sacrifice. Now, you are in the age of infancy. Then, you will have attained the fullness of the age of Man. And having loved us from the beginning, you will love us even to the end.

What return shall we make to you, Divine Infant, for you bear within your heart, during this your first offering, the same infinite love of us with which you will consummate your last? Can we do less than offer ourselves to you from this very day, and be wholly yours? You give yourself to us in the Adorable Sacrament with more perfection than you gave yourself to Simeon, and we receive you, not in ours arms, but in our very breast. Dismiss us, dear Jesus! Break our chains. Give us your peace, and may we, like Simeon, enter now on a new life. In order to imitate your virtues and be united with you, we have endeavoured during this holy Season to gain that humility and simplicity which you wish to see within us. Assist us to persevere in the spiritual life that, like you, we may grow in age and wisdom, before both God and men (Luke ii. 52).

And you, Mary, purest of Virgins, and Mother blessed above all mothers! Daughter of the Prince! How beautiful are your steps (Canticles vii. 1) on this day of your Purification when you enter the Temple with our Jesus in your arms! Who could tell the joy and the humility of your maternal heart in this offering you make to the Eternal Father of His and your Son? Looking around on the mothers who have come for their own purification on this same day, you rejoice at the thought that the babes they are now presenting in the Temple will one day see and know your Jesus, their Saviour. What a privilege that these children should be presented to the Lord together with yours! What honour for these mothers that they should be purified in your holy company! If the Temple is glad at seeing enter within its walls the God in whose honour it has been built, part of its joy is to see Him throned there in your arms, who are the holiest of creatures, the one child of Eve that has never known sin, the Virgin-Mother of this God. But, while humbly keeping within yourself the secrets of the Eternal Father and mingled in the throng of these Hebrew mothers, the holy Simeon advances towards you, Mary! Knowing that the Holy Ghost has revealed the mystery to him, you affectionately place in his hands the God of Heaven and Earth who has come to be the Consolation of Israel. The holy Anna, too, approaches you, and you lovingly receive her. Perhaps in your younger years you had received from her, in this very Temple, the affection and care of a second mother. Your heart thrills with delight at hearing these two venerable Saints extolling God’s faithfulness to His promises, and the glory of your child, and the splendour of the Light which is now to be shed forth on all nations. The happiness of thus hearing the praises of the God, who is your child, fills you with joy and thankfulness. But oh what a sword of grief pierces your heart, dear Mother, at the words of Simeon as he gives you back your babe! Henceforth you must weep as often as you look on Him. He is to be a sign of contradiction (Luke ii. 34) and the wounds men are to give Him are to wound your soul! The blood of victims like these that are now being offered in the Temple will cease to flow and be changed for the Blood of your Jesus! O Mother of Sorrows, we were the cause of all this. It was our sins that changed your joy into mourning. And yet you love us because your Jesus loves us! Love us now and forever. Intercede for us with your Son. Pray that we may never lose the graces granted us during these forty happy days. These graces drew us to the crib of your child, and your affection for us encouraged to stay. We are resolved to maintain our position near this Jesus, following Him through all the Mysteries which are now to succeed this of His Infancy. We are resolved to be faithful disciples of this dear Master, and follow Him, as you did, even to the foot of that Cross, which was revealed to you on this day.

1 FEBRUARY – SAINT BRIGID OF IRELAND (Virgin)

 

Brigid was born at Fouchard (Foughard) in the diocese of Armagh, County Louth (then part of Ulster) circa 451. Her father, a nobleman called Dubtach, was descended from Eschaid, the brother of King Constantine of the Hundred Battles, as he is surnamed by the Irish historians. Brigid’s parents were baptised by Saint Patrick himself, and they brought up their children in the holy fear of God. Brigid showed signs of sanctity from early in her life. Eventually she received the veil from the hands of Saint Mel, who was a nephew of Saint Patrick. In about 585 she built her first cell under a large oak which had previously been the site of pagan worship and from which it was named ‘Kil-dara’ (the cell of the oak). This was the first religious house of women in Ireland around it arose the city of Kildare. Bridget died circa 532 and was buried in the Cathedral of Downpatrick, where her relics were enshrined with those of Saint Patrick and Saint Columba.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Smyrna, St. Pionius, priest and martyr. After writing in defence of the Catholic faith, after suffering imprisonment in a loathsome dungeon, where by his exhortations he encouraged even to martyrdom many of his brethren, after enduring excruciating pains from being pierced with nails and laid on a hot fire, he ended his life happily for Christ. With him suffered fifteen others.

At Ravenna, the holy bishop Severus, whose great virtues deserved that he should be raised to the episcopate by the sign of a dove.

At Trois-Chateaux in France, St. Paul, bishop, whose life was eminent for virtues and whose death was made precious by miracles.

The same day, St. Ephrem, deacon of the church of Edessa, in the time of the emperor Valens. After suffering many trials for the faith of Christ and gaining great renown for holiness and learning, he went to rest in the Lord.

At Castel Fiorentino in Tuscany, the blessed virgin Verdiana, a recluse of the Order of Vallumbrosa.

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

Thanks be to God.