27 MARCH – SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS (Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

The last of the Greek Fathers, John was born at Damascus where his father was the Caliph’s Vizier. He was educated with great care by Cosmas, a Greek monk who had been brought into Syria as a slave. On his father’s death he succeeded him as Vizier, and had thus all that the world could give him — wealth, honours, power, learning. But realising the danger of his high position at a Muslim court, he divided his riches among the poor and went as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, eventually settling in the famous Laura or monastery of Saint Sabbas. His life henceforth is a simple record of humility, prayer, labour and obedience. He passed away 6 May 780 AD, being as is asserted one hundred and four years old. On account of the flowing eloquence of his writings Saint John acquired the surname “Chrysorrhoes” (Golden Stream). His chief work, that on the Orthodox Faith, is the first systematic Treatise on Dogmatic Theology we possess and has been a model to the writers of succeeding ages. His convincing discourses in defence of the veneration of icons marked him out as a champion of the faith against Leo the Isaurian, the iconoclast emperor of Constantinople, through whose machinations he was sentenced to have his right hand cut off. It was afterwards miraculously restored to him by Our Blessed Lady, whose devout client he ever was. Venerated from his own age as a Saint, Pope Leo XIII numbered him among the Doctors of the Church.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Drizipara in Pannonia, St. Alexander, a soldier, in the time of emperor Maximian. Having overcome many tribulations for Christ, and wrought many miracles, he completed his martyrdom by decapitation.

The same day, the Saints Philetus, senator, his wife Lydia, and their sons Macedon and Theoprepides. Also Amphilochius, an officer in the army, and Chronidas, a notary, who were put to death for the confession of Christ.

In Persia, in the reign of King Sapor, the holy martyrs Zanitas, Lazarus, Marotas, Narses, and five others, who merited the palm of martyrdom by being barbarously murdered.

At Salzburg, St. Rupert, bishop and confessor, who spread the Gospel extensively in Bavaria and Austria.

In Egypt, the hermit St. John, a man of great holiness, who among other virtues, was replenished with the spirit of prophecy, and predicted to the emperor Theodosius that he would gain the victory over the tyrants Maximus and Eugenius.

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

Thanks be to God.

24 MARCH – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the holy martyrs Mark and Timothy, who were crowned with martyrdom under the emperor Antoninus.

In the same city, St. Epigmenius, priest, who consummated his martyrdom by the sword in the persecution of Diocletian under the judge Turpius.

Also at Rome, in the time of Julian the Apostate, the passion of blessed Pigmenius, a priest, who was killed for the faith of Christ by being precipitated into the river Tiber.

At Caesarea in Palestine, the birthday of the holy martyrs Timolaus, Denis, Pausides, Romulus, Alexander, another Alexander, Agapius and another Denis, who merited the crown of life by being beheaded in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Urban.

In Mauritania (Barbary), the birthday of the saintly brothers Romulus and Secundus, who suffered for the faith of Christ.

At Trent, the martyrdom of the holy child Simeon, who was barbarously murdered by the Jews. He became celebrated for many miracles.

At Synnadas in Phrygia, St. Agapitus, bishop.

At Brescia, St. Latinus, bishop. In Syria, St. Seleucus, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 MARCH – SAINTS PERPETUA AND FELICITAS (Martyrs)

During the reign of the Emperor Severus, several catechumens were apprehended at Carthage in Africa. Among these were Revocatus and his fellow servant Felicitas, Saturninus and Secundulus, and Vivia Perpetua, a lady by birth and education, who was married to a man of wealth. Perpetua was about twenty-two years of age, and was suckling an infant. She has left us the following particulars of her martyrdom:

“As soon as our persecutors had apprehended us, my father came to me and, out of his great love for me, he tried to make me change my resolution. I said to him: ‘Father, I cannot consent to call myself other than what I am — a Christian.’ At these words he rushed at me, threatening to tear out my eyes. But he only struck me, and then he left me, when he found that the arguments suggested to him by the devil were of no avail. A few days after this, we were baptised and the Holy Ghost inspired me to look on this baptism as a preparation for bodily suffering. A few more days elapsed, and we were sent to prison. I was terrified, for I was not accustomed to such darkness. The report soon spread that we were to be brought to trial. My father left the city, for he was heartbroken, and he came to me, hoping to shake my purpose. These were his words to me: ‘My child, have pity on my old age. Have pity on your father, if I deserve to be called Father. Think of your brothers, think of your mother, think of your son, who cannot live when you are gone. Give up this mad purpose, or you will bring misery upon your family.’ While saying this, which he did out of love for me, he threw himself at my feet and wept bitterly, and said he besought this of me, not as his child, but as his lady. I was moved to tears to see my aged parent in this grief, for I knew that he was the only one of my family that would not rejoice at my being a martyr. I tried to console him and said: ‘I will do whatever God will ordain. You know that we belong to God, and not to ourselves.’ He then left me and was very sad. On the following day, as we were taking our repast, they came upon us suddenly and summoned us to trial. We reached the forum. We were made to mount a platform. My companions were questioned and they confessed the faith. My turn came next and I immediately saw my father approaching towards me, holding my infant son. He drew me from the platform, and besought me, saying: ‘Have pity on your baby!’ Hilarian, too, the governor, said to me: ‘Have pity on your aged father, have pity on your baby! Offer up sacrifice for the Emperors.’ I answered him: ‘I cannot. I am a Christian.’ Whereupon, he sentences all of us to be devoured by the wild beasts and we, full of joy, return to our prison. But as I had hitherto always had my child with me in prison and fed him at my breast, I immediately sent word to my father, beseeching him to let him come to me. He refused, and from that moment neither the baby asked for the breast, nor did I suffer inconvenience, for God thus willed it.”

All this is taken from the written account left by the blessed Perpetua, and it brings us to the day before she was put to death. As regards Felicitas, she was in the eighth month of her pregnancy when she was apprehended. The day of the public shows was near at hand, and the fear that her martyrdom would be deferred on account of her being with child made her very sad. Her fellow-martyrs, too, felt much for her, for they could not bear the thought of seeing so worthy a companion disappointed in the hope, she had in common with themselves, of so soon reaching Heaven. Uniting, therefore, in prayer, they with tears besought God in her behalf. It was the last day but two before the public shows. No sooner was their prayer ended than Felicitas was seized with pain. One of the gaolers who overheard her moaning, cried out: “If this pain seem to you so great, what will you do when you are being devoured by the wild beasts, which you pretended to heed not when you were told to offer sacrifice?” She answered: “What I am suffering now, it is indeed I that suffer. But there, there will be another in me, who will suffer for me, because I will be suffering for Him.” She was delivered of a daughter, and one of our sisters adopted the infant as her own. The day of their victory dawned. They left their prison for the amphitheatre, cheerful, and with faces beaming with joy, as though they were going to Heaven. They were excited, but it was from delight, not from fear.

The last in the group was Perpetua. Her placid look, her noble gait, betrayed the Christian matron. She passed through the crowd and saw no one, for her beautiful eyes were fixed upon the ground. By her side was Felicitas, rejoicing that her safe delivery enabled her to encounter the wild beasts. The devil had prepared a savage cow for them. They were put into a net. Felicitas was brought forward the first. She was tossed into the air and fell upon her back. Observing that one side of her dress was torn, she adjusted it, heedless of her pain, because thoughtful for modesty. Having recovered from the fall, she put up her hair which was dishevelled by the shock, for it was not seemly that a martyr should win her palm and have the appearance of one distracted by grief. This done, she stood up. Seeing Felicitas much bruised by her fall, she went to her and giving her her hand, she raised her from the ground. Both were now ready for a fresh attack but the people were moved to pity, and the martyrs were led to the gate called Sana-Vivaria. There Perpetua, like one that is roused from sleep, awoke from the deep ecstasy of her spirit. She looked around her, and said to the astonished multitude: “When will the cow attack us?” They told her that it had already attacked them. She could not believe it until her wounds and torn dress reminded her of what had happened. Then beckoning to her brother, and to a catechumen named Busticus, she thus spoke to them. “Be staunch in the faith, and love one another, and be not shocked at our sufferings.”

God soon took Secundulus from this world, for he died while he was in the prison. Saturninus and Revocatus were exposed first to a leopard, and then to a bear. Saturus was exposed to a boar, and then to a bear, which would not come out of its den. Thus was he twice left uninjured, but at the close of the games he was thrown to a leopard, which bit him so severely that he was all covered with blood, and as he was taken from the amphitheatre, the people jeered at him for this second baptism, and said: “Saved, washed! Saved, washed!” He was then carried off, dying as he was, to the appointed place, there to be despatched by the sword with the rest. But the people demanded that they should be led back to the middle of the amphitheatre, that their eyes might feast on the sight, and watch the sword as it pierced them. The Martyrs hearing their request, cheerfully stood up and marched to the place where the people would have them go. But first they embraced one another, that the sacrifice of their martyrdom might be consummated with the solemn kiss of peace. All of them, without so much as a movement or a moan, received the swordman’s blow, save only Saturus, who died from his previous wounds, and Perpetua, who was permitted to feel more than the rest. Her executioner was a novice in his work, and could not thrust his sword through her ribs: she slightly moaned, then took his right hand, and pointing his sword towards her throat, told him that that was the place to strike. Perhaps it was that such a woman could not be otherwise slain than by her own consent, for the unclean spirit feared her.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The real Feast of these two illustrious heroines of the Faith is tomorrow, which is the anniversary of their martyrdom and triumph. But the memory of the Angel of the Schools, Saint Thomas Aquinas, shines so brightly on the seventh of March that it almost eclipses the two glorious stars of Africa. In consequence of this, the Holy See allows certain Churches to anticipate their Feast and keep it today. We take advantage of this permission and at once offer to the Christian reader the glorious spectacle of which Carthage was the scene in the year 203. Nothing could give us a clearer idea of that spirit of the Gospel according to which we are now studying to conform our whole life. Here are two women, two mothers. God asks great sacrifices from them. He asks them to give Him their lives, nay, more than their lives. And they obey with that simplicity and devotedness which made Abraham merit to be the Father of Believers.

Their two names, as Saint Augustine observes, are a presage of what awaits them in Heaven: a perpetual felicity. The example they set of Christian fortitude, is, of itself, a victory, which secures to the true Faith a triumph in the land of Africa. Saint Cyprian will soon follow them with his bold and eloquent appeal to the African Christians, inspiring them to die for their Faith. But his words, grand as they are, are less touching than the few pages written by the hand of the brave Perpetua who, though only twenty-two years of age, relates with all the self-possession of an angel, the trials she had to go through for God. And when she had to hurry off to the amphitheatre, she puts her pen into another’s hand, bidding him go on where she leaves off, and write the rest of the battle. As we read these charming pages, we seem to be in the company of the Martyrs. The power of divine grace, which could produce such heroism amidst a people demoralised by paganism, appears so great that even we grow courageous. And the very fact that the instruments employed by God for the destruction of the pagan world were frequently women, we cannot help saying with Saint John Chrysostom: “I feel an indescribable pleasure in reading the Acts of the Martyrs. But when the Martyr is a woman, my enthusiasm is doubled. For the frailer the instrument, the greater is the grace, the brighter the trophy, the grander the victory. And this, not because of her weakness, but because the devil is conquered by her by whom he once conquered us. He conquered by a woman, and now a woman conquers him. She that was once his weapon, is now his destroyer, brave and invincible. That first one sinned, and died. This one died that she might not sin. Eve was flushed by a lying promise and broke the law of God. Our heroine disdained to live, when her living was to depend on her breaking her faith to Him who was her dearest Lord. What excuse, after this, for men, if they be soft and cowards? Can they hope for pardon when women fought the holy battle with such brave, and manly, and generous hearts?”

* * * * *

Perpetua! Felicitas! Oh glorious and prophetic names which come like two bright stars of March, pouring out upon us your rays of light and life! You are heard in the songs of the Angels, and we poor sinners, as we echo them on Earth, are told to love and hope. You remind us of that brave woman who, as the Scripture says, kept up the battle begun by men: The valiant men ceased: who will follow them? A Mother in Israel (Judges v. 7). Glory be to that Almighty power which loves to choose the weak things of the world that it may confound the strong! (1 Corinthians i. 27). Glory to the Church of Africa, the daughter of the Church of Rome. And glory to the Church of Carthage, which had not then heard the preachings of her Cyprian, and yet could produce two such noble hearts! As to you, Perpetua, you are held in veneration by the whole Christian world. Your name is mentioned by God’s priests in the Holy Mass, and thus your memory is associated with the Sacrifice of the Man-God, for love of whom you laid down your life. And those pages written by your own hand, how they reveal to us the generous character of your soul! How they comment those words of the Canticle: Love is strong as death! (Canticles viii. 6). It was your love of God that made you suffer, and die, and conquer. Even before the water of Baptism had touched you, you were enrolled among the Martyrs. When the hard trial came of resisting a father who wished you to lay down the palm of martyrdom, how bravely you triumphed over thy filial affection in order to save that which is due to our Father who is in Heaven! Nay, when the hardest test came — when the baby that fed at your breast was taken from you in your prison — even then your love was strong enough for the sacrifice, as was Abraham’s, when he had to immolate his Isaac.

Your fellow-martyrs deserve our admiration. They are so grand in their courage. But you, dear Saint, surpass them all. Your love makes you more than brave in your sufferings, it makes you forget them. “Where were you” we would ask you in the words of Saint Augustine, “where were you, that you did not feel the goading of that furious beast, asking when it was to be, as though it had not been? Where were you? What did you see that made you see not this ? On what were you feasting that made you dead to sense? What was the love that absorbed, what was the sight that distracted, what was the chalice that inebriated you? And yet the ties of flesh were still holding you, the claims of death were still upon you, the corruptible body was still weighing you down! But our Lord had prepared you for the final struggle by asking sacrifice at your hands. This made your life wholly spiritual, and gave your soul to dwell by love, with Him, who had asked you for all and received it. And thus living in union with Jesus, your spirit was all but a stranger to the body it animated. It was impatient to be wholly with its Sovereign Good. Your eager hand directs the sword that is to set you free. And as the executioner severs the last tie that holds you, how voluntary was your sacrifice, how hearty your welcome of death! Truly, you were the Valiant, the Strong Woman (Proverbs xxxi. 10) that conquered the wicked serpent! Your greatness of soul has merited for you a high place among the heroines of our holy Faith, and for [eighteen] hundred years you have been honoured by the enthusiastic devotion and love of the servants of God.

And you, too, Felicitas, receive the homage of our veneration, for you were found worthy to be a fellow-martyr with Perpetua. Though she was a rich matron of Carthage, and you a servant, yet Baptism and Martyrdom made you companions and sisters. The Lady and the Slave embraced, for Martyrdom made you equal. And as the spectators saw you hand in hand together, they must have felt that there was a power in the Religion they persecuted which would put an end to slavery. The power and grace of Jesus triumphed in you, as it did in Perpetua. And thus was fulfilled your sublime answer to the pagan who dared to jeer you — that when the hour of trial came, it would not be you that would suffer, but Christ, who would suffer in you. Heaven is now the reward of your sacrifice. Well did you merit it. And that baby that was born in your prison, what a happy child to have for its mother a Martyr in Heaven! How would you not bless both it and the mother who adopted it! Oh what fitness in such a soul as yours for the Kingdom of God! (Luke ix. 62) Not once looking back, but ever bravely speeding onwards to Him that called you. Your felicity is perpetual in Heaven. Your glory on Earth will never cease.

And now, dear Saints, Perpetua and Felicitas, intercede for us during this season of grace. Go with your palms in your hands to the throne of God, and beseech Him to pour down His mercy upon us. It is true, the days of paganism are gone by and there are no persecutors clamouring for our blood. You and countless other Martyrs have won victory for Faith, and that Faith is now ours. We are Christians. But there is a second paganism which has taken deep root among us. It is the source of that corruption which now pervades every rank of society, and its own two sources are indifference which chills the heart, and sensuality which induces cowardice. Holy Martyrs, pray for us that we may profit by the example of your virtues, and that the thought of your heroic devotedness may urge us to be courageous in the sacrifices which God claims at our hands. Pray, too, for the Churches which are now being established on that very spot of Africa which was the scene of your glorious martyrdom: bless them, and obtain for them, by your powerful intercession, firmness of faith and purity of morals.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Nicomedia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Victor and Victorinus, who were, with Claudian and his wife Bassa, subjected to many torments during three years and were then thrust into prison where they ended the pilgrimage of life.

At Tortona, St. Marcian, bishop and martyr, who received the crown of immortality by being killed under Trajan for the glory of Christ.

At Constantinople, St. Evagrius, who was elected bishop by the Catholics in the reign of Valens, and being exiled by that emperor, departed for heaven.

In Cyprus, in the time of the emperor Decius, St. Conon, martyr, who, being compelled to run before a chariot with his feet pierced with nails, fell on his knees, and breathing a prayer expired.

Also the passion of forty-two holy martyrs, who were arrested in Amorium and taken to Syria where they received the palm of martyrdom after a valiant combat.

At Bologna, St. Basil, bishop, who was consecrated by Pope St. Sylvester, and by word and example governed with great holiness the church entrusted to his care.

At Barcelona in Spain, blessed Ollegarius, who was first a canon and afterwards bishop of Barcelona and archbishop of Tarragona.

At Ghent in Flanders, St. Colette, virgin, who at first professed the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, and afterwards, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, restored the primitive discipline in a great number of monasteries of Nuns of the Second Order. As she was adorned with heavenly virtues and performed innumerable miracles, she was inscribed on the list of the saints by Pope Pius VII.

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

Thanks be to God.

1 MARCH – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, two hundred and sixty holy martyrs condemned for the name of Christ. Claudius II ordered them to dig sand beyond the Porta Salaria, and then to be shot dead with arrows by soldiers in the amphitheatre.

Also the birthday of the holy martyrs Leo, Donatus, Abundantius, Nicephorus and nine others.

At Marseilles, the holy martyrs Hermes and Adrian.

At Heliopolis, in the persecution of Trajan, St. Eudoxia, martyr, who, being baptised by bishop Theodotus and fortified for the combat, was put to the sword by the command of the governor Vincent and thus received the crown of martyrdom.

The same day, St. Antonina, martyr. For deriding the gods of the Gentiles in the persecution of Diocletian, she was, after various torments, shut up in a cask and drowned in a marsh near the city of Cea.

At Kaiserswerth, the bishop St. Swithbert, who, in the time of Pope Sergius, preached the Gospel to the inhabitants of Friesland and Holland, and to other Germanic peoples.

 

At Angers, St. Albinus, bishop and confessor, a man of most eminent virtue and piety.

At Le Mans, St. Siviard, abbot.

At Perugia, the translation of St. Herculanus, bishop and martyr, who was beheaded by order of Totila, king of the Goths. Forty days after his decapitation his body, as Pope St. Gregory relates, was found as sound and as firmly joined to the head as if it had never been touched by the sword.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 FEBRUARY – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the passion of St. Faustinus, whom forty-four others followed to receive the crown of martyrdom.

In Persia, during the persecution of Decius, the birthday of blessed Polychronius, bishop of Babylon, who, being struck in the mouth with stones, stretched out his hands, lifted up his eyes to heaven and expired.

At Concordia, the holy martyrs Donatus, Secundian, and Romulus, with eighty-six others, partakers of the same crown.

At Caesarea in Palestine, St. Theodulus, an aged man, in the service of the governor Firmilian. Moved by the example of the martyrs, he confessed Christ with constancy, was fastened to a cross, and thus by a noble victory merited the palm of martyrdom.

In the same place, St. Julian, a Cappadocian, who, because he had kissed the relics of the martyrs, was denounced as a Christian and led to the governor who had him consumed with a slow fire.

In the territory of Terouanne, St. Silvinus, bishop of Toulouse.

In Ireland, St. Fintan, priest and confessor.

At Florence, blessed Alexius Falconieri, confessor, one of the seven Founders of the Order of the Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, in the one hundred and tenth year of his age, terminated his blessed career in the consoling presence of Jesus Christ and the angels.

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

Thanks be to God.

30 DECEMBER – FERIA

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

On this the sixth day since the Birth of our Emmanuel, let us consider how the Divine Infant lies in the crib of a stable, and is warmed by the breath of the ox and the ass, as Isaias had foretold: “The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel has not known me (Isaias i. 3). Thus does the great God enter that world which his own Hands have created! The dwellings of men are refused Him, for man has a hard heart for His God, and an indifference which is a real contempt. The only shelter He can find to be born in is a stable, and that necessitates His coming into the world in the company of poor dumb brutes.

At all events, these animals are His own work. When He created the irrational world of living things, He subjected it, as the inferior part of creation, to Man. And Man was to ennoble it by referring it to the Creator. When Adam sinned, this subjection, this harmony, was broken. The Apostle teaches us that the brute creation is not insensible to the degradation thus forced upon it by sinful man (Romans viii. 19, 20). It obeys him with reluctance. It not infrequently rebels against and deservedly punishes him, and on the day of judgement, it will take the side of its Creator and avenge itself of that wickedness of which man has made it the unwilling instrument (Wisdom v. 21).

In the mystery of His Birth, the Son of God visits this part of His creation. Men refused to receive Him and He accepts the hospitality of the dwelling of brutes. It is from their dwelling that He begins the divine career of the Three-and-Thirty years. The first human beings He invites into the company of His blessed Mother and His dear Saint Joseph, the first He admits into the stable to see and adore Himself are shepherds who were busy watching their flocks and whose simple hearts have not been corrupted by the atmosphere of cities.

The Ox — which, as we learn from Ezechiel (Ezechiel i. 10) and Saint John (Apocalypse iv. 7) is one of the symbolic creatures standing round God’s throne — is the figure of the sacrifices of the Old Law. The blood of oxen has flowed in torrents on the altar of the Temple: it was the imperfect and material offering prescribed to be made to God until He should send the True Victim. The Infant Jesus who lies in the crib is that Victim, and Saint Paul tells us what he says to His Eternal Father: “Sacrifices and oblations and holocausts for sin, you would not have, neither are they pleasing to you; behold, I come! (Hebrews x. 8, 9).

The Prophet Zachary (Zacharias ix. 9), foretelling the peaceful triumph of the Meek King, says that He will make His entry into Sion riding on an Ass. We will assist, further on in the year, at the accomplishment of this prophecy. Now that we are at Bethlehem in our Christmas mystery, let us observe how the heavenly Father places His Divine Son between the instrument of His peaceful triumph and the symbol of His Sacrifice on Calvary.

Ah dear Jesus, Creator of Heaven and Earth, how strange is this your entrance into your own world! The whole universe should have given you a welcome of love and adoration— and yet, what motionless indifference! Not one house to take you in! Men buried in sleep! And when Mary had placed you in the crib, your first sight was that of two poor animals, the slaves of him who proudly rejected you! Yet, this sight did not displease you, for you do not despise the work of your hands. What afflicts your loving Heart is the presence of sin in our souls, the sight of that enemy of yours which has so often caused you to suffer. Oh hateful sin I we renounce it, and wish, dear Jesus, to acknowledge you for our Lord and Master, as did the Ox and the Ass! We will unite in that hymn of of peace, which creation is ever sending up to you, by henceforth adding to it the homage of our adoration and gratitude. Nay, we will lend speech to nature, and give it soul, and sanctify it, by referring all creatures to your service.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Spoleto, the birthday of the holy martyrs Sabinus, bishop, Exuperantius and Marcellus, deacons. Also of Venustian, governor, with his wife and sons, under the emperor Maximian. Marcellus and Exuperantius were first racked, then severely beaten with rods. Afterwards being mangled with iron hooks and burned in the sides, they terminated their martyrdom. Not long after, Venustian was put to the sword with his wife and sons. St. Sabinus, after having his hands cut off, and being a long time confined in prison, was scourged to death. The martyrdom of these saints is commemorated on the same day, although it occurred at different times.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Mansuetus, Severus, Appian, Donatus, Honorius and their companions.

At Thessalonica, St. Anysia, martyr.

In the same place, St. Anysius, bishop of that city.

At Milan, St. Eugene, bishop and confessor.

At Ravenna, St. Liberius, bishop.

At Aquila in Abruzzo, St. Rainerius, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 DECEMBER – SATURDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias xxv. 1‒9

O Lord, you are my God, I will exalt you, and give glory to your name: for you have done wonderful things, your designs of old faithful. Amen. For you have reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to ruin, the house of strangers to be no city, and to be no more built up forever. Therefore will a strong people praise you, the city of mighty nations will fear you... Because you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat. And the Lord of hosts will make to all people, in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees. And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with which all people are tied, and the web that He began over all nations. He will cast death down headlong forever: and the Lord God will wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people he will take away from off the whole Earth: for the Lord has spoken it. And they will say in that day: “Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord, we have patiently waited for Him, and we will rejoice and be joyful in His salvation.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Yet a little while, and the conqueror of death will appear, and then, in the joy of our hearts, we will say: “Lo, this is our God: we have ~waited for Him, and He will save us. We have patiently waited for Him. This is He, and we will rejoice and be joyful in His salvation.” Let us, therefore, prepare the way of the Lord, that we may receive Him worthily, and in this work of our preparation, let us have recourse to Mary. Saturday is the day which is sacred to her. She will the more readily grant the prayers said to her upon it. Let us consider her in her grand privilege of being full of grace, carrying in her womb Him whom we so long to possess. If we ask her by what means she rendered herself worthy of such an immense favour, she will tell us that in her was simply fulfilled the prophecy which the Church so continually repeats during these days of Advent: “Every valley will be filled up.” The humble Mary was the valley blessed of the Lord, a valley beautiful and fertile in which God sowed the Divine Wheat, our Saviour, Jesus: for it is written in the Psalm that “the valleys will abound with corn” (Psalm lxiv. 14).

O Mary, it was your humility that drew down upon you the admiration of your Creator. If, from the high Heaven where He dwells, He had perceived a Virgin more humble in her love, He would have chosen her in preference to you: but no, it was you that won His predilection, O mystic valley, ever verdant and lovely in your flowers of grace. We that, like high hills, are so proud and such sinners, what shall we do? We must look on this God of ours who comes to us in infinite humility and then humble ourselves out of love and gratitude. O Blessed Mother! Obtain this grace for us. Pray for us that henceforth we may submit ourselves to the will of our Lord as you did when you spoke those admirable words: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord : may it be done to me according to thy word!”

9 DECEMBER – FERIA

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Let us consider how the Immaculate Mary came into this world nine months after her Conception, and how each day of her life gave man fresh reason to hope for the great promises made him by God. Let us admire the fullness of grace which God has given to her, and contemplate the respect and the love with which the holy Angels look on her as the future Mother of Him who is to be their Head and King, as well as ours. Let us follow this august Queen to the Temple of Jerusalem where she is presented by her parents, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne. When but three years of age, she was initiated into all the secrets of divine love. “I always rose at midnight (thus she spoke of herself, in a revelation to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary), and went before the Altar of the Temple, where I besought of God that I might observe all the commandments of His Law "and be enriched with those graces which would render me pleasing to His Majesty. I most earnestly prayed Him that I might live to see that most holy virgin who was to bring forth into this world His own divine Son. I asked him to grant me to enjoy the use of my eyes that I might see her, of my tongue that I might praise her, of my hands that I might serve her, of my feet that I "might go her errands, and of my knees that I might adore the Son of God resting in her arms.”

* * * * *

You, O Mary, you yourself were this virgin who was worthy of the praises of men and Angels! But God had not yet revealed it to you, and your heavenly humility forbade your thinking that the immense dignity which you so deeply venerated could ever be yours. Nay, you were the first and the only one of the daughters of Israel that had renounced all hope of ever being the Mother of the Messiah. To be Mother of the Messiah was, indeed, an ineffable honour. But it seemed as though it could only be received on the condition of having another Spouse besides God, and this you would not suffer. You would be united to God alone, and your vow of virginity which made you so, was dearer to you than the possibility of any privilege which would rob you even of a tittle of that. Your marriage with Saint Joseph, therefore, was a fresh lustre added to your incomparable purity while, in the designs of God, it provided you with the protection which your coming honours would soon require. We follow you, O Spouse of Joseph, into your house at Nazareth, where is to be spent your humble life. There we behold you diligent in all your duties, the valiant Woman of the Scriptures (Proverbs xxxi. 10), the object of the admiration of God and His Angels. Suffer us, O Mary, to unite our Advent devotions with the prayers which you offered up for the coming of the Messiah, with the veneration with which you thought upon Her that was to be His Mother, and with the inflamed desires with which you longed for the divine Saviour. We salute you as the Virgin (Isaias vii. 14) foretold by Isaias. It is yourself, O blessed Mother, that deserves the praise and love of the holy people and city, the redeemed of the Lord (Isaias xliii. 12).

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Gray in Burgundy, St. Peter Fourier, Canon Regular of Our Saviour, and founder of the Canonesses Regular of Our Lady for the education of girls. Because of his brilliant virtues and miracles Pope Leo XIII placed him in the Martyrology.

At Toledo in Spain, the birthday of the holy virgin Leocadia, a martyr in the persecution of the emperor Diocletian. By Dacian, prefect of Spain, she was condemned to a cruel imprisonment, where she was pining away, when, hearing of the barbarous tortures of blessed Eulalia and the other martyrs, she knelt down to pray and yielded up her undefiled spirit to Christ.

At Carthage, St. Restitutus, bishop and martyr, on whose feast St. Augustine delivered a discourse to the people in which he set forth his praises.

Also in Africa, the holy martyrs Peter, Successus, Bassian, Primitivus and twenty others.

At Limoges in France, St. Valeria, virgin and martyr.

At Verona, during the persecution of Diocletian, St. Proculus, bishop, who was buffeted, scourged with rods and driven out of the city. Being at length restored to his church, he rested in peace.

At Pavia, St. Syrus, first bishop of that city, who was renowned for miracles and virtues worthy of an apostle.

At Apamea in Syria, blessed Julian, bishop, who was distinguished for holiness in the time of Severus.

At Perigueux in France, the holy abbot Cyprian, a man of great sanctity.

At Nazianzus, St. Gorgonia, sister of blessed Gregory the Theologian, who related her virtues and miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

For the years when the number of the Sundays after Pentecost is only twenty-three, the Mass for today is taken from the twenty-fourth and last Sunday, and the Mass appointed for the twenty-third is said on the previous Saturday, or on the nearest day of the preceding week which is not impeded by a double or semi-double feast. But under all circumstances the Antiphonary ends today. The Introits, Graduals, Communions and Postcommunions are to be repeated on each of the Sundays till Advent, which may be more or less in number, according to the Years. Our readers will remember how in the time of Saint Gregory Advent was longer than we now have it, and that in those days its weeks commenced in that part of the Cycle which is now occupied by the last Sundays after Pentecost. This is one of the reasons which explain there being a lack of liturgical riches in the composition of the dominical Masses which follow the twenty-third. Even on this one, formerly, the Church, without losing sight of the Last Day, used to lend a thought to the new season which was fast approaching, the season, that is, of preparation for the great feast of Christmas. There used to be read as Epistle the following passage from Jeremias, which was afterwards, in several Churches, inserted in the Mass of the first Sunday of Advent:

“Behold! The days come, says the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a King will reign, and will be wise: and will execute judgement and justice in the earth. In those days will Judah be saved, and Israel will dwell confidently: and this is the name that they will call Him: The Lord our Just One. Therefore, behold the days come, says the Lord, and they will say no more: The Lord lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt! But: The Lord lives, who has brought out, and brought here, the seed of the house of Israel, from the land of the north, and out of all the lands, to which I had cast them forth! And they will dwell in their own land” (Jeremias xxiii. 5‒8).

As is evident, this passage is equally applicable to the conversion of the Jews and the restoration of Israel which are to take place at the end of the world. This was the view taken by the chief liturgists of the Middle Ages in order to explain thoroughly the Mass of the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost. First mentioning to our readers that originally the Gospel of this Sunday was that of the multiplication of the five loaves, let us listen to the profound and learned Abbot Rupert who, better than anyone, will teach us the mysteries of this day, which brings to a close the grand and varied Gregorian Melodies that we have been having during the whole year. “Holy Church,” says he, “is so intent on paying her debt of supplication, and prayer, and thanksgiving, for all men, as the Apostle demands (1 Timothy ii. 1), that we find her giving thanks also for the salvation of the children of Israel who she knows are one day to be united with her. And, as their remnants are to be saved at the end of the world (Romans ix. 27), so on this last Sunday of the Year she delights at having them just as though they were already her members! In the Introit, calling to mind the prophecies concerning them, she thus sings every Year: My thoughts are thoughts of peace, and not of affliction. Verily, His thoughts are those of peace, for he promises to admit to the banquet of His grace the Jews who are His brethren according to the flesh, thus realising what had been prefigured in the history of the patriarch Joseph. The brethren of Joseph, having sold him, came to him when they were tormented by hunger. For then he ruled over the whole land of Egypt. He recognised them, he received them, and made, together with them, a great feast. So too our Lord who is now reigning over the whole earth, and is giving the bread of life in abundance to the Egyptians, (that is, to the Gentiles), will see coming to Him the remnants of the children of Israel. He whom they had denied and put to death will admit them to His favour, will give them a place at His table, and the true Joseph will feast delightedly with his brethren.

The benefit of this divine Table is signified in the Office of this Sunday by the Gospel which tells us of our Lord’s feeding the multitude with five loaves. For it will be then that Jesus will open to the Jews the five books of Moses which are now "being carried whole and not yet broken — yes, carried by a child, that is to say, this people itself, who, up to that time will have been cramped up in the narrowness of a childish spirit. Then will be fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremias, which is so aptly placed before this Gospel: They will say no more: The Lord lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt! But, the Lord lives, who has brought out the seed of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands into which they had been cast.

Thus delivered from the spiritual bondage which still holds them, they will sing with all their heart, the words of thanksgiving as we have them in the Gradual: You have saved us, Lord, from them that afflict us!”

Epistle – Philippians iii. 17‒21; iv. 1‒3

Brethren, be followers of me and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame: who mind earthly things. But our conversation is in heaven, from where also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation by which also He is able to subdue all things to Himself. Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy, and my crown: so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beg of Evodia, and I beseech Syntyche, to be of one mind in the Lord. And I entreat you also, my sincere companion, help those women that have laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement and the rest of my fellow labourers, whose names are in the book of life.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Clement whose name is here mentioned by the Apostle is that of Saint Peter’s second successor. Very frequently the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost comes close upon the feast of this great Pope and Martyr of the first century. Disciple of Paul and, later on, in close intimacy with Peter, and named by the Vicar of Christ as the fittest to succeed him in the apostolic chair, Clement, as we will see on the 23rd of November, was one of those Saints who in those early times were the most venerated by the Faithful. The mention made of him in the Office of the Time, just before his appearance on the Cycle of holy Church, excited the Christian people to joy and roused its fervour. It reminded them that one of their best and dearest protectors would soon be visiting them. At the time when Saint Paul was writing to the Philippians, Clement, who was long to survive the Apostles, was prominently one of those men spoken of in our Epistle, that is, one of the followers of those illustrious models who were called to perpetuate in the flock confided to their care (1 Peter v. 3) the pattern of holy living, and that, not so much by their zealous teaching, as by the force of example. The Church, the One true Bride of the divine Word, was known by the incommunicable privilege of possessing within her the Truth — not only its dead letter, but its ever living self, and this by her holiness. The Holy Ghost has not kept the books of sacred Scripture from passing into the hands of the sects separated from the centre of unity, but He has reserved to the Church the treasure of tradition which transmits, surely and fully, from one generation to another, the Word who is light and life (John i. 4). Yes, this tradition is kept up by the truth and holiness of the Man-God. They are ever existing in His members, they are ever tangible and visible in the Church (1 John i. 1). Holiness, which is inherent in the Church, is tradition in its purest and strongest form because it is the truth, not only preached, but reduced to action and work (1 Thessalonians ii. 13), as it was in Christ Jesus, and as it is in God (John v. 17). It is the deposit (1 Timothy vi. 20) which the disciples of the Apostles had the mission to hand faithfully down to their successors, just as the Apostles themselves had received it from the Word who had come upon the Earth.

Hence Saint Paul did not content himself with entrusting dogmatic teaching to his disciple Timothy (2 Timothy ii. 2). He said to him: “Be you an example to the Faithful, in word, and in living” (1 Timothy iv. 12). He said much the same to Titus: “Show yours elf an example of good works, in doctrine and in integrity of life” (Titus ii. 7). He repeated to all: “Be followers of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians iv. 16). He sent Timothy to the Corinthians that he might remind them, or, where it was necessary, might teach them not only the dogmas of his Gospel, but, likewise, his ways in Christ Jesus, that is, his manner of life. For this manner of life of the Apostle was, in a certain measure, his teaching every where in all the Churches (1 Corinthians iv. 17), and he lauded the Faithful of Corinth for their being mindful to imitate him in all things, which was a keeping to the tradition of Christ (1 Corinthians xi. 1‒2). As for the Thessalonians, they had so thoroughly entered into this teaching, taken from their Apostle’s life, that, as Saint Paul says of them, they had become a pattern to all believers. This silent teaching of Christian revelation, which they showed forth in their conduct, made it superfluous for the messengers of the Gospel to say much (1 Thessalonians i. 5‒8).

The Church is a magnificent Temple which is built up, to the glory of God, by the living stones which let themselves be set into its walls. The constructing of those sacred walls, and on the plan laid down by Christ, is a work in which all are permitted to share. What one does by word (1 Corinthians xiv. 3), another does by good example (Romans xiv. 19). But both of them build, both of them edify the holy City. And as it was in the Apostolic Age, so always, example is more powerful than word unless that word be backed by the authority of holiness in him who speaks it: unless, that is, he leads a life according to the perfection taught by the Gospel. But, as the giving edification to those around him is an obligation incumbent on the Christian, an obligation imposed both by charity he owes to his neighbour and by the zeal he should have for the house of God,so, likewise, under pain of presumption, he should seek his own edification in the conduct of others. The reading of good books, the study of the Lives of the Saints, the observing, as our Epistle says, the respectfully observing those holy people with whom he lives — all this will be incalculable aid to him in the work of his own personal sanctification and in the fulfilment of God’s purposes in his regard.

This devout intercourse with the elect of Earth and Heaven will keep us away from men who are enemies of the Cross of Christ and mind earthly things, and put their happiness in carnal pleasures. It will make our conversation be in Heaven. Preparing for the day which cannot now be far off —the day of the Coming of our Lord — we will stand fast in Him, in spite of the falling off of so many among us who, by the current of the world’s fashion, are hurried into perdition. The troubles and sufferings of the last times will but intensify our hope in God, for they will make us long all the more ardently for the happy day when our Redeemer will appear and complete the work of the salvation of His servants by imparting, to their very flesh, the brightness of His own divine Body. Let us, as our Apostle says, be of one mind in the Lord. And, then, as he bids his dear Philippians do, let us rejoice in the Lord always, yes, let us rejoice, for, the Lord is near (Philippians iv. 4, 5).

Gospel – Matthew ix. 18‒26

At that time Jesus was speaking to the multitude. Behold a certain ruler came up and adored Him, saying: “Lord, my daughter is even now dead. But come lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus rising up followed him, with His disciples. And behold a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment. For she said within herself: “If I will touch only his garment I will be healed.” But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: “Be of good heart, daughter, your faith has made you whole.” And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, He said: “Give place: for the girl is not dead, but sleeps.” And they laughed Him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in and took her by the hand. And the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although the choice of this Gospel for the twenty-third Sunday has not great antiquity on its side, yet is it in most perfect keeping with the post-pentecostal Liturgy and confirms what we have stated, relative to the character of this portion of the Church’s Year. Saint Jerome tells us, in the homily selected for the day, that the Hemorrhoissa healed by our Lord is a type of the Gentile world, while the Jewish people is represented by the daughter of the Ruler of the Synagogue. This latter is not to be restored to life until the former has been cured. And this is precisely the mystery we are so continually commemorating during these closing weeks of the Liturgical Year — the fullness of the Gentiles recognising and welcoming the divine Physician, and the blindness of Israel at last giving way to the Light (Romans xi. 25).

We have celebrated, during this Year of Grace, all the grand Mysteries of the Redemption, and this ought to enable us to appreciate the glorious economy, as the Fathers love to call what we admire under another name. The spirit of the Church’s Liturgy at this close of her and our Year, lets us see the world as though its end were come. It looks as though it were sinking away down into some deep abyss — and yet, no. It is only that it may shake off the wicked from its surface, and then it will come up again blooming in light and love. All this has been the divine reality of the Year of Grace we have had put before us, yes, and in us, by our sweet Mother the Church. And now we are, or ought to be, in a mood to feel a thrill of admiration at the mysterious yet, at the same time, the strong and sweet ways of eternal Wisdom (Wisdom viii. 1). At the beginning, when Man was first created, sin soon followed, breaking up the harmony of God’s beautiful world and throwing man off the divine path where his Creator had placed him. Time and wickedness went on till there was a family on which God’s mercy fell. The light which beamed on that privileged favourite only showed the plainer the thick darkness in which the rest of mankind was vegetating. The Gentiles, abandoned to their misery — all the more terrible because they had caused it and loved it — saw God’s favours all bestowed on Israel, while themselves were disregarded and wished to be so. Even when the time came for original sin to be remedied, it seemed as though that was just the time for the final reprobation of the Gentiles — for the salvation that came down from Heaven in the person of the Man-God was seen to be exclusively directed towards the Jews and the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew xv. 24).

But the people that had been treated with so much predilection, and whose Fathers and first Rulers had so ardently prayed for the coming of the Messiah, was no longer up to the position made for it by the holy patriarchs and prophets. Its beautiful religion, founded as it was on desire and hope, was then nothing but a sterile expectancy which kept it motionless and unable to advance a single step towards its Redeemer. As to its Law, Israel then minded nothing but the letter and, at last, turned it into a mummy of sectarian formalism. Now, while in spite of all this sinful apathy it was mad with jealousy, pretending that no one else had any right to Heaven’s favours, the Gentile, whose ever increasing misery urged him to go in search of some deliverer, found one and recognised him in Jesus the Saviour of the world. He was confident that this Jesus could cure him, so he took the bold initiative, went up to Him, and had the merit of being the first to be healed. True, our Lord had treated him with an apparent disdain, but that had only had the effect of intensifying his humility, and humility has a power of making way anywhere, even into Heaven itself (Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 21).

Israel, therefore, was now made to wait. One of the Psalms he sang, ran thus: “Ethiopia will be the first to stretch out her hands to God” (Psalm lxvii. 32). It is now the turn for Israel to recover, by the pangs of a long abandonment, the humility which had won the divine promises for his Fathers, the humility which alone could merit his seeing those promises fulfilled. By this time, however, the word of salvation has made itself heard throughout all the nations, healing and saving all who desired the blessing. Jesus, who had been delayed on the road, came at last to the house towards which He first purposed to direct His sacred steps. He reached, at last, the house of Judah where the daughter of Sion was in a deep sleep. She is in it still! His almighty compassion drives away from the poor abandoned one the crowd of false teachers and lying prophets who had sent her into that mortal sleep, by all the noise of their vain babbling: He casts forth forever from her house those insulters of His own divine self who were quite resolved to keep the dead one dead. Taking the poor daughter by the hand, He restores her to life, and to all the charm of her first youth, proving thus that her apparent death had been but a sleep, and that the long delay of dreary ages could never belie the word of God which He had given to Abraham, His servant (Luke i. 54, 55).

Now therefore, let this world of ours hold itself in readiness for its final transformation, for the tidings of the restoration of the daughter of Sion puts the last seal to the accomplishment of the prophecies. It remains now but for the graves to give back their dead (Daniel xii. 1, 2). The valley of Josaphat is preparing for the great meeting of the nations (Joel iii. 2). Mount Olivet is once more (Acts i. 11) to have Jesus standing upon it, but this time as Lord and Judge! (Zacharias xiv. 4).

16 JULY – SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – Romans vi. 3‒11

Brethren, all we who are baptised in Christ Jesus are baptised in His death. For we are buried together with Him by baptism unto death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve Him no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we will live also together with Christ, knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death will no more have dominion over Him. For, in that He died to sin, He died once: but in that He lives, He lives unto God. So do you also reckon that you are dead indeed to sin, but alive unto, God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The Masses of the Sundays after Pentecost have so far given us but once a passage from St Paul’s Epistles. It has been to Saints Peter and John that the preference has been until now given of addressing the Faithful at the commencement of the sacred Mysteries. It may be that the Church during these weeks, which represent the early days of the apostolic preaching, has intended by this to show us the disciple of faith and the disciple of love as being the two most prominent in the first promulgation of the new Covenant which was committed, at the onset, to the Jewish people. At that time Paul was but Saul the persecutor, and was putting himself forward as the most rabid opponent of that Gospel which, later on, he would so zealously carry to the furthest parts of the Earth. If his subsequent conversion made him become an ardent and enlightened apostle even to the Jews, it soon became evident that the house of Jacob was not the mission that was to be specially the one of his apostolate (Galatians ii. 9). After publicly announcing his faith in Jesus the Son of God, after confounding the synagogue by the weight of his testimony (Acts ix. 20, 22), he waited in silence for the termination of the period accorded to Judah for the acceptance of the covenant. He withdrew into privacy (Galatians i. 17-22), waiting for the Vicar of the Man-God, the Head of the apostolic college, to give the signal for the vocation of the Gentiles and open, in person, the door of the Church to these new children of Abraham (Acts x.)

But Israel has too long abused God’s patience. The day of the ungrateful Jerusalem’s repudiation is approaching (Isaias l. 1), and the divine Spouse, after all this long forbearance with His once chosen but now faithless Bride, the Synagogue, has gone to the Gentile nations. Now is the time for the Doctor of the Gentiles to speak. He will go on speaking and preaching to them,to his dying day. The will not cease proclaiming the word to them until he has brought them back, and lifted them up to God, and consolidated them in faith and love. He will not rest until he has led this once poor despised Gentile world to the nuptial union with Christ (2 Corinthians xi. 2), yes, to the full fecundity of that divine union of which, on the 24th and last Sunday after Pentecost, we will hear him thus speaking: “We cease not to pray for you, and to beg that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of God, in all things pleasing Him; being fruitful in every good work. Giving thanks to God the Father, who has made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the Saints in light, and has translated us into the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians i. 9-13. Epistle for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost).

It is to the Romans that are addressed today’s inspired instructions of the great Apostle. For the reading of these admirable Epistles of Saint Paul, the Church, during the Sundays after Pentecost, will follow the order in which they stand in the canon of Scripture: the epistle to the Romans, the two to the Corinthians, then those to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, will be read to us in their turns. They make up the sublimest correspondence that was ever written, a correspondence where we find Paul’s whole soul giving us both precept and example how best we may love our Lord: “I beseech you,” so he speaks to his Corinthians, “be followers of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians iv. 16; xi. 1; Philippians iii. 17; 1 Thessalonians i. 6).

Indeed, the Gospel (1 Thessalonians i. 5), the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians iv. 20), the Christian life, is not an affair of mere words. Nothing is less speculative than the science of salvation. Nothing makes it penetrate so deep in the souls of men as the holy life of him that teaches it. It is for this reason that the Christian world counts him alone as Apostle or Teacher who, in his one person, holds the double teaching of doctrine and works. Thus, Jesus, the Prince of Pastors (1 Peter v. 4), manifested eternal truth to men, not alone by the words uttered by His divine lips, but likewise by the works He did during His life on Earth. So too, the Apostle, having become a pattern of the flock (1 Peter v. 3), shows us all in his own person what marvellous progress a faithful soul may make under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of sanctification.

Let us, then, be attentive to every word that comes from this mouth, ever open to speak to the whole Earth (2 Corinthians vi. 11), but at the same time let us fix the eyes of our soul on the works achieved by our Apostle, and let us walk in his footsteps (Philippians iii. 16). He lives in his Epistles. He abides and continues with us all, as he himself assures us, for the furtherance and joy of our faith (Philippians i. 25, 26).

Nor is this all. If we value, as we ought, the example and the teaching of this father of the Gentiles (1 Corinthians iv. 14, 15), we must not forget his labours, and sufferings, and solicitudes, and the intense love he bore towards all those who never had seen, or were to see, his face in the flesh (Colossians ii. 1-5). Let us make him the return of dilating our hearts with affectionate admiration of him. Let us love not only the light, but him also who brings it to us. Yes, and all them that, like him, have been getting for us the exquisite brightness from the treasures of God the Father and his Christ. It is the recommendation made so feelingly by Saint Paul himself (2 Corinthians vi. 11-13; Hebrews xiii. 7). It is the intention willed by God Himself, by the fact of His confiding to men like ourselves the charge of sharing with Him the imparting this heavenly light to us. Eternal Wisdom does not show herself directly here below. She is hid, with all her treasures, in the Man-God (Colossians ii. 3) she reveals herself by Him (1 Corinthians i. 24), and by the Church (Ephesians iii. 10), which is the mystical body of that Man-God (Ephesians i. 23), and by the chosen members of that Church, the Apostles (1 Corinthians ii. 6, 7). We cannot either love or know our Lord Jesus Christ, save by and in Him (1 Corinthians ii. 8), but we cannot love or understand Jesus unless we love and understand His Church (John xv. 14; Luke x. 16).

Now in this Church, the glorious aggregate of the elect both of Heaven and Earth, we should especially love and venerate those who are in a special manner associated with our Lord’s sacred humanity in making the divine Word manifest — that Word who is the one centre of our thoughts both in this world and in the world to come. According to this standard, who was there that had a stronger claim than Paul, to the veneration, gratitude, and love of the Faithful? Who of the Prophets and holy Apostles went deeper into the mystery of Christ? (Ephesians iii. 4, 5). Who was there like him, in revealing to the world the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus? (2 Corinthians iv. 6). Was there ever a more perfect teacher, or a more eloquent interpreter, of the life of union — we mean of that marvellous union which brings regenerated humanity into the embrace of God, union which continues and repeats the life of the Word Incarnate in each Christian? To him, the last and least of the saints, (as he humbly calls himself,) was given the grace of proclaiming to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. To him was confided the mission of teaching to all nations the mystery of creation —mystery, hidden so long in God, as the secret to be, at some distant day, revealed to men, and would show them what was the one only meaning of the world’s history— the mystery, that is, of the manifestation, through the Church, of the infinite Wisdom which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians iii. 8-11).

For, as the Church is neither more nor less than the body and mystical complement of the Man-God, so, in Saint Paul’s mind, the formation and growth of the Church are but the sequel of the Incarnation. They are but the continued development of the mystery shown to the angelic hosts when this Word Incarnate made Himself visible to them in the crib at Bethlehem. After the Incarnation God was the better known of his Angels. Though ever the selfsame in His own unchanging essence, yet, to them He appeared grander and more magnificent in the brilliant reflection of His infinite perfections as seen in the Flesh of His Word. So, too, although no increase in them was possible, and their plenitude was their fixed measure, yet the created perfection and holiness of the Man-God have their fuller and clearer revelation in proportion as the marvels of perfection and holiness which dwell in Him, as in their source, are multiplied in the world.

Starting from Him, flowing ever from His fullness (John i. 16), the stream of grace and truth (John i. 14) ceaselessly laves each member of the body of the Church. Principle of spiritual growth, mysterious sap, it has its divinely appointed channels. And these unite the Church more closely to her Head than the nerves and vessels which convey movement and life to the extremities of our body, unite its several parts to the head which directs and governs the whole frame. But, just as in the human body the life of the head and of the members is one, giving to each of them the proportion and harmony which go to make up the perfect man, so in the Church there is but one life — the life of the Man-God, of Christ the head, forming His mystical Body and perfecting, in the Holy Ghost, its several members (Ephesians iv. 12-16). The time will come when this perfection will have attained its full development. Then will human nature, united with its divine Head in the measure and beauty of the perfect age due to Christ, appear on the throne of the Word (Ephesians ii. 6), an object of admiration to the Angels and of delight to the most Holy Trinity. Meanwhile, Christ is being completed in all things and in all men (Ephesians i. 23), as heretofore at Nazareth, Jesus is still growing (Luke ii. 40), and these His advancings are gradual fresh manifestations of the beauty of infinite Wisdom (Luke ii. 52).

The holiness, the sufferings, and then the glory of the Lord Jesus — in a word, His life continued in His members (2 Corinthians iv. 10, 11) — this is Saint Paul’s notion of the Christian life: a notion most simple and sublime which, in the Apostle’s mind, resumes the whole commencement, progress and consummation of the work of the Spirit of love in every soul that is sanctified. We will find him, later on, developing this practical truth of which the Epistle read to us today merely gives the leading principle. After all, what is Baptism, that first step made on the road which leads to Heaven — what else is it but the neophyte’s incorporation with the Man-God, who died once to sin, that he might for ever live in God his Father? On Holy Saturday, after having assisted at the blessing of the font, we had read to us a similar passage from another Epistle of Saint Paul (Colossians iii. 1-4) which put before us the divine realities achieved beneath the mysterious waters. Holy Church returns to the same teaching today, in order that she may recall to our minds this great principle of the commencement of the Christian life, and make it the basis of the instructions she is here going to give us. If the very first effect of the sanctification of one who, by Baptism, is buried together with Christ, be the making him a new man, the creating him afresh in this Man-God (Ephesians ii. 10), the grafting his new life on the life of Jesus by which to bring forth new fruits, we cannot wonder at the Apostle’s unwillingness to give us any other rule for our contemplation or our practice, than the study and imitation of this divine model. There, and there only, is man’s perfection (Colossians i. 28), there is his happiness (Colossians ii. 10). “As, then, you have received the knowledge of Jesus Christ the Lord, walk in him (Colossians ii. 6) for, as many of you as have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ (Galatians iii. 27).

Our Apostle emphatically tells us that he knows nothing, and will preach nothing, but Jesus (1 Corinthians ii. 2). If we be of Saint Paul’s school, adopting, as we will then do, the sentiments of our Lord Jesus Christ, and making them our own (Philippians ii. 15), we will become other Christs or, rather, one only Christ with the Man-God, by the sameness of thoughts and virtues, under the impulse of the same sanctifying Spirit.

Gospel – Mark viii. 1‒9

At that time, when there was a great multitude with Jesus and they had nothing to eat, calling His disciples together He said to them, “I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away fasting to their home, they will faint on the way, for some of them came from away.” And His disciples answered Him, “From where can anyone fill them here with bread in the wilderness?” And He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” And He commanded the people to sit down on the ground. Taking the seven loaves, giving thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them, and they set them before the people. They had a few little fishes, and He blessed them, and commanded them to be set before them. They ate and were filled, and they took up what was left of the fragments, seven baskets. They who had eaten were about four thousand, and He sent them away.

Praise to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The interpretation of the sacred text is given to us by Saint Ambrose in his Homily which has been chosen for this Sunday. We will there find the same vein of thought as is suggested by the whole tenor of the Liturgy assigned for this portion of the Year. The holy Doctor thus begins: “After the woman, who is the type of the Church, has been cured of the flow of blood — and after the Apostles have received their commission to preach the Gospel — the nourishment of heavenly grace is imparted.” He had just been asking, a few lines previous, what this signified, and his answer was: “The Old Law had been insufficient to feed the hungry hearts of the nations, so the Gospel food was given to them.”

We were observing this day week that the Law of Sinai, because of its weakness (Hebrews vii. 18, 19) had made way for the Testament of the universal covenant. And yet it is from Sion itself that the Law of Grace has issued. Here again, it is Jerusalem that is the first to whom the word of the Lord is spoken (Isaias ii. 3). But the bearers of the Good Tidings have been rejected by the obdurate and jealous Jews. They, therefore, turn to the Gentiles (Acts xiii. 46) and shake off Jerusalem’s dust from their feet. That dust, however, is to be an accusing testimony (Luke ix. 5). It is soon to be turned into a rain showering down on the proud city a more terrible vengeance than was that of fire which once fell on Sodom and Gomorrha (Matthew x. 15). The superiority of Judah over the rest of the human race had lasted for ages. But now, all that ancient privilege of Israel, and all his rights of primogeniture, are gone. The primacy has followed Simon Peter to the west, and the crown of Sion, which is fallen from off her guilty head (Lamentations v. 16) now glitters, and will so forever, on the consecrated brow of the queen of nations.

Like the poor woman of the Gospel who had spent all her substance over useless remedies, the Gentile world had grown weaker and weaker by the effects of original and subsequent sins. She had put herself under the treatment of false teachers who gradually reduced her to the loss of that law and gifts of nature which, as Saint Ambrose expresses it, had been her “vital patrimony.” At length the day came for her hearing of the arrival of the heavenly Physician. She at once roused herself. The consciousness of her miserable condition urged her on. Her faith got the upper hand of her human respect, and brought her to the presence of the Incarnate Word. Her humble confidence, which so strongly contrasted with the insulting arrogance of the Synagogue, lead her into contact with Christ, and she touched Him. Virtue went forth from Him (Luke viii. 46), cured her original wound and at once restored to her all the strength she had lost by her long period of languor.

Having thus cured human nature, our Lord bids her cease her fast which had lasted for ages. He gives her the excellent nourishment she required. Saint Ambrose, whose comment we are following, compares the miraculous repast mentioned in today’s Gospel with the other multiplication of loaves brought before us on the fourth Sunday of Lent. And he remarks how, both in spiritual nourishment, and in that which refreshes the body, there are various degrees of excellence. The Bridegroom does not ordinarily serve up the choicest wine, he does not produce the daintiest dishes, at the beginning of the banquet he has prepared for his dear ones (John ii. 10). Besides, there are many souls here below who are incapable of rising beyond a certain limit towards the divine and substantial Light which is the nourishment of the spirit. To these, therefore, and they are the majority, and are represented by the five thousand men who were present at the first miraculous multiplication, the five loaves of inferior quality (John vi. 9) are an appropriate food and one that, by its very number, is in keeping with the five senses which, more or less, have dominion over the multitude. But, as for the privileged favourites of grace — as for those men who are not distracted by the cares of this present life, who scorn to use its permitted pleasures, and who, even while in the flesh, make God the only king of their soul — for these, and for these only, the Bridegroom reserves the pure wheat of the seven loaves which by their number express the plenitude of the Holy Spirit, and mysteries in abundance.

“Although they are in the world,” says Saint Ambrose, “yet these men, to whom is given the nourishment of mystical rest, are not of the world.” In the beginning God was, for six days, giving to the universe he had created its perfection and beauty. He consecrated the seventh to the enjoyment of His works (Genesis ii. 1-3). Seven is the number of the divine rest. It was also to be that of the fruitful rest of the Son of God, the perfecting souls in that peace which makes love secure and is the source of the invincible power of the Bride, as mentioned in the Canticle (Canticles viii. 10). It is for this reason, that the Man-God, when proclaiming on the mount the Beatitudes of the law of love, attributed the seventh to the peace-makers, or peaceable, as deserving to be called by excellence the Sons of God (Matthew ii. 9), It is in them alone that is fully developed the germ of divine sonship (Hebrews iii. 14) which is put into the soul at Baptism. Thanks to the silence to which the passions have been reduced, their spirit, now master of the flesh and itself subject to God, is a stranger to those inward storms, those sudden changes, and even those inequalities of temperature which are all unfavourable to the growth of the precious seed (1 John iii. 9). Warmed by the Sun of Justice in an atmosphere which is ever serene and unclouded, there is no obstacle to its coming up, there is no ill-shapen growth: absorbing all the human moisture of this Earth in which it is set, assimilating the very Earth itself, it soon leaves nothing else to be seen in these men but the divine, for they have become in the eyes of the Father who is in Heaven a most faithful image of His first-born Son (Romans viii. 29).

“Rightly then,” continues Saint Ambrose, “the seventh Beatitude is that of the peaceful . To them belong the seven baskets of the crumbs that were over and above. This bread of the Sabbath, this sanctified bread, this bread of rest — yes, it is something great. And I even venture to say that if, after you have eaten of the five loaves, you will have eaten also of the seven, you have no bread on Earth that you can look forward to.” But take notice of the condition specified in our Gospel, as necessary for those who aspire to such nourishment as that. “It is not,” says the Saint, “to lazy people, nor to them that live in cities, nor to them that are great in worldly honours, but to them that seek Christ in the desert, that is given the heavenly nourishment: they only who hunger after it are received by Christ into a participation of the Word and of God’s kingdom.” The more intense their hunger, the more they long for their divine object and for no other, the more will the heavenly food strengthen them with light and love, the more will it satiate them with delight.

All the truth, all the goodness, all the beauty of created things, are incapable of satisfying any single soul. It must have God, and so long as man does not understand this, everything that his senses and his reason can provide him with of good or true, far from its being able to satiate him, is ordinarily nothing more than a something which distracts him from the one object that can make him the happy being he was created to be — a mere something that becomes a hindrance to his living the true life which God willed him to attain. Observe how our Lord waits for all their human schemes to fail, and then he will be their helper, if they will but permit him. The men of today’s Gospel are not afraid to abide with Him in the desert and put up with the consequent privations of meat and drink. Their faith is greater than that of their brethren who have preferred to remain in their home in the cities, and has raised them so much the higher in the order of grace. For that very reason our Lord would not allow them to admit anything of a nature to interfere with the divine food he prepares for their souls. Such is the importance of this entire self-abnegation for souls that aim at the highest perfection of Christian life, such, too, the difficulty which even the bravest find of reaching that total self-abnegation by their own efforts, that we see our Lord Himself acting directly on the souls of his saints in order to create in them that desert, that spiritual vacuum, whose very appearance makes poor nature tremble, and yet which is so indispensable for the reception of his gifts.

Struggling, like another Jacob with God (Genesis xxxii. 24) under the effort of this unsparing purification, the creature feels herself to be undergoing a sort of indescribable martyrdom. She has become the favoured object of Jesus’ research and, as He intends to give Himself unreservedly to her, so He insists on her becoming entirely His. It is with a view to this that He, in the delicate dealings of His mercy, subdues and breaks her in order that He may detach her from creatures and from herself. The piercing eye of the Word perceives every least crease or fold of her spiritual being. His grace carries its jealous work right down to the division of soul and spirit, and reaches to the very joints and marrow, scrutinising and unmercifully probing the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews iv. 12, 13). As the Prophet describes the refiner of the silver and gold which is to form the king’s crown and sceptre (Malachias iii. 3), so our divine Lord: He will sit refining and cleansing in the crucible this soul so dear to Him, that He wishes to wear her as one of the precious jewels of His everlasting diadem. Nothing could exceed His zeal in this work which, in His eyes, is grander far than the creation of a thousand worlds. He watches, He fans the flame of the furnace, and He Himself is called a consuming fire (Deuteronomy iv. 24). When the senses have no more vile vapours to emit, when the dross of the spirit which is the last to yield has got detached from the gold, then does the divine purifier show it with complacency to the gaze of men and angels. Its lustre is all He would have it be so He may safely produce on it a faithful image of Himself.

When the Jewish people were led forth by Moses from Egypt, they said: “The Lord God has called us. We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, to sacrifice to the Lord our God” (Exodus iii. 18). In like manner the disciples of Jesus have retired into the wilderness, as our today’s Gospel tells us, and after three days they have been fed with a miraculous bread which foretold the victim of the great Sacrifice, of which the Hebrew one was a figure. In a few moments, both the bread and the figure are to make way, on the altar before which we are standing, for the highest possible realities. Let us then go forth from the land of bondage of our sins. And since our Lord’s merciful invitation comes to us so repeatedly, let our souls get the habit of keeping away from the frivolities of Earth, and from worldly thoughts. And let us beseech our Lord that He may graciously give us strength to advance further into that interior desert where He is always the most inclined to hear us, and where He is most liberal with His graces.