23 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-FOURTH (LAST) SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The number of the Sundays after Pentecost may exceed twenty-four and go up as far as twenty-eight, according as Easter is each Year, more or less near to the vernal equinox. But the Mass here given is always reserved for the last, and the intervening ones, be their number what it may, are taken from the Sundays after the Epiphany which, in that case, were not used at the beginning of the year.

These Sundays are the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th, after the Epiphany. Those Years when there are Twenty-five Sundays after Pentecost, it is the 6th after the Epiphany which is put after the twenty-third. If the number of those Sundays be twenty-six, the 5th after the Epiphany becomes the twenty-fourth after Pentecost. If the number be twenty- seven, we go back to the 4th after the Epiphany, and the rest follow. If it be as high as twenty-eight, we begin with the 3rd.

This, however, does not apply to the Introit, Gradual, Offertory and Communion which, as we have already said, are repeated from the twenty-third Sunday. We have seen how that Mass of the twenty-third Sunday was regarded by our fore-fathers as really the last of the Cycle. Abbot Rupert has given us the profound meaning of its several parts. According to the teaching we have already pondered over, the reconciliation of Judah was shown us as being, in time, the term intended by God: the last notes of the sacred Liturgy blended with the last scene of the world’s history, as seen and known by God. The end proposed by eternal Wisdom in the world’s creation and mercifully continued, after the Fall, by the mystery of Redemption, has now (we speak of the Church’s Year and God’s workings) been fully carried out: this end was no other than that of divine Union with Human Nature, making it one in the unity of one only body (Ephesians ii. 16). Now that the two antagonist people, Gentile and Jew, are brought together in the one same New Man in Christ Jesus their Head (Ephesians ii. 15), the Two Testaments which so strongly marked the distinction between the ages of time, the one called the Old, the other the New —yes, these Two Testaments fade away and give place to the glory of the Eternal Alliance.

It was here, therefore, that Mother Church formerly finished her Liturgical Year. She was delighted at what she had done during all the past months. That is, at having led her children not only to have a thorough appreciation of the divine plan which she had developed before them, in her celebrations — but moreover, and more especially, to unite them themselves by a veritable Union to their Jesus, by a real communion of views, and interests, and loves. On this account, she used not to revert again to the second Coming of the God-Man and the Last Judgement, two great subjects which she had proposed for her children’s reflections at the commencement of the Purgative Life, that is, her season of Advent. It is only since a few centuries that, with a view of giving to her Year a conclusion more defined and intelligible to the Faithful of these comparatively recent times, she closes the Cycle with the prophetic description of the dread Coming of her Lord, which is to put an end to Time and open Eternity. From time immemorial, Saint Luke had had the office of announcing, in Advent, the approach of the Last Judgement. The Evangelist Saint Matthew was selected for this its second and more detailed description on the last Sunday after Pentecost.

Epistle – Colossians i. 9‒14

Brethren, 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: being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God: strengthened with all might according to the power of His glory, in all patience and long-suffering with joy. Giving thanks to God the Father, who has made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Thanksgiving and Prayer! There we have the epitome of our Epistle, and an eloquent conclusion of the Apostle’s course of instructions: it is also both summary and conclusion of the Year of the sacred Liturgy. The Doctor of the Gentiles has been zealous beyond measure in his fulfilment of the task assigned to him by Mother Church. Of a certainty, the fault is not his if the souls he undertook to guide, on the morrow of the descent of the Spirit of Love, have not all reached that summit of perfection which he longed we should all get up to! Those who have gone bravely forward in the path which, a year since, was opened out to them by holy Church, now, by a happy experience, know that that path most surely leads them to the life of Union where divine charity reigns supreme! Who is there that, with anything like earnestness, has allowed his mind and heart to take an interest in the several Liturgical Seasons which have been brought before us, and been celebrated, by the Church during the past twelve months —has not also felt an immense increase of light imparted to him? Now, Light is that indispensable element which delivers us from the power of darkness and translates us, by the help of God, into the kingdom of the Son of His love. The work of redemption which this His beloved Son came down on Earth to accomplish for His Father’s glory, could not do otherwise than make progress in those who have, with more or less fervour, entered into the spirit of His Church during the whole Year, that is, from the opening of Advent right up to these the closing days of the sacred Cycle. All of us, then, whoever we may be, should give thanks to this Father of Lights (James i. 17) who has thus made us worthy to be partakers, somewhat at least, of the lot of the Saints.

So, then, all of us, be the share of such participation what it may — yes, all of us must pray that the excellent gift which has been put into our hearts may fervently yield itself to the still richer development, which the coming new Cycle is intended to produce within us.

The just man cannot possibly remain stationary in this world. He must either descend or ascend. And whatever may be the degree of perfection to which grace has led him, he must be ever going still higher as long as he is left in this life (Psalm lxxxiii. 6). The Colossians to whom the Apostle was writing had fully received the Gospel: the word of truth which had been sown in them had produced abundant fruit, in faith, hope and love (Colossians i. 4‒6): and yet, instead of relenting on that account his solicitude in their regard, it is precisely for that reason (Colossians i. 9) that Saint Paul, who had prayed for them up to then, ceases not to go on praying for them. So let us do — let us go on praying. Let us beg of God that He will again, and always, fill us with His divine Wisdom, and with the Spirit of understanding. We need all that in order to correspond with His merciful designs. If the new Year of the Church, which is so soon to begin, finds us faithful and making fresh progress, we will be repaid with new aspects of Truth in the garden of the Spouse, and the fruits we will produce there will be more plentiful and far sweeter than in any by-gone Year. Therefore, let us make up our minds to walk worthy of God, “with dilated hearts,” and bravely, for the eye of His approving love will be ever upon us as we toil along. Oh yes! Let us run on in that up-hill path which will lead us to eternal repose in the Beatific Vision.

Gospel – Matthew xxiv. 15‒35

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: “When you will see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place: he that reads, let him understand. Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains. And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything out of his house. And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. And woe to them that are with child, and give suck in those days. But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the Sabbath. For there will be then great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither will be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh could be saved: but for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. Then if any man will say to you: Lo! Here is Christ, or there: do not believe him: For there will arise false christs and false prophets, and will show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Behold I have told it you, before hand. If therefore they will say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go you not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. For as lightning comes out of the east, and appears even into the west, so will also the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the body will be there will the eagles also be gathered together. And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be moved: and there will appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven: and then will all tribes of the Earth mourn: and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven with much power and majesty. And he will send his angels with a trumpet, and a great voice: and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them. And from the fig tree learn a parable: when the branch of it is now tender and the leaves come forth, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you will see all these things, know you that it is near at the doors. Amen, I say to you, that this generation will not pass till these things be done. Heaven and Earth will pass, but my words will not pass.”

Praise to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Several times during Advent we meditated on the circumstances which are to accompany the Last Coming of Christ our Lord. And in a few days the same great teachings will be again brought before us, filling our souls with a salutary fear. May we then be permitted, on this last Sunday of our Liturgical Year, to address ourselves in a prayer of desire and praise to our adorable Lord and King, the solemn hour of whose Judgement is to be the consummation of His work and the signal of His triumph.

O Jesus! who then are to come to deliver your Church and avenge that God who has so long borne every sort of insult from His creature man, that day of your coming will indeed be terrible to the sinner! He will then understand how the Lord has made all things for Himself, all, even the ungodly, who on the evil day is to show forth the divine justice (Proverbs xvi. 4). The whole world, fighting on his side against the wicked (Wisdom v. 21) will then at last be avenged for that slavery of sin which had been forced upon it (Romans viii. 21). Vainly will the wicked cry out to the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that will then be seated on His throne (Apocalypse vi. 16). The abyss will refuse to engulf them: in obedience to Him who holds the keys of death and Hell (Apocalypse i. 18), it will give forth to a man its wretched victims and set them at the foot of the dread tribunal. Jesus, how magnificent will not your power then appear! The heavenly hosts will also be standing around you, forming your brilliant (Apocalypse xix. 14) court, and assembling your elect from the four quarters of the Earth.

For we also, we your redeemed, who had become your members by becoming the members of your beloved Church — we are to be there on that day, and our place, O ineffable mystery, is to be the one you have reserved for your Bride — it is to be your own throne (Apocalypse iii. 21) where seated, we will judge the very angels (1 Corinthians vi. 3). Even now, all those blessed of the Father (Matthew xxv. 3), all those elect whose youth, like that of the eagle, has been so often renewed by their receiving your precious Blood (Psalm cii. 5) — have they not had their eyes fitted to gaze, and without being dazzled, on the Sun of Justice when He will appear in the heavens? The tediousness of their long exile has given such keenness to their hunger that nothing will have power to stay their flight once the sacred prey of your divine Body will be shown them! What hindrance could be strong enough to check the impetuosity of the love (Canticles viii. 6) which will bring them all together to the banquet of the eternal Pasch? The trumpet of the Archangel which will ring through the graves of the just is to be a summons calling them not to death, but to life — to the sight of the old enemy’s destruction (1 Corinthians xv. 28) — to a redemption which is to include their very bodies (Romans viii. 23) — to the unimpeded passover to the true Land of promise— in a word, to the Pasch and, this time, quite real, and for all, and forever. What will not be the joy of that true Day of the Lord! ( Psalm cxvii. 24) — what joy for them that have by faith lived in Christ, and loved Him without seeing Him! (1 Peter i. 28).

Identifying themselves with you, O Jesus, notwithstanding the weakness of the flesh, they have continued here below your life of suffering and humiliation: what a triumph when, delivered forever from sin and vested in their immortal bodies, they will be borne aloft before your face, that they may forever be with you! (1 Thessalonians iv. 6). But their chief joy on that great Day will be to assist at the glorification of their most dear Lord by the manifestation of the power which was given to Him over all flesh (John xvii. 2). It is to be then, Emmanuel, that crushing the heads of kings and making your enemies your footstool (Psalm cix.) you will be shown as the one Ruler of all nations (Psalm ii.). It is to be then that Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, will bow their knee (Philippians ii. 10) before that Son of Man who until then appeared on Earth as a slave, and was judged, and condemned, and put to death between two thieves. It is to be then, dear Jesus, that you will judge the unjust judges to whom, even in the midst of all the humiliations they put on you, you foretold this your Coming on the clouds of Heaven (Matthew xxvi. 64). And when, after the irrevocable sentence has been passed, the wicked will go to everlasting torments, and the just to life eternal (Maathew xxv. 46), your Apostle tells us, that having conquered your enemies and been proclaimed undisputed King, you will consign to your eternal Father this your Kingdom won over death. It will be the perfect homage of you, the Head, and of all your faithful members (1 Corinthians xv. 24‒28). God will thus be all in all. It will be the perfect accomplishment of that sublime prayer you taught mankind to make (Matthew vi. 9), which they daily offer up to the Father who is in Heaven, and say to Him: Hallowed be thy name! Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven! Blissfully peaceful Day when blasphemy is to cease, and when this poor Earth of ours, cleansed by fire from the filth of sin, will be turned into a new paradise! Where, then, is the Christian who would not thrill with emotion at the thought of that last of all the Days of time which is to usher in beautiful Eternity? Who would not despise the agonies of his own last hour when he reflects that those sufferings have really only one meaning in them — that is, as the Gospel words it, that the Son of Man is near even at the very doors!

O sweet Jesus, detach us, every Year, more and more from this world whose fashion passes away (1 Corinthians vii. 31) with its vain toils, its false glories, and its lying pleasures. It was your own foretelling that, as in the days of Noah, and Sodom, men will go on with their feasting, and business, and amusements, without giving any more thought to your approaching Coming than their forefathers heeded the threat of the Deluge, or of the fire, which came on them and destroyed them (Luke xvii. 26‒30). Let these men go on with their merrymaking and their sending gifts one to the other, as your Apocalypse expresses it, because, so they will have it, Christ and His Church are then to be worn out ideas! (Apocalypse xi. 10). While they are tyrannising over your holy City in a thousand varied ways, and persecuting her as no past period had ever done, they little think that all this is an announcement of the Eternal Nuptials which are near at hand. All these trials were the fresh jewels which the Bride was to have on her before all her beauty was complete, and the blood of her last Martyrs was to incarnadine her already splendid robes with all the richness of royal crimson. As for us, we lend an ear to the echoes of our home above, and from the throne of our God we hear going forth the voice heard by your beloved Prophet of Patmos: “Give praise to our God, all you his servants, and you that fear him, little and great! Alleluia! For the Lord our God the almighty has reigned! Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to Him, for the Marriage of the Lamb is come, and His Wife has prepared herself! (Apocalypse xix. 5‒7). Yet a little while till the number of our brethren be made up (Apocalypse vi. 11) and then, with the Spirit and the Bride, we will say to you in all the ardour of our souls that have long thirsted after you: Come, Lord Jesus! (Apocalypse xxii. 17) Come and perfect us in love, by Union eternal, to the glory of the Father, and of yourself the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, forever and ever!

22 NOVEMBER – SAINT CAECILIA (Virgin and Martyr)

Caecilia, a Roman virgin of noble origin, was brought up from her infancy in the Christian faith and vowed her virginity to God. Against her will she was given in marriage to Valerian, but on the first night of the nuptials she said to him: “Valerian, I am under the care of an Angel, who is the guardian of my virginity. So beware of doing what might kindle God’s wrath against you.” Valerian was moved by these words respected her wishes and told her that he would believe in Christ if he could see the Angel. On Caecilia telling him that this could not be unless he received Baptism, being very desirous of seeing the Angel, Valerian replied that he was willing to be baptised. Taking the virgin’s advice, Valerian went to Pope Urban, who on account of the persecution was hiding among the tombs of the Martyrs on the Via Appia, and by him he was baptised. Then returning to Caecilia, he found her at prayer and beside her an Angel shining with divine brightness. He was amazed at the sight but as soon as he had recovered from his fear he sought out his brother Tiburtius who also was instructed by Caecilia in the faith of Christ and, after being baptised by Pope Urban, was favoured like his brother with the sight of the Angel.

Both of them shortly afterwards courageously suffered martyrdom under the prefect Almachius, who next commanded Caecilia to be apprehended, and commenced by asking her what had become of the property of Tiburtius and Valerian. The Caecilia answered that it had all been distributed among the poor. The prefect was so enraged that he commanded her to be led back to her own house and put to death by the heat of the bath. But after spending a day and a night there, she remained unhurt by the fire, and an executioner was sent to dispatch her. Not being able with three strokes of the axe to cut off her head, he left her half dead. Three days later, on the tenth of the Calends of December, she took her flight to Heaven, adorned with the double glory of virginity and martyrdom. It was in the reign of the emperor Alexander. Pope Urban buried her body in the cemetery of Callixtus, and her house was converted into a church and dedicated in her name. Pope Paschal I translated her body into the city, together with those of Popes Urban and Lucius, and of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus, and placed them all in this church of Saint Caecilia.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Caecilia united in her veins the blood of kings with that of Rome’s greatest heroes. At the time of the first preaching of the Gospel, more than one ancient patrician family had seen its direct line become extinct. But the adoptions and alliances, which under the Republic had knit more closely the great families by linking them all to the most illustrious among them, formed as it were a common fund of glory, which, even in the days of decline, was passed on intact to the survivors of the aristocracy.

It has now been demonstrated by the undeniable witness of monuments that Christianity from the very beginning took possession of that glory by adopting its heirs, and that by a wonderful disposition of divine Providence, the founders of the Rome of the Pontiffs were these last representatives of the Republic, thus preserved in order to give to the two phases of Roman history that powerful unity which is the distinguishing note of divine works. Heretofore bound together by the same patriotism, the Cornelli and the Aemilii, alike heirs of the Fabii, the Caecilii, Valerii, Sergii, Furii, Claudii, Pomponii, Plautii and Acilii, eldest sons of the Gentile Church, strengthened the connections formed during the Republic and firmly established, even in the first and second centuries of Christianity, the new Roman society. In the same centuries, and under the influence of the religion preached by Saints Peter and Paul, there came to be grafted on the ever vigorous trunk of the old aristocracy the best members of the new imperial and consular families, worthy by their truly Roman virtues, practised amid the general depravity, to reinforce the thinned ranks of Rome’s founders and to fill up, without too sudden a transition, the voids made by time in the true patrician houses. Thus was Rome working out her destiny. Thus was the building up of the Eternal City being accomplished by the very men who had formerly, by their blood or by their genius, established her strong and mighty on the Seven Hills.

Caecilia, the lawful representative of this unparalleled aristocracy, the fairest flower of the old stem, was also the last. The second century was passing away. The third, which was to see the empire fall from the hands of Septimus Severus first to the Orientals and then to the barbarians from the banks of the Danube, offered small chance of preservation for the remnants of the ancient nobility. The true Roman society was henceforth at an end for, save a few individual exceptions, there remained nothing more of Roman but the name: the vain adornment of freedmen and upstarts who, under princes worthy of them, indulged their passions at the expense of those around them.

Caecilia therefore appeared at the right moment, personifying with the utmost dignity the society that was about to disappear because its work was accomplished. In her strength and her beauty, adorned with the royal purple of martyrdom, she represents ancient Rome rising proud and glorious to the skies before the upstart Caesars who, by immolating her in their jealousy, unconsciously executed the divine plan. The blood of kings and heroes flowing from her triple wound, is the libation of the old nobility to Christ the conqueror, to the Blessed Trinity the Ruler of nations. It is the final consecration which reveals in its full extent the sublime vocation of the valiant races called to found the Eternal Rome.

But we must not think that today’s feast is meant to excite in us a mere theoretical and fruitless admiration. The Church recognises and honours in Saint Caecilia three characteristics which, united together, distinguish her among all the Blessed in Heaven and are a source of grace and an example to men. These three characteristics are virginity, apostolic zeal and the superhuman courage which enabled her to bear torture and death. Such is the threefold teaching conveyed by this one Christian life.

In an age so blindly abandoned as ours to the worship of the senses, is it not time to protest, by the strong lessons of our faith, against a fascination which even the children of the promise can hardly resist? Never since the fall of the Roman empire have morals, and with them the family and society, been so seriously threatened. For long years, literature, the arts, the comforts of life, have had but one aim: to propose physical enjoyment as the only end of man’s destiny. Society already counts an immense number of members who live entirely a life of the senses. Alas for the day when it will expect to save itself by relying on their energy! The Roman empire thus attempted several times to shake off the yoke of invasion: it fell never to rise again.

Yes, the family itself, the family especially, is menaced. It is time to think of defending itself against the legal recognition, or rather encouragement, of divorce. It can do so by one means alone: by reforming and regenerating itself according to the law of God, and becoming once more serious and Christian. Let marriage, with its chaste consequences, be held in honour. Let it cease to be an amusement or a speculation. Let fatherhood and motherhood be no longer a calculation, but an austere duty: and soon, through the family, the city and the nation will resume their dignity and their vigour.

But marriage cannot be restored to this high level unless men appreciate the superior element without which human nature is an ignoble ruin: this heavenly element is continence. True, all are not called to embrace it in the absolute sense, but all must do honour to it, under pain of being “delivered up,” as the Apostle expresses it, “to a reprobate sense” (Romans i. 28). It is continence that reveals to man the secret of his dignity, that braces his soul to every kind of devotedness, that purifies his heart and elevates his whole being.

It is the culminating point of moral beauty in the individual, and at the same time the great lever of human society. It is because the love of it became extinct that the ancient world fell to decay, but when the Son of the Virgin came on Earth, he renewed and sanctioned this saving principle, and a new phase began in the destinies of the human race.

The children of the Church, if they deserve the name, relish this doctrine and are not astonished at it. The words of our Saviour and of His Apostles have revealed all to them, and at every page the annals of the faith they profess set forth in action this fruitful virtue, of which all degrees of the Christian life, each in its measure, must partake. Saint Caecilia is one example among others offered to their admiration. But the lesson she gives is a remarkable one, and has been celebrated in every age of Christianity. On how many occasions has Caecilia inspired virtue or sustained courage. How many weaknesses has the thought of her prevented or repaired! Such power for good has God placed in His Saints, that they influence not only by the direct imitation of their heroic virtues, but also by the inductions which each of the faithful is able to draw from them for his own particular situation.

The second characteristic offered for our consideration in the life of Saint Caecilia is that ardent zeal of which she is one of the most admirable models, and we doubt not that here too is a lesson calculated to produce useful impressions. Insensibility to evil for which we are not personally responsible, or from which we are not likely to suffer, is one of the features of the period. We acknowledge that all is going to ruin, and we look on at the universal destruction without ever thinking of holding out a helping hand to save a brother from the wreck. Where should we now be, if the first Christians had had hearts as cold as ours? If they had not been filled with that immense pity, that inexhaustible love, which forbade them to despair of a world, in the midst of which God had placed them to be the salt of the earth? Each one felt himself accountable beyond measure for the gift he had received, Freeman or slave, known or unknown, every man was the object of a boundless devotedness for these hearts filled with the charity of Christ. One has but to read the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles, to learn on what an immense scale the apostolate was carried on in those early days, and the ardour of that zeal remained long uncooled. Hence the pagans used to say: “See how they love one another!” And how could they help loving one another? For in the order of faith they were fathers and children.

What maternal tenderness Caecilia felt for the souls of her brethren, from the mere fact that she was a Christian! After her we might name a thousand others in proof of the fact that the conquest of the world by Christianity and its deliverance from the yoke of pagan depravity are due to such acts of devotedness performed in a thousand places at once, and at length producing universal renovation. Let us imitate in something at least, these examples to which we owe so much. Let us waste less of our time and eloquence in bewailing evils which are only too real. Let each one of us set to work, and gain one of his brethren: and soon the number of the faithful will surpass that of unbelievers. Without doubt, this zeal is not extinct. It still works in some and its fruits rejoice and console the Church, but why does it slumber so profoundly in so many hearts which God had prepared to be its active centres? The cause is unhappily to be traced to that general coldness produced by effeminacy, which might be taken by itself alone as the type of the age. But we must add thereto another sentiment, proceeding from the same source, which would suffice, if of long duration, to render the debasement of a nation incurable.

This sentiment is fear, and it may be said to extend at present to its utmost limit. Men fear the loss of goods or position, fear the loss of comforts and ease, fear the loss of life. Needless to say, nothing can be more enervating, and consequently more dangerous to the world than this humiliating pre-occupation. But above all, we must confess that it is anything but Christian. Have we forgotten that we are merely pilgrims on this earth? And has the hope of future good died out of our hearts? Caecilia will teach us how to rid ourselves of this sentiment of fear. In her days, life was less secure than now. There certainly was then some reason to fear, and yet Christians were so courageous that the powerful pagans often trembled at the words of their victims. God knows what he has in store for us, but if fear does not soon make way for a sentiment more worthy of men and of Christians, all particular existences will be swallowed up in the political crisis. Come what may, it is time to learn our history over again. The lesson will not be lost if we come to understand this much: had the first Christians feared, they would have betrayed us, for the word of life would never have come down to us. If we fear, we will betray future generations, for we are expected to transmit to them the deposit we have received from our fathers.

The Passio Sanctoe Caecilia is marked in the most ancient Calendars on the 16th September and took place, according to the primitive Acts, under the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. The great feast of November 22nd, preceded by a Vigil, was one of the most solemn on the Roman Cycle. It recalled the dedication of the church raised on the site of that palace which had been sanctified by the blood of the descendant of the Metelli, and had been bequeathed by her when dying to Bishop Urban, representative of Pope Eleutherius. This Urban having been later on confounded with the Pope of the same name, who governed the Church in the time of Alexander Severus, the martyrdom of our Saint was thought to have occurred half a century later, as we still read in the Legend of the Office. It was most probably in the year 178 that Caecilia joined Valerian in Heaven, whence, a few months before, the Angel of the Lord had descended, bringing wreaths of lilies and roses to the two spouses. She was buried by Urban just as she lay at the moment of death. In the beginning of the following century the family crypt was given by her relatives to the Roman church, and was set apart for the burial of the Popes. In the ninth century, Paschal I found her surrounded by these venerable tombs, and brought her back in triumph on May 8th 822, to her house in the Trastevere, where she remains to this day.

On the 20th October, 1599, in the course of the excavations required for the restoration of the basilica, Caecilia was once more brought forth to the admiring gaze of the city and of the world. She was clad in her robe of cloth of gold, on which traces of her virginal blood were still discernable. At her feet were some pieces of linen steeped in the purple of her martyrdom. Lying on her right side with her arms stretched before her, she seemed in a deep sleep. Her neck still bore the marks of the wounds inflicted by the executioner’s sword. Her head, in a mysterious and touching position, was turned towards the bottom of the coffin. The body was in a state of perfect preservation, and the whole attitude, retained by an unique prodigy during so many centuries in all its grace and modesty, brought before the eyes with a striking truthfulness Caecilia breathing her last sigh stretched on the floor of the bath chamber.

The spectators were carried back in thought to the day when the holy bishop Urban bad enclosed the sacred body in the cypress chest, without altering the position chosen by the bride of Christ to breathe forth her soul into the anus of her divine Spouse. They admired also the discretion of Pope Paschal, who had not disturbed the virgin’s repose, but had preserved for posterity so magnificent a spectacle. Cardinal Sfondrate, titular of Saint Caecilia, who directed the works, found also in the chapel called of the Bath the heating-stove and vents of the sudatorium where the saint passed a day and a night in the midst of scalding vapours. Recent excavations have brought to light other objects belonging to the patrician home which by their style belong to the early days of the Republic.

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It would need the language of Angels worthily to celebrate your greatness, O bride of Christ! and we have but the faltering, timid accents of mortals and sinners. O queen, who stands at the King’s right hand, clad in the vesture of gold of which the Psalmist sings, look down upon us with a favourable eye and deign to accept this offering of our praise which we lay on the lowest step of your lofty throne. We make bold to join thereto a prayer for the holy Church whose humble daughter you were heretofore, as now you are her hope and her support. In the dark night of this present life the Bridegroom is long a-coming. In the midst of this solemn and mysterious silence He suffers the virgin to slumber till the cry will announce His arrival. We honour the repose earned by your victories, O Caecilia, but we know that you do not forget us, for the Bride says in the Canticle: “I sleep, and my heart watches.” The hour draws near when the Spouse is to appear, calling all who are His to gather under the standard of His Cross. Soon will the cry be heard: “Behold the Bridegroom comes, go forth to meet Him.” Then, O Caecilia, you will say to all Christians what you said to the faithful band grouped around you at the hour of your combat: “Soldiers of Christ! Cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.”

The Church daily pronounces your name with love and confidence in the Canon of the Mass. And she looks for your assistance, O Caecilia, knowing it will not fail her. Prepare a victory for her by raising up the hearts of Christians to the realities which they too often forget while they run after the vain shadows from which you won Tiburtius. When the minds of men become once more fixed upon the thought of their eternal destiny, the salvation and peace of nations will be secured.

Be forever, O Caecilia, the delight of your divine Spouse. Breathe eternally the heavenly fragrance of His roses and lilies, and be unceasingly enraptured with the ineffable harmony of which He is the source. From the midst of your glory you will watch over us, and when our last hour draws near, we beseech you by the merits of your heroic martyrdom, assist us on our death-bed. Receive our soul into your arms, and bear it up to the everlasting abode where the sight of the bliss you enjoy will give us to understand the value of Virginity, of the Apostolate and of Martyrdom.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Colossae in Phrygia, during the reign of Nero, Saints Philemon and Apphias, disciples of the blessed Apostle St. Paul. When Gentiles rushed into the church on the feast of Diana, they were arrested while the other Christians fled, and by the command of the governor Artocles, were scourged, let down into a pit up to their waist, and overwhelmed with stones.

Also at Rome, St. Maurus, martyr, who, coming from Africa to visit the tombs of the Apostles, was condemned to die under the emperor Numerian, Celerinus being prefect of the city.

At Antioch in Pisidia, the martyrdom of the Saints Mark and Stephen, under the emperor Diocletian.

At Autun, St. Pragmatius, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

21 NOVEMBER – THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

The exceedingly pure temple of the Saviour, the inestimable sheep, the holy Virgin, the sacred ark containing the treasure of the divine majesty, is led today into the house of the Lord. To there she brings the grace of the divine Spirit, while the Angels of God sing her praises, saying: “Truly she is the heavenly tabernacle.” The Creator, Author and Lord of all things, out of His incomprehensible mercy and compassion, bent down towards us and seeing the creature He had made with His own hands fallen away, He in his pity, deigned to restore it by a sublimer work than the creation: for He, so good and merciful, emptied Himself, and in the mystery by which He freely took on Him our nature, He associated the immaculate Virgin Mary with Himself. The Word of God, our Redeemer, willing to show Himself for our sake in the flesh, brought the Virgin into this world and honoured the coming of that spotless one with new and stupendous gifts: for He gave her as the fruit and reward of prayer, and promised and announced her to Joachim and Anne. Her parents believed the word, and with joyful love they vowed to offer her to the Lord. The lovely Virgin being born according to the divine decree, her holy parents led her to the temple, to fulfil their promise and give her to her Creator. Anne in her joy thus cried out to the priest: “Receive this child, lead her into the most secluded parts of the temple surround her with all care, for she was given to me as the fruit of my prayers, and in the joy of my faith I promised to devote her to God her Creator.”

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Presentation is one of the minor solemnities of our Lady, and was inscribed at a comparatively late date on the sacred Cycle. It seems to court the homage of our silent contemplation. The world, unknown to itself, is ruled by the secret prayers of the just, and the Queen of saints, in her hidden mysteries, wrought far more powerfully than the so-called great men whose noisy achievements fill the annals of the human race.

The East had been celebrating for seven centuries at least the entrance of the Mother of God into the temple of Jerusalem, when in 1372 Gregory XI permitted it to be kept for the first time by the Roman court at Avignon. Mary in return broke the chains of captivity that had bound the Papacy for seventy years, and soon the successor of Saint Peter returned to Rome. The feast of the Visitation, as we saw on July 2nd, was in like manner inserted in the Western Calendar to commemorate the re-establishment of unity after the schism which followed the exile.

In 1373, following the example of the Sovereign Pontiff, Charles V of France introduced the feast of the Presentation into the chapel of his palace. By letters dated 10th November 1874 to the masters and students of the college of Navarre, he expressed his desire that it should be celebrated throughout the kingdom: “Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks, to our dearly beloved: health in him who ceases not to honour his Mother on Earth. Among other objects of our solicitude, of our daily care and diligent meditation, that which rightly occupies our first thoughts is, that the blessed Virgin and most holy Empress be honoured by us with very great love, and praised as becomes the veneration due to her. For it is our duty to glorify her; and we, who raise the eyes of our soul to her on high, know what an incomparable protectress she is to all, how powerful a mediatrix with her blessed Son, for those who honour her with a pure heart... Wherefore, wishing to excite our faithful people to solemnise the said feast, as we ourselves propose to do by God’s assistance every year of our life, we send this Office to your devotion, in order to increase your joy.”

Such was the language of princes in those days. Now just at that very time, the wise and pious king, following up the work begun at Bretigny by our Lady of Chartres, rescued France from its fallen and dismembered condition. In the State then, as well as in the Church, at this moment so critical for both, our Lady in her Presentation commanded the storm, and the smile of the infant Mary dispersed the clouds. The new feast, enriched with Indulgences by Paul II, had gradually become general when Saint Pius V, wishing to diminish the number of Offices on the universal Calendar, included this one among his suppressions. But Sixtus V restored it to the Roman Breviary in 1585, and shortly afterwards Clement VIII raised it to the rank of Double Major. Soon the Clergy and Regulars adopted the custom of renewing their holy vows on this day on which their Queen had opened before them the way that leads by sacrifice to the special love of our Lord.

“Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house: and the King will greatly desire your beauty.” Thus, wording the wishes of the daughters of Tyre, sang the Church of the expectation, on the summit of Mount Moriah, and penetrating the future with her inspired glance, she added: “After her will virgins be brought to the King, her neighbours will be brought to you. They will be brought with gladness and rejoicing: they will be brought into the temple of the King.” Hailed beforehand as “beautiful above the sons of men,” this King, the most mighty, makes on this day a prelude to His conquests; and even this beginning is wonderful. Through the graceful infant now mounting the temple steps, He takes possession of that temple whose priests will hereafter vainly disown Him: for this child, whom the temple welcomes today, is His throne. Already his fragrance precedes and announces Him, in the Mother in whose bosom He is to be anointed with the oil of gladness as the Christ among His brethren. Already the Angels hail her as the Queen whose fruitful virginity will give birth to all those consecrated souls who keep for the divine Spouse the myrrh and the incense of their holocausts, those daughters of kings, who are to form her court of honour (Psalm xliv.).

But our Lady’s Presentation also opens new horizons before the Church. On the Cycle of the Saints, which is not so precisely limited as that of the Time, the mystery of Mary’s sojourn in the sanctuary of the Old Covenant is our best preparation for the approaching season of Advent. Mary, led to the temple in order to prepare in retirement, humility and love for her incomparable destiny, had also the mission of perfecting at the foot of the figurative altar the prayer of the human race, of itself ineffectual to draw down the Saviour from heaven. She was, as Saint Bernardine of Siena says, the happy completion of all the waiting and supplication for the coming of the Son of God. In her, as in their culminating point, all the desires of the saints who had preceded her found their consummation and their term.

Through her wonderful understanding of the Scriptures, and her conformity, daily and hourly, to the minutest teachings and prescriptions of the Mosaic ritual, Mary everywhere found and adored the Messiah hidden under the letter. She united herself to Him, immolated herself with Him in each of the many victims sacrificed before her eyes, and thus she rendered to the God of Sinai the homage, hitherto vainly expected, of the Law understood, practised and made to fructify, in all the fullness that beseemed its divine Legislator. Then could Jehovah truly say: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return no more thither, but soak the earth and water it, and make it to spring:... so will my word be: it will not return to me void, but it will do whatever I please” (Isaias lv. 10, 11). Supplying thus for the deficiencies of the Gentiles as well as of the Synagogue, Mary beheld in the Bride of the Canticle the Church of the future. In our name she addressed her supplications to Him whom she recognised as the Bridegroom, without however knowing that He was to be her own Son. Such yearnings of love, coming from her, were sufficient to obtain from the divine Word pardon for the infidelities of the past, and the immorality into which the wandering world was plunging deeper and deeper. How well did this Ark of the New Covenant replace that of the Jews, which had perished with the first temple! It was for her, though he knew it not, that Herod the Gentile had continued the construction of the second temple, after it had remained desolate since the time of Zorobabel, for the temple, like the tabernacle before it, was but the home of the ark destined to be God’s throne. But greater was the glory of the second temple which sheltered the reality, than of the first which contained but the figure.

The Greeks have chosen for the Lessons of the feast the passages of Scripture which describe the carrying of the Ark into the tabernacle of the desert (Exodus xl.) and afterwards into the temple of Jerusalem (3 Kings viii.). The historical Lesson relates the traditions concerning the oblation of the Blessed Virgin by her holy parents to God in the temple at the age of three years, there to dwell until, after the lapse of 12 years, the mystery of our salvation was to be accomplished in her.

* * * * *

“Congratulate me, all ye that love the Lord, because when I was a little one I pleased the Most High.” Such is the invitation you address to us, O Mary, in the Office chanted in your honour, and on what feast could you do so more appropriately? When, even more little in your humility than by your tender age, you mounted, in your sweet purity, the steps of the temple, all Heaven must have owned that it was henceforth just for the Most High to take His delight in our Earth. Having hitherto lived in retirement with your blessed parents, this was your first public act. It showed you for a moment to the eyes of men, only to withdraw thee immediately into deeper obscurity. But, as you were officially offered and presented to the Lord, He Himself doubtless, surrounded by the princes of his court, presented you not less solemnly to those noble spirits as their Queen. In the fullness of the new light that then burst upon them, they understood at once your incomparable greatness, the majesty of the temple where Jehovah was receiving a homage superior to that of their Nine Choirs, and the august prerogative of the Old Testament to have you for its daughter, and to perfect by its teachings and guidance during those 12 years, the formation of the Mother of God.

Holy Church, however, declares that we can imitate you, O Mary, in this mystery of your Presentation, as in all others. Deign to bless especially those privileged souls who, by the grace of their vocation, are even here below dwellers in the house of the Lord: may they be like that fruitful olive enriched by the Holy Spirit, to which Saint John Damascene compares you. But is not every Christian, by reason of his Baptism, an indweller and a member of the Church, God’s true sanctuary, prefigured by that of Moriah? May we, through your intercession, follow you so closely in your Presentation, even here in the land of shadows, that we may deserve to be presented after you to the Most High in the temple of His glory.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of blessed Rufus, mentioned by the blessed Apostle St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans.

At Rome, the martyrdom of the Saints Celsus and Clement.

At Ostia, the holy martyrs Demetrius and Honorius.

At Rheims, St. Albert, bishop of Liege and martyr, who was put to death for defending the liberties of the Church.

In Spain, the holy martyrs Honorius, Eutychius and Stephen.

In Pamphylia, St. Heliodorus, martyr, in the persecution of Aurelian under the governor Aetius. After his death his executioners were converted to the faith and thrown into the sea.

At Rome, St. Gelasius, pope, distinguished for learning and sanctity.

At Verona, St. Maurus, bishop and confessor.

In the monastery of Bobio, the departure from this life of St. Columban, abbot, who founded many convents and governed a large number of monks. He died at an advanced age, celebrated for many virtues.

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

Thanks be to God.

20 NOVEMBER – SAINT FELIX OF VALOIS (Confessor)

Felix, formerly called Hugh, was born in France, of the royal family of the Valois, and from his cradle gave promise of future sanctity and especially of charity towards the poor. While still an infant he would distribute money to the needy with his own hand as if he were grown up and had full use of reason. When somewhat older, he used to send them meat from the table, and would choose what was daintiest for poor little children. When a youth he more than once stripped himself of his own garments to clothe the poor. He obtained the life of a condemned criminal from his uncle Theobald, Count of Champagne and Blois, foretelling that the man, hitherto an infamous murderer, would shortly become a saint, the truth of which prophecy was proved by the event. Having spent his youth in the practice of virtue, he was induced by his love of heavenly contemplation to think of retiring into solitude. He determined, however, first to take Holy Orders and thus cut off all possibility of succeeding to the crown, of which he had some expectations on account of the Salic Law.

After being ordained a priest and celebrating his first Mass with the greatest devotion, he retired into the desert where he lived in the severest abstinence, but enjoying an abundance of heavenly gifts and graces. There he was joined by John of Matha, a Parisian doctor, who had been inspired by God to seek him, and they lived together in a most holy manner for some years. God then sent an Angel, who bade them go to Rome and obtain a special rule of life from the Sovereign Pontiff. Pope Innocent III received, during solemn Mass, a revelation concerning the religious Order to be instituted for the ransom of captives, and he himself clothed Felix and John in a white habit with a red and blue cross, such as was worn by the Angel who had appeared. Moreover the Pontiff determined that on account of the three colours of the habit, the new Order should bear the name of the most Holy Trinity. Upon receiving the confirmation of their rule from Pope Innocent, Felix returned to Cerfroid in the diocese of Meaux, and enlarged the first convent of the Order, which he and his companion had built there shortly before. There he caused religious observance and the work of ransom to flourish, and he diligently propagated the Order by sending disciples into other provinces.

In this place he was favoured with a remarkable grace by the blessed Virgin Mary. On the vigil of the Nativity of the Mother of God, while the brethren, God so disposing, remained asleep instead of rising at midnight for Matins, Felix who was watching according to his custom before the appointed hour, entered the church, and found the blessed Virgin in the middle of the choir, clad in the habit and cross of the Order, and surrounded by Angels in the same attire. Felix joined them, and the Mother of God having intoned the Office, he sang the divine praises with them even to the end. Then, as if calling him from the choir of Earth to that of Heaven, an Angel informed him that his death was at hand. He exhorted his sons to love of the poor and of captives, and gave up hie soul to God, full of days and of merits, in 1212, in the pontificate of the Innocent III.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Felix was called in his youth to dwell in the desert, and he thought to die there, forgotten by the world he had despised. But our Lord had decreed that his old age should yield fruit before men. It was one of those epochs which may be called turning-points in history. The first of the great active Orders was about to be raised up in the Church by Saint John of Matha. Others were soon to follow, called forth by the new requirements of the times. Eternal Wisdom, who remaining Herself the same renews all things (Wisdom vii. 27), would prove that sanctity also never changes, and that charity, though assuming different forms, is ever the same, having but one principle and one aim — God, loved for His own sake. Hence John of Matha was led by the Holy Spirit to Felix of Valois as a disciple to the master, and then, upon pure contemplation personified by the anchorite living out his declining years in the depths of the forest, was grafted the intensely active life of the redeemer of captives. The desert of Cerfroid became the cradle, and remained the chief centre, of the Trinitarian Order.

* * * * *

Felix, happy lover of charity, teach us the worth, and also the nature, of this queen of virtues. It was she that attracted you into solitude in pursuit of her divine Object, and when you had learnt to find God in Himself, she showed Him to you and taught you to love Him in your brethren. Is not this the secret which makes love become strong as death, and daring enough, as in the case of your sons, to defy Hell itself ? May this love inspire us with every sort of devotedness. May it ever remain the excellent portion of your holy Order, leading it to adapt itself to every new requirement in a society where the worst kind of slavery, under a thousand forms, reigns supreme.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Messina in Sicily, the holy martyrs Ampelus and Caius.

At Turin, the holy martyrs Octavius, Solutor and Adventor, soldiers of the Theban Legion, who fought valiantly for the faith under the emperor Maximian and were crowned with martyrdom.

At Caesarea in Palestine, in the time of the emperor Galerius Maximian, the holy martyr Agapius who was condemned to be devoured by the beasts, but being unhurt by them, he was cast into the sea with stones tied to his feet.

In Persia, the martyrdom of the holy bishop Nersas and his companions.

At Dorostorum in Mysia, St. Dasius, bishop, who, for refusing to consent to the impurities practised on the feast of Saturn, was put to death under the governor Bassus.

At Nicaea in Bithynia, the holy martyrs Eustachius, Thespesius and Anatolius, in the persecution of Maximinus.

At Heraclea in Thrace, the holy martyrs Bassus, Denis, Agapitus and forty others.

In England, St. Edmund, king and martyr.

At Constantinople, St. Gregory of Decapolis, who suffered many tribulations for the veneration of holy images.

At Milan, St. Benignus, a bishop, who, amid the serious troubles caused by the barbarians, governed the church entrusted to him with the greatest constancy and piety.

At Chalons, St. Silvester, a bishop, who went to God in the forty-second year of his priesthood, full of days and virtues.

At Verona, St. Simplicius, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 NOVEMBER – SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY (Widow)

Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew king of Hungary, feared God from her infancy and increased in piety as she advanced in age. She was married to Lewis, landgrave of Hesse and Thuringia, and devoted herself to the service of God and of her husband. She used to rise in the night and spend a long time in prayer, and moreover she devoted herself to works of mercy, diligently caring for widows and orphans, the sick and the poor. In time of famine she freely distributed her store of grain. She received lepers into her house, and kissed their hands and feet. She also built a splendid hospital where the poor might be fed and cared for.

On the death of her husband, in order to serve God with greater freedom, Elizabeth laid aside all worldly ornaments, clothed herself in a rough tunic and entered the Order of Penance of Saint Francis. She was very remarkable for her patience and humility. Being despoiled of all her possessions and turned out of her own house, and abandoned by all, she bore insults, mockeries and reproaches with undaunted courage, rejoicing exceedingly to suffer thus for God’s sake. She humbled herself by performing the lowest offices for the poor and sick, and procured them all they needed, contenting herself with herbs and vegetables for her only food.

She was living in this holy manner, occupied with these and many other good works, when the end of her pilgrimage drew near as she had foretold to her companions. She was absorbed in divine contemplation, with her eyes fixed on Heaven. And after being wonderfully consoled by God, and strengthened with the Sacraments, she fell asleep in our Lord. Many miracles were immediately wrought at her tomb, and on their being duly proved, Pope Gregory IX enrolled her among the Saints.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although the blessed in Heaven shine each with his own peculiar glory, God is pleased to group them in families, as He groups the stars in the material firmament. It is grace that presides over the arrangement of these constellations in the Heaven of the Saints, but sometimes it seems as if God wished to remind us that He is the sole Author of both grace and nature. And inviting them, in spite of the fall, to honour Him unitedly in his elect, He causes sanctity to become a glorious heirloom, handed down from generation to generation in the same family on Earth. Among these races none can compare with that royal line which, beginning in ancient Pannonia, spread its branches over the world in the most flourishing days of Christendom: “Rich in virtue and studying beautifulness” (Ecclesiasticus lxiv. 6) as Scripture says, it brought peace into all the royal houses of Europe, with which it was allied, and the many names it has inscribed in the golden book of the blessed perpetuate its glory.

Among these illustrious names, and surrounded by them as a diamond set in a circle of pearls, greatest, in the esteem of the Church and of the people, is that of the amiable Saint who was ripe for Heaven at the age of 24 years, and who ascended on this day into the company of Stephen, Emeric, and Ladislaus. Elizabeth was not inferior to them in manly virtues, but the simplicity of her loving soul added to the heroism of her race a sweetness whose fragrance drew after her along the path of sanctity her daughter Gertrude of Thuringia and her relatives Hedwige of Silesia, Agnes of Bohemia, Margaret of Hungary, Cunigund of Poland, and Elizabeth of Portugal. All the poetry of those chivalrous times appears in the beautiful pages of contemporaneous writers as they describe to us the innocent child, transplanted like a tender flower from the court of Hungary to that of Thuringia, and her life of devotedness there, with a bridegroom worthy to witness the ecstasies of her lofty but ingenuous piety, and to defend her heroic virtue against her slanderers. To the stewards who complained that during the absence of Duke Lewis she had, in spite of their remonstrances, exhausted the revenues upon the poor, he replied: “I desire that my Elizabeth be at liberty to act as she wishes, provided she leaves me Warteburg and Naumburg.” Our Lord opened the landgrave’s eyes to see transformed into beautiful roses the provisions Elizabeth was carrying to the poor. Jesus crucified appeared in the leper she had taken into her own apartments that she might the better tend Him. If it happened that illustrious visitors arrived unexpectedly, and the duchess having bestowed all her jewels in alms was unable to adorn herself becomingly to do them honour, the Angels so well supplied the deficiency that, according to the German chroniclers of the time, it seemed to the astonished guests that the Queen of France herself could not have appeared more strikingly beautiful or more richly attired. Elizabeth indeed was never wanting to any of the obligations or requirements of her position as a wife and as a sovereign princess. As graciously simple in her virtues as she was affable to all, she could not understand the gloomy moroseness which some affected in their prayers and austerities. “They look as if they wanted to frighten our Lord,” she would say, “whereas He loves the cheerful giver.”

The time soon came when she herself had to give generously without counting the cost. First there was the cruel separation from her husband, Duke Lewis, on his departure for the Crusade. Then the heart-rending scene when his death was announced to her, just as she was about to give birth to her fourth child. And thirdly the atrocious act of Henry Raspon, the landgrave’s unworthy brother who, thinking this a good opportunity for seizing the deceased’s estates, drove out his widow and children and forbade anyone to give them hospitality. Then in the very land where every misery had been succoured by her charity, Elizabeth was reduced to the necessity of begging, and not without many rebuffs, a little bread for her poor children, and of seeking shelter with them in a pig-sty. On the return of the knights who had accompanied Duke Lewis to the Holy Land, justice was at length done to our Saint. But Elizabeth, who had become the passionate lover of holy poverty, chose to remain among the poor. She was the first professed Tertiary of the Seraphic Order, and the mantle sent by Saint Francis to his very dear daughter became her only treasure.

The path of perfect self-renunciation soon brought her to the threshold of Heaven. She who 20 years before had been carried to her betrothed in a silver cradle, and robed in silk and gold, now took her flight to God from a wretched hovel, her only garment being a patched gown. The minstrels, whose gay competitions had signalised the year of her birth, were no longer there. But the Angels were heard singing as they bore her up to Heaven: “The kingdom of this world have I despised for the love of Jesus Christ my Lord, whom I have seen, whom I have loved, in whom I have believed, whom I have tenderly loved.” Four years later, Elizabeth, now declared a Saint by the Vicar of Christ, beheld all the nations of the holy Empire, with the emperor himself at their head, hastening to Marburg, where she lay at rest in the midst of the poor whose life she had imitated. Her holy body was committed to the care of the Teutonic Knights, who in return for the honour, made Marburg one of the head-quarters of their Order and raised to her name the first Gothic church in Germany.

Numerous miracles long attracted the Christian world to the spot. And now, though still standing, though still beautiful in its mourning, Saint Elizabeth’s at Marburg knows its glorious titular only by name. And at Warteburg, where the dear Saint went through the sweetest episodes of her life as a child and as a bride, the great memorial now shown to the traveller is the pulpit of an excommunicated monk, and the ink stain with which, in a fit of folly or drunkenness, he had soiled the wall, as he afterwards endeavoured with his pen to profane and sully everything in the Church of God.

* * * * *

What a lesson you leave to the Earth, as you mount up to Heaven, O blessed Elizabeth! We ask with the Church, for ourselves and for all our brethren in the faith: may your glorious prayers obtain from the God of mercy that our hearts may open to the light of your life’s teaching, so that despising worldly prosperity we. may rejoice in heavenly consolations.

The Gospel read in your honour today tells us that the kingdom of Heaven is like a hidden treasure and a precious pearl: the wise and prudent man sells all he has to obtain the treasure or the pearl (Matthew xii.). You well understood this good traffic, as the Epistle calls it (Proverbs xxxi.) and it became the good fortune of all around you: of your happy subjects, who received from you succour and assistance for both soul and body, of your noble husband, who found an honourable place among those princes who knew how to exchange a perishable diadem for an eternal crown: in a word, of all who belonged to you. You were their boast, and several among them followed in your footsteps along the heavenward path of self-renunciation. How is it that others, in an age of destruction, could abjure their title of children of Saints and draw the people after them to deal so wantonly with the sweetest memorials and the noblest traditions? May our Lord restore to His Church and to you the country where you experienced His love. May your supplications, united with ours, revive the ancient faith in those branches of your stock which are no longer nourished with that life-giving sap, and may the glorious trunk continue, in its faithful branches, to give saints to the world.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of St. Pontian, pope and martyr, who, with the priest Hippolytus, was transported to Sardinia by the emperor Alexander, and there, being scourged to death with rods, consummated his martyrdom. His body was conveyed to Rome by the blessed Pope Fabian, and buried in the cemetery of Callistus.

At Samaria, the holy prophet Abdias.

At Rome, on the Via Appia, the birthday of St. Maximus, priest and martyr, who suffered in the persecution of Valerian, and was buried near Pope St. Sixtus.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, St. Barlaam, martyr, who, though unpolished and ignorant, yet armed with the wisdom of Christ, overcame the tyrant, and by the constancy of his faith subdued fire itself. On his birthday, St. Basil the Great delivered a celebrated discourse.

At Ecijo, the blessed bishop Oispinus, who obtained the glory of martyrdom by decapitation.

At Vienne, the holy martyrs Severinus, Exuperius and Felician. Their bodies, after the lapse of many years, were found through their own revelation, and being taken up with due honours by the bishop, clergy and people of that city, were buried with becoming solemnity.

The same day, St. Faustus, deacon of Alexandria, who was first banished with St. Denis in the persecution of Valerian. Later, in the persecution of Diocletian, being far advanced in age, he consummated his martyrdom by the sword.

In Isauria, the martyrdom of Saint Azas and his military companions, to the number of one hundred and fifty, under the emperor Diocletian and the tribune Aquilinus.

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

Thanks be to God.

18 NOVEMBER – DEDICATION OF THE BASILICAS OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

Among the holy places venerated of old by the Christians, those were the most honoured and most frequented in which the bodies of the Saints were preserved, or some relic or memorial of the Martyrs. Chief among these holy places has ever been that part of the Vatican hill which was called the Confession of Saint Peter. Christians from all parts of the world flocked to there, as to the rock of the faith and the foundation of the Church, and honoured with the greatest reverence and piety the spot hallowed by the sepulchre of the prince of the Apostles.

To there on the octave day of his baptism, came the emperor Constantine the Great, and taking off his diadem, he prostrated on the ground with many tears. Then taking a hoe and mattock he broke up the earth, of which twelve baskets were taken away in honour of the twelve Apostles, and on the site thus marked out, he built the basilica of the Prince of the Apostles. Pope Saint Sylvester dedicated it on the fourteenth of the Calends of December, just as he had consecrated the Lateran church on the fifth of the Ides of November. He erected in it a stone altar which he anointed with chrism, and decreed that thenceforward all altars should be made of stone. The same blessed Sylvester dedicated the basilica of Saint Paul the Apostle on the Via Ostiensis, also magnificently built by the emperor Constantine, who enriched both basilicas with many estates and rich gifts and ornaments.

The Vatican basilica, however, began to decay through age and was rebuilt from its foundations on a more extensive and magnificent scale through the piety of several Pontiffs. It was solemnly dedicated by Pope Urban VIII on this day in 1626. In the year 1823 the Ostian basilica was burnt to the ground, but the ruins were repaired and it was rebuilt more splendidly than before, through the unwearied exertions of four Popes. Blessed Pius IX, seizing the auspicious occasion, when his Definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin Mary had drawn an immense number of Cardinals and Bishops from distant parts of the Catholic world to Rome, solemnly dedicated this basilica on the tenth of December 1854, assisted and surrounded by this noble gathering of prelates, and he decreed that the anniversary commemoration should be celebrated on this day.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

QUOD DUCE TE MUNDUS SURREXIT IN ASTRA TRIUMPHANS, HANC CONSTANTINUS VICTOR TIBI CONDIDIT AULAM. Because the world under your conduct has risen triumphant to the very heavens, Constantine the emperor has built this temple in your honour. This inscription stood in letters of gold over the triumphal arch in the ancient Vatican Basilica. Never did the Roman genius frame a more magnificent utterance in so few words. never did the greatness of Simon Bar-Jonah appear to such advantage on the seven hills. In 1506 the great arch that had looked down upon twelve centuries of prostrate pilgrims fell from old age and the beautiful inscription perished. But Michelangelo’s lofty dome points out to the city and the world the spot where sleeps the Galilean fisherman, the successor of the Caesars, the Vicar of Christ, the ruler of the destinies of Rome. The second glory of the eternal City is the tomb of Saint Paul on the Via Ostiensis. Unlike that of St. Peter, which lies deep down in the Vatican crypt, this tomb is raised to the level of the floor by massive masonry, on which rests the great sarcophagus. This circumstance was ascertained in 1841 when the papal altar was reconstructed. It was evidently to obviate the consequences of inundations from the Tiber that the sarcophagus had thus been raised above the place where Lucina had first laid it. The pilgrim certainly finds nothing to blame in this arrangement when, on looking through the small opening in the centre of the altar, his respectful glance falls upon the marble of the tomb, and he reads these imposing words traced in large characters of Constantine’s period: PAULO APOSTOLO ET MARTYRI. To Paul Apostle and Martyr. Thus Christian Rome is protected on the North and South by these two citadels. Let us enter into the sentiments of our fathers when they said of this privileged city: “Peter the door-keeper, sets his holy dwelling at the entrance: who can deny that this city is like Heaven? At the other extremity, Paul from his temple guards the walls. Rome lies between the two: here then God dwells.”

The present feast therefore deserves to be more than a local solemnity. Its extension to the universal Church is a subject for the world’s gratitude. Thanks to this feast we can all make together in spirit today the pilgrimage ad limina Apostolorum, which our ancestors performed with such fatigue and danger, yet never thought they purchased too dearly its holy joys and blessings. “Heavenly mountains, glittering heights of the new Sion! There are the gates of our true country, the two lights of the immense world. There Paul’s voice is heard like thunder. There Peter withholds or hurls the bolt. The former opens the hearts of men, the latter opens heaven. Peter is the foundation-stone, Paul the architect of the temple where stands the altar by which God is propitiated. Both together form a single fountain which pours out its healing and refreshing waters” (Venatius Fortunatus, Miscellania, iii. 7).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Antioch, the birthday of St. Romanus, martyr, in the time of the emperor Galerius. When the prefect Asclepiades broke into the churches and strove to destroy them completely, Romanus exhorted the Christians to resist him, and after being subjected to dire torments and the cutting out of his tongue (without which, however, he spoke the praises of God), he was strangled in prison and crowned with a glorious martyrdom. Before him suffered a young boy named Barula, who being asked by him whether it was better to worship one God or several gods, and having answered that we must believe in the one God whom the Christians adore, was scourged and beheaded.

Also at Antioch, the holy martyr Hesychius, a soldier. Hearing the order that anyone refusing to sacrifice to idols should lay aside his military belt, he immediately took off his. For this reason, he was precipitated into the river with a large stone tied to his right hand.

The same day, the Saints Oriculus and his companions, who suffered for the Catholic faith in the persecution of the Vandals.

At Mayence, St. Maximus, bishop, who, after suffering much from the Arians, died a confessor in the time of Constantius.

At Tours, the departure from this life of blessed Odo, abbot of Cluny.

At Antioch, St. Thomas, a monk honoured with an annual solemnity by the people of Antioch for having obtained the cessation of a pestilence by his prayers.

At Lucca in Tuscany, the translation of St. Frigdian, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 NOVEMBER – SAINT GREGORY THE WONDER-WORKER (Bishop and Confessor)

 

Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, was illustrious for his holiness and learning, but still more for his miracles which were so startling and so numerous that he was called the Thaumaturgus. And, according to Saint Basil, he was considered comparable to Moses, the Prophets and the Apostles. By his prayer he removed a mountain which was an obstacle to the building of a church. He also dried up a lake which was a cause of dissension between brothers. The river Lycus, which was inundating and devastating the fields, he restrained by fixing in the bank his stick which immediately grew into a green tree and served as a limit which the river henceforth never overpassed.

He frequently expelled the devils from idols and from men’s bodies, and worked many other miracles, by means of which he led multitudes to the faith of Christ. He also foretold future events by the spirit of prophecy. When he was dying, be asked how many infidels remained in the city of Neocaesarea, and on being informed that there were only 17, he gave thanks to God, and said: “When I was made bishop, there were but 17 believers.” He wrote several works by which, as well as by his miracles, he adorned the Church of God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Moses instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, mighty in his words and in his deeds,” (Act vii. 22) retired into the desert: Gregory, adorned with the best gifts of birth and nature, brilliant in rhetoric, rich in every science, hid himself from men in the flower of his youth and hastened to offer to God in solitude the holocaust best pleasing to the Lord. Each was the hope of his race, yet each turned away to lose himself in the contemplation of heavenly mysteries. Meanwhile, the yoke of Pharaoh lay heavy upon Israel. Meanwhile, souls were perishing, whom one of Gregory’s burning words might have snatched from the empire of idolatry: was not such flight, then, desertion? Is it for man to proclaim himself a saviour when Jesus did not arrogate that title to Himself? And when evil was rife all around, did the Carpenter of Nazareth do wrong to remain in the shade for 30 years previous to His short period of ministry? O ye teachers of our excited, fevered times who dream of a new hierarchy among the virtues and understand divine charity far otherwise than did our fathers, not those are of the race of Israel’s saviours whose ideas concerning social good differ from those of the world’s Redeemer.

Gregory, like Moses, was of that blessed race. His friends and enemies agreed in saying that he resembled the Hebrew legislator in the excellence of his virtue, and in the splendour of the prodigies wrought by his word. Both were actuated by the desire of knowing God, and manifesting Him to the men they were called to lead: the fullness of doctrine is the gift most necessary to the guides of the people, and their want of it the greatest penury. “I am who am” was the answer to Moses’ enquiry, and this sublime formula confided to him from the midst of the burning bush authenticated the mission which called him forth from the desert. When Gregory was commanded by God to go out into the world, the blessed Virgin, of whom the burning bush was a figure, appeared before his dazzled eyes in the dark night when he was praying for light. And Saint John, following the Mother of God, let fall from his lips this other formula completing the former for the disciples of the Law of love: “One only God, Father of the living Word, of that substantial and mighty Wisdom who is the eternal expression of Himself; the perfect principle of the only and perfect Son begotten by Him. One only Lord, sole-begotten of the Only one; God of God, efficacious Word, Wisdom embracing and containing the world, creative power of all creation, true Son of a true Father. One only Holy Spirit, holding of God His divine existence, revealed to men by the Son of whom he is the perfect likeness, life and life-giving, holy and imparting holiness. The perfect Trinity, immutable, inseparable in glory, in eternity, in dominion.”

This was the message our Saint was to communicate to his country, the creed that was to bear his name in the Church. By his faith in the most Holy Trinity he was to remove mountains and set limits to the waves to drive out Satan and eradicate infidelity from Pontus. When, towards the year 240, Gregory, then bishop, was on his way to Neocaesarea, he saw on all sides the temples of idols and stopped for the night at a famous sanctuary. In the morning all the gods had taken to flight and refused to come back, but the Saint gave to the priest of the oracle a note thus worded: Gregory to Satan: return. A more bitter defeat awaited the demons. Forced to stay their precipitate retreat, they were compelled to witness the ruin of their empire over the souls they had abused. The priest was the first to give himself up to the Bishop and became his deacon. And soon upon the ruins of the temples everywhere overthrown arose the Church of Christ, the only God.

Happy was that Church, so firmly founded that heresy was powerless against it in the following century when so many others bowed before the storm of Arianism. On the testimony of Saint Basil, the successors of Saint Gregory, themselves eminent men, were as an adornment of precious stones, a crown of stars, to the Church of Neocaesarea. Now all these illustrious Pontiffs, says he, considered it an honour to keep up the memory of their great predecessor. They would never suffer that any act, word, or movement other than his, in performing the sacred rites, should prevail over the traditions he had left.

When Clement XII, as we have seen, established in the entire Church the feast of Saint Gertrude the Great, he at first decreed that it should be kept on this day, on which it is still celebrated by the Order of Saint Benedict. But as the 17th November had been for long centuries assigned to Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, it seemed unfitting, said Benedict XIV, that he who moved mountains should himself be moved from his place by the holy virgin. Accordingly in 1739, the year following its institution, the feast of Saint Gertrude was fixed on the fifteenth of this month.

Note: That feast was later moved to the 16th of October.

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O holy Pontiff, your faith, removing mountains and commanding the waves, was a justification of our Lord’s promise. Teach us in our turn to do honour to the Gospel by never doubting of our Lord’s word and of the help he promises us against Satan whom the Church points out to us today as the proud mountain that is to be cast into the sea, and also against the overflowing tide of our passions and the enticements of the world, of which your writings teach us the vanity. After the victory let us not forget that the succour came to us from Heaven. Preserve us from ingratitude, which you so detested. We still possess the touching eulogy dictated by your gratitude towards the illustrious master, to whose teachings, under God, you owed the glorious strength and splendour of your faith. Here is a precious and practical lesson for all: while praising divine Providence in the man who was His predestined instrument in your regard, you never forgot the homage due to the Angel of God who had preserved you from falling into the abyss during the darkness of infidelity in which your first years were spent: that heavenly Guardian who, ever watchful in his active, enlightened, persevering devotedness, supplies for our insufficiencies, nourishes and instructs us, leads us by the hand, and secretly arranges for our souls those blessed circumstances and occasions which transform our life and secure eternal happiness. How can we sinful creatures sufficiently thank the Author of all good, the infinite Being who gives to man both the holy Angels and the visible intermediaries of divine grace on Earth? But let us take courage, for we have as our Head His own Son, His Word who saved our souls, and who rules the universe. He alone, and that without effort, can render to His Father unceasing, eternal thanksgiving, for Himself and for us all, without risk of not knowing or of forgetting the least subject of gratitude, without fear of any imperfection in the manner or the magnitude of His praise. To Him, then, to the divine Word, we commit as you did, O Gregory, the care of perfecting the expression of our gratitude for the unspeakable kindness of our heavenly Father. For the Word is to us, as to you, the only channel of piety, gratitude and love. May He give us in these days pastors who will imitate your works, and may He raise up again the ancient churches of the East which once received such light from you!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Palestine, the holy martyrs Alphaeus and Zacchaeus, who in the first year of the persecution of Diocletian, after many torments underwent capital punishment.

At Cordova, during the same persecution, the holy martyrs Acisclus, and Victoria, his sister, who were most cruelly tortured by order of the governor Dion, and thus merited to be crowned by Our Lord for their glorious sufferings.

At Alexandria, St. Denis, bishop, a man of the most profound learning. Renowned for having often confessed the faith, and illustrious by the various sufferings and torments he had endured, full of days he rested in peace a confessor, in the time of the emperors Valerian and Gallienus.

At Orleans, St. Anian, bishop, whose precious death in the sight of the Lord is attested by frequent miracles.

In England, St. Hugh, bishop, who was called from a Carthusian monastery to the government of the church of Lincoln. He ended his holy life in peace, renowned for many miracles.

At Tours, St. Gregory, bishop.

At Florence, St. Eugenius, confessor, deacon of blessed Zenobius, bishop of that city.

In Germany, St. Gertrude, virgin, of the Order of St. Benedict, who was renowned for the revelations she received. Her festival is celebrated on the sixteenth of this month.

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

Thanks be to God.