13 OCTOBER – TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The remaining Sundays are the last of the Church’s Cycle, but their proximity with its final termination varies each Year according as Easter was early or late. This their moveable character does away with anything like harmony between the composition of their Masses and the Lessons of the Night Office, all of which, dating from August, have been appointed and fixed for each subsequent week. This we have already explained to our Readers.

Still, the instruction which the Faithful ought to derive from the sacred Liturgy would be incomplete, and the spirit of the Church, during these last weeks of her Year would not be sufficiently understood by her children, unless they were to remember that the two months of October and November are filled, the first with readings from the book of the Machabees, whose example inspirits us for the final combats, and the second with lessons from the Prophets proclaiming to us the judgements of God.

Durandus, Bishop of Mende, in his Rational, tells us that this, and the following Sundays till Advent, bear closely on the Gospel of the Marriage-Feast, of which they are really but a further development. “Whereas,” says he, speaking of this twenty-first Sunday, “this Marriage has no more powerful opponent than the envy of Satan, the Church speaks to us today on our combat with him, and on the armour with which we must be clad in order to go through this terrible battle, as we will see by the Epistle. And because sackcloth and ashes are the instruments of penance, therefore does the Church borrow for the Introit the words of Mardochai, who prayed for God’s mercy in sackcloth and ashes.”

These reflections of Durandus are quite true but if the thought of her having soon to be united with her divine Spouse is uppermost in the Church’s mind, yet it is by forgetting her own happiness and turning all her thoughts to mankind, whose salvation has been entrusted to her care by her Lord, that she will best prove herself to be truly His Bride during the miseries of those last days. As we have already said, the near approach of the general judgement and the terrible state of the world during the period immediately preceding that final consummation of time is the very soul of the Liturgy during these last Sundays of the Church’s Year. As regards the present Sunday, the portion of the Mass which used formerly to attract the attention of our Catholic forefathers was the Offertory taken from the book of Job, with its telling exclamations and its emphatic repetitions. We may, in all truth, say, that this Offertory contains the ruling idea which runs through this twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. Reduced like Job on the dung-hill, to the extremity of wretchedness, the world has nothing to trust to but to God’s mercy. The holy men who are still living in it, imitating in the name of all mankind, the sentiments of the just man of Idumea, honour God by a patience and resignation which do but add power and intensity to their supplications. They begin by making their own the sublime prayer made, by Mardochai, for his people who were doomed to extermination. The world is condemned to a similar ruin (Esther xiii. 9‒11).

Epistle – Ephesians vi. 10‒17

Brethren, be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of His power. Put on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take to yourself the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, with which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take to yourself the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The early beginnings of man’s union with his God are, generally speaking, deliciously calm. Divine Wisdom, once He has led His chosen creature by hard laborious work to the purification of his mind and senses, allows him (when the sacred alliance is duly concluded) to rest on His sacred breast and thoroughly attaches the devoted one to Himself by delights which are an ante-dated Heaven, making the soul despise every earthly pleasure. It seems as though the welcome law of Deuteronomy were always in force (Deuteronomy xxiv. 5), namely, that no battle and no anxiety must ever break in upon the first season of the glorious union. But this exemption from the general taxation is never of long duration, for combat is the normal state of every man here below (Job vii. 1).

The Most High is pleased at seeing a battle well fought by His Christian soldiers. There is no name so frequently applied to Him by the Prophets as that of the God of Hosts. His divine Son, who is the Spouse, shows Himself here on this Earth of ours as the Lord who is mighty in battle (Psalm xxiii. 8). In the mysterious nuptial Canticle of the forty-fourth Psalm He lets us see Him as Most Powerful Prince girding on His grand Sword (Psalm xliv. 4) and making His way, with His sharp arrows, through the very heart and thick of His enemies (Psalm xliv. 6) in order to reach, in fair valiance and beautiful victory, the Bride He has chosen as His own (Psalm xliv. 5). She, too, just like Him —she, the Bride, whose beauty He has vouchsafed to love (Psalm xliv. 12) and wills her to share in all His own glories (Psalm xliv. 10) — yes, she too advances towards Him in the glittering armour of a warrior (Canticles iv. 4) surrounded by choirs (Canticles vii. 1) singing the magnificent exploits of the Spouse and, she herself terrible as an army set in array (Canticles vi. 9). The armour of the brave is on her arms and breast. Her noble bearing reminds one of the tower of David with its thousand bucklers (Canticles iv. 4).

United to her divine Lord, warriors the most valiant stand about her. They merit that privilege by their well-proved sword and their skill in war. Each one of them has his sword quite ready because of the night-surprises which the enemy may use against this most dear Church (Canticles iii. 7, 8). For until the dawn of the eternal day when the shadows of this present life are put to flight (Canticles iv. 6) by the light of the Lamb (Apocalypse xxi. 9, 23) who will then have vanquished all His enemies — yes, until that day, power is in the hands of the rulers of the world of this darkness, says Saint Paul in today’s Epistle. And it is against them that we must take to ourselves the armour of God which he there describes. We must wear it all if we would be able to resist in the evil day.

The evil days spoken of by the Apostle last Sunday (Ephesians v. 16) are frequent in the life of every individual as likewise in the world’s history. But,for every man, and for the world at large, there is one evil day, evil beyond all the others: it is the last day, the day of judgement, the day of exceeding bitterness, as the Church calls it on account of the woe and misery which are to fill it. We talk of so many years as passing away, and of centuries succeeding each other. But all these are neither more nor less than preparations hurrying on the world to the Last Day. Happy they who, on that Day, will fight the good fight (2 Timothy iv. 7) and win victory! Or who, as our Apostle expresses it, will stand while all around them is ruin, yes, stand, in all things, perfect! They will not be hurt by the second death (Apocalypse ii. 11). Wreathed with the crown of justice (2 Timothy iv. 8) they will reign with God (Apocalypse xx. 6) on His throne, together with His Son (Apocalypse iii. 21).

The war is an easy one when we have this Man-God for our Leader. All He asks of us is what the Apostle thus words: “Be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of His power!” It is leaning on her Beloved that the beautiful Church is to go up from the desert and thus supported she is actually to be flowing with delights (Canticles viii. 5) even in those most sad days. The faithful soul is out of herself with love when she remembers that the armour she wears is the armour of God, that is, the very armour of her Spouse. It is quite thrilling to hear the Prophets describing this Jesus, this Leader, of ours, accoutred for battle and with all the pieces we, too, are to wear: He girds Himself with the girdle of faith (Isaias xi. 5), then He puts the helmet of salvation on His beautiful head (Isaias lix. 17), then the breastplate of justice (Wisdom v. 19), then the shield of invincible equity (Wisdom v. 20), and finally a magnificently tempered sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Apocalypse ii. 16). We should almost think we were here having a list of our own arms. Well, yes, but they are His first. And the Gospel shows Him to us as entering, Himself, on the great battle, that He might show us how to use these same divine arms which He puts upon each of us, if we will but be His soldiers.

This armour consists of many parts, because of its varied uses and effects. And yet, whether offensive or defensive, all of them have one common name, and that name is Faith. Our Epistle makes us say so. And our Jesus, our Leader, taught it us when to the triple temptation brought against Him by the devil on the mount of Quarantana, He made answer to each temptation by a text from the sacred Scriptures (Matthew iv. 1‒11) The victory which overcomes the world is our Faith, says Saint John (1 John v. 4). When Saint Paul, at the close of his career, reviews the combats he had fought through life, he sums up all in this telling word: “I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy iv. 7). The life of Paul in that should be the life of every Christian, for he says to us: “Fight the good fight of faith!” (1 Timothy vi. 12). It is Faith which, in spite of those fearful odds enumerated in today’s Epistle as being against us, it is Faith that ensures the victory to men of good will. If, in the warfare we must go through, we were to reckon the chances of our enemies by their overwhelming forces and advantages, it is quite certain that we should have little hope of winning the day: for it is not with men like ourselves, it is not, as the Apostle puts it, with flesh and blood, that we have to wrestle, but with enemies that we can never grapple with, who are in the high places of the air around us and are, therefore, invisible and most skilled, and powerful, and wonderfully up in all the sad secrets of our poor fallen nature, and turning the whole weight of their advantages to trick man and ruin him out of hatred for God. These wicked spirits were originally created that in the purity of their unmixed spiritual nature they should be a reflex of the divine splendour of their Maker. And now, having rebelled by pride, they exhibit that execrable prodigy of angelic intelligences spending all their powers in doing evil to man, and in hating truth.

How, then, are we who, by our very nature are darkness and misery, to wrestle with these spiritual principalities and powers who devote all their wisdom and rage to produce darkness so as to turn the whole Earth into a world of darkness? “By our becoming Light,” answers Saint John Chrysostom. The light, it is true, is not to shine on us in its own direct brightness until the great day of the revelation of the sons of God (Romans viii. 19), but meanwhile we have a divine subsidy which supplements sight. That subsidy is the Revealed Word (2 Peter ii. 19). Baptism did not open our eyes so as to see God, but it opened our ears so as to give us to hear Him when He speaks to us. Now He speaks to us by the Scriptures and by His Church, and our Faith gives us, regarding Truth thus Revealed, a certainty as great as though we saw it with the eyes of either body or soul, or both. By his child-like docility, the just man walks on in peace with the simplicity of the Gospel within him. Better than breastplate or helmet, the shield of faith protects us, and from every sort of injury. It blunts the fiery darts of the world, it repels the fury of our own passions, it makes us far-seeing enough to escape the most artful snares of the most wicked ones. Is not the word of God good for every emergency? And we may have it as often and as much as we please.

Satan has a horror of the Christian who, though he may be weak in other respects, is strong in this divine word. He has a greater fear of that man than he has of all your schools of philosophy, and all its professors. He has got accustomed to the torture of such a man crushing him beneath his feet (Romans xvi. 20) and with a rapidity (Romans xvi. 20) which is akin to what our Lord tells us He Himself witnessed: “I saw Satan, like lightning, falling from Heaven” (Luke x. 18): it was on the great battle-day (Apocalypse xii. 7) when he was hurled from paradise by that one word Michael — exquisite word, which was given to the triumphant Archangel to be his everlasting noble name! And he himself, by that word of God, and by that victory for God, was made our model and our defender. We have already explained to our readers why it is that these closing weeks of the Church’s Year are so full of the grand Archangel Saint Michael.

Gospel – Matthew xviii. 23‒35

At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples this parable: The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him that owed him ten thousand talents: and as he had not the means to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment be made. But that servant falling down besought him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” And the lord of that servant, being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant had gone out, he found one of his fellow-servants that owed him a hundred pence; and laying hold of him, he throttled him, saying, “Pay me what you owe.” And his fellow-servant falling down besought him, saying, “Have patience with me and I will pay you all.” And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he paid the debt. Now his fellow-servants, seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that had been done. Then his lord called him and said to him, “You wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you besought me; should not you then have had compassion also on you fellow-servant, as I had compassion on you?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.

Praise to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“O thou just Judge of vengeance (on man) grant us the gift of forgiveness, before the Day of reckoning cometh!” Such is the petition that comes from the heart of holy Mother Church as she thinks on what may have befallen those countless children of hers who have been victims of death during this, as every other, year. It is, moreover, the supplication that should be made by every living soul after hearing the Gospel just read to us. The Sequence Dies Irae from which these words are taken is not only a sublime prayer for the Dead. It is, likewise, and especially at this close of the Ecclesiastical Year, an appropriate expression for all of us who are still living. Our thoughts and our expectations are naturally turned towards our own deaths. We almost seem forgotten and overlooked in this evening of the world’s existence. But it is not so, for we know from the sacred Scripture that we will join those who have already slept the last sleep, and will be taken, together with them, to meet our divine Judge (1 Thessalonians iv. 14‒16).

Let us hearken to some more of our Mother’s words in that same magnificent Sequence. This is their meaning: “How great will be our fear when the Judge is just about to come, and rigorously examine all our works! The trumpet’s wondrous sound will pierce the graves of every land and summon us all before the throne! Death will stand amazed, and nature too, when the creature will rise again, to go and answer Him that is to judge! The written Book will be brought forth, in which all is contained, for which the world is to be tried. So, when the Judge will sit on his throne, every hidden secret will be revealed, nothing will remain unpunished! What shall I, poor wretch, then say? Who ask to be my patron, when the just man himself will scarce be safe? O King of dreaded majesty! who saves gratuitously them that are saved, save me, fount of love! Do thou remember, loving Jesu! that I was cause of your life on earth! Lose me not, on that Day!”

Undoubtedly, such a prayer as this has every best chance of being graciously heard, addressed as it is to Him who has nothing so much at heart as our salvation and who, for procuring it, gave Himself up to fatigue, and suffering, and death on the Cross: but we should be inexcusable, and deserve condemnation twice over, were we to neglect to profit of the advice He Himself gives us by which to avert from us the perils of “that day of tears, when guilty man will rise from the dust and go to be judged!” Let us, then, meditate on the parable of our Gospel, whose sole object is to teach us a sure way of settling, at once, our accounts with the divine King. We are all of us, in fact, that negligent servant, that insolvent debtor, whose master might in all justice sell him with all he has, and hand him over to the torturers. The debt contracted with God, by the sins we have committed, is of that nature as to deserve endless tortures. it supposes an eternal Hell in which the guilty one will ever be paying without ever cancelling his debt. Infinite praise, then, and thanks to the divine Creditor who, being moved to pity by the entreaties of the unhappy man who asks for time and he will pay all —yes, this good God grants him far beyond what he prays for, He, there and then, forgives him the debt. He puts but this condition on the pardon, as is evident from the sequel: He insists, and most justly, that he should go and do in like manner towards his fellow-servants who may, perhaps, owe something to him. After being so generously forgiven by his Lord and King — after having his infinite debt so gratuitously cancelled — how can he possibly turn a deaf ear to the very same prayer which won pardon for himself, now that a fellow servant makes it to him? Is it to be believed that he will refuse all pity towards one whose only offence is that he asks him for time, and he will pay all?

“It is quite true,” says Saint Augustine, “that every man has his fellow-man a debtor, for who is the man that has had no one to offend him? But, at the same time, who is the man that is not debtor to God, for all of us have sinned? Man, therefore, is both debtor to God, and creditor to his fellow-man. It is for this reason that God has laid down this rule for your conduct: that you must treat your debtor, as He treats his... We pray every day. Every day we send up the same petition to the divine throne. Every day we prostrate ourselves before God, and say to Him: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive them that are debtors to us” (Matthew vi. 12) Of what debts speak you? Is it of all your debts? Or of one or two only? You will say: Of all. Do you therefore forgive your debtor, for it is the rule laid upon you. It is the condition accepted by you.”

“It is a greater thing,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “to forgive our neighbour the trespasses he has committed against us, than to condone him a sum of money. For, by forgiving him his sins, we imitate God.” And, after all, what is the injury committed by one man against another man, if compared with the offence committed by man against God? Alas! we have all got the habit of that second. Even the just man knows its misery seven times (Proverbs xxiv. 16) over and, as the text probably means, seven times a day, so that it comes ruffling our whole day long. Let this, at least, be our parallel habit: that we contract a facility in being merciful towards our fellow-men since we, every night, have the assurance given us that we will be pardoned all our miseries on the condition of our owning them. It is an excellent practice not to go to bed without putting ourselves in the dispositions of a little child who can rest his head on God’s bosom and there fall asleep. But if we thus feel it a happy necessity to find in the heart of our heavenly Father (Matthew vi. 9) forgetfulness of our day’s faults, yes, more an infinitely tender love for us His poor tottering children, how can we, at that very time, dare to be storing up in our minds old grudges and scores against our neighbours, our brethren, who are also His children? Even supposing that we had been treated by them with outrageous injustice or insult, could these their faults bear any comparison with our offences against that good God, whose born enemies we were, and whom we have caused to be put to an ignominious death?

Whatever may be the circumstances attending the unkindness shown us, we may and should invariably practise the rule given us by the Apostle: “Be kind one to another! Merciful! Forgiving one another, as God has forgiven you, in Christ! Be imitators of God, as most dear children!” (Ephesians iv. 32, v. 1). What! You call God your Father and you remember an injury that has been done you? “That,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “is not the way a son of God acts in! The work of a son of God is this — to pardon one’s enemies, to pray for them that crucify him, to shed his blood for them that hate him. Would you know the conduct of one who is worthy to be a son of God? He takes his enemies, and his ingrates, and his robbers, and his insulters, and his traitors, and makes them his brethren and sharers of all his wealth!”

12 OCTOBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the holy martyrs Evagrius, Priscian and their companions.

At Ravenna, on the Via Laurentina, the birthday of St. Edistius, martyr.

In Lycia, St. Domnina, martyr, under the emperor Diocletian.

In Africa, four thousand nine hundred and sixty-six holy confessors and martyrs in the persecution of the Vandals under the Arian king Hunneric. Some of them were bishops, some priests and deacons, with a multitude of the faithful accompanying them, who were driven into a frightful wilderness for the defence of the Catholic truth. Many of them were cruelly annoyed by the Moorish leaders, and with sharp-pointed spears and stones forced to hasten their march, while others, with their feet tied, were dragged like corpses through rough places and mangled in all their limbs. They were finally tortured in different manners, and won the honours of martyrdom. The principal among them were the bishops Felix and Cyprian.

At Cilly in Styria, St. Maximilian, bishop of Lorch.

At York in England, St. Wilfrid, bishop and confessor.

At Milan, St. Monas, bishop. He was chosen as head of that church because a miraculous light from heaven surrounded him while they were deliberating on the choice of a bishop.

At Verona, St. Salvinus, bishop.

In Syria, St. Eustachius, priest and confessor.

At Ascoli, St. Seraphinus, confessor, of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins, distinguished by holiness of life and humility. He was enrolled among the saints by Pope Clement XIII.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 OCTOBER – TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – Ephesians v. 15‒21

Brethren, see how you walk circumspectly, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore, become not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury: but be filled with the Holy Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord: giving thanks always for all things, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father; being subject one to another in the fear of Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

As the nuptials of the Son of God approach their final completion, there will be, also, on the side of Hell, a redoubling of rage against the Bride, with a determination to destroy her. The dragon of the Apocalypse (Apocalypse xii. 9) the old serpent who seduced Eve, will vomit his vile foam, as a river, from his mouth (Apocalypse xii. 15): that is, he will urge on all the passions of man that they may league together for her ruin. But, do what he will, he can never weaken the bond of the eternal alliance. And having no power against the Church herself, he will turn his fury against the last children of the new Eve who will have the perilous honour of those final battles, which are described by the Prophet of Patmos (Apocalypse xii. 17).

It is then, more than at all previous times, that the Faithful will have to remember the injunction given to us by the Apostle in today’s Epistle: that is, they will have to comport themselves with that circumspection which he enjoins, taking every possible care to keep their understanding, no less than their heart, pure, in those evil days. Supernatural light will, in those days, not only have to stand the attacks of the children of darkness who will put forward their false doctrines. It will, moreover, be minimised and falsified by the very children of the light yielding on the question of principles. It will be endangered by the hesitations, and trimmings, and human prudence, of those who are called far-seeing men. Many will practically ignore the master-truth that the Church never can be overwhelmed by any created power. If they do remember that our Lord has promised Himself to uphold his Church even to the end of the world (Matthew xxviii. 20), they will still have the impertinence to believe that they do a great service to the good cause by making certain politically clever concessions which, if they were tried in the balance of the sanctuary, would be found under weight!

Those future worldly-wise people will quite forget that our Lord will have no need, for helping Him to keep His promise, of crooked schemes, however shrewd those may be. They will entirely overlook this most elementary consideration — that the co-operation which Jesus deigns to accept, at the hands of His servants, in the defence of the rights of His Church, never could consist in the garbling, or in the disguisement, of those grand truths which constitute the power and beauty of the Bride. Is it possible that they will forget the Apostle’s maxim which he lays down in his Epistle to the Romans — that the conforming oneself to this world — the attempting an impossible adaptation of the Gospel to a world that is un-Christianised — is not the means for proving what is the good, and acceptable, and the perfect will of God? (Romans xii. 12) So that it will be a thing of great and rare merit, in many an occurrence of those unhappy times, to merely understand what is the will of God, as our Epistle expresses it.

“Look to yourselves,” would Saint John say to those men, “that you lose not the things which you have wrought. Make yourselves sure of the full reward,” which is only given to the persevering thoroughness of doctrine and faith! (2 John 8, 9). Besides, it will be then, as in all other times, that according to the saying of the Holy Ghost, “the simplicity of the just will guide them” (Proverbs xi. 3) and far more safely than any human ingenuity could do. Humility will give them Wisdom (Proverbs xi. 2) and, keeping themselves closely united to this noble companion, they will be made truly wise by her, and will know what is acceptable to God (Wisdom ix. 10). They will understand that aspiring, like the Church herself, to union with the eternal Word — fidelity to the Spouse, for them, as it is for the Church, is nothing else than fidelity to the truth, for the Word, who is the one same object of love to both of them, is in God no other than the splendour of infinite truth (Wisdom vii. 25, 26).

Their one care, therefore, will ever be to approach nearer and nearer to their Beloved by a continually increasing resemblance to Him: that is to say, by the completest reproduction, both in their words and works, of the beautiful Truth. By so doing they will be serving their fellow creatures in the best possible way, for they will be putting in practice the counsel of Jesus, who bids them seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and confide in Him for all the rest (Matthew vi. 33). Others may have recourse to human and accommodating combinations fitted to please all parties. They may put forward dubious compromises which (so their suggestors think) will keep back for some weeks, or some months perhaps, the fierce tide of revolution. But those who have God’s spirit in them will put a very different construction on the admonition given us by the Apostle in today’s Epistle, where he tells us to redeem the time.

It was our Lord who bought time, and at a great price. And He bought it for us that it might be employed by His faithful servants in procuring glory for God. By most men it is squandered away in sin or folly, but those who are united to Christ as living members to the Spouse of their souls will redeem it. That is, they will put such an intensity into their faith and their love that, as far as it is possible for human nature, not a moment of their time will be anything but an earnest undiminished (Psalm xi. 2) tribute of their service of their Lord. To the insolent and blasphemous things which are then to be spoken by the Beast (Apocalypse xiii. 5, 6), these determined servants of God will give for their brave answer the cry of Saint Michael which he uttered against Satan who was the helper of the Beast (Apocalypse xiii. 2): “Who is like God!”

These closing weeks of the year used in old times to be called: Weeks of the holy Angel. We have seen, in one of these Sundays how there was announced the great Archangel’s coming to the aid of God’s people as Daniel the Prophet had foretold would be at the end of the world (Daniel xii. 1). When, therefore, the final tribulations will commence, when exile will scatter the Faithful and the sword will slay them (Apocalypse xiii. 7, 10) and the world will approve all that, prostrate, as it then will be, before the Beast and his image (Apocalypse xiii. 3, 4, 8, 15), let us not forget that we have a leader chosen by God and proclaimed by the Church: a leader who will marshal us during those final combats in which the defeat of the Saints (Apocalypse xiii. 7) will be more glorious than were the triumphs of the Church in the days when she ruled the world. For, what God will then ask of his servants will not be success of diplomatic arrangements, nor a victory won by arms, but fidelity to His truth, that is, to His Word: a fidelity all the more generous and perfect, as there will be an almost universal falling off around the little army fighting under the Archangel’s banner. Uttered by a single faithful heart, and under such circumstances, and uttered with the bravery of faith and the ardour of love — the cry of Saint Michael, which heretofore routed the infernal legions, will be a greater honour to God than will be the insult offered to Him by the millions of the degraded followers of the Beast.

Let us get thoroughly imbued with these thoughts which are suggested by the opening lines of our Epistle. Let us, also, master the other instructions it contains and which, after all, differ but little from the ones we have been developing. On this Sunday when, formerly, was read the Gospel of the nuptials of the Son of God and the invitation to his divine banquet, our holy Mother the Church appropriately in the Epistle bids us observe the immense difference there is between these sacred delights, and the joys of the world’s marriage feasts. The calm, the purity, the peace of the just man who is admitted into intimacy with God, are a continual feast to his soul (Proverbs xv. 16). The food served up at that feast is Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 29). Wisdom, too, is the beloved Guest, who is unfailingly there (Wisdom viii. 16; Apocalypse iii. 20). The world is quite welcome to its silly and often shameful pleasures. The Word and the soul which, in a mysterious way, He has filled with the Holy Spirit (Canticles i. 1) join together to sing to the eternal Father in admirable unison. They will go on, forever, with their hymns of thanksgiving and praise, for the materials of both are infinite. The hideous sight of the earth’s inhabitants who will then, by thousands, be paying homage to the harlot, who sits on the Beast and offers them the golden cup of her abominations (Apocalypse xvii. 1‒5) — no, not even that will interfere in the least with the bliss caused in Heaven by the sight of those happy souls on Earth. The convulsions of a world in its last agony, the triumphs of the woman drunk with the blood of the martyrs (Apocalypse xvii. 6) — far from breaking in on the harmony which comes from a soul which is united with the Word, they will but give greater fullness to her notes which sound forth the divine, and greater sweetness to the human music of the human song.

The Apostle tells all this in his own magnificent way where he says: “Who, then, will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? True, it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Psalm xliii. 22) — but in all these things we overcome because of Him that has loved us. For I am sure, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord” (Romans viii. 35‒39).

Gospel – John iv. 46‒53

At that time, there was a certain ruler whose son was sick at Capharnaum. Having heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and prayed Him to come down and heal his son for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not.” The ruler said to Him, “Lord, come down before my son dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go your way, your son lives.” The man believed the word which Jesus said to him and went his way. And as he was going down, his servants met him and they brought word, saying that his son lived. He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father therefore knew that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed and his whole house.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Gospel for today is taken from Saint John. It it is the first and only time during the whole course of these Sundays after Pentecost. It gives the twentieth Sunday the name of Ruler of Capharnaum. The Church has selected this Gospel on account of its bearing a certain mysterious relation to the state the world will be in when those last days will come which the Liturgy of this close of the Church’s Year is so continually and prophetically bringing before us.

The world is drawing towards its end. Like the Ruler’s son, it begins to die. Tormented by the fever of the passions which have been excited in Capharnaum, the city of business and pleasure, it is too weak to go itself to the Physician who could cure it. It is for its father, for the pastors who by baptism gave it the life of grace and govern the Christian people as rulers of holy Church. It is for them to go to Jesus and beseech Him to restore the sick man to health. Saint John begins this account (John iv. 46) by mentioning the place where they were to find Jesus: it was at Cana, the city of the marriage-feast and where He first manifested His power (John ii. 11) in the banquet hall. It is in Heaven that the Man-God abides now that he has quitted our Earth where He has left His disciples deprived of the Bridegroom (Matthew ix. 15) and having to pass a certain period of time in the field of penance.

Capharnaum signifies the field of penance and of consolation, which penance brings with it. Such was this Earth intended to be when Man was driven from Eden. Such was the consolation to which during this life the sinner was to aspire. And because of his having sought after other consolations, because of his having pretended at turning this field of penance into a new paradise, the world is now to be destroyed. Man has exchanged the life-giving delights of Eden for the pleasures which kill the soul, and ruin the body, and draw down the divine vengeance. There is a remedy for all this, and only one. It is the zeal of the pastors, and the prayers of that portion of Christ’s flock which has withstood the torrent of universal corruption. But it is of the utmost importance that, on this point, the Faithful and their Pastors should lay aside all personal considerations and thoroughly enter into the spirit which animates the Church herself. Though treated with the most revolting ingratitude, and injustice, and calumny, and treachery of every sort, this Mother of mankind forgets all these her own wrongs and thinks only of the true prosperity and salvation of the very countries which despise her. She is well aware that the time is at hand when God will make justice triumphant. and yet she goes on struggling, as Jacob did, with God (Genesis xxxii. 24‒28) until there come the dawn of that terrible day foretold by David and the Sibyl. At the thought of the pool of fire (Apocalypse xxi. 8) whose hellish vapours are already seeming to infest our atmosphere, and into which are to be plunged her rebellious children, she looks almost as though she forgot the approach of the eternal nuptials and had lost her vehement longings as a Bride. One would say that she thinks of nothing but of her being a Mother and as such she keeps on praying as she has always been doing, only more fervently than ever, that the end may be deferred, pro mora finis.

That we may fulfil her wishes, let us, as Tertullian says, “assemble together in one body that we may, so to speak, offer armed force to God by our prayers. God loves such violence as that.” But that our prayer may have power of that kind, it must be inspired by a faith which is thorough and proof against every difficulty. As it is our faith which overcomes the world (1 John iv. 5), so it is likewise our faith which triumphs over God, even in cases which seem beyond all human hope. Let us do as our Mother does, and think of the danger incurred by those countless men who madly play on the brink of the precipice into which, when they fall, they fall forever. It is quite true they are inexcusable. It was only last Sunday that they were reminded of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, in the exterior darkness, which they will undergo who despise the call to the King's marriage-feast (Matthew xxii. 13), but they are our brethren, and we should not be so quietly resigned at seeing them lose their souls. Let us hope against all hope. Our Lord who knew with certainty that obstinate sinners would be lost — did He, on that account, hesitate to shed all His Blood for them?

It is our ambition to unite ourselves to Him by the closest possible resemblance. Let us, then, be resolved to imitate in that also, were occasion to serve us. At all events, let us pray, and without ceasing, for the Church’s and our enemies, so long as we are not assured of their being lost. It is here that nothing is useless, nothing is thrown away, for come what may, God is greatly honoured by our faith and by the earnestness of our charity. Only let us be careful not to merit the reproach uttered by our Redeemer against the limping (Hebrews xii. 13) faith of the fellow townsmen of the Ruler of Capharnaum. We know that our Jesus has no need to come down from Heaven to Earth in order to give efficiency to the commands of His gracious will. If He deign to multiply signs and wonders around us, we will rejoice at them because of our brethren who are weak of faith, we will make them an occasion for exalting His Holy Name — but we will lovingly assure Him that our soul had no need of new proofs of His power in order to believe in Him.

29 SEPTEMBER – NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The divine Leader of God’s people is their salvation and that in all their distress. Did we not last Sunday see Him prove Himself as such, and in a very telling way, by curing both body and soul of the poor paralytic who was a figure of the whole human race?

Epistle – Ephesians iv. 23–28

Brothers, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore putting away lying, speak the truth every man with his neighbour; for we are members one of another. Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Give not place to the devil. He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have something to give to him that suffers need.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Epistle to the Ephesians, which was interrupted last Sunday, in the manner we then described, is continued today by the Church. The Apostle has already laid down the dogmatical principles of true holiness. He now deduces the moral consequences of those principles.

Let us call to mind how the holiness, which is in God, is His very Truth — Truth living and harmonious which is no other than the admirable concert of the Three divine Persons united in love. We have seen that holiness, as far as it exists in us men, is also Union by infinite love with the eternal and living Truth. The Word took a Body to Himself in order to manifest, in the Flesh this sanctifying and perfect Truth (John i. 14) of which He is the substantial expression (Hebrews i. 3) of His Humanity, sanctified directly by the plenitude of the divine life and truth which dwell within Him (Colossians ii. 3, 9, 10) became the model, as well as the means, the way, of all holiness to every creature (John xiv. 6). It was not sin alone, but it was moreover the finite nature of man, that kept him at a distance from the divine life (Ephesians iv. 18), but he finds, in Christ Jesus, just as they are in God, the two elements of that life: truth and love. In Jesus, as the complement of His Incarnation, Wisdom aspires at uniting with Herself all the members also of that human race, of which He is the Head (Ephesians i. 10) and the First-Born (Colossians i. 15‒20) by Him, the Holy Ghost, whose sacred fount He is (John iv. 14; vii. 37, 39), pours Himself out upon man by which to adapt him to his sublime vocation, and consummate, in infinite love (which is Himself) that union of every creature with the divine Word. Thus it is that we verily partake of that life of God whose existence and holiness are the knowledge and love of His own Word. Thus it is that we are sanctified in Truth (John xvii. 17) by the participation of that very holiness with which God is holy by nature.

But although the Son of Man, being God, participates for us His brethren in the life of union in the Truth which constitutes the holiness of the blessed Trinity, He communicates that Life, that Truth, that deifying Union, to none save but to those who are truly become His members and who, in Him, reproduce between one another, by the operation of the Spirit of Truth (John xv. 26) and love, that unity of which that sanctifying Spirit is the almighty bond in the Godhead. “May they all be one, as you, Father, in me, and I in you,” said this Jesus of ours, to His Eternal Father: “that they also may be one in us. I have given to them the glory, that is to say, the holiness which you have given to me, that they may be one as we, also, are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be consummated (that is, be made perfect) in unity” (John xvii. 21‒23). Here we have, and formulised by our Lord Himself, the simple but fruitful axiom — the foundation — of Christian dogma and morals. By that sublime prayer He explained what He had previously been saying: “I sanctify myself for them that they, also, may be sanctified in Truth” (John xvii. 19).

Let us now understand the moral doctrine given us by Saint Paul in today’s Epistle, and what it is he means by that justice, and that holiness of truth, which is that of Christ (Romans viii. 14) of the new man whom every one must put on, who aspires to the possession of the riches spoken of in the passages already read to us from this magnificent Epistle. Let us re-read the Epistle for the 17th Sunday and we will find that all the rules of Christian asceticism, as well as of the mystic life, are to Saint Paul’s mind, summed up in those words: “Be careful to keep unity!” (Ephesians iv. 3). It is the principle he lays down for all, both beginners and the perfect. It is the crowning of the sublimest vocations in the order of grace, as well as the foundation and reason of all God’s commandments: so truly so, indeed, that if we be commanded to abstain from lying and speak the truth to them that live with us, the motive for it all is because we are members one of another.

There is a holy anger of which the Psalmist speaks (Psalm iv. 5) and which is the outcome, on certain occasions, of zeal for the divine law and charity. But the movement of irritation excited in the soul must, even then, be speedily calmed down. To foster it would be a giving place to the devil. That is, it would be the giving him an opportunity for weakening, or even destroying, within us, by bitterness and hatred, the structure of holy unity. Before our conversion, our neighbour, as well as God, was grieved by our sins. We cared little or nothing for injustice, provided it was not noticed. Egotism was our law, and it was proof enough of the reign of Satan over our souls. Now that the spirit of holiness has expelled the unworthy usurper, the strongest evidence of His being our rightful master is that not only the rights of others are sacred in our estimation, but that our toil and our labours are all full of the idea of how to make them serviceable to our neighbour. In a word, as the Apostle continues a little further on, we walk in love because, as most clear children, we are followers of God (Ephesians v. 1, 2).

It is by this means alone, says Saint Basil, that the Church manifests to this Earth of ours the many and great benefits bestowed on the world by the Incarnation. The Christian family which until then was split up into a thousand separate fragments is now made one, one in itself, and one in God. It is the repetition of what our Lord did by assuming Flesh and making it one with Himself.

Gospel – Matthew xxii. 1–14

Jesus answering, spoke again in parables to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my beeves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage. But they neglected, and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies he destroyed those murderers and burnt their city. Then he said to his servants: The marriage indeed is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the highways and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage. And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests: and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he said to him: Friend, how did you come here not having on a wedding garment? But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen”.

Praise to you, O Christ.

24 SEPTEMBER – OUR LADY OF RANSOM

At the time when the Saracen yoke oppressed the larger and more fertile part of Spain, and great numbers of the faithful were detained in cruel servitude, at the great risk of denying the Christian faith and losing their eternal salvation, the most blessed Queen of Heaven graciously came to remedy all these great evils and showed her exceeding charity in redeeming her children. She appeared with beaming countenance to Peter Nolasco, a man conspicuous for wealth and piety, who in his holy meditations was ever striving to devise some means of helping the innumerable Christians living in misery as captives of the Moors. She told him it would be very pleasing to her and her only begotten Son, if a religious Order were instituted in her honour, whose members should devote themselves to delivering captives from Turkish tyranny.

Animated by this heavenly vision, the man of God was inflamed with burning love, having but one desire at heart: that both he and the Order he was to found, might be devoted to the exercise of that highest charity, the laying down of life for one’s friends and neighbours. That same night, the most holy Virgin appeared also to blessed Raymund of Pennafort and James king of Aragon, telling them of her wish to have the Order instituted, and exhorting them to lend their aid to so great an undertaking. Meanwhile Peter hastened to relate the whole matter to Raymund who was his confessor, and finding it had been already revealed to him from Heaven, submitted humbly to his direction.

King James next arrived, fully resolved to carry out the instructions he also had received from the Blessed Virgin. Having therefore taken counsel together and being all of one mind, they set about instituting an Order in honour of the Virgin Mother under the invocation of our Lady of Mercy for the Ransom of Captives. On the tenth of August in 1218 king James put into execution what the two holy men had planned. The members of the Order bound themselves by a fourth vow to remain, when necessary, as securities in the power of the pagans, in order to deliver Christians. The king granted them licence to hear his royal arms on their breast, and obtained from Pope Gregory IX the confirmation of this religious institute distinguished by such eminent brotherly charity.

God Himself gave increase to the work through His Virgin Mother, so that the Order spread rapidly and prosperously over the whole world. It soon reckoned many holy men remarkable for their charity and piety who collected alms from Christ’s faithful, to be spent in redeeming their brethren, and sometimes gave themselves up as ransom for many others. In order that due thanks might be rendered to God and His Virgin Mother for the benefit of such an institution, the apostolic See allowed this special feast and Office to be celebrated, and also granted innumerable other privileges to the Order.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Office of the time gives us at the close of September the Books of Judith and Esther. These heroic women were figures of Mary, whose birthday is the honour of this month, and who comes at once to bring assistance to the world. “Adonai, Lord God, great and admirable, who has wrought salvation by the hand of a woman:” the Church thus introduces the history of the heroine who delivered Bethulia by the sword, whereas Mardochai’s niece rescued her people from death by her winsomeness and her intercession. The Queen of Heaven, in her peerless perfection, outshines them both, in gentleness, in valour and in beauty. Today’s feast is a memorial of the strength she puts forth for the deliverance of her people. Finding their power crushed in Spain, and in the East checked by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the Saracens in the twelfth century became wholesale pirates and scoured the seas to obtain slaves for the African markets. We shudder to think of the numberless victims of every age, sex and condition suddenly carried off from the coasts of Christian lands, or captured on the high seas, and condemned to the disgrace of the harem or the miseries of the bagnio. Here, nevertheless, in many an obscure prison, were enacted scenes of heroism worthy to compare with those witnessed in the early persecutions. Here was a new field for Christian charity. New horizons opened out for heroic self-devotion. Is not the spiritual good thence arising a sufficient reason for the permission of temporal ills? Without this permission, Heaven would have forever lacked a portion of its beauty.

When in 1696 Innocent XII extended this feast to the whole Church, he afforded the world an opportunity of expressing its gratitude by a testimony as universal as the benefit received. Differing from the Order of Holy Trinity which had been already 20 years in existence, the Order of Mercy was founded as it were in the very face of the Moors, and hence it originally numbered more knights than clerks among its members. It was called the Royal, Military and Religious Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the Ransom of Captives. The clerics were charged with the celebration of the Divine Office in the commandaries. The knights guarded the coasts and undertook the perilous enterprise of ransoming Christian captives. Saint Peter Nolasco was the first Commander or Grand Master of the Order. When his relics were discovered, he was found armed with sword and cuirass.

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Blessed be thou, O Mary, the honour and the joy of your people! On the day of your glorious Assumption you took possession of your queenly dignity for our sake, and the annals of the human race are a record of your merciful interventions. The captives whose chains you have broken, and whom you have set free from the degrading yoke of the Saracens, may be reckoned by millions. We are still rejoicing in the recollection of your dear birthday, and your smile is sufficient to dry our tears and chase away the clouds of grief. And yet, what sorrows there are still upon the Earth where you yourself drank such long draughts from the cup of suffering! Sorrows are sanctifying and beneficial to some, but there are other and unprofitable griefs springing from social injustice: the drudgery of the factory, or the tyranny of the strong over the weak, may be worse than slavery in Algiers or Tunis. You alone, O Mary, can break the inextricable chains in which the cunning prince of darkness entangles the dupes he has deceived by the high-sounding names of equality and liberty. Show yourself a Queen by coming to the rescue. The whole Earth, the entire human race, cries out to you, in the words of Mardochai: “Speak to the king for us, and deliver us from death!” (Esther xv. 3).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Autun, the birthday of the holy martyrs, Andochius, priest, Thyrsus, deacon, and Felix, who were sent from the East by blessed Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to preach in Gaul where they were most severely scourged, hanged up a whole day by the hands, and cast into the fire. Remaining uninjured, they had their necks broken with heavy bars, and thus won a most glorious crown.

In Egypt, the holy martyrs Paphnutius and his companions. While leading a solitary life, St. Paphnutius heard that many Christians were kept in bonds, and, moved by the spirit of God, he voluntarily offered himself to the prefect, and freely confessed the Christian faith. By him he was bound with iron chains, and a long time tortured on the rack. Then, being sent with many others to Diocletian, he was fastened by his order to a palm tree, and the rest were struck with the sword.

At Chalcedon, forty-nine holy martyrs, who, after the martyrdom of St. Euphemia, under the emperor Diocletian, were condemned to be devoured by the beasts, but being miraculously delivered, were finally struck with the sword and went to heaven.

In Hungary, St. Gerard, bishop and martyr, called the Apostle of the Hungarians. He belonged to the nobility of Venice and was the first to shed on his country the glory of martyrdom.

At Clermont in Auvergne, the departure out of this life of St. Rusticus, bishop and confessor.

In the diocese of Beauvais, St. Geremarus, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

8 JUNE – SAINT WILLIAM OF YORK (Bishop and Confessor)

William was born to Count Hubert and Emma, a sister of King Stephen. From his earliest years he was remarkable for great virtue. Growing in merit as he advanced in age, he was made Treasurer of York, in which office he so behaved as to be held by all the father of the needy in general. Nor indeed did he esteem anything a more precious treasure than to despoil himself of his wealth, that he might more easily minister to the wants of those labouring under poverty. After the death of Archbishop Turstan, William was was elected to succeed him, though some few of the Chapter dissented. But Saint Bernard, on the ground of this election being faulty according to the sacred Canons, appealed against him to the Apostolic See and William was deposed by Pope Eugenius III. William took this as an occasion to exercise humility and serve God with greater freedom. Fleeing worldly pomps, he withdrew into solitude where he could attend solely to his own salvation, undistracted by any care of exterior things. But, at last, his adversaries being dead, he was again with the full consent of all elected Archbishop, and was confirmed by Pope Anastasius. Having entered on his See he shortly afterwards became ill and died on the sixth of the Ides of June in 1154.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

At the head of the holy Confessors admitted by the Church on the monumental page of her Martyrology for today is inscribed the illustrious name of William “At York, in England.” Thus runs the text of the Golden Book of Heaven’s nobility, “the memory of Saint William, Archbishop and Confessor, who, among other miracles wrought at his tomb, raised three dead persons to life, and was inscribed among the Saints by Honorius III.” The divine Spirit who adorns the Church with variety in the virtues of her sons (Psalms xliv. 10) reproduces in them the life of the Divine Spouse under multiplied aspects. Thus there is no situation in life that bears not with it some teaching drawn from the example given by our Lord and His saints under similar circumstances. However vast be the field of trial for the elect, here below, however multiplied and unexpected, sometimes, be the limits of endurance, or the circumstances; herein, as ever, does that word of Eternal Wisdom chime in: “Nothing is new under the sun, neither is any man able to say: ‘Behold this is new: for it has already gone before, in the ages that were before us’” (Apocalypse xix. 8).

The election of William to the metropolitan See of York was signalled by the apparition of a miraculous cross, a presage of what his life was to be. Verily the heaviest cross one can have to bear is that which originates on the part of the servants of God, from our own brethren, or from our own superiors, in the spiritual order of things. Now, this was the very cross that was not to be spared to William. For our instruction — especially for us who so easily believe that we have gone to the furthest limits of endurance in point of suffering — God permitted that, after the example of His divine Master, William should drink the chalice to the dregs and should become even to Saints a sign of contradiction and a rock of scandal (Luke ii. 34; Romans ix. 33).

Both to the more numerous portion of the flock, as well as to the better minded among them, the promotion of the Archbishop elect of York was indeed a cause of great joy, but thereby also diversely interested views among several had been crossed. In their simplicity some of the sheep gave ear to certain perfidious insinuations and whisperings. They were led to suppose that it would be a good deed if they strove to break the staff that guided them to wholesome pastures, and they allowed themselves to be so far worked on as to make formal and grave accusations against their Shepherd. Then, at last, most virtuous persons beguiled by the craftiness of the intriguers were to be seen espousing their cause, and putting at their service the very zeal with which the hearts of the former were really inflamed for the House of God. After hearing as above, from the lips of Holy Church in the Martyrology, her own judgement, glorious as it stands and without appeal, it is not without feelings of wonder and even of bewilderment that we read passages such as the following in letters written at the time: “To our well beloved Father and Lord, Innocent, by the grace of God, Sovereign Pontiff, Bernard of Clairvaux. The Archbishop of York has approached you, that man regarding whom we have so often already, written to your Holiness. A sorry cause indeed is his, as we have learned from such as are worthy of credit, from the sole of his foot to the top of his head, there is not a sound place in him. What can this man stripped of all justice have to seek at the hand of the Guardian of justice?”

Then recommending the accusers to the Pontiff, the Abbot of Clairvaux fears not to add: “If any one be of God, let him join himself to them! If the barren tree still occupy the ground, to whom must I attribute the fault, save to him to whom the hatchet belongs?” The Vicar of Christ, who can look at things from a higher level and can see more exactly than even saints can, having taken no step to prevent William’s consecration, Saint Bernard pens these words confidentially to the Abbot of Rievaulx in Yorkshire: “I have learnt what has become of this Archbishop, and my sorrow is extreme. We have laboured all we could against this common pest, and we have not obtained the desired measure. But, for all that, the fruit of our labour is none the less assured from Him who never suffers any good deed to pass unrewarded. What men have refused to us, I am confident we will obtain from the mercy of our Father who is in Heaven, and that we will yet see this cursed fig-tree rooted up.” Such grave mistakes as these can sometimes be made by saints. Cruel mistakes indeed they are, but very sanctifying for those saints on whom the blow falls. And though veritable persecutions, yet are they not without one sweet consolation for such saints as these, inasmuch as there has been no offence to God on either side.

Innocent II being dead, Bernard, convinced that the honour of the Church was at stake, repeated his supplications more urgently than ever to Pope Celestine II and the Roman Court: “The whole world is aware of the devil’s triumph,” he exclaimed, and with such fiery zeal, that we somewhat modify the strength of his expression: “The applause of the uncircumcised and the tears of the good, resound far and wide if such were to be the finale of this ignominious cause, why not have left it in its darksome nook? Could not this infamous man, the horror of England and the abomination of France, have been made bishop without Rome also witnessing the general infection to pervade as far as the very tombs of the Apostles...Well, be it so: this man has received sacrilegious consecration. But still more glorious will it be to precipitate Simon from mid-air, than to have prevented his mounting thus far. Otherwise, what will you do with the Faithful whose sense of religion makes them suppose that they cannot, with a safe conscience, receive the Sacraments from this leprous hand? Are they, then, to be forced by Rome to bend the knee to Baal?”

Rome, however, was slow in letting herself be convinced, and neither Celestine nor Lucius II who succeeded him was willing to find in the great services and justifiable ascendancy of the Abbot of Clairvaux a sufficient reason to pronounce a condemnation, the justice of which was far from being proved to their eyes. It was only under the pontificate of Eugenius III, his former disciple, that Saint Bernard by new and reiterated instances at last obtained the deposition of William and the substitution to the See of York of Henry Murdach, a Cistercian and Abbot of Fountains near Ripon. “All the time that his humiliation lasted,” writes John, Prior of Hexham, “William never let a murmur of complaint escape him. But with a silent heart and with his soul at peace, knew how to keep patience. He reclaimed not against his adversaries. Nay, further still, he would turn aside his ear and his very thought from those who judged them unfavourably. None of those who shared his disgrace showed themselves so continually given up as he to prayer and labour.” Five years afterwards, Eugenius III died, as also the Abbot of Clairvaux and Henry Murdach. The Canons of York once more elected William and he was re-instated in the plenitude of his metropolitan rights by Anastasius IV. But God had willed to affirm here below the justice alone of his cause: thirty days after his triumphal return to York he died, having only just solemnised the Festival of the Holy Trinity for whom he had suffered all.

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O WILLIAM, you knew how to possess your soul! Under the assaults of contradiction you joined the aureola of sanctity to the glorious character of a Bishop. For well did you understand the two-fold duty incumbent on you from the day you were called by the suffrages of an illustrious Church to defend her here below under most difficult circumstances: on the one hand, not to refuse the perilous honour of upholding to the last the rights of that noble bride who proffered you her alliance: on the other, to show to your flock, by the example of your own submission, that even the best of causes can never be dispensed from that absolute obedience owed by sheep, just as much as by lambs, to the supreme Shepherd. He who searches the heart and the reins (Jeremias xvii. 10) knew how far the trial could go without either altering the admirable simplicity of your faith, or troubling, in consequence, the divine calm in which lay your strength. Yearning to raise you to the highest degree of glory, near to that Altar yonder in heaven, fain was He to assimilate you fully even here below to the eternal Pontiff, erstwhile misunderstood, denied and condemned by the very princes of His own people. Your refuge was in that maxim from the lips of this divine Head: “Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest to your souls” (Matthew xi. 29), and thus the yoke that would bear down such weak shoulders as ours, the burden beneath which the strongest of us might well indeed quail, far from daunting you, seemed fraught with such sweetness that your step became all the lighter for it, and from that hour you appeared not only to walk, but to run like a giant (Psalms xviii. 6) in the way of heroism in which Saints are formed.

Help us, William, to follow your steps at least afar off, in the paths of gentleness and energy. Teach us to count for little all personal injuries. Our Lord indeed probed the delicacy of your great soul when He permitted that to befall you which to us would have proved a very core of bitterness, namely, that your hottest adversaries really should be true saints, who in every measure they undertook against you, were wishful only for the honour and glory of the divine Master, yours and theirs alike. The mysterious oil that for so long flowed from your tomb was at once a sign of the ineffable meekness which earned for you that constant simplicity of your soul’s glance, and a touching testimony rendered by Heaven in favour of your pontifical unction, the legitimacy of which was so long contested. God grant that this sweet oil may ooze out once again! Spread it lovingly on so many wounded souls whom the injustice of men embitters and drives to desperation. Let it freely flow in your own Church of York, alien though she now be, to your exquisite submission to Rome and to her ancient traditions. O would that Albion might cast aside her winding-sheet at that blessed tomb of yours where the dead have often returned to life. In one word, may the whole Church receive from you this day increase of light and grace, to the honour and praise of the undivided and ever tranquil Trinity, to Whom was paid your last solemn homage here below.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Aix in France, St. Maximin, first bishop of that city, who is said to have been a disciple of Our Lord.

The same day, St. Calliopa, martyr, who, for the faith of Christ, had her breasts cut off, her flesh burned, was rolled on broken pottery, and being lastly decapitated, received the palm of martyrdom.

At Soissons in France, the birthday of St. Medard, bishop of Noyon, whose life and precious death are illustrated by glorious miracles.

At Rouen, St. Gildard, bishop, brother of St. Medard. They were born on the same day, consecrated bishops at the same time, and being taken away from this life also on the same day, they entered heaven together.

At Sens, St. Heraclius, bishop.

At Metz, St. Clodulphus, bishop.

In the Marches of Ancona, St. Severin, bishop of Stepternpeda.

In Sardinia, St. Sallustian, confessor.

At Camerino, St. Victorinus, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

11 MAY – THE HOLY APOSTLES PHILIP AND JAMES (Martyrs)

Today the Church honours the Apostles Philip and James. Before the establishment of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955, this feast was celebrated on the First of May. Their bodies repose in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles in Rome and their relics are regarded as one of the greatest treasures of the Eternal City. There is reason to believe that the First of May was the anniversary of their translation. For a long time the Church of Rome kept special feasts in honour of only Saints Peter and Paul, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Andrew (the brother of Peter).

Philip was born at Bethsaida, and was one of the twelve Apostles that were first called by Christ our Lord. It was from Philip that Nathanael learned that the Messiah had come who was promised in the Law. And by him also he was led to our Lord. We have a clear proof of the familiarity with which Philip was treated by Christ in the fact of the Gentiles addressing themselves to this Apostle when they wished to see the Saviour. Again, when our Lord was about to feed the multitude in the desert, he spoke to Philip and said: “Where can we buy bread that these may eat?” Having received the Holy Ghost, he went into Scythia, which was the country allotted to him in which to preach the Gospel. He converted almost its entire people to the Christian Faith. Having finally reached Hierapolis in Phrygia, he was crucified there for the name of Christ and then stoned to death on the Calends of May (May 1st). The Christians buried his body in the same place, but it was afterwards taken to Rome and, together with the body of the Apostle Saint James, was placed in the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles.

James, “the brother of our Lord,” was called “the Just.” From his childhood he never drank wine or strong drink. He abstained from flesh-meat. He never cut his hair or used oil to anoint his limbs, or took a bath. He was the only one permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. His garments were of linen. So assiduous was he in prayer that the skin of his knees was as hard as that of a camel. After Christ’s Ascension, the Apostles made him Bishop of Jerusalem, and it was to him that the Prince of the Apostles sent the news of his being delivered out of prison by an Angel. A dispute having arisen in the Council of Jerusalem concerning the Mosaic Law and circumcision, James sided with Peter and, in a speech which he made to the brethren, proved the vocation of the Gentiles, and said that the absent brethren were to be written to, and told not to impose the yoke of the Mosaic Law on the Gentiles.

It is of James that Saint Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Galatians when he says: “But other of the Apostles I saw none, saving James, the brother of the Lord.” Such was James’ holy life that people used to strive with each other to touch the hem of his garment. At the age of 96 years — of which he had spent 30 governing the Church of Jerusalem in the most saintly manner — as he was one day preaching with great courage Christ the Son of God, he was attacked by stones being thrown at him, after which he was taken to the highest part of the Temple and cast headlong down. His legs were broken by the fall, and as he was lying half dead upon the ground, he raised up his hands towards Heaven and thus prayed for his executioners: “Forgive them, O Lord! For they know not what they do.” While so praying, he received a blow on the head with a fuller’s club and gave up his soul to his God in the seventh year of Nero’s reign. He was buried near the Temple from which he had been thrown down. He wrote a Letter which is one of the seven Catholic Epistles.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Two of the favoured witnesses of our beloved Jesus’ Resurrection come before us on this day. Philip and James are here, bearing testimony to us that their Master is truly risen from the dead, that they have seen Him, that they have touched Him, that they have conversed with Him (1 John i. 1) during these forty days. And, that we may have no doubt as to the truth of their testimony, they hold in their hands the instruments of the martyrdom they underwent for asserting that Jesus, after having suffered death, came to life again and rose from the grave. Philip is leaning upon the cross to which he was fastened, as Jesus had been. James is holding the club with which he was struck dead.

Philip preached the Gospel in the two Phrygias, and his martyrdom took place at Hierapolis. He was married when he was called by our Saviour, and we learn from writers of the second century that he had three daughters, remarkable for their great piety, one of whom lived at Ephesus, where she was justly revered as one of the glories of that early Church. James is better known than Philip. He is called, in the sacred Scripture, Brother of the Lord (Galatians i. 19) on account of the close relationship that existed between his own mother and the Blessed Mother of Jesus. He claims our veneration during Paschal Time inasmuch as he was favoured with a special visit from our Risen Lord, as we learn from Saint Paul (1 Corinthians xv. 7). There can be no doubt, but what he had done something to deserve this mark of Jesus’ predilection. Saint Jerome and Saint Epiphanius tell us that our Saviour, when ascending into Heaven, recommended to Saint James’ care the Church of Jerusalem, and that he was accordingly appointed the first Bishop of that city.

The Christians of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, had possession of the Chair on which Saint James used to sit when he assisted at the assemblies of the faithful. Saint Epiphanius also tells us that the holy Apostle used to wear a lamina of gold on his forehead as the badge of his dignity. His garment was a tunic made of linen. He was held in such high repute for virtue that the people of Jerusalem called him “The Just,” and when the time of the siege came, instead of attributing the frightful punishment, they then endured to the deicide they or their fathers had committed, they would have it to be a consequence of the murder of James, who, when dying, prayed for his people. The admirable Epistle he has left us bears testimony to the gentleness and uprightness of his character. He there teaches us with an eloquence of an inspired writer, that works must go along with our Faith, if we would be Just with that Justice, which makes us like our Risen Lord.

* * * * *

Holy Apostles, you saw our Risen Jesus in all His glory. He said to you on the evening of that great Sunday: “Peace be to you!” He appeared to you during the forty days following, that He might make you certain of His Resurrection. Great indeed must have been your joy at seeing, once more, that dear Master who had admitted you into the number of His chosen Twelve, and His return made your love of Him more than ever fervent. We address ourselves to you as our special patrons during this holy Season, and most earnestly do we beseech you to teach us how to know and love the great mystery of our Lord’s Resurrection. May our hearts glow with Paschal joy, and may we never lose the New Life that our Jesus has now given us.

You, Philip, were all devoted to Him, even from the first day of his calling you. Scarcely had you come to know Him as the Messiah, than you announced the great tidings to your friend Nathanael. Jesus treated you with affectionate familiarity. When about to work the great miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, it was to you that He addressed Himself and said to you: “Where will we buy bread, that these may eat?” (John vi. 5) A few days before the Passion of your Divine Master, some of the Gentiles wished to see this great Prophet of whom they had heard such wonderful things, and it was to you they applied. How fervently did you not ask Him at the Last Supper to show you the Father! Your soul longed for the divine Light, and when the rays of the Holy Ghost had inflamed your spirit, nothing could daunt your courage. As a reward of your labours, Jesus gave you to share with Him the honours of the Cross. O holy Apostle, intercede for us that we may imitate your devotedness to Jesus and that, when He deigns to send us the Cross, we may reverence and love it.

We also honour your love of Jesus, O you that are called the Brother of the Lord, and on whose venerable features was stamped the likeness of this our Redeemer. If, like the rest of the Apostles, you abandoned Him in His Passion, your repentance was speedy and earnest, for you were the first after Peter to whom He appeared after His Resurrection. We affectionately congratulate you, James, for the honour thus conferred on you. In return, obtain for us that we may taste and see how sweet is our Risen Lord (Psalms xxxiii. 9). Your ambition was to give Him every possible proof of your gratitude, and the last testimony you bore in the faithless City to the Divinity of your dear Master (when the Jews took you to the top of the Temple), opened to you, by martyrdom, the way that was to unite you to Him for eternity. Pray for us, O you generous Apostle, that we also may confess His holy Name with the firmness becoming His disciples, and that we may ever be brave and loyal in proclaiming His rights as King over all creatures.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Salaria, the birthday of blessed Anthimus, priest, who, after having distinguished himself by his virtues and preaching, was precipitated into the river Tiber in the persecution of Diocletian. He was rescued by an angel and restored to his oratory. Being afterwards decapitated, he went victoriously to heaven.

The same day, St. Evelius, martyr, who belonged to the household of Nero. On seeing the martyrdom of St. Torpes, he believed in Christ and for Him was beheaded.

Also at Rome, the holy martyrs Maximus, Bassus and Fabius who were put to death on the Via Salaria in the time of Diocletian.

At Camerino, the holy martyrs Anastasius and his companions who were killed in the persecution of Decius under the governor Antiochus.

At Osimo, in the Marches of Ancona, the holy martyrs Sisinus, a deacon, Diocletius and Florentius, disciples of the priest St. Anthimus, who consummated their martyrdom under Diocletian by being overwhelmed with stones.

At Varennes, St. Gangulpus, martyr.

At Vienne, St. Mamertus, bishop, who, to avert an impending calamity, instituted in that city the three days’ Litanies immediately before the Ascension of Our Lord. This rite was afterwards received and approved by the Universal Church.

At Souvigny, the decease of St. Maieul, abbot of Cluny, whose life was distinguished for merits and holiness.

At San Severino, in the Marches of Ancona, St. Illuminatus, confessor.

At Grottaglia in the diocese of Taranto, St. Francis Girolamo, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, renowned for his zeal for the salvation of souls, and for his patience. He was canonised by Pope Gregory XVI. The day of his death is celebrated with great solemnity in the church of the professed house at Naples where his body rests.

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

Thanks be to God.

30 APRIL – SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA (Virgin and Doctor of the Church)

 

Catherine, a virgin of Siena, was born of pious parents. She asked for and obtained the Dominican habit, such as it is worn by the Sisters of Penance. Her abstinence was extraordinary and her manner of living most mortified. She was once known to have fasted without receiving anything but the Blessed Sacrament from Ash Wednesday to Ascension Day. She had very frequent contests with the wicked spirits who attacked her in various ways. She suffered much from fever and other bodily ailments. Her reputation for sanctity was so great that there were brought to her from all parts persons who were sick or tormented by the devil. She, in the name of Christ, healed such as were afflicted with malady or fever and drove the devils from the bodies of them that were possessed.

Being once at Pisa on a Sunday, and having received the Bread of Heaven, Catherine was rapt in an ecstasy. She saw our crucified Lord approaching to her. He was encircled with a great light, and from His five wounds there came rays which fell upon the five corresponding parts of Catherine’s body. Being aware of the favour bestowed on her, she besought our Lord that the stigmata might not be visible. The rays immediately changed from the colour of blood into one of gold, and passed, under the form of a bright light, to the hands, feet and heart of the Saint. So violent was the pain left by the wounds that it seemed to her as though she must soon have died, had not God diminished it. Thus our most loving Lord added favour to favour by permitting her to feel the smart of the wounds, and yet removing their appearance. The servant of God related what had happened to her to Raymund, her confessor. Hence, when the devotion of the faithful gave a representation of this miracle, they painted, on the pictures of Saint Catherine, bright rays coming from the five stigmata she had received.

Her learning was not acquired but infused. Theologians proposed to her the most difficult questions of divinity and received satisfactory answers. No one ever approached her who did not go away a better man. She reconciled many that were at deadly enmity with one another. She visited Pope Gregory XI who was then at Avignon in order to bring about the reconciliation of the Florentines who were under an interdict on account of their having formed a league against the Holy See. She told the Pontiff that there had been revealed to her the vow which he, Gregory, had made of going to Rome — a vow which was known to God alone. It was through her entreaty that the Pope began to plan measures for taking possession of his See of Rome, which he did soon after. Such was the esteem in which she was held by Gregory, and by Urban VI, his successor, that she was sent by them on several embassies. At length, after a life spent in the exercise of the sublimest virtues and after gaining great reputation on account of her prophecies and many miracles, she passed hence to her divine Spouse when she was about 33 years old. She was canonised by Pius II.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Dominican Order which yesterday presented a rose to our Risen Jesus now offers Him a lily of surpassing beauty. Catherine of Siena follows Peter the Martyr: it is a co-incidence willed by Providence to give fresh beauty to this season of grandest Mysteries. Our Divine King deserves everything we can offer Him, and our hearts are never so eager to give Him every possible tribute of homage as during these last days of his sojourn among us. See how nature is all flower and fragrance at this loveliest of her seasons! The spiritual world harmonises with the visible and now yields her noblest and richest works in honour of her Lord, the author of Grace. How grand is the Saint whose feast comes gladdening us today! She is one of the most favoured of the holy Spouses of the Incarnate Word. She was His, wholly and unreservedly, almost from her very childhood. Though thus consecrated to Him by the vow of holy virginity, she had a mission given to her by divine Providence which required her living in the world. But God would have her to be one of the glories of the religious state. He therefore inspired her to join the Third Order of Saint Dominic. Accordingly, she wore the habit and fervently practised, during her whole life, the holy exercises of a Tertiary.

From the very commencement there was a something heavenly about this admirable servant of God which we fancy existing in an angel who had been sent from Heaven to live in a human body. Her longing after God gave one an idea of the vehemence with which the Blessed embrace the Sovereign Good on their first entrance into Heaven. In vain did the body threaten to impede the soaring of this earthly seraph. She subdued it by penance and made it obedient to the spirit. Her body seemed to be transformed so as to have no life of its own but only that of the soul. The Blessed Sacrament was frequently the only food she took for weeks together. So complete was her union with Christ that she received the impress of the sacred stigmata and, with them, the most excruciating pain.

And yet, in the midst of all these supernatural favours, Catherine felt the keenest interest in the necessities of others. Her zeal for their spiritual advantage was intense, while her compassion for them, in their corporal sufferings was that of a most loving mother. God had given her the gift of miracles, and she was lavish in using it for the benefit of her fellow-creatures. Sickness and death itself were obedient to her command, and the prodigies witnessed at the beginning of the Church were again wrought by the humble Saint of Siena.

Her communings with God began when she was quite a child, and her ecstasies were almost without interruption. She frequently saw our Risen Jesus who never left her without having honoured her, either with a great consolation, or with a heavy cross. A profound knowledge of the mysteries of our holy faith was another of the extraordinary graces bestowed on her. So eminent, indeed, was the heavenly wisdom granted her by God that she who had received no education used to dictate the most sublime writings in which she treats of spiritual things with a clearness and eloquence which human genius could never attain to, and with a certain indescribable unction which no reader can resist.

But God would not permit such a treasure as this to lie buried in a little town of Italy. The saints are the supports of the Church, and though their influence be generally hidden, yet, at times, it is open and visible, and men then learn what the instruments are which God uses for imparting blessings to a world that would seem to deserve little else besides chastisement. The great question at the close of the fourteenth century was the restoring to the Holy City the privilege of its having within its walls the Vicar of Christ who, for 60 years, had been absent from his See. One saintly soul, by merits and prayers, known to Heaven alone, might have brought about this happy event after which the whole Church was longing, but God would have it done by a visible agency and in the most public manner. In the name of the widowed Rome — in the name of her own and the Church’s Spouse — Catherine crossed the Alps and sought an interview with the Pontiff who had not so much as seen Rome. The Prophetess respectfully reminded him of his duty, and in proof of her mission being from God, she tells him of a secret which was known to himself alone. Gregory XI could no longer resist, and the Eternal City welcomed its Pastor and Father. But at the Pontiff’s death a frightful schism, the forerunner of greater evils to follow, broke out in the Church. Catherine, even to her last hour, was untiring in her endeavours to quell the storm. Having lived the same number of years as our Saviour had done, she breathed forth her most pure soul into the hands of her God, and went to continue in Heaven her ministry of intercession for the Church she had loved so much on Earth, and for souls redeemed in the precious Blood of her Divine Spouse.

Our Risen Jesus who took her to her eternal reward during the Season of Easter granted her, while she was living on Earth, a favour which we mention here as being appropriate to the mystery we are now celebrating. He, one day, appeared to her, having with Him His Blessed Mother. Mary Magdalene, she that announced the Resurrection to the Apostles, accompanied the Son and the Mother. Catherine’s heart was overpowered with emotion at this visit. After looking for some time upon Jesus and his holy Mother, her eyes rested on Magdalene whose happiness she both saw and envied. Jesus spoke these words to her: “My beloved! I give her to you to be your mother. Address yourself to her, henceforth, with all confidence. I give her special charge of you.” From that day forward Catherine had the most filial love for Magdalene, and called her by no other name than that of Mother.

* * * * *

Holy Church, filled as she now is with the joy of her Jesus’ Resurrection, addresses herself to you, O Catherine, who follows the Lamb wherever He goes (Apocalypse xiv. 4). Living in this exile where it is only at intervals that she enjoys His presence, she says to you: “Have you seen Him, whom my soul loves? (Canticles iii. 3). You are His Spouse, so is she. But there are no veils, no separation, for you: whereas, for her, the enjoyment is at rare and brief periods and, even so, there are clouds that dim the lovely Light. What a life was yours, O Catherine, uniting in itself the keenest compassion for the sufferings of Jesus, and an intense happiness by the share He gave you of His glorified life. We might take you as our guide both to the mournful mysteries of Calvary, and to the glad splendours of the Resurrection. It is these second that we are now respectfully celebrating: oh speak to us of our Risen Jesus. Is it not He that gave you the nuptial ring with its matchless diamond set amid four precious gems? The bright rays which gleam from your stigmata tell us that when He espoused you to Himself, you saw Him all resplendent with the beauty of His glorious wounds.

Daughter of Magdalene, like her, you are a messenger of the Resurrection, and when your last Pasch comes — the Pasch of your thirty-third year — you go to Heaven, to keep it for eternity. O zealous lover of souls! love them more than ever, now that you are in the palace of the King, our God. We too are in the Pasch in the New Life. Intercede for us that the life of Jesus may never die within us but may go on, strengthening its power and growth, by our loving Him with an ardour like your own. Get us, great Saint, something of the filial devotedness you had for holy Mother Church, and which prompted you to do such glorious things! Her sorrows and her joys were yours, for there can be no love for Jesus where there is none for His Spouse. And is it not through her that He gives us all His gifts? Oh, yes, we too wish to love this Mother of ours. We will never be ashamed to own ourselves as her children! We will defend her against her enemies. We will do everything that lies in our power to win others to acknowledge, love and be devoted to her.

Our God used you as His instrument, O humble Virgin, for bringing back the Roman Pontiff to his See. You were stronger than the powers of this Earth which would fain have prolonged an absence disastrous to the Church. The relics of Peter in the Vatican, of Paul on the Ostian Way, of Lawrence and Sebastian, of Caecilia and Agnes, exulted in their glorious tombs when Gregory entered with triumph into the Holy City. It was through you, O Catherine, that a ruinous captivity of seventy years’ duration was brought, on that day, to a close, and that Rome recovered her glory and her life.

Pray for unhappy Italy, which was so dear to you, and which is so justly proud of its Saint of Siena. Impiety and heresy are now permitted to run wild through the land. The name of your Spouse is blasphemed. The people are taught to love error and to hate what they had hitherto venerated. The Church is insulted and robbed. Faith has long since been weakened, but now its very existence is imperilled. Intercede for your unfortunate country, dear Saint!Oh surely it is time to come to her assistance and rescue her from the hands of her enemies. Delay not, but calm the storm which seems to threaten a universal wreck!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Lambesa in Numidia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Marian, lector, and James, deacon. The former, after having successfully endured vexations for the confession of Christ in the persecution of Decius, was again arrested with his illustrious companion, and both being subjected to severe and cruel torments during which they were twice miraculously comforted from heaven, finally fell by the sword with many others.

At Saintes, blessed Eutropius, bishop and martyr, who was consecrated bishop and sent to Gaul by St. Clement. After preaching for many years he had his skull crushed for bearing testimony to Christ and thus gained a victory by his death.

At Cordova, the holy martyrs Amator, priest, Peter, monk, and Lewis.

At Novara, the martyrdom of the holy priest Lawrence, and some boys, whom he was educating.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Aphrodisius, priest, and thirty others.

At Ephesus, St. Maximus, martyr, who was crowned in the persecution of Decius.

At Fermo in the Marches of Ancona, St. Sophia, virgin and martyr.

At Naples in Campania, St. Severus, bishop, who, among other prodigies, raised for a short time a dead man from the grave, in order to convict of falsehood the lying creditor of a widow and her children.

At Evorea in Epirus, St. Donatus, a bishop, who was eminent for sanctity in the time of the emperor Theodosius.

At London in England, St. Erconwald, a bishop celebrated for many miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.