18 OCTOBER – SAINT LUKE (Evangelist)

Luke was a physician of Antioch and, as is shown by his writings, was skilled in the Greek language. He was a disciple of the Apostle Paul and accompanied him in all his journeys. He also wrote a Gospel so that Paul says of him: “We have sent also with him the brother whose praise is in the Gospel through all the churches.” And again to the Colossians: “Luke, the most dear physician salutes you.” And to Timothy: “Only Luke is with me.” He wrote another excellent work, the Acts of the Apostles, in which he relates the history of the Church as far as Paul’s two years’ sojourn at Rome that is to the fourth year of Nero. From this circumstance we infer that the book was written at Rome. Consequently we class the journeys of Paul and Thecla and the whole fable of the baptised lion among apocryphal writings. For is it possible that the Apostle’s inseparable companion should know everything concerning him except this one thing? Moreover, Tertullian who lived near to those times relates that a certain priest in Asia, an admirer of Paul, was convicted by John of having written that book, which he confessed he had done out of love for Paul, and was on that account deposed. Some are of the opinion that whenever Paul in his epistles says: “According to my Gospel,” he means that of Luke. Luke, however, was instructed in the Gospel not only by the Apostle Paul, who had never seen the Lord in the flesh, but also by the other Apostles. This he declares in the beginning of his work, saying: “According as they have delivered them to us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.” He wrote his Gospel then from what he had heard, but the Acts of the Apostles from he had himself seen. He lived 84 years and was never married.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“The goodness and kindness of God our Saviour has appeared to all men” (Titus ii. 11; iii. 4) It would seem that the third Evangelist, a disciple of Saint Paul, had purposed setting forth this word of the Doctor of the Gentiles. Or may we not rather say, the Apostle himself characterised in this sentence the Gospel in which his disciple portrays the Saviour prepared before the face of all people: “a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel” (Luke ii. 31, 32). Saint Luke’s Gospel and the words quoted from Saint Paul were in fact written about the same time, and it is impossible to say which claims priority.

Under the eye of Simon Peter to whom the Father had revealed the Christ the Son of the living God, Mark had the honour of giving to the Church the Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God (Mark i. 1). Matthew had already drawn up for the Jews the Gospel of the Messiah, Son of David, Son of Abraham (Matthew i. 1). Afterwards, at the side of Paul, Luke wrote for the Gentiles the Gospel of Jesus, Son of Adam through Mary (Luke ii. 38). As far as the genealogy of this First-born of His Mother may be reckoned back, so far will extend the blessing He bestows on His brethren by redeeming them from the curse inherited from their first father.

Jesus was truly one of ourselves, a Man conversing with men and living their life. He was seen on Earth in the reign of Augustus, the prefect of the empire registered the birth of this new subject of Caesar in the city of His ancestors. He was bound in the swathing-bands of infancy. Like all of His race He was circumcised, offered to the Lord and redeemed according to the law of His nation. As a child He obeyed His parents. He grew up under their eyes. He passed through the progressive development of youth to the maturity of manhood. At every juncture during His public life He prostrated in prayer to God the Creator of all. He wept over His country. When His Heart was wrung with anguish at sight of the morrow’s deadly torments, He was bathed with a sweat of blood, and in that agony He did not disdain the assistance of an Angel. Such appears, in the third Gospel, the humanity of God our Saviour.

How sweet too are His grace and goodness! Among all the children of men, He merited to be the expectation of nations and the Desired of them all: He who was conceived of a humble Virgin, who was born in a stable with shepherds for His court and choirs of Angels singing in the darkness of night “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.” But Earth had sung the prelude to the angelic harmonies. The precursor, leaping with delight in his mother’s womb, had, as the Church says, made known the king still resting in his bridal chamber. To this joy of the bridegroom’s Friend, the Virgin Mother had responded by the sweetest song that Earth or Heaven has ever heard. Then Zachary and Simeon completed the number of inspired Canticles for the new people of God. All was song around the new-born babe, and Mary kept all the words in her heart in order to transmit them to us through her own Evangelist.

The Divine Child grew in age and wisdom and grace, before God and man till His human beauty captivated men and drew them with the cords of Adam to the love of God. He was ready to welcome the daughter of Tyre, the Gentile race that had become more than a rival of Sion. Let her not fear, the poor unfortunate one, of whom Magdalene was a figure. The pride of expiring Judaism may take scandal, but Jesus will accept her tears and her perfumes. He will forgive her much because of her great love. Let the prodigal hope once more, when worn out with his long wanderings, in every way where error has led the nations, the envious complaint of his elder brother Israel will not stay the outpourings of the Sacred Heart, celebrating the return of the fugitive, restoring to him the dignity of sonship, placing again upon his finger the ring of the alliance first contracted in Eden with the whole human race. As for Judah, unhappy is he if he refuses to understand.

Woe to the rich man who in his opulence neglects the poor Lazarus! The privileges of race no longer exist: of ten lepers cured in body, the stranger alone is healed in soul, because he alone believes in his deliverer and returns thanks. Of the Samaritan, the Levite and the priest who appear on the road to Jericho, the first alone earns our Saviour’s commendation. The Pharisee is strangely mistaken when, in his arrogant prayer, he spurns the publican who strikes his breast and cries for mercy. The Son of Man neither hears the prayers of the proud nor heeds their indignation. He invites Himself, in spite of their murmurs, to the house of Zacheus, bringing with him salvation and joy, and declaring the publican to be henceforth a true son of Abraham. So much goodness and such universal mercy close against him the narrow hearts of his fellow-citizens. They will not have him to reign over them, but eternal Wisdom finds the lost groat, and there is great joy before the Angels in heaven. On the day of the sacred Nuptials, the lowly and despised and the repentant sinners will sit down to the banquet prepared for others. “In truth I say to you, there were many widows in the days of Elias in Israel... and to none of them was Elias sent, but to Sarepta of Sidon, to a widow woman. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elilleus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian” (Luke iv. 25‒27).

O Jesus, your Evangelist has won our hearts. We love you for having taken pity on our misery. We Gentiles were in deeper debt than Jerusalem, and therefore we owe you greater love in return for your pardon. We love you because your choicest graces are for Magdalene, that is, for us who are sinners and are nevertheless called to the better part. We love you because you cannot resist the tears of mothers but restore to them, as at Naim, their dead children. In the day of treason and abandonment and denial, you forgot your own injury to cast on Peter that loving look which caused him to weep bitterly. You turned away from yourself the tears of those humble and true daughters of Jerusalem who followed your painful footsteps up the heights of Calvary. Nailed to the Cross, you implored pardon for your executioners. At the last hour, as God you promised Paradise to the penitent thief, as Man you gave back your soul to your Father. Truly from beginning to end of this third Gospel appears your goodness and kindness, O God our Saviour!

Saint Luke completed his work by writing, in the same correct style his Gospel, the history of the first days of Christianity, of the introduction of the Gentiles into the Church, and of the great labours of their own Apostle Paul. According to tradition he was an artist as well as a man of letters, and with a soul alive to all the most delicate inspirations, he consecrated his pencil to the holiest use and handed down to us the features of the Mother of God. It was an illustration worthy of the Gospel which relates the Divine Infancy, and it won for the artist a new title to the gratitude of those who never saw Jesus and Mary in the flesh. Hence Saint Luke is the patron of Christian art, and also of the medical profession, for in the holy Scripture itself he is said to have been a physician. He had studied all the sciences in his native city Antioch, and the brilliant capital of the East had reason to be proud of its illustrious son.

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The symbolical Ox, reminding us of the figurative sacrifices, and announcing their abrogation, yokes himself, with the Man, the Lion, and the Eagle, to the chariot which bears the Conqueror of Earth, the Lamb in His triumph. O Evangelist of the Gentiles, be blessed for having put an end to the long night of our captivity, and warmed our frozen hearts. You were the confidant of the Mother of God, and her happy influence left in your soul that fragrance of virginity which pervaded your whole life and breathes through your writings. With discerning love and silent devotedness you assisted the Apostle of the Gentiles in his great work and remained as faithful to him when abandoned or betrayed, shipwrecked or imprisoned, as in the days of his prosperity. Rightly then does the Church in her Collect apply to you the words spoken by Saint Paul of himself: “In all things we suffer tribulation, are persecuted, are cast down, always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus. But this continual dying manifests the life of Jesus in our mortal Your inspired pen taught us to love the Son of Man in His Gospel. Your pencil portrayed Him for us in His Mother’s arms, and a third time you revealed Him to the world by the reproduction of His holiness in your own life.

Preserve in us the fruits of your manifold teaching. Though Christian painters do well to pay you special honour and to learn from you that the ideal of beauty resides in the Son of God and in His Mother, there is yet a more sublime art than that of lines and colours: the art of reproducing in ourselves the likeness of God. This we wish to learn perfectly in your school, for we know from your master Saint Paul that conformity to the image of the Son of God can alone entitle the elect to predestination. Be the protector of the faithful physicians who strive to walk in your footsteps and who, in their ministry of devotedness and charity, rely on your credit with the Author of life. Second their efforts to heal or to relieve suffering and inspire them with holy zeal when they find their patients on the brink of eternity. The world itself, in its decrepitude, now needs the assistance of all who are able, by prayer or action, to come to its rescue. “The Son of Man, when He comes, will He find, think you, faith on Earth?” (Luke xviii. 8). Thus spoke our Lord in the Gospel. But He also said that we ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke xviii. 1) adding, for the instruction of the Church both at this time and always, the parable of the widow whose importunity prevailed upon the unjust judge to defend her cause. “And will not God revenge His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He have patience in their regard? I say to you that He will quickly revenge them” (Luke xviii. 2‒3).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Antioch, St. Asclepiades, bishop, one of the celebrated troop of martyrs who suffered gloriously under Macrinus.

In the diocese of Beauvais, St. Justus, martyr, who, being but a boy, was put to death in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Rictiovarus.

At Neocaesarea in Pontus, the holy and learned bishop Athenodorus, brother of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who underwent martyrdom in the persecution of Aurelian.

In Mesopotamia, on the bank of the Euphrates, St. Julian, hermit.

At Rome, the birthday of St. Paul of the Cross, confessor, founder of the Congregation of the Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who Blessed Pius IX canonised on account of his remarkable innocence of life and his penitential spirit, assigning the twenty-eighth of April as the day of his festival.

At Rome, St. Tryphonia, at one time wife of the Caesar Decius. She was buried in a crypt near St. Hippolytus.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 OCTOBER – SAINT MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE (Virgin)

Margaret Mary was born in 1647. She spent almost her entire life in prayer and seclusion as a nun of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, France. In 1673 Our Lord appeared to her in a vision in which He revealed to her His Sacred Heart — a heart pierced, enthroned in flames, surrounded by a crown of thorns and surmounted by a cross. Our Lord told her:

“My Divine Heart is so full of love for men, and especially for you, that, unable any longer to keep within Itself the flames of its burning love, It needs must spread them abroad through means of you, and It must make Itself known unto them in order to enrich them with the treasures which It contains. I make known to you the worth of these treasures. They contain the graces of sanctification and of salvation which are needful to free them from the abyss of perdition. I have chosen you, who are an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance, to carry out this great work, so that it may be seen that every thing has been done by Me.”

Jesus also told Margaret Mary that He desired that the first Friday after the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi be observed in a special manner as a feast of His Heart, by the offering of Holy Communion with a reparation of honour for all the insults and indignities His Heart had received since the institution of the Holy Eucharist. He appeared to Margaret Mary another two times and made the following promises to those who practice devotion to His Sacred Heart:

• I will grant them the graces necessary for their state of life.
• I will establish peace in their families.
• I will comfort them in their afflictions.
• I will be their safe refuge during life, and especially at death.
• I will give abundant blessings on all their undertakings.
• Sinners will find a fountain and a boundless ocean of mercy in My Heart.
• Tepid souls will become fervent.
• Fervent souls will quickly achieve great perfection.
• I will bless every place where the picture of My Sacred Heart is exposed and honoured.
• I will give to priests the power to touch the hardest hearts.
• I will grant to all those who receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance.
• They will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments, and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

With the help of Margaret Mary’s confessor, the Jesuit priest Father Claude de la Colombière, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus quickly took roots and began to spread. Father Claude died in 1682. Margaret Mary died in 1690. She was beatified by Blessed Pius IX in 1864 and was canonised by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Antioch, the birthday of St. Heron, a disciple of blessed Ignatius. Being made bishop after him, he religiously followed his master’s footsteps, and, as a true lover of Christ, died for the flock entrusted to his keeping.

The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Victor, Alexander and Marian.

In Persia, St. Mamelta, martyr, who, being converted from idolatry to the faith by an angel, was stoned by Gentiles and cast into a deep lake.

At Constantinople, during the reign of Constantine Copronymus, St. Andrew of Crete, a monk, who was often scourged for the worship of holy images, and finally, after having one of his feet cut off, breathed his last.

At Orange in France, St. Florentinus, bishop, who died leaving a reputation for many virtues.

At Capua, St Victor, a bishop, distinguished for erudition and sanctity.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 OCTOBER – SAINT HEDWIG OF SILESIA (Widow)

Hedwig (or Hedwigis) was born in 1174 to Berthold IV, Count of Andechs and Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia. She had four brothers and three sisters. Of these, two brothers became bishops, Ekbert of Bamberg and Berthold of Aquileia, Otto succeeded his father as Duke of Dalmatia and Heinrich became Margrave of Istria. Gertrude married King Andrew II of Hungary and became the mother of Saint Elizabeth (Landgravine of Thuringia), Mechtilde became the Abbess of Kitzingen and Agnes became the unlawful wife of King Philip II of France. From childhood Hedwig was remarkable for her self-control, for at that age she refrained from all childish sports. While still a child she was married to Duke Henry of Silesia with whom she had six children. Later they mutually agreed to lead separate lives of spiritual perfection but Hedwig continued to assist and comfort her husband in the many political troubles he encountered.

After his death Hedwig took the Cistercian habit at the monastery of Trebnitz where she gave herself up to divine contemplation, spending from sunrise until midday assisting at the Divine Office and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She would neither speak of worldly affairs nor hear them spoken of unless they affected the interests of God or the salvation of souls. All her actions were governed by prudence and it was impossible to find in them anything excessive or disorderly. She was full of gentleness and affability towards all. She triumphed completely over her flesh by afflicting it with fasting, watching and rough garments. She was adorned with the noblest Christian virtues. She was exceedingly prudent in giving counsel and pure and tranquil in mind so as to be a model of religious perfection. She ever strove to place herself below all the nuns, eagerly choosing the lowest offices in the house. She served the poor on her knees, and washed and kissed the feet of lepers, so far overcoming herself as not to be repulsed by their loathsome ulcers.

Hedwig died in 1243 and was canonised in 1267 by Pope Clement IV.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

At the beginning of the thirteenth century the plateau of Upper Asia poured down a fresh torrent of barbarians more terrible than all their predecessors. The one fragile barrier which the Graeco-Slavonian civilisation could oppose to the Mongols had been swept away by the first wave of the invasion. Not one of the States formed under the protection of the Byzantine Church had any prospect for the future. But beyond this Ruthania, which had fallen into dissolution before being conquered, the Roman Church had had time to form a brave and generous people. When the hour arrived, Poland was ready. The Mongols were already inundating Silesia when, in the plains of Liegnitz, they found themselves confronted by an army of 30,000 warriors headed by the Duke of Silesia, Henry the Pious. The encounter was terrible. The victory remained long undecided until at length, by the odious treason of some Ruthanian princes, it turned in favour of the barbarians. Duke Henry and the flower of the Polish knighthood were left on the battlefield. But their defeat was equal to a victory. The Mongols retired exhausted, for they had measured their strength with the soldiers of the Latin Christianity.

It is Poland’s happy lot that at each decisive epoch in its history a Saint appears to point out the road to the attainment of its glorious destiny. Over the battlefield of Liegnitz shines the gentle figure of Saint Hedwig, mother of Duke Henry the Pious. She had retired in her widowhood into the Cistercian monastery of Trebnitz founded by herself. Three years before the coming of the barbarians she had had a revelation touching the future fate of her son. She offered her sacrifice in silence, and far from discouraging the young duke, she was the first to animate him to resistance.

The night following the battle she awoke one of her companions and said to her: “Demundis, know that I have lost my son. My beloved son has fled from me like a bird on the wing. I will never see my son again in this life.” Demundis endeavoured to console her. No courier had arrived from the army and her fears were vain. “It is but too true,” replied the duchess, “but mention it to no-one.” Three days later the fatal news was confirmed. “It is the will of God,” said Hedwig, “what God wills, and what pleases Him, must please us also.” And rejoicing in the Lord: “I thank you, O my God,” said she, raising her hands and eyes to Heaven, “for having given me such a son. He loved me all his life, always treated me with great respect, and never grieved me. I much desired to have him with me on Earth, but I congratulate him with my whole soul, for that by the shedding of his blood he is united with you in Heaven, with you his Creator. I recommend his soul to you, O Lord my God.” No less an example was needed to sustain Poland under the new it had just accepted.

At Liegnitz it had raised up again the sword of Christendom, fallen from the feeble hands of Ruthania. It became henceforth as a watchful sentinel, ever ready to defend Europe against the barbarians. Ninety-three times did the Tartars rush upon Christendom, thirsting for blood and rapine: ninety-three times Poland repulsed them at the edge of the sword, or had the grief to see the country laid waste, the towns burnt down, the flower of the nation carried into captivity. By these sacrifices it bore the brunt of the invasion and deadened the blow for the rest of Europe. As long as blood and tears and victims were required, Poland gave them unstintedly while the other European nations enjoyed the security purchased by this continual immolation.

* * * * *

Daughter of Abraham according to faith, you imitated his heroism. Your first reward was to find a worthy son in him you offered to the Lord. Your example is most welcome in this month in which the Church sets before us the death of Judas Maccabeus. As glorious as his was the death of your Henry, but it was also a fruitful death. Of your six children he alone, the Isaac offered and immolated to God, was permitted to propagate your race. And yet what a posterity is yours, since all the royal families of Europe can claim to be of your lineage! “I will make you increase exceedingly, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come out of you” (Genesis xvii. 6). This promise made to the Father of the faithful is fulfilled once more on your behalf, O Hedwig. God never changes. He has no need to make a new engagement. A like fidelity in any age earns from Him a like reward. May you be blessed by all, O Mother of nations! Extend over all your powerful protection, but above all others, by God’s permission, may unfortunate Poland find by experience that your patronage is never invoked in vain!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Africa, two hundred and seventy holy martyrs crowned together.

In the same country, the Saints Martinian and Saturnian with their two brothers. In the reign of the Arian king Genseric, while the persecution of the Vandals was raging, they were slaves belonging to a man of that race, and being converted to the faith of Christ by Maxima, a slave like themselves, they manifested their attachment to the truth with such courage, that they were beaten with rough clubs and lacerated in all parts of their bodies to the very bone. Although this barbarous treatment was continued for a considerable period, their wounds were each time healed over night, for which they were at length sent into exile. There they converted many barbarians to the faith and obtained from the Roman Pontiff a priest and other ministers to baptise them. Finally they were condemned to die by being dragged through thorns, with their feet tied behind running chariots. Maxima being miraculously delivered after enduring many tribulations, became the Superioress of a large monastery of virgins, where she ended her days in peace.

Also the Saints Saturninus, Nereus and three hundred and sixty-five other martyrs.

At Cologne, St. Eliphius, martyr, under Julian the Apostate.

Also St. Bercharius, abbot and martyr.

Near Bourges, St. Ambrose, bishop of Cahors.

At Mayence, St. Lullus, bishop and confessor.

At Treves, St. Florentinus, bishop.

At Arbon in Switzerland, St. Gall, abbot, a disciple of blessed Columban.

On Mount Cassino, blessed Pope Victor III, who succeeded Pope St. Gregory VII in the papal chair and threw new lustre round the Holy See by the signal triumph he gained over the Saracens through the divine assistance. The veneration paid to him from time immemorial Pope Leo XIII approved and confirmed.

At Muro in Lucania, St. Gerard Majella, a professed lay brother in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Pope St. Pius X, on account of his reputation for miracles ranked him among the saints.

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

Thanks be to God.

15 OCTOBER – SAINT TERESA OF AVILA (Virgin and Doctor)

Teresa, the daughter of Alphonsus Sanchez de Cepeda, was born at Avila in Spain in 1515. She was brought up by them in the fear of God, and while still very young she gave admirable promise of her future sanctity. While reading the Acts of the holy martyrs, she was so enkindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit that she ran away from home, resolved to cross over to Africa, and there to lay down her life for the glory of Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls. She was brought back by her uncle but her heart still burned with the desire of martyrdom, which she endeavoured to satisfy by alms-deeds and other works of piety, weeping continually to see herself deprived of that happy lot. On the death of her mother she begged the Blessed Virgin to be a Mother to her, and she gained her request, for, ever afterwards the Mother of God cherished her as a daughter. At the age of 20 she joined the Nuns of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel and spent 18 years in that monastery, enduring severe illnesses and many trials. While she was courageously battling in the ranks of Christian penance, she was deprived of the support of heavenly consolations in which the saints usually abound even on Earth.

Teresa was adorned with angelic virtues and her charity made her solicitous not for her salvation only, but for that of all mankind. Inspired by God, and with the approval of Pope Pius IV, she restored the Carmelite Order to its primitive severity and caused it to be so observed first by women and then by men. The all-powerful blessing of God was evident in this work for, although destitute of all human assistance and opposed by many of the powerful in the world, she was able in her poverty to build 32 monasteries. She wept continually over the blindness of infidels and heretics, and offered to God the voluntary maceration of her body to appease the divine anger on their behalf. Her heart burned like a furnace of divine love, so that once she saw an Angel piercing it with a fiery dart and heard Christ say to her, taking her hand in His: “Henceforward, as my true bride, you will be zealous for my honour.” By our Lord’s advice Teresa made the extremely difficult vow always to do what she conceived to be most perfect. She wrote many works full of divine wisdom, which arouse in the minds of the faithful the desire of their heavenly country.

Whereas Teresa was a pattern of every virtue, her desire of bodily mortification was most ardent. And despite the various illnesses that afflicted her, she chastised herself with sharp disciplines, scourged herself with bundles of nettles and sometimes rolled among thorns. She would often speak to God saying: “O Lord, let me either suffer or die.” She considered that as long as she was absent from the fountain of life, she was dying daily and most miserably. She was remarkable for her gift of prophesy and was enriched to such a degree by our Lord with His divine favours that she would often beg Him to set bounds to His gifts, and not to blot out the memory of her sins so quickly. Consumed by the irresistible fire of divine love rather than by disease, she received the last Sacraments and exhorted her children to peace, charity and religious observance. She died at Alba de Tonnes on the day she had foretold, and her pure soul was seen ascending to God in the form of a dove. She died at the age of 67 in 1582.

Jesus was seen present at her deathbed surrounded by Angels and a withered tree near her cell suddenly burst into blossom. Her body has remained incorrupt to the present day, distilling a fragrant liquor. She was made illustrious by miracles both before and after her death, and was canonised by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. She was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Although the Church Triumphant in Heaven and the Church Militant here on Earth appear to be completely separated,” says Bossuet on this feast, “they are nevertheless united by a sacred bond. This bond is charity, which is found in this land of exile as well as in our heavenly country, which rejoices the triumphant Saints and animates those still militant, which, descending from Heaven to Earth, and from Angels to men, causes Earth to become a Heaven, and men to become Angels. For, O holy Jerusalem, happy Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven, although the Church your dear sister, who lives and combats here below, ventures not to compare herself with you, she is not the less assured that a holy love unites her to you. It is true that she is seeking and you possess, that she labours and you are at rest, that she hopes and you rejoice. But among all these differences which separate the two so far asunder, there is this at least in common: that what the blessed spirits love, the same we mortals love. Jesus is their life, Jesus is our life. And and amid their songs of rapture and our sighs of sorrow, everywhere are heard to rebound these words of the sacred Psalmist: It is good for me to adhere to my God.”

Of this sovereign good of the Church Militant and Triumphant, Teresa, in a time of decadence, was commissioned to remind the world from the height of Carmel restored by her to its pristine beauty. After the cold night of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the example of her life possessed a power of irresistible attraction which survives in her writings drawing predestined souls after her in the footsteps of the Divine Spouse. It was not, however, by unknown ways that the Holy Spirit led Teresa. Neither did she, the humble Teresa, make any innovations. Long before the Apostle had declared that the Christian’s conversation is in Heaven. And we saw a few days ago how the Areopagite formulated the teaching of the first century. After him we might mention Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, and many other witnesses from all the churches. It has been said, and proved far more ably than we could prove it, that “no state seems to have been more fully recognised by the Fathers than that of perfect union which is achieved in the highest contemplation, and in reading their writings we cannot help remarking the simplicity with which they treat of it. They seem to think it frequent and simply look upon it as the full development of the Christian life” (Spiritual Life and Prayer according to holy Scripture and monastic tradition. Chap. xix Translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook).

In this, as in all else, Scholasticism followed the Fathers. It asserted the doctrine concerning these summits of Christian life even at a time when the weakness of faith in the people scarcely ever left full scope to divine charity, save in the obscurity of a few unknown cloisters. In its own peculiar form the teaching of the School was unfortunately not accessible to all, and moreover the abnormal character of that troubled epoch affected even the mystics that still remained. It was then that the Virgin of Avila appeared in the Catholic kingdom. Wonderfully gifted by grace and by nature, she experienced the resistances of the latter, as well as the calls of God, and the purifying delays and progressive triumphs of love. The Holy Ghost, who intended her to be a mistress in the Church, led her, if one may so speak, by the classical way of the favours He reserves for the perfect. Having arrived at the mountain of God, she described the road by which she had come, without any pretension but to obey Him who commanded her in the name of the Lord. With exquisite simplicity and unconsciousness of self, she related the works accomplished for her Spouse, made over to her daughters the lessons of her own experience, and described the many mansions of that castle of the human soul in the centre of which he that can reach it will find the holy Trinity residing as in an anticipated heaven. No more was needed: withdrawn from speculative abstractions and restored to her sublime simplicity, the Christian mystic again attracted every mind. Light re-awakened love. The virtues flourished in the Church, and the baneful effects of heresy and its pretended reform were counteracted.

Doubtless Teresa invited no one to attempt, as presumptuously as vainly, to force an entrance into the uncommon paths. But if passive and infused union depends entirely on God’s good pleasure, the union of effective and active conformity to the divine Will, without which the other would be an illusion, may be attained with the help of ordinary grace by every man of good will. Those who possess it “have obtained,” says the Saint, “what it was lawful for them to wish for. This is the union I have all my life desired, and have always asked of our Lord. It is also the easiest to understand, and the most secure.” She added however: “Beware of that excessive reserve which certain persons have, and which they take for humility. If the king deigned to grant you a favour, would it be humility to meet him with a refusal? And when the sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth deigns to honour my soul with His visit, and comes to load me with graces, and to rejoice with me, should I prove myself humble if I would not answer Him, nor keep Him company, nor accept His gifts, but fled from His presence and left Him all alone? A strange sort of humility is that! Look upon Jesus Christ as a Father, a Brother, a Master, or a Spouse. And treat Him in one or other of these ways. He Himself will teach you which is the one that best pleases Him and that it behoves you to choose. And then, be not so simple as to make no use of it.”

But it is said on all sides: “This way is beset with snares: such a soul was lost in it. Such an one went astray. And another, who ceased not to pray, could not escape a fall... See the inconceivable blindness of the world. It has no anxiety about those thousands of unfortunate creatures who, entirely strangers to the path of prayer, live in the most horrible excess. But if it happens, by a misfortune deplorable no doubt but very rare, that the tempter’s artifices seduce a soul that prays, they take advantage of this to inspire others with the greatest terror, and to deter them from the holy practices of virtue. Is he not the victim of a most fatal error who believes it necessary to abstain from doing good in order to avoid doing evil? You must rise above all these fears. Endeavour to keep your conscience always pure. Strengthen yourself in humility. Tread under foot all earthly things. Be inflexible in the faith of our mother the holy Church, and doubt not, after that, that you are on the right road.” It is too true that “when a soul finds not in herself that vigorous faith, and her transports of devotion do not strengthen her attachment to holy Church, she is in a way full of perils. The Spirit of God never inspires anything that is not conformable to holy Scripture. If there were the slightest divergence, that of itself alone would suffice to prove so evidently the action of the evil spirit, that were the whole world to assure me it was the divine Spirit, I would never believe it.”

But the soul may escape so great a danger by questioning those who can enlighten her. “Every Christian must, when he is able, seek out a learned guide, and the more learned the better. Such a help is still more necessary to persons given to prayer, and in the highest states, they have most need of it. I have always felt drawn to men eminent for doctrine. Some, I grant, may not have experimental knowledge of spiritual ways. But if they have not an aversion for them, they do not ignore them, and by the assistance of holy Scripture, of which they make a constant study, they always recognise the true signs of the good Spirit. The spirit of darkness has a strange dread of humble and virtuous science. He knows it will find him out and thus his stratagems will turn to his own loss... I, an ignorant and useless creature, bless you, O Lord, for these faithful servants of yours who give us light. I have no more knowledge than virtue. I write by snatches, and even then with difficulty. This prevents me from spinning, and I live in a poor house where I have no lack of occupations. The mere fact of being a woman and one so imperfect is sufficient to make me lay down the pen.”

As you will, O Teresa: deliver your soul. Pass beyond that, and with Magdalene, at the recollection of what you call your infidelities, water with your tears the feet of our Lord, recognise yourself in Saint Augustine’s Confessions! Yes, in those former relations with the world, although approved by obedience. In those conversations which were honourable and virtuous: it was a fault in you, who were called to something higher, to withhold from God so many hours which he was inwardly urging you to reserve for Him alone. And who knows where your soul might have been led had you continued longer thus to wound your Spouse? But we, whose tepidity can see nothing in your great sins but what would be perfection in many of us, have a right to appreciate, as the Church does, both your life and your writings. And to pray with her on this joyful day of your feast that we may be nourished with your heavenly doctrine and kindled with your love of God.

According to the word of the divine Canticle, in order to introduce Teresa into His most precious stores the Spouse had first to set charity in order in her soul. Having, therefore, claimed His just and sovereign rights, He at once restored her to her neighbour, more devoted and more loving than before. The Seraph’s dart did not wither nor deform her heart. At the highest summit of perfection she was destined to attain, in the very year of her blessed death, she wrote: “If you love me much, I love you equally, I assure you. And I like you to tell me the same. Oh how true it is that our nature inclines us to wish for return of love! It cannot be wrong, since our Lord Himself exacts a return from us. It is an advantage to resemble Him in something, were it only in this.” And elsewhere, speaking of her endless journeys in the service of her divine Spouse, she says: “It cost me the greatest pain when I had to part from my daughters and sisters. They are detached from everything else in the world, but God has not given them to be detached from me. He has perhaps done this for my greater trial, for neither am I detached from them.” No, grace never depreciates nature which, like itself, is the Creator’s work. It consecrates it, makes it healthy, fortifies it, harmonises it, causes the full development of its faculties to become the first and most tangible homage, publicly offered by regenerated man to Christ His Redeemer. Let any one read that literary masterpiece, the Book of the Foundations, or the innumerable letters written by the seraphic Mother amid the devouring activity of her life. There he will see, whether the heroism of faith and of all virtues, whether sanctity in its highest mystical expression, was ever prejudicial —we will not say to Teresa’s constancy, devotedness or energy — but to that intelligence which nothing could disconcert, swift, lively and pleasant; to that even character, which shed its peaceful serenity on all around; to the delicate solicitude, the moderation, the exquisite tact, the amiable manners, the practical good sense, of this contemplative, whose pierced heart beat only by miracle, and whose motto was: “To suffer or to die.”

To the benefactor of a projected foundation she wrote: “Do not think, sir, that you will have to give only what you expect. I warn you of it. It is nothing to give money. That does not cost us much. But when we find ounelves on the point of being stoned, you, and your son-in-law, and as many of us as have to do with this affair, (as it nearly happened to us at the foundation of Saint Joseph’s at Avila), Oh! then will be the good time!” It was on occasion of this same foundation at Toledo, which was in fact very stormy, that the Saint said: “Teresa and three ducats are nothing. But God, Teresa, and three ducats, there you have everything.”

Teresa had to experience more than mere human privations: there came a time when God Himself seemed to fail her. Like Philip Benizi before her, and after her Joseph Calasanctius and Alphonsus Liguori, she saw herself, her daughters and her sons condemned and rejected in the name and by the authority of the Vicar of Christ. It was one of three occasions long before prophesied when it is “given to the beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Apocalypse xiii. 7). We have not space to relate all the sad circumstances, and why should we do so? The old enemy had then one manner of acting, which he repeated in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and will always repeat. In like manner, God has but one aim in permitting the evil, viz: to lead His chosen ones to that lofty summit of crucifying union where He who willed to be first to taste the bitter dregs of the chalice, could say more truly and more painfully than any other: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew xxvii. 46).

The Beloved, who revealed Himself to you, O Teresa, at death, you had already found in the sufferings of this life. If anything could bring you back to earth, it would be the desire of suffering yet more. “I am not surprised,” says Bossuet speaking in your honour on your feast, “that Jesus willed to die: He owed that sacrifice to His Father. But why was it necessary that He should spend His days, and finally close them, in the midst of such great pains? It is because, being the Man of sorrows, as the Prophet calls Him, He would live only to endure. Or, to express it more forcibly by a beautiful word of Tertullian’s: He wished to be satiated, before dying, with the luxury of suffering: Saginari voluptate patientiae dicessurus volebat. What a strange expression! One would think, according to this Father, that the whole life of our Saviour was a banquet where all the dishes consisted of torments. A strange banquet in the eyes of men, but which Jesus found to His taste! His death was sufficient for our salvation, but death was not enough to satisfy His wonderful appetite for suffering for us. It was needful to add the scourges, and that blood-stained crown that pierced His head, and all the cruel apparatus of terrible tortures. And wherefore living only to endure, He wished to be satiated, before dying, with the luxury of suffering for us. In so far that upon His Cross, seeing in the eternal decrees that there was nothing more for Him to suffer, ‘Ah’ said He, ‘it is done, all is consummated. Let us go forth, for there is nothing more to do in this world,’ and immediately he gave up His soul to His Father.”

If such is the mind of Jesus our Saviour, must it not also be that of His bride, Teresa of Jesus? “She too wished to suffer or to die, and her love could not endure that any other cause should retard her death, save that which deferred the death of our Saviour.” Let us warm our hearts at the sight of this great example. “If we are true Christians, we must desire to be ever with Jesus Christ. Now, where are we to find this loving Saviour of our souls? In what place may we embrace Him? He is found in two places: in His glory and in His sufferings, on His throne and on His Cross. We must, then, in order to be with Him, either embrace Him on His throne, which death enables us to do, or else share in His Cross, and this we do by suffering. Hence we must either suffer or die, if we would never be separated from our Lord. Let us suffer then, O Christians; let us suffer what it pleases God to send us: afflictions, sicknesses, the "miseries of poverty, injuries, calumnies. Let us try to carry, with steadfast courage, that portion of His Cross with which He is pleased to honour us.'”

* * * * *

O you, whom the Church proposes to her children as a mistress and mother in the paths of the spiritual life, teach us this strong an true Christianity. Perfection, doubtless, cannot be acquired in a day and you did say: “We should be much to be pitied, if we could not seek and find God till we were dead to the world. God deliver us from those extremely spiritual people who, without examination or discretion, would refer everything to perfect contemplation!” But God deliver us also from those mistaken devotions which you called puerile and foolish, and which were so repugnant to the uprightness and dignity of your generous soul. You desired no other prayer than that which would make you grow in virtue. Convince us of the great principle in these matters, that “the prayer best made and most pleasing to God is that which leaves behind it the best results proved by works, and not those sweetnesses which end in nothing but our own satisfaction.” He alone will be saved who has kept the commandments and fulfilled the law, and Heaven, your Heaven, O Teresa, is the reward of the virtues you practised, not of the revelations and ecstasies with which you were favoured.

May your sons be blessed with increase in members, in merit, and in holiness. In all the lands where the Holy Ghost has multiplied your daughters, may their hallowed homes recall those first dove-cotes of the Blessed Virgin where the Spouse delighted to show forth the miracles of His grace. To the triumph of the faith, and the support of its defenders, you directed their prayers and fasts. What an immense field now lies open to their zeal! With them and with you, we ask of God two things: first, that among so many men and so many religious, some may be found having the necessary qualities for usefully serving the cause of the Church, on the understanding that one perfect man can render more services than a great many who are not perfect. Secondly, that in the conflict our Lord may uphold them with His hand, enabling them to escape all dangers, and to close their ears to the songs of sirens... O God, have pity on so many perishing souls. Stay the course of so many evils which afflict Christendom, and without further delay, cause your light to shine in the midst of this darkness!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Aurelia, St. Fortunatus, martyr.

At Cologne, the birthday of three hundred holy martyrs who terminated their combat in the persecution of Maximian.

At Carthage, St. Agileus, martyr, on whose birthday St. Augustine preached his panegyric.

In Prussia, St. Bruno, bishop of the Euthenians and martyr, who, preaching the Gospel in that region, was arrested by impious men, had his hands and feet cut off and was beheaded.

At Lyons, St. Antiochus, bishop, who entered the heavenly kingdom after having courageously fulfilled the duties of the high station to which he had been called.

At Treves, St. Severus, bishop and confessor.

At Strasburg, St. Aurelia, virgin.

At Cracow, St. Hedwiges, duchess of Poland, who devoted herself to the service of the poor, and was renowned for miracles. She was inscribed among the saints by Pope Clement IV, and Pope Innocent XI permitted her feast to be celebrated on the seventeenth of this month.

In Germany, St. Thecla, abbess.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 OCTOBER – SAINT CALLIXTUS (Pope and Martyr)

Pope Saint Zephyrinus (202‒219 AD) entrusted his deacon Callixtus with the government of the clergy and the administration of the papal catacombs (the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus). When Pope Saint Zephyrinus died Callixtus succeeded him as Bishop of Rome. Pope Callixtus is credited with the institution of Ember Days of abstinence, fasting and prayer. He built the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere and enlarged the Catacombs which bear his name. The body of the blessed Calepodius, priest and martyr, having been thrown into the Tiber, Callixtus in his piety caused it to be diligently sought for, and when found to be honourably buried. He baptised Palmatius, Simplioius, Felix and Blanda, the first of whom was of consular rank, and the others of senatorial rank, and who all afterwards suffered martyrdom. For this he was cast into prison where he miraculously cured a soldier named Privatus, who was covered with ulcers, and in consequence of which converted to Christianity. Though so recently converted, Privatus died for the faith, being beaten to death with scourges tipped with lead. Callixtus was Pope 5 years, 1 month and 12 days. He held five ordinations in the month of December in which he ordained 16 priests, 4 deacons and 8 bishops. He was tortured for a long while by starvation and frequent scourgings, and finally, he was thrown out of a window of his house in the Trastevere and, tied to an anchor, his body was cast into a well. It was later recovered and initially interred in the Catacombs of Octavilla on the Via Aurelia, but later his body was translated back to the Trastevere and interred in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Pope Saint Callixtus is the patron of cemetery workers.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

He was a sign of contradiction in Israel. In his own time, Christians were ranged either around him or against him. The trouble excited by his mere name [seventeen] hundred years ago was renewed in the middle of the nineteenth century by the discovery of a famous book which gave an occasion to the sectaries of our own days to stand with those of old against Callixtus and the Church. The book, entitled LOSOPHUMENA or refutation of heresies, was composed in the third century. It represented Callixtus, whose life and charaoter were painted in the darkest colours, as one of the worst corrupters of doctrine. In that third century, however, the author of the Philosophumena, attacking the Pontiff he wished to supplant, and setting up in Rome, as he himself acknowledges, Chair against Chair, did but publish to the Church his own shame by ranging himself among those very dissenters of whom his book professed to be the refutation and the history. The name of this first Antipope has not come down to us. But behold his punishment! The work of his envious pen, despised by his contemporaries, was to reappear at the right moment to awaken the slumbering attention of a far-off posterity.

The impartial criticism of these latter ages, setting aside the insinuations, took up the facts brought forward by the accuser, and with the aid of science, disentangling the truth from among his falsehoods, rendered the most unexpected testimony to his hated rival. Thus once more iniquity lied to itself (Psalm xxvi. 12) and this word of today’s Gospel was verified: “Nothing is covered that will not be revealed; nor hid that will not be known” (Matthew x. 26).

Let us listen to the greatest of Christian archaeologists whose mind, so sure and so reserved, was overcome with enthusiasm on finding so much light springing from such a source. “All this,” said the Commandant de Rossi on studying the odious document, “gives me clearly to understand why the accuser said ironically of Callixtus that he was reputed most admirable; why, though all knowledge of his acts was lost, his name has come down to us with such great veneration; and lastly, why, in the third and fourth centuries when the memory of his government was still fresh, he was honoured more than any of his predecessor, or of his successors, since the ages of persecution. Callixtus ruled the Church when she was at the term of the first stage in her career, and was marching forward to new and greater triumphs. The Christian faith hitherto embraced only by individuals, had then become the faith of families, and fathers made profession of it in their own and their children’s name. These families already formed almost the majority in every town. The religion of Christ was on the eve of becoming the public religion of the nation and the empire. How many new problems concerning Christian social rights, ecclesiastical law, and moral discipline, must have daily arisen in the Church, considering the greatness of her situation at the time, and the still greater future that was opening before her! Callixtus solved all these doubts. He drew up regulations concerning the deposition of clerics, took the necessary measures against the deterring of catechumens from Baptism, and of sinners from repentance, and defined the notion of the Church which St. Augustine was afterwards to develop. In opposition to the civil laws, he asserted the Christian’s right over his own conscience and the Church’s authority with regard to the marriage of the faithful. He knew no distinction of slave and freeman, great and lowly, noble and plebeian, in that spiritual brotherhood that was undermining Roman society and softening its inhuman manners. For this reason his name is so great at the present day. For this reason, the voice of the envious, or of those who measured the times by the narrowness of their own proud mind, was lost in the cries of admiration, and was utterly despised.”

We have not space to develop, as it deserves, this masterly exposition. We have already seen how, when the virgin martyr Caecilia yielded to the Popes the place of her first sepulture, Callixtus, then deacon of Zephyrinus, arranged the catacomb of the Caecilii for its new destiny. Venerable crypt, in which the State for the first time recognised the Church’s right to earthly possessions: sanctuary, no less than necropolis in which, before the triumph of the Cross, Christian Rome laid up her treasures for the resurrection day. Our great martyr-Pontiff was deemed the most worthy to give his name to this the principal cemetery although Providenoe had disposed that he should never rest in it. Under the benevolent reign of Alexander Severus, he met his death in the Trastevere in a sedition raised against him by the pagans. The cause of the tumult appears to have been his having obtained possession of the famous Taberna meritoria from the floor of which, in the days of Augustus, a fountain of oil had sprung up and had flowed for a whole day. The Pontiff built a church on the spot and dedicated it to the Mother of God. It is the basilica of Santan Maria in Trastevere. Its ownership was contended for, and the case was referred to the emperor, who decided in favour of the Christians. We may attribute to the vengeance of his adversaries the Saint’s violent death which took place close to the edifice his firmness had secured to the Church. The mob threw him into a well which is still to be seen in the church of San Callisto, a few paces from the Santa Maria basilica. For fear of the sedition, the martyr’s body was not carried to the Via Appia, but was laid in a cemetery already opened on the Via Aurelia, where his tomb originated a new historic centre of subterranean Rome.

* * * * *

THE Holy Ghost, the protector of the Church, prepared you, by suffering and humiliation, to become His chosen auxiliary. You were born a slave. While still young you were condemned to the mines of Sardinia for the Name o£ our Lord. You were a bond-slave, it is true, but not now for your former master. And when delivered from the mines at the time appointed by Him who regulates circumstances according to His good pleasure, you were ennobled by the title of Confessor, which recommended you to the maternal attention of the Church. Such were your merits and virtues, that Zephyrinus, entering upon the longest pontificate of the persecution period, chose you for the counsellor, support and coadjutor of his old age. And after the experience of those eighteen years, the Church elected you for her supreme Pastor. At the hour of your death, how prosperous did you leave this Bride of Our Lord! All the nobility of ancient days, all the moral worth and intellectual eminence of the human race seemed to be centred in her. Where was then the contempt of old, where the calumnies of a while ago. The world began to recognise in the Church the queen of the future. If the pagan state was yet to inflict cruel persecutions on her, it would be from the conviction that it must struggle desperately for its very existence. It even hesitated, and seemed, for ·the moment, more inclined to make a compact with the Christians.

You opened to the Church new paths, full of peril, but also of grandeur. From the absolute and brutal Non licet vos esse (“It is not lawful for you to exist”) of the lawyer-executioners, you were the first to bring the empire to recognise officially, to a certain extent, the rights of the Christian community. Through you Caecilia assured to them the power of assembling together and making collections to honour their dead. You consecrated to Mary, fons olei, the first sanctuary legally acquired by the Christians in Rome, and you were rewarded for the act by martyrdom. Now, far from compromising the least of God’s rights in coming to terms with Caesar, you did, at that very time, oppose the latter, asserting as no other had yet done the absolute independence of the Church with regard to marriage which Christ had withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the civil power. Already, would not one be inclined to say that we have a nation within the nation? Yes. And it will continue to be so until the whole nation itself have passed into the ranks of this new people.

Within the bosom of the Church, you had other cares. Doctrinal contests were at their height, and attacked the first of our mysteries: Sabellius condemned for his audacity in declaring that the real distinction of Persons in the most Holy Trinity is incompatible with the unity of God, left the field open to another sect, who so separated the Three Divine Persons as to make them three Gods. Again, there was Montanus whose disciples, enemies of the Sabellian theories even before Sabellius appeared, courted the favour of the Holy See for their system of false mysticism and extravagant reformation. But as an experienced pilot avoids the rocks and shoals, between the subtilities of dogmatisers, the pretensions of rigorists and the utopias of politicians, you, under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, did, with a sure hand, steer the barque of Peter towards its glorious destination. The more Satan hates you and pursues you even to the present day, the more may you be glorified forever. Give your blessing to us, who are your sons and your disciples.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Caesarea in Palestine, St. Fortunata, virgin and martyr, during the persecution of Diocletian. After having been subjected to the rack, to fire, to the teeth of beasts and other torments, she gave up her soul to God. Her body was afterwards conveyed to Naples in Campania.

Also the Saints Carponius, Evaristus and Priscian, brothers of the said blessed Fortunata, who having their throats cut, obtained likewise the crown of martyrdom.

Also the Saints Saturninus and Lupus.

At Rimini, St. Gaudentius, bishop and martyr.

At Todi, St. Fortunatus, bishop, who, as mentioned by Pope St. Gregory, was endowed with an extraordinary gift for casting out unclean spirits.

At Wurtzburg, St. Burchard, first bishop of that city.

At Bruges in Belgium, St. Donatian, bishop of Rheims.

At Treves, St. Rusticus, bishop.

The same day, the departure out of this world of St. Dominic Loricatus.

In Italy, St. Bernard, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

13 OCTOBER – SAINT EDWARD (King and Confessor)

Richard II of England with his patron saints King Edmund the Martyr (left), King Edward the Confessor (middle) and St John the Baptist (right).

Edward, surnamed the Confessor, was the nephew of King Edward the Martyr, and was himself the last Anglo-Saxon King. Our Lord had revealed that he would one day be king, to a holy man named Brithwald. When Edward was 10 years old the Danes, who were devastating England, sought his life. He was therefore obliged to go into exile to the court of his uncle, Richard II, the Duke of Normandy. Amid the vices and temptations of the Norman court, he grew up pure and innocent, a subject of admiration to all. His pious devotion towards God and holy things was most remarkable. He was of a very gentle disposition, free from lust of power, and was a burning and shining light for love of God and the things of God. Of him the saying is preserved that he would prefer not to be a king of a kingdom won by slaughter and bloodshed. When the Danish rulers who had murdered his brothers Edmund and Alfred passed away, Edward returned to England and in 1042 assumed the kingship of his native country.

Edward applied himself to remove all traces of the havoc wrought by the enemy. To begin at the sanctuary, he built many churches and restored others, endowing them with rents and privileges, for he was very anxious to see religion, which had been neglected, flourishing again. All writers assert that, though compelled by his nobles to marry, both he and his bride preserved their virginity intact. Such were his love of Christ and his faith, that he was one day permitted to see our Lord in the Mass, shining with heavenly light and smiling upon him. His lavish charity won him the name of the lather of orphans and of the poor. He was never so happy as when he had exhausted the royal treasury on their behalf. He was honoured with the gift of prophecy, and foresaw much of England’s future history. A remarkable instance is, that when Sweyn, king of Denmark, was drowned in the very act of embarking on his fleet to invade England, Edward was supernaturally aware of the event the very moment it happened.

Edward had a special devotion to Saint John the Evangelist, and was accustomed never to refuse anything asked in his name. One day Saint John appeared to him as a poor man begging an alms in this manner. The king, having no money about him, took off his ring and gave it to him. Soon afterwards the Saint sent the ring back to Edward, with a message that his death was at hand. The king then ordered prayers to be said for himself. He died most piously on the day foretold by Saint John, the Nones (5^th) of January 1066. He was canonised by Pope Alexander III in 1161. Pope Innocent XI ordered his memory to be celebrated with a public Office throughout the whole Church on the 13th of October, the day on which in 1102 his body, which was found to be incorrupt and sweet-smelling, was translated by Saint Thomas Becket, Bishop of Canterbury, in the presence of King Henry II.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This glorious Saint was like a beautiful lily, crowning the ancient branch of the king of Wessex. The times had progressed since that eleventh century when the pagan Cerdic and other pirate chiefs from the North Sea scattered with ruins the Island of Saints. Having accomplished their mission of wrath, the Anglo-Saxons became instruments of grace to the land they had conquered. Evangelised by Rome, even as before them the Britons they had just chastised, they remembered, better than the latter from where their salvation had come: a spring-tide blossoming of sanctity showed the pleasure God took once more in Albion, for the constant fidelity of the princes and people of the heptarchy towards the See of Peter. In 800 Egbert, a descendant of Cerdic, had gone on pilgrimage to Rome when a deputation from the West Saxons offered him the crown beside the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, at whose feet Charlemagne, at that very time, was restoring the Empire. As Egbert united under one sceptre the power of the seven kingdoms, so Saint Edward, his last descendant, represents today in his own person the glorious holiness of them all. Nephew to Saint Edward the Martyr, our holy king is known to God and man by the beautiful title of the Confessor. The Church, in her account of his life, sets forth more particularly the virtues which won him so glorious an appellation. But we must remember moreover that his reign of twenty-four years was one of the happiest England has ever known. Alfred the Great had no more illustrious imitator. The Danes, so long masters, now entirely subjugated within the kingdom, and without, held at bay by the noble attitude of the prince. Macbeth, the usurper of the Scotch throne, vanquished in a campaign that Shakespeare has immortalised. Saint Edward’s Laws, which remain to this day the basis of the British Constitution, the Saint’s munificence towards all noble enterprises, while at the same time he diminished the taxes: all this proves with sufficient clearness that the sweetness of virtue, which made him the intimate friend of Saint John the Beloved disciple, is not incompatible with the greatness of a monarch.

You represent on the sacred Cycle the nation which Gregory the Great foresaw would rival the Angels. So many holy kings, illustrious virgins, grand bishops, and great monks who were its glory, now form your brilliant court. Where are now the unwise in whose sight you and your race seemed to die? History must be judged in the light of Heaven. While you and your reign there eternally, judging nations and ruling over peoples, the dynasties of your successors on Earth, ever jealous of the Church and long wandering in schism and heresy, have become extinct one after another, sterilised by God’s wrath and having none but that vain renown of which no trace is found in the book of life. How much more noble and more durable, O Edward, were the fruits of your holy virginity! Teach us to look upon the present world as a preparation for another, an everlasting world, and to value human events by their eternal results. Our admiring worship seeks and finds you in your royal Abbey of Westminster, and we love to contemplate, by anticipation, your glorious resurrection on the day of judgement when all around you so many false grandeurs will acknowledge their shame and their nothingess. Bless us, prostrate in spirit or in reality, beside your tomb where heresy, fearful of the result, would fain forbid our prayer. Offer to God the supplications rising today from all parts of the world, for the wandering sheep whom the Shepherd’s voice is now so earnestly calling back to the one Fold!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Troas in Asia Minor, the birthday of St. Carpus, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Paul.

At Cordova in Spain, the birthday of the holy martyrs Faustus, Januarius and Martial. First tortured on the rack, then having their eyelashes shaven, their teeth plucked out, their ears and noses cut off, they finished their martyrdom by fire.

At Thessalonica, St. Florentius, a martyr, who, after enduring various torments, was burned alive.

In Austria, St. Colman, martyr.

At Ceuta in Morocco, seven martyrs of the Order of Friars Minor, Daniel, Samuel, Angelus, Domnus, Leo, Nicholas and Hugolinus. For preaching the Gospel and refuting the errors of Muhammed, they were reviled, bound and scourged by the Saracens, and finally won the palm of martyrdom by being beheaded.

At Antioch, the holy bishop Theophilus, who held the pontificate in that church, the sixth after the blessed Apostle St. Peter.

At Tours, St. Venantius, abbot, and confessor.

At Subiaco in Italy, St. Chelidonia, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

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!”