8 JULY – SAINT ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL (Queen and Widow)

Elizabeth was born in 1271 to King Peter II of Aragon. As a presage of her future sanctity, her parents, contrary to custom, passing over the mother and grandmother, gave her in Baptism the name of her maternal great-aunt, Saint Elizabeth, Duchess of Thuringia. No sooner was she born than it became evident what a blessed peacemaker she was to be between kings and kingdoms, for the joy of her birth put a happy period to the miserable quarrels of her father and grandfather. As she grew up, her father, admiring the natural abilities of his daughter, was wont to assert that Elizabeth would far outstrip in virtue all the women descended of the royal blood of Aragon. And so great was his veneration for her heavenly manner of life, her contempt of worldly ornaments, her abhorrence of pleasure, her assiduity in fasting, prayer and works of charity, that he attributed to her merits alone the prosperity of his kingdom and estate. On account of her widespread reputation, her hand was sought by many princes. At length she was, with all the ceremonies of holy Church, united in matrimony with Dionysius, king of Portugal.

In the married state she gave herself up to the exercise of virtue and the education of her children, striving to please her husband, but still more to please God. For nearly half the year she lived on bread and water alone, and on one occasion when, in an illness, she had refused to take the wine prescribed by the physician, her water was miraculously changed into wine. She instantaneously cured a poor woman of a loathsome ulcer by kissing it. In the depth of winter she changed the money she was going to distribute to the poor into roses, in order to conceal it from the king. She gave sight to a virgin born blind, healed many other persons of grievous distempers by the mere sign of the Cross, and performed a great number of other miracles of a like nature. She built and amply endowed monasteries, hospitals and churches. She was admirable for her zeal in composing the differences of kings, and unwearied in her efforts to alleviate the public and private miseries of mankind.

After the death of King Dionysius, Elizabeth, who had been in her youth a model to virgins, and in her married life to wives, became in her solitude a pattern of all virtues to widows. She immediately put on the religious habit of Saint Clare, assisted with the greatest fortitude at the king’s funeral, and then, proceeding to Compostella, offered there for the repose of his soul a quantity of silk, silver, gold and precious stones. On her return home she consumed in holy and pious works all she had that was dear and precious to her. She completed the building of her truly royal monastery of virgins at Coimbra and, wholly engaged in feeding the poor, protecting widows, sheltering orphans and assisting the afflicted in every way, she lived not for herself, but for the glory of God and the well-being of men. On her way to the noble town of Estremoz, where she was going in order to make peace between the two kings, her son and son-in-law, she was seized with illness. And, in that town, after having been visited by the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, she died in 1336. She was canonised by Pope Urban VIII in 1625.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

In the footsteps of Margaret of Scotland and of Clotilde of France, a third Queen comes to shed her brightness on the sacred Cycle. Born at the southern extremity of Christendom where it borders on Muslim lands, she was destined by the Holy Ghost to seal with peace the victories of Christ and prepare the way for fresh conquests. The blessed name of Elizabeth, which for half a century had been rejoicing the world with its sweet perfume, was given to her, foretelling that this new-born child, as though attracted by the roses which fell from the mantle of her Thuringian aunt, was to cause these same heavenly flowers to blossom in Iberia. There is a mysterious heirship among the saints of God. The same year in which one niece of Elizabeth of Thuringia was born in Spain, another, the Blessed Margaret of Hungary, took her flight to Heaven. She had been consecrated to God from her mother’s womb as a pledge for the salvation of her people in the midst of terrible disasters. And the hopes so early centred in her were not frustrated. A short life of twenty-eight years spent in innocence and prayer, earned for her country the blessings of peace and civilisation, and then Margaret bequeathed to our Saint of today the mission of continuing in another land the work of her holy predecessors.

The time had come for our Lord to shed a ray of His grace on Spain. The thirteenth century was closing, leaving the world in a state of dismemberment and ruin. Weary of fighting for Christ, kings dismissed the Church from their councils and selfishly kept aloof, preferring their own ambitious strifes to the common aspiration of the once great body of Christendom. Such a state of things was disastrous for the entire West. Much more, then, for that noble country where the Crusade had multiplied kingdoms as so many outposts against the common enemy, the Moors. Unity of views and the sacrifice of all things to the great work of deliverance could alone maintain in the successors of Pelayo the spirit of the grand memories of yore. Unfortunately these princes, though heroes on the battle field, had not sufficient strength of mind to lay aside their petty quarrels and take up the sacred duty entrusted to them by Providence. In vain did the Roman Pontiff strive to awaken them to the interests of their country and of the Christian name. These hearts, generous in other respects, were too stifled by miserable passions to heed his voice, and the Muslim looked on delightedly at these intestine strifes, which retarded his own defeat. Navarre, Castile, Aragon and Portugal were not only at war with each other; but even within each of these kingdoms, father and son were at enmity, and brother disputed with brother, inch by inch, the heritage of his ancestors.

Who was to restore to Spain the still recent traditions of her Ferdinand III? Who was to gather again these dissentient wills into one, so as to make them a terror to the Saracen and a glory to Christ? James I of Aragon, who rivalled Saint Ferdinand both in bravery and in conquests, had married Yoland, daughter of Andrew of Hungary, upon which the cultus of the holy Duchessof Thuringia, whose brother-in-law he had thus become, was introduced beyond the Pyrenees. And the name of Elizabeth, changed in most cases into Isabel, became, as it were, a family jewel with which the Spanish princesses have loved to be adorned. The first to bear it was the daughter of James and Yoland, who married Philip III of France, successor of Saint Louis. The second was the grand-daughter of the same James I, the Saint whom the Church honours today, and of whom the old king, with prophetic insight, loved to say, that she would surpass all the women of the race of Aragon.

Inheriting not only the name, but also the virtues of the “dear Saint Elizabeth,” she would one day deserve to be called “the mother of peace and of her country.” By means of her heroic self-renunciation and all-powerful prayer, she repressed the lamentable quarrels of princes. One day, unable to prevent peace being broken, she cast herself between two contending armies under a very hailstorm of arrows, and so forced the soldiers to lay down their fratricidal arms. Thus she paved the way for the happy event which she herself was not to have the consolation of seeing: the re-organisation of that great enterprise for the expulsion of the Moors, which was not to close till the following century under the auspices of another Isabel, her worthy descendant, who would add to her name the beautiful title of “the Catholic.”

Four years after Elizabeth’s death, the victory of Salado was gained by the united armies of all Spain over 600,000 infidels, showing how a woman could, under most adverse circumstances, inaugurate a brilliant Crusade to the immortal fame of her country.

* * * * *

O BLESSED Elizabeth, we praise God for your holy works, as the Church this day invites all her sons to do. More valiant than those princes in whose midst you appeared as the angel of your fatherland, you exhibited in your private life a heroism which could equal theirs when need was, even on the battle field. God’s grace was the motive-power of your actions, and His glory their sole end. Often does God gain more glory by abnegations hidden from all eyes but His, than by great works justly admired by a whole people. It is because the power of His grace shines forth the more. And it is generally the way of His Providence to cause the most remarkable blessings bestowed on nations to spring from these hidden sources. How many battles celebrated in history have first been fought and won in the sight of the Blessed Trinity, in some hidden spot of that supernatural world, where the elect are ever at war with Hell, no, struggle at times even with God Himself! How many famous treaties of peace have first been concluded between Heaven and Earth in the secret of a single soul as a reward for those giant struggles which men misunderstand and despise! Let the fashion of this world pass away, and those deep-thinking politicians who are said to rule the course of events, the proud negotiators and warriors of renown, all, when judged, by the light of eternity, will appear for what they are: mere deceptions screening from the sight of men the only names truly worthy of immortality.

Glory then be to you, through whom the Lord has deigned to lift a corner of the veil that hides from the world the true rulers of its destinies. In the golden book of the elect, your nobility rests on better titles than those of birth. Daughter and mother of kings, yourself a queen, you ruled over a glorious land. But far more glorious is the family throne in Heaven, where you reign with the first Elizabeth, with Margaret and with Hedwige, and where others will come to join you, doing honour to the same noble blood which flowed in your veins. Remember, O mother of your country, that the power given to you on Earth is not diminished now that the God of armies has called you to your heavenly triumph. Spain and Portugal have fallen away from their noble traditions: lead them back to the right path, that they may attain the glorious destiny marked out for them by Providence. Your power in Heaven is not restrained within the borders of a kingdom. Cast then a look of mercy on the rest of the world: see how nations, recognising no right but might, waste their wealth and their vitality in wholesale bloodshed. Has the time come for those terrible wars, which are to be harbingers of the end, and in which in the world will work its own destruction? O mother of peace, hear how the Church, the mother of nations, implores you to make full use of your sublime prerogative. Put a stop to these furious strifes, and make our life on Earth a path of peace, leading up to the joys of eternity.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Asia Minor, the Saints Aquila and his wife Priscilla, of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles.

At Porto, fifty holy soldiers, martyrs, who were led to the faith by the martyrdom of St. Bonosa, and baptised by the blessed Pope Felix. They were put to death in the persecution of Aurelian.

In Palestine, in the reign of Diocletian, St. Procopius, martyr, who was brought from Scythopolis to Caesarea, and upon his first resolute answer was beheaded by the judge Fabian.

At Constantinople, the holy Abrahamite monks, who resisted the emperor Theophilus by defending the worship of holy images, and suffered martyrdom.

At Wurtzburg in Germany, St. Kilian, bishop, who was commissioned by the Roman Pontiff to preach the Gospel. After having converted many to Christ, he was put to death with his companions, Colman, a priest, and Totnan, a deacon.

At Rome, the blessed Eugenius II, pope. Having gained a great reputation for sanctity and prudence in his government of the monastery of Saints Vincent and Anastasius, he was raised to the Sovereign Pontificate and ruled over the universal Church with much holiness. Blessed Pius IX approved and confirmed the veneration paid to him.

At Treves, St. Auspicius, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

7 JULY – SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS (Bishops and Confessors)

Cyril (baptised Constantine) and Methodius were brothers born in Thessalonica to a man of rank in 827 and 826 respectively. In 851 they retired to a monastery on Mt. Olympus to live a secluded life of self-discipline. However, in 858 they were sought out and commissioned to instruct the Hunnish Khazars in the Christian faith. After completing this task they retired to the Crimea to make a Slavonic translation of the Bible. There they discovered the relics of Pope Saint Clement I.

In 862 the emperor Michael sent the brothers to minister to the people of Pannonia, Rostislav, Svaetopolk and Kotel. On their way Methodius converted King Boris of the Bulgarians before proceeding to Moravia where they continued to work on their translation of the Bible for several years. In 868 Pope Nicolas I summoned them to Rome after German princes complained of their use of the Slavonic language in the liturgy. They were received by his successor Pope Adrian II who sanctioned the use of the Slavonic liturgy and ordained two of their disciples as bishops.

In the following year Cyril died in Rome on 14 February and Methodius returned to Moravia until, in 878, when Pope John VIII forbade the use of Salvonic in the liturgy and summoned Methodius to Rome. After his appearance the Pope was satisfied of Methodius' orthodoxy and confirmed his position and authority over the Moravian Church. Methodius converted Duke Borivoi of Bohemia and introduced Christianity into the lands under his rule. In Prague he founded a church dedicated to Our Lady, and another dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. He died on 6 April 885.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Twin stars this day arise on the heavens of holy Church, illumining by the radiant beams of their apostolate immense tracts of country. Seeing that they start from Byzantium, one is at first led to suppose that their evolution is going to be performed independently of the laws which Rome has the right to dictate for the movements of the heavens, of which it is said that “they will declare the glory of God and the works of His hand” (Psalm xviii. 2). But the auspicious influence of Saint Clement I, as we will see, through his sacred relics diverts their course towards the Mistress of the world. And presently they can be descried gravitating with matchless splendour in Peter’s orbit, manifesting once more to the whole Earth that all true light in the order of salvation radiates solely from the Vicar of the Man-God. Then once again is realised that word of the Psalmist, that “there are no speeches nor languages where the voices of the messengers of light are not heard” (Psalm xviii. 4).

To the sudden and splendid outburst of the good tidings that marked the first centuries of our era, had succeeded the labours of the second Apostolate where to the Holy Ghost entrusted the gathering in of those new nations called by Divine Wisdom to replace the ancient world. Already, under that mysterious influence of the Eternal City by which she assimilated to herself even her very conquerors, another Latin race had been formed out of those very barbarians whose invasion seemed like a deluge to have submerged the whole Empire. Scarce was this marvellous transformation effected by the baptism of the Franks, the conversion from Arianism of the Goths and of their variously named brethren in arms, than the Anglo Saxons, the Germans, and lastly the Scandinavians, conducted respectively by an Augustine, a Boniface, or an Anscharius, all three monks, came in turn to knock for admission, at the gates of Holy Church. At the creative voice of these new Apostles, Europe appeared, issuing from the waters of the sacred Font.

Meanwhile, the constant movement of the great migration of nations had, by degrees, brought as far as the banks of the Danube, a people whose name began, in the ninth century, to attract universal attention. Betwixt East and West, the Slavs, profiting on the one side of the weakness of Charlemagne’s descendants, and of the revolutions of the Byzantine court on the other, were aiming at erecting their various tribes into principalities, independent alike of both empires. Thus was now the hour chosen by Providence to win over to Christianity and to civilisation a race until then without a history. The Spirit of Pentecost rested on the head of the two holy brethren whom we are today celebrating. Prepared by the monastic life for every devotedness and every suffering, they brought to this people struggling to issue from the shades of ignorance, the first elements of letters, and tidings of the noble destiny to which God, our Saviour, invites men and nations.

Thus was the Slav race fitted to complete the great European family, and God ceded to it a larger territory than He had bestowed on any other in this Europe of ours, so evidently the object of Eternal Predilection. Happy this nation had she but continued ever attached to that Rome which had lent her such valuable assistance in the midst of the early struggles that disputed her existence! Nothing, indeed, so strongly seconded her aspirations for independence as the favour of having a peculiar language in the sacred rites, a favour obtained for her from the See of Peter by her two Apostles. The outcries uttered, at that very time, by those who would fain hold her fast bound under their own laws, showed clearly enough, even then, the political bearing of a concession, as unparalleled as it was decisive, in sealing the existence in those regions of a new people distinct at once from both Germans and Greeks.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius, notary, Meostratus, assistant prefect, Castorius, Victorinus and Symphorian, who were brought to the faith of Christ by St. Sebastian, and baptised by the blessed priest Polycarp. While they were engaged in searching for the bodies of the holy martyrs, the judge Fabian had them arrested, and for ten days he tried by threats and caresses to shake their constancy, but being utterly unable to succeed, he ordered them to be thrice tortured and then precipitated into the sea.

At Durazzo in Macedonia, the holy martyrs Peregrinus, Lucian, Pompeius, Hesychius, Papius, Saturninus and Germanus, natives of Italy. In the persecution of Trajan they took refuge in the town of Durazzo, where seeing the saintly bishop Astius hanging on a cross for the faith of Christ, they publicly declared themselves to be Christians, when, by order of the governor, they were arrested and cast into the sea.

At Perugia, blessed Pope Benedict XI, a native of Treviso, of the Order of Preachers, who in the brief space of his pontificate greatly promoted the peace of the Church, the restoration of discipline and the spread of religion.

At Alexandria, the birthday of St. Pantaenus, an apostolic man, filled with wisdom. He had such an affection and love for the word of God, and was so inflamed with the ardour of faith and devotion, that he set out to preach the Gospel of Christ to the Gentiles inhabiting the farthest recesses of the East. At length returning to Alexandria, he rested in peace under Antoninus Caracalla.

At Brescia, St. Apollonius, bishop and confessor.

In Saxony, St. Willibald, first bishop of Eichstadt, who laboured with St. Boniface in preaching the Gospel and converted many nations to Christ.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Illidius, bishop.

At Urgel in Spain, St. Odo, bishop.

In England, St. Hedda, bishop of the West-Saxons.

At Gray in Burgundy, blessed Peter Fourier, Canon Regular of the most Holy Saviour, renowned for virtues and miracles.

In England, St. Edelburga, virgin, daughter of an English king.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 JULY – SAINT MARIA GORETTI (Virgin and Martyr)

Maria Teresa Goretti was born in northern Italy in 1890, the third of six children of Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. After her father died in 1899, her mother and siblings worked as farm labourers while she kept house. They they moved to Lazio and shared a farmhouse with another family of farm labourers. On July 5th 1902 a young farmhand called Alessandro tried to rape Maria. She pleaded with him to stop, telling him that it was a sin and she would rather die than submit to him. Alessandro then tried to choke her and stabbed her many times. Her family took her to hospital but twenty hours later she died of her injuries while gazing at an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and holding a cross against her chest. Alessandro escaped the death penalty because of his age and served 30 years in prison. After his release he begged Maria's mother’s forgiveness. She forgave him and they attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion side-by-side. Alessandro reportedly prayed every day to Maria Goretti and called her “my little saint.” Maria Goretti was canonised by Venerable Pope Pius XII in 1950. Alessandro became a lay-brother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin until his death in 1970.

Saint Maria Goretti, who strengthened by God's grace did not hesitate even at the age of twelve to shed your blood and sacrifice life itself to defend your virginal purity, look graciously on the unhappy human race which has strayed far from the path of eternal salvation. Teach us all, and especially youth, with what courage and promptitude we should flee for the love of Jesus anything that could offend Him or stain our souls with sin. Obtain for us from our Lord victory in temptation, comfort in the sorrows of life, and the grace which we earnestly beg of you (here insert intention), and may we one day enjoy with you the imperishable glory of Heaven. Amen.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

In Judea, the holy prophet Isaiah. In the reign of king Manasses he was put to death by being sawed in two and was buried beneath the oak Rogel, near a running stream.

At Rome, the birthday of St. Tranquillinus, martyr, father of the Saints Mark and Marcellian, who were converted to Christ by the preaching of the martyr St. Sebastian. Baptised by the blessed priest Polycarp, he was ordained priest by Pope St. Caius. He was arrested while praying at the tomb of the blessed Apostle St. Paul on the Octave of the Apostles and stoned to death by the pagans, and thus consummated his martyrdom.

At Fiesoli in Tuscany, St. Romulus, bishop and martyr, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter, who commissioned him to preach the Gospel. After announcing Christ in many parts of Italy, he returned to Fiesoli and was crowned with martyrdom with other Christians in the reign of Domitian.

In Campania, St. Dominica, virgin and martyr, in the time of the emperor Diocletian. For having destroyed idols, she was condemned to the beasts, but being uninjured by them, she was beheaded and departed for heaven. Her body is kept with great veneration at Tropea in Calabria.

The same day, St. Lucia, martyr, a native of Campania. Being arrested and severely tortured by the lieutenant-governor Rictiovarus, she converted him to Christ. To them were added Antoninus, Severinus, Diodorus, Dion and seventeen others who shared their sufferings and their crowns.

In the vicinity of Treves, St. Goar, priest and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

5 JULY – SAINT ANTHONY MARIA ZACCARIA (Confessor)

Anthony was born in Cremona, Lombardy, to noble parents in 1502. When he was two years old his father died. He was raised as an only child by his mother. At an early age he took a private vow of chastity. He studied philosophy and medicine and practised as a doctor for three years. He began studies for the priesthood in 1527 and was ordained in the following year. After working in hospitals and institutions for the poor he became the spiritual advisor of Countess Torelli of Guastalla and followed her to Milan where he founded three religious orders: the Clerics Regular of St Paul (commonly known as the Barnabites), the Angelic Sisters of St. Paul, and the Laity of Saint Paul (or Oblates of Saint Paul) for lay married people.

Anthony was twice investigated for heresy but was acquitted both times. In 1536 he went to Vincenza where he reformed two convents, founded the second house of the Barnabites and promoted the Forty Hours' devotion. He also revived the custom of ringing church bells at 3 pm on Fridays in memory of the crucifixion. While on a mission to Guastalla he caught a fever and died on 5 July 1539. He was buried in the convent of the Angelics of Saint Paul and 27 years after his death his body was found to be incorrupt. He was beatified in 1890 and was canonised in 1897 by Pope Leo XIII. 

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, St. Zoe, martyr, wife of the blessed martyr Nicostratus. While praying at the tomb of the blessed Apostle St. Peter during the time of Diocletian, she was seized by the persecutors and cast into a dark dungeon. Then being suspended on a tree by her neck and hair, and suffocated by a loathsome smoke, she yielded up her soul in the confession of the Lord.

In Syria, the birthday of St. Domitius, martyr, who by his miracles confers many favours on the people of that country. 

At Cyrene in Lybia, St. Cyrilla, a martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. For a long while she held on her hand burning coals with incense, lest by shaking off the coals she should seem to offer incense to the idols. She was afterwards cruelly scourged and went to her spouse adorned with her own blood.
At Jerusalem, St. Athanasius, a deacon, who was apprehended by the heretics for defending the Council of Chalcedon, and after experiencing all kinds of torments was put to the sword.

In Sicily, the holy martyrs Agatho and Triphina.

At Tomis in Scythia, the holy martyrs Marinus, Theodotus, and Sedopha.

At Treves, St. Numerian, bishop and confessor. St. Michael of the Saints, whose death is mentioned on the tenth of April.

At San Severino in the Marches of Ancona, St. Philomena, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

5 JULY – SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – Romans vi. 3‒11

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

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gospel – Mark viii. 1‒9

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

Praise to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 JULY – OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION

Our Lady of Consolation is one of the oldest titles of honour given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, dating back to the second century. In the seventeenth century Mary was invoked by this title by Catholics in Luxembourg which was then ravaged by the plague, and as a result, many miraculous cures and healing were attributed to her. In 1652 Pope Innocent X encouraged devotion to Our Lady of Consolation by establishing a confraternity. In the Litany of Loreto Our Lady of Consolation is supplicated as the “Comforter of the afflicted.”

O Mother of God, Mother of Consolation, and my most dear Mother who is sensible of my miseries and infirmities, my poverty and distress, my mourning and sighs, look on me, and have compassion on me.And as now, having a distaste for the bitter waters of this sea of tears, I am endeavouring to pass through the thorny passage of this tiresome pilgrimage to the reviving spring of divine grace. Deign, therefore, O heavenly Consolatrix, to refresh me who, like a famished hart, seeking to alleviate its thirst at some limpid stream, make my blessings. Wherefore, most gracious Queen, I make you an offering of my whole heart, confessing that it is through you that I receive the many favours which God is pleased to confer on me, and I beseech you that, through the charity with which you love your Divine Son, Jesus, and through that love which moved you to enroll me as your servant, however of that favour, to obtain for me the full remission of my sins, an increase of faith, hope and charity, the perfect accomplishment of God’s will in all that concerns me, and finally a happy death, at which period let the light of your sweet countenance shine on me and protect me from my inveterate foe, and the rigours of Divine Justice, that under your guidance I may arrive at the fountain of everlasting life, the country of eternal brightness, and the vision of the Divine presence and glory, to sing forever in your company the everlasting praises of my God, and love Him without end. Amen.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

The prophets Osee and Aggseus.

In Africa, the birthday of St. Jucundian, a martyr who was drowned in the sea for Christ.

In the diocese of Bourges, St. Laurian, bishop of Seville and martyr, whose head was taken to Seville in Spain.

At Sirmium, Saints Innocent and Sebastia, with thirty other martyrs.

At Madaurus in Africa, the martyr Namphanion and his companions, who he strengthened for the combat and led to the crown of martyrdom.

At Cyrene in Lybia, the holy bishop Theodore. In the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Dignian, he was scourged with leaded whips and had his tongue cut out. Finally, however, he died a confessor.

The same day, the birthday of the Saints Flavian II, bishop of Antioch, and Elijah, bishop of Jerusalem, who were driven into exile by the emperor Anastasius in defence of the Council of Chalcedon and went victoriously to God.

At Augsburg in Bavaria, St. Uldaric, a bishop illustrious for extraordinary abstinence, liberality, vigilance and the gift of miracles.

At Lisbon, St. Elizabeth, widow, queen of Portugal, whose festival is celebrated on the eighth of this month by order of Pope Innocent XII.

At Tours, the translation of St. Martin, bishop and confessor, and the Dedication of his Basilica, which took place on the anniversary of his elevation to the episcopate some years previously.

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

Thanks be to God.

3 JULY – SAINT IRENAEUS OF LYONS (Bishop and Martyr)

Irenaeus was born in proconsular Asia, not far from Smyrna. From his childhood he had entered the school of Polycarp, tbe disciple of Saint John the Evangelist and Bishop of Smyrna. Under Polycarp he made progress in the science of religion and in the practice of Christian virtue. He was inflamed with desire to learn the doctrines which had been received as a deposit by all the disciples of the Apostles. Although already a master in Sacred Letters when Polycarp was martyred, Irenaeus undertook to visit as many as ever he could of these ancients, memorising whatever they spoke to him. Thus was he afterwards able, to oppose these their words with great advantage against the heresies. For indeed, daily more and more, heresy spread to the great detriment of the Christian people, and therefore he thought to make a careful and ample refutation of it. In Gaul he was attached as priest to the Church of Lyons by Saint Pothinus, its Bishop. Labouring in the discharge of which office, both by word and doctrine he showed himself to be a true “zelator of the Testament of Christ,” as the holy martyrs expressed it, who in the time of Marcas Aurelius were strenuously combating for the true religion.

For these same martyrs, together with the clergy of Lyons, thought they could not put into better hands than those of Irenaeus the pacification of the Churches of Asia that had been troubled by the heresy of Montanus. For this cause, so dear to their heart, they chose therefore Irenaeus among all others as the most worthy, and sent him to Pope Eleutherius to implore him to condemn these new heretics and put an end to the dissensions. The Bishop Pothinus had died a martyr. Irenaeus having succeeded him, so happy was his episcopacy, owing to his wisdom, prayer and example, that soon not only the city of Lyons, but even a great number of the inhabitants of other cities in Gaul, renounced the error of their superstitions and gave their names to be enlisted in the army of Christ. Meanwhile, a contest arose on the subject of the exact day on which Easter should be celebrated. The bishops of Asia were in disagreement with nearly all their colleagues, and the Roman Pontiff Victor had already cut them off from the communion of Saints, or was on the point of so doing, when Irenaeus appeared before him as a seeker of peace and most respectfully admonishing him, induced him, after the example of the Pontiffs his predecessors, not to suffer so many Churches to be torn away from Catholic unity on account only of a rite which they said they had received from their fathers.

Irenaeus wrote many works mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea and Saint Jerome, a great part of which have perished through the ravages of time. There are extant, however, five books of his against heresies written in about 180 AD while Eleutherius was governing the Church. In the third Book, the man of God, instructed by those who, as it is certain, had been disciples of the Apostles, renders to the Roman Church and to the succession of her Bishops a testimony surpassing all others in weight and brilliancy. And he says that the Roman Church is the faithful, perpetual and most assured guardian of divine tradition. Moreover he says that it is with this Church that every other Church must agree, because she has a principality superior to all others. At length, he was crowned by martyrdom, together with an almost countless multitude whom he had himself brought over to the knowledge and practice of the true faith. He passed away in 272 AD at which time when Septimus Severus had ordered that all those who persisted in the practice of the Christian religion should be condemned to most cruel torments and to death.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although the feast of Saint Leo II were sufficient in itself to complete this day’s teachings, the Church of Lyons presents likewise to the admiration of the whole world her own great Doctor, the valiant and pacific Irenaeus who, quitting the shores of brilliant Ionia, travelled as far as the Celtic coasts, there to shine as “the light of the West.” But while contemplating him today confirming with his blood the doctrine he had preached, let us hearken to his words bearing testimony to Holy Mother Church: words of world-wide celebrity, at once confounding Hell and closing the mouth of heresy.

May we not say, that it was in order to afford us instruction so appropriate for tomorrow’s festival that Eternal Wisdom made choice of this particular day for His martyr’s triumph? Let us hearken then to this zealous pupil of Polycarp and of the first disciples of the Apostles. Let us hearken to him who for this very reason is considered to be the most authentic witness to the Faith in all the Churches of the second century, all which Churches (these are his own words when Bishop of Lyons) bow down before Rome, as to their Mistress and Mother.

“For,” he continues, “it behoves all the rest, because of her superior Principality, to agree with her. In her do all the Faithful of whatever place preserve ever pure the Faith once preached to them. Great and venerable above all others because of her antiquity, known to all, founded by Peter and Paul the two most glorious of the Apostles, her Bishops are by their succession the channel by which Apostolic tradition is transmitted to us in all its integrity in such sort, that whoever differs from her in his belief, by this fact alone stands confounded.”

The rock on which the Church is built stood all unmoved at that early age, as now, against the efforts of false science. Yet not without peril was the attack then made by the Gnostics with that multiplex heresy of theirs and all its guileful plots put into strange concurrence by powers of evil otherwise the most opposed one to the other. It would almost seem as though Christ had wished to prove the strength of the foundations He had laid, by thus permitting Hell to direct against the Church a simultaneous assault of all the errors to which the world then was or ever would become a prey. Simon the Magician already ensnared by Satan in the nets of the occult sciences was chosen by the prince of darkness as his lieutenant in the enterprise. Unmasked at Samaria by the Vicar of the Man-God, he had commenced against Simon Peter a jealous struggle that would by no means end with the tragic death of the father of heresies, but which in the following century was to be continued more desperately than ever through disciples formed by him.

Saturninus, Basilides, Valentine, all these did but apply the premises of the master, diversifying them according to the instincts bred at the time, by the then existing forms of corruption of mind and heart. A proceeding all the more avowed, inasmuch as the aim of Magun had been nothing less than the sealing of an alliance betwixt philosophies, religions and aspirations the most contradictory. There was no aberration, from Persian dualism or Hindoo idealism, to Jewish cabals or Greek polytheism, that did not mutually proffer the hand of friendship in this reserved sanctuary of the Gnosis: they already were the heterodox conceptions of Arius and Eutyches being formulated: there, taking movement and life, in advance, were to be recognised in a strange pantheistic romance, the wildest oddities of the hollow dreams of German metaphysics. God, an abyss, rolling from fall to fall, till at last reaching matter, there to become conscious of Himself in human nature and to return then by annihilation into eternal silence. This is the sum total of Gnostic dogma, engendering, for its morality, a mixture of transcendent mysticism and impure practices, for its political form laying the basis of Communism and modern Nihilism.

Such a spectacle as this of the Gnostic Babel, piling up its incoherent materials on the waters of pride and impure passions, was indeed well calculated to bring out in bold relief the admirable unity of the City of God so rapidly advancing, though but in her commencement. Saint Irenaeus, chosen by God to oppose to the Gnosis arguments of his own powerful logic and to re-establish, in opposition to it the true sense of holy Scripture, excelled most of all when, in face of a thousand sects bearing on their brow the visible mark of the father of discord and lies, he pointed to the Church maintaining as sacred, throughout the universe, the whole of tradition just as received from the Apostles. Faith in the great truth that the world is wholly governed by the Holy Trinity Whose work it is, faith in the Mystery of Justice and Mercy, which leaving the Angels in their fall, did yet raise up this flesh of ours, in Jesus, the Well-Beloved, the Son of Mary, our God, our Saviour and our King — such was the deposit confided to Earth by Peter and Paul, by the Apostles and by their disciples.

“The Church, therefore,” so argues Saint Irenaeus with all his enthusiastic piety and learning, “the Church having received Faith, guards the same with all diligence, making the whole world in which she lives dispersed to become but one single House: collected in unity, she believes with one soul, with one heart. With one voice she preaches, teaches, transmits doctrine, as having but one mouth. For, although there be in the world divers languages, that by no means prevents tradition remaining one in its sap. The Churches founded in Germany, or amid the Iberians, or the Celts, believe not otherwise, teach not otherwise, than do the Churches of the East, of Egypt, of Lybia, or of those established in the centre of the world. But even as the sun, God’s creature, is ever the same and remains one in the whole world, so too does the teaching of Truth shine resplendent, illumining every man who is willing to come to the knowledge of the Truth. Even though the chief men in the Churches be unequal in the art of speaking well, tradition is not thereby impaired: he who explains eloquently, cannot possibly give it increase. He who speaks with less abundance, cannot thereby diminish it.”

O Sacred Unity, O precious Faith deposited like a source of eternal youthfulness in our hearts! They indeed know you not, who turn themselves away from Holy Church! Afar from her, they must needs lose also Jesus and all His gifts. “For where the Church is, there likewise is the Spirit of God. And where the Spirit of God is, there likewise is the Church, there all grace. Woe to them who alienate themselves from her! They suck not in life from the nourishing breasts to which their Mother invites them, they slake not their thirst at the limpid Fount of the Lord’s Body: but, afar from the rock of unity, they drink the muddy waters of cisterns dug in fetid slime where there is not a drop of the water of truth.” What will their vain science avail to sophists with all their empty foolish formulae?

“Oh!” cries out the Bishop of Lyons, elsewhere, in accents which seem to have been borrowed, later on, by the author of the Imitation, “Oh how far better is it to be ignorant, or a man of little learning, and to draw near to God by love! What use is there in knowing much, in passing off for having grasped much, if one be an enemy to his Lord? Wherefore, Paul does thus exclaim: ‘knowledge puffs up, but charity builds up’ (1 Corinthians viii. 1). Not that he reproved the true science of God, for if so he had condemned himself in the first place, but he saw that there were some who, exalting themselves under pretext of knowledge, knew not any longer, how to love. Yes, verily, better were it to know nothing at all, to be ignorant of the meaning of everything, and yet to believe in God and to be possessed of charity. Let us avoid vain puffing up which would make us fall away from love, the life of the soul. Let Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crucified for us, be our only science.”

Rather than here bring forward the genius of the eminent Controvertialist of the second century, it is a pleasure to cite from his Treatises such passages as give an insight into his great soul, and reveal traits of a sanctity so loving and so sweet. “When, at last, the Spouse comes,” says he, speaking of those unfortunate men he would fain reclaim, “their science will not keep their lamp lighted, and they will find themselves excluded from the nuptial chamber.” In numberless places, in the midst of closely strung arguments, he who may be styled the grand-son of the Beloved Disciple, betrays his own heart. While following, for instance, the track of Abraham, he shows the path that leads to the Spouse: his mouth can then no longer cease to re-utter the name that fills his thoughts.

We cannot but recognise in these touching words of his the Apostle who had quitted country and home to advance the kingdom of God in the land of the Gauls: “Abraham did well to abandon his earthly relatives to follow the Word of God, to exile himself together with the Word, so as to live with Him. The Apostles did well too, in order to follow the Word of God, to quit their barque and their father. We likewise, who have the same faith as Abraham, we do well carrying our cross, as Isaac did the wood, to follow in his footsteps. In Abraham, man learnt that it is possible to follow the Word of God, and thus were his steps made firm in this blessed way. The Word, on His part, nevertheless, disposed man for the divine mysteries by figures throwing light on the future, Moses espoused an Ethiopian, who thus became a daughter of Israel: and by these nuptials of Moses, those of the Word were pointed out, for by this Ethiopian was signified the Church that has come forth from the gentiles, while awaiting the day in which the Word Himself will come to wash away, with His own hands, the defilements of the daughter of Sion at the Banquet of the Last Supper. For fitting it is that the temple be pure in which the Bridegroom and Bride are to taste of the delights of the Spirit of God. And even as it beseems not the Bride to come forward herself to take a Spouse, but she must needs wait till she be sought out, so this flesh of ours cannot of itself rise to the majesty of the Throne Divine. But when the Spouse comes, oh! Then He will raise her up, and she will not so much possess Him, but will rather be possessed by Him. The Word made Flesh will assimilate her wholly to Himself in all fullness, and will render her precious in the eyes of the Father by reason of this her conformity to His visible Word. Then will the union with God in love be consummated. Divine union is life and light. It imparts the enjoyment of all the good things of God. It is eternal of its very nature, just as these good things themselves likewise are. Woe to those who withdraw themselves from it. Their chastisement comes less from God than from themselves and from the free choice by which, turning from God, they have lost all the good things of God.”

The loss of faith being the most radical and the deepest of all causes of estrangement from God, it is not surprising to observe the horror which heresy inspired, in those days when union with God was the one treasure ambitioned by all conditions and ages of life. The name Irenaeus signifies “peace” and justifying this beautiful name, his condescending charity once led the Roman Pontiff himself to withhold the thunders he was on the point of hurling. The question at issue was one of no small importance: it was the celebration of Easter. Nevertheless Ireneeus himself relates with regard to his Master Polycarp how when being asked by the heretic Marcion if he knew him, he replied: “I know you to be the first-born of Satan.” He also gives us that fact concerning Saint John, who when hearing that Cerinthus was in the same public edifice into which he had just entered, fled precipitately for fear, as he said, that because of this enemy of Truth the walls of the building would crumble down on them all. “So great,”remarks the Bishop of Lyons, “was the fear the Apostles and their disciples had of communicating even by word, with any one of those who altered Truth.”

He who was styled by the companions of Saints Pothinus and Blandina, in their prison, the “zelator of the Testament of Christ,” was on this point, as on all others, the worthy heir of John and Polycarp. Far from becoming hardened by it, his heart, like that of his venerable masters, drew from this purity of mind that limitless tenderness of which he gave proof in regard to those erring ones whom he hoped to win back. What could be more touching than the letter written by Irenaeus to one of these unhappy men whom the mirage of novel doctrines had inveigled into the gulf of error: “Florinus, this teaching is not that transmitted to us by the ancients, the disciples of the Apostles. I used to behold you at the side of Polycarp. Though shining at court, you did nonetheless seek to be pleasing to him. I was then but a child, yet the things that happened at that time are more vivid in my recollection that those of yesterday, for indeed childhood’s memories form, as it were, a part of the very soul: they grow with her. I could point to the very spot where sat blessed Polycarp the while he conversed with us, I could describe exactly his bearing, his address, his manner of life, his every feature, and the discourses he made to the crowd. You needs must well remember how he used to tell us of his intercourse with John and the rest of those that had seen the Lord, and with what a faithful memory he repeated their words: what he had learnt from them respecting our Lord, His miracles, His doctrine. All these things Polycarp transmitted to us, as having himself received them from the very men that had be held with their eyes the Word of Life. Now all of what he told us was conformable to the Scriptures. What a grace from God were these conversations of his! I used to listen so eagerly, noting everything down, not on parchment, but on my heart. And now, by the grace of God, I still live on it all. Hence, I can attest before God: if the blessed apostolic old man had heard discourses such as yours, he would have uttered a piercing cry, and would have stopped his ears, saying as was his wont: ‘God most good, to what sort of times have you reserved us!’ Then would he have got up quickly and would have fled from that spot of blasphemy.”

* * * * *

O what a crown is yours, most noble Pontiff! Man must needs confess himself utterly unable to count the pearls with which it is adorned. For in the arena where you won it a whole people were your fellow combatants. And as each martyr, one by one, ascended to his throne in Heaven, he proclaimed your glory, for he owed his crown to you. Before this, full five and twenty years, the blood of Blandina and her companions had been shed and, thanks to you, had produced a hundredfold. Your toilsome care had brought that fruitful seed to germinate from out the purpled soil that had received it in the early days of Christianity, and now the once small colony of the Faithful scattered in its midst had become the very City itself. Erstwhile, the amphitheatre was spacious enough for the effusion of the martyrs’ blood, but now, the sacred stream must flow in torrents along the streets and squares. O glad day that made Lyons become Rome’s rival and the Holy City of the Gauls!

The sons of those that died with you have ever remained faithful to Jesus Christ. Together with Mary whose position and dignity you so admirably expounded to their fathers, and with the Precursor of the Man-God who so fully shares their love, protect them against every scourge whether of body or of soul. Spare France. Drive far from he, this second time, the invasion of a false philosophy which is attempting nowadays to revive the aberrations of Gnosticism. Cause truth once more to shine on the eyes of so many whom heresy, under these multiform disguises, holds in separation from the one Fold. Irenaeus, maintain Christians in that peace which alone deserves the name: keep ever pure the minds and hearts of those whom error as yet has not sullied. Prepare us now to celebrate befittingly the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul and the powerful Principality of the Mother of all the Churches!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Tuscany, Irenaeus and Mustiola, martyrs. Irenaeus was the deacon of the priest Felix who was arrested and beaten with stones until he died, on the ninth of the calends of July (June 23) in 273 AD. Irenaeus buried his body outside the walls of their city, Falisca (Civita Castellana) in Tuscany. For this he was brought before the governor Turcius who had him imprisoned. A rich Christian lady called Mustiola, who was a relative of the emperor Claudius II, ministered to Irenaeus and other Christian prisoners by bringing them food, washing their feet and anointing their wounds. Turcius ordered Irenaeus to be placed on the little horse, and his sides to be torn with rakes, and scorched with fire. After Irenaeus died on the rack Mustiola cried out against Turcius and was herself martyred.

At Alexandria, St. Tryphon, and twelve other martyrs.

At Constantinople, the holy martyrs Eulogius and his companions.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, St. Hyacinthus, chamberlain of the emperor Trajan. Accused of being a Christian, he was scourged and thrown into prison where, consumed with hunger, he breathed his last.

The same day, the holy martyrs Mark and Mucian, who were put to the sword for Christ. As a small boy cried out to them not to sacrifice to idols, he was whipped, but confessing Christ all the more vigorously, he was killed with a man named Paul who had also exhorted the martyrs.

At Laodicea in Syria, St. Anatolius, a bishop, whose writings were admired not only by religious men, but even by philosophers.

At Altino, St. Heliodorus, a bishop distinguished for holiness and learning.

At Ravenna, St. Dathus, bishop and confessor.

At Edessa in Mesopotamia, the translation of the apostle St. Thomas from India. His relics were afterwards taken to Tortona.

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

Thanks be to God.