18 JUNE – SAINTS MARK AND MARCELLIAN (Martyrs)

 

Mark and Marcellian were twin brothers born to a noble family in Rome. They were baptised in their youth and were secretly Christians for many years before being denounced. They were arrested and condemned to be beheaded, but their execution was delayed, their friends obtaining a respite of 30 days in the hope that they could convince them to renounce their faith and worship the state gods. Their parents Tranquillinus and Maria, and their wives and children visited them, in an attempt to break their constancy, but Saint Sebastian also visited them and encouraged them to remain true to Christ. He also succeeded in converting Tranquillinus and Maria, and afterwards by loosening the tongue of Zöe, the wife of Nicostratus (the registrar), converted him also, and Chromatius (an officer of the Prefect of Rome), who set Mark and Marcellian free and resigned his position. Marcus and Marcellian were hidden by a Christian officer named Castulus in his apartments in the palace of Diocletian, but were betrayed by the false Christian Torquatus and were arrested again. They were tortured and killed in 286 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have already met with these noble athletes of today’s feast, for on January 20th, when celebrating Saint Sebastian, the brave defender of holy Church, Mark and Marcellian, appeared at his side as the noblest conquest won by the sainted head of the praetorian guards. There are other heroes likewise gained over by his zealous intrepidity whose names gild the pages of the Martyrology. But these two whose festival we are keeping were the immediate occasion of Sebastian’s leading to God so goodly a troop of valiant Christians. Their conversion prepared Sebastian’s martyrdom by reason of his apostolate in their regard, and their glory eternally redounds to him, around whom in Heaven, they form a resplendent phalanx.

Captivity, torments, and even the sentence of death pronounced on them, had failed to shake the courage of these two brethren. A trial yet more terrible awaited them, namely the sight forced on them of the heart-broken grief caused to all they loved on Earth, by this their sentence of condemnation. For their family not being Christian knew no bounds to sorrow. Their father and mother bent down by years, the wife of each, leading by the hand or in her arms a group of weeping children, all uttering bitterest reproaches against these soldiers of Christ for the destitution in which their coming death would plunge the survivors, such was the dire attack!

Sebastian, profiting by the liberty his position afforded to approach the Christians in prison, was ever their comfort and encourager. He failed not to be present at this scene, for his noble heart fully realised how dangerously severe such a trial must be for souls as yet unscathed by any personal peril. The danger he knew might be imminent at that moment. Wherefore scorning his own safety, he there and then revealed himself a Christian in order to hold out a strengthening hand to the two brethren. Moreover, God lent such wondrous efficacy to his words that they converted even the pagans there assembled. Thus Mark and Marcellian had the joy of beholding those whose piteous complaints had a moment before so painfully thrilled their souls, now applauding their constancy and demanding Baptism.

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THE Holy Ghost filled you with strength, glorious martyrs, and the love which He poured into your hearts changed into exquisite delights, torments that terrify our cowardice. Yet, after all, of how much less account are those tortures that touched but your perishable body, compared with that intense anguish of soul over which you so nobly triumphed! The dire grief of those whom you held dearer far than life, and whom, to all appearance, you needs must leave in hopeless woe, was verily the culminating pitch of your martyrdom. Only such can fail to realise this, who deserve the reproach cast by Saint Paul on the pagans of his day, that they are without affection (Romans i. 32). Yes, when the world once more presents such a hateful spectacle as this, then will be the sign of the last day’s near approach, so says the same Apostle (2 Timothy iii. 1, 3). Nevertheless, human love must needs cede to that of God: “He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me: and he who loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew x. 3, 7). You understood all this, dear martyrs. Your relatives who would separate you from our Lord became but enemies in your eyes (Matthew x. 36). At that very instant, our Jesus who can never let Himself be outdone in generosity, restored these dear ones to you by taking them, through a miracle of grace, together with you and because of your example, to Himself. Thus do you complete for us, the instructions already given by a Julitta and her boy, by a Vitus and his glorious companions. Obtain for us, you victors in such keen trials, an ever growing courage and love proportionate to our increase in the light and knowledge of our duty to God.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Malaga in Spain, the holy martyrs Cyriacus, and the virgin Paula, who were overwhelmed with stones and yielded up their souls to God.

At Tripoli in Phoenicia, in the time of the governor Hadrian, St. Leontius, a soldier, who, through bitter torments, attained to the crown of martyrdom, together with the tribune Hypatius and Theodulus, who he had converted to Christ.

The same day, St. Jetherius, martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. After enduring fire and other torments he was put to death with the sword.

At Alexandria, the passion of St. Marina, virgin.

At Bordeaux, St. Amandus, bishop and confessor.

At Sacca in Sicily, St. Calogerus, hermit, whose holiness is principally manifested by the deliverance of possessed persons.

At Schongau, St. Elizabeth, virgin, celebrated for her observance of monastic discipline.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 JUNE – SAINT GREGORY LUIGI BARBARIGO (Bishop and Confessor)

Gregory Luigi Barbarigo was born in Venice in 1625 to the Venetian Senator Giovanni Francesco Barbarigo and his wife Lucrezia Leoni. After serving as a diplomat, Gregory was ordained a priest in 1655 and became a prelate to Pope Alexander VII. In 1567 he became Bishop of Bergamo and in 1660 he became a Cardinal. In 1664 he became Bishop of Padua and took Saint Charles Borromeo as his model. He died in 1697, was beatified by Pope Clement XIII in 1761 and was canonised by Pope John XXIII in 1960.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, during the persecution of Diocletian, the birthday of 262 holy martyrs who were put to death for the faith of Christ and buried on the old Via Salaria, at the foot of Cucumer hill.

At Terracina, St. Montanus, a soldier, who received the crown of martyrdom after suffering many torments in the time of the emperor Hadrian and the ex-consul Leontius.

At Venafro, the holy martyrs Meander and Marcian who were beheaded in the persecution of Maximian.

At Chalcedon, the holy martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael, who the king of Persia sent as ambassadors to Julian the Apostate to treat of peace. Having firmly refused to worship idols as they had been commanded by the emperor, they were put to the sword.

At Apollonia, in Macedonia, the holy martyrs Isaurus, deacon, Innocent, Felix, Jeremiah and Peregrinus, natives of Athens, who were tortured in different manners by the tribune Tripontius, and finally decapitated.

At Amelia in Umbria, the bishop St. Himerius, whose body was translated to Cremona.

In the territory of Bourges, St. Gundulphus, bishop.

At Orleans, St. Avitus, priest and confessor.

In Phrygia, St. Hypatius, confessor. Also St. Bessarion, anchorite.

At Pisa in Tuscany, St. Rainerius, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 JUNE – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Besançon in France, the holy martyrs Ferreol, priest, and Ferrution, deacon, who were sent by the blessed bishop Irenaeus to preach the word of God, and after being exposed to various torments under the judge Claudius, were put to the sword.

At Tarsus in Cilicia, in the reign of the emperor Diocletian, the holy martyrs Quiricus, and Julitta, his mother. Quiricus, a child of three years, seeing his mother cruelly scourged in the presence of the governor Alexander, and crying bitterly, was killed by being dashed against the steps of the tribunal. Julitta, after being subjected to severe stripes and grievous torments, closed the career of her martyrdom by decapitation.

At Mayence, the passion of the Saints Aurens, and Justina, his sister, and other martyrs, who, being at Mass in church, were massacred by the Huns then devastating Germany.

At Amathonte in Cyprus, St. Tychon, a bishop in the time of Theodosius the Younger.

At Lyons, the demise of blessed Aurelian, bishop of Arles.

At Nantes in Brittany, St. Similian, bishop and confessor.

At Meissen in Germany, St. Benno, bishop.

In the village of La Louvesc, formerly of the diocese of Vienne in Dauphiny, the decease of St. John Francis Regis, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, distinguished by his zeal for the salvation of souls, and by his patience. He was placed on the list of saints by Pope Clement XII.

In Brabant, St. Lutgard, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

15 JUNE – SAINTS VITUS, MODESTUS AND CRESCENTIA (Martyrs)

Unknown to his pagan father, Vitus (or Guy) was baptised as a child. When his father found out, he used his best endeavours to dissuade Vitus from the Christian religion, but as he persisted in it, he he handed him over to the judge Valerian to be whipped. Remaining unshaken as before, he was given back to his father. But while his father was turning over in his mind to what severe discipline to subject him, Vitus, being warned by an Angel, fled to another country with Crescentia (his nurse) and her husband Modestus, who had brought him up. There he gained great praise for holiness so that his fame reached Diocletian. The Emperor, therefore, sent for him to deliver his own child that was vexed by a devil. Vitus delivered him, but when Diocletian found that with all his gifts, he could not bring him to worship the gods, he cast him, Crescentia and Modestus into prison. When they were found in the prison more faithful than ever to their confession, the Emperor commanded them to be thrown into a great vessel full of burning resin, pitch and melted lead. There, like the three Hebrew Children in the fiery furnace, they sang praise to God. They were dragged out and cast to a lion, but he only lay down before them and licked their feet. Then, Diocletian being filled with fury, more especially because he saw that the crowd looking on were stirred up by the miracles, he ordered Vitus, Crescentia and Modestus to be stretched on a block and their limbs crushed so that their bones were broken. While they were dying, there came thunder, lightning and earthquakes so that the temples of the gods fell down and many men were killed. Their remains were gathered up by a noble lady named Florentia who gave them honourable burial.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

One of the titles of this Divine Spirit who is reigning so specially over this portion of the Cycle is the Witness of the Word (John xv. 26). Thus was He announced to the world by the Man-God Himself when about to quit it in order to return to His Father after having on His part rendered His own great testimony to Sovereign Truth (John xviii. 37). Formed by the Holy Ghost on the type of Jesus Christ, the faithful too are witnesses whose mission is to trample on lying error, the enemy of God, by expressing the Truth, not in words only but in deeds. There is a testimony however, that is not given to all to render: this is the Testimony of blood. The martyrs hold this privilege, this is the special stand granted to them in the ceaseless battle ever being waged betwixt Truth and Falsehood, and this battle is the sum total of all History. Hence Martyrs come crowding on the brilliant heavens of Holy Church at this season. In a few days the Church will be all thrilling with gladness at the birth of Saint John the Baptist, that man great beyond all men (Matthew xi. 11), and whose greatness specially consists in that he was sent by God to be a witness, to give testimony of the Light (John i. 6, 8). We will then meditate at leisure on these thoughts for which we seem to be prepared by the ever swelling groups of joyous martyrs who cross our path as it were to announce the near approach of the Friend of the Bridegroom (John iii. 29).

Today we have Vitus, accompanied by his faithful foster-parents, Modestus and Crescentia. He is but a child, yet he comes teaching us the price of Baptism and the fidelity we owe to our Father in Heaven despite all else beside. Great is his glory, both on Earth and in Heaven. The demons who used to tremble before him in life still continue their dread of him. His name remains ineffacably inscribed on the memory of the Christian people, just as that of a Saint Elmo or Erasmus, among their most potent “helpers” in daily needs. Saint Vitus, or more commonly Saint Guy, is invoked to deliver those who are attacked by that lamentable sickness which is named from him, as also to neutralise bad effects from the bite of a mad dog, and his beneficence is evinced even to the dumb brutes also. He is likewise implored in cases of lethargy, or unduly prolonged sleep. For this reason, the cock is his distinctive attribute in Christian art, as well as because recourse is usually had to this Saint when one wants to awake at some particular hour.

* * * * *

You have won the battle, glorious Martyrs! The struggle was not long, but it gained for you an eternal crown! You have purchased to yourselves, O Modestus and Crescentia, the everlasting gratitude of your God Himself, for to Him you faithfully gave back the precious charge committed to your keeping in the person of that dear child who became your very own through Faith and Baptism. And you too, noble boy, who preferred your Father in Heaven to your earthly parent, who may tell the caressing tenderness lavished on you eternally by Him whom before men you did so unflinchingly own to be your true Father? Even here below He is pleased to load you with striking marks of His munificence, for to you he confides, on a large scale, the exercise of His merciful power. Because of that holy liberty which reigned in your soul from reason’s earliest dawn by which your body was subjected to your soul’s control, you now hold over fallen nature a marvellous power. Unhappy sufferers whose distorted limbs are worked violently at the caprice of a cruel malady, and are no longer mastered by the will or, on the other hand, those who are rendered powerless and no longer free to act by reason of resistless sleep: all these recover at your feet, that perfect harmony of soul and body, that needful docility of the material to the spiritual, by which man may freely attend to the duties incumbent on him, whether as regards God or his neighbour. Vouchsafe to be ever more and more lavish in the granting of these favours, which are the precious gifts specially at your disposal, for the good of suffering mankind, and for the greater glory of your God who has given you an eternal crown. We implore you, in the words of the Church and by your merits, that God may destroy in us that pride which spoils the equilibrium of man himself and makes him deviate from his path. May it be granted us to have a thorough contempt of evil for thus is restored to man, liberty in love: superbe non sapere, sed placita humilitate proficere, ut prava despiciens, quoecumque recta sunt libera exerceat charitate.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Dorostorum in Mysia, St. Hesychius, a soldier, who was arrested with blessed Julius and after him crowned with martyrdom under the governor Maximus.

At Cordova in Spain, St. Benildes, martyr.

At Zephirium in Cilicia, St. Dulas, martyr, who, under the governor Maximus was, for the name of Christ, scourged, laid on the gridiron, scalded with boiling oil, and after enduring other trials, received for his victory the palm of martyrdom.

At Palmyra in Syria, the holy martyrs Libya and Leonides, sisters, and Eutropia, a girl of twelve years, who won the crown of martyrdom by various torments.

At Valenciennes, the decease of St. Landelin, abbot.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Abraham, confessor, illustrious by his holiness and miracles.

In Switzerland, on Mount Jou, St. Bernard of Menthon, confessor.

At Pibrac, in the diocese of Toulouse, St. Germana Cousin, virgin. After a life of poverty, humility and patient suffering amid many trials in the care of her flocks, she went to her heavenly spouse and became renowned for numerous miracles after her death. Blessed Pius IX placed her in the number of holy virgins.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 JUNE – SAINT BASIL THE GREAT (Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Basil, the most celebrated of the Greek Fathers, came of a family of saints, the best known being his father, Saint Basil the Elder, his brother Saint Gregory Nyssen, and his sister Saint Macrina. Born at Caesarea in Cappadocia, Basil distinguished himself as a student at Constantinople and Athens. In the latter city he became close friends with Saint Gregory Nazianzen who was also destined to become a Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Basil was consecrated Bishop of Caesarea on the 14th of June 370 and died on the first of January 379. He defended the Catholic faith before the Emperor Constantius, in particular the use of the word “Consubstantial,” which was inserted in the Nicene Creed. He left many writings, including a Treatise (Hexaemeron) on the Book of Genesis, several hundred letters and a series of homilies. Saint Gregory Nazianzen put him in first place among commentators on the Bible and Erasmus declared Saint Basil the finest orator of all time. Saint Basil led the life of a monk and wrote a Rule which is still followed in the East.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Doctors who form the fourfold glory of the Greek Church complete their sacred number on the Cycle this day. John Chrysostom was the first to greet us, with his radiant light, during Christmastide. The glorious Pasch saw the rise of two resplendent luminaries, Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen. Basil the Great, having checked his effulgent blaze till now, illumines the reign of the Holy Ghost. He well deserves so distinguished a place by reason of his eminent doctrine and brave combats which prepared the way for the triumph of the Divine Paraclete over the blasphemies of the impious sect of Macedonius who used against the Third Person of the Consubstantial Trinity the very same arguments invented by Arius against the Divinity of the Word. The Council of Constantinople putting the finishing stroke to that of Nicaea, formulated the Faith of the Churches, in Him who proceeds from the Father, no less than does the Word Himself, Who is adored and glorified conjointly with the Father and the Son. Basil was not there on the day of victory. Prematurely exhausted by austerities and labours, he had been sleeping the sleep of peace for quite two years when this great definition was promulgated. But it was his teaching that inspired the assembled council. His word remains as the luminous expression of Tradition concerning the Holy Spirit, Who is Himself the Divine Loadstone attracting all in the vast universe that aspire after holiness, the potent Breeze uplifting souls, the Perfection of all things. Just as we hearkened to Gregory Nazianzen on his feast day, speaking magnificent truths concerning the great Paschal Mystery, let us listen now to his illustrious friend explaining that of the present season, sanctification effected in souls:

“The union of the Holy Ghost and the soul is effected by the estrangement of the passions which having crept in had separated her from God. Whoever, therefore, would disengage himself from the deformity that proceeds from vice and return to that beauteousness which he holds of His Creator would restore within himself the primitive features of that royal and divine original, such a one does verily draw near to the Paraclete. But then also, even as the sun coming in contact with an unsullied eye illumines it, so the Paraclete reveals to such a one the image of Him that cannot be seen. And in the blissful contemplation of this image, he perceives the ineffable beauty of the Principle, the Model of all. In this ascension of hearts of which the first tottering steps, as well as the growing consummation, are equally His work, the Holy Spirit renders them spiritual who are quit of all stain, by reason of that participation of Himself into which He initiates them. Bodies that are limpid and translucent, pierced by a brilliant ray, become resplendent and shed light all around them. Thus also souls bearing the Holy Spirit within them are all luminous with Him, and becoming themselves spiritualised, shed grace all around. Hence, the superior understanding possessed by the Elec, and their converse in the Heavens. Hence, all fair gifts. Hence, your own resemblance to your God. Hence, truth sublime! You yourself are a god. Wherefore it is that properly and in very truth, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, we contemplate the splendour of God’s glory. Yes, it is by the character of resemblance which He has imprinted in our soul that we are raised up even to the loftiness of Him whose full similitude He, the Divine Seal, bears with Himself. He, the Spirit of Wisdom reveals to us, not as it were outside, but within Himself, Christ, the Wisdom of God. The path of contemplation leads from the Holy Ghost, by the Son, to the Father. Concurrently, the goodness, holiness and royal dignity of the Elect come from the Father by the Son to the Holy Ghost, whose temples they are. And He fills them with His own glory, illuminating their brow with a radiance like that of Moses at the sight of God. Thus likewise did He, in the case of our Lord’s Humanity. Thus does He to the Seraphim who cannot cry their triple Sanctus save in Him. So also to all the choirs of Angels, whose concerts He regulates, whose songs He vibrates. But the carnal man who has never exercised his soul in contemplation, holding her captive in the mud and mire of the senses, cannot lift his eyes to Light supernal: the Holy Spirit belongs not to him.”

The action of the Paraclete surpasses the power of any creature. Therefore, in thus drawing attention to the operation of the Spirit of Love, Saint Basil is anxious to bring his adversaries to confess of their own accord the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, who can fail to recognise in this burning exposition of doctrine, not merely the invincible theologian, vindicating dogma, but furthermore the experienced guide of souls, the sublime ascetic, deputed by God to bring down within reach of all marvels of holiness such as an Anthony or a Pachomius brought forth in the desert? Even as the bee humming amid the flowers avoids the thorn and knows how to eschew poisoned sap, so Basil in his youthful days had hovered amid the schools of Athens and Constantinople without sucking in any of their poison. According to the advice he himself gave to youth at a later date in a celebrated discourse, his quick intelligence unsullied by passions (too often found even in the most gifted) had succeeded in stealing from rhetoricians and poets all that could adorn as well as develop his mind, and discipline it for the struggle of life. The world smiled on the young orator whose pure diction and persuasive eloquence recalled the palmy days of Greek Literature.

But the noblest gifts of glory Earth could offer were far beneath the lofty ambition with which with his soul was fired in reading the holy Scriptures. Life’s struggle in his eyes seemed a combat for truth alone. In himself, first of all, must Divine Truth be victorious by the defeat of nature and by the Holy Ghost’s triumphant creation of the new man. Therefore, heedless to know before God’s own time whether he might not be used in winning souls to God, never once suspecting how soon multitudes would indeed come pressing to receive the law of life from his lips, he turned his back on all things and fled to the wilds of Pontus, there to be forgotten of men in his pursuit after holiness. Nor did the misery of those times cause him to fall into that error, so common nowadays, namely that of wishing to devote one’s self to others before having first regulated one’s own soul. Such is not the true way of setting charity in order. Such is not the conduct of the saints. No, it is yourself God wants of you before all things else. When you are become His in the full measure He intends, He Himself will know how to bestow you on others, unless perchance He prefers, for your greater advantage, to keep you all to Himself! But in any case He is no lover of all that hurry to become useful. He does not bless these would be utilitarians who are all eagerness, as it were, to push themselves into the service of His Providence.

Anthony of Padua showed us this truth yesterday. And here we have it given to us a second time. Mark it well: that which really tends to the extension of our Lord’s glory is not the amount of time given to the works, but the holiness of the worker. According to a custom frequent in that century, owing to the fear entertained of exposing the grace of Baptism to woeful shipwreck, Basil remained a simple Catechumen until his youth had well near matured to manhood. Of the years that followed his Baptism, thirteen were spent in the monastic life and nine in the episcopate. At the age of fifty he died. But his work, carried on under the impulse of the Holy Ghost, far from finishing with him, appeared more fruitful and went on thus increasing during the course of succeeding ages. While living the life of a humble monk on the banks of the Iris where his mother and sister had preceded him, his whole being was all intent on the saving of his soul from the judgement of God, and on running generously in the way that leads to the eternal recompense. Later on, others having begged him to form them also to the warfare of Christ the King according to the simplicity of faith and the Scriptures, our Saint would not have them embrace the life of solitaries, such isolation being not without danger for the many. But he preferred for them one that would join to the blissful contemplation of the solitary, the rampart and completeness of community life in which charity and humility are exercised under the conduct of a head who, in his turn, deems himself but the servitor of all.

Moreover, he would admit none into his monasteries without serious and prolonged trial followed by a solemn engagement to persevere in this new life. At the remembrance of what he had admired among the Solitaries of Egypt and Syria, Basil compared himself and his disciples to children who fain would strive in a puny way to mimic strong men, or to beginners sticking at the first difficulties of the rudiments, and scarce yet fairly started on the path of true piety. Yet the day would come when the ancient giants of the wilderness and the hoary legislators of the desert would see their heroic customs and their monastic codes cede the place of honour to the familiar conferences, to the unprepared answers given by Basil to his monks, in solution of their proposed difficulties, and to form them to the practice of the divine counsels. Ere long, the whole of the East ranged itself under his Rule, while in the West, Saint Benedict called him his Father.

His Order, like a fruitful nursery of holy monks and virgins, bishops, doctors and martyrs, has stocked heaven with saints. For a long time it served as a bulwark of the faith to Byzantium and [in the nineteenth century] beheld, despite the schism, its faithful children sparing not to render under the savage persecution of the Tsar of Russia, their testimony of blood and suffering, to Holy Mother Church. Worthily also have they in it paid a personal testimony, as it were, to their intrepid father. For Basil too was the grandson of Martyrs, the son and brother of Saints. Would that we might be allowed to devote a page to the praises of his illustrious grandmother, Macrina the elder, who seems to have miraculously escaped from the hands of her executioners, and from a seven years’ exile in the wild forests on purpose to be instrumental in infusing into Basil’s young heart that faith firm and pure which she had herself received from Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus.

Suffice it to say that towards the close of his life the great Basil, Doctor of the Church and Patriarch of Monks, was proud to appeal to Macrina’s name as a guarantee for the orthodoxy of his faith when once called in question. Basil’s lifetime was cast in one of those periods exceptionally disastrous to the Church, when shipwrecks of faith are common because darkness prevails to such an extent as to cast its shades even over the children of Light (1 Thessalonians v. 5), a period in fact when, as Saint Jerome expresses it, “the astonished world waked up to bewail itself Arian.” Bishops were faltering in essentials of true belief and in questions of loyalty to the Successor of Peter so that the bewildered flock scarcely knew whose voice to follow. For many of their pastors, some through perfidy, and some through weakness, had subscribed at Rimini to the condemnation of the Faith of Nicaea. Basil himself was assuredly not one of them, not one of those blind watchmen: dumb dogs not able to bark. When but a simple Lector he had not hesitated to sound the horn of alarm by openly separating himself from his Bishop who had been caught in the meshes of the Arians. And now himself a Bishop, he boldly showed that he was so indeed. For, when entreated for peace’s sake to make some compromise with the Arians, vain was every supplication, every menace of confiscation, exile or death. He used no measured terms in treating with the Prefect Modestus, the tool of Valens. And when this vaunting official complained that none had ever dared to address him with such liberty, Basil intrepidly replied: “Perhaps you never yet had to deal with a Bishop.”

Basil, whose great soul was incapable of suspecting duplicity in another, was entrapped by the guile of a false monk, a hypocritical bishop, one Eustathius of Sebaste, who by apparent austerity of life and other counterfeits long captivated the friendship of Basil. This unconscious error was permitted by God for the increase of his servant’s holiness, for it was destined to fill his declining days with utmost bitterness, and to draw down on him the keenest trial possible to one of his mould, namely, that several in consequence began to doubt of his own sincerity of faith. Basil appealed from the tongue of calumny to the judgement of his brother bishops, but yet he recoiled not from likewise justifying himself before the simple Faithful. For he knew that the richest treasure of a Church is the pastor’s own surety of faith and his personal plenitude of doctrine. Athanasius, who had led the battles of the first half of that century and had conquered Arius, was no more: he had gone to join in the well-merited repose of eternity his brave companions, Eusebius of Vercelli and Hilary of Poitiers.

In the midst of the confusion that Valens’ persecution was then reproducing in the East, even holy men knew not how to weather the storm. Many such were to be seen adopting first the extreme measure of utter withdrawal through mistaken excess of prudence, and then rushing into equally false steps of indiscreet zeal. Basil alone was of a build proportioned to the tempest. His noble heart bruised in its most delicate feelings, had drunk the chalice to the dregs, but strong in Him who prayed the prayer of agony in Grethsemani, the trial crushed him not. With wearied soul and with a body well near exhausted by the jading effects of chronic infirmities, already in fact a dying man, he nevertheless nerved himself up against death and bravely faced the surging waves. From this ship in distress, as he termed the Eastern Church, dashing against every rock amid the dense fog, his pressing cry of appeal reached the ears of the Western Church seated in peace in her unfailing light,— reached Rome from where alone help could come, yet whose wise slowness, on one occasion, made him almost lose heart. While awaiting the intervention of Peter’s Successor, Basil prudently repressed anything like untimely zeal and, for the present, required of weak souls merely what was indispensable in matters of faith, just as under other circumstances and with equal prudence, he had severely reproved his own brother, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, for suffering himself to be betrayed by simplicity into inconsiderate measures, motived indeed by love of peace.

Peace, yes, this is just what Basil desired as much as anybody: but the peace for which he would give his life could be only that true Peace left to the Church by our Lord. What he so vigorously exacted on the grounds of Faith proceeded solely from this very love of his, for peace. And therefore, as he himself tells us, he absolutely refused to enter into communion with men of just medium, men who dread nothing so much as a clear, close drawn, expression of dogma. In his eyes, their captious formulae and ungraspable shiftings were but the action of hypocrites in whose company he would scorn to approach God’s altar. As to those merely misled, “let the Faith of our Fathers be proposed to them with all tenderness and charity. If they will assent thereunto, let us receive them into our midst. In other cases, let us dwell with ourselves alone, regardless of numbers. And let us keep aloof from equivocating souls who are not possessed of that simplicity without guile indispensably required, in the early days of the Gospel, from all who would approach to the Faith. The believers, so it is written, had but one heart and one soul (Acts iv 32). Let those, therefore, who would reproach us for not desiring pacification, mark well who are the real authors of the disturbance, and so not point the question of reconciliation on our side any more.”

In another place, he thus continues, “To every specious argument that would seem to counsel silence on our part, we oppose this other, namely, that charity counts as nothing, either her own proper interests, or the difficulties of the times. Even though no man is willing to follow our example, what then? Are we ourselves, just for that, to let duty alone? In the fiery furnace the children of the Babylonian captivity chanted their canticle to the Lord without making any reckoning of the multitude who set truth on one side: they were quite sufficient for one another, merely three as they were!” He thus wrote to his monks, likewise pursued and vexed by a government that would fain not own itself a persecutor: “There are many honest men who though they admit that you are being treated without a shadow of justice, still will not grant that the sufferings you are enduring can quite deserve to be called confessing the faith. Ah, it is by no means necessary to be a pagan in order to make martyrs! The enemies we have nowadays detest us no less than did the idolaters. If they would fain deceive the crowd as to the motive of their hatred, it is merely because they hope thereby to rob you of the glory that surrounded Confessors in bygone days. Be convinced of it: before the face of the just Judge, your confession is every whit as real. So, take heart under every stroke, renew yourselves in love. Let your zeal gain strength every day, knowing that in you are to be preserved the last remains of godliness which the Lord, at His return, may find upon the Earth. Trouble not yourselves about treacheries, nor from where they come: was it not the princes among God’s priests, the scribes and the ancients among His own, that plotted the snares in which our divine Master suffered Himself to be caught! Heed not what the crowd may think, for a breath is sufficient to sway the crowd to and fro like the rippling wave. Even though only one were to he saved, as in the case of Lot out of Sodom, it would not be lawful for him to deviate from the path of rectitude merely because he finds that he is the only one that is right. No, he must stand alone, unmoved, holding fast his hope on Jesus Christ.”

Basil himself, from his bed of sickness, set an example to all. But what was not the anguish of his soul when he realised how scant correspondence his efforts received among the leading men in his own diocese! He sadly wondered at seeing such as these, and how their ambition was in no wise quenched by the lamentable state of the Churches, how they still could listen to nothing but their own puny jealous susceptibilities when the vessel was actually foundering, and could bicker and quarrel about who should command the ship when she was already sinking. Then, there were others, and even these were to be found among the better sort who would fain hold aloof, hoping to get themselves forgotten in the silence of their own inertia, quite ignoring that when general interests are at stake egotistic estrangement from the scene of struggle can never save an individual, nor absolve him from the crime of treason. It is curious to hear our Saint himself relating the story to his friend Eusebius of Samosata, the future Martyr, of how once Basil’s death was noised abroad, and consequently all the bishops hurried at once to Caesarea to choose a successor.

“But,” Basil continues, “as it pleased God that they should find me alive, I took this opportunity to speak to them weighty words. Yet vainly, for while in my presence they feared me and promised everything, but scarce had they turned their backs than they were just the same again.” In the meanwhile, persecution was pursuing its course, and sooner or later, the moment came for each in turn to choose between either downright heresy or banishment. Many, unfortunately, then consummated their apostasy. Others, opening their eyes at last, took the road to exile where they were able to meditate at leisure on the advantages of their policy of “keeping quiet,” and “out of the struggle.” Or better still, where they could repair their past weakness by the heroism with which they would henceforth suffer for the faith. Basil’s virtue held even his persecutors at bay, and God preserved him in such wondrous ways that at last he was almost the only one that remained at the head of his Church, although he had really exposed himself far more than anyone else to the brunt of every attack and to every peril. He profited hereby to the benefit of his favoured flock on whom he lavished the boon of highest teaching and wisest administration. This he did with such marvellous success that so much could scarcely have been attainable by another bishop in times of peace, when exclusive attention could be devoted to those employments.

Caesarea responded splendidly to his pastoral care. His word excited such avidity amongst all classes that the populace would hang upon his lips and await his arrival the live long day, in the ever more and more closely thronged edifice. We learn this from his remarks: for instance, once, when his insatiable auditory would allow him no repose in spite of his extreme fatigue, he tenderly compares himself to a worn out mother who gives her baby the breast, not so much to feed it, as to stay its cries. The mutual understanding of pastor and flock in these meetings is quite delicious! When the great orator would chance by inadvertence to leave some verse of Scripture unexplained, with all decorum, yet eagerly, would these sons of his, by signs and half suppressed mutterings, recall the attention of the venerable father to the passage of the text before him, from the explaining of which they were not going to let him off free. On such occasions Basil would pour himself out in charming excuses for his mistake, and then give what was asked of him, but in such a way as to show he really was proud of his flock! When he was explaining, for example, the magnificence of the great ocean among other wonders of the Works of the Six Days, he suddenly paused and casting a glance of ineffable pleasure over the vast crowd, closely pressing around his episcopal chair, he thus continued: “If the sea is beauteous, and in God’s sight worthy of goodly praise, how far more beautiful is this immense assembly whereof better than the waves that swell and roll and die away against the coast, the mingled voices of men, women, and children bear to God our swelling prayer: you tranquil ocean, peaceful in your mighty deep, because evil winds of heresy are impotent to rouse your waves!”

Happy people, thus formed by Basil, to the understanding of the Scriptures, especially of the Psalms of which he inspired the Faithful with so great love that it was quite the custom for all to repair at night to the House of God, there, in the solemn accents of alternate psalmody, to pour out their souls, in one united homage. Prayer in common was one of those fruits of his ministry that Basil (like a true monk) valued the most. The importance he attached to it has made him to be one of the principal Fathers of the Greek Liturgy. “Talk not to me,” he cries out, “of private homes, of private assemblies. Adore the Lord in His Holy Court, says the Psalmist. The adoration here called for is that which is paid not outside the Church, but in the Court, the one only Court of the Lord” (in Psalms xxviii.). Time and space would fail us, were we to attempt to follow our Saint through all the details of this grand family life which he so thoroughly lived with his whole people, and which formed his one consolation in the midst of his otherwise stormy career.

It would behove us to show how he made himself all to all, in gladness and in sorrow, with a simplicity which is so admirably blended in him with lofty greatness. How he would reply to the humblest consultations, just as though he had nothing more urgent on hand than to satisfy the demands of the least among his sons. How he would cry out against every touch of injustice offered to one of his flock and cease not, till full compensation was made. And finally, how, with the aid of his Faithful of Caesarea, rising up as one man to defend their bishop, he would oppose himself as a strong rampart to protect virgins and widows against the brutal oppression of men in power. Though himself poor and stripped of all things since the day when about to enter the monastic state, he had distributed the whole of his rich paternal inheritance among the poor, he nevertheless found the secret of how to raise in his episcopal city an immense establishment destined as an assured refuge for pilgrims and the poor — an asylum ever open and admirably organised to meet the requirements of every kind of suffering and the needs of all ages: or rather, a new city, built beside the great Caesarea, and named by the gratitude of the people after its sainted founder. Ever ready for any combat, Basil intrepidly maintained his rights as exarch, which he possessed by reason of his See over the eleven provinces composing the vast administrative division known to the Romans by the generic name of the diocese of Pontus. Indefatigable in his zeal for the sacred canons, he both defended his clergy against all attempts aimed at their immunities, and reformed such abuses as had crept in during times less troubled than his own. Even in the very vortex of the storm, he knew how to bring back ecclesiastical discipline to the perfection of its best days. At last the time came when the main interests of the Faith, the perils of which seemed up to this, to have suspended in his worn out body the law of all flesh — now no longer demanded his presence, so absolutely as before. On the 9th of August 378, the arrow of the Goth exercised justice on Valens. Soon afterwards, Gratian’s Edict recalled the exiled Confessors and Theodosius appeared in the East. On the First of January 379, Basil at last set free, slept in the Lord.

The Greek Church celebrates the memory of this great Bishop on the day of his death conjointly with the Circumcision of the Word made Flesh, a second time, on the Thirtieth of the same month of January, uniting therewith two other of her doctors, namely Saints Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom, bringing all the magnificence of her gorgeous Liturgy to give splendour to this grand solemnity of January 30th, illumined as it is by a “triple sun, beaming glory concordantly to the Holy Trinity.” The Latin Church has chosen for her celebration of Saint Basil the day of his Ordination, namely June 14th.

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To give thus a list of your admirable works is in itself to sing your praises, mighty Pontiff! Would that nowadays you had imitators, for history teaches us that Saints of a build like yours are those who cause an epoch to be really great and who save society. No matter how tried, how abandoned even, a people may apparently be, if only blessed with a ruler docile in all things — docile to heroism, to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost ever abiding in Holy Church — this people will assuredly weather the storm and conquer at last. Whereas, if the salt lose its savour (Matthew v. 13), society necessarily falls away without the need of any Julian or any Valens to bring about its ruin. Basil, do then obtain for this our waning society, leaders such as you were. May the astonishment of Modestus be justly renewed in these days of ours. Let prefects, Valens’ successors, meet at the head of every Church a Bishop in the full sense of the term as used by you. Then will their astonishment be for us a signal of victory, for a Bishop is never vanquished, even should he be exiled or put to death!

While maintaining the Pastors of the Church up to the high standard of the state of perfection in which the sacred unction supposes them to be, lead the flock likewise, to higher paths of sanctity, such as Christianity gives scope for. Not to monks alone is that word spoken: “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke xvii. 21). You have taught us that the kingdom of Heaven, that beatitude that can be ours already, is the contemplation, accessible to us here below, of eternal realities, not indeed by clear and direct vision, but in that mirror of which the Apostle speaks. How foolish is it to cultivate and feed in man nothing but the senses that crave for the material alone, and to refuse to the spirit its own proper food and bent? Does not the spirit urge of its own nature towards intellectual regions for the which it is created? If its flight be slow and heavy, the reason is that the senses by prevailing, impede its ascent.

Teach us, therefore, to furnish it more and more with increased faith and love, by which it may become light and agile as the hart to leap to loftiest heights. Tell in our age, as you did formerly in yours, that forgotten truth, namely how earnestness in maintaining an upright faith is no less necessary for this end than rectitude of life. Alas, how far have your sons for the greater part forgotten that every true monk, as well as every true Christian, detests heresy and all that savours of it. Wherefore, dear Saint, bless all the more particularly those few whom such a continuity of trials has, as yet, failed to shake in their constancy. Multiply conversions. Hasten the happy day when the East, casting off the yoke of schism and Islam, may resume her former glorious place in the one Fold of the one Shepherd. Doctor of the Holy Ghost, Defender of the Word Consubstantial to the Father, grant that we, now prostrate at your feet, may ever live to the glory of the Holy Trinity. These are the words of your own admirable formulary: “To be baptised in the Trinity, to hold one’s belief conformable to one’s Baptism, to glorify God according to our Faith,” such was the essential basis set down by you for the being a Monk. But is it not that also of the being a Christian? Would that all might thoroughly understand this! Vouchsafe, dear Saint, to bless us all.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Samaria, in Palestine, the holy prophet Eliseus, whose grave, says St. Jerome, makes the demons tremble. With him rests also the prophet Abdias.

At Syracuse, St. Marcian, bishop, who was made bishop by the blessed Apostle St. Peter, and killed by the Jews after he had preached the Gospel.

At Soissons, the holy martyrs Valerius and Rufinus who, after enduring many torments, were condemned to be beheaded by the governor Rictiovarus in the persecution of Diocletian.

At Cordova, the holy martyrs Anastasius, priest, Felix, monk, and Digna, virgin.

At Constantinople, St. Methodius, bishop.

At Vienne, St. Ætherius, bishop.

At Rhodez, St. Quinctian, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 JUNE – THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The faithful soul has witnessed, through the sacred Liturgy, the close of the mysteries of our Redemption which were wrought, in succession, by our Jesus, and applied to us, one after the other, by His Church in her divine worship of them. The Holy Ghost has been sent, by the Father and Son, and He has lovingly and graciously come to continue among us the work of the Incarnate Word. He, the Spirit of the Father and Son, is come to support the Christian in this second portion of both time and season. It is, as far as the Year of Grace is concerned, the second portion of that Year, and the Holy Spirit is to rule it. And he does so by bringing before us gradually, we might say, week by week of this Time after Pentecost, the fullness of the Christian life as we received it from our Redeemer who has now ascended into Heaven and thence has sent us this beautiful Paraclete to form within us that life, to its full development. Among other gifts He gives us for the purpose, He shows us how to pray.

Prayer, as our Jesus told us, must be continual. We must be always praying, and not faint or fail (Luke xviii. 1). And yet, we know not what we should pray for (Romans viii. 26), nor how we should pray, so as to obtain. This is quite true. But He, the Holy Spirit, knows it all and comes to us, helping our infirmity, and Himself asking for us with unspeakable groanings (Romans viii. 26). In the Introit and the whole Mass for this Sunday, we are taught that prayer must have, among its other requisite qualities, that of humble repentance for our past sins, and of confidence in God’s infinite mercy.

Epistle – 1 Peter v. 6‒11

Dearly beloved, be humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation: casting all your care on Him, for He has care for you. Be sober and watch; because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour: whom you resist, strong in faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world But the God of all grace, who has called us to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you, and confirm you, and establish you. To Him be glory and empire for ever and ever.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The miseries of this present life are the test to which God puts His soldiers. He passes judgement on them and classifies them according to the degree of courage they have shown. Therefore is it, that we all have our share of suffering. The combat has commenced. God is looking on, watching how each of us comports himself. The day is not far off when the Judge will pass sentence on the merits of each combatant, and award to each one the recompense he has won. Combat, now: peace and rest and a crown, then. Happy they who during these days of probation have recognised the mighty hand of God in all the trials they have had, and have humbled themselves under its pressure, lovingly and confidingly! Against such Christians, who have been strong in faith, the roaring lion has not been able to prevail. They were sober, they were watchful, during this their pilgrimage. They were fully convinced of this, that every one has to suffer in the present life. They therefore never sighed and moaned, as though they were the only sufferers. They did not assume the attitude of victims, and call it resignation, but they took each trial as it came and, without talking to every one about it, they quietly and joyously united it with the sufferings of Christ. O true Christians, you will be joyous for all eternity, when there will be made the manifestation of that eternal glory in Christ Jesus which He will pass on to them, that they may share it with Him forever!

Gospel – Luke xv. 1‒10

At that time the publicans and sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him. And the pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” And he spoke to them this parable, saying, “Which of you that has a hundred sheep, and if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost until he find it? And when He has found it, lays it upon his shoulders rejoicing, and coming home calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost? I say to you, that even so there will be joy in Heaven over one sinner who does penance, more than on ninety-nine just who need not penance. Or what woman having ten groats, if she lose one groat, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house and seek diligently, until she find it? And when she has found it, calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, Rejoice with me, because I have found the groat which I had lost? So I say to you, will there be joy before the Angels of God over one sinner doing penance.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

This parable of the Sheep that is carried back to the fold on the Shepherd’s shoulders was a favourite one with the early Christians, and they made representations of it at almost every turn. The same is put before us in today’s Gospel, that our confidence may be strengthened in God’s infinite mercy. It reminds us, in its own beautiful way, of our Lord Jesus whom we contemplated a few weeks back ascending triumphantly into Heaven, carrying there in His arms the lost human family which He had won back from Satan and death and sin. For, as Saint Ambrose says, “who is the Shepherd of our parable? It is Christ, who carries you, poor man, in His own Body and has ' taken all your sins upon Himself. The Sheep is one, not by number, but by its kind. Rich Shepherd this, of whose flock all we human beings form but the hundredth part, for He has the Angels, and Archangels, and Dominations, and Powers, and Thrones, and all the rest — all those other countless flocks whom He has left yonder up the mountain, that He might run after the one Sheep He had lost.”

But it is from Saint Gregory the Great that the Church, in her Matins of this Sunday, took the Commentary of this Gospel. And, in the sequel of that Homily, the holy Doctor gives us the explanation of the Parable of the Woman and the ten Groats. “He,” says Saint Gregory, “that is signified by the Shepherd, is also meant by the Woman. Jesus is God. He is the Wisdom of God. And because good coin must bear the image of the king upon it, therefore was it that the woman lost her groat, when Man, who had been created after God’s image, strayed from that image by committing sin. But the woman lights a lamp. The Wisdom of God has appeared in human flesh. A lamp is a light which burns in a vessel of clay, and Light in a vessel of clay is the Divinity in our flesh. It is of the vessel of His Body, that this Wisdom says: ‘My strength is dried up like a potsherd’ (Psalms xxi. 16). For, just as clay is made hard by fire, so His strength was dried up like a potsherd, because it has strengthened to the glory of His resurrection in the crucible of sufferings, the Flesh which it (Wisdom) had assumed. Having found the groat she had lost, the woman calls together her friends and neighbours, saying: ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the groat which I had lost.’ Who are these friends and neighbours, if not the heavenly Spirits who are so near to divine Wisdom by the favours they enjoy of the ceaseless vision? But, we must not, meanwhile, neglect to examine why this woman who represents divine Wisdom is described as having ten groats, one of which she loses, then looks for, and again finds it? We must know, then, that God made both Angels and Men, that they might know Him. And that having made both immortal, they were both made to the image of God. The woman, then, had ten groats because there are nine orders of Angels, and Man, who is to fill up the number of the elect, is the tenth groat. He was lost by his sin, but was found again, because Eternal Wisdom restored him by lighting the lamp, that is, by assuming his flesh and, through that, working wonderful works which led to his recovery.”

13 JUNE – SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA (Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Ferdinand was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1195 to Martin de Buglione and Maria de Tevera. At the age of 15 he joined the Order of Canon Regulars of Saint Augustine. After two years he transferred to the monastery of Santa Cruz at Coimbra where he remained for 8 years. He was not long there before he heard of the martyrdom of five Franciscans in Morocco. Their bodies were recovered by Christians and brought to Coimbra. After this Ferdinand was fired with desire for martyrdom. With the permission of his superior he joined the Franciscan Order at the convent of Saint Anthony at Coimbra in 1221 and took the name Anthony in honour of the hermit saint Anthony of Egypt. After a period of retreat he set sail for Morocco, but got sick when he arrived there and was obliged to re-embark to return to Portugal, but a storm landed his ship in Italy. He disembarked at Messina and received the blessing of Saint Francis of Assisi. Under his guidance Anthony became a great and eloquent preacher and worker of many miracles. He died at Padua in 1231 at the age of 36 years and was canonised by Pope Gregory IX in the following year on the feast of Pentecost. Saint Anthony founded the convent of Friars Minor at Padua and it is in his great Basilica that his holy remains are entombed, having been transferred there by Saint Bonaventure, Minister General at the time. This year marks the 750th anniversary of the translation of the relics. This week they are exhibited for veneration simultaneously in Chicago, Adelaide and various cities in Canada. Saint Anthony was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1946 by the Venerable Pope Pius XII.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Rejoice, happy Padua, rich in your priceless treasure!” Anthony in bequeathing you his body has done more for your glory than the heroes who founded you on so favoured a site, or the doctors who have illustrated your famous university!

The days of Charlemagne were past and gone. Yet the work of Pope Leo III still lived on despite a thousand difficulties. The enemy, now at large, had sown cockle in the field of the divine Householder. Heresy was cropping up here and there, while vice was growing apace in every direction. In many a heroic combat, the Popes aided by the Monastic Order, had succeeded in casting disorder from out the Sanctuary itself. Still the people, too long scandalised by venal pastors, were fast skipping away from the Church. Who could rally them once more? who wrest from Satan a reconquest of the world? At this trying moment, the Spirit of Pentecost, ever living, ever present in Holy Church, raised up the Sons of Saint Dominic and of Saint Francis. The brave soldiers of this new militia, organised to meet fresh necessities, threw themselves into the field, pursuing heresy into its most secret lurking holes, and thundering against vice in every shape and wherever found. In town or in country, they were everywhere to be seen confounding false teachers by the strong argument of miracle as well as of doctrine, mixing with the people whom the sight of their heroic detachment easily won over to repentance. Crowds flocked to be enrolled in the Third Orders instituted by these two holy founders to afford a secure refuge for the Christian life in the midst of the world.

The best known and most popular of all the sons of Saint Francis is Anthony whom we are celebrating this day. His life was short: at the age of 35 he winged his flight to Heaven. But a span so limited allowed nevertheless of a considerable portion of time being directed by our Lord, to preparing this chosen servant to the ministry destined for him. The all important thing in God’s esteem, where there is question of fitting apostolic men to become instruments of salvation to a greater number of souls, is not the length of time which they may devote to exterior works, but rather, the degree of personal sanctification attained by them, and the thoroughness of their self abandonment to the ways of divine Providence. As to Anthony, it may almost be said, that up to the last day of his life. Eternal Wisdom seemed to take pleasure in disconcerting all his thoughts and plans. Out of his 20 years of religious life, he passed 10 among the Canons Regular, to whom the divine call had invited him at the age of 15, in the full bloom of his innocence. And there, wholly captivated by the splendour of the Liturgy, occupied in the sweet study of the holy Scriptures and of the Fathers, blissfully lost in the silence of the cloister — his seraphic soul was ever being wafted to sublime heights, where (so it seemed) he was always to remain, held and hidden in the secret of God’s face. When on a sudden, behold the Divine Spirit urges him to seek the martyr’s crown: and presently, he is seen emerging from his beloved monastery, and following the Friars Minor to distant shores, where already some of their number had snatched the blood-stained palm. Not this, however, but the martyrdom of love, was to be his. Falling sick and reduced to impotence, before his zeal could effect anything on the African soil, obedience recalled him to Spain. But instead of that he was cast by a tempest on the Italian coast.

It happened that Saint Francis was just then convoking his entire family, for the third time, in General Chapter. Anthony unknown, lost in the vast assembly, beheld at its close, each of the Friars in turn, receive his appointed destination, whereas to him not a thought was given. What a sight! The scion of the illustrious family de Bouillon and of the kings of the Asturias, completely overlooked in the throng of holy Poverty’s sons! At the moment of departure, the Father Minister of the Bologna Province, remarking the isolated condition of the young religious whom no one had received in charge, admitted him, out of charity, into his company. Accordingly having reached the Hermitage of Monte Paolo, Anthony was deputed to help in the kitchen and in sweeping the house, being supposed quite unfitted for anything else. Meanwhile, the Augustinian Canons, on the contrary, were bitterly lamenting the loss of one whose remarkable learning and sanctity, far more even than his nobility, had up to this, been the glory of their Order. The hour at last came, chosen by Providence, to manifest Anthony to the world. And immediately, as was said of Christ Himself, the whole world went after him. Around the pulpits where this humble Friar preached, there were wrought endless prodigies in the order of nature and of grace. At Rome he earned the surname of “Ark of the Covenant,” in France, that of “Hammer of heretics.” It would be impossible for us here to follow him throughout his luminous course. But suffice it to say that France, as well as Italy, owes much to his zealous ministry.

Saint Francis had yearned to be himself the bearer of the Gospel of peace, through all the fair realm of France, then sorely ravaged by heresy. But in his stead he sent there Anthony, his well-beloved son and, as it were, his living portrait. What Saint Dominic had been in the first crusade against the Albigenses, Anthony was in the second. At Toulouse was wrought that wondrous miracle of the famished mule turning aside from the proffered grain in order to prostrate in homage before the Sacred Host. From the Province of Berry, his burning word was heard thundering in various distant provinces, while Heaven lavished delicious favours on his soul that remained ever childlike amid the marvellous victories achieved by him, and the intoxicating applause of an admiring crowd. Under the very eyes of his host, at a lonely house in Limousin, the Infant Jesus came to him radiant in beauty. And throwing Himself into his arms, He covered him with sweetest caresses, pressing the humble Friar to lavish the like on Him. One feast of the Assumption Anthony was sad because of a phrase then to be found in the Office, seeming to throw a shade of discredit on the fact of Mary’s body being assumed into heaven together with her soul. Presently, the divine Mother herself came to console her devoted servant in his lowly cell, assuring him of the truth of the doctrine of her glorious Assumption and so left him, ravished with the sweet charms of her countenance and the melodious sound of her voice. Suddenly, as he was preaching at Montpellier, in a church of that city thronged with people, Anthony remembered that he had been appointed to chant the Alleluia at the conventual Mass in his own convent, and he had quite forgotten to get his place supplied. Deeply pained at this involuntary omission, he bent his head on his breast: while standing thus motionless and silent in the pulpit as though asleep, his brethren saw him enter their choir, sing his verse and depart. At once, his auditory beheld him recover his animation and continue his sermon with the same eloquence as before. In this same town of Montpellier, another well known incident occurred. When engaged in teaching a course of theology to his brethren, his commentary on the Psalms disappeared but the thief was presently constrained, even by the fiend himself, to bring back the volume, the loss of which had caused our Saint so much regret. Such is commonly thought to be the origin of the popular devotion by which a special power of recovering lost things is ascribed to Saint Anthony. However this may be, it is certain that from the very outset this devotion rests on the testimony of startling miracles of this kind. And in our own day constantly repeated favours of a similar nature still confirm the same.

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O glorious Anthony, the simplicity of your innocent soul made you a docile instrument in the hand of the Spirit of Love. The Seraphic Doctor, Saint Bonaventure, hymning your praises, takes for his first theme your childlike spirit, and for his second your wisdom which flowed from it. Wise indeed were you, Anthony, for from your tenderest years you were in earnest pursuit of divine Wisdom and, wishing to have Her alone for your portion, you hastened to shelter your love in some cloister to hide you in the secret of God’s face, the better to enjoy Her chaste delights. Silence and obscurity in Her sweet company was your heart’s one ambition, and even here below. Her hands were pleased to adorn you with incomparable splendour. She walked before you, and blithely did you follow, for Her own sake alone without suspecting how all other good things were to become yours in Her company (Wisdom vii.). Happy a childlike spirit, such as yours, to which are ever reserved the more lavish favours of Eternal Wisdom!

“But,” exclaims your sainted panegyrist, “who is really a child, nowadays? Humble Littleness is no more, therefore Love is no more. Nothing is to be seen now but valleys bulging into hills, and hills swelling into mountains. What says Holy Writ? “When they were lifted up, you have cast them down” (Psalms lxxii. 18). To such towering vaunters, God said again: “Behold, I have made you a small child” (Abdias ii.), but exceedingly contemptible among the nations is such an infancy. Wherefore will you keep to this childishness, men, making your days an endless series of inconstancy, boisterous ambition and vain effort at garnering wretched chaff? Other is that infancy which is declared to be the greatest, in the land of true greatness (Matthew xviii. 4). Such was yours, Anthony! And thereby were you wholly yielded up to Wisdom’s sacred influence.”

In return for your loving submission to God, our Father in heaven, the populace obeyed you, and fiercest tyrants trembled at your voice (Wisdom viii. 14, 15). Heresy alone dared once to disobey you — dared to refuse to hearken to your word. Thereupon the very fishes of the sea took up your defence, for they came swimming in shoals before the eyes of the whole city to listen to your preaching which heretics had scorned. Alas, error, having long ago recovered from the vigorous blows dealt by you, is yet more emboldened in these our days, claiming even sole right to speak. The offspring of Manes, whom under the name of Albigenses, you so successfully combated, would now under the new appellation of Freemasonry, have all France at its beck. Your native Portugal beholds the same monster stalking in broad daylight, almost up to the very altar. and the whole world is being intoxicated by its poison. You, who daily flies to the aid of your devoted clients in their private necessities: you, whose power is the same in Heaven as heretofore on Earth, succour the Church, aid God’s people, have pity on society, now more universally and deeply menaced than ever. You, Ark of the Covenant, bring back our generation so terribly devoid of love and faith, to the serious study of sacred Letters in which is so energising a power. You Hammer of Heretics strike once more such blows as will make Hell tremble and the heavenly Powers thrill with joy.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Ardeatina, the birthday of St. Felicula, virgin and martyr, who was delivered to the judge for refusing to marry Flaccus and to sacrifice to idols. As she persevered in the confession of Christ, he confined her in a dark dungeon without food and afterwards caused her to be racked until she expired. She was then cast into a sewer, but St. Nicomedes buried her on the road just mentioned.

In Africa, the holy martyrs Fortunatus and Lucian.

At Byblos in Palestine, St. Aquilina, virgin and martyr, at the age of twelve years, under the emperor Diocletian and the judge Volusian. For the confession of the faith she was buffeted, scourged, pierced with red-hot bodkins, and being struck with the sword, consecrated her virginity by martyrdom.

In Abruzzo, St. Peregrinus, bishop and martyr. For the Catholic faith he was thrown into the river Pescara by the Lombards.

At Cordova, in the persecution of the Arabs, St. Fandila, a priest and monk, who underwent martyrdom by decapitation for the faith of Christ.

In Cyprus, St. Triphyllius, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 JUNE – SAINT JOHN FACUNDUS (Confessor)

John was born at Sahagun in Spain, to John Gonzalez de Castrillo and Sancia Martinez, in 1491. From his earliest years he gave clear signs of his holiness, for he climbed up high places to preach to other young boys and exhort them to be good and attentive to the public service of God. He also made it his work to reconcile their quarrels. He was given in charge to the monks of the Order of Saint Benedict of San Facundo to be taught the first elements of learning. While he was thus occupied, his father obtained for him the benefice of the Parish, but no inducements could persuade him to keep this preferment. He became one of the household of the Bishop of Burgos, and that Prelate took him into his counsels, ordained him Priest, and made him a Canon, heaping many kindnesses on him. However, that he might serve God the more quietly, he left the Bishop’s palace, resigned all his Church income and went to a chapel where he celebrated Holy Mass daily, often preaching concerning the things of God with great profit to all that heard him.

Later he went to Salamanca to study, and there being taken into the celebrated college of Saint Bartholomew, performed his priestly office in such a way that he was at once constant to study, the present object of his desire, and yet assiduous to the duty of preaching. Here he had a severe illness and vowed to embrace a sterner way of living. in fulfilment of which vow, having given to a half-naked beggar the better of the only two garments he possessed, he withdrew to a monastery of Saint Augustine then flourishing in full observance of severe discipline. Being admitted there, he surpassed the most advanced in obedience, in lowliness of mind, in vigils and in prayer. The care of the refectory being confided to him, one barrel of wine, handled by him, abundantly sufficed the whole community for an entire year.

After his noviciate John undertook the duty of preaching again. Owing to bloody feuds, all things human and divine at Salamanca were in such utter confusion that murders were committed almost every hour, and the streets and squares, even the churches, flowed with the blood of all classes, especially of the nobility. John, by public preaching and private conversations, softened the hearts of the citizens so that the town was restored to peace. One of the nobles he had grievously offended by rebuking him for his cruelty towards his vassals, sent two knights to murder him on the road. They came near him but God struck them with such terror that they and their horses could not move, until at length prostrating themselves before the feet of John, they implored his forgiveness. The same lord, also smitten with a sudden dread, despaired of his salvation till he had sent for John, who finding him repentant of his deed, restored him to health. Some factious men also, who assailed him with clubs, found their arms stiffen, nor would their strength return, till they had asked his pardon for their wickedness.

While celebrating Mass, John was wont to behold the Lord Jesus Christ then present, and to quaff, from the Fountain-Head of the Divinity, heavenly mysteries. Often he could see into the secrets of men’s hearts and foretell things to come. He raised from the dead his brother’s seven year old daughter. He foretold his own death and having prepared himself by receiving the Sacraments most devoutly, he died on the 11th of June 1479. He was glorified by miracles both before and after his death, for which he was beatified in 1601 by Pope Clement XIII, and was canonised in 1690 by Pope Alexander VIII. Pope Benedict XIII fixed the 12th of June as his feast day. In art Saint John is represented holding a chalice and host surrounded by rays of light.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The kingdom which the Apostles have mission to establish on Earth is a reign of peace. Such was the promise plighted by Heaven to Earth on that glorious night on which was given to us the Emmanuel: and on that other night which witnessed our Lord’s last farewell at the Supper, did not the Man-God base the New Testament on the double legacy which He bequeathed to His Church, of His Sacred Body and Blood, and of this Peace erstwhile announced by Bethlehem’s Angels? (John xiv. 27) Yes, a peace unknown till then here below, a peace all His own because, as He said, It proceeds from Him, but still is not He Himself, Gift substantial and Divine, which is no other than the Holy Ghost in Person!

Like sacred leaven, this peace has been spread among us during these Pentecostal days. Men and nations alike have felt the secret influence. Man at strife with Heaven and divided against himself, was indeed justly punished for his insubordination to God by the ascendency of the senses in his revolted flesh. But lo, he now sees harmony once again established in his whole being, and his appeased God treating as a son the obstinate rebel of former days. The sons of the Most High are to form a new people stretching their confines to Earth’s furthest bounds. “Seated in the beauty of peace,” to use the Prophet’s expression (Isaias xxxii. 18), this blessed race will see all nations flocking to its midst, and will draw down, here below, the good will of Heaven, so exquisitely imaged in it.

Whereas formerly nations were constantly at strife and wreaking vengeance in many a bloody combat that knew no end but in the extermination of the vanquished — baptised, they at once recognise each other as sisters, according to the filiation of the Father who is in Heaven. Faithful subjects of the one Pacific King, they yield themselves up to the Holy Ghost that He may soften their manners and if, perforce, war, the result of sin, must needs sometimes come, woefully reminding man of the consequences of the Fall, this inevitable scourge will at least henceforth know other laws than those of might. The right of nations, the right of every Christian who rejects all that savours of pagan antiquity — the faith of treaties, the arbitration of the Vicar of Christ, supreme controller of the consciences of kings — these, and only these, can eliminate occasions of bloody discord.

Thus there were to be ages in which the peace of God, or the truce of God, or a thousand such loving artifices of the common mother, would prevail to restrict the number of years and days in which the sword might be allowed to remain unsheathed against human life. Were these limits out-stepped, the transgressor’s blade would be snapped in two by the power of the spiritual sword, more dreaded in those days than warrior’s steel. Such is the potency of the Gospel’s might that even in these present days of universal decadence respect for a disarmed foe imposes itself as law on the hottest adversary, so that after a battle, victors and vanquished meeting like brothers, lavish the same cares both corporal and spiritual, on the wounded of either camp: such the persistent energy of the supernatural leaven which has been working progressive transformation in mankind, for [two thousand] years, and is even still acting on those who would fain deny its power!

He whom we are honouring today is one of the most glorious instruments of this marvellous conduct of divine Providence. Heaven-born peace mingles her placid ray with the brilliant aureola that wreathes his brow. A noble son of Catholic Spain, he knew how to prepare the future glory of his country as well as any mailed hero that laid Moor prostrate in the dust. Just as the eight hundred years’ crusade that drove the Crescent from Iberian soil was closing, and the several kingdoms of this magnanimous land were blending together under one sceptre, this lowly hermit of Saint Augustine was laying within hearts the foundation of that powerful unity which would inaugurate the glories of Spain’s sixteenth century. When he first appeared, rivalries engendered too easily by a false point of honour, in a nation armed to the teeth, sullied the fair land of Spain with the blood of her sons, slain by Christian hands. His pedestal, as he now stands before us receiving the Church’s homage, is formed of discord’s image overturned by the disarmed.

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O BLESSED Saint, well have you earned the privilege of appearing in the heavens of holy Church during these weeks that are radiant with Pentecostal Light. Long ago did Isaias portray the loveliness of Earth on the morrow of the coming down of the Paraclete. Thus did he describe the sight that met his prophetic glance: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings, and that preach peace: of them that preach salvation that say to Sion: Your God will reign!” (Isaias lii. 7) What the Prophet thus admired was the sight of the Apostles taking possession of the world in God’s name, but in what did your own mission differ from theirs thus enthusiastically pictured by the inspired pencil? The same Holy Ghost animated your ways and theirs. The same pacific King beheld His sceptre by your hand, made yet more steadfast in its sway over a noble nation of His vast empire. Peace, the one object of all your labours here below, is now your eternal recompense in Heaven where you reign with Him. You now experience the truth of your Master’s word when He said of such as resemble you by working to establish peace, at least within the territory of their own hearts: “Blessed are the peace-makers, for they will be called the children of God” (Matthew v. 9). Yes, rest then, dear Saint, in your Father’s inheritance, into which you have entered. Rest in the beatific repose of the Holy Trinity that inundates your soul, and may we here, afar off in this chilly Earth below, feel something of that genial peacefulness.

Vouchsafe to lavish on your own land of Spain the same succour which in your lifetime was so precious unto her. No longer does she hold that pre-eminence in Christendom which became hers just after your glorious death. Would that you could now persuade her that never can her greatness he recovered by lending an ear to the deceptive whisperings of false liberty. But that which could in bygone days render her so strong and powerful, can do so again, if she draw down on her the benedictions of Him by whom alone kings reign (Proverbs viii. 6). Devotedness to Christ that was her glory, devotedness to truth that was her treasure! Revealed Truth is alone that by which men enter into true liberty: Truth will make you free. Truth alone is able to bind in unity indissoluble the many minds and wills that make up a nation: powerful is that bond, for it secures strength to a country beyond her frontiers, and peace to her within. Apostle of peace, remind your own people, and teach the same to all, that absolute fidelity to the Church’s doctrines is the sole ground on which Christians may seek and find concord.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Nicaea in Bithynia, St. Antonina, martyr, who was scourged by order of the governor Priscillian during the same persecution, then racked, lacerated, exposed to the fire, and finally put to the sword.

In Thrace, St. Olympius, a bishop, who was expelled from his see by the Arians and died a confessor.

In Cilicia, the bishop St. Amphion, a celebrated confessor of the time of Galerius Maximian.

In Egypt, St. Onuphrius, an anchoret, who for sixty years led a religious life in the desert, and renowned for great virtues and merits, departed for heaven. His admirable deeds were recorded by the abbot Paphnutius.

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

Thanks be to God.