14 JULY – SAINT BONAVENTURE (Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Bonaventure was born to Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria Ritella in 1231 at Bagnorea near Viterbo in Italy. At the age of 20 he entered the Order of Friars Minor. He studied at the University of Paris under Alexander of Hales (“the Unanswerable Doctor”) and taught theology and the Holy Scriptures there from 1248 until 1257, when he and Saint Thomas Aquinas both received the degree of Doctor of Theology. In the same year he was chosen to be the Minister-General of the Franciscan Order and in 1263 Bonaventure fixed the limits of the different provinces of the Order and prescribed that a bell should be rung in honour of the Annunciation at nightfall. In 1265 Clement IV nominated Bonaventure to the vacant Archbishopric of York, but the humble friar refused this honour. In the same year Pope Gregory X appointed Bonaventure Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. He died during the General Council of Lyons in 1274 and was canonised in 1482. In 1588 he was declared to be a Doctor of the Church. Saint Bonaventure wrote many ascetical and mystical treatises and a biography of Saint Francis of Assisi, as well as Commentaries on Holy Scripture and on the work of the Master of Sentences (the theological and philosophical text-book in use in his times). He became known as the “Seraphic Doctor” for the angelic virtues with which he adorned his learning.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Four months after the Angel of the Schools, the Seraphic Doctor appears in the heavens. Bound by the ties of love when on Earth, the two are now united forever before the Throne of God. Bonaventure’s own words will show us how great a right they both had to the heavenly titles bestowed upon them by the admiring gratitude of men.

As there are three hierarchies of Angels in Heaven, so on Earth there are three classes of the elect. The Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones who form the first hierarchy represent those who approach nearest to God by contemplation, and who differ among themselves according to the intensity of their love, the plenitude of their science and the steadfastness of their justice. To the Dominations, Virtues and Powers correspond the prelates and princes. And lastly, the lowest choirs signify the various ranks of the faithful engaged in the active life. This is the triple division of men which according to Saint Luke will be made at the last day: two will be in the bed, two in the field, two at the mill, that is to say, in the repose of divine delights, in the field of government, at the mill of this life’s toil. As regards the two mentioned in each place, we may remark that in Isaias the Seraphim, who are more closely united to God than the rest, perform two together their ministry of sacrifice and praise: for it is with the Angel as with man ― the fullness of love, which belongs especially to the Seraphim, cannot be without the fulfilment of the double precept of charity towards God and one’s neighbour. Again our Lord sent His disciples two and two before His face. And in Genesis we find God sending two Angels where one would have sufficed (Genesis xix. 1) It is better therefore, says Ecclesiastes, that two should be together than one, for they have the advantage of their society (Ecclesiastes iv. 9)

Such is the teaching of Bonaventure in his book of the Hierarchy in which he shows us the secret workings of Eternal Wisdom for the salvation of the world and the sanctification of the elect. It would be impossible to understand aright the history of the thirteenth century were we to forget the prophetic vision in which our Lady was seen presenting to her offended Son His two servants Dominic and Francis, that they might by their powerful union bring back to Him the wandering human race. What a spectacle for Angels when, on the morrow of the apparition, the two saints met and embraced: “You are my companion, we will run side by side,” said the descendant of the Gusmans to the poor man of Assisi: “let us keep together, and no man will be able to prevail against us.” These words might well have been the motto of their noble sons, Thomas and Bonaventure. The star which shone over the head of Saint Dominic, shed its bright rays on Thomas. The Seraph who imprinted the stigmata in the flesh of Saint Francis, touched with his fiery wing the soul of Bonaventure. Yet both, like their incomparable fathers, had but one end in view: to draw men by science and love to that eternal life which consists in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Both were burning and shining lamps, blending their flames in the heavens in proportions which no mortal eye could distinguish here below. Nevertheless, Eternal Wisdom has willed that the Church on Earth should borrow more especially light from Thomas and fire from Bonaventure. Would that we might here show in each of them the workings of Wisdom, the one bond even on earth of their union of thoughts — that Wisdom who, ever unchangeable in her adorable unity, never repeats herself in the souls she chooses from among the nations to become the prophets and the friends of God. But today we must speak only of Bonaventure.

When quite a child, he was saved by Saint Francis from imminent death, upon which his pious mother offered him by vow to the Saint, promising that he should enter the Order of Friars Minor. Thus, in the likeness of holy poverty, that beloved companion of the Seraphic Patriarch, did Eternal Wisdom prevent our Saint from his very cradle showing herself first to him. At the earliest awakening of his faculties he found her seated at the entrance of his soul, awaiting the opening of its gates, which are, he tells us, intelligence and love. Having received a good soul in an undefiled body, he preferred Wisdom before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison with the august friend who offered herself to him in the glory of her nobility and beauty. From that first moment, without ever waning, she was his light. Peacefully as a sunbeam glancing through a hitherto closed window, Wisdom filled this dwelling, now become her own, as the bride on the nuptial day takes possession of the bridegroom’s house, filling it with joy in community of goods, and above all of love. For her contribution to the nuptial banquet, she brought the substantial brightness of Heaven. Bonaventure on his part offered her the lilies of purity, so desired by her as her choicest food. Henceforth the feast in his soul was to be continual, and the light and the perfumes, breaking forth, were shed around, attracting, enlightening and nourishing all.

While still very young, he was, according to custom, sent, after the first years of his religious life to the celebrated University of Paris, where he soon won all hearts by his angelic manners. And the great Alexander of Hales, struck with admiration at the union of so many qualities, said of him that it seemed as if in him Adam had not sinned. As a lofty mountain whose head is lost in the clouds, and from whose foot run fertilising waters far and wide, Brother Alexander himself, according to the expression of the Sovereign Pontiff, seemed at that time to contain within himself the living fountain of Paradise, from which the river of science and salvation flowed over the Earth. Nevertheless not only would he, the irrefragable Doctor, and the Doctor of doctors, give up his chair in a short time to the newcomer, but he would hereafter derive his greatest glory from being called father and master by that illustrious disciple. Placed in such a position at so early an age, Bonaventure could say of Divine Wisdom, even more truly than of the great master who had had little to do but admire the prodigious development of his soul: “It is she that has taught me all things. She taught me the knowledge of God and of His works, justice and virtues, the subtleties of speeches and the solutions of arguments” (Wisdom vii. And viii.).

Such indeed is the object of those Commentaries on the four Books of Sentences first delivered as lectures from the chair of Paris where he held the noblest intellects spellbound by his graceful and inspired language. This masterpiece, while it is an inexhaustible mine of treasures to the Franciscan family, bears so great testimony to the science of this doctor of twenty-seven years of age that, though so soon called from his chair to the government of a great Order, he was worthy on account of this single work to share with his friend Thomas of Aquinas who was fortunately freer to pursue his studies, the honourable title of prince of Sacred Theology. The young master already merited his name of Seraphic Doctor by regarding science as merely a means to love, and declaring that the light which illuminates the mind is barren and useless unless it penetrates to the heart, where alone wisdom rests and feasts. Saint Antoninus tells us also that in him every truth grasped by the intellect passed through the affections, and thus became prayer and divine praise. “His aim,” says another historian, “was to burn with love, to kindle himself first at the divine fire, and afterwards to inflame others. Careless of praise or renown, anxious only to regulate his life and actions, he would fain burn and not only shine. He would be fire, in order to approach nearer to God by becoming more like to Him who is fire. Albeit, as fire is not without light, so was he also at the same time a shining torch in the House of God. But his special claim to our praise is, that all the light at his command he gathered to feed the flame of divine love.”

The bent of his mind was clearly indicated when at the beginning of his public teaching he was called on to give his decision on the question then dividing the Schools: to some theology was a speculative, to others a practical science, according as they were more struck by the theoretical or the moral side of its teaching. Bonaventure, uniting the two opinions in the principle which he considered the one universal law, concluded that “Theology is an affective science, the knowledge of which proceeds by speculative contemplation, but aims principally at making us good.” For the wisdom of doctrine, he said, must be according to her name be something that can be relished by the soul. And he added, not without that gentle touch of irony which the saints know how to use, “There is a difference, I suppose, in the impressions produced by the proposition, Christ died for us, or the like, and by such as this: the diagonal and the side of a square cannot be equal to one another.” The graceful speech and profound science of our saint were enhanced by a beautiful modesty. He would conclude a difficult question thus: “This is said without prejudice to the opinions of others. If anyone think otherwise, or better, as he may well do on this point as on all others, I bear him no ill-will. But if, in this little work, he find any thing deserving approval, let him give thanks to God, the Author of all good. Whatever in any part be found false, doubtful or obscure, let the kind reader forgive the incompetence of the writer, whose conscience bears him unimpeachable testimony that he has wished to say nothing but what is true, clear, and commonly received.”

On one occasion, however, Bonaventure’s unswerving devotion to the Queen of Virgins modified with a gentle force his expression of humility: “If anyone,” he says, “prefers otherwise, I will not contend with him, provided he say nothing to the detriment of the Venerable Virgin, for we must take the very greatest care, even should it cost us our life, that no one lessen in any way the honour of our Lady.” Lastly, at the end of the third book of this admirable Exposition of the Sentences, he declares that “charity is worth more than all science. It is enough, in doubtful questions, to know what the wise have taught. Disputation is to little purpose. We talk much, and our words fail us. Infinite thanks be to the perfecter of all discourse, our Lord Jesus Christ, who taking pity on my poverty of knowledge and of genius, has enabled me to complete this moderate work. I beg of Him that it may procure me the merit of obedience, and may be of profit to my brethren: the twofold purpose for which the task was undertaken.”

But the time had come when obedience was to give place to another kind of merit, less pleasing to himself, but not less profitable to the brethren. At thirty-five years of age, he was elected Minister General. Obliged thus to quit the field of scholastic teaching, he entrusted it to his friend, Thomas of Aquinas who, younger by several years, was to cultivate it longer and more completely than he himself had been suffered. The Church would lose nothing by the change, for Eternal Wisdom, who orders all things with strength and sweetness, thus disposed that these two incomparable geniuses, completing one another, should give us the fullness of that true science which not only reveals God, but leads to Him.

“Give an occasion to the wise man, and wisdom will be added to him” (Proverbs ix. 9). This sentence was placed by Bonaventure at the head of his treatise on “the Six Wings of the Seraphim,” in which he sets forth the qualifications necessary for one called to the cure of souls; and well did he fulfil it himself in the government of his immense Order, scattered by its missions throughout the whole Church. The treatise itself, which Father Claude Aquaviva held in such high estimation as to oblige the Superiors of the Society of Jesus to use it as a guide, furnishes us with a portrait of our Saint at this period. He had reached the summit of the spiritual life where the inward peace of the soul is undisturbed by the most violent agitations from without, where the closeness of their union with God produces in the saints a mysterious fecundity displayed to the world, when God wills, by a multiplicity of perfect works incomprehensible to the profane. Let us listen to Bonaventure’s own words: “The Seraphim exercise an influence over the lower orders, to draw them upwards. So the love of the spiritual man tends both to his neighbour and to God: to God that he may rest in Him, to his neighbour to draw him there with himself. Not only then do they burn. They also give the form of perfect love, driving away darkness and showing how to rise by degrees, and to go to God by the highest paths.”

Such is the secret of that admirable series of opuscula composed, as he owned to Saint Thomas, without the aid of any book but his crucifix, without any preconceived plan, but simply as occasion required, at the request, or to satisfy the needs of the brethren and sisters of his large family, or again when he felt a desire of pouring out his soul. In these works Bonaventure has treated alike of the first elements of asceticism and of the sublimest subjects of the mystic life, with such fullness, certainty, clearness and persuasive force that Sixtus IV declared the Holy Spirit seemed to speak in him. On reading the Itinerary of the soul to God, which was written on the height of Alvernia, as it were under the immediate influence of the Seraphim, the Chancellor Gerson exclaimed: “his opusculum, or rather this immense work, is beyond the praise of a mortal mouth.” And he wished it, together with that wonderful compendium of sacred science, the Breviloquium, to be imposed on theologians as a necessary manual. “By his words,” says the great Abbot Trithemius in the name of the Benedictine Order, “the author of all these learned and devout works inflames the will of the reader no less than he enlightens his mind. Note the spirit of divine love and Christian devotion in his writings, and you will easily see that he surpasses all the doctors of his time in the usefulness of his works. Many expound doctrine, many preach devotion, few teach the two together. Bonaventure surpasses both the many and the few, because he trains to devotion by science, and to science by devotion. If then you would be both learned and devout, you must put his teaching in practice.”

But Bonaventure himself will tell us best the proper dispositions for reading him with profit. At the beginning of his Incendium amoris in which teaches the three ways, purgative, illuminative and unitive which lead to true wisdom, he says: “I "offer this book not to philosophers, not to the worldly-wise, not to great theologians perplexed with endless questions, but to the simple and ignorant who strive rather to love God than to know much. It is not by disputing, but by activity, that we learn to love. As to these men full of questions, superior in every science, but inferior in the love of Christ, I consider them incapable of understanding the contents of this book. Unless putting away all vain show of learning, they strive, by humble self-renunciation, prayer and meditation to kindle within them the divine spark which, inflaming their hearts and dispelling all darkness, will lead them beyond the concerns of time even to the throne of peace. Indeed by the very fact of their knowing more, they are better disposed to love, or at least they would be, if they truly despised themselves and could rejoice to be despised by others.”

Although these pages are already too long, we cannot resist quoting the last words left us by Saint Bonaventure. As the Angel of the School was soon, at Fossa Nova, to close his labours and his life with the explanation of the Canticle of Canticles, so his seraphic rival and brother tuned his last notes to these words of the sacred Nuptial Song: “King Solomon has made him a litter of the wood of Libanus: The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going-up of purple.” “The seat of gold,” added our Saint, “is contemplative wisdom. It belongs to those alone who possess the column of silver, i.e. the virtues which strengthen the soul. The going-up of purple is the charity by which we ascend to the heights and descend to the valleys.” It is a conclusion worthy of Bonaventure, the close of a sublime but incomplete work, which he had not even time to put together himself. “Alas! Alas! Alas!” cries out with tears the loving disciple to whom we owe this last treasure, “a higher dignity, and then the death of our lord and master prevented the continuation of this work.” And then showing us in a touching manner the precautions taken by the sons lest they should lose anything of their father’s conferences: “What I here give,” he says, “is what I could snatch by writing rapidly while he was speaking. Two others took notes at the same time, but their papers are scarcely legible; whereas several of the audience were able to read my copy, and the master himself and many others made use of it, a fact for which I deserve some gratitude. And now at length, permission and time having been given to me, I have revised these notes, with the voice and gestures of the master ever in my ear and before my eyes. I have arranged them in order, without adding anything to what he said, except the indication of certain authorities.”

The dignity mentioned by the faithful secretary is that of Cardinal Bishop of Albano. After the death of Clement IV and the succeeding three years of widowhood for the Church, our Saint, by his influence with the Sacred College, had obtained the election of Gregory X who now imposed on him in virtue of obedience the honour of the Cardinalate. Having been entrusted with the work of preparation for the Council of Lyons convened for the Spring of 1274, Bonaventure had the joy of assisting at the re-union of the Latin and Greek Churches which he, more than anyone else, had been instrumental in obtaining. But God spared him the bitterness of seeing how short-lived the re-union was to be: a union which would have been the salvation of that East which he loved, and where his name, translated into Eutychius, was still in veneration two centuries later at the time of the Council of Florence. On the 10th of July of that year, 1274, in the midst of the Council, and presided at by the Sovereign Pontiff himself, took place the most solemn funeral the world has ever witnessed. “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan,” cried out before that mourning assembly gathered from East and West, the Dominican Cardinal Peter of Tarentaise. After fifty-three years spent in this world, the Seraph had cast off his robe of flesh, and spreading his wings had gone to join Thomas of Aquinas, who had by a very short time preceded him to Heaven.

YOU have entered, O Bonaventure, into the joy of your Lord, and what must your happiness be now since, as you yourself did say: “By how much a man loves God on Earth, by so much does he rejoice in him in Heaven.” If the great Saint Anselm from whom you borrowed that word added, that love is proportioned to knowledge, you who were at the same time a prince of sacred science and the doctor of love, show us how all light, in the order of grace and of nature, is intended to lead us to love. God is hidden in everything. Christ is the centre of every science, and the fruit of each of them is to build up faith, to honour God, to regulate our life, and to lead to divine union by charity, without which all knowledge is vain. For, as you said, all the sciences have their fixed and infallible rules which come down to our soul as so many reflections of the eternal law. And our soul, surrounded and penetrated with such brightness, is led of her own accord, unless she is blind, to contemplate that eternal light. Wonderful light, reflected from the mountains of our fatherland into the further most valleys of our exile! In the eyes of the Seraphic Father Francis the world was truly noble, so that he called, as you tell us, even the lowest creatures by the name of brothers and sisters. In every beauty he discerned the Sovereign Beauty. By the traces left in creation by its Author he found his Beloved everywhere, and he made of them a ladder by which to ascend to Him.

Do you, too, O my soul, open your eyes, bend your ear, unlock your lips, and prepare your heart, that in every creature you may see your God, hear Him, praise Him, love Him and honour Him, lest the whole universe rise up against you for not rejoicing in the works of His hands. Then from the world beneath you, which has but the shadow of God and His presence, inasmuch as He is everywhere, pass on to yourself His image by nature, reformed in Christ the Bridegroom. From the image rise to the truth of the first Beginning, in unity of Essence and trinity of Persons, that you may attain the repose of that sacred night where both the shadow and the image are forgotten in an all-absorbing love. But first of all you must know that the mirror of the external world will avail you little unless the interior mirror of your soul be purified and bright, unless your desire be aided by prayer and contemplation in order to kindle love. Know that here, reading without unction, speculation without devotion, labour without piety, knowledge without charity, intelligence without humility, study without grace, are nothing. And when at length rising gradually by prayer, holiness of life and the contemplation of truth, you will have reached the mountain where the God of gods reveals Himself, taught by the powerlessness of your sight here on Earth to endure splendours of which nature was too feeble to give you an indication, let your blind intelligence remain asleep, pass beyond it in Christ, who is the gate and the way, question no longer the master but the Bridegroom, not man but God, not the light but the all-consuming fire. Pass from this world with Christ to the Father, who will be shown to you, and then say with Philip: “It is enough for us.”

O Seraphic Doctor, lead us by this sublime ascent of which every line of your works discloses the secrets, the toils, the beauties and the dangers. In the pursuit of that Divine Wisdom which even in its feeblest reflections no one can behold without ecstasy, guard us against mistaking for an end the satisfaction felt from the scanty rays sent down to us to draw us from the confusion of nothingness even to Itself. If these rays which proceed from the eternal Beauty be withdrawn from their focus and perverted from their object, there will be nothing but delusion, deception, vain knowledge, or false pleasures. Indeed, the more lofty the knowledge and the nearer it approaches to God as the object of speculative theory, the more in a certain sense is error to be feared. If a man in his progress towards true wisdom, which is possessed and relished for its own sake, is drawn aside by the charms of knowledge, and rests in it, you, O Bonaventure, hesitate not to compare such knowledge to a vile deceiver who would withdraw the affections of the king’s son from his noble betrothed to fix them on herself. Such an insult to an august queen would be equally grievous whether offered by a servant or by a lady of honour. Hence you declared that “the passage from science to wisdom is dangerous, unless holiness intervenes.” Help us to cross the perilous pass. Let science ever be to us a means of attaining sanctity and acquiring greater love.

You have still, O Bonaventure, the same thoughts in the light of God. Witness the predilection you have more than once shown in our time for those centres, where, in spite of the fever of activity which must needs keep in motion every force of nature, divine contemplation is still appreciated as the better part, as the only end and aim of all knowledge. Deign to continue your protection of your devout and grateful clients. Defend, as heretofore, the life and prerogatives of all religious Orders which are now so persecuted. To your own Franciscan family be still a cause of increase both in numbers and in sanctity. Bless the labours undertaken by it, to the joy of all the world, to bring to light as they deserve your history and your works. Bring back the East a third time to unity and life, and that forever. May the whole Church be warmed by your rays. May the divine fire you so effectually nurtured, kindle the earth anew!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Justus, soldier under the tribune Claudius. A miraculous cross appearing to him, he believed in Christ, was baptised, and bestowed his goods on the poor. Arrested afterwards by the prefect Magnetius, he was scourged, had a heated helmet put on his head, and was thrown into the fire, but without injury even to a hair of his head. Finally, he yielded up his soul in the confession of the Lord.

At Sinope in Pontus, the martyrs St. Phocas, bishop of that city. Under the emperor Trajan, after having been imprisoned, bound, struck with the sword and exposed to the fire for Christ, he took his flight to heaven. His remains were brought to Vienne in France and deposited in the church of the holy Apostles.

At Alexandria, St. Heraclas, bishop, whose fame was so great that the historian Africanus repaired to Alexandria to see him, as he himself testifies.

At Carthage, St. Cyrus, bishop, on whose festival St. Augustine spoke of him to his people.

At Como, St. Felix, first bishop of that city.

At Brescia, St. Optatian, bishop.

At Daventry in Belgium, St. Marcellin, priest and confessor.

At Rome, St. Camillus de Lellis, confessor, founder of the Clerks Regular who minister to the sick. Renowned for virtues and miracles, he was numbered among the saints by Pope Benedict XIV.

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

Thanks be to God.

13 JULY – SAINT ANACLETUS (Pope and Martyr)

Anacletus, a native of Athens, was ordained a priest by Saint Peter and succeeded Linus to the Holy See. He decreed that a bishop should be consecrated by no fewer than three bishops, that clerics should be publicly admitted to Holy Orders by their own bishop, and that at Mass all should communicate after the Consecration. He adorned the tomb of blessed Peter, and set aside a place for the burial of the Pontiffs. He held two ordinations in the month of December, and made 5 priests, 3 deacons, and 6 bishops. He was martyred in about 91 AD during the reign of Trajan. He was buried alongside Pope Saint Linus in the Vatican cemetery where Saint Peter himself was laid to rest.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The name of Anacletus sounds like a lingering echo of the solemnity of June 29th. Linus, Clement and Cletus, the immediate successors of Saint Peter, received from his hands the pontifical consecration. Anacletus had a less but still inestimable glory of being ordained priest by the Vicar of the Man-God. Whereas the feasts of most of the martyr Pontiffs who came after him are only of simple rite, that of Anacletus is a semi-double because of his privilege of being the last Pope honoured by the imposition of hands of the Prince of the Apostles. It was also during his pontificate that the Eternal City had the glory of receiving within its walls the beloved disciple who had come to fulfil his promise and drink of his Master’s chalice. “O happy Church,” exclaims Tertullian, “into whose bosom the Apostles poured not only all their teaching, but their very blood; where Peter imitated his Lord’s Passion by dying on the cross; where Paul, like John the Baptist, received his crown by means of the sword; from which the Apostle John, after coming forth safe and sound from the boiling oil, was sent to the isle of his banishment.”

By the almighty power of the Spirit of Pentecost, the progress of the faith in Rome was proportionate to the bountiful graces of our Lord. Little by little the great Babylon, drunk with the blood of the martyrs, was being transformed into the Holy City. This new-born race, so full of promise for the future, could already reckon among its members representatives of every class of society. Beside the boiling cauldron where the Prophet of Patmos did homage to the New Jerusalem by offering within her walls his glorious confession, two consuls, one representing the ancient patrician rank, the other the more modern nobility of the Caesars, Acilius Glabrio and Flavius Clemens, together fell by the sword of martyrdom. Anacletus adorned the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, and provided a burial place for the other pontiffs. Following his example, the distinguished families of Rome opened galleries for subterranean cemeteries all along the roads leading to the imperial city. There rest innumerable soldiers of Christ, victorious by their blood. And there, too, sleep in peace with the anchor of salvation beside them, the most illustrious names of earth.

GLORIOUS Pontiff, your memory is so closely linked with that of Peter that many reckon you under a somewhat different name, among the three august persons raised by the Prince of the Apostles to the highest rank in the hierarchy. Nevertheless, in distinguishing you from Cletus, who appeared on the sacred cycle in the month of April, we are justified by the authority of the holy Liturgy which appoints you a separate feast, and by the constant testimony of Rome itself, which knows better than any the names and the history of its pontiffs. Happy are you in being thus, as it were, lost sight of among the foundations on which rest forever the strength and beauty of the Church! Give us all a special love for the particular positions assigned to us in the sacred building. Receive the grateful homage of all the living stones who are chosen to form the eternal temple, and who will all lean on you for evermore.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

The holy prophets Joel and Esdras.

In Macedonia, blessed Silas, one of the first Christians. By the Apostles he was destined for the churches of the Gentiles with the blessed Apostles Saints Paul and Barnabas. Filled with the grace of God, he zealously discharged the office of preaching, and after glorifying Christ by his sufferings rested in peace.

Also St. Serapion, martyr, who obtained the crown of martyrdom by fire in the time of the emperor Severus and the governor Aquila.

On the island of Chio, in the time of the emperor Decius and the governor Numerian, the martyr St. Myrops. Being clubbed to death, he went to Our Lord.

In Africa, the holy confessors Eugenius, the faithful and virtuous bishop of Carthage, and all the clergy of that church, to the number of about five hundred or more, among whom were many small children employed as lectors. In the persecution of the Vandals under the Arian king Hunneric, they were subjected to scourging and starvation, and driven into a most painful banishment which they bore with joy for God’s sake.

In their number were also two distinguished personages, the archdeacon Salutaris, and Muritta, occupying the second rank among the ministers of the church. Both had three times confessed the faith, and were illustrious by their sturdy perseverance in Christianity.

In Bretagne, St. Turian, bishop and confessor, a man of admirable simplicity and innocence.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 JULY – SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Dominical cycle of the Time after Pentecost completes today its first seven. Previous to the general adoption of the changes introduced into the Sunday Gospels for this portion of the Year, the Gospel of the multiplication of the seven loaves gave its name to the seventh Sunday, and the mystery it contains is still evident in more than one section of today’s liturgy.

As we have already seen, this mystery was that of the consummation of the perfect in the repose or rest of God Himself. It was the fruitful peace of the divine union. Nothing, then, could be more fitting than that Solomon, who is the Peaceful by excellence, the sacred and authorised chanter of the nuptial Canticle, should have been selected to come forward, on this day to speak the praises of infinite Wisdom and reveal her ways to the children of men. When Easter is kept as late in April as it is possible, the seventh Sunday after Pentecost is the first of the month of August. And the Church then begins, in her night Office, the lessons from the Sapiential Books. Otherwise, she continues the historic scriptures, and that, some years, for five weeks more — but, even in that case Eternal Wisdom maintains her rights to this Sunday, which the number of Seven had already made hers in so special a way. For, when we cannot have the inspired instructions of Proverbs, we have Solomon’s own example preaching to us in the Third Book of Kings: we find him preferring Wisdom to all other treasures, and, on the throne of his father David, making her sit there with him as his inspirer and most noble Bride.

Saint Jerome, who has been appointed by the Church herself as the interpreter of today’s scripture lessons, tells us that David, at the close of his life of wars and troubles, knew as well as Solomon the loveliness of this incomparable Bride of the Peaceful. The chill of his age was remedied by her caresses, whose very contact is purity. “That this Wisdom may be mine,” exclaims the fervent solitary of Bethlehem, “may she embrace me, and abide with me. She never grows old. She is ever the purest of virgins, fruitful yet ever immaculate. I think the Apostle meant her, when he speaks of a something that can make us fervent in spirit (Romans xii. 11): So again, when our Lord tells us, in the Gospel, that, at the end of the world, the charity of many will grow cold (Matthew xxiv. 12), I believe it will be because Wisdom will then grow rare.”

Epistle – Romans vi. 19‒23

Brethren, I speak a human thing, because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanliness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from justice. What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now, being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end of life everlasting. For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Reckon that you are dead unto sin, but alive to God, in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans vi. 11). The Apostle of the Gentiles enters today into the development of this leading formula of the Christian life. The Epistle of last Sunday aimed exclusively at putting it in language that could not be misunderstood. It showed us that it expresses what is meant by that Baptism which, when we are immersed in the water, unites us to Christ. There, as in a sepulchre, the death of Jesus becomes ours and delivers us from sin. Sold under sin (Romans vii. 14) by our First Parents even before we had seen the day, and branded with its infamous stigma, our whole life belonged to the cruel tyrant. He is a master who is never satisfied with our service. He is a merciless exactor. There is scarce an hour that he does not make us feel his power over the members of our body. He does not allow us to forget that our body is his slave. But, if the life of a slave is under his master’s control, death comes at last and sets the soul free. And as to the body, the oppressor can claim nothing once it is buried (Job ii. 18).

Now, it was on the Cross of the Man-God, on the Cross of that Jesus who, as the Apostle so strongly expresses it, was made sin (2 Corinthians v. 21) because of our sins — it was on that Cross that guilty human nature was considered by God’s merciful justice to have become what its divine and innocent Head was. The old man, that was the issue of Adam the sinner, has been crucified. He has died in Christ. The slave by birth, affranchised by this happy death, has had buried under the waters of Baptism the body of sin which carried in its flesh the mark of its slavery. The body of sin was indeed our flesh. Not that innocent flesh which originally came all pure from its Creator’s hands, but the flesh which, generation after generation, was defiled by the transmission of a disgraceful inheritance. In Baptism, which the Apostle calls the mysterious sepulchre, the sacred stream has not only washed away the defilement of this degraded body, but it has also set it free from those members of sin, which are the evil passions.

These passions were powers of iniquity, that is, powers which deformed and turned into uncleanness, those faculties and organs with which God had endowed us that we might fulfil all justice, to sanctification (Colossians iii. 5-9). At that moment of our Baptism the strong-armed tyrant forfeited his possession of us (Luke xi. 21). That Baptism was a death which set his slave free. Sin being thus destroyed, the head of triple concupiscence has been severed, and the monster may writhe as he can. Aided by grace, man thus liberated may always prevent, if he wishes, the coils of the serpent from again being joined with their head. Yes, this is the manifold, yet single, work of holy Baptism: in the twinkling of an eye, and by its own power, it extirpates sin and annihilates all its rights over us. But once this is achieved, man must co-operate with the grace of the sacrament. That is, he must keep watch over his treacherous inclinations to sin which comes to life again by the slightest encouragement. He must be ever keeping up the work which his baptism day began, that is, he must be ever cutting down the vile and noxious weeds which are ever cropping up.

First, then, there is the death of sin which, in its complete and sudden defeat of the old enemy, is the result of God’s divine operation. But all this is to be followed up by a work which belongs to the affranchised slave to do — the life-long work of mortification of the spirit and the senses. It is the virtue of the first sacrament which is still telling on the Christian in this work of two-fold mortification. In his mortification, the sacrament is still pushing on its ceaseless work of vengeance against sin. Holy Baptism having of itself alone operated in the wretched slave of sin what God alone could empower it to achieve, summons man, now that his chains have fallen, to join her in the glorious work of maintaining his liberty. She invites him to share with her the honour of the divine victory over Satan and his works.

The keeping down the flesh will be again brought before us next Sunday as the true indicator of liberty on this Earth, and as the authentication of our being truly children of God. As the Apostle says: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts of it. Neither yield your your members as instruments of iniquity to sin, but present yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of justice to God. For sin will not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace. Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants are you whom you obey, whether it be of sin to death, or of obedience to justice. But thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin... but being freed from sin, we have been made servants of justice” (Romans vi. 12-18).

And will we do less for Justice than is being done everywhere in favour of our enemy, Sin? Surely justice deserves that we should make greater efforts in her service than for that odious tyrant who requites his slaves with nothing but shame and death. And yet, admirable condescension of God to our weakness! We have Saint Paul telling us in today’s Epistle, in the name of the Holy Ghost, we will be saints, we will attain eternal life (Romans vi. 19-23) if we will but serve justice with as much earnestness as we once served uncleanness and iniquity.

Let us humble ourselves at hearing such words. Let us be honest, and we will feel that they contain a reproach. For many of us, we might ask: What has become of that intense ardour with which we once used to follow after sin? To say that we have converted our ways would be no answer, for a conversion does not paralyse our faculties: it enlists our natural energy in God’s service, it even intensifies it by the very fact of its now being employed as originally intended. At all events, conversion does not lessen the activity which was in us before our conversion. It would be an insult to grace to accuse it of diminishing in us the gifts of God. What lessons, then, may we not learn, by seeing how eager in the pursuit of honour, interest or pleasure are the votaries of the world! What earnestness, what toil, what perseverance, what frequent sufferings, what abnegation at every turn, what misplaced heroism, and all for the purpose of satisfying the seven heads of the beast, and tasting a few drops of the poisoned cup of Babylon! (Apocalypse xvii. 7).

There are many souls in Hell who have gone through more fatigue and pain to procure their damnation than even the martyrs endured for Christ. And even with all that, never attaining the object they sought to obtain in this world! So true is it, that the fools who are the most subservient to Satan’s wishes, do not always succeed in enjoying, not even for a single day, the vile rewards he promises his slaves. Justice treats her followers in a very different way. She does not degrade, she does not deceive them that keep her. She blesses them with peace of mind at every step they take in duty-doing. She is ever enriching their treasure of merit. She leads them safely to the perfection of love. The life of union divine then grows, almost spontaneously, on that high ground of Justice. It rests on Justice, as a flower does on its stem. “He that possesses Justice,” says the Scripture, “will lay hold on Wisdom: he will find delights in that divine Wisdom, which surpasses all that earth could procure” (Ecclesiasticus xv. 1-8).

Would it then be fair to hesitate about going through those toils which procure Heaven for us, and are a preparation made here on Earth for the glories which are to be revealed in us in our eternal home? The present life, however long it may be, seems but momentary to a faithful soul. She is glad to give this proof of the love she bears to Him she longs for. “Jacob,” says Saint Augustine, “gave his twice seven years of service (Genesis xxix. 18-30) for the sake of Rachel, whose name, they tell us, signifies, vision of the Beginning, that is, of the Word, that is, of the Wisdom which shows us God. Every virtuous man on earth loves this Wisdom. It is for her he works and suffers by serving Justice. What he, like Jacob, aims at by his labours is not the fatigue for its own sake, but the possession of that which the fatigue is to bring him, namely, the fair Rachel, that is to say, rest in the Word in whom we have the vision of the Beginning. Is there any true servant of God who can have any other thought, when he is under the influence of grace? Once converted, what is it that man wishes for? What are his thoughts on? What has he in his heart ? What is it that he thus passionately loves and desires? It is the knowledge of Wisdom. Of course, man would, if he could, avoid all fatigue and suffering and come straight to the delights which he knows are in the exquisitely beautiful and perfect Wisdom. But that cannot be in the land of the dying. ‘If you desire Wisdom, keep justice, and God will give her to you’ (Ecclesiasticus i. 33). Justice here means the commandments, and the commandments prescribe works of Justice, of that Justice which comes of Faith. And Faith lives amid the uncertainty of temptations, that by piously believing what it does not as yet understand, it may merit the happiness of understanding. We are not, therefore, to find fault with the ardour of those who are possessed by the desire to possess Truth in its unveiled loveliness. What we must do is to put order in their love by telling them to begin with faith and strive, by the exercise of good deeds, to arrive at the bliss they long for. Do you love and desire, at the very onset, and above all things, this object which is so worthy of your possession, but let the ardour which burns within you show itself, first of all, by its leading you to cheerfully endure the fatigues of the road which leads to the prize towards which your love is all directed. Yes, and when you have got up to it, remember you will never enjoy beautiful Truth in this life without having, all the same happy while, to be still cultivating laborious Justice. However comprehensive and pure may be the sight granted to mortal men of the unchangeable Good, the corruptible body is a load on the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that muses on many things (Wisdom ix. 15) One, then, is that to which we must tend. But many are the things we are to bear for that one’s sake.”

Gospel – Matthew vii. 15‒21

At that time Jesus said to His disciples, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits will know them. Not everyone that says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven, he will enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”

Praise be to you, O Christ. 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

For each individual Christian, as for the Church at large, the security of the spiritual building depends primarily on the firmness of the foundation, which is Faith. The Holy Ghost will not build on a foundation that is unsound or unsafe. When, especially, He is to lead a soul to the higher degrees of divine union, He exacts from her, as the first condition, that her Faith, too, be above the average — a Faith, that is, with heroism enough to fight successfully those battles which brace the soul and so render her worthy of light and love. In every stage of the Christian life, however, it is Faith that provides love with its enduring and substantial (Hebrews xi. 1) nourishment. It is Faith that gives to the virtues their supernatural motives and makes them fit to form a worthy court for their queen, Charity. A soul’s development never goes beyond the measure of her Faith. The capaciousness of Faith, and its ever growing plenitude, and its certified conformity with truth — these are the guarantee of the progress which will be made by a just man, whereas all such holiness as affects to be guided by a Faith which is cramped or false, is holiness of a very dubious kind, and one that is exposed to most fearful illusions.

It was, therefore, a good and a wholesome thing that Faith should be put to the test, for it grows brighter and stronger under trial. Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews xi. 4-40) is enthusiastic in his praise of the triumphs won by the Faith of our forefathers. Could there be denied to the new Covenant those glorious combats which constituted the eternal merit and honour of the Saints who lived in the period of expectation and figures? It is by their victorious Faith in the word of the promise that all those worthy ancestors of the Christian people merited to have God Himself as their praise-giver (Hebrews xi. 2, 39). For us who joyously have possession of that Messiah who to them was but the object of their heroic hope, our trial cannot be like theirs — the trial of expectation. This is quite true. And yet heresy, which is the offspring of man’s pride and Hell’s malice — heresy and its manifold outcomings, which are ever producing the diminution of truth in this world of ours (Psalm xi. 2) — yes, it is through these that we will win merit by our possession of what they beheld and saluted only afar off (Hebrews xi. 13). Man is ever trying to intrude his foolish ideas into the truths of divine revelation and, as to the prince of this world (John xvi. 11), he will do all in his power to encourage these audacious attempts at corrupting the purity of the Word.

But Wisdom, who is never overcome (Wisdom vii. 30), will turn all these impious efforts into an occasion of glorious victories for her children. Here we have the reason why God permitted from the very commencement of the Church’s existence, and still permits, that sects should be continually springing up. It is in the battle field against error that the Church brings forth the armour of God (Ephesians vi. 11-17) and shows herself all brilliant with that absolute truth, which is the brightness of the Word, her Spouse (Hebrews i. 3). It is by the personal triumph over the spirit of lying, and by the spontaneous adhesion to the teachings of Christ and his Church, that the Christian shows himself to be a true child of light (John xii. 36), and becomes himself a light to the world (Matthew v. 14).

The combat is not without its dangers for the Christian who would hold, in all its integrity, the Faith of his mother the Church. The tricks of the enemy, his studied and obstinate hypocrisy, the crafty skill with which he tries to stir up in the soul, almost without her knowing it, a score of little weaknesses of hers which more or less favour error, all this frequently ends in injuring the light, not perhaps in extinguishing it altogether, but in robbing it of some of its brilliancy. And yet, they who live on the teachings given us in today’s Gospel are sure to come off with the victory. Let us meditate on them with gratitude and love, for it is by such teachings that eternal Wisdom grants us what we so ardently ask of Him when, in Advent, we thus beseech Him: “Come, and teach us the way of prudence.” Prudence, the friend of a wise man (Proverbs vii. 4), guardian of his treasures and his surest defence, has no greater peril from which to keep him than shipwreck concerning the Faith (1 Timothy i. 19). If Faith be lost, all is lost. No price is too great to give (Proverbs iii. 13-19) for that Prudence of the serpent which, in a disciple of Christ, goes so admirably with the simplicity of the dove (Matthew x. 16).

If we are happy enough to possess Prudence, we will readily distinguish between those false teachers whom we must shun, and those we must hearken to —between the falsifiers of the Word, and his faithful interpreters. “By their fruits will you know them,” says our Gospel, and history confirms the words of our Redeemer. Under the sheep’s clothing, which they wear that they may deceive simple souls, the apostles of falsehood ever betray a stench of death. The artful language they use (Ephesians v. 6), and the flatteries they utter for gain’s sake (Jude 16) cannot hide the hollowness of their works (Ephesians v. 11). They separate themselves from the flock of Christ (Jude 19) and flee from the light, for, as the Apostle says, all things that are reproved, or deserve to be so, are made manifest by the light (Ephesians v. 13), and as to the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of them (Ephesians v. 12). Therefore, be not partakers with them (Ephesians v. 7). The useless or rotten fruits of darkness, and the trees of Autumn, twice dead (Jude 12) which bear such fruits on their withered branches, both of them will be cast into the fire. If you yourselves were heretofore darkness, now that you have become light in the Lord by Baptism, or by a sincere conversion, show yourselves to be so, and produce the fruits of light, in all goodness, and justice and truth (Ephesians v. 89).

On this condition alone can you hope to enter into the kingdom of Heaven, and call yourselves disciples of that Wisdom of the Father, who, on this seventh Sunday, asks us to give Him our love. Saint James the Apostle almost seems to be giving a commentary on the Gospel of this seventh Sunday where he says: “Can the fig-tree, my Brethren, bear grapes? or the vine, figs? So neither can the salt water yield sweet. Who is a wise man and endued with wisdom among you? Let him, by a good conversation, (that is, by his good conduct, show his work in the meekness of Wisdom... For there is a wisdom which is bitter, and misleads others. It descends not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish... But the Wisdom which is from above first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good (and always sides with them) full of mercy and good fruits, without judging (the conduct of others) without dissimulation. And the fruit of justice is sown in peace to them that make peace (James iii. 11-18).

11 JULY – SAINT PIUS I (Pope and Martyr)

 

Pius I, the first of this name, was a citizen of Aquileia and the son of the priest Rufinus. He succeeded Saint Hyginus to the See of Peter in about 140 AD and governed the Church during the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He ordered the feast of Easter to be observed on a Sunday. It was Pius I who transformed the house of Senator Pudens into a church, and because it surpassed other titles in order of dignity as Peter and other Popes had dwelt there, he consecrated it under the title of Pastor. Pius endured much hardship during his pontificate. He opposed the heretical Valentinians and Gnostics and excommunicated Marcion of Sinope, a bishop who taught that the God of the Old Testament was inferior to the God of the New Testament. Pius died in about 167 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

A holy Pope of the second century, the first of the nine until graced with the name of Pius, rejoices us today with his mild and gentle light. Although Christian society was in a precarious condition under the edicts of persecution, which even the best of the pagan emperors never abrogated, our Saint profited by the comparative peace enjoyed by the Church under Antoninus Pius to strengthen the foundations of the mysterious tower raised by the divine Shepherd to the honour of the Lord God. He ordained by his supreme authority that, notwithstanding the contrary custom observed in certain places, the feast of Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday throughout the entire Church. The importance of this measure and its effects on the whole Church will be brought before us on the feast of Saint Victor who succeeded Pius at the close of the century.

The ancient legend of Saint Pius I which has lately been altered, made mention of the decree attributed in the Corpus Juris to our Pontiff concerning those who should carelessly let fall any portion of the Precious Blood of our Lord. The prescriptions are such as evince the profound reverence the Pope would have to be shown towards the Mystery of the Altar. The penance enjoined is to be of forty days if the Precious Blood have fallen to the ground, and wherever It fell, It must if possible be taken up with the lips, the dust must be burned, and the ashes of it thrown into a consecrated place.

We call to mind, O glorious Pontiff, those words written under your eye, which seem to be a commentary on your decree concerning the Sacred Mysteries: “We receive not,” cried Justin the Philosopher to the world of that second century: “We receive not as common bread, nor as common drink, the food which we call the Eucharist; but just as Jesus Christ our Saviour, being made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so have we been taught that the food made Eucharist by the prayer formed of His own word, is both the Flesh and the Blood of this Jesus who is made flesh” (Apologia. i. 66.). This doctrine, and the measures it so fully justifies, found towards the close of the same century other authentic witnesses who, in their turn, would almost seem to be quoting from the prescriptions at tributed to you. “We are in the greatest distress,” said Tertullian, “if the least drop from our chalice, or the least crumb of our Bread fall to the ground” (De Corona iii). And Origen appealed to the initiated to bear witness to “the care and veneration with which the sacred gifts were surrounded, for fear the smallest particle should fall which, if it happened through negligence, would be considered a crime” (In Ex. Homil. xiii). And yet in our days heresy, as destitute of knowledge as of faith, pretends that the Church has departed from her ancient traditions by paying exaggerated homage to the divine Sacrament. Obtain for us, O Pius, the grace to return to the spirit of our fathers: not indeed with regard to their faith, for that we have kept inviolate, but as to the veneration and love with which that faith inspired them for the Chalice of Inebriation, that richest treasure of earth. May the Pasch of the Lamb unite, as you desired, in one uniform celebration, all who have the honour to bear the name of Christian!

10 JULY – THE SEVEN BROTHERS (Martyrs) AND SAINTS RUFFINA AND SECUNDA (Virgins and Martyrs)

Alexander, Felix, Januarius, Philip, Silvanus, Vitalis and Martial, the seven sons of Saint Felicitas, were martyred after Felicitas told them: “Look up to Heaven, where Jesus Christ with His saints expects you. Be faithful in His love, and fight courageously for your souls.” The Prefect ordered that she be beaten for her insolence, and after refusing to worship the pagan gods of Rome, her children were whipped and imprisoned. Antoninus Pius ordered that they be sent to different judges and be condemned to different deaths. Januarius was scourged to death, Felix and Philip were beaten to death with clubs, Silvanus was thrown head-long into the Tiber, and Alexander, Vitalis and Martial were beheaded, as was Felicitas. Felix and Philip were buried in the cemetery of Saint Priscilla. Martial, Vitalis and Alexander were intered in the cemetery known as the “Jordanorum,” Januarius in that of Saint Praetextatus, and Silvanus was laid to rest in the cemetery of Saint Maximus.

Ruffina and Secunda were the twin virgin daughters of the Roman nobles Asterius and Aurelia. At a young age they were betrothed to the young patricians Armentarius and Verinus. Terrified by the persecution of Christians under Valerian and Gallienus, the promised husbands renounced their faith, but Ruffina and Seconda persevered to the end. After being tortured they were martyred on the Via Cornelia in 257 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Three times within the next few days will the number seven appear in the holy Liturgy, honouring the Blessed Trinity and proclaiming the reign of the Holy Spirit with His sevenfold grace. Felicitas, Symphorosa and the mother of the Machabees, each in turn will lead her seven sons to the feet of Eternal Wisdom. The Church, bereaved of her Apostolic founders, pursues her course undaunted, for the teaching of Peter and Paul is defended by the testimony of martyrdom, and when persecutions have ceased, by that of holy virginity. Moreover, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians” (Tertullian). The heroes who in life were the strength of the Bride give her fecundity by their death, and the family of God’s children continues to increase. Great indeed was the faith of Abraham when he hoped against all hope that he would become the father of nations through that same Isaac whom he was commanded to slay: but did Felicitas show less faith when she recognised in the immolation of her seven children the triumph of life and the highest blessing that could be bestowed on her motherhood?

Honour be to her, and to those who resemble her! The worldly-wise may scorn them, but they are like noble rivers transforming the desert into a paradise of God and fertilising the soil of the gentile world after the ravages of the first age. Marcus Aurelius had just ascended the throne to prove himself during a reign of nineteen years nothing but a second-rate pupil of the sectarian rhetors of the second century whose narrow views and hatred of Christian simplicity he embraced alike in policy and in philosophy. These men, created by him prefects and proconsuls, raised the most cold blooded persecution the Church has ever known. The scepticism of this imperial philosopher did not exempt him from the general rule that where dogma is rejected, superstition takes its place. And monarch and people were of one accord in seeking a remedy for public calamities in the rites newly brought from the East, and in the extermination of the Christians. The assertion that the massacres of those days were carried on without the prince’s sanction, not only does not excuse him, it is moreover false. It is now a proven truth that foremost among the tyrants who destroyed the flower of the human race, stands Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, stained more than Domitian or even Nero with the blood of Martyrs.

The seven sons of Saint Felicitas were the first victims offered by the prince to satisfy the philosophy of his courtiers, the superstition of the people and, be it said, his own convictions, unless we would have him to be the most cowardly of men. It was he himself who ordered the prefect Publius to entice to apostasy this noble family whose piety angered the gods. It was he again who, after hearing the report of the cause, pronounced the sentence and decreed that it should be executed by several judges in different places, the more publicly to make known the policy of the new reign. The arena opened at the same time in all parts not only of Rome, but of the empire. The personal interference of the sovereign intimated to the hesitating magistrates the line of conduct to pursue if they wished to court the imperial favour. Felicitas soon followed her sons. Justin the philosopher found out by experience what was the sincerity of Caesar’s love of truth. Every class yielded its contingent of victims to the tortures which this would-be wise master of the world deemed necessary for the safety of the empire. At length, that his reign might close as it had begun in blood, a rescript of the so-called mild emperor sanctioned wholesale massacres. Humanity, lowered by the unjust flattery heaped on this wretched prince even up to our own day, was thus duly rehabilitated by the noble courage of a slave such as Blandina, or of a patrician such as Caecilia.

Never before had the south-wind swept so impetuously through the garden of the Spouse, scattering far and wide the perfume of myrrh and spices. Never before had the Church, like an army set in array, appeared despite her weakness so invincible as now, when she was sustaining the prolonged assault of Caesarisin and false science from without, in league with heresy within. Want of space forbids us to enter into the details of a question which is now beginning to be more carefully studied, yet is far from being thoroughly understood. Under cover of the pretended moderation of the Antonines, Hell was exerting its most skilful endeavours against Christianity at the very period which opened with the martyrdom of the Seven Brothers. If the Caesars of the third century attacked the Church with a fury and a refinement of cruelty unknown to Marcus Aurelius, it was but as a wild beast taking a fresh spring on the prey that had well near escaped him.

Such being the case, no wonder that the Church has from the very beginning paid special honour to these seven heroes, the pioneers of that decisive struggle which was to prove her impregnable to all the powers of Hell. Was there ever a more sublime scene in that spectacle which the saints have to present to the world? If there was ever a combat which angels and men could equally applaud, it was surely this of the 10th July 162 when in four different suburbs of the Eternal City, these seven patrician youths, led by their heroic mother, opened the campaign which was to rescue Rome from these upstart Caesars and restore her to her immortal destinies. After their triumph, four cemeteries shared the honour of gathering into their crypts the sacred remains of the martyrs, and the glorious tombs have in our own day furnished the Christian archaeologist with matter for valuable research and learned writings. As far back as we can ascertain from the most authentic monuments, the 6th of the Ides of July was marked on the calendars of the Roman Church as a day of special solemnity on account of the four stations where the faithful assembled round the tombs of “the Martyrs.” This name, given by excellence to the seven brothers, was preserved to them even in time of peace — an honour by so much the greater as there had been torrents of blood shed under Diocletian. Inscriptions of the fourth century, found even in those cemeteries which never possessed their relics, designate the 11th July as the “day following the feast of the Martyrs”

The honours of this day on which the Church sings the praises of true fraternity, are shared by two valiant sisters. A century had passed over the empire, and the Antonines were no more. Valerian, who at first seemed, like them, desirous of obtaining a character for moderation, soon began to follow them along the path of blood. In order to strike a decisive blow, he issued a decree whereby all the principal ecclesiastics were condemned to death without distinction, and every Christian of rank was bound under the heaviest penalties to abjure his faith. It is to this edict that Rufina and Secunda owed the honour of crossing their palms with those of Sixtus and Lawrence, Cyprian and Hippolytus. They belonged to the noble family of the Turcii Asterii, whose history has been brought to light by modern discovery. According to the prescriptions of Valerian, which condemned Christian women to no more than confiscation and exile, they ought to have escaped death. But to the crime of fidelity to God they added that of holy virginity, and so the roses of martyrdom were twined into their lily-wreaths. Their sacred relics lie in Saint John Lateran’s, close to the baptistery of Constantine. And the second Cardinalitial See, that of Porto, couples with this title the name of Santa Rufina, thus claiming the protection of the blessed martyrs.

“Praise the Lord, you children, praise the Name of the Lord: who makes the barren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of children.” Such is the opening chant of this morning’s Mass. But say, O blessed ones, was your admirable mother barren who gave seven martyrs to the Earth? Fecundity according to this world counts for nothing before God. This is not the fruitfulness intended by that blessing which fell from the lips of the Lord when in the beginning He made man to His own image. “Increase and multiply” was spoken to a holy one, a son of God, bidding him propagate a divine offspring. As the first creation, so was all future birth to be: man, in communicating his own existence to others, was to transmit to them at the same time the life of their Father in Heaven. The natural and the supernatural life were to be as inseparable as a building and its foundation. Nature without grace would be but a frame without a picture. All too soon did sin destroy the harmony of the divine plan. Nature violently separated from grace could produce only sons of wrath. Yet God was too rich in mercy to abandon the design of His immense love, and having in the first instance created us to be His children, He would now re-create us as such in His Word made Flesh. Reduced to a shadow of what it would have been, the union of Adam and Eve, unable to give birth immediately to sons of God, was dismantled of that glory beside which the sublime privileges of the Angels would have paled: nevertheless it was still the figure of the great mystery of Christ and the Church. Sterile according to God and doomed to the death she had brought upon her race, it was only by participation in the merits of the second Eve that the first could be called the mother of the living. Great honour indeed was still to be hers, and she would be able in part to repair her fall, but on condition of yielding to the rights of the Bride of the second Adam. Far better than Pharaoh’s daughter rescuing Moses and confiding him to Jochabed, could the Church say to every mother on receiving her babe from the waters: “Take this child and nurse him for me.” And every Christian mother, anxious to correspond to the Church’s trust in her and proud of being able to realise God’s primitive intentions, might well repeat with regard to this second childbirth those words uttered by a superhuman love: “My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians iv. 19). Shame on her that would forget the sublime destiny of her child to be a son of God! A far less crime would it be, were she, through negligence or by design, to stifle in him by an education exclusively directed to the senses, that intelligence which distinguishes man from the animals subjected to his power. For the attainment of man’s true end, the supernatural life is more necessary than the life of reason. For a mother to make no account of it, and to suffer the divine germ to perish after being planted in the infant’s soul at its new birth from the sacred font, would be to do to death the frail being that owed its existence to her.

Far otherwise, O martyrs, did your illustrious mother understand her mission! Hence, though her memory is honoured on the day when four months after you she quitted this Earth, yet this present feast is the chief monument of her glory. She, more than yourselves, is celebrated in the readings and chants of the Holy Sacrifice and in the lessons of the Night Office. And why is this? Because, says Saint Gregory, being already the handmaid of Christ by faith, she has today become His mother, according to our Lord’s own word, by giving Him a new birth in each of her seven sons. After having made such a complete holocaust of you to your heavenly Father, what will her own martyrdom be but the long-desired close of her widowhood, the happy hour which will reunite her in glory to you who are doubly her sons? Hence forward, then, on this day which was to her the day of suffering, but not of reward, when after passing seven times over through tortures and death, she had yet to remain in banishment, it is but just that her children should rise and make over to her, as of right, the honours of the triumph. Henceforth, though still an exile, she is clothed with purple, dyed not twice, but seven times. The richest daughters of Eve own that she has surpassed them all in the fruitfulness of martyrdom. Her own works praise her in the assembly of the saints. On this day, O sons and mother, and you two noble sisters who share in their glory, listen to our prayers, protect the Church and make the whole world heedful of the teaching conveyed by your beautiful example!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Africa, the holy martyrs Januarius, Marinus, Nabor and Felix who were beheaded.

At Nicopolis in Armenia, the holy martyrs Leontius, Mauritius, Daniel and their companions, who after being tortured in different manners, were finally cast into the fire, and thus terminated their long martyrdom, in the time of the emperor Licinius and the governor Lysias.

In Pisidia, the holy martyrs Bianor and Silvanus, who merited an immortal crown by being decapitated after enduring most bitter torments for the name of Christ.

At Iconium, St. Apollonius, martyr, who consummated his glorious martyrdom by death on the cross.

At Ghent, St. Amelberga, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

9 JULY – SAINT VERONICA GIULIANI (Virgin)

Veronica was born in 1660 in Mercatello near Urbino in Italy to Francesco Giuliana and Benedetta Mancini. She was baptised Ursula and from a very young age was blessed with heavenly visions and other supernatural gifts. In 1677 she entered the convent of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Città di Castello and took the name Veronica in memory of the Passion of Christ. In 1694 she received the impression of the Crown of Thorns as a visible wound and despite medical treatment obtained no relief from the permanent pain caused by it. She was novice-mistress for 34 years until her election as abbess in 1716. She died in 1727 at Città di Castello and was canonised by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, in the place called the Drop-ever-falling, the birthday of St. Zeno, and ten thousand two hundred and three other martyrs.

At Gortyna in Crete, in the persecution of Decius under the governor Lucius, St. Cyril, a bishop, who was thrown into the flames without being injured, though his bonds were burnt. The judge, struck with awe at so great a miracle, set him at liberty, but as the saint began again immediately to preach the faith of Christ with zeal, he was beheaded.

In the town of Thora, on lake Velino, in Italy, the martyrdom of Saints Anatolia and Audax under the emperor Decius. Anatolia, a virgin consecrated to Christ, cured, through the whole province of Picenum (now Ancona), many persons labouring under various infirmities, and made them believe in Christ. By order of the judge Fustinian she was condemned to various kinds of punishments. She was cured of the sting of a serpent to which she had been exposed, a miracle which converted Audax to the faith. Finally she was transpierced with a sword, while her hands were extended in prayer. Audax was committed to prison, and being without delay sentenced to capital punishment, obtained the crown of a martyr.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Patermuthius, Copres, and Alexander who were put to death under Julian the Apostate.

At Briel in Holland, the martyrdom of the 19 martyrs of Gorcum. For vindicating the authority of the Roman Church and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, they endured various ignominies and torments from the Calvinist heretics, and ended their suffering by being put to death. In 1867 Blessed Pius IX placed them among the holy martyrs.

At Martula, St. Brixius, bishop. Under the judge Marcian, after having suffered much for the confession of Our Lord and converted to Christ a great multitude of people, he rested in peace.

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

Thanks be to God.

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.