16 OCTOBER – SAINT HEDWIG OF SILESIA (Widow)

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

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

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

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

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

Also St. Bercharius, abbot and martyr.

Near Bourges, St. Ambrose, bishop of Cahors.

At Mayence, St. Lullus, bishop and confessor.

At Treves, St. Florentinus, bishop.

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

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

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

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

Thanks be to God.

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

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

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

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

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

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

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

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

At Treves, St. Severus, bishop and confessor.

At Strasburg, St. Aurelia, virgin.

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

In Germany, St. Thecla, abbess.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 OCTOBER – SAINT CALLIXTUS (Pope and Martyr)

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

Also the Saints Saturninus and Lupus.

At Rimini, St. Gaudentius, bishop and martyr.

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

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

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

At Treves, St. Rusticus, bishop.

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

In Italy, St. Bernard, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

13 OCTOBER – SAINT EDWARD (King and Confessor)

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

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

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

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

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

In Austria, St. Colman, martyr.

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

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

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

At Subiaco in Italy, St. Chelidonia, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 OCTOBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Verona, St. Salvinus, bishop.

In Syria, St. Eustachius, priest and confessor.

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

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

Thanks be to God.

11 OCTOBER – THE MATERNITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

This feast commemorates the dignity of the Mary as Mother of God (Theotokos), the title of Mary ratified by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. The feast was first granted to the dioceses of Portugal and to Brasil and Algeria in 1751. In 1752 it was granted to the province of Venice, in 1778 to the kingdom of Naples and in 1807 to Tuscany.

Eighth Lesson from the Roman Breviary:

Marvel at both these things, and choose whether to marvel most at the sublime condescension of the Son, or at the sublime dignity of Mary. Either is amazing, either marvellous. That God should obey this woman, is a lowliness without parallel; that this woman should rule over God, an exaltation without match. In praise of virgins, and of virgins only, is it sung that “These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Apocalypse xiv. 4). Of what praise then think you that she must be worthy who even leads the Lamb. “O man, learn to obey. O earth, learn to submit. O dust, learn to keep down. It is of your Maker that the Evangelist said: ‘And He was subject to them.’ Blush, O proud ashes! God humbles Himself; and you exalt yourself? God is subject to men; and will you, by striving to rule over men, set yourself before your Maker?

O happy Mary, lowly and virgin; and wondrous virginity, which motherhood destroyed not, but exalted; and wondrous lowliness, which the fruitful virginity took not away, but ennobled; and wondrous motherhood, which was both virgin and lowly. Which of them is not wondrous? which of them is not unexampled, and which of them does not stand alone? The wonder would be if you were not puzzled at which to wonder most — motherhood in a virgin, or virginity in a mother; a motherhood so exalted, or lowliness in such exaltation. But indeed more marvellous than any one of these things is the combination of them all, and without all comparison, it is more excellent and more blessed to have received them all, than to have received any one of them alone. What wonder is it that God, of Whom we see and read, that “He is wonderful in His holy places” (Psalm lxvii. 36), should have shown Himself wonderful in His Mother? O you that be married, honour this incorruption in corruptible flesh; O, holy maidens, gaze in wonder at motherhood in a maid; O, all mankind, take pattern by the lowliness of the Mother of God.

O God, who willed that your Word should take flesh at the message of an angel in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant to us, we beseech you, that we who believe her to be indeed the Mother of God may be aided by her intercession with you. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Tharacus, Probus and Andronicus, who endured a long and painful imprisonment, during the persecution of Diocletian, and being three times subjected to diverse punishments and tortures, finally obtained a glorious triumph for the confession of Christ by having their heads struck off.

In Vexin, in the time of the governor Fescenninus, the passion of the holy martyrs Nicasiuc, bishop of
Rouen, Quirinus, priest, Scubiculus, deacon, and Pientia, virgin.

Also the martyrdom of the Saints Anastasius, priest, Placidus, Genesius, and their companions.

In Thebais, St. Sarmata, a disciple of the blessed abbot Anthony, who was put to death for Christ by the Saracens.

At Besançon in France, St. Germanus, bishop and martyr.

At Uzes in Narbonese Gaul, St. Firminus, bishop and confessor.

In Ireland, St. Kenny, abbot.

At Lier in Belgium, the departure from this life of St. Gummarus, confessor.

At Eennes, St. Æmilian, confessor.

At Tarsus in Cilicia, the holy women Zenaides and Philonilla, sisters, who were relatives of the blessed Apostle St. Paul, and his disciples in the faith.

At Verona, St. Placidia, virgin.

At Calotium, a place now in the diocese of Asti, but formerly in that of Pavia, St. Alexander Sauli, bishop and confessor, of the congregation of Barnabites, a man illustrious by birth, learning and miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

11 OCTOBER – TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – Ephesians v. 15‒21

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

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gospel – John iv. 46‒53

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

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

10 OCTOBER – SAINT FRANCIS BORGIA (Confessor)

 

Francis was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1510 to Juan Borgia, who was the third Duke of Gandía and the son of Giovanni Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). His mother was Juana, the daughter of Alonso de Aragón, Archbishop of Saragossa, who was the illegitimate son of King Ferdinand II of Aragon. He passed his childhood in his father’s house in innocence and piety, but appeared still more admirable when he showed himself a pattern of Christian virtue and austerity, first at the court of Emperor Charles V and afterwards as viceroy of Catalonia. He was charged to convey the body of the Empress Isabella to her tomb at Granada. Seeing the horrible change in her features, he understood how fleeting are all earthly things and vowed to renounce everything as soon as possible and devote himself to the service of the King of kings. From that day forward he made such progress in virtue that in the midst of overwhelming occupations his life was a faithful copy of religious perfection, so that he was called the miracle of princes.

Francis married Eleonora de Castro and had five children. On her death he entered the Society of Jesus so that he be more hidden. Many princes followed him in embracing a severe way of life. Charles V himself acknowledged that his advice and example had led him to abdicate the throne. Francis devoted himself to the exercises of a penitential life and macerated his body by fasting, iron chains, a rough hair-shirt and long and bloody disciplines. He allowed himself very little sleep. He spared no effort to gain souls. Saint Ignatius appointed him Commissioner General for Spain and soon afterwards, against his will, he was elected third General of the Order. In this position his prudence and holiness endeared him to Popes and also temporal rulers. He founded and enlarged many houses of his Order and introduced the Order into Poland, the islands of the Atlantic, Mexico and Peru. He sent apostles into other regions to spread the Catholic faith by their peaching and labours and their blood.

Francis had a low opinion of himself. He always called himself a sinner. This humility led him to persistently refuse the office of bishop. Filled with contempt for the world and himself, he delighted in sweeping away dirt, begging from door to door and serving the sick in hospitals. He devoted many hours every day to heavenly contemplation, spending 8-10 hours praying, and genuflecting in adoration a hundred times in the day. He never omitted to say Mass. While offering the divine Victim or preaching, the heavenly ardour which consumed him was manifested in the radiance of his countenance. He knew by heavenly instinct where the most holy Body of Christ, hidden in the Eucharist, was kept. Pope Saint Pius V appointed Francis companion to Cardinal Alessandrino, in an embassy for uniting the Christian princes against the Turks.

Francis died in Ferrara in 1572 while travelling on an embassy from Pope Saint Pius V to the kings of France and Spain. He was canonised by Pope Clement X in 1670 and his relics were translated to Madrid, Spain, in 1901.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Vanity of vanities and all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes i. 2) No argument was needed to impress this truth upon the Saint of today when the coffin was opened which contained all that Spain had admired of faith and loveliness, and death suddenly revealed to its awful reality. O ye beauties of all times, death alone never dies. It invites itself to your dances and pleasures, it assists at all your triumphs, it hears promises said to be eternal: and how quickly it can scatter your adorers! A few years, a few days, perhaps even less, and all your borrowed sweetness will be decaying in the tomb!

“Enough of vain phantoms, enough of serving mortal kings. Awaken, O my soul!” Such was Francis Borgia’s reply to the teachings of death. The friend of Charles V, the great lord unequalled for nobility, fortune and brilliant qualities, quitted the court as soon as possible. Ignatius, the soldier of the siege of Pampeluna, beheld at his feet the viceroy of Catalonia, begging to be protected against the honours which pursued him even under the poor habit of a Jesuit, which was now his glory.

O LORD Lord Jesus Christ, the pattern and reward of true humility, we beseech you, that as you made blessed Francis a glorious follower of you in the contempt of worldly honour, so you would grant us to be partakers of the same imitation and glory.” Such is the prayer the Church offers through you to her divine Spouse. She knows that the Saints always have great power with God, but especially when they would obtain for their devout clients the virtues they themselves more particularly cultivated when on Earth. How precious is this prerogative in thy case, O Francis, for it concerns the virtue which attracts God’s grace in this life, and wins such glory hereafter! Since pride has hurled Lucifer into the abyss and the self-abasement of the Son of God has led to His exaltation above the heavens, humility, whatever men may now say, has lost nothing of its inestimable value. It is still the indispensable foundation of every durable edifice, whether spiritual or social: the basis without which the other virtues, and even charity the Queen of them all, could not subsist a single day. Therefore, O Francis, obtain for us this humility. Thoroughly convince us of the vanity of this world’s honours and false pleasures. May the holy Society, which you after Saint Ignatius rendered still more valuable to the Church, cherish this spirit of yours so that it may deserve more and more the esteem of Heaven and the gratitude of Earth.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

On the island of Crete, blessed Pinytus, most noble among the bishops. He was bishop of Gnosia, and flourished under Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus. He left in his writings, as in a mirror, a vivid delineation of himself.

At Cologne, in the persecution of Maximian, St. Gereon, martyr, with three hundred and eighteen others who patiently bowed their necks to the sword for the true religion.

In the neighbourhood of the same city, the holy martyrs Victor and his companions.

At Bonn in Germany, the holy martyrs Cassius and Florentius, with many others.

At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Eulampius, and his sister, the virgin Eulampia, who, hearing that her brother was tortured for Christ, rushed through the crowd, embraced him and became his companion. Both were cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, but being quite uninjured, they terminated their martyrdom by decapitation with two hundred others, who, impressed by the miracle, had believed in Christ.

At York in England, the holy bishop Paulinus, a disciple of Pope St. Gregory. Being sent there by that pope with others to preach the Gospel, he converted king Edwin and his people to the faith of Christ.

At Piombino in Tuscany, St. Cerbonius, bishop and confessor, who, as Pope St. Gregory related, was renowned for miracles, both during life and after death.

At Verona, another St. Cerbonius, bishop.

At Capua, St. Paulinus, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.