26 JULY – SAINT ANNA (Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Anna, of the tribe of Judah and of the royal house of David, is venerated by the Church as the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is believed that Mary was the only child of Anna and her husband Joachim. Saint Anna is often portrayed in art teaching Mary to read. She is the patroness of mothers and women in labour.

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Uniting the blood of kings with that of pontiffs, the glory of Anna’s illustrious origin is far surpassed by that of her offspring, without compare among the daughters of Eve. The noblest of all, who have ever conceived by virtue of the command to “increase and multiply,” beholds the law of human generation pause before her as having arrived at its summit at the threshold of God: for, from her fruit God Himself is to come forth, the fatherless Son of the Blessed Virgin and the grandson of Anna and Joachim.

Before being favoured with the greatest blessing ever bestowed on an earthly union, the two holy grandparents of the Word made Flesh had to pass through the purification of suffering. Traditions which, though mingled with details of less authenticity, have come down to us from the very beginning of Christianity, tell us of these noble spouses subjected to the trial of prolonged sterility, and on that account despised by their people: of Joachim cast out of the temple and going to hide his sorrow in the desert, of Anna left alone to mourn her widowhood and humiliation. For exquisite sentiment this narrative might be compared with the most beautiful histories in Holy Scripture.

“It was one of the great festival days of the Lord. In spite of extreme sorrow, Anna laid aside her mourning garments, and adorned her head and clothed herself with her nuptial robes. And about the ninth hour she went down to the garden to walk. Seeing a laurel she sat down in its shade, and poured forth her prayer to the Lord God, saying: ‘God of my fathers, bless me and hear my supplication, as you blessed Sarah and gave her a son!’ And raising her eyes to Hheaven, she saw in the laurel a sparrow’s nest, and sighing she said: ‘Alas! Of whom was I born to be thus a curse in Israel? To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me to the birds of the air, for the birds are blessed by you, O Lord. To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me to the beasts of the earth, for they too are fruitful before you. To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me to the waters, for they are not barren in your sight, and the rivers and the oceans full of fish praise you in their heavings and in their peaceful flowing. To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me even to the earth, for the earth too bears fruit in season and praises you, O Lord.’ "And behold an Angel of the Lord stood by and said to her: ‘Anna, God has heard your prayer. You will conceive and bear a child, and your fruit will be honoured throughout the whole inhabited earth.’ And in due time Anne brought forth a daughter and said: ‘My soul is magnified this hour.’ And she called the child Mary, and giving her the breast, she intoned this canticle to the Lord: ‘I will sing the praise of the Lord my God: for He has visited me and has taken away my shame, and has given me a fruit of justice. Who will declare to the sons of Ruben that Anna is become fruitful? Hear, hear, O you twelve tribes: behold Anna is giving suck!” (Proto-evangelium Jacobi).

The feast of Saint Joachim, which the Church celebrates on the Sunday within the octave of his blessed daughter’s Assumption, will give us an occasion of completing the account of these trials and joys in which he shared. Warned from Heaven to leave the desert, he met his spouse at the golden gate which leads to the Temple on the east side. Not far from here, near the Probatica piscina, where the little white lambs were washed before being offered in sacrifice, now stands the restored basilica of Saint Anna, originally called Saint Mary of the Nativity. Here, as in a peaceful paradise, the rod of Jesse produced that blessed branch which the Prophet hailed as about to bear the flower that had blossomed from eternity in the bosom of the Father. It is true that Sephoris, Anna’s native city, and Nazareth, where Mary lived, dispute with the holy city the honour which ancient and constant tradition assigns to Jerusalem. But our homage will not be misdirected if we offer it today to Blessed Anna in whom were wrought the prodigies, the very thought of which brings new joy to Heaven, rage to Satan, and triumph to the world. Anna was, as it were, the starting-point of Redemption, the horizon scanned by the prophets, the first span of the heavens to be purpled with the rising fires of aurora; the blessed soil whose produce was so pure as to make the Angels believe that Eden had been restored to us. But in the midst of the aureola of incomparable peace that surrounds her, let us hail her as the land of victory surpassing the most famous fields of battle as the sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception where our humiliated race took up the combat begun before the throne of God by the Angelic hosts; where the serpent’s head was crushed, and Michael, now surpassed in glory, gladly handed over to his sweet Queen, at the first moment of her existence, the command of the Lord’s armies.

What human lips, unless touched like the prophet’s with a burning coal, could tell the admiring wonder of the Angelic Powers, when the Blessed Trinity, passing from the burning Seraphim to the lowest of the nine choirs, bade them turn their fiery glances and contemplate the flower of sanctity blossoming in the bosom of Anna? The Psalmist had said of the glorious City whose foundations were now hidden in her that was once barren: “The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains” (Psalms lxxxvi. 1) and the heavenly hierarchies crowning the slopes of the eternal hills, beheld in her heights to them unknown and unattainable, summits approaching so near to God, that he was even then preparing his throne in her. Like Moses at the sight of the burning bush on Horeb, they were seized with a holy awe on recognising the mountain of God in the midst of the desert of this world, and they understood that the affliction of Israel was soon to cease. Although shrouded by the cloud, Mary was already that blessed mountain whose base, i.e., the starting point of her graces, was set far above the summits where the highest created sanctities are perfected in glory and love.

How justly is the mother named Anna, which signifies grace, she in whom for nine months were centred the complacencies of the Most High, the ecstasy of the Angelic Spirits and the hope of all flesh! No doubt it was Mary, the daughter, and not the mother, whose sweetness so powerfully attracted the heavens to our lowly Earth. But the perfume first scents the vessel which contains it, and even after it is removed, leaves it impregnated with its fragrance. Moreover, it is customary to prepare the vase itself with the greatest care. It must be all the purer, made of more precious material, and more richly adorned, according as the essence to be placed in it is rarer and more exquisite. Thus Magdalene enclosed her precious spikenard in alabaster. The Holy Spirit, the preparer of heavenly perfumes, would not be less careful than men. Now the task of blessed Anna was not limited, like that of a material vase, to passively containing the treasure of the world. She furnished the body of her who was to give flesh to the Son of God. She nourished her with her milk. She gave to her, who was inundated with floods of divine light, the first practical notions of life. In the education of her illustrious daughter, Anna played the part of a true mother: not only did she guide Mary’s first steps, but she co-operated with the Holy Ghost in the education of her soul, and the preparation for her incomparable destiny until, when the work had reached the highest development to which she could bring it, she, without a moment’s hesitation or a thought of self, offered her tenderly loved child to him from whom she had received her.

“Sic fingit tabernaculum Deo,” thus she frames a tabernacle for God. Such was the inscription around the figure of Saint Anna instructing Mary, which formed the device of the ancient guild of joiners and cabinet makers. For they, looking upon the making of tabernacles in which God may dwell in our churches as their most choice work, had taken Saint Anna for their patroness and model. Happy were those times when the simplicity of our fathers penetrated so deeply into the practical understanding of mysteries which their infatuated sons glory in ignoring. The valiant woman is praised in the Book of Proverbs for her spinning, weaving, sewing, embroidering and household cares: naturally then, those engaged in these occupations placed themselves under the protection of the spouse of Joachim. More than once, those suffering from the same trial which had inspired Anna’s touching prayer beneath the sparrow’s nest, experienced the power of her intercession in obtaining for others, as well as for herself, the blessing of the Lord God.

The East anticipated the West in the public cultus of the grandmother of the Messiah. Towards the middle of the sixth century, a Church was dedicated to her in Constantinople. The Typicon of Saint Sabbas makes a liturgical commemoration of her three times in the year: on the 9th September, together with her spouse Saint Joachim, the day after the birthday of their glorious daughter; on the 9th December, on which the Greeks, a day later than the Latins, keep the feast of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception under a title which more directly expresses Saint Anna’s share in the mystery, and lastly, the 25th July, not being occupied by the feast of Saint James, which was kept on the 30th April, is called the Dormitio or precious death of Saint Anna, mother of the most holy Mother of God: the very same expression which the Roman Martyrology adopted later.

Although Rome, with her usual reserve, did not until much later authorise the introduction into the Latin Churches of a liturgical feast of Saint Anna, she nevertheless encouraged the piety of the faithful in this direction. So early as the time of Leo III (795-816) and by that illustrious Pontiff’s express command, the history of Anna and Joachim was represented on the sacred ornaments of the noblest basilicas in the Eternal City. The Order of Carmel, so devout to Saint Anna, powerfully contributed, by its fortunate migration into our countries, to the growing increase of her cultus. Moreover, this development was the natural outcome of the progress of devotion among the people to the Mother of God. The close relation between the two worships is noticed in a concession by which in 1381 Urban VI satisfied the desires of the faithful in England by authorising for that kingdom a feast of the blessed Anna. The Church of Apt in Provence had been already a century in possession of the feast, a fact due to the honour bestowed on that Church of having received almost together with the faith, the Saint’s holy body, in the first age of Christianity.

Since our Lord, reigning in Heaven, has willed that His blessed Mother should also be crowned there in her virginal body, the relics of Mary’s mother have become doubly dear to the world, first, as in the case of others, on account of the holiness of her whose precious remains they are, and then above all others, on account of their close connection with the mystery of the Incarnation. The Church of Apt was so generous out of its abundance that it would now be impossible to enumerate the sanctuaries which have obtained, either from this principal source or from elsewhere, more or less notable portions of these precious relics. We cannot omit to mention as one of these privileged places, the great Basilica of Saint Paul outside the walls. Saint Anna herself, in an apparition to Saint Bridget of Sweden, confirmed the authenticity of the arm which forms one of the most precious jewels in the rich treasury of that Church.

It was not until 1584 that Gregory XIII ordered the celebration of this feast of 26th July throughout the whole Church, with the rite of a double. Leo XIII in our own times (1879) raised it, together with that of Saint Joachim, to the dignity of a solemnity of second class. But before that, Gregory XV, after having been cured of a serious illness by Saint Anna, had ranked her feast among those of precept, with obligation of resting from servile work. Now that Saint Anna was receiving the homage due to her exalted dignity, she made haste to show her recognition of this more solemn tribute of praise. In the years 1623, 1624 and 1625, in the village of Keranna near Auray in Brittany, she appeared to Yves Nicolazic, and discovered to him an ancient statue buried in the field of Bocenno, which he tenanted. This discovery brought the people once more to the place, where, a thousand years before, the inhabitants of ancient Armorica had honoured that statue. Innumerable graces obtained on the spot spread its fame far beyond the limits of the province, whose faith, worthy of past ages, had merited the favour of the grandmother of the Messiah. And Saint Anne d’Auray was soon reckoned among the chief pilgrimages of the Christian world.

More fortunate than the wife of Elcana, who prefigured you both in her trial and by her name, you, O Anna, now sing the magnificent gifts of the Lord. Where is now the proud synagogue that despised you? The descendants of the barren one are now without number and all we, the brethren of Jesus, children like Him, of your daughter Mary, come joyfully led by our Mother to offer you our praises. In the family circle the grandmother’s feast day is the most touching of all, when her grandchildren surround her with reverential love, as we gather around you today. Many, alas, know not these beautiful feasts where the blessing of the earthly paradise seems to revive in all its freshness. But the mercy of our God has provided a sweet compensation. He, the Most High God, willed to come so near to us as to be one of us in the flesh to know the relations and mutual dependences which are the law of our nature; the bonds of Adam, with which He had determined to draw us and in which He first bound Himself. For, in raising nature above itself, He did not eliminate it. He made grace take hold of it and lead it to Heaven so that, joined together on earth by their Divine Author, nature and grace were to be united for all eternity. We, then, being brethren by grace of Him who is ever your grandson by nature, are, by this loving disposition of Divine Wisdom, quite at home under your roof. And today’s feast, so dear to the hearts of Jesus and Mary, is our own family feast.

Smile then, dear mother, on our chants and bless our prayers. Today and always be propitious to the supplications which our land of sorrows sends up to you. Be gracious to wives and mothers who confide to you their holy desires and the secret of their sorrows. Keep up, where they still exist, the traditions of the Christian home. Over how many families has the baneful breath of this age passed, blighting all that is serious in life, weakening faith, leaving nothing but languor, weariness, frivolity, if not even worse, in the place of the true and solid joys of our fathers. How truly might the Wise Man say at the present day: “Who will find a valiant woman?” She alone by her influence could counteract all these evils, but on condition of recognising in what her true strength lies: in humble household works done with her own hands; in hidden, self-sacrificing devotedness; in watchings by night; in hourly foresight; working in wool and flax, and with the spindle; all those strong things which win for her the confidence and praise of her husband; authority over all, abundance in the house, blessings from the poor whom she has helped, honour from strangers, reverence from her children; and for herself, in the fear of the Lord, nobility and dignity, beauty and strength, wisdom, sweetness and content, and calm assurance at the latter day (Proverbs xxxi. 10-31).

O blessed Anna, rescue society, which is perishing for want of virtues like yours. The motherly kindnesses you are ever more frequently bestowing on us have increased the Church’s confidence. Deign to respond to the hopes she places in you. Bless especially your faithful Brittany. Have pity on unhappy France, for which you have shown your predilection: first, by so early confiding to it your sacred body; later on, by choosing in it the spot where you would manifest yourself to the world, and again, quite recently entrusting to its sons the Church and seminary dedicated to your honour in Jerusalem. O you who love the Franks, who deign still to look on fallen Gaul as the kingdom of Mary, continue to show it that love which is its most cherished tradition. May you become known throughout the whole world. As for us, who have long known your power and experienced your goodness, let us ever seek in you, O mother, our rest, security, strength in every trial: for he who leans on you has nothing to fear on Earth, and he who rests in your arms is safely carried.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Philippi in Macedonia, the birthday of St. Erastus, who was appointed bishop of that place by the blessed Apostle St. Paul, and there crowned with martyrdom.

At Rome, on the Via Latina, the holy martyrs Symphronius, Olympius, Theodulus and Exuperia, who (as we read in the Acts of Pope St. Stephen) were burnt alive and thus obtained the palm of martyrdom.

At Porto, St. Hyacinth, martyr, who was first thrown into the fire, and then precipitated into a stream without being injured. Afterwards, under the emperor Trajan, being struck with the sword by the ex-consul Leontius, he terminated his life. His body was buried by the matron Julia on her own estate near Rome.

Also at Rome, St. Pastor, priest. His name is used to designate a cardinal’s title in the church of St. Pudentiana on the Viminal Hill.

At Verona, St. Valens, bishop and confessor.

In the monastery of St. Benedict, near Mantua, St. Simeon, monk and hermit, who was renowned for many miracles and at an advanced age rested in the Lord.

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

Thanks be to God.

26 JULY – NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – 1 Corinthians x. 6‒13

Brethren, let us not covet evil things, as they also coveted. Neither become idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Therefore he that thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold of you, but such as is human and, God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able to bear, but will make also with temptation issue that you may be able to bear it.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“I have great sadness,” cries out the Apostle of the Gentiles, as he thought of the malediction which was about to fall on the Jews: “Continual sorrow have I in my heart, for I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites to whom belongs the adoption of children, and the glory, and the covenant,and the giving of the Law, and the service (the worship of God, prescribed by Himself) and the promises; whose are the Fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever!” (Romans ix. 2‒5). But now, they are gone astray by their own fault. They see nothing, they understand nothing (Isaias vi. 9; Matthew xiii. 14, 15). The royal banquet of the Scriptures, on which their Fathers feasted (Matthew iv. 4) is now turned by them into an occasion of error. They have made those Scriptures a snare for their own destruction, darkness covers their understanding, and chastisement for all future ages is their own making (Psalms lxviii. 23, 24).

Gentiles! You that have been substituted for those broken branches, and are grafted on the stem of the Covenant, (Romans xi. 17), learn a lesson from their fall. God, who has shown you so much and so great gratuity of mercy, and that at the very time he was inflicting on them the chastisements they so richly merited, — no, this good God, will not allow his loving designs on you to be frustrated against your own will. If you are faithful to the call of His grace, He will be faithful to you and preserve you from temptations which you could not resist, or He will so watch the combat that His divine help will make your soul rise superior to the trial and thus in every temptation you will find, not defeat, but the merit of a victory, all the more glorious, as it seemed so much above the power of human strength to bear. And yet, never forget that the same causes which brought about the destruction of the Jews, would also lead you to ruin. They fell, because of their unbelief (Romans xi. 20). You who once had no faith and yet God showed mercy to you (Romans xi. 30) — it is by faith that you now are what you are. Be not, therefore, high-minded with self-complacency but remember how that God, who broke off the natural branches from the glorious tree, will not spare you if you cease to be faithful. And while you do well to admire His mercy, you do not wisely if you forget His inexorable justice (Romans xi. 20‒22).

Well, therefore, does our Mother the Church instruct us in today’s Epistle, as to the lamentable antecedents of the Jew. She tells us of that list of sins and chastisements which gradually led on to the final crime and total ruin of the apostate nation. We who live in what the Church calls the “evening of the world”have this great advantage: that we can profit by what the past ages have experienced. The Holy Spirit had no other end in view when He would have the history of the ancient people written. He would have the future ages there learn lessons of salvation: by the various episodes of that history, which form so many groups of prophetic events, He would show us the economy of God’s providence in His government of the world and His Church. Founded, as she has been, by her Divine Spouse, in immutable truth, and maintained by the Holy Ghost in unfailing and ever increasing holiness, the Church has nothing to fear of that which happened to the Synagogue — we mean, of that total wreck which the Liturgy brings forward for our consideration today: no, the ruin of the Jews is a prophetic image of the destruction of the world (Matthew xxiv. 3) (which will have rejected the Church) — not of the Church herself, who will then ascend to her Lord, perfected, as she will then He, in love and holiness, by the trials endured in those latter days (Apocalypse xxii. 17). But the assurance of salvation granted to the Bride of the Son of God does not extend to her children, taken either individually or collectively, that is, men and nations. On each one of us it is incumbent that we meditate on the sad fate which befell Jerusalem, as also on what happened ages before to those ancestors of the Jewish people that scarce one of those who were living when Moses led them out of Egypt, lived to enter into the Promised Land.

And yet, as the Apostle argues, they were all journeying in the path of life, protected by the mysterious cloud beneath which Divine Wisdom shaded them by day, and served them as a pillar of fire by night (Wisdom x. 17). Led on by Moses, who was a type of the future divine Head of the Christian people, they had all passed through the sea. All of them thus baptised in that symbolic cloud and in those saving waters which had engulfed their foes, just as the water of the Christian font destroys the sins of them that are washed in it — all of them were fed by the same spiritual food, and all drank at the same holy source which issued from the rock, which was Christ. Yet, were there very few out of all those thousands with whom God was pleased (1 Corinthians x. 1‒6). But how much more grievous would the sins of Christians be, who are blessed with the resplendent and solid realities of the Law of Grace, than were the evil desires, and idolatry, and fornication, and murmurings of the Israelites, who had but the figures and foreshadowings of our privileges?

Gospel – Luke xix. 41‒47

At that time, when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it, saying, “If you also had known, and that in this your day, the things that are to your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, and your enemies will cast a trench about you, and compass you round, and straiten you on every side, and beat you flat to the ground, and your children who are in you: and they will not leave in you a stone upon a stone, because you have not known the time of your visitation.” And entering into the Temple, He began to cast out them that sold in it, and them that bought, saying to them, “It is written, My House is the House of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And He was teaching daily in the Temple.

Praise to you, O Christ.

25 JULY – SAINT CHRISTOPHER (Martyr)

Christopher was a convert to Christianity, baptised by Saint Babylas of Antioch, and was martyred in the great persecution of Decius in 250 AD. It is believed that Christopher suffered in Lycia in Asia Minor. He was a popular saint during the Middle Ages, and around his memory grew many legends. The most beautiful is that he carried an unknown child across a ford, and was borne down by the child's weight, despite his huge stature and great strength. The child was Jesus, carrying in His hands the weight of the whole world. Saint Christopher is the patron of travellers.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The name of Christopher, whose memory enhances the solemnity of the son of thunder, signifies one who bears Christ. Christina yesterday reminded us that Christians ought to be in every place the good odour of Christ (2 Corinthians ii. 15). Christopher today puts us in mind that Christ truly dwells by faith in our hearts (Ephesians iii. 17). The graceful legend attached to his name is well known. As other men were, at a later date, to sanctify themselves in Spain by constructing roads and bridges to facilitate the approach of pilgrims to the tomb of Saint James, so Christopher in Lycia had vowed for the love of Christ to carry travellers on his strong shoulders across a dangerous torrent. Our Lord will say on the last day: “What you did to one of these my least brethren you did it to me.” One night, being awakened by the voice of a child asking to be carried across, Christopher hastened to perform his wonted task of charity when suddenly, in the midst of the surging and apparently trembling waves, the giant who had never stooped beneath the greatest weight was bent down under his burden, now grown heavier than the world itself. “Be not astonished,” said the mysterious child, “you bear him who bears the world.” And he disappeared, blessing his carrier and leaving him full of heavenly strength.

Christopher was crowned with martyrdom under Decius. The aid our fathers knew how to obtain from him against storms, demons, plague, accidents of all kinds, has caused him to be ranked among the saints called helpers. In many places the fruits of the orchards were blessed on this day under the common auspices of Saint Christopher and Saint James.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Barcelona in Spain, during the persecution of Diocletian and under the governor Dacian, the birthday of the holy martyr Cucuphas. After overcoming many torments, he was struck with the sword and thus went triumphantly to heaven.

In Palestine, St. Paul, a martyr, in the persecution of Maximian Galerius under the governor Firmilian. He was condemned to capital punishment, but having obtained a short respite to pray, he besought God with all his heart, first for his own countrymen, then for the Jews and Gentiles, that they might embrace the true faith, next for the multitude of the spectators, and finally for the judge who had condemned him and the executioner that was to strike him, after which he received the crown of martyrdom by being beheaded.

In the same country, St. Valentina, a virgin, who was led to an altar to offer sacrifice, but overturning it with her foot, she was cruelly tortured, and being cast into the fire with another virgin, her companion, she went to her spouse.

At Forcono in Abruzzo, the holy martyrs Florentius and Felix, natives of Sipontum.

At Cordova, St. Theodemirus, monk and martyr.

At Treves, St. Magnericus, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

25 JULY – SAINT JAMES THE GREATER (Apostle and Martyr)

The Apostle James who we honour today is the son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of Saint John the Evangelist, called with him to follow Jesus. He is known as James the Greater, to distinguish him from his fellow Apostle, James the Lesser (or James the Just), the son of Alphaeus and cousin of Jesus who wrote the canonical Epistle. James the Greater was one of the first to be called to the Apostolate together with his brother and, leaving his father and his nets, he followed the Lord. Jesus called them both Boanerges, that is, sons of Thunder. He was one of the three Apostles whom our Saviour loved the most, and whom he chose as witnesses of His transfiguration, and of the miracle by which he raised to life the daughter of the ruler of the Synagogue, and whom He wished to be present when He retired to the Mount of Olives to pray to His Father before being taken prisoner by the Jews.

After the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven James preached His Divinity in Judea and Samaria, and led many to the Christian faith. Soon, however, he set out for Spain, and there made some converts to Christianity. Among these were the seven men who were afterwards consecrated bishops by Saint Peter, and were the first sent by him into Spain. James returned to Jerusalem and, among others, instructed Hermogenes the magician in the truths of faith. Herod Agrippa, who had been raised to the throne under the emperor Claudius, wished to curry favour with the Jews. He therefore condemned the James to death for openly proclaiming Jesus Christ to be God. When the man who had brought him to the tribunal saw the courage with which he went to martyrdom, he declared that he too was a Christian. As they were being hurried to execution, he implored James’ forgiveness. The Apostle kissed him, saying: “Peace be with you.” Thus both of them were beheaded, James having a little before cured a paralytic.

His body was afterwards translated to Compostella, where it is honoured with the highest veneration. Pilgrims flock there from every part of the world to satisfy their devotion or pay their vows. The memory of his natalis is celebrated by the Church today, which is the day of his translation. But it was near the feast of the Pasch in 43 AD that, first of all the Apostles, he shed his blood at Jerusalem as a witness to Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Let us today hail the bright star which once made Compostella so resplendent with its rays that the obscure town became, like Jerusalem and Rome, a centre of attraction to the piety of the whole world. As long as the Christian empire lasted, the sepulchre of Saint James the Great rivalled in glory that of Saint Peter himself.

Among the Saints of God there is not one who manifested more evidently how the elect keep up after death an interest in the works confided to them by our Lord. The life of Saint James after his call to the Apostolate was but short. And the result of his labours in Spain, his allotted portion, appeared to be a failure. Scarcely had he, in his rapid course, taken possession of the land of Iberia when, impatient to drink the chalice which would satisfy his continual desire to be close to his Lord, he opened by martyrdom the heavenward procession of the twelve which was to be closed by the other son of Zebedee. O Salome, who gave them both to the world and presented to Jesus their ambitious prayer, rejoice with a double joy: you are not repulsed. He who made the hearts of mothers is your abettor. Did He not, to the exclusion of all others except Simon His Vicar, choose your two sons as witnesses of the greatest works of His power, admit them to the contemplation of His glory on Thabor, and confide to them His sorrow to death in the garden of His agony? And today your eldest born becomes the first-born in Heaven of the sacred college: the protomartyr of the Apostles repays, as far as in him lies, the special love of Christ our Lord.

But how was he a messenger of the faith, since the sword of Herod Agrippa put such a speedy end to his mission? And how did he justify his name of son of thunder, since his voice was heard by a mere handful of disciples in a desert of infidelity? This new name, another special prerogative of the two brothers, was realised by John in his sublime writings in which, as by lightning flashes, he revealed to the world the deep things of God. It was the same in his case as in that of Simon, who having been called Peter by Christ, was also made by Him the foundation of the Church: the name given by the Man-God was a prophecy, not an empty title. With regard to James too, then, Eternal Wisdom cannot have been mistaken. Let it not be thought that the sword of any Herod could frustrate the designs of the Most High upon the men of His choice. The life of the Saints is never cut short. Their death, ever precious, is still more so when in the cause of God it seems to come before the time.

It is then that with double reason we may say their works follow them. God Himself, being bound in honour, both for His own sake and for theirs, to see that nothing is wanting to their plenitude. “As a victim of a holocaust He has received them, says the Holy Ghost, and in time there will be respect had to them. The just will shine, and will run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They will judge nations, and rule over peoples. And their Lord will reign forever” (Wisdom iii. 6‒8). How literally was this Divine oracle to be fulfilled with regard to our Saint! Nearly eight centuries, which to the heavenly citizens are but as a day, had passed over that tomb in the north of Spain where two disciples had secretly laid the Apostle’s body. During that time, the land of his inheritance, which he had so rapidly traversed, had been overrun first by Roman idolaters, then by Arian barbarians, and when the day of hope seemed about to dawn, a deeper night was ushered in by the Crescent. One day lights were seen glimmering over the briars that covered the neglected monument. Attention was drawn to the spot which henceforth went by the name of the field of stars. But what are those sudden shouts coming down from the mountains, and echoing through the valleys? Who is this unknown chief rallying against an immense army the little worn out troop whose heroic valour could not yesterday save it from defeat? Swift as lightning, and bearing in one hand a white standard with a red cross, he rushes with drawn sword upon the panic stricken foe, and dyes the feet of his charger in the blood of 70,000 slain.

Hail to the chief of the holy war, of which this Liturgical Year has so often made mention! Saint James! Saint James! Forward, Spain! It is the reappearance of the Galilaean Fisherman, whom the Man-God once called from the barque where he was mending his nets; of the elder son of thunder, now free to hurl the thunderbolt on these new Samaritans who pretend to honour the unity of God by making Christ no more than a prophet.

Henceforth, James will be to Christian Spain the firebrand which the Prophet saw “devouring all the people round about, to the right hand and to the left, until Jerusalem will be inhabited again in her own place in Jerusalem” (Zacharias xii. 6). And when after six centuries and a half of struggle, his standard bearers, the Catholic kings, had succeeded in driving the infidel hordes beyond the seas, the valiant leader of the Spanish armies laid aside his bright armour, and the slayer of Moors became once more a messenger of the faith. As fisher of men, he entered his barque and gathering around it the gallant fleets of a Christopher Columbus, a Vasco di Gama, an Albuquerque, he led them over unknown seas to lands that had never yet heard the name of the Lord. For his contribution to the labours of the twelve, James drew ashore his well-filled nets from West and East and South, from new worlds, renewing Peter’s astonishment at the sight of such captures. He, whose apostolate seemed at the time of Herod III to have been crushed in the bud before bearing any fruit, may say with Saint Paul: “I have no way come short of them that are above measure Apostles, for by the grace of God I have laboured more abundantly than all they” (2 Corinthians xii. 11; 1 Corinthians xv. 10).

PATRON of Spain, forget not the grand nation which owes to you both its heavenly nobility and its earthly prosperity. Preserve it from ever diminishing those truths which made it, in its bright days, the salt of the earth. Keep it in mind of the terrible warning that if the salt lose its savour, it is good for nothing any more but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men (Matthew v. 13). At the same time remember, O Apostle, the special cultus wherewith the whole Church honours you. Does she not to this very day keep under the immediate protection of the Roman Pontiff both your sacred body, so happily rediscovered in our times, and the vow of going on pilgrimage to venerate those precious relics? Where now are the days when your wonderful energy of expansion abroad was surpassed by your power of drawing all to yourself? Who but he that numbers the stars of the firmament could count the Saints, the penitents, the kings, the warriors, the unknown of every grade, the ever-renewed multitude, ceaselessly moving to and from that field of stars where you shed your light on the world?

Our ancient legends tell us of a mysterious vision granted to the founder of Christian Europe. One evening after a day of toil, Charlemagne, standing on the shore of the Frisian Sea, beheld a long belt of stars which seemed to divide the sky between Gaul, Germany and Italy, and crossing over Gascony, the Basque territory, and Navarre, stretched away to the far-off Province of Galicia. Then you appeared to him and said: “This starry path marks out the road for you to go and deliver my tomb. And all nations will follow after you.” And Charles, crossing the mountains, gave the signal to all Christendom to undertake those great Crusades which were both the salvation and the glory of the Latin races, by driving back the Muslim plague to the land of its birth.

When we consider that two tombs formed, as it were, the two extreme points or poles of this movement unparalleled in the history of nations: the one in which the God-Man rested in death, the other where your body lay, O son of Zebedee, we cannot help crying out with the Psalmist: “Your friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable!” (Psalms cxxxviii. 17). And what a mark of friendship did the Son of Man bestow on His humble apostle by sharing His honours with him when the military Orders and Hospitallers were established to the terror of the Crescent for the sole purpose, at the outset, of entertaining and protecting pilgrims on their way to one or other of these holy tombs? May the heavenly impulse now so happily showing itself in the return to the great Catholic pilgrimages, gather once more at Compostella the sons of your former clients. We, at least, will imitate Saint. Louis before the walls of Tunis, murmuring with his dying lips the Collect of your feast, and we will repeat in conclusion: “Be, O Lord, the sanctifier and guardian of your people that, defended by the protection of your Apostle James, they may please you by their conduct, and serve you with secure minds.”

24 JULY – SAINT CHRISTINA OF BOLSENA (Virgin)

Christina was born to a rich family. Her father Urbanus was the governor of Tyre in Phoenicia and her mother belonged to the illustrious ancient Roman Anicii family. Urbanus wanted Christina to become a pagan priestess, but Christina refused to worship his gold and silver idols and smashed them. Urbanus had her tortured and after his death his successor Dion continued to torture her. Christina was martyred at Bolsena in central Italy in about 302 AD. Saint Christina is one of the patron saints of Palermo in Sicily. Eastern Orthodox Christians know her as Christina the Great Martyr and she is portrayed in a sixth-century mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Christina, whose very name fills the Church with the fragrance of the Spouse, comes as a graceful harbinger to the feast of the elder son of thunder. The ancient Vulsinium, seated by its lake with basalt shores and calm clear waters, was the scene of a triumph over Etruscan paganism, when this child of ten years despised the idols of the nations in the very place where, according to the edicts of Constantine, the false priests of Umbria and Tuscany held a solemn annual reunion. The discovery of Christina’s tomb in our days has confirmed this particular of the age of the martyr as given in her Acts, which were denied authenticity by the science of recent times: one more lesson given to an infatuated criticism which mistrusts everything but itself. As we look from the shore where the heroic child was laid to rest after her combat, and see the isle where Amalasonte, the noble daughter of Theodoric the Great, perished so tragically, the nothingness of mere earthly grandeur speaks more powerfully to the soul than the most eloquent discourse. In the thirteenth century the Spouse, continuing to exalt the little martyr above the most illustrious queens, associated her in the triumph of His Sacrament of love: it was Christina’s church He chose as the theatre of the famous miracle of Bolsena which anticipated by but a few months the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Tiburtina, St. Vincent, martyr.

At Amiterno in Abruzzo, the martyrdom of eighty three holy soldiers.

At Merida in Spain, St. Victor, a military man, who, with his two brothers, Stercatius and Antinogenes, by various torments consummated his martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian.

In Lycia, the holy martyrs Niceta and Aquilina, who were converted to Christ by the preaching of the blessed martyr Christopher, and gained the palm of martyrdom by being decapitated.

Also the holy martyrs Meneus and Capito.

At Sens, St.Ursicinus, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

23 JULY – SAINT LIBERIUS (Pope)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

While Apollinaris adorns holy Mother Church with the bright purple of his martyrdom, another noble son crowns her brow with the white wreath of a Confessor-Pontiff. Liborius, the heir of Julian, Thuribius and Pavacius was a brilliant link in the glorious chain connecting the Church of Le Mans with Clement, the successor of Saint Peter. He came to bring peace after the storm, and to restore to the earth a hundred-fold fruitfulness after the ruin caused by the tempest. The fanatical disciples of Odin invading the west of Gaul had committed more havoc in this part of our Lord’s vineyard than had the pro-consuls with their cold legalism, or the ancient druids with their fierce hatred. Liborius, defender of the earthly fatherland, and guide of souls to the heavenly one, brought the enemy to be citizen of both by making him Christian. As a Pontiff, he laboured with purest zeal for the magnificence of Divine worship which renders homage to God and gives health to the earth. As apostle, he took up again the work of evangelisation begun by the first messengers of the faith, driving idolatry from the strongholds it had reconquered, and from the country parts where it had always reigned supreme. His friend Saint Martin had not in this respect a more worthy rival. Five centuries after the close of his laborious life, his blessed body was removed from the sanctuary where it lay among his fellow-bishops, and scattering miracles all along the way, was carried to Paderborn. Pagan barbarism once more fled at the approach of Liborius, and Westphalia was won to Christ. Le Mans and Paderborn, uniting in the veneration of their common apostle, have thus sealed a friendship which a thousand years have not destroyed.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Rasyphus, martyr.

In the same city, the martyrdom of St. Primitiva, virgin and martyr.

Also the holy martyrs Apollonius and Eugenius.

The same day, the birthday of the holy martyrs Trophimus and Theophilus who received their crown of martyrdom by being beaten with stones, scorched with fire, and finally struck with the sword in the time of the emperor Diocletian.

In Bulgaria, many holy martyrs whom the impious emperor Nicephorus, while he was devastating the churches of God, put to death in various ways by the sword, the halter, arrows, long imprisonment and starvation.

At Rome, the saintly virgins Romula, Redempta and Herundines, mentioned by Pope St. Gregory in his writings.

In the same city, the departure from this life of St. Bridget, widow, whose sacred body was taken to Sweden on the seventh of October. Her feast is celebrated on the eighth of that month.

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

Thanks be to God.

23 JULY – SAINT APOLLINARIS (Bishop and Martyr)

Apollinaris is believed to have come from Antioch with Saint Peter and to have been appointed by him as the first Bishop of Ravenna. He converted many to the faith of Christ, for which he was seized by the priests of the idols and severely beaten. At his prayer a nobleman named Boniface who had long been dumb, recovered the power of speech, and his daughter was delivered from an unclean spirit. On this account a fresh sedition was raised against Apollinaris. He was beaten with rods and made to walk bare-foot over burning coals. But as the fire did him no injury, he was driven from the city. Sometimes he hid in the house of certain Christians, and then went to Aemilia. Here he raised from the dead the daughter of Rufinus, a patrician whose whole family thereupon believed in Christ. The prefect was greatly angered by this conversion and, sending for Apollinaris, he sternly commanded him to give over propagating the faith of Christ in the city. But as Apollinaris paid no attention to his commands, he was tortured on the rack, boiling water was poured on his wounds and his mouth was bruised and broken with a stone. Finally, he was loaded with irons and shut up in prison. Four days afterwards he was put onboard a ship and sent into exile, but the boat was wrecked and Apollinaris arrived in Mysia, from where he passed to the banks of the Danube and into Thrace. In the temple of Serapis the demon refused to utter his oracles so long as the disciple of the Apostle Peter remained there. Search was made for some time, and then Apollinaris was discovered and commanded to depart by sea. He returned to Ravenna, but on the accusation of the same priests of the idols he was placed in the custody of a centurion. As this man, however, worshipped Christ in secret, Apollinaris was allowed to escape by night. When this became known, he was pursued and overtaken by the guards, who loaded him with blows and left him for dead. He died from the effects of the torture and fatigue in about 79 AD during the reign of Vespasian. Apollinaris was styled a martyr because he sacrificed himself as a living victim for the true faith by the continual martyrdom which he endured for the 29 consecutive years. He was buried at Classis, near Ravenna.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Ravenna, the mother of cities, invites us today to honour the martyr bishop whose labours did more for her lasting renown than did the favour of emperors and kings. From the midst of her ancient monuments, the rival of Rome, though now fallen, points proudly to her unbroken chain of Pontiffs which she can trace back to the Vicar of the Man-God through Apollinaris. This great Saint has been praised by Fathers and Doctors of the Universal Church, his sons and successors. Would to God that the noble city had remembered what she owed to Saint Peter.

Apollinaris had left family and fatherland, and all he possessed to follow the Prince of the Apostles. One day the master said to the disciple: “Why do you stay here with us? Behold you are instructed in all that Jesus did. Rise up, receive the Holy Ghost, and go to that city which knows Him not.” And blessing him, he kissed him and sent him away. Such sublime scenes of separation, often witnessed in those early days, and many a time since repeated, show by their heroic simplicity the grandeur of the Church.

Apollinaris sped to the sacrifice. Christ, says Saint Peter Chrysologus, hastened to meet his martyr, the martyr pressed on towards His King. But the Church, anxious to keep this support of her infancy, intervened to defer, not the struggle, but the crown, and for twenty-nine years, adds Saint Peter Damian, his martyrdom was prolonged through such innumerable torments, that the labours of Apollinaris alone were sufficient testimony of the faith for those regions which had no other witness to blood. According to the traditions of the Church he so powerfully established, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove directly and visibly designated each of the twelve successors of Apollinaris, up to the age of peace.

Venantius Fortunatus, coming from Ravenna to our Northern lands, has taught us to salute from afar your glorious tomb. Answer us by the wish you framed during the days of your mortal life: May the peace of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, rest upon you! Peace, the perfect gift, the first greeting of an Apostle, the consummation of all grace: how you appreciated it, how jealous of it you were for your sons, even after you had quitted this Earth! By it you obtained from the God of peace and love that miraculous intervention which pointed out for so long a time, the bishops who were to succeed you in your See. You yourself appeared one day to the Roman Pontiff, showing him Peter Chrysologus as the elect of Peter and of Apollinaris. And later on, knowing that the cloister was to be the home of the Divine peace banished from the rest of the world, you came twice in person to bid Romuald obey the call of grace, and go and people the desert. How comes it that more than one of your successors, no longer, alas! designated by the Divine Dove, should have become intoxicated with earthly favours, and so soon have forgotten the lessons left by you to your Church? Was it not sufficient honour for that Church, the Daughter of Rome, to occupy among her illustrious sisters the first place at her mother’s side? For surely the Gospel sung on this feast for now [thirteen] centuries, and perhaps more, ought to have been a safeguard against the deplorable excesses which hastened her fall. Rome, warned by sinister indications, seems to have foreseen the sacrilegious ambition of a Guibert, when she fixed her choice on this passage of the sacred text: There was also a strife amongst the disciples, which of them should seem to be the greater (Luke xxii. 24‒30). And what more significant, and at the same time more touching commentary could have been given to this Gospel than the words of Saint Peter himself in the Epistle: “The ancients therefore that are among you, I beseech, who am myself also an ancient, to feed the flock of God, not as lording it over the clergy, but being models to them of disinterestedness and love; and let all insinuate humility one to another, for God resists the proud, but to the humble He gives grace” (1 Peter v. 1‒11). Pray, O Apollinaris, that both pastor and flocks throughout the Church may now at least profit by these apostolic and Divine teachings, so that we may all one day have a place at the eternal banquet, where our Lord invites His own to sit down with Peter and with you in His Kingdom.

22 JULY – SAINT MARY MAGDALEN (Penitent)

 

The Church believes that Mary Magdalene is Mary the Sinner, who had seven devils cast out of her by Jesus, and is the same as Mary of Bethany who was the sister of Martha, and of Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. This Mary stood at the foot of the Cross and was one of the first witnesses to the Resurrection. According to a French tradition, Mary, Martha and Lazarus crossed the sea to Marseilles and announced Christ to the people of Provence. The cave known as the Sainte-Baume, on a hill near the town of St. Maxime, is believed to have been inhabited by Mary during the last years of her life and to have been the place of her death.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Three Saints,” said our Lord to Saint Bridget of Sweden, “have been more pleasing to me than all others: Mary my mother, John the Baptist, and Mary Magdalene.” The Fathers tell us that Magdalene is a type of the Gentile Church called from the depth of sin to perfect holiness. And indeed, better than any other, she personifies both the wanderings and the love of the human race espoused by the Word of God. Like the most illustrious characters of the law of grace, she has her anti-type in past ages. Let us follow the history of this great penitent as traced by unanimous tradition: Magdalene’s glory will not be thereby diminished.

When, before all ages, God decreed to manifest His glory, He willed to reign over a world drawn from nothing. And as His goodness was equal to His power, He would have the triumph of supreme love to be the law of that kingdom which the Gospel likens to a king who made a marriage for his son (Matthew xxii. 2). Passing over the pure intelligences whose nine choirs are filled with divine light, the immortal Son of the King of ages looked down to the extreme limits of creation. There He beheld human nature, made indeed to know God, but acquiring that knowledge laboriously. Its weakness would better show His divine condescension: with it, then, He chose to contract his alliance.

Man is flesh and blood: so the Son of God would be made Flesh. He would not have Angels, but men for His brothers. He, that in Heaven is the Splendour of His Father, and on Earth the most beautiful of the sons of men would draw the human race with the cords of Adam (Osee xi. 4). In the very act of creation He sealed his espousals by raising man to the supernatural state of grace and placing him in the Paradise of expectation. Alas! The human race knew not how to await her Bridegroom even in the shades of Eden. Cast out of the garden of delights, she prostituted to vain idols in their groves what was left her of her glory. For she had much beauty still, the gift of her Spouse, though she had profaned it: “You were perfect through my beauty, which I had put on you, says the Lord God” (Ezechiel xvi. 14).

God would not suffer His love to be defeated. Leaving humanity at large to walk in the ways of folly, He chose out a single people, sprung from a holy stock, to be the guardian of His promises. Coming forth from Egypt and from the midst of a barbarous nation, this people was consecrated to God and became His inheritance. In the person of Balaam, the ancient Bride saw Israel pass through the desert, and filled with admiration at the glory of the Lord dwelling with him in his tent, her heart for a moment beat with bridal love. “I will see Him,” she cried in her transport, “but not now: I will behold Him, but not near” (Numbers xxiv. 17). From those wild heights from which the Spouse would one day call her, she hailed the Star that was to rise out of Jacob, and predicted the ruin of the Hebrew people who had supplanted her for a time.

Too soon was this sublime ecstasy followed by still more culpable wanderings! “How long will you be dissolute in deliciousness, O wandering daughter? Know and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for you to have left the Lord your God” (Jeremias xxxi. 22; ii. 19). But the ages are passing, the night will soon be over, and the day-star will arise, the sign of the Bridegroom gathering the nations. Let Him lead you into the wilderness and there He will speak to your heart. Your rival knows not how to be a queen. The alliance of Sinai has produced but a slave. The Bridegroom still waits for his Bride.

At length the hour came: bending the heavens, “he was made sin” (2 Corinthians v. 21) for sinful men. And hidden under the servile garb of mortals, He sat down to table in the house of the proud Pharisee. The haughty Synagogue who would neither fast with John nor rejoice with Christ, was now to see God justifying the delays of His merciful love. “Let us not, like Pharisees,” says Saint Ambrose, “despise the counsels of God. The sons of Wisdom are singing: listen to their voices, attend to their dances. It is the hour of the nuptials. Thus sang the Prophet when he said: ‘Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus.’”

“And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that He sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment. And standing behind at His feet, she began to wash His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” “Who is this woman?” “Without doubt it is the Church,” answers Saint Peter Chrysologus, “the Church, weighed down and stained with sins committed in the city of this world. At the news that Christ has appeared in Judea, that He is to be seen at the banquet of the Pasch where He bestows His mysteries and reveals the divine Sacrament, and makes known the secret of salvation: suddenly she darts forward. Despising the endeavours of the Scribes to prevent her entrance, she confronts the princes of the Synagogue! Burning with desire she penetrates into the Sanctuary where she finds Him whom she seeks betrayed by Jewish perfidy even at the banquet of love. Not the passion, nor the Cross, nor the tomb can check her faith, or prevent her from bringing her perfumes to Christ.”

Who but the Church knows the secret of this perfume? asks Paulinus of Nola with Ambrose of Milan: the Church, whose numberless flowers have all aromas; the Church, who exhales before God a thousand sweet odours aroused by the breath of the Holy Spirit, viz., the virtues of nations and the prayers of the Saints. Mingling the perfume of her conversion with her tears of repentance, she anoints the feet of her Lord, honouring in them His Humanity. Her faith by which she is justified grows equally with her love: soon the Head of the Spouse, that is, His Divinity, receives from her the homage of the full measure of pure and precious spikenard, to wit, consummate holiness, whose heroism goes so far as to break the vessel of mortal flesh by the martyrdom of love, if not by that of tortures.

Arrived at the height of the mystery, she forgets not even there those sacred feet, whose contact delivered her from the seven devils representing all vices: for to the heart of the Bride, as in the bosom of the Father, her Lord is still both God and Man. The Jew, who would not own Christ either for head or foundation, found no fragrant oil for His head, nor even water for His feet. She, on the contrary, pours her priceless perfume over both. And while the sweet odour of her perfect faith fills the Earth, now become by the victory of that faith the house of the Lord, she continues to wipe her Master’s feet with her beautiful hair, i.e., her countless good works and her ceaseless prayer. The growth of this mystical hair requires all her care here on Earth. And in Heaven its abundance and beauty will call forth the praise of Him who jealously counts, without losing one, all the works of His Church. Then from her own head, as from that of her Spouse, will the fragrant unction of the Holy Spirit overflow even to the skirt of her garment.

You despise, O Pharisee, the poor woman weeping with love at the feet of your divine Guest whom you know not. But “I would rather,” cries the solitary of Nola, “be bound up in her hair at the feet of Christ, than be seated with you near Christ, yet without Him.” Happy sinner to be, both in her life of sin and that of grace, the figure of the Church, even so far as to have been foreseen and announced by the Prophets. For such is the teaching of Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, while Venerable Bede, gathering up, according to his wont, the traditions of his predecessors, does not hesitate to assert that “what Magdalene once did, remains the type of what the whole Church does, and of what every perfect soul must ever do.”

We can well understand the predilection of the Man-God for this soul, whose repentance from such a depth of misery manifested so fully, from the outset, the success of His mission, the defeat of Satan and the triumph of Divine love. While Israel was expecting from the Messiah nothing but perishable goods, when the very Apostles, including John the beloved, were looking for honours and first places, she was the first to come to Jesus for Himself alone, and not for His gifts. Eager only for pardon and love, she chose for her portion those sacred feet wearied in the search after the wandering sheep: here was the blessed altar on which she offered to her Divine Deliverer as many holocausts of herself, says Saint Gregory, as she had had vain objects of complacency. Henceforth her goods and her person were at the disposal of Jesus. The rest of her life was to be spent sitting at His feet, contemplating the mysteries of His life, gathering up His every word, following His footsteps as He preached the Kingdom of God.

How swiftly, in the light of her humble confidence, did she outstrip the Synagogue and the very just themselves! The Pharisee might be indignant, her sister might complain, the Apostles might murmur: Mary held her peace, but Jesus spoke for her as if His Sacred Heart were hurt by the least word said against her. At the death of Lazarus the Master had to call her from the mysterious repose in which even then she was seated. Her presence at the tomb was of more avail than the whole college of Apostles and the crowd of Jews. One word from her, though already said by Martha who had arrived first, was more powerful than all the words of the latter. Her tears made the Man-God weep and drew from Him that groan which he uttered before recalling the dead man to life — that divine trouble of a God overcome by His creature. Oh truly, for others as well as for herself, for the world as well as for God, “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her” (Luke x. 42).

In all that we have said, we have but linked together the testimonies of a veneration universally consistent. But the homage of all the Doctors together cannot compare with the honour which the Church pays to the humble Magdalene when she applies to the Queen of heaven on her glorious Assumption Day the Gospel words first uttered in praise of the justified sinner. Albert the Great assures us that, in the world of grace as well as in the material creation, God has made two great lights, to wit two Maries, the Mother of our Lord, and the sister of Lazarus: the greater, which is the Blessed Virgin, to rule the day of innocence: the lesser, which is Mary the penitent beneath the feet of that glorious Virgin, to rule the night by enlightening repentant sinners. As the moon by its phases points out the feast days on earth, so Magdalene in Heaven gives the signal of joy to the Angels of God over one sinner doing penance. Does she not also share with the Immaculate One the name of Mary, Star of the sea, as the Churches of Gaul sang in the Middle Ages, recalling how, though one was a Queen and the other a handmaid, both were causes of joy to the Church: the one being the Gate of salvation, the other the messenger of the Resurrection?

On that great Easter day, Magdalene, like a morning star, announced the rising of the Sun of Justice, who was never more to set. “Woman,” said Jesus to her, “why do you weep?” “You are not mistaken.” He seemed to say, “It is, indeed, the Divine Gardener speaking to you, the same that planted Eden in the beginning. But now dry your tears. In this new garden, whose centre is an empty tomb, Paradise is restored. The Angels no longer close the entrance. Here is the Tree of Life which has borne fruit these three days past. This Fruit, which you, O woman, are eager, as of "old, to seize and taste, belongs to you now by right: for you are no longer Eve but Mary. If you are bidden not to touch It yet, it is because, as you would not heretofore taste the fruit of death yourself alone, you may not now enjoy the fruit of Life till you bring back Him that was first lost through you.”

Thus by the wisdom and mercy of our God, woman is raised to a greater dignity than before the Fall. Magdalene, to whom woman is indebted for this glorious revenge, has hence obtained in the Church’s litanies the place of honour above even the virgins, as John the Baptist precedes the whole army of the Saints on account of his privilege of being the first witness to our salvation. The testimony of the penitent completes that of the Precursor: on the word of John the Church recognised the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. On the word of Magdalene she hails the Spouse triumphant over death. And, judging that by this last testimony, Catholic belief is put in full possession of the entire cycle of mysteries. She today intones the immortal symbol, which she deemed premature for the feast of Zachary’s son.

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O Mary, how great did you appear before Heaven at that solemn moment when, before the world knew aught of the triumph of life, our Emmanuel the conqueror said to you: “Go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God” (John xx. 17). You represented us Gentiles who were not to obtain possession of our Lord by faith till after His Ascension into Heaven. These brethren, to whom the Man-God sent you, were doubtless those privileged men whom He had called to know Him during His mortal life, and to whom you, O apostle of the Apostles, had to announce the mystery of the Pasch. And yet, in His loving mercy, the Divine Master intended to show Himself that same day to many of them, and both you and they were soon to be witnesses of his triumphant Ascension. Is it not evident that your mission, O Magdalene, though addressed to the immediate disciples of our Lord, was to extend much further both in space and time? As He entered into his glory, the Conqueror of death already beheld these brethren filling the whole Earth. It is of them he had said in the Psalm: “I will declare your name to my brethren: in the midst of the Church will I praise you, in the midst of a people that will be born which the Lord has made” (Psalms xxi. 23, 32). It is of them and of us, the generation to come, to whom the Lord was to be declared, that He said to you: Go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God. You came, and you came continually, fulfilling your mission towards the disciples, and saying to them: “I have seen the Lord, and these things He said to me” (Luke xx. 18).

You came, O Mary, when our West beheld you, treading the rocks of Provence with your apostolic feet whose beauty Cyril of Alexandria admires. There seven times a day, raised on Angels’ wings towards the Spouse, you pointed out more eloquently than any speech could do, the way He took, the way the Church must follow by her desires, until she is reunited with Him forever. You proved that the apostolate in its highest reach does not depend on words. In Heaven the Seraphim, and Cherubim, and Thrones gaze unceasingly on the Eternal Trinity without so much as glancing at this world of nothingness, and nevertheless, it is through them that pass the strength, and light, and love which the heavenly messengers in the lower hierarchies distribute to us on Earth. Thus, O Magdalene, though you cling ever to the sacred feet which are now not denied to your love, and your life is unreservedly absorbed with Christ in God, you seem more than any other to be always saying to us: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the Earth” (1 Corinthians iii. 1, 2).

O you, whose choice, so highly approved by our Lord, has revealed to the world the better part, obtain that that portion may be ever appreciated in the Church as the better, viz., that divine contemplation which begins here on Earth the life of Heaven, and which in its fruitful repose is the source of all the graces spread by the active ministry throughout the world. Death itself does not take away that portion, but assures its possession forever, and makes it blossom into the full, direct vision. May he that has received it from the gratuitous goodness of God never strive to dispossess himself of it! “Happy house,” says the devout Saint Bernard, “blessed assembly, where Martha complains of Mary! But how indignant we should be if Mary were jealous of Martha! And Saint Jude tells us the awful judgeent of the Angels who kept not their principality, the familiar friends of God who forsook their own habitation (Jude 6). Keep up in religious families established by their fathers on heights that touch the clouds the sense of their inborn nobility: they are not made for the dust and noise of the plain, and did they come down to it, they would injure both the Church and themselves. By remaining what they are, they do not, any more than you, O Magdalene, become indifferent to the lost sheep, but they take the surest of all means for purifying the Earth and drawing souls to God.

From your church at Vezelay you looked down one day upon a vast multitude eagerly receiving the cross: they were about to undertake that immortal Crusade not the least glory of which is to have supernaturalised the sentiments of honour in the hearts of those Christian warriors armed for the defence of the holy Sepulchre. A similar lesson was given to the world at the beginning of [the nineteenth] century: Napoleon, intoxicated with power, would raise to himself and his army a Temple of glory. Before the building was completed he was swept away, and the temple was dedicated to you. O Mary, bless this last homage of your beloved France, whose people and princes have always surrounded with deepest veneration your hallowed retreat at Sainte Baume, and your church at Saint Maximin, where rest your precious relics. In return, teach them and teach us all, that the only true and lasting glory is to follow with you in His ascensions Him who once sent you to us, saying: “Go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God!”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Philippi, St. Syntyches, mentioned by the blessed Apostle St. Paul.

At Ancyra in Galatia, the birthday of the martyr St. Plato. Under the lieutenant-governor Agrippinus, he was scourged, lacerated with iron hooks, and subjected to other most atrocious torments, and finally being beheaded, he rendered his invincible soul to God. The miracles he wrought in assisting the captives are attested in the Acts of the second Council of Nicaea. In Cyprus, St. Theophilus, a praetor, who was apprehended by the Arabs, and as he could not be induced either by presents or threats to deny Christ, was put to the sword.

At Antioch, the holy bishop Cyril, who was distinguished for learning and holiness.

In the territory of Auvergne, St. Meneleus, abbot.

In the monastery of Blandine, the abbot St. Vandrille, celebrated for miracles.

At Scythopolis in Palestine, St. Joseph, a count.

At Lisbon, St. Lawrence of Brindisi, confessor, superior general of the Friars Minor Capuchin of St. Francis. Illustrious by his preaching and arduous labour for the glory of God, he was canonised by Pope Leo XIII who appointed the seventh of July for his feast day.

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

Thanks be to God.

21 JULY – SAINT PRAXEDES (Virgin)

Praxedes was a daughter of the Roman senator Cornelius Pudens and his wife Servilia. She had two brothers, Novatus and Timotheus, and a sister, Pudentiana, all of whom are numbered with the saints. Praxedes was brought up in chastity and in the knowledge of the laws of God. She is said to have ministered to Christian martyrs in prison and been diligent in the collection of their relics. Assiduously attending to watching, prayer and fasting, she rested in Christ and was buried near Pudentiana in the Catacombs of Priscilla on the Via Salaria.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

On this day Pudentiana‘s angelic sister at length obtained from her Spouse release from bondage, and from the burden of exile that weighed so heavily on this last scion of a holy and illustrious stock. New races, unknown to her fathers when they laid the world at the feet of Rome, now governed the Eternal City. Nero and Domitian had been actuated by a tyrannical spirit, but the philosophical Caesars showed how absolutely they misconceived the destinies of the great city. The salvation of Rome lay in the hands of a different dynasty: a century back, Praxedes’ grandfather, more legitimate inheritor of the traditions of the Capitol than all the Emperors present or to come, hailed in his guest, Simon Bar-Jona, the ruler of the future. Host of the Prince of the Apostles was a title handed down by Pudens to his posterity: for in the time of Pius I, as in that of Saint Peter, his house was still the shelter of the Vicar of Christ. Left the sole heiress of such traditions, Praxedes, after the death of her beloved sister, converted her palaces into Churches which resounded day and night with divine praises, and where pagans hastened in crowds to be baptised. The policy of Antoninus respected the dwelling of a descendant of the Cornelii. But his adopted son Marcus Aurelius would make no such exception. An assault was made on the title of Praxedes, and many Christians were taken and put to the sword. The virgin, overpowered with grief at seeing all slain around her, and herself untouched, turned to God and besought Him that she might die. Her body was laid with those of her relatives in the cemetery of her grandmother Priscilla.

MOTHER Church is ever grateful to you, O Praxedes! You have long been in the enjoyment of your divine Spouse, and still you continue the traditions of your noble family for the benefit of the Saints on earth. When, in the eighth and ninth centuries, the martyrs, exposed to the profanations of the Lombards, were raised from their tombs and brought within the walls of the eternal City, Paschal I sought hospitality for them, where Peter had found it in the first century. What a day was that 20th of July 817, when, leaving the Catacombs, 2300 of these heroes of Christ came to seek in the title of Praxedes the repose which the barbarians had disturbed! What a tribute Rome offered you, O Virgin, on that day! Can we do better than unite our homage with that of this glorious band coming on the day of your blessed feast thus to acknowledge your benefits? Descendant of Pudens and Priscilla, give us your love of Peter, your devotedness to the Church, your zeal for the Saints of God, whether militant still on Earth or already reigning in glory.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Babylon, the holy prophet Daniel.

At Marseilles, the birthday of St. Victor, a soldier. Because he refused to serve in the army and sacrifice to idols, he was thrust into prison where he was visited by an angel, then subjected to various torments, and finally being crushed under a millstone, he ended his martyrdom. With him also suffered three soldiers, Alexander, Felician and Longinus.

At Troyes, St. Julia, virgin and martyr.

In the same place, the martyrdom of the saints Claudius, Justus, Jucundinus and five companions, in the time of the emperor Aurelian.

At Comana in Armenia, the holy bishop and martyr Zoticus,who was crowned under Severus.

At Strasburg, St. Arbogastus, a bishop, renowned for miracles.

In Syria, the holy monk John, a companion of St. Simeon.

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

Thanks be to God.