27 AUGUST – SAINT JOSEPH CALASANCTIUS (Confessor)

Joseph Calasanctius (José de Calasanz) was born at the castle of Calasanz near Peralta de la Sal, Aragón, Spain, in 1557 to Don Pedro Calasanz and Doña María Gaston. From an early age he gave signs of his future love for children and their education. When still a little child he would gather other children round him and would teach them the mysteries of faith and holy prayer. After having received a good education in the liberal arts and divinity, he went through hie theological studies at Valencia. Here he courageously overcame the seductions of a noble and powerful lady, and by a remarkable victory preserved unspotted his virginity which he had already vowed to God. He became a priest in fulfilment of a vow in 1587, and several bishops of New Castile, Aragon and Catalonia availed themselves of his assistance. He surpassed all their expectations, corrected evil living throughout the kingdom, restored ecclesiastical discipline, and was marvellously successful in putting an end to enmities and bloody factions.

But urged by heavenly vision, and after having been several times called by God, he went to Rome. Here he led a life of great austerity in fasting and watching, spending whole day and nights in heavenly contemplation, and visiting the seven churches of pilgrimages almost every night. This last custom he observed for many years. He enrolled himself in pious associations and with wonderful charity devoted himself to aiding and consoling the poor with alms and other works of mercy, especially those who were sick or imprisoned. When the plague was raging in Rome, he joined Saint Camillus de Lellis, and not content in his ardent zeal with bestowing lavish care on the sick poor, he even carried the dead to the grave on his own shoulders. But having been divinely admonished that he was called to educate children he founded the Order of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools (the Piarists), who are specially destined to devote themselves to the instruction of youth. This Order was highly approved by Popes Clement VIII, Paul V and other Roman Pontiffs, and in a wonderfully short space of time it spread through many of the kingdoms of Europe. But in this undertaking Joseph had to undergo many sufferings and labours, and he endured them all with so much constancy, that every one proclaimed him a miracle of patience and another Job.

Though burdened with the government of the whole Order, he nevertheless devoted himself to saving souls, and moreover never gave over teaching children, especially those of the poorer class. He would sweep their schools and take them to their homes himself. For fifty-two years he persevered in this work, though it called on him to practise the greatest patience and humility, and although he suffered from weak health. God rewarded him by honouring him with many miracles in the presence of his disciples, and the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him with the infant Jesus, who blessed his children while they were praying. He refused the highest dignities, but he was made illustrious by the gifts of prophecy, of reading the secrets of hearts, and of knowing what was going on in his absence. He was favoured with frequent apparitions of the citizens of Heaven, particularly of the Virgin Mother of God, whom he had loved and honoured most especially from his infancy, and whose cultus he had most strongly recommended to his disciples.

Joseph foretold the day of his death and the restoration and propagation of his Order, which was then almost destroyed. In in his ninety-second year he fell asleep in our Lord, at Rome, on the 8th of the Calends of September in 1648. A century later, his heart and tongue were found whole and incorrupt. God honoured him by many miracles after his death. Pope Benedict XIV granted him the honours of the Blessed, and Pope Clement XIII canonised him in 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“To you is the poor man left: you will be a helper to the orphan” (Psalms ix. 14). Proud Venice has already seen these words realised in her noble son Jerome Aemilian: today they indicate the sanctity of another illustrious person descended from the first princes of Navarre, but of still higher rank in the kingdom of charity. God, who waters the trees of the field as well as the cedars of Libanus, because it is He that planted them all, takes care also of the little birds that do not gather into barn: will He then forget the child who is of much more value than the birds of the air? Or will He give him corporal nourishment and neglect the soul hungering for the bread of the knowledge of salvation which strengthens the heart of man? In the sixteenth century one might have been tempted to think our heavenly Father’s granaries were empty. True, the Holy Spirit soon raised up new saints, but the reviving charity was insufficient for the number of destitute: how many poor children, especially, were without schools, deprived of the most elementary education which is indispensable to the fulfilment of their obligations, and to their nobility as children of God: and there was no one to break to them the bread of knowledge!

More fortunate than so many other countries overrun with heresy, Spain was at her apogee, enjoying the hundredfold promised to those who seek first the kingdom of God. She seemed to have become our Lord’s inexhaustible resource. A little while ago she had given Ignatius Loyola to the world. She had just enriched Heaven by the precious death of Teresa of Avila when the Holy Ghost drew once more from her abundance to add to the riches of the capital of the Christian world, and to supply the wants of the little ones in God’s Church. The descendant of the Calasanz of Petralta de la Sal was already the admired Apostle of Aragon, Catalonia and Castile, when he heard a mysterious voice speaking to his soul: “Go to Rome. Go forth from the land of your birth. Soon will appear to you, in her heavenly beauty, the companion destined for you, holy poverty, who now calls you to taste of her austere delights. Go, without knowing where I am leading you. I will make you the father of an immense family. I will show you all that you must suffer for my name’s sake.”

Forty years of blind fidelity in unconscious sanctity had prepared the elect of Heaven for his sublime vocation. “What can be greater,” asks Saint John Chrysostom, “than to direct the souls and form the characters of children? Indeed I consider him greater than any painter or sculptor who knows how to fashion the souls of the young.” Joseph understood the dignity of his mission: during the remaining fifty-two years of his life he, according to the recommendations of the holy Doctor, considered nothing mean or despicable in the service of the little ones. Nothing cost him dear if only it enabled him, by the teaching of letters, to infuse into the innumerable children who came to him, the fear of the Lord. From Saint Pantaleon, his residence, the Pious Schools soon covered the whole of Italy, spread into Sicily and Spain, and were eagerly sought by kings and people in Moravia, Bohemia, Poland and the northern countries. Eternal Wisdom associated Calasanctius to her own work of salvation on Earth. She rewarded him for his labours, as she generally does her privileged ones, by giving him “a strong conflict, that he might overcome and know that wisdom is mightier than all” (Wisdom x. 12). It is a conflict like that of Jacob at the ford of Jaboc which represents the last obstacle to the entrance into the promised land, when all the pleasures and goods of the world have been sent on before by absolute renouncement. It is a conflict by night in which nature fails and becomes lame, but it is followed by the rising of the sun, and sets the combatant at the entrance of eternal day. It is a conflict with God hand to hand, under the appearance, it is true, of a man or of an angel. But it matters little under what form God chooses to hide Himself, provided it takes nothing from His sovereign dominion. “Why do you ask my name?” said the wrestler to Jacob. Yours will be henceforth “Israel, strong against God” (Genesis xxxii.).

Our readers may consult the historians of Saint Joseph Calasanctius for the details of the trials which made him a prodigy of fortitude, as the Church calls him. Through the calumnies of false brethren the saint was deposed, and the Order reduced to the condition of a secular congregation. It was not until after his death that it was re-established, first by Alexander VII, and then by Clement IX, as a Regular Order with solemn vows. In his great work on the canonisation of Saints, Benedict XIV speaks at length on this subject, delighting in the part he bad taken in the process of the servant of God, first as consistorial advocate, then as promoter of the faith, and lastly as Cardinal giving his vote in favour of the cause.

The Lord has heard the desire of the poor, by making you the depository of His love, and putting on your lips the words He Himself was the first to utter: “Suffer the little children to come to me” (Mark x. 14). How many owe and will yet owe, their eternal happiness to you, O Joseph, because you and your sons have preserved in them the divine likeness received in baptism, man’s only title to Heaven! Be blessed for having justified the confidence Jesus placed in you by entrusting to your care those frail little beings who are the objects of His divine predilection. Be blessed for having still further corresponded to that confidence of our Lord when He suffered you, like Job, to be persecuted by Satan, and with yet more cruel surprises than those of the just Idumaean. Must not God be able to count unfailingly on those who are His? Is it not fitting that, amid the defections of this miserable world, He should be able to show His Angels what grace can do in our poor nature, and how far His adorable will can be carried out in His Saints? The reward of your sufferings, which your unwavering confidence from Mother of God came at the divinely appointed hour. O Joseph, now that the Pious Schools have been long ago re-established, bless the disciples whom even our age continues to give you. Obtain for them, and for the countless scholars they train to Christian science, the blessing of the infant Jesus. Give your spirit and your courage to all who devote their labour and their life to the education of the young. Raise us all to the level of the teaching conveyed by your heroic life.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Capua in Campania, the birthday of St. Rufus, bishop and martyr, a patrician, who was baptised with all his family by blessed Apollinaris, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter.

In the same place, the holy martyrs Rufus and Carpophorus, who suffered under Diocletian and Maximian.

At Tomis in Pontus, the holy martyrs Marcellinus, tribune, and Mannea, his wife, and his sons John, Serapion and Peter.

At Lentini in Sicily, St. Euthalia, virgin. Because she was a Christian she was put to the sword by her brother Sermilian and went to her spouse.

The same day, the martyrdom of St. Anthusa the Younger, who was made a martyr by being cast into a well for the faith of Christ.

At Bergamo, St. Narnus, who was baptised by blessed St. Barnabas, and consecrated by him first bishop of that city.

At Arles, the holy bishop Caesarius, a man of great sanctity and piety.

At Autun, St. Syagrius, bishop and confessor.

At Pavia, St. John, bishop.

At Lerida in Spain, St. Licerius, bishop.

In Thebais, St. Poemon, anchoret.

At San Severino, in the Marches of Ancona, St. Margaret, widow.

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

Thanks be to God.

26 AUGUST – SAINT ZEPHYRINUS (Pope and Martyr)

Zephyrinus, the son of Habundius, was a Roman by nationality. He succeeded Pope Saint Victor I to the See of Peter in 198 AD and ruled the Church of Rome for 18 years. Zephyrinus decreed that every cleric, deacon and priest should be ordained in the presence of all the clergy and the lay faithful. He also ruled that at a Mass celebrated by a bishop (1) there should be vessels of glass before the priests in the church and servitors to hold them, (2) that the priests should stand around the bishop and assist him at all times, other than during those parts of the Mass that belonged to the bishop alone, and (3) that only the hosts consecrated by the bishop should be distributed by the priests to the people. Zephyrinus was martyred in Rome in 217 AD under the emperor Heliogabalus and was buried in his own catacombs on the Via Appia.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Zephryrinus was the first Pontiff to be buried in the celebrated crypt where the Popes of the third century came after their combat to sleep their last sleep. The catacomb which thus succeeded the Vatican cemetery in the honour of sheltering the Vicars of Christ had been opened thirty years before by the virgin martyr Caecilia. As, when at the point of death, she had consecrated her palace into a church, so now from her tomb she caused her family burial place to pass into the hands of the Church. This gift of the Caecilii was the inauguration, in the very face of the pagan government, of common Church property officially recognised by the State. Zephyrinus entrusted the administration of the new cemetery to the person who ranked next to himself in the Roman Church, viz: the archdeacon Callixtus. The holy Pontiff witnessed the growth of heresy concerning the Unity of God and the Trinity of the Divine Persons. Without the help of the special vocabulary, which was later on to fix even the very terms of theological teaching, he knew how to silence both the Sabellians to whom the Trinity was but a name, and the precursors of Arius, who revenged themselves by reviling him.

Victor I was the Pontiff of the Pasch, and you also, Zephyrinus, his successor, were devoured by the zeal of God’s house to maintain and increase the regularity, the dignity, and the splendour of the divine worship on Earth. In Heaven the court of the Conqueror of death gained, during your pontificate, many noble members, such as Irenaeus, Perpetua and the countless martyrs who triumphed in the persecution of Septimus Severus. In the midst of dangerous snares you were the divinely assisted guardian of the truth whom our Lord had promised to His Church. Your fidelity was rewarded by the increasing advancement of the Bride of Jesus, and by the definitive establishment of her foothold on the world which she is to gain over wholly to her Spouse. We will meet you again in October, in company with Callixtus who is now your deacon, but will then, in his turn, be Vicar of the Man-God. Today give us your paternal blessing and make us ever true sons of Saint Peter.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, during the persecution of Valerian, the holy martyrs Irenaeus and Abundius, who were thrown into a sewer from which they had taken the body of blessed Concordia. Their bodies were drawn out by the priest Justin and buried in a crypt near St. Lawrence.

At Ventimigilia, a city of Liguria, St. Secundus, martyr, a distinguished man and officer in the Theban Legion.

At Bergamo in Lombardy, St. Alexander, martyr, who was one of the same legion and endured martyrdom by being beheaded for the constant confession of the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Among the Marcians, the Saints Simplicius, and his sons Constantius and Victorian, who were first tortured in different manners, and then being struck with the axe, obtained the crown of martyrdom in the time of the emperor Antoninus.

At Nicomedia, the martyrdom of St. Adrian, son of the emperor Probus. For reproaching Licinius on account of the persecution raised against Christians, he was put to death by his order. His body was buried at Argyopolis by his uncle Domitius, bishop of Byzantium.

In Spain, St. Victor, martyr, who merited the crown of martyrs by being slain by the Moors for the faith of Christ.

At Capua, St. Rufinus, bishop and confessor.

At Pistoja, St. Felix, priest and confessor.

At Lima in Peru, St. Rose of St. Mary, virgin, of the Third Order of St. Dominic. Her feast is celebrated on the thirtieth of this month.

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

Thanks be to God.

25 AUGUST – SAINT LOUIS OF FRANCE (King and Confessor)

King Louis IX of France is the saint of whom it was said that, “he united the virtues of a king to those of a hero and those of a man,” and “never has it been accorded to man to push virtue further.” Louis was born at Poissy near Paris in 1215 and succeeded his father King Louis VIII to the throne of France in 1226 under the regency of his mother, Blanche of Castile. In 1234 Louis married Marguerite of Provence and had 11 children. Deeply religious, he lived a private life more austere than most monks or other religious, spending many hours in prayer, fasting and penance. Renowned for his charity, more than 100 poor people were daily fed from his table. He ate their leftovers and personally ministered to the needs of lepers. He founded many hospitals and charitable institutions.

When he had reigned for twenty years he fell ill and conceived the idea of regaining possession of Jerusalem. On his recovery he received the great standard from the bishop of Paris and crossed the sea with a large army. In a first engagement he repulsed the Saracens, but a great number of his men being struck down by pestilence, he was conquered and made prisoner. A treaty was then made with the Saracens, and the king and his army were set at liberty. Louis spent five years in the East. He delivered many Christian captives, converted many of the infidels to the faith of Christ, and also rebuilt several Christian towns out of his own resources. Meanwhile his mother died and on this account he was obliged to return home where he devoted himself entirely to good works.

He crossed over to Africa a second time to fight with the Saracens, and had pitched his camp in sight of them when he was struck down by dysentery in 1270 and died while saying this prayer: “I will come into your house. I will worship towards your holy temple and I will confess to your name.” His body was afterwards translated to Paris. He was canonised by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297 and until their desecration during the French Revolution, his relics lay in peace in the Sainte Chappelle of Paris which was constructed during his reign.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

It was his Christian faith that made Louis IX so great a prince. “You that are the judges of the earth, think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart” (Wisdom i. 1). Eternal Wisdom, in giving this precept to kings, rejoiced with divine foreknowledge, among the lilies of France, where this great Saint was to shine with so bright a lustre.

Subject and Prince are bound to God by a common law, “for all men have one entrance into life, and the like going out” (Wisdom vii. 6). Far from being less responsible to the divine authority than his subjects, the prince is answerable for every one of them as well as for himself. The aim and object of creation is that God be glorified by the return of all creatures to their Author in the manner and measure that He wills. Therefore since God has called man to a participation in His own divine life, and has made the Earth to be to him but a place of passage, mere natural justice and the present order of things are not sufficient for him. Kings must recognise that the object of their civil sovereignty, not being the last end of all things, is, like themselves, under the direction and absolute rule of that higher end before which they are but as subjects. “Hear therefore, ye kings, and understand: a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty” (Wisdom vi. 2, 9). Thus did the divine goodness give merciful warnings under the ancient Covenant.

But not satisfied with giving repeated admonitions, Wisdom came down from her heavenly throne. Henceforth the world belongs to her by a twofold title. By the right of her divine origin, she held the principality in the brightness of the Saints before the rising of the day star: she now reigns by right of conquest over the redeemed world. Before her coming in the flesh, it was already from her that kings received their power and that equity which directs its exercise. Jesus, the Son of Man, whose Blood paid the ransom of the world, is now, by the contract of the sacred nuptials which united Him to our nature, the only source of power and of all true justice. “And note, once more, O ye kings, understand,” says the Psalmist, “receive instruction, you that judge the Earth” (Psalms ii. 10).

“It is Christ who speaks” says Saint Augustine: “Now that I am king in the name of God my Father, be not sad, as though you were thereby deprived of some good you possessed. But rather acknowledging that it is good for you to be subject to Him who gives you security in the light, serve this Lord of all with fear, and rejoice to Him” (Psalm ii.). It is the Church that continues, in the name of our ascended Lord, to give to kings this security which comes from the light: the Church who, without trespassing on the authority of princes, is nevertheless their superior, as Mother of nations, as judge of consciences, as the only guide of the human race journeying towards its last end. Let us listen to the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII speaking with the precision and power which characterise his infallible teaching:

“As there are on Earth two great societies: the one civil, whose immediate end is to procure the temporal and earthly well-being of the human race; the other religious, whose aim is to lead men to the eternal happiness for which they were created: so also God has divided the government of the world between two powers. Each of these is supreme in its kind. Each is bounded by definite limits drawn in conformity with its nature and its peculiar end. Jesus Christ, the founder of the Church, willed that they should be distinct from one another, and that both should be free from trammels in the accomplishment of their respective missions . Yet with this provision, that in those matters which appertain to the jurisdiction and judgement of both, though on different grounds, the power which is concerned with temporal interests, must depend, as is fitting, on that power which watches over eternal interests. Finally, both being subject to the Eternal and to the Natural Law, they must in such a manner mutually agree in what concerns the order and government of each, as to form a relationship comparable to the union of soul and body in man.

In the sphere of eternal interests, to which no one may be indifferent, princes are bound to hold, not only themselves but their people also, in subjection to God and to His Church. For since men united by the bonds of a common society depend on God no less than individuals, associations, whether political or private, cannot, without crime, behave as if God did not exist, nor put away religion as something foreign to them, nor dispense themselves from observing, in that religion, the rules according to which God has declared that He wills to be honoured. Consequently, the heads of the State are bound, as such, to keep holy the name of God, make it one of their principal duties to protect religion by the authority of the laws, and not command or ordain anything contrary to its integrity.”

Let us now return to Saint Augustine’s explanation of the text of the Psalm: “How do kings serve the the Lord with fear, except by forbidding and punishing with a religious severity all acts contrary to the commands of the Lord! In his twofold character as man and as prince, the king must serve God: as man, he serves Him by the fidelity of his life. As king, by framing or maintaining laws which command good and forbid evil. He must act like Ezechias and Josias, destroying the temples of the false gods and the high places that had been constructed contrary to the command of the Lord; like the king of Niniveh obliging his city to appease the Lord; like Darius, giving up the idol to Daniel to be broken, and casting Daniel’s enemies to the lions;. like Nabuchodonosor forbidding blasphemy throughout his kingdom by a terrible law. It is thus that kings serve the Lord as kings, viz: when they do in His service those things which only kings can do.” In all this teaching we are not losing sight of today’s feast, for we may say of Louis IX as an epitome of his life: He made a Covenant before the Lord to walk after Him and keep His commandments and cause them to be kept by all. So God was his end, faith was his guide: herein lies the whole secret of his government as well as of his sanctity. As a Christian he was a servant of Christ, as a prince he was Christ’s lieutenant. The aspirations of the Christian and those of the prince did not divide his soul. This unity was his strength, as it is now his glory. He now reigns in Heaven with Christ, who alone reigned in him and by him on Earth. “If then your delight be in thrones and sceptres, O ye kings of the people, love wisdom, that you may reign forever” (Wisdom vi. 22).

Louis was anointed king at Rheims on the first Sunday of Advent 1226, and he laid to heart for his whole life the words of that day’s Introit : To you, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in you, O my God, I put my trust.” He was only twelve years old, but our Lord had given him the surest safeguard of his youth in the person of his mother, that noble daughter of Spain whose coming into France, says William de Nangis, was the arrival of all good things. The premature death of her husband Louis VIII left Blanche of Castille to cope with a most formidable conspiracy. The great Vassals whose power had been reduced during the preceding reigns promised themselves to profit of the minority of the new prince to regain the rights they had enjoyed under the ancient feudal system, to the detriment of the unity of government. In order to remove this mother who stood up single-handed between the weakness of the heir to the throne and their ambition, the barons, everywhere in revolt, joined hands with the Albigensian heretics and made an alliance with the son of John Lackland, Henry III, who was endeavouring to recover the possessions in France lost by his father in punishment for the murder of Prince Arthur. Strong in her son’s right and in the protection of Pope Gregory IX, Blanche held out and she, whom the traitors to their country called the foreigner in order to palliate their crime, saved France by her prudence and her brave firmness.

After nine years of regency, she handed over the nation to its king, more united and more powerful than ever since the days of Charlemagne. We cannot here give the history of an entire reign, but honour to whom honour is due: Louis, in order to become the glory of Heaven and Earth on this day, had but to walk in the footsteps of Blanche, the son had but to remember the precepts of his mother. There was a graceful simplicity in our Saint’s life which enhanced its greatness and heroism. One would have said he did not experience the difficulty that others feel, though far removed from the throne, in fulfilling those words of our Lord: “Unless you become as little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew xviii. 3). Yet who was greater than this humble king, making more account of his Baptism at Poissy than of his anointing at Rheims, saying his hours, fasting, scourging himself like his friends the Friars Preachers and Minors, ever treating with respect those whom he regarded as God’s privileged ones, priests, religious, the suffering and the poor?

The great men of our days may smile at him for being more grieved at losing his Breviary than at being taken captive by the Saracens. But how have they behaved in the like extremity? Never was the enemy heard to say of any of them: “You are our captive, and one would say we were rather your prisoners.” They did not check the fierce greed and bloodthirstiness of their gaolers, nor dictate terms of peace as proudly as if they had been the conquerors. The country, brought into peril by them, has not come out of the trial more glorious. It is peculiar to the admirable reign of Saint Louis that disasters made him not only a hero but a saint, and that France gained for centuries in the East, where her king had been captive, a greater renown than any victory could have won for her.

The humility of holy kings is not forgetfulness of the great office they fulfil in God’s name. Their abnegation could not consist in giving up rights which are also duties, any more than charity could cast out justice, or love of peace could oppose the virtues of the warrior. Saint Louis, without an army, felt himself superior as a Christian to the victorious infidel, and treated him accordingly. Moreover the West discovered very early, and more and more as his sanctity increased with his years, that this king, who spent his nights in prayer and his days in serving the poor, was not the man to yield to anyone the prerogatives of the crown. “There is but one king in France,” said the judge of Vincennes rescinding a sentence of Charles of Anjou. And the barons at the castle of Bellême, and the English at Taillebourg, were already aware of it. So was Frederick II who, threatening to crush the Church and seeking aid from the French, received this answer: “The kingdom of France is not so weak as to suffer itself to be driven by your spurs.”

Louis’s death was like his life, simple and great. God called him to Himself in the midst of sorrowful and critical circumstances, far from his own country, in that African land where he had before suffered so much. These trials were sanctifying thorns, reminding the prince of his most cherished jewel, the sacred crown of thorns, which he had added to the treasures of France. Moved by the hope of converting the king of Tunis to the Christian faith, it was rather as an apostle than a soldier that he had landed on that shore where his last struggle awaited him. “I challenge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his lieutenant Louis king of France:” such was the sublime provocation hurled against the infidel city and it was worthy of the close of such a life. Six centuries later Tunis was to see the sons of those same Franks unwittingly following up the challenge of the saintly king at the invitation of all the holy ones resting in the now Christian land of ancient Carthage. The Christian army, victorious in every battle, was decimated by a terrible plague.

Surrounded by the dead and dying, and himself attacked with the contagion, Louis called to him his eldest son who was to succeed him as Philip III, and gave him his last instructions:

“Dear son, the first thing I admonish you is, that you set your heart to love God, for without that nothing else is of any worth. Beware of doing what displeases God, that is to say mortal sin. Yes, rather ought you to suffer all manner of torments. If God send you adversity, receive it in patience and give thanks for it to our Lord, and think that you have done Him ill service. If He gives you prosperity, thank Him humbly for the same and be not the worse, either by pride or in any other manner, for that very thing that ought to make you better; for we must not use God’s gifts against Himself. Have a kind and pitiful heart to the poor and the unfortunate, and comfort and assist them as much as you can. Keep up the good customs of your kingdom, and put down all bad ones. Love all that is good, and hate all that is evil of any sort. Suffer no ill word about God or our Lady or the Saints to be spoken in your presence, that you do not immediately punish. In the administering of justice be loyal to you subjects, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left. But help the right and take the part of the poor until the whole truth be cleared up. Honour and love all ecclesiastical persons and take care that they be not deprived of the gifts and alms that your predecessors may have given them. Dear son, I admonish you that you be ever devoted to the Church of Rome and to the sovereign Bishop our father, that is the Pope, and that you bear him reverence and honour as you ought to do to your spiritual father. Exert yourself that every vile sin be abolished from your land. Especially to the best of your power put down all wicked oaths and heresy. Fair son, I give you all the blessings that a good father can give to a son. May the blessed Trinity and all the Saints guard you and protect you from all evils. May God give you grace to do His will always, and may He be honoured by you, and may you and I after this mortal life be together in His company and praise Him without end.”

“When the good king,” continues Joinville, “had instructed his son my lord Philip, his illness began to increase greatly. He asked for the Sacraments of Holy Church, and received them in a sound mind and right understanding, as was quite evident. For when they were anointing him and saying the seven Psalms, he took his own part in reciting. I have heard my lord the Count d’Alençon his son relate that when he drew near to death he called the Saints to aid and succour him, and in particular my lord Saint James, saying his prayer which begins: ‘Esto Domine,’ that is to say: ‘O God, be the sanctifier and guardian of your people.’ Then he called to his aid my lord Saint Denis of France, saying his prayer, which is as much as to say: ‘Sire God, grant that we may despise the prosperity of this world, and may fear no adversity!’ And I heard from my lord d’Alençon (whom God absolve), that his father next invoked Madame Saint. Genevieve. After this the holy king had himself laid on a bed strewn with ashes, and placing his hands upon his breast and looking towards Heaven, he gave up his soul to his Creator at the same hour in which the Son of God died on the Cross for the salvation of the world.”

Jerusalem the true Sion, at length opens her gates to you, O Louis, who for her sake gave up your treasures and your life. From the eternal throne on which the Son of God gives you to share His own honours and power, ever promote the kingdom of God on Earth. Be zealous for the faith. Be a strong arm to our Mother the Church. Thanks to you, the infidel East, though it adores not Christ, at least respects His adorers, having but one name for Christian and Frank. For this reason our present rulers would remain protectors of Christianity in those lands, while they persecute it at home, a contradiction no less fatal to the country than opposed to its traditions of liberty, and its reputation for honour and honesty. How can they be said to know our traditions and our history, or to understand the national interests, who misunderstands the God of Clovis, of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis? In that Egypt, the scene of your labours, what has now become of the patrimony of glorious influence which had been held by thy nation for centuries?

Your descendants are no longer here to defend us against these men who use the country for their own purposes and exile those who have been the makers of it. But how terrible are the judgements of the Lord! You yourself has said: “I would rather a stranger than my own son should rule my people and kingdom, if my son is to rule amiss.” Thirty years after the Crusade of Tunis, an unworthy prince Philip IV, your second successor, outraged the Vicar of Christ. Immediately he was rejected by Heaven and his direct male line became extinct. The withered bough was replaced by another branch, though still from the same root. But the nation had to suffer for its kings, and to expiate the crime of Anagni: the judgement of God allowed a terrible war to be brought about through the political indiscretion of the same Philip the Fair, a prince as discreditable to the State as to the Church and to his own family. Then for a hundred years the country seemed to be on the brink of destruction, until by a wonderful protection of God over the land, the Maid of Orleans, Joan the Venerable, rescued the lily of France from the clutches of the English leopard.

Other faults, alas, were to compromise still further, and then, twice over, to wither up or break the branches of the royal tree. Long did your personal merits outweigh before God the scandalous immorality which our princes had made their family mark, their odious privilege: a shame, which was transmitted by the expiring Valois to the Bourbons, which had to be expiated, but not effaced, by the blood of the just Louis XVI and which so many illustrious exiles are still expiating in lowliness and sorrow in a foreign land. Would that you could at least recognise these your remaining sons by their imitation of your virtues! For it is only by striving to win back this spiritual inheritance that they can hope that God will one day restore them the other. For God, who commands us to obey at all times the power actually established, is ever the master of nations and the unchangeable disposer of their changeable destinies. Then every one of your descendants, taught by a sad experience, will be bound to remember, O Louis, your last recommendation: “Exert yourself that every sin be abolished from your land, especially, to the best of your power, put down all wicked oaths and heresy.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, in the time of the emperor Commodus, the holy martyrs Eusebius, Pontian, Vincent and Peregrinus, who were first racked, distended by ropes, then beaten with rods and burned on their sides. As they continued faithfully to praise Christ, they were scourged with leaded whips until they expired.

Also at Rome, St. Genesius, martyr, who embraced the profession of actor while he was yet a pagan. One day he was deriding the Christian mysteries in the theatre in the presence of the emperor Diocletian, but by the inspiration of God he was suddenly converted to the faith and baptised. By the command of the emperor, he was forthwith most cruelly beaten with rods, then racked, and a long time lacerated with iron hooks, and burned with fire-brands. As he remained firm in the faith of Christ, and said: “There is no king besides Christ. Should you kill me a thousand times, you will not be able to take Him from my lips or my heart,” he was beheaded, and thus merited the palm of martyrdom.

At Italica in Spain, St. Gerontius, a bishop, who preached the Gospel in that country in apostolic times, and after many labours died in prison.

At Arles in France, another blessed Genesius, who, filling the office of notary and refusing to record the impious edicts by which Christians were commanded to be punished, threw away his tablets publicly and declared himself a Christian. He was seized and beheaded, and thus attained to the glory of martyrdom through baptism in his blood.

In Syria, St. Julian, martyr.

At Tarragona, St. Maginus, martyr.

At Constantinople, St. Mennas, bishop.

At Utrecht, St. Gregory, bishop.

At Naples, St. Patricia, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

24 AUGUST – SAINT BARTHOLOMEW (Apostle)

Bartholomew was one of Christ’s twelve apostles, possibly the same person as Nathaniel, since Bartholomew is not a real name but means “son of Talmai” (or Tholmai). According to tradition, after the Ascension he preached Saint Matthew’s Gospel in India and Greater Armenia. After converting King Polyminus and his wife to Christianity, the king’s brother Astyages ordered the apostle to be flayed alive and beheaded. In about 71 AD Bartholomew was executed and buried in Albana, then the principal city of Armenia. His relics were transferred first to the island of Lipara, then to Beneventum and finally to the Basilica on the Tibertine Island in Rome. Saint Bartholomew is the patron of plasterers.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Witness of the Son of God, one of the princes who announced His glory to the nations, lights up this day with his apostolic flame. While his brethren of the sacred College followed the human race into all the lands whither the migration of nations had led it, Bartholomew appeared as the herald of the Lord, at the very starting point, the mountains of Armenia whence the sons of Noah spread over the Earth. There bad the figurative Ark rested. Humanity, everywhere else a wanderer, was there seated in stillness, remembering the dove with its olive branch and awaiting the consummation of the alliance signified by the rainbow which had there for the first time glittered in the clouds. Behold, blessed tidings awake in those valleys the echoes of ancient traditions: tidings of peace, making the universal deluge of sin subside before the Wood of salvation. The serenity announced by the dove of old, was now far outdone. Love was to take the place of punishment. The ambassador of Heaven showed God to the sons of Adam as the most beautiful of their own brethren. The noble heights whence formerly flowed the rivers of Paradise, were about to see the renewal of the covenant annulled in Eden, and the celebration, amid the joy of Heaven and Earth, of the divine nuptials so long expected, the union of the Word with regenerated humanity.

Personally, what was this Apostle whose ministry borrowed such solemnity from the scene of his apostolic labours? Under the name, or surname of Bartholomew (son of Tholmai) the only mark of recognition given him by the first three Gospels, are we to see, as many have thought, that Nathaniel, whose presentation to Jesus by Philip forms so sweet a scene in Saint John’s Gospel? (John i. 45‒51). A man full of uprightness, innocence and simplicity who was worthy to have had the dove for his precursor, and for whom the Man-God had choice graces and caresses from the very beginning.

Be this as it may, the lot which fell to our Saint among the twelve points to the special confidence of the divine Heart: the heroism of the terrible martyrdom which sealed his apostolate reveals his fidelity. The dignity preserved by the nation he grafted on Christ in all the countries where it has been transplanted, witnesses to the excellence of the sap first infused into its branches. When two centuries and a half later Gregory the Illuminator so successfully cultivated the soil of Armenia, he did but quicken the seed sown by the Apostle, which the trials never wanting to that generous land, had retarded for a time, but could not stifle.

How strangely sad, that evil men, nurtured in the turmoil of endless invasions, should have been able to rouse and perpetuate a mistrust of Rome among a race whom wars and tortures and dispersion could not tear from the love of Christ our Saviour! Yes, thanks be to God!The movement towards return, more than once begun and then abandoned, seems now to be steadily advancing. The chosen sons of this illustrious nation are labouring perseveringly for so desirable a union, by dispelling the the prejudices of her people, by revealing to our lands the treasure of her literature so truly Christian, and the magnificences of her liturgy, and above all by praying and devoting themselves to the monastic state under the standard of the Father of Western Monks. Together with these holders of the true national tradition, let us pray to Bartholomew their Apostle: to the disciple Thaddeus who also shared in the first evangelisation: to Ripsima the heroic virgin, who from the Roman territory led her thirty-five companions to the conquest of a new land, and to all the martyrs whose blood cemented the building upon the only foundation set by our Lord. Like these great forerunners, may the leader of the second apostolate, Gregory the Illuminator, who wished to see Peter in the person of Saint Sylvester, and receive the blessing of the Roman Pontiff, may the holy kings the patriarchs and doctors of Armenia, become once more her chosen guides, and lead her back entirely and irrevocably to the one Fold of the one Shepherd!

We learn from Eusebius and Saint Jerome that before going to Armenia, his final destination, Saint Bartholomew evangelised the Indies where Pantaenus a century later found a copy of Saint Matthew’s Gospel in Hebrew characters, left there by him. Saint Denis records a profound saying of the glorious Apostle, which he thus quotes and comments: “The blessed Bartholomew says of Theology that it is at once abundant and succinct; of the Gospel, that it is vast in extent and at the same time concise, thus excellently giving us to understand that the beneficent Cause of all beings reveals or manifests Himself by many words or by few, or even without any words at all, as being beyond and above all language or thought. For He is above all by His superior essence, and they alone reach Him in his truth, without the veils with which He surrounds Himself, who, passing beyond matter and spirit and rising above the summit of the holiest heights, leave behind them all reflections and echoes of God, all the language of Heaven, to enter into the darkness in which He dwells, as the Scripture says, who is above all.”

The city of Rome celebrates the feast of Saint Bartholomew tomorrow, as do also the Greeks who commemorate on the 26th of August a translation of the Apostle’s relics. It is owing, in fact, to the various translations of his holy body and to the difficulty of ascertaining the date of his martyrdom that different days have been adopted for his feast by different churches, both in the East and in the West. The 24th of this month, consecrated by the use of most of the Latin churches, is the day assigned in the most ancient martyrologies, including that of Saint Jerome. In the 13th century, Innocent III, having been consulted as to the divergence, answered that local custom was to be observed.

* * * * *

ON this day of your feast, O holy Apostle, the Church prays for grace to love what you believed and to preach what you taught. Not that the Bride of the Son of God could ever fail either in faith or love, but she knows only too well that though her Head is ever in the light, and her heart ever united to the Spouse in the Holy Spirit who sanctifies her, nevertheless, her several members, the particular churches of which she is composed, may detach themselves from their centre of life and wander away in darkness. O you who chose our West as the place of your rest, you whose precious relics Rome glories in possessing, bring back to Peter the nations you evangelised. Fulfil the now reviving hopes of universal union. Second the efforts made by the Vicar of the Man-God to gather again under the shepherd’s crook those scattered flock whose pastures have become parched by schism. May your own Armenia be the first to complete a return which she began long ago: may she trust the Mother-Church and no more follow the sowers of discord. All being reunited, may we together enjoy the treasures of our concordant traditions, and go to God, even at the cost of being despoiled of all things, by the course so grand and yet so simple taught us by your example and by your sublime theology.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Carthage, three hundred holy martyrs in the time of Valerian and Gallienus. Among other torments inflicted on them, a pit filled with burning lime was prepared by order of the governor, who, live coals with incense being brought to him, said to the confessors: “Choose one of these two things: to offer incense to Jupiter on these coals, or to cast yourselves into the lime.” Armed with faith, and confessing Christ to be the Son of God, they quickly precipitated themselves into the pit and amid the vapours of the lime were reduced to dust. From this circumstance this blessed troop obtained the appellation of White Mass.

At Nepi, St. Ptolemy, bishop, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter. Being sent by him to preach the Gospel in Tuscany, he died a glorious martyr of Christ in the city of Nepi.

In the same place, St. Romanus, bishop of that city, who was the disciple of St. Ptolemy and his companion in martyrdom.

At Ostia, St. Aurea, virgin and martyr, who was plunged into the sea with a stone tied to her neck. Her body, being cast on the shore, was buried by blessed Nonnus.

In Isauria, St. Tatio, martyr, who received the crown of martyrdom by being beheaded in the persecution of Domitian under the governor Urbanus.

The same day, St. Eutychius, a disciple of the blessed Evangelist St. John. He preached the Gospel in many countries, was subjected to imprisonment, to stripes and fire, and finally he rested in peace.

Also St. George Limniota, monk. Because he reprehended the impious emperor Leo for breaking holy images and burning the relics of the saints, he had his hands cut off and his head burned by order of the tyrant, and went to our Lord to receive the recompense of a martyr.

At Rouen, St. Owen, bishop and confessor.

At Nevers, St. Patrick, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

23 AUGUST – SAINT PHILIP BENIZI (Confessor)

Philip Benizi de Damiani was born in Florence to a noble family. He was born on the feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1233, on the very day that the Blessed Virgin Mary first appeared to the Seven Founders of the Order of the Servants of Mary (the Servites). From his very cradle he gave signs of his future sanctity. When he was just five months old he received the power of speech by a miracle, and exhorted his mother to bestow an alms on the Servants of the Mother of God. As a youth, he pursued his studies at Paris where he was remarkable for his ardent piety, and kindled in many hearts a longing for our heavenly fatherland. After his return home and hearing the words of the Epistle at Mass on the Thursday after Easter, “Draw near and join yourself to this chariot,” he decided to embrace the religious life. In 1253 he made his religious profession as a member of the newly-founded Order of the Servites, He therefore retired into a cave on Mount Senario, and there led an austere and penitential life, sweetened by meditation on the sufferings of our Lord. Afterwards he travelled over nearly all Europe and great part of Asia, preaching the Gospel and instituting everywhere the Sodality of the Seven Dolours of the Mother of God, while he propagated his Order by the wonderful example of his virtues.

Philip was consumed with love of God and zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith. In spite of his refusal and resistance he was chosen to became fifth Father-General of the Order in 1267. He sent some of his brethren, to preach the Gospel in Scythia, while he himself journeyed from city to city of Italy repressing civil dissensions, and recalling many people to the obedience of the Roman Pontiff. His unremitting zeal for the salvation of souls won the most abandoned sinners from the depths of vice to a life of penance and to the true love of Jesus Christ. He was very much given to prayer and was often seen rapt in ecstasy. He loved and honoured holy virginity, and preserved it unspotted to the end of his life by means of the greatest voluntary austerities. He was remarkable for his love and pity for the poor. On one occasion when a poor leper begged an alms of him at Camegliano a village near Sienna, he gave him his own garment, which the beggar had no sooner put on than his leprosy was cleansed. The fame of this miracle having spread far and wide, some of the Cardinals who were assembled at Viterbo for the election of a successor to Pope Clement IV, then lately dead, thought of choosing Philip as they were aware of his heavenly prudence. On learning this, the man of God, fearing lest he should be forced to take upon himself the pastoral office, hid himself at Montamiata until after the election of Pope Gregory X. By his prayers he obtained for the baths of that place, which still bear his name, the virtue of healing the sick.

Philip died in 1285 at the age of 51, a most holy death at Todi while in the act of kissing the image of his crucified Lord, which he used to call his book. The blind and lame were healed at his tomb, and the dead were brought back to life. He was beatified by Pope Innocent X in 1645 and was canonised by Pope Clement X in 1671.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Our Lady is now reigning in Heaven. Her triumph over death cost her no labour, and yet it was through suffering that she like Jesus entered into her glory. We too cannot attain eternal happiness otherwise than did the Son and the Mother. Let us keep in mind the sweet joys we have been tasting during the past week. But let us not forget that our own journey to Heaven is not yet completed. “Why stand ye looking up into heaven?” said the Angels to the disciples on Ascension day, in the name of the Lord, who had gone up in a cloud. For the disciples, who had for an instant beheld the threshold of Heaven, could not resign themselves to turn their eyes once more down to this valley of exile. Mary, in her turn sends us a message today from the bright land to which we are to follow her, and where we will surround her after having in the sorrows of exile merited to form her court: without distracting us from her, the Apostle of her dolours, Philip Benizi, reminds us of our true condition as strangers and pilgrims on Earth.

“Combats without, fears within” (2 Corinthians vii. 5): such is for the most part was Philip’s life, as it was also the history of his native city Florence, of Italy too, and indeed of the whole Christian world in the 18th century. At the time of his birth, the city of flowers seemed a new Eden for the blossoms of sanctity that flourished there. Nevertheless it was a prey to bloody factions, to the assaults of heresy, and to the extremity of every misery. Never is Hell so near us as when Heaven manifests itself with greatest intensity. This was clearly seen in that age when the serpent’s head came in closest contact with the heel of the Woman. The old enemy, by creating new sects, had shaken the faith in the very centre of the provinces surrounding the Eternal City. While in the east Islam was driving back the last crusaders, in the West the Papacy was struggling with the empire which Frederick II had made as a fief of Satan. Throughout Christendom social union was undone, faith had grown weak, and love cold. But the old enemy was soon to discover the power of the reaction Heaven was preparing for the relief of the aged world. Then it was that our Lady presented to her angered Son Dominic and Francis, that, by uniting science with self-abnegation, they might counterbalance the ignorance and luxury of the world. Then too, Philip Benizi, the Servite of the Mother of God, received from her the mission of preaching through Italy, France and Germany the unspeakable sufferings by which she became the co-redemptress of the human race.

“Philip, draw near, and join yourself to this chariot” (Acts viii. 29). When the world was smiling on your youth and offering you renown and pleasure, you received this invitation from Mary. She was seated in a golden chariot which signified the religious life, a mourning mantle wrapped her round, a dove was fluttering about her head, a lion and a lamb were drawing her chariot over precipices from whose depths were heard the groans of Hell. It was a prophetic vision: you were to traverse the Earth accompanied by the Mother of Sorrows, and this world which Hell had already everywhere undermined, was to have no dangers for you: for gentleness and strength were to be your guides, and simplicity your inspirer: “Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the land” (Matthew v. 4).

But this gentle virtue was to avail you chiefly against Heaven itself: Heaven, which wrestles with the mighty, and which had in store for you the terrible trial of an utter abandonment, such as had made even the God-Man tremble. After years of prayer and labour, and heroic devotedness, for your reward you were apparently rejected by God and disowned by the Church, while imminent ruin threatened all those whom Mary had confided to you. In spite of her promises, the existence of your sons the Servites was assailed by no less an authority than that of two General Councils, whose resolutions the Vicar of Christ had determined to confirm. Our Lady gave you to drink of the chalice of her sufferings. You didst not live to see the triumph of a cause which was hers as well as yours. But the ancient patriarchs saluted from afar the accomplishment of the promises, so death could not shake your calm and resigned confidence.

You left your daughter Juliana Falconieri to obtain by her prayers before the face of the Lord what you could not gain from the powers of this world. The highest power on Earth was once all but laid at your feet. The Church, remembering the humility with which you fled from the tiara, begs you to obtain for us that we may despise the prosperity of the world and seek heavenly goods alone: deign to hear her prayer. But the Faithful have not forgotten that you were a physician of the body before becoming a healer of souls. They have great confidence in the water and bread blessed by your sons on this feast in memory of the miraculous favours granted to their father: graciously regard the faith of the people, and reward the special honour paid to you by Christian physicians. Now that the mysterious chariot shown you at the beginning has become the triumphal car on which you accompanied our Lady in her entrance into Heaven, teach us so to condole, like you, with her sorrows, that we may deserve to be partakers with you in her eternal glory.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The vigil of St. Bartholomew, Apostle.

At Antioch, the birthday of the holy martyrs Restitutus, Donatus, Valerian and Fructuosa, with twelve others, who were crowned after having distinguished themselves by a glorious confession.

At Ostia, the holy martyrs Quiriacus, bishop, Maximus, priest, Archelaus, deacon, and their companions, who suffered under the prefect Ulpian in the time of Alexander.

At Ægaea in Cilicia, the holy martyrs Claudius, Asterius, and Neon, brothers, who were accused of being Christians by their step-mother, under the emperor Diocletian and the governor Lysias, and after enduring bitter torments, were fastened to a cross, and thus conquered and triumphed with Christ. After them suffered Donvina and Theonilla.

At Rheims in France, the birthday of the Saints Timothy and Apollinaris, who merited to enter the heavenly kingdom by consummating their martyrdom in that city.

At Lyons, the holy martyrs Minervus, and Eleazar with his eight sons.

Also St. Luppus, martyr, who, though a slave, enjoyed the liberty of Christ, and was likewise deemed worthy of the crown of martyrdom.

At Jerusalem, St. Zaccheus, bishop, who governed the church of that city the fourth after the blessed Apostle St. James.

At Alexandria, St. Theonas, bishop and confessor.

At Utic, in Africa, blessed Victor, bishop.

At Autun, St. Flavian, bishop.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Sidonius, a bishop distinguished for learning and sanctity.

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

Thanks be to God.

23 AUGUST – THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Dominical series, formerly counted from the feast of Saint Peter or the Apostles, never went beyond this Sunday. The feast of Saint Laurence gave its name to those which follow, though that name began with even the ninth Sunday for the years when Easter was nearest the Spring equinox. When, on the contrary, that Solemnity was kept at its almost latest date, the weeks began from today to be counted as the Weeks of the seventh month (September). The Ember Days of the Autumn quarter sometimes occur even this week, while in other years they may be as late as the eighteenth. We will speak of them when we come to the Seventeenth Sunday, for it is in the week following that that the Roman Missal inserts them. In the Western Church the Thirteenth Sunday takes its name from the Gospel of the Ten Lepers which is read in the Mass: the Greeks, who count it as the Thirteenth of Saint Matthew, read on it the parable of the vineyard, whose labourers, though called at different hours of the day, all receive the same pay (Matthew xx.).

Now that she is in possession of the promises so long waited for by the world — the Church loves to repeat the words with which the just men of the Old Law used to express their sentiments. Those just men were living during the gloomy period when the human race was seated in the shadow of death. We are under incomparably happier circumstances. We are blessed with graces in abundance. Eternal Wisdom has spared us the trials our forefathers had to contend with by giving us to live in the period which has been enriched by all the mysteries of salvation being fulfilled. There is a danger, however, and our Mother the Church does her utmost to avert us from falling into it. It is the danger of forgetting all these blessings of ours. Ingratitude is the necessary outcome of forgetfulness, and today’s Gospel justly condemns it. On this account, the Epistle remind us of the time when man had nothing to cheer him but hope: a promise had, indeed, been made to him of a sublime covenant which was, at some distant future, to be realised. But, meanwhile, he was very poor, was a prey to the wiles of Satan, his cause was to be tried by divine justice, and yet he prayed for loving mercy.

Epistle – Galatian iii. 16‒22

Brethren, to Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He said not, And to his seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ. Now this I say, that the testament which was confirmed by God, the law which was made after four hundred and thirty years does not dis-annul to make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Why, then, was the law? It was set because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom He made the promise: being ordained by Angels in the hands of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one: but God is one. Was the law, then, against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could give life, verily justice should have been by the law. But the scriptures has concluded all under sin that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Look up to heaven, and number the stars, if you can! So will your seed be! (Genesis xv. 5) Abraham was almost 100 years old (Romans iv. 19) and Sarah’s barrenness deprived him of all natural hope of posterity when these words were spoken to him by God. Abraham, nevertheless, believed God, says the Scripture, “and it was reputed to him unto justice” (Genesis xv. 6). And when later on that same faith (Hebrews xi. 17‒19) would have led him to sacrifice on the mount that son of the promise, his one only hope, God renewed his promise and added: “In your seed will all the nations of the Earth be blessed” (Genesis xii. 18).

It is now that the promise is fulfilled. The event justifies Abraham’s faith. He believed against all hope, trusting to that God who “quickens the dead and calls those things that are not, as those that are and” (Romans iv. 17, 18) according to the expression of John the Baptist, from the very stones of the Gentile world there rise up in all places children to Abraham (Matthew iii. 9). His faith, firm and at the same time so simple, gave to God the glory (Romans iv. 20) which He looks for from His creatures. Man can add nothing to the divine perfections, but — agreeably to God’s own words — though he sees them not directly here below, he acknowledges those perfections by adoring and loving them. He makes his faith tell upon his whole life and this use which he freely makes of his faculties, this voluntary devotedness of an intelligent being, magnifies God by adding to His extrinsic glory.

Following in Abraham’s steps (Romans iv. 12) there have come those multitudes born for that Heaven of faith which he showed to the whole Earth. They live by faith (Romans i. 17) and thereby in all their acts they give to God the homage of confession and praise through His Son Christ Jesus. And like Abraham they receive in return a blessing, a benediction, of an ever increasing justice (Romans iv. 23, 24; Galatians iii. 9). The magnificent development of the Church which gives this new posterity to Abraham is greater and more visible since the fall of Israel. In countries the remotest, in the midst of cities that once were all pagan, we see crowds of men, women and children imitating Abraham (Genesis xii. 1): that is, at Heaven’s call, leaving, if not their country, at least everything that once made Earth dear to them: and like him, trusting in the fidelity and power of God to fulfil His promises (Romans iv. 20, 21), they live as strangers amidst their neighbours, yea, and in their very homes, using this world as though they did not use it (1 Corinthians vii. 31). In the tumult of cities as in the desert, in the midst of the vain pleasures of the world, whose fashion and figure passes away (1 Corinthians viii. 31) — they have no other thought than that of the unseen realities (Hebrews xi. 1): no other care than that of pleasing God (1 Corinthians vii. 32). They take to themselves the word that was spoken to their father: “Walk before me and be perfect!” (Genesis xvii. 1) and in truth it was to all of them that it was spoken. It was the condition in the alliance concluded by God with those His faithful servants of all ages in the person of the grand Patriarch who was not only their progenitor, but their model too. And God responds also to their faith, either by private manifestations or by the still surer voice of His Scriptures (2 Peter i. 19), saying: “Fear not! I am your protector and your reward exceeding great! (Genesis xv. 1).

Truly then the benediction of Abraham has been poured forth on the Gentiles (Galatians iii. 18). Christ Jesus, the true Son of the promise, the only seed of salvation, has by faith in His Resurrection (Romans iv. 24) assembled from every nation (Galatians iii. 28) them that are of goodwill (Luke ii. 14), making them all one in Him, making them, like Himself, children of Abraham (Galatians iii. 29), and what is better still, children of God (Galatians iv. 5‒7). For the benediction that was promised at the beginning of the alliance was the Holy Ghost Himself (Galatians iii. 14), the spirit of adoption of children that came down into our hearts to make us all heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ (Romans viii. 15‒17). O mighty power of Faith, which breaks down the former walls of division, unites nations together (Ephesians ii. 14‒18) and substitutes the love and freedom of children of the Most High for the law of bondage and fear (Romans viii. 2)!

And yet, grand as was this spectacle of the Gentiles becoming incorporated into the chosen race and being made sharers in Christ of the holy promises (Ephesians iii. 6) — it did not please all people. The carnal Jew who boasts of having Abraham for his father though he cares little about imitating his works (John viii. 39) — the Circumcised who vaunts the bearing in his flesh the sign of a Faith which dwells not in his heart (Romans iv. 11) — these men who have rejected Christ now reject His members and would fain destroy His Church or at least trammel it. They are enraged at seeing crowding in, from every portion of the globe (Luke xiii. 29), that immense concourse which their vile jealousy has vainly sought to keep back. While their wounded pride kept them from going in (Luke xv. 28), the Gentiles were sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the Prophets at the banquet of God’s kingdom (Luke xiii. 28): the last became the first (Luke xiii. 30). Even to the end of time Israel — who, by his own obstinacy, has forfeited his ancient glory — will continue to be the enemy of this spiritual posterity of Abraham which has supplanted him (Genesis xxvii. 36), but his persecutions against the children of the promise and of the lawful Bride will but result in showing that he is, as Saint Paul says, the son of Agar, the son of the bond-woman who, together with her child, is excluded from the inheritance and kingdom (Galatians iv. 22‒31).

He prefers to refuse the liberty offered him by the Lord rather than acknowledge the definitive abrogation his now dead Law. Be it so. His hatred will not induce the children of the Church (who are prefigured by Sarah the free-woman) to reject the grace of their God for the sake of pleasing their enemy. It will not induce them to abandon the justice of Faith and the riches of the Spirit, and the life in Christ, in order to go back again to the yoke of slavery (Galatians v. 1) which, let the Jew do what he will, was broken into pieces by the Cross he himself set up on Calvary (Galatians ii. 19‒21). Up to the last the true Jerusalem, the free city, our mother — she that was once the barren woman but now is so glad a Bride with her children around her — yes, she will meet the superannuated, yet ever busy, pretensions of the Synagogue by reading to her assembled sons and daughters the Epistle we are having today. Up to the last, Saint Paul, in her name —speaking of the law of Sinai, which was made known to its subjects through the mediation of Moses and the Angels — will prove its inferiority as compared to the covenant made by Abraham directly with God. Each year, as emphatically as on the day he wrote his Epistle, Paul will declare the transient character of that legislation which came 430 years after a promise which could not be changed. Neither was such legislation to continue when the time should come for that Son of Abraham to appear, from whom the world was waiting to receive the promised benediction.

But what is to be said of the incapability of the Mosaic ministration to give man strength and enable him to rise up from his fall? The Gospel, on which we were meditating eight days back, and which formerly was assigned to this present Sunday, gave a symbolical and striking commentary on the uselessness of the Old Law in regard to this. At the same time it showed us the remedial power which resided in Christ, and was by Him transmitted to the ministers of the New Law. “Every portion of the Office of the thirteenth Sunday,” says Abbot Rupert, “bears on the history of that Samaritan whose name signifies keeper. It is our Lord Jesus Christ who, by His Incarnation, comes to the rescue of the man whom the Old Law was not able to keep from harm. And when this Jesus leaves the world, He consigns the poor sufferer to the care of the Apostles and apostolic men in the house of the Church. The intentional selection of this Gospel for today throws a great light on our Epistle, as also on the whole Letter to the Galatians, from which it is taken. Thus, the Priest and the Levite of the Parable are a figure of the Law and their passing by the half-dead man, seeing him indeed, but without making an attempt to heal him, is expressive of what that Law did. True, it did not go counter to God’s promises, but of itself it could justify no man. A physician who does not himself intend to visit a patient will sometimes send a servant who is expert in the knowledge of the causes of the malady, yet who has not the skill needed for mixing the remedy required, but can merely tell the sick man what diet and what drinks he must avoid if he would prevent his ailment from causing death. Such was the Law, set, as the Epistle tells us, because of transgressions, as a simple safeguard until such time as there should come the good Samaritan, the heavenly Physician. Having from his very first coming into this world fallen among robbers, Man is stripped of his supernatural goods and is covered with the wounds inflicted on him by original sin. If he do not abstain from actual sins, from those transgressions against which the Law was set as a monitor, he runs the risk of dying altogether.”

Gospel – Luke xvii. 11‒19

At that time, as Jesus was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain town, there met Him ten then that were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voice saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Whom, when He saw, He said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And it came to pass that as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back with a loud voice glorifying God: and he fell on his face before his feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, “Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return, and give glory to God, but this stranger.” And he said to Him, “Arise, go your way, for your faith has made you whole.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Samaritan Leper, cured of that hideous malady which is an apt figure of sin, in company with nine lepers of Jewish nationality, represents the despised race of Gentiles who were at first admitted by stealth, so to say, and by extraordinary privilege, into a share of the graces belonging to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew xv. 24). The conduct of these ten men on occasion of their miraculous cure is in keeping with the attitude assumed by the two people they typify, regarding the salvation offered to the world by the Son of God. It is a fresh demonstration of what the Apostle says: “All are not Israelites, that are of Israel. Neither are all they who are the seed of Abraham, children.” “But,” says the Scripture (Genesis xxi. 12), “in Isaac will your seed be called,” that is to say, not they who are the children of the flesh, are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise are counted for the seed (Romans ix. 6‒8).

They are born of the faith of Abraham and are, in the eyes of the Lord, His true progeny. Our holy Mother the Church is never tired of this subject, the comparison of the Two Testaments and the contrast there is between the two people. We deem it our duty, before proceeding further, to explain how this is, for there are many persons who cannot understand what benefit can come to us Christians from hearing this subject preached to us.

The kind of spirituality which, with many of us, has nowadays been substituted for the liturgical life so thoroughly lived in, and so precious, to our Catholic ancestors, gives a certain dis-relish for the ideas which the Church so perseveringly brings before them during so many of her Sundays. They have become habituated to live in an atmosphere of very limited truth. It is all subjective as well as little, and they consider it a very excellent thing to forget all other teaching except what they happen to possess, and beyond which it is a trouble to go. With Christians of this class it is not surprising that they feel puzzled at finding the Church continually urging them to take an interest in a long past which they call of no practical utility to them! But the interior life, truly worthy of the name, is not what these good people imagine. No school of spirituality, either now or ever, made the ideal of virtue consist in indifference for those great historical facts which are evidently so precious in the eyes of the Church, and of God Himself. And what is the usual result of this isolating themselves from their Mother’s most cherished appreciations? It is that by this determined shutting themselves up in their own private prayers they, by a just punishment, lose sight of the true end of prayer, which is union with and love of God. Their meditation is deprived of that element of intimate and fruitful converse with God which is assigned it by all the masters of the spiritual life. It soon becomes an unproductive exercise of analysis and reasoning in which there is nothing but abstract conclusions.

Now when God mercifully invited men to the divine nuptials by manifesting to them His Word, it was not by abstraction that He gave to our Earth this the Son of His own eternal Substance. As to His divinity, men could not in their present state see it in a direct way. Had then God shown us in this pretended abstract way, that eternal Son of His, in whom are found all beauty, and warmth and life — it would have been imperfect and cold. This He did not do, but as Saint Paul tells us, He manifested, He showed, the great mystery of godliness in the Flesh (1 Timothy iii. 16). The Word became a living soul (Genesis ii. 7). Eternal Truth assumed to Himself a Body that so He might converse with men (Baruch iii. 38) and grow up like one of themselves (Luke ii. 52). And when that Body which eternal Truth was to hold as His own forever was taken up in glory (1 Timothy iii. 16) — the Church, the Bride of this Man-God, the bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh (Ephesians v. 30‒32) continued in the world this manifestation of God by the members of Christ. She continued that historical development of the Word which is only to cease when time is no more. This manifestation, this development, surpasses all human calculations and reveals fresh aspects of the Wisdom of God even to the Angels themselves (Ephesians iii. 10). Undoubtedly, a real regard is to be had for those axioms to which great minds have reduced the principles of science in an abstract logical order quite independently of history and facts: but neither with God nor with man has this sort of petrified theorising anything in it of the life, the influence, the activity of substantial truth. In the Church, as in God, truth is life and light (John i. 4). Her grand Credo would never ring so triumphantly as it does through our churches, it would never make its way so irresistibly up to Heaven, if it were but a bare series of true definitions and phrases. Its superhuman power comes from each of its articles, almost each of its words, teeming with the blood of martyrs upon it and radiant for the Church and for God with the splendour of toils, and sufferings, and combats of thousands of sainted Confessors and Doctors, the very aristocracy, that is, of human nature ennobled by Baptism, whose living is to be the completion of the Body of Christ here below (Colossians i. 24; ii. 19).

The subject is too full to be treated of here but this much is irresistible — that after the master-fact of the Incarnation of the Word who came upon our Earth to manifest God through the ages of time by Christ and His members (2 Corinthians iv. 10, 11), there is not one which is more important, not one which has been and still is so dear to God, as the vocation of the two peoples that were successively called by Him to the blessing of an alliance with Him. The gifts and vocations of God are, as the Apostle expresses it, without repentance or regret on His part. Those Jews who are now His enemies because they reject the Gospel are still called carissimi, they are still the beloved and dearly beloved, because of their Fathers (Romans xi. 28, 29). For the same reason a time will come, and the whole world is waiting for it, when the denial of Judah being revoked and his iniquities blotted out, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be literally fulfilled (Romans xi. 25‒27). Then the divine unity of the two Testaments will be made evident, and the two peoples themselves will be made one under their one head, Christ Jesus (Ephesians ii. 14). The covenant of God with man being then fully realised such as He had designed it in His eternal wisdom — the Earth having yielded its fruit (Psalm lxvi. 7) — the world having done its work — the sepulchres will give back their dead (Romans xi. 15) and History will cease here on Earth, leaving glorified human nature to bloom in unreserved fullness of life under God’s complacent eye.

The truths, then, which are again brought before our notice by today’s Gospel are anything but dry or old-fashioned. Nothing is so grand and we must add there is nothing more practical in this season of the year, for it is the season that is consecrated to the mysteries of the Unitive Life. After all, in what primarily does union between God and man consist but in unanimity of the divine and human minds? Now we know that the divine mind has manifested all its designs in the respective history of the two Testaments and the two Peoples, and that the final result which is to bring these two histories to their close is the one only end which infinite Love was in the beginning, and is now, and will for ever be, proposing to fulfil. The Church, therefore, far from showing herself to be not up to the present age by recurring continually to truths such as these, is but clearly proving herself to be the most intelligent Bride of Jesus — is but evincing the changeless lovely youthfulness of a heart which ever beats in unison with that of her Spouse.

Let us now resume the literal explanation of our Gospel. As we were observing on a previous Sunday, our Jesus here again wishes rather to give us a useful teaching than to manifest His divine power. It is for this purpose that He does not cure these ten lepers who besought Him to have mercy on them as on another occasion He cured one who was suffering from the same misery. To this latter who besought Him, He restored cleanliness by a few words. This was at the beginning of His public life. He said: “Be made clean, and forthwith the leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew viii. 3). But the lepers of our Gospel is an event that took place in the latter portion of our Lord’s sojourn among men: and they are made clean only while on their way to show themselves to the priests. Jesus sends them to the priests, just as He had done in the previous case, and thus, from the beginning to the close of His mortal life, He gives an example of the respect which was to be paid to the Old Law so long as it was not abrogated. That Law gave to the sons of Aaron the power, not of curing, but of discerning leprosy, and passing judgement on its being cured or not (Leviticus viii.).

The time, however, is now come for a Law that is to be far above that of Sinai, and it has a priesthood whose judgements are not to be concerning the state of the body but, by pronouncing the sentence of absolution, is to effectually remove the leprosy of souls. The cure which the ten lepers felt coming on them before they had reached the priests ought to have sufficed to show them, in Jesus, the power of the new priesthood which had been foretold by the Prophets (Isaias lxvi. 21‒23). The power which, by thus forestalling it in their favour, surpasses the authority of the ancient ministration is, or should be, evidence enough of the superior dignity of Him who exercises it. If only they were in suitable dispositions for the sacred rites which are going to be used in the ceremony of their purification (Leviticus xiv. 1‒32) — the Holy Ghost who, heretofore, had inspired the prophetic details of the mysterious function about to be celebrated, would enable them to understand the signification of the expiatory sparrow whose blood, being sprinkled upon the living water, sets free by the wood its fellow sparrow. That first bird typifies our Lord Jesus Christ who likens Himself, in the Psalm, to the lonely sparrow (Psalm ci. 8). His immolation on the Cross which gives to water the power of cleansing souls, communicates to the other sparrows, His Brethren (Psalm lxxxiii. 4), the purity of the Blood divine.

But the Jew is far from being ready for understanding these great mysteries. And yet the Law had been given to him that it might serve him as a hand leading him to Christ, and without exposing him to err (Galatians iii. 24). It was a signal favour granted him, not from any merits of his own, but because of his Fathers (Deuteronomy iv. 37; ix. 4‒6). The favour was all the more precious, inasmuch as it was bestowed at a time when the tradition regarding a future Redeemer was almost entirely lost by the bulk of mankind. Gratitude should have been uppermost in the heart of Judah but pride took its place. He was so taken up with the honour that had been put on him that it made him lose all desire for the Messiah. He cannot endure the thought that a time will come when the Sun of Justice, having risen for the whole Earth, the limited advantage which was given to a few during the hours of night will be eclipsed by the bright noon of a light which all vie to enjoy. He, therefore, proclaims, that the Old Law is definitive, though the Law protests itself to be but transitory. He, therefore, insists on the perpetuity of the reign of types and shadows. He lays it down as a dogma that no divine intervention can ever equal that made on Sinai: that every future prophet, every Sent of God, must be inferior to Moses: that all possible salvation is in the Law, and that from it alone flows every grace.

This explains to us how it was that of the ten men cured of leprosy by Jesus nine of them are found who have not even the remotest thought of coming to their Deliverer to thank Him: these nine are Jews. Jesus, to their minds, is a mere disciple of Moses, a bare instrument of favours holding his commission from Sinai, and as soon as they have gone through the legal formality of their purification, they take it that all their obligations to God are paid. The Samaritan, the despised Gentile whose sufferings have given him that humility which makes the sinner clear-sighted — he is the only one who recognises God by His divine works, and gives Him thanks for His favours. How many ages of apparent abandonment, of humiliation and suffering must pass over Judah too before he will recognise and adore his God, and confess to him his sins, and give him his devoted love, and, like this stranger, hear Jesus pronounce his pardon, and say: “Arise! Go your way! Your faith has made you whole and saved you!