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.

21 JULY – SAINT LAURENCE OF BRINDISI (Confessor)

Laurence (baptised Cesare after Julius Caesar) was born at Brindisi in southern Italy in 1559 to Christian parents, Guglielmo de Rossi and Elisabetta Masella. Cesare was educated by the Friars Conventuals of Brindisi and in 1575 and was received into the Order of the Capuchins under the name of Brother Lorenzo. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Padua and mastered not only European languages, but also most of the Semitic languages, and came to know the entire text of the Bible from memory. Laurence became a famous preacher and converted many people to Christianity. He founded many convents in central Europe and in 1602 was elected Vicar-General of his Order. Later he served as chaplain of the imperial army which fought the Turks after the Battle of Lepanto. In 1605 he went to Germany to strengthen Catholicism and attract Protestants back to the Church of Rome. Laurence also became a papal nuncio and ambassador and commissary-general of his Order for the provinces of Tyrol and Bavaria. He died in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1619 from exhaustion after carrying out a mission to inform King Philip III of Spain of the misconduct of the Spanish viceroy Ossuna in Naples. Laurence was buried in the cemetery of the Poor Clares of Villafranca. He was beatified by Pope Pius VI in 1783 and was canonised by Pope Leo XIII in 1881.

20 JULY – SAINT JEROME AEMILIANI (Confessor)

 

Jerome was born in Venice to the nobles Angelo Aemiliani (popularly called Miani) and Eleonore Mauroceni in 1481. In his youth he served in the army of the Republic of Venice. In 1508, at a time when the Republic was in great difficulty, he was placed in command of Castelnovo, in the territory of Quero, in the mountains of Tarviso. The fortress was taken by the enemy, and Jerome was thrown, bound hand and foot, into a horrible dungeon. When he found himself thus destitute of all human aid, he prayed most earnestly to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who mercifully came to his assistance. She loosed his bonds, and led him safely through the midst of his enemies, who had possession of every road, till he was within sight of Tarviso. He entered the town, and in testimony of the favour he had received, he hung up at the altar of our Lady, to whose service he had vowed himself, the manacles, shackles and chains which he had brought with him. On his return to Venice he was ordained a priest and gave himself with the utmost zeal to exercises of piety. His charity towards the poor was wonderful, but he was particularly moved to pity for the orphan children who wandered poor and dirty about the town. He received them into houses which he hired, where he fed them at his own expense and trained them to lead Christian lives.

At this time Blessed Cajetan and Peter Caraffa, who was afterwards Pope Paul IV, disembarked at Venice. They commended Jerome‘s spirit and his new institution for gathering orphans together. They also introduced him into the hospital for incurables where he would be able to devote himself with equal charity to the education of orphans and the service of the sick. Soon, at their suggestion, he crossed over to the mainland and founded orphanages, first at Brescia, then at Bergamo and Como. At Bergamo his zeal was specially prolific, for there, besides two orphanages, one for boys and one for girls, he opened a house, an unprecedented thing in those parts, for the reception of fallen women who had been converted. Finally he took up his abode at Somascha, a small village in the territory of Bergamo near to the Venetian border, and this he made his headquarters. Here too he definitely established his Congregation (Clerici regulares S. Majoli Papiae congregationis Somaschae). In course of time it spread and increased, and for the greater benefit of the Christian republic it under took, besides the ruling and guiding of orphans and the taking care of sacred buildings, the education both liberal and moral of young men in colleges, academies and seminaries. Saint Pius V enrolled it among religious Orders, and other Roman Pontiffs have honoured it with privileges.

Entirely devoted to his work of rescuing orphans, Jerome journeyed to Milan and Pavia, and in both cities he collected numbers of children and provided them, through the assistance given him by noble personages, with a home, food, clothing and education. He returned to Somascha and, making himself all to all, he refused no labour which he saw might turn to the good of his neighbour. He associated himself with the peasants scattered over the fields, and while helping them with their work of harvesting, he would explain to them the mysteries of faith. He used to take care of children with the greatest patience, even going so far as to cleanse their heads, and he dressed the corrupt wounds of the village folk with such success that it was thought he had received the gift of healing. On the mountain which overhangs Somascha he found a cave in which he hid himself, and there scourging himself, spending whole days fasting, passing the greater part of the night in prayer, and snatching only a short sleep on the bare rock, he expiated his own sins and those of others. In the interior of this grotto, water trickles from the dry rock, obtained, as constant tradition says, by the prayers of the servant of God. It still flows, even to the present day, and being taken into different countries, it often gives health to the sick.

Jerome died of an infectious disease in 1537. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in 1747, and was canonised by Pope Clement XIII in 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Sprung from the powerful aristocracy which won for Venice twelve centuries of splendour, Jerome came into the world when that city had reached the height of its glory. At fifteen years of age he became a soldier and was one of the heroes in that formidable struggle in which his country withstood the united powers of almost all Europe in the League of Cambrai. The golden city, crushed for a moment but soon restored to her former condition, offered her honours to the defender of Castelnovo, who like herself had fallen bravely and risen again. But our Lady of Tarviso had delivered him from his German prison only to make him her own captive. She brought him back to the city of Saint Mark, there to fulfil a higher mission than the proud Republic could have entrusted to him. The descendant of the Aemiliani captivated, as was Lawrence Justinian a century before, by Eternal Beauty, would now live only for the humility which leads to Heaven, and for the lofty deeds of charity. His title of nobility will be derived from the obscure village of Somascha where he will gather his newly recruited army, and his conquests will be the bringing of little children to God. He will no more frequent the palaces of his patrician friends, for he now belongs to a higher rank: they serve the world, he serves Heaven. His rivals are the Angels whose ambition, like his own, is to preserve unsullied for the Father the service of those innocent souls whom the greatest in Heaven must resemble.

“The soul of the child,” as the Church tells us today by the golden mouth of Saint John Chrysostom, “is free from all passions. He bears no ill will towards them that have done him harm, but goes to them as friends just as if they had done nothing. And though he be often beaten by his mother, yet he always seeks her and loves her more than anyone else. If you show him a queen in her royal crown, he prefers his mother clad in rags, and would rather see her unadorned than the queen in magnificent attire, for he does not appreciate according to riches or poverty, but by love. He seeks not for more than is necessary, and as soon as he has had sufficient milk he quits the breast. He is not oppressed with the same sorrows as we, nor troubled with care for money and the like. Neither is he rejoiced by our transitory pleasures, nor affected by corporal beauty. Therefore our Lord said, ‘Of such is the kingdom of Heaven,‘ wishing us to do of our own free will what children do by nature.”

Their Guardian Angels, as our Lord Himself said, gazing into those pure souls, are not distracted from the contemplation of their heavenly Father: for He rests in them as on the wings of Cherubim since baptism has made them His children. Happy was our Saint to have been chosen by God to share the loving cares of the Angels here below before partaking of their bliss in Heaven.

WITH Vincent de Paul and Camillus of Lellis, you, O Jerome Aemilian, complete the triumvirate of charity. Thus does the Holy Spirit mark His reign with traces of the Blessed Trinity. Moreover, He would show that the love of God which He kindles on Earth can never be without the love of our neighbour. At the very time when He gave you to the world as a demonstration of this truth, the spirit of evil made it evident that true love of our neighbour cannot exist without love of God, and that this latter soon disappears in its turn when faith is extinct. Thus, between the ruins of the pretended reform and the ever-new fecundity of the Spirit of holiness, mankind was free to choose. The choice made was, alas! far from being always conformable to man‘s interest, either temporal or eternal. With what good reason may we repeat the prayer you taught your little orphans: “Lord Jesus Christ, our loving Father, we beseech you, by your infinite goodness, raise up Christendom once more, and bring it back to that upright holiness which flourished in the Apostolic age.”

You laboured strenuously at this great work of restoration. The Mother of Divine Grace, when she broke your prison chains, set your soul free from a more cruel captivity, to continue the flight begun at baptism and in your early years. Your youth was renewed as the eagle‘s, and the valour which won you your spurs in earthly battles, being now strengthened tenfold in the service of the all-powerful Prince, carried the day over death and Hell. Who could count your victories in this new militia? Jesus, the King of the warfare of salvation, inspired you with His own predilection for little children: countless numbers saved by you from perishing and brought in their innocence to His Divine caresses, owe to you their crown in Heaven. From your throne, where you are surrounded by this lovely company, multiply your sons. Uphold those who continue your work on Earth. May your spirit spread more and more in these days when Satan‘s jealousy strives more than ever to snatch the little ones from our Lord. Happy will they be in their last hour who have accomplished the work of mercy pre-eminent in our days: saved the faith of children, and preserved their baptismal innocence! Should they have formerly merited God‘s anger, they may with all confidence repeat the words you loved so well: “O sweetest Jesus, be not to me a Judge, but a Saviour!”

20 JULY – SAINT MARGARET OF ANTIOCH (Virgin and Martyr)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This same day brings before us a rival of the warrior martyr, Saint George: Margaret, like him victorious over the dragon, and like him called in the Menaea of the Greeks, the Great Martyr. The cross was her weapon. And, like the soldier, the virgin too consummated her trial in her blood. They were equally renowned also in those chivalrous times when valour and faith fought hand in hand for Christ beneath the standard of the Saints. So early as the seventh century [England] rivalled the East in honouring the pearl drawn from the abyss of in fidelity. Before the disastrous schism brought about by King Henry VIII, the Island of Saints celebrated this feast as a double of the Second Class. Women alone were obliged to rest from servile work, in gratitude for the protection afforded them by Saint Margaret at the moment of child-birth — a favour which ranked her among the Saints called in the Middle Ages auxillatores or helpers. But it was not in England alone that Margaret was invoked, as history proves by the many and illustrious persons of all countries who have borne her blessed name. In Heaven, too, there is great festivity around the throne of Margaret. We learn this from such trustworthy witnesses as Saint Gertrude the Great and Saint Frances of Rome who, though divided by a century of time, were both by a special favour of their Divine Spouse, allowed while still on Earth to assist at this heavenly spectacle.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

On Mount Carmel, the holy prophet Elijah.

The same day, the birthday of blessed Joseph, surnamed the Just, whom the Apostles selected with blessed Matthias for the apostleship in the place of the traitor Judas. The lot having fallen on Matthias, Joseph, notwithstanding, continued to preach and to advance in virtue, and after having sustained from the Jews many persecutions for the faith of Christ, happily ended his life in Judea. It is related of him that having drunk poison, he received no injury from it because of his confidence in the Lord.

At Damascus, the holy martyrs Sabinus, Julian, Maximus, Macrobius, Cassia and Paula, with ten others.

At Cordova, St. Paul, deacon and martyr. For rebuking Muslim princes for their impiety and cruelty, and for preaching Christ courageously, he was put to death and went to his reward in heaven.

In Portugal, St. Wilgefortes, virgin and martyr, who merited the crown of martyrdom on a cross in defence of the faith and her chastity.

At Boulogne, in France, the abbot St. Wulmar, a man of admirable sanctity.

At Treves, St. Severa, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 JULY – SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL (Confessor)

Vincent was born at Pouy (near Dax in Aquitaine) in France, to a peasant family in 1580. From his youth he was remarkable for his exceeding charity towards the poor. As a child he fed his father’s flock, but afterwards he studied the humanities at Dax, and divinity first at Toulouse, then at Saragossa. Having been ordained a priest in 1600, he took his degree as Bachelor of Theology, but falling into the hands of Turkish pirates in 1605, he was led captive by them to Tunis. While in captivity he won his master back to Christ by the help of the Mother of God, and escaped together with him, and undertook a journey to the shrines of the Apostles. On his return to France he governed in a most saintly manner the parishes first of Clichy and then of Chatillon. The king next appointed him Chaplain of the French galleys, and marvellous was his zeal in striving for the salvation of both officers and convicts. Saint Francis of Sales gave him as superior to his nuns of the Visitation, whom he ruled for forty years with such prudence as to amply justify the opinion the holy Bishop had expressed of him, that Vincent was the most worthy priest he knew.

He devoted himself with unwearying zeal, even in extreme old age, to preaching to the poor, especially to country people, and to this Apostolic work he bound both himself and the members of the Congregation which he founded, the Secular Priests of the Mission, by a special vow which the Holy See confirmed. He laboured greatly in promoting regular discipline among the clergy, as is proved by the seminaries for clerics which he built, and by the establishment, through his care, of frequent Conferences for priests, and of exercises preparatory to Holy Orders. It was his wish that the houses of his institution should always lend themselves to these good works, as also to the giving of pious retreats for laymen. Moreover, with the object of extending the reign of faith and love, he sent evangelical labourers not only into the French provinces, but also into Italy, Poland, Scotland, Ireland, and even to Barbary and to the Indies. On the demise of King Louis XIII, whom he had assisted on his death bed, he was made a member of the Council of conscience by Queen Anne of Austria, the mother of King Louis XIV. In this capacity he was most careful that only worthy men should be appointed to ecclesiastical and monastic benefices, and strove to put an end to civil discord and duels, and to the errors then creeping in, which had alarmed him as soon as he knew of their existence. Moreover, he endeavoured to enforce upon all a due obedience to the judgements of the Apostolic See.

Vincent’s paternal love brought relief to every kind of misfortune. The faithful groaning under the Turkish yoke, destitute children, incorrigible young men, virgins exposed to danger, nuns driven from their monasteries, fallen women, convicts, sick strangers, invalided workmen, even madmen, and innumerable beggars. All these he aided and received with tender charity into his hospitable institutions which still exist. When Lorraine, Campania, Picardy and other districts were devastated by pestilence, famine and war, he supplied their necessities with open hand. He founded other associations for seeking out and aiding the unfortunate, among others the celebrated Society of Ladies, and the now widespread institution of the Sisters of Charity. To him also is due the foundation of the Daughters of the Cross, of Providence, and of Saint Genevieve, who are devoted to the education of girls. Amid all these and other important undertakings his heart was always fixed on God. He was affable to everyone, and always true to himself, simple, upright, humble. He ever shunned riches and honours, and was heard to say that nothing gave him any pleasure except in Christ Jesus, whom he strove to imitate in all things.

Vincent died in Paris, at Saint Lazare, the mother-house of the Congregation of the Mismoniales, in 1660 and was canonised by Pope Clement in 1737. Saint Vincent is the patron of charitable organisations.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Vincent was a man of faith that “works by charity” (Galatians v. 6). At the time he came into the world, viz., at the close of the same century in which Calvin was born, the Church was mourning over many nations separated from the faith, and the Turks were harassing all the coasts of the Mediterranean. France, worn out by forty years of religious strife, was shaking off the yoke of heresy from within, while by a foolish stroke of policy she gave it external liberty. The Eastern and Northern frontiers were suffering the most terrible devastations, and the West and centre were the scene of civil strife and anarchy. In this state of confusion the condition of souls was still more lamentable. In the towns alone was there any sort of quiet, any possibility of prayer. The country people, forgotten, sacrificed, subject to the utmost miseries, had none to support and direct them but a clergy too often abandoned by their bishops, unworthy of the ministry, and well-near as ignorant as their flocks. Vincent was raised up by the Holy Spirit to obviate all these evils. The world admires the works of the humble shepherd of Buglose, but it knows not the secret of their vitality. Philanthropy would imitate them, but its establishments of today are destroyed tomorrow like castles built by children in the sand, while the institution it would fain supersede remains strong and unchanged, the only one capable of meeting the necessities of suffering humanity. The reason of this is not far to seek: faith alone can understand the mystery of suffering, having penetrated its secret in the Passion of our Lord. And charity that would be stable must be founded on faith.

Vincent loved the poor because he loved the God whom his faith beheld in them. “O God!” he used to say, “it does us good to see the poor, if we look at them in the light of God, and think of the high esteem in which Jesus Christ holds them. Often enough they have scarcely the appearance or the intelligence of reasonable beings, so rude and so earthly are they. But look at them by the light of faith, and you will see that they represent the Son of God, who chose to be poor. He in His Passion bad scarcely the appearance of a man. He seemed to the Gentiles to be a fool, and to the Jews a stumbling-block, moreover he calls Himself the evangelist of the poor: evangelizare pauperibus misit me” (Luke iv. 18). This title of evangelist of the poor, is the one that Vincent ambitioned for himself, the starting point and the explanation of all that he did in the Church. His one aim was to labour for the poor and the outcast. All the rest, he said, was but secondary. And he added, speaking to his sons of Saint Lazare: “We should never have laboured for the candidates for priesthood, nor in the ecclesiastical seminaries, had we not deemed it necessary in order to keep the people in good condition, to preserve in them the fruits of the missions, and to procure them good priests.”

That he might be able to consolidate his work in all its aspects, our Lord inspired Ann of Austria to make him a member of the Council of Conscience, and to place in his hands the office of extirpating the abuses among the higher clergy and of appointing pastors to the churches of France. We cannot here relate the history of a man in whom universal charity was, as it were, personified. But from the bagnio of Tunis where he was a slave, to the ruined provinces for which he found millions of money, all the labours he underwent for the relief of every physical suffering, were inspired by his zeal for the apostolate: by caring for the body, he strove to reach and succour the soul. At a time when men rejected the Gospel while striving to retain its benefits, certain wise men attributed Vincent’s charity to philosophy. Nowadays they go further still, and in order logically to deny the author of the works, they deny the works themselves. But if any there be who still hold the former opinion, let them listen to his own words, and then judge of his principles: “What is done for charity’s sake, is done for God. It is not enough for us that we love God ourselves. Our neighbour also must love Him. Neither can we love our neighbour as ourselves unless we procure for him the good we are bound to desire for ourselves, viz.: divine love, which unites us to our Sovereign Good. We must love our neighbour as the image of God and the object of His love, and must try to make men love their Creator in return, and love one another also with mutual charity for the love of God, who so loved them as to deliver His own Son to death for them. But let us, I beg of you, look on this Divine Saviour as a perfect pattern of the charity we must bear to our neighbour.”

The theophilanthropy of a century ago had no more right than had an atheist or a deist philosophy to rank Vincent, as it did, among the great men of its Calendar. Not nature, nor the pretended divinities of false science, but the God of Christians, the God who became Man to save us by taking our miseries on Himself, was the sole inspirer of the greatest modern benefactor of the human race, whose favourite saying was: “Nothing pleases me except in Jesus Christ.” He observed the right order of charity, striving for the reign of is Divine Master, first in his own soul, then in others. And far from acting of his own accord by the dictates of reason alone, he would rather have remained hidden forever in the face of the Lord, and have left but an unknown name behind him. “Let us honour,” he wrote, “the hidden state of the Son of God. There is our centre: there is what He requires of us for the present, for the future, forever, unless His Divine Majesty makes known in His own unmistakable way that He demands something else of us. Let us especially honour this Divine Master’s moderation in action. He would not always do all that He could do, in order to teach us to be satisfied when it is not expedient to do all that we are able, but only as much as is seasonable to charity and conformable to the Will of God. How royally do those honour our Lord who follow His holy Providence and do not try to be beforehand with it! Do you not, and rightly, wish your servant to do nothing without your orders? And if this is reasonable between man and man, how much more so between the Creator and the creature!”

Vincent then was anxious, according to his own expression, to “keep alongside of Providence,” and not to outstep it. Thus he waited seven years before accepting the offers of the General de Gondi’s wife, and founding his establishment of the Missions. Thus, too, when his faithful coadjutrix, Mademoiselle Le Gras, felt called to devote herself to the spiritual service of the Daughters of Charity, then living without any bond or common life, as simple assistants to the ladies of quality whom the man of God assembled in his Confraternities, he first tried her for a very long time. “As to this occupation,” he wrote in answer to her repeated petitions, “I beg of you, once for all, not to think of it until our Lord makes known His Will. You wish to become the servant of these poor girls, and God wants you to be His servant. For God’s sake, Mademoiselle, let your heart imitate the tranquillity of our Lord’s heart, and then it will be fit to serve Him. The Kingdom of God is peace in the Holy Ghost. He will reign in you if you are in peace. Be so then, if you please, and do honour to the God of peace and love.”

What a lesson given to the feverish zeal of an age like ours, by a man whose life was so full! How often in what we can call good works do human pretensions sterilise grace by contradicting the Holy Ghost! Whereas, Vincent de Paul, who considered himself “a poor worm creeping on the earth, not knowing where he goes, but only seeking to be hidden in you, my God, who are all his desire,” the humble Vincent saw his work prosper far more than a thousand others, and almost without his being aware of it. Towards the end of his long life he said to his daughters: “It is Divine Providence that set your Congregation on its present footing. Who else was it, I ask you? I can find no other. We never had such an intention. I was thinking of it only yesterday, and I said to myself: Is it you who had the thought of founding a Congregation of Daughters of Charity? Oh! certainly not. It is Mademoiselle De Gras? Not at all. O my daughters, I never thought of it, your ‘soeur servante’never thought of it, neither did M. Portail (Vincent’s first and most faithful companion in the Mission). Then it is God who thought of it for you. Him therefore we must call the Founder of your Congregation, for truly we cannot recognise any other.”

Although with delicate docility, Vincent could no more forestall the action of God than an instrument the hand that uses it: nevertheless, once the Divine impulse was given, he could not endure the least delay in following it, nor suffer any other sentiment in his soul but the most absolute confidence. He wrote again, with his charming simplicity, to the helpmate given him by God: “You are always giving way a little to human feelings, thinking that everything is going to ruin as soon as you see me ill. O woman of little faith, why have you not more confidence, and more submission to the guidance and example of Jesus Christ? This Saviour of the world entrusted the well-being of the whole Church to God His Father, and you, for a handful of young women, evidently raised up and gathered together by His Providence, you fear that He will fail you! Come, come, Mademoiselle, you must humble yourself before God.”

No wonder that faith, the only possible guide of such a life, the imperishable foundation of all that he was for his neighbour and in himself, was, in the eyes of Vincent de Paul the greatest of treasures. He who compassionated every suffering, even though well deserved, who, by an heroic fraud, took the place of a galley-slave in chains, was a pitiless foe to heresy, and could not rest till he had obtained either the banishment or the chastisement of its votaries. Clement XII in the Bull of Canonisation bears witness to this in speaking of the pernicious error of Jansenism, which our Saint was one of the first to denounce and prosecute. Never, perhaps, were these words of Holy Writ better verified: “The simplicity of the just will guide them: and the deceitfulness of the wicked will destroy them” (Proverbs xi. 3). Though this sect expressed later on a supreme disdain for Monsieur Vincent, it had not always been of that mind. “I am,” he said to a friend, “most particularly obliged to bless and thank God, for not having suffered the first and principal professors of that doctrine, men of my acquaintance and friendship, to be able to draw me to their opinions. I cannot tell you what pains they took, and what reasons they propounded to me. I objected to them, amongst other things, the authority of the Council of Trent, which is clearly opposed to them. And seeing that they still continued, I, instead of answering them, quietly recited my Credo, and that is how I have remained firm in the Catholic faith.”

HOW full a sheaf you bear, O Vincent, as you ascend laden with blessings from Earth to your true country! O you, the most simple of men, though living in an age of splendours, your renown far surpasses the brilliant reputation which fascinated your contemporaries. The true glory of that century, and the only one that will remain to it when time will be no more, is to have seen, in its earlier part, Saints powerful alike in faith and love, stemming the tide of Satan’s conquests, and restoring to the soil of France, made barren by heresy, the fruitfulness of its brightest days. And now, [three] centuries and more after your labours, the work of the harvest is still being carried on by your sons and daughters, aided by new assistants who also acknowledge you for their inspirer and father. You are now in the kingdom of Heaven where grief and tears are no more, yet day-by-day you still receive the grateful thanks of the suffering and the sorrowful.

Reward our confidence in you by fresh benefits. No name so much as your inspires respect for the Church in our days of blasphemy. And yet those who deny Christ now go so far as to endeavour to stifle the testimony which the poor have always rendered to Him on your account. Wield, against these ministers of Hell, the two-edged sword, where with it is given to the Saints to avenge God in the midst of the nations: treat them as you did the heretics of your day. Make them either deserve pardon or suffer punishment, be converted or be reduced by Heaven to the impossibility of doing harm. Above all, take care of the unhappy beings whom these Satanic men deprive of spiritual help in their last moments. Elevate your daughters to the high level required by the present sad circumstances, when men would have their devotedness to deny its Divine origin and cast off the guise of religion. If the enemies of the poor man can snatch from his deathbed the sacred sign of salvation, no rule, no law, no power of this world or the next, can cast out Jesus from the soul of the Sister of Charity, or prevent His name from passing from her heart to her lips: neither death nor Hell, neither fire nor flood can stay him, says the Canticle of Canticles.

Your sons, too, are carrying on your work of evangelisation. And even in our days their apostolate is crowned with the diadem of sanctity and martyrdom. Uphold their zeal. Develop in them your own spirit of unchanging devotedness to the Church and submission to the supreme Pastor. Forward all the new works of charity springing out of your own, and placed by Rome to your credit and under your patronage. May they gather their heat from the Divine fire which you rekindled on the Earth. May they ever seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, never deviating, in the choice of means, from the principle you laid down for them of “judging, speaking, and acting, exactly as the Eternal Wisdom of God, clothed in our weak flesh, judged, spoke and acted.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of St. Epaphras, whom the blessed Apostle St. Paul calls his fellow-prisoner. By the same Apostle he was consecrated bishop of Colossse, where becoming renowned for his virtues, he received the palm of martyrdom for defending courageously the flock committed to his charge. His body lies at Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

At Seville in Spain, the martyrdom of the holy virgins Justa and Rufina. Arrested by the governor Diogenian, they were stretched on the rack and lacerated with iron claws, then imprisoned, and subjected to starvation and various tortures. Lastly Justa breathed her last in prison, and Rufina had her neck broken while confessing Christ.

At Cordova, St. Aurea, virgin, who repented of a fault she had committed, and in a second combat overcame the enemy by the shedding of her blood.

At Treves, St. Martin, bishop and martyr.

At Rome, Pope St. Symmachus, who for a long time had much to bear from a faction of schismatics. At last, distinguished by holiness, he went to God.

At Verona, St. Felix, bishop.

At Scete, a mountain in Egypt, St. Arsenius, a deacon of the Roman church. In the time of Theodosius he retired into a wilderness, where, endowed with every virtue and shedding continual tears, he yielded his soul to God.

In Cappadocia, the holy virgin Marcina, sister of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 JULY – EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

In the Middle Ages, this Sunday was called the sixth and last Sunday after the Natalis of the Apostles, that is, the Feast of Saint Peter. It was indeed the last for the years when Easter had been kept as late in April as was possible. But it was only the first after that Feast of Saint Peter when Easter immediately followed the spring equinox.

We have already noticed the variable character of this last portion of the liturgical cycle which was the result of Easter being kept on a different day each year, and that, in consequence of this variation, this week might be either the second of the reading from the Sapiential Books or, what was of more frequent occurrence, the Books of Kings were still providing the Lessons for the divine Office. In this latter case, it is the ancient Temple raised by Solomon, the King of Peace, to the glory of Jehovah, that engages the Church’s attention today. We will find that the portions of the Mass which are chanted on this Sunday are closely connected with the Lessons read in last night’s Office.

Let us then turn our reverential thoughts once more to this splendid monument of the ancient Covenant. The Church is now going through that month which immediately preceded the events so momentous to Jerusalem. She would do honour today to the glorious and divine past which prepared her own present. Let us, like her, enter into the feelings of the first Christians who were Judah’s own children they had been told of the impending destruction foretold by the Prophets and an order from God bade them depart from Jerusalem. What a solemn moment that was when the little flock of the elect, the only ones in whom was kept up the faith of Abraham and the knowledge of the destinies of the Hebrew people, had just begun their emigration and looked back on the city of their fathers to take a last farewell!

They took the road to the east. It led towards the Jordan beyond which God had provided a refuge for the remnant of Israel (Isaias x. 20-23). They halted on the incline of Mount Olivet from where they had a full view of Jerusalem. In a few moments that hill would be between them and the city. Not quite forty years before, the Man-God had sat Himself down on that same spot (Mark xiii. 1-3), taking His own last look at the city and her Temple. Jerusalem was seen in all her magnificence from this portion of the Mount which afterwards would be visited and venerated by our Christian pilgrims. The city had long since recovered from its ruins and had, at the time we are speaking of, been enlarged by the princes of the Herodian family, so favourably looked on by the Romans. Never in any previous period of her history had Jerusalem been so perfect and so beautiful as she then was when our fugitives were gazing on her. There was not, as yet, the slightest outward indication that she was the city accursed of God.

There, as a queen in her strength and power, she was throned amid the mountains of which the Psalmist had sung (Psalm cxxiv. 2). Her towers (Psalm cxxi. 7) and palaces seemed as though they were her crown. Within the triple enclosure of the walls built by her latest kings, she enchased those three hills, the grandest, not only of Judea, but of the whole world: first there was Sion with her unparalleled memories, then Golgotha that had not yet been honoured with the Holy Sepulchre and which nevertheless was even then attracting to herself the Roman legions who were to wreak vengeance on this guilty land, and lastly Moriah, the sacred mount of the old world on whose summit was raised that unrivalled Temple which gave Jerusalem to be the queen of all the Cities of the East, for as such even the Gentiles acknowledged her (Pliny, Natural History v. 15).

At sunrise when in the distance there appeared the sanctuary towering upwards of a hundred cubits above the two rows of porticoes which formed its double enclosure: when the sun cast his morning rays on that facade of gold and white marble: when there glittered the thousand gilded spires which mounted from its roof — it seemed, says Josephus, that it was a hill capped with snow which gradually shone and reddened with the morning beams. The eye was dazzled, the soul was amazed, religion was roused within the beholder, and even the pagans fell down prostrate. Yes, when the pagan came here, either for conquest or for curiosity, if he ever returned, it was as a pilgrim. Full of holy sentiments, he ascended the hill and, having reached the summit, he entered by the golden gate into the gorgeous galleries which formed the outward enclosure of the Temple. In the Court of the Gentiles he met with men from every country. His soul was struck by the holiness of a place where he felt that there were preserved in all purity the ancient religious traditions of the human race and, he being profane, stood afar off assisting at the celebrations of the Hebrew worship, such as God had commanded it to be, that is, with all the magnificence of a divine ritual. The white column of smoke from the burning victims rose up before him as Earth’s homage to God, its creator and saviour. From the inner courts there fell on his ear the harmony of the sacred chants, carrying as they did to Heaven both the ardent prayer of those ages of expectation and the inspired expression of the world’s hope.

And when, from the midst of the Levite choirs and the countless priests who were busy in their ministry of sacrifice and praise, the High Priest, with his golden crown on his head, came forth holding the censer in his hand and entering himself alone within the mysterious veil which curtained off the Holy of Holies, the stranger, though he had but a glimpse of all those splendid symbols of religion, yet confessed himself overpowered and acknowledged the incomparable greatness of that invisible Deity, whose majesty made all the vain idols of the Gentiles seem to him paltry and foolish pretences. The princes of Asia, and the greatest kings considered it an honour to be permitted to contribute, both by personal gifts of their own making, and by sums taken from the national treasuries, towards defraying the expenses of the holy place (Malachias iii. 2, 3).

The Roman Generals and the Caesars themselves kept up the traditions of Cyrus (1 Esedras vi. 7) and Alexander in this respect. Augustus ordered that every day a bull and two lambs should be presented, in his name, to the Jewish priests, and be immolated on Jehovah’s altar for the well-being of the empire. His successors insisted on the practice being continued, and Josephus tells us that the beginning of the war was attributable to the sacrificers refusing any longer to accept the imperial offerings. But if the majesty of the Temple thus impressed the very pagans right up to its last days, there were reasons for an intensity of veneration and love on the part of a faithful Jew which he alone could realise. He was the inheritor of the submissive faith of the Patriarchs. As such he was well aware that the prophetic privileges of his fatherland were but an announcement to the whole world that it was one day to be blessed with the more real and lasting benefits of which he, the Jew, possessed but a figure. He quite understood that the hour had come when the children of God would not confine their worship within the narrow limits of one mountain or one city (John iv. 21, 23). He knew that God’s true temple was then actually being built up on every hill of the Gentile world (Isaias ii. 2), and that in its immensity it took in all those countries of the Earth into which the Blood that flowed first from Calvary had won its way. And yet, we can easily understand what a sharp pang of anguish thrilled through his patriot heart now that God was about to consummate, before the astonished universe, the terrible consumption (Isaias x. 23) of the ungrateful people whom he had chosen for his portion his inheritance (Deuteronomy xxxii. 9). Who is there that would not share in the grief of these holy ones of Jacob, few in number as the ears of corn gathered by the gleaner (Isaias xvii. 5) and now bidding an eternal farewell to that holy, but now accursed, city? These true Israelites might well weep. They were leaving forever, leaving to devastation and ruin, their homes, their country and, dearest of all, that Temple which for ages had sanctified the glory of Israel, and gave Judah the right and title to be the noblest of the nations of the Earth (Deuteronomy iv. 6-8).

There was something even beyond all this: it was that their dear Jerusalem had been the scene of the grandest mysteries of the law of grace. Was it not in yonder Temple that, as the Prophets expressed it, God had manifested the Angel of the Testament (Malachias ii. 1) and given peace? The honour of that Temple is no longer the exclusive right of an isolated people, for the Desired of all nations (Aggeus ii.1), by His going into it, has brought it a grander glory than all the ages of expectation and prophecy have imparted (Aggeus ii. 8, 10). It was under the shadow of those walls that Mary — she that was to be the future Seat of Wisdom Eternal — prepared within her soul and body a more august sanctuary for the divine Word, than was that, whose cedared and golden wainscoting made it so exquisite a shelter for the infant maiden. Yes, it was there that, when but three years old, Mary joyously mounted up the fifteen steps which separated the Court of women from the Eastern Gate, offering to God the pure homage of her immaculate heart. Here, then, on the summit of Moriah began, in the person of their Queen, the long line of consecrated virgins who, to the end of time, will come offering after Her their love to the King (Psalm xliv. 15, 16). There, also, the new Priesthood found its type and model in the divine Mother’s presenting, in that holy Temple, the world’s Victim Jesus, the new-born child of her chaste womb. In that same dwelling made by the hands of men, in those halls where sat the Doctors, Eternal Wisdom too seated Himself under the form of a child of twelve, instructing the very Teachers of the Law by His sublime questions and divine answers (Luke ii. 46, 47). Every one of those Courts had seen the Word Incarnate giving forth treasures of goodness, power and heavenly doctrine. One of those porticoes was the favourite one where Jesus used to walk (John x. 23) and the infant Church made it the place of its early assemblies (Acts iii. 11; v. 12).

Truly then, this Temple is holy with a holiness possessed by no other spot on Earth. It is holy for the Jew of Sinai. It is holy for the Christian, be he Jew or Gentile, for here he finds that the Law ends, because here are verified all its figures (Romans x. 4). With good reason did our Mother the Church in her Office for this night repeat the words which were spoken by God to Solomon: “I have sanctified this House which you have built, to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be always there” (3 Kings ix. 3). How then is it that dark forebodings are come terrifying the watchmen of the Holy Mount? Strange apparitions, fearful noises, have deprived the sacred edifice of that calm and peace which become the House of the Lord. At the feast of Pentecost, the priests who were fulfilling their ministry have heard in the Holy place a commotion like that of a mighty multitude, and many voices crying out together: “Let us go hence!” On another occasion, at midnight, the heavy brazen gate which closed the sanctuary on the eastern side, and which took twenty men to move it, has opened of itself. Temple, Temple, let us say it, with them that witnessed these threatening prodigies, why are you thus troubled? Why do you work your own destruction? Alas, we know what awaits you! The Prophet Zacharias foretold it when he said: “Open your gates, Libanus, and let fire devour your cedars! (Zacharias xi. 1).

God — has He forgotten His promises of infinite goodness? No. But let us think on the terrible and just warning which He added to the promise He made to Solomon when he had finished building the Temple: “But if you and your children, revolting will turn away from following me, and will not keep my commandments and my ceremonies which I have set before you, I will take away Israel from the face of the land, which I have given them; and the Temple which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb, and a by-word among all people. And this house will be made an example of. Every one that will pass by it will be astonished, and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house?’”

O Christian soul! You that by the grace of God have become a temple (1 Corinthians iii. 16, 17) more magnificent, more beloved in His eyes, than that of Jerusalem, take a lesson from these divine chastisements and reflect on the words of the Most High as recorded by Ezechiel: “The Justice of the just will not deliver him, in whatever day he will sin... Yes, if I will say to the just that he will surely live, and he, trusting in his justice, commits iniquity, all his justices will be forgotten, and in his iniquity, which he has committed, in the same will he die” (Ezechiel xxxiii. 12, 13).

With the Greeks, the multiplication of the five loaves and two fishes is the subject of the Gospel for this Sunday: they count it the eighth of Saint Matthew.

Epistle – Romans xii. 12‒17

Brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you will live. For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons by which we cry, “Abba” (Father). For the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God; and if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles here goes on forming to the Christian life the new recruits whom his own voice and that of his fellow apostles, dispersed as they are throughout the world, are every day leading, by hundreds, to the fount of salvation. Although the Church is all attention to the events which are preparing for Judea, yet is she full of maternal solicitude for the great work of the training those children whom she has given to her divine Spouse. While Israel is obstinate in his fatal refusal to accept the Messiah, another family is growing up in his place. And, by its docility, richly repays our Lord for all the rebellion and slights offered him by the children He had first made His chosen ones. They were the ancient people, and are jealous of others being now called to the same privilege. The contradictions of which Christ complains in the Psalm (Psalm xvii. 44-46) are anything but over and yet, thanks to the Church, the Man-God is already the Head of the Gentiles.

Admirable is the fruitfulness of the Bride: for wonderful is the power of sanctification which she is using all through the world of various nations. Scarcely has she sprung into her beauteous existence than she offers to her Lord and her King a new empire consolidated in unity of love. She presents Him with a generation that is all pure in the intelligence and practice of every virtue. It is quite true that the Holy Ghost acts directly on the souls of the newly baptised, but there is a something else to be considered in the divine plan. It is this: the Word having been made flesh, and having taken to Himself a Bride (which is the visible Church on Earth) whom He has made His associate in the work of man’s salvation, He has willed that the invisible operation of the divine Spirit who proceeds from Him (the Word) will not be in its normal state unless there be added to it the extrinsic co-operation and intervention of this His Bride. Not only is the Church the depository of those all-potent formulas and mysterious rites which change man’s heart into a new soil, cleansing it from thorns and weeds, making it able to produce a hundred-fold, but she also sows the seed of the divine husbandman into that same soil (Luke viii. 11) by her countless modes of teaching the Truth. To the Holy Ghost, indeed, a magnificent share is due of that fecundity and that social life of the Church. Still, her portion of work is exquisite. It deals with the elect taken as individuals, and consists especially in getting them to profit of the divine energies of the Sacraments which she administers, and in developing the germs of salvation which her teaching plants in their souls.

How important, then, and sublime will ever be that mission which is confided to those men who are set over particular churches, as teachers or directors of souls. They represent, to these isolated congregations, the common Mother of all the Faithful, for, in her name, they really provide for the Holy Spirit those elements upon whom He is to make His all-powerful action felt. For that very same reason, woe to those times when the dispensers of the divine word, having themselves nought but halved or false principles, give but weak shrivelled seed to the souls entrusted to them! The Holy Ghost is not bound to supply their insufficiency. Ordinarily speaking, He will not supply it, for such is not the way established by Christ for the sanctification of the members of His Church.

The common Mother, however, has a supplementary aid for such of her children as may be thus treated — it is her Liturgy. There they will find, not only the holy Sacrifice which will support them and the graces of the Sacrament of love which will nourish spiritual life within them — but, moreover, the surest rule of conduct, and the sublimest teachings of every virtue. Such souls as these have perhaps got the idea that the poor subjective system they have made for themselves is the royal road to perfection. But if they be of an earnest good will, desirous to find the best way, God will some happy day lead them to find, and, finding, to appreciate the inexhaustible and divinely given treasures of the Church’s Liturgy. Possessing and enriching themselves with these, they will soon put aside what the Prophet Isaias terms, bread without strength, and water without power (Isaias iii. 1; xxx. 20). The same Prophet would thus urge them in the Church’s name to what is best: “All you that thirst, come to the waters! And you that have no money, make haste, buy and eat. Come! Buy wine and milk, without money, and without any price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which cloth not satisfy you? Hearken diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and your soul will be delighted in fatness!” (Isaias iv. 1, 2).

And truly there is a fact which should rouse, both to attention and gratitude, any Christian who longs to be enlightened as to the best way of getting to Heaven: this fact is that the Church herself has made a selection, for our reading, from the treasury of the Scriptures and in her Missal, which she puts into our hands, she has inserted practical teachings from the same divine Books which she knew were best suited to the wants of her children. A Christian who is humbly and devoutly assiduous in the study of this admirable book of the Liturgy, will abound in spiritual knowledge. His guide will say to him, and with a well-grounded assurance: “This is the way! Walk in it! And go not aside, neither to the right, nor to the left” (Isaias xxx. 20). We have no need to wonder at all this, for in the guidance of souls the Church is far superior to the most learned Doctors and to the greatest Saints, all of whom were humble disciples in her school.

Let us put together the few lines which have been read to us as the Epistles of the last three Sundays, and were taken from that written by Saint Paul to the Romans: and, to say nothing of their infallible truth as being inspired by the Holy Ghost, could we have had any exposition of the principles of revealed morality which could have been compared to it? Clearness, simplicity of diction, earnest vehemence of exhortation — all are perfect in these few words, and yet they are but the outward expression of the sublimest truths of Christian dogma. Let us make the barest possible summary of what these three Epistles have taught us, and we will see how grand they are. Christ Jesus, foundation of man’s salvation; His death and burial made, in Baptism, the regeneration of man; His Life in God, the model of our own; the disgrace of our enslaved bodies, removed; the sanctifying fruitfulness of every virtue substituted in our members for the poisonous roots of all vices; and, on this very Sunday, the pre-eminence of the spirit over the flesh; the duties incumbent on our spirit, if she is to maintain her superiority; what man must do, if he would preserve the liberty bestowed on him by the Spirit of love, and prove himself to be, what he really is, a son of God and joint-heir of Christ. Yes, these are the splendid realities which are henceforth to light up in us the law of the spirit of life (that is, the law of the life we are to live by the Spirit) in Christ Jesus (Romans viii. 2). These are the axioms of the science of salvation now taught to the whole world, which are to be substituted for both the weaknesses of the Jewish law and the empty ethics of philosophers.

For, the leading idea which pervades the whole of this sublime Epistle to the Romans is this: man, unaided by grace, is incapable of producing perfect justice and absolute good. Experience has proved it, Saint Paul teaches it, the Fathers will, later on, unanimously assert it, and the Church, in her Councils, will define it. True, by the mere powers of his fallen nature, man may come to the knowledge of some truths and to the practise of some virtues. But without grace he can never know, and still less observe, the precepts of even the natural law, if you take them as a whole. From Jesus, then, from Jesus, alone comes all justice. Not only supernatural justice, which supposes the infusion of sanctifying grace in the sinner’s soul, is wholly from Him. But even that natural justice, of which men are so proud and which they say is quite enough without anything else —even that soon leaves one who does not cling to Christ by faith and love. Our modern world has a pompous phrase about “the independence of the human mind.” Let them who pretend to acknowledge no other goodness but that, go on with their boasting of being moral and honest men. But, as to us Christians, we believe what our mother the Church teaches us. And agreeably to such teaching, we believe, that “a moral and honest man,” that is to say, a man who lives up to all the duties which nature puts on him, can only be that here below by a special aid of our Redeemer and Saviour, Christ Jesus.

With Saint Paul, therefore, let us be proud of the Gospel (Romans i. 16) for, as he calls it, it is the power of God, not only to justify the ungodly (Romans iv. 5), but also to enrich souls that thirst after what is right with an active and perfect justice. The just man, says the same Apostle, lives by faith, and according to the growth of his faith, so is his growth in justice (Romans i. 17) Without faith in Christ, the pretension to reach perfection in good, by one’s own self and works, produces nothing but the stagnation of pride and the wrath of God (Romans i. 18). The Jews are a proof of it. Proud of their Law which gave them light greater than that enjoyed by the Gentiles (Romans ii. 17-20), and wishing to make their whole virtue consist in their having possession of that Law, they have rejected Him who was the end of the Law and the source of all holiness (Romans x. 3, 4). They have refused to accept the Christ who not only delivered them from their previous misery (Romans iii. 25) but also brought them the knowledge of what would save them, and the strength to fulfil it (Romans viii. 3, 4). They have continued in their iniquity, adding sin upon sin to that contracted from their First Parents, and thus treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath (Romans ii. 5). Now is being fulfilled the prediction of Isaias, whose words might very appropriately have been used by the faithful few of Israel, whom we have been today looking at when they were fleeing from Jerusalem: “Except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrhah” (Isaias i. 9).

What, then, shall we say? asks the Apostle (Romans ix. 30-33). And he answers his own question thus: “That the Gentiles, who followed not after justice, have attained to justice, that is, the justice that comes from faith. But Israel, by following after the law of justice, is not come to the law of justice. Why so? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were of works: for they stumbled at the stumbling-stone, as it is written: ‘Behold! I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and a rock of scandal; and whoever believes in Him, will not be confounded’” (Isaias viii. 14; xxviii. 16).

Gospel – Luke xvi. 1‒9

At that time Jesus spoke to His disciples this parable: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and the same was accused to him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and said to him: ‘How is it that I hear this of you? Give an account of your stewardship: for now you can be steward no longer.’ And the steward said to himself: ‘What am I to do, because my lord takes away from me the stewardship? To dig I am not able; to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do, that when I am removed from the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’ Therefore, calling together every one of his lord’s debtors, he said to the first: ‘How much do you owe my lord?’ But he said: ‘An hundred barrels of oil.’ And he said to him: ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another: ‘And how much do you owe?’ Who said: ‘A hundred quarters of wheat.’ He said to him: ‘Take your bill and write eighty.’ And the lord commended the unjust steward, for as much as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. And I say to you: Make friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you will fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The several parts of the parable here proposed to us are easy to be understood, and convey a deep teaching. God alone is rich by nature, for to Him alone belongs the direct and absolute dominion over all things: they are his, because He made them (Psalms xxiii.2; lxxxviii). But, by sending His Son into the world under a created form, He, by this temporal mission, appointed him Heir to all the works of His hands (Psalm viii. 6-8) just as truly as He already was owner of the riches of the divine nature because of His eternal generation. The rich man, then, of our Gospel is Jesus who in His sacred Humanity, united to the Word, is heir of all things (Hebrews i. 2; ii. 8) and as such all things of the Most High God, created or uncreated, finite or infinite, belong to Him. To Him belong the heavens which proclaim his glory (Psalm xviii. 2, 6) and which, as long as they last (Psalm ci. 27) clothe Him with their garment of light (Psalm ciii. 2). To Him the ocean, whose surges are but a voice that speaks His praise (Psalm cxii. 2) and hushes the fury of its tempests when He bids it be still (Mark iv. 39, 40), to Him the Earth, which gladly offers Him the homage of all its fullness (Psalm xxiii. 1), the grass and flowers of the meadows, the varied fruits, the fertile loveliness of the fields (Psalm xlix. 11), the birds of the air and the fishes which inhabit the rivers, or that sport in the paths of the sea (Psalm viii. 9) the huge oxen as well as the tiniest insect that lives —the wild beasts of forest or mountain (Psalm xlix. 9, 10), all are His, all are subject to His rule. Silver, too, is His, and gold is His (Aggeus ii. 9) and man too is His, and would have been eternally His servant had not this Jesus mercifully vouchsafed to divinise him, and make him a partaker of His own eternal happiness and riches.

Instead of our being His slaves or servants, He would have us be his Brothers. And when He returned from this world to His Father, whom He had also made to be ours by the grace He had infused into us (John xx. 17), He sent us the Holy Ghost who should bear testimony to us that we are the Sons of God (Romans viii. 16) and be to us the pledge of our sacred inheritance — Heaven (Ephesian i. 14). Ineffable riches of the world to come! Inheritance the fullest that ever was! Our Jesus Himself is all joy at the sight of it and, in the Psalm of His Resurrection, He gives expression to that joy. We, His members and joint-heirs, have a right to repeat those words after Him and say: “The lines are fallen to me in goodly places; for my inheritance is goodly to me! for the Lord Himself is my portion! I will bless Him for His having given me to understand my happiness!” (Psalm xv. 5-7).

But, in order that we may attain to those eternal riches, there is a condition imposed on us: we must turn to profit the visible domain of Christ. We must see that it is used in His service. The future rewards we are to have in Heaven depend on the more or less fidelity with which we have employed our share of these inferior good things, for they are entrusted to us, to each of us in the measure which seemed good in God’s eyes. What a divine agreement has been drawn up for us! What perfect adjustment between justice and love! Our Lord Jesus Christ has divided His property into two portions. He gives the eternal portion unreservedly to us. It is the only one that is truly great, the only one that is capable of contenting our infinite longings. As to the other portion which, in itself, would not be worthy of the attention of beings that are made for the contemplation of the divine essence, He could not think of allowing us to set our hearts on it, neither will He permit us to have absolute dominion over it. The real possession of temporal goods belongs, therefore, to Him alone. The ownership of earthly riches, which He permits to the future joint-heirs of His own blissful eternity, is subject to numberless restrictions during their lifetime and, at their death, exhibits its essentially precarious tenure by its not being able to follow its owner beyond the grave.

For the fool, as well as for the wise man, the day will come when his soul will be required of him (Luke xii. 20) and when the rich man, as well as the poor, will be brought before his Maker, exactly as he was on the day of his first entrance into the world (Job i. 21), and it will be said to him: “Give an account of your stewardship!” At that dread hour the rule observed for the judgement will be that which our Lord revealed to us during His mortal life: “To whoever much is given, of him much will be required; and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more” (Luke xii. 48). Woe, at that hour, to the servant who has comported himself as though he were the absolute master! Woe to the steward who, disregarding the trust assigned to him, has done just what his own whim suggested with the goods of which he was only the dispenser! (Luke xii. 42). When that the light of eternity will be on him, he will understand the error of his foolish pride. He will see the shameful injustice of a life which the world, perhaps, thought a very decent one, but which was spent without the slightest regard to the intentions for which God gave him the riches, which were his boast. He will then be entirely deprived of them all. Neither will it be then in his power to make a better use of them for the future, that is, a use more in accordance with the designs of God. If he might, at least, make some restitution for the goods he has abused! If he might sue for aid from those with whom he lived on Earth! But, no, when time is over, labour is over too. He has nothing to show for all his riches. He is powerless and when he goes before that dread tribunal where every man is afraid that he cannot put his own accounts right, whom can he get to help him? (Matthew xxv. 9).

Happy, therefore, if now that time is still granted him, he would allow the thousand calls of God (Psalm xciv. 8) to awaken him from his false conscience! Happy, if, like the steward mentioned in our Gospel, he would profit of the days he has still to live, and would say to himself those words of Job: “What will I do, when God will rise to judge? (Job xxxi. 14). And, when He will examine, what will I answer Him? (Luke xii. 42). This very Judge whom he so rightly fears now most mercifully points out to him how he may escape the punishment due to his past maladministration. Let him imitate the prudence of the unjust steward, and he will have praise for it from his Lord: not only, like him, because of his prudence, but because, by his thus spending over God’s servants the riches that were entrusted to his care, far from thereby robbing his divine Master, he acts in strict accordance with His wishes. “Who think you,” asks our Lord, “is the faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord sets over his family, to give them, in due time, their measure of wheat and oil? (Esdras v. 11) Alms, whether corporal or spiritual, secure us powerful friends for that awful day of our death and judgement. It is to the poor that the kingdom of heaven belongs (Matthew v. 3) so that, if we spend the riches of this present life in solacing the sufferings of those poor ones now that they are living here below, afterwards, they will not fail to make us a return by receiving us into their future homes, the everlasting dwellings of Heaven.

Such is the immediate and obvious meaning of the parable given to us today. But if we would go further, if we would understand the whole intention of the Church in her choice of the present Gospel, we must listen to Saint Jerome whose homily for last night’s Office is put before us as the official interpretation of the sacred text. Let us first listen to the words of Scripture which the Saint quotes, they immediately follow those of our Gospel: “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater; and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater. If, then, you have not been faithful in the unjust mammon, who will trust you with that which is the true?” (Luke xvi. 10-14). These words, says Saint Jerome, were said in the presence of the Scribes and Pharisees. They felt that the parable was intended for them, and they derided the divine preacher. The one that was unjust in that which is little, is the jealous Jew, who, in the limited possession of the present life, refuses to his fellow-men the use of those goods which were created for all. If, then, you avaricious Scribes are convicted of maladministration in the management of temporal riches, how can you expect to have confided to you the true, the eternal, riches of the divine word, and the teaching of the Gentiles? Terrible question, which our Lord leaves thus unanswered. Let these unjust Stewards, the depositories of the figurative Law, deride Jesus as much as they please and pretend that His question does not refer to them. But they will soon be giving the true answer: the answer will be the ruin of Jerusalem.

18 JULY – SAINT SYMPHOROSA AND HER SEVEN SONS (Martyrs)

 

After the dedication of the palace of Hadrian at Tibur (Tivoli), Hadrian was told that the gods were tormented by the prayers of Symphorosa (the widow of Getulius the martyr) and her seven sons Crescens, Julian, Nemesius, Primitivus, Justinus, Stacteus and Eugenius. Hadrian had them arrested and when they refused to sacrifice to the gods, he ordered them to be taken to the temple of Hercules and be executed there. Symphorosa, because of her invincible constancy, was first buffeted a long time, then suspended by her hair, and lastly thrown into the river with a stone tied to her body, which was afterwards recovered by her brother Eugenius. The seven sons were attached to stakes, Crescens had his throat cut, Julian was pierced in the breast, Nemesius was stabbed to the heart, Primitivus was run through the belly, Justin was transfixed with a sword through his back, Stracteus was struck in the side, and Eugenius was cleft downwards. Their bodies were subsequently taken to Rome and were found in the sacristy of the Church of Sant’Angelo in Piscina under Pope Pius IV.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

For the second time in July a constellation of seven stars shines in the heavens. More fortunate than Felicitas, Symphorosa preceded in the arena the Seven Sons she was offering to God. From the throne where he was already reigning crowned with the martyr’s diadem, Getulius the tribune, father of this illustrious family, applauded the combat by which his race earned a far greater nobility than that of patrician blood, and gave to Rome a grander glory than was ever dreamed of by her heroes and poets. The Emperor Adrian, corrupt yet brilliant, sceptical yet superstitious like the society around him, presided in person at the defeat of his gods. Threatening to burn the valiant woman in sacrifice to the idols, he received this courageous answer: “Your gods cannot receive me in sacrifice, but if you burn me and my sons for the name of Christ my God, I will cause your demons to burn with more cruel flames!” The execution of the mother and her sons was indeed the signal for a period of peace during which the Kingdom of our Lord was considerably extended. Jerusalem, having under the leadership of a last false Messiah revolted against Rome, was punished by being deprived of her very name, but the Church received the glory which the Synagogue once possessed, when she produced the mother of the Machabees.

Another glory was reserved for this 18th day of July in 1870: the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, presided over by the immortal Pius IX, defined in its Constitution, Pastor Aeternus, the full, supreme and immediate power of the Roman Pontiff over all the Churches, and pronounced anathema against all who should refuse to recognise the personal infallibility of the same Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra, i.e., defining, as universal Pastor, any doctrine concerning faith or morals. We may also remark that during these same days, viz., on Sunday in the middle of July, the Greeks make a commemoration of the first six general councils, Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon and second and third of Constantinople. Thus, during these midsummer days, we are in the midst of feasts of heavenly light. And let us not forget that it is martyrdom, the supreme act of faith, that merits and produces light. Doubtless, Divine Wisdom, who plays in the world with number, weight and measure, planned the beautiful coincidence which unites together these two days, the 18th July, 136, and that of the year of 1870. If in these latter days the word of God has been set free, it is owing to the blood shed by our fathers in its defence.

O Symphorosa, wife, sister and mother of martyrs, your desires are amply fulfilled. Followed by your seven children, you rejoin in the court of the Eternal King your husband Getulius and his brother Amantius, brave combatants in the imperial army, but far more valiant soldiers of Christ. The words of our Lord, “A man’s enemies will be they of his own household” (Matthew x. 36) are abrogated in Heaven. Nor can this other sentence be there applied: “He that loves father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew x. 37). There, the love of Christ our King predominates over all other loves. Yet far from extinguishing them, it makes them ten times stronger by putting its own energy into them. And, far from having to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother (Matthew x. 35), it sets a divine seal upon the family and rivets its bonds for all eternity.

What nobility, O heroes, have you conferred on the world! Men may look up with more confidence towards Heaven, for the Angels will not despise a race that can produce such valiant combatants. The perfume of your holocaust accompanied your souls to the throne of God, and an effusion of grace was poured down in return. From the luminous track left by your martyrdom have sprung forth new splendours in our own days. With joyful gratitude we hail the providential reappearance, immediately after the Vatican Council, of the tomb which first received your sacred relics on the morrow of your triumph. Soldiers of Christ, preserve in us the gifts you have bestowed on us. Convince the many Christians who have forgotten it that faith is the most precious possession of the just.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Carthage, St. Gundenes, virgin. By order of the proconsul Rufinus, she was four different times stretched on the rack for the faith of Christ, horribly lacerated with iron hooks, confined for a long time in a filthy dungeon, and finally put to the sword.

At Dorostorum, in Mysia, in the time of Julian the Apostate and the governor Capitolinus, St. Æmilian, martyr, who was cast into a furnace and thus received the palm of martyrdom.

At Utrecht, St. Frederick, bishop and martyr.

In Spanish Galicia, St. Marina, virgin and martyr.

At Milan, in the reign of Maximian, the holy bishop Maternus. For the faith of Christ and the church entrusted to him, he was thrown into prison and often scourged. Finally he went to his rest in the Lord with a great renown for his repeated confession of the faith.

At Brescia, the birthday of St. Philastrius, bishop of that city, who in speech and writing combated heretics, especially the Arians, from whom he suffered much. Finally, he died in peace, renowned for miracles.

At Metz in France, St. Arnulf, a bishop illustrious for holiness and the gift of miracles. He chose a heremitical life and ended his blessed career in peace.

At Segni, St. Bruno, bishop and confessor.

At Forlimpopoli in Æmilia, St. Ruffillus, bishop of that city.

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

Thanks be to God.

18 JULY – SAINT CAMILLUS OF LELLIS (Confessor)

Camillus was born at Bacchianico in the Abruzzi in 1550. He was descended from the noble family of the Lellis, and his mother was 60 years old at the time of his birth. While she was pregnant with him, she dreamt that she gave birth to a little boy who was signed on the breast with the cross and was the leader of a band of children wearing the same sign. In his youth Camillus became a soldier, first of the Republic of Venice, and later of the Kingdom of Naples. During his time in the military he became addicted to gambling and was reduced to destitution. At the age of 26 he was enlightened by heavenly grace and seized with so great a sorrow for having offended God that, on the spot he shed a flood of tears, and firmly resolved unceasingly to wash away the stains of his past life and put on the new man. Therefore on the very day of his conversion, which was the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he hastened to the Friars Minors Capuchins, and begged to be admitted into their Order. His request was granted on this and on a subsequent occasion, but each time a horrible ulcer, from which he had suffered before, broke out again on his leg. He twice laid aside the Franciscan habit, which he had twice asked for and obtained. He set out for Rome and was received into the Hospital of the Incurables, finding his vocation in serving the sick.

His virtues became so well known that the management of the institution was entrusted to him and he discharged it with the greatest integrity and a truly paternal solicitude. He esteemed himself the servant of all the sick, and was accustomed to make their beds, wash them, heal their sores and aid them in their last agony with his prayers and pious exhortations. In discharging these offices he gave striking proofs of his wonderful patience, unconquered fortitude and heroic charity. But when he perceived how great an advantage the knowledge of letters would be to him in assisting those in danger of death, to whose service he had devoted his life, he was not ashamed at the age of 32 to return to school and to learn the first elements of grammar among children. Camillus decided to become a priest and was ordained by the last of the English bishops, Thomas Goldwell of Saint Asaph. Camillus founded the Congregation of Regular Clerks, Servants of the sick. In this work he was wonderfully strengthened by a heavenly voice coming from an image of Christ crucified, which, by an admirable miracle loosing the hands from the wood, stretched them out towards him. He obtained the approbation of his Order from the Apostolic See. Its members bind them selves by a fourth and very arduous vow to minister to the sick, even those infected with the plague.

Saint Philip Neri, who was his Confessor, attested how pleasing this institution was to God, and how greatly it attributed towards the salvation of souls, for he declared that he often saw Angels suggesting words to disciples of Camillus, when they were assisting those in their agony. When he had thus bound himself more strictly than before to the service of the sick, Camillus devoted himself with marvellous ardour to watching over their interests, by night and by day, till his last breath. No labour could tire him, no peril of his life could frighten him. He became all to all, and claimed for himself the lowest offices, which he discharged promptly and joyfully, in the humblest manner, often on bended knees, as though he saw Christ Himself present in the sick. In order to be more at the command of all in need, he laid aside the general government of the Order and deprived himself of the heavenly delights with which he was inundated during contemplation. His fatherly love for the unfortunate shone out with greatest brilliancy when Rome was suffering first from a contagious distemper, and then from a great scarcity of provisions, and also when a dreadful plague was ravaging Nola in Campania.

Camillus was consumed with so great a love of God and his neighbour that he was called an Angel, and merited to be helped by the Angels in different dangers which threatened him on his journeys. He was endowed with the gift of prophecy and the grace of healing, and he could read the secrets of hearts. By his prayers he at one time multiplied food, and at another changed water into wine. At length, worn out by watching, fasting and ceaseless labour, he seemed to be nothing but skin and bones. He endured courageously five long and troublesome sicknesses, which he used to call the “Mercies of the Lord,” and strengthened by the Sacraments with the sweet names of Jesus and Mary on his lips, he fell asleep in our Lord, while these words were being said: “May Christ Jesus appear to you with a sweet and gracious countenance.” He died at Rome, at the hour he had foretold, on the day before the Ides of July, 1614, the sixty-fifth of his age. He was made illustrious by many miracles, and Pope Benedict XIV canonised him in 1746. Pope Leo XIII, at the desire of the Bishops of the Catholic world, and with the advice of the Congregation of Rites, declared him the heavenly Patron of all nurses and of the sick in all places, and ordered his name to be invoked in the Litanies for the Agonising.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Holy Spirit, who desires to raise our souls above this Earth, does not therefore despise our bodies. The whole man is His creature and His temple, and it is the whole man He must lead to eternal happiness. The Body of the Man-God was His masterpiece in material creation. The Divine delight He takes in that perfect Body He extends in a measure to ours, for that same Body, framed by Him in the womb of the most pure Virgin, was from the very beginning the model on which ours are formed. In the re-creation which followed the Fall, the Body of the Man-God was the means of the world’s redemption, and the economy of our salvation requires that the virtue of His saving Blood should not reach the soul except through the body, the Divine Sacraments being all applied to the soul through the medium of the senses. Admirable is the harmony of nature and grace. The latter so honours the material part of our being, that she will not draw the soul without it to the light and to Heaven. For in the unfathomable mystery of sanctification the senses do not merely serve as a passage. They themselves experience the power of the Sacraments, like the higher faculties of which they are the channels, and the sanctified soul finds the humble companion of her pilgrimage already associated with her in the dignity of Divine adoption which will cause the glorification of our bodies after the resurrection. Hence the care given to the very body of our neighbour is raised to the nobleness of holy charity, for being inspired by this charity, such acts partake of the love with which our heavenly Father surrounds even the members of His beloved children. “I was sick, and you visited me” (Matthew xxv. 36), our Lord will say on the last day, showing that even the infirmities of our fallen state in this land of exile, the bodies of those whom He deigns to call His brethren, share in the dignity belonging by right to the eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father. The Holy Spirit, too, whose office it is to recall to the Church all the words of our Saviour, has certainly not forgotten this one. The seed, falling into the good earth of chosen souls, has produced a hundredfold the fruits of grace and heroic self-devotion.

Camillus of Lellis received it lovingly, and the mustard-seed became a great tree offering its shade to the birds of the air. The Order of Regular Clerks, Ministering to the sick, or of happy death, deserves the gratitude of mankind. As a sign of Heaven’s approbation, Angels have more than once been seen assisting its members at the bedside of the dying.

ANGEL of charity, by what wonderful paths did the Divine Spirit lead you! The vision of your pious mother remained long unrealised. Before taking on you the holy Cross and enlisting comrades under that sacred sign, you served the odious tyrant who will have none but slaves under his standard, and the passion of gambling was well near your ruin. O Camillus, remembering the danger you incurred, have pity on the unhappy slaves of passion. Free them from the madness with which they risk, to the caprice of chance, their goods, their honour and their peace in this world and in the next. Your history proves the power of grace to break the strongest ties and alter the most inveterate habits. May these men, like you, turn their bent towards God and change their rashness into love of the dangers to which holy charity may expose them! For charity, too, has its risks, even the peril of life, as the Lord of charity laid down His life for us: a heavenly game of chance, which you played so well that the very Angels applauded you. But what is the hazarding of earthly life compared with the prize reserved for the winner?

According to the commandment of the Gospel read by the Church in your honour, may we all, like you, love our brethren as Christ has loved us! Few, says Saint Augustine, love one another to this end, that God may be all in all. You, O Camillus, having this love, exercised it by preference towards those suffering members of Christ’s mystic Body in whom our Lord revealed Himself more clearly to you, and in whom His kingdom was nearer at hand. Therefore has the Church in gratitude chosen you together with John of God to be guardian of those homes for the suffering which she has founded with a mother’s thoughtful care. Do honour to that Mother’s confidence. Protect the hospitals against the attempts of an odious and incapable secularisation which, in its eagerness to lose the souls, sacrifices even the corporal well-being of the unhappy mortals committed to the care of its evil philanthropy. In order to meet our increasing miseries, multiply your sons and make them worthy to be assisted by Angels. Wherever we may be in this valley of exile when the hour of our last struggle sounds, make use of your precious prerogative which the holy Liturgy honours today. Help us, by the spirit of holy love, to vanquish the enemy and attain to the heavenly crown!